Child of Time (40 page)

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“No! Its too dangerous.” Kiyan was losing the
battle.

“I will decide that myself.” Terra's eyes were
flashing alarmingly.

“We are going to invade several drakken planets. Who
knows what might happen.” Kiyan stepped back as the strands of
light began extending from her fingers. Freya circled them overhead
as Ray shifted into a winged black lizard and crawled up Kiyan's
leg.

“I said I am going with you.” Terra stomped off with
Freya following her leaving Kiyan with a hopeless expression on his
face.

“You age well.” Kiyan jumped when he heard Jeremy's
voice. A quick look through Alec's cameras showed the white streaks
in his hair.

“She won't stay on the planet during the invasion.”
Kiyan's hair returned to it's natural shade as the air around them
warmed.

“Girls do that.” Fred joined the conversation.
“You've met my sister.”

“Do what?” Kiyan was still fuming over his defeat in
the argument.

“Make irrational decisions.” Fred laughed at Kiyan's
disgruntled expression. Kiyan was distracted as his HUD notified
him of the arrival of a couple more protectorate ships warping into
the system and joined the fleet. They numbered seventeen now. There
were many more but they were scattered through time and the known
universe fighting a war. They couldn't all drop everything and
leave the whole of space unprotected.

“Draxos and the draconic vessel have arrived.” Alec
sent the message to Kiyan just before Kronos teleported to their
location.

“Come on you must have gotten distracted. You were
supposed to be in the simulator training twenty minutes ago.”
Kronos had a protectorate holographic uniform but he didn't act
like he was under Kiyan's command. Kiyan would have preferred it
that way anyhow.

Kiyan rolled his eyes and activated the transporter.
The familiar village terrain appeared around him as he materialized
on an island in the middle of the river just before it plummets
over the cliff into the lake. Kronos materialized a moment later.
“So what are we training on today?” Kiyan asked Kronos as he
surveyed the training ground.

“Transforming.” Kronos didn't elaborate much until he
had prepared. “Its time you learned the most powerful form a shape
shifter can take.”

“I can already ice form without trouble. In fact it
comes with too little trouble sometimes.” Kiyan ran his fingers
through his hair.

“Dragons lords usually focus on the draconic
transformation before they develop elemental affinities. In your
case I think I know what your draconic element type is but there is
only one way to be sure.” Kronos closed his eyes and tilted his
head as bluish white scales formed on his skin. When he opened his
eyes again the scales disappeared. “We can control the
transformation and by changing we can control our bending. Try
focusing your energy into a dragon form.”

Kiyan tried to focus but only felt himself shifting
to his ice form. No matter how hard he tried he only managed to
reach the full ice form. “I can't even sense a dragon form like I
can feel the ice form. The ice form feels like its just under the
surface. I can access it anytime I want.” Kiyan was getting
frustrated after the tenth try. “I just don’t feel anything
else.”

Kronos furrowed his brow as he thought for a few
seconds. “Perhaps we are coming at this all wrong. There is such a
thing as an elemental dragon. It rare but not unheard of. Try ice
forming then focusing on a dragon form.”

Kiyan slipped into his ice form and began to focus.
At first he didn't notice any difference but before long everything
began to feel strange. The first thing he noticed was that he was
seeing things from a taller perspective. He felt stronger somehow.
It wasn't until he felt something on his back that he realize that
he had changed. Looking at his hands revealed icy talons where
fingers had been. His arms were longer and bulked with icy muscles.
Wings were folded tightly against his back. Kiyan extended them and
looked at the semi clear feather like ice scales that stretched in
the air. Craning his head around he discovered he had a long
flexible neck and a tail. Kiyan activated his HUD and saw an image
of himself covered in armored scales that glistened a blinding
white. Sharp horns and spikes sprouted from his head and extended
down his neck for a distance. Kiyan blinked back to his vision and
saw Kronos shift into his dragon form. Kiyan realized that Kronos
was larger than him but wasn't an elemental.

“
Ready to feel the wind beneath your wings?”
Kiyan sensed Kronos just before he launched into the air. Kiyan's
attempt to answer released a thundering roar. Kiyan tested the
power of his voice again and watched as the water in the river
exploded around him into a spray of frozen fog. The deep
reverberations echoed from the surrounding mountains shook the
trees. Kiyan decided to try flying and stretched his wings and
shoved off with his powerful legs. He discovered his mistake as his
wings caught the air and shoved him back to the ground.
Unfortunately he missed the island on his landing and crashed into
the river with a tremendous splash. When Kiyan returned to the
surface he didn't struggle as water bending was like second nature
in his ice form. For a moment he bent the water solid as he
launched into the air again. This time he unfurled his wings at the
apex of his jump. He gently settled into a gliding flight over the
lake with the invigorating breeze in his face. The sound of deep
booming laughter sounded on his right as Kronos glided up to Kiyan.
Kiyan tried opening his mouth to respond but blasted Kronos with a
wave of ice fire. Kronos was caught off guard and crumpled in front
of the blast wave and tumbled out of the sky but recovered himself
before hitting the ground.

“
Sorry about that, I didn't mean to hurt you.”
Kiyan spoke telepathically this time to avoid another accident.

“
I should be the one apologizing, you are a much
stronger dragon than I had anticipated.”
Kronos flapped back to
Kiyan and circled overhead. “
I'm an ice type myself so cold fire
won't hurt me. It did catch me by surprise.”

Kiyan began experimenting with flying as he began
losing elevation. His first few attempts made him lose his balance
but he finally got the hang of counter balancing with his tail and
head. With more practice he managed to gain altitude and even make
some aerobatic moves. After practicing for a while longer Kiyan
returned to land and shifted back to his human form. Kronos gently
flapped to the ground near Kiyan and shifted himself.

“You are smaller than most dragons but faster and
more agile. There is still a lot that can be learned about an ice
elemental dragon.” Kronos stretched before deactivating the
simulator and returning to the ship. “Come on we have battle
preparations to make.”

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Even by the standards of some of the dreams Kiyan
had, this one was strange and fragmented. He had been walking a
corridor of the Avenger. Somehow he couldn't remember where he went
or what he had done. The dream had started with the feeling of
hurtling in a void. Kiyan's sense of time was distorted, the dream
could have spanned a moment or a thousand years for all Kiyan could
tell. Thinking about it Kiyan remembered points of light moving
past. Some faster than others. At some point there was no more
individual lights but larger shapes made up of a million individual
lights frozen in a spiral against the dark. Kiyan turned on his bed
and reached for a blanket. Finding no blanket Kiyan sat up and
rubbed his eyes. Trying to focus through his groggy eyes felt like
he had slept for days. He finally realized that he was in the dark
and began using his bending skills to see. The landscape that met
Kiyan's mind was unfamiliar in the extremes. Standing up he
surveyed what looked like an impact crater on the surface of a
barren planet. It was several times taller than him and many times
wider at the top.

Kiyan's legs felt unusually weak as he tried to climb
out of the crater. It took some time but Kiyan finally gained the
rim and looked over a dark landscape covered in craters like the
one he had climbed out of. He caught a glimpse of movement on his
side and wheeled as rocks levitated around him.

“Save your strength, you're going to need it.” Kiyan
still stood ready to bend half the landscape on the stranger. “Its
good to see you awake nonetheless.”

“Who are you?” Kiyan cautiously circled the glowing
and glimmering apparition. “How did I get here?”

“I'm you. A part of you at least.” Kiyan was still
slowly circling the still person. “Don't worry, I can't hurt
you.”

“I've heard that before.” Kiyan wasn't reassured.

“You remember when the Assurians gave you your
implants, don't you?” The stranger wasn't even looking at Kiyan as
he circled.

“How do you know about that?” Kiyan was beginning to
feel the strain of levitating so much rock.

“They said you were part AI didn't they? Well I'm
that portion of your mind.”

“How come I never sensed you before if you are
supposed to be part of my mind?” Kiyan lowered the rocks and
stopped his wary circling.

“My code only finished building a few thousand years
ago. No surprise we haven't met until now. You've been asleep for
the last twelve thousand. I know how much people like designations
so you may call me Luke.”

“No, no that can't be right. We were just preparing
for an offensive against the drakken in our universe. There is no
way I slept for twelve thousand years.” Kiyan collapsed to his
knees as a sudden bout of dizziness overtook him.

“You used your ice bending to cool your core
temperatures to near absolute zero. Your brain was still active on
some level hence me. You survived the vacuum of space by becoming
colder than the void.” Luke still hadn't moved.

“So how did I get here?” Kiyan wasn’t ready to accept
what he was being told. “By the way where is here?”

“This is the Assurian world. You crashed here a few
hundred years ago. When the Avenger was erased from time it was
traveling near the speed of light on a course that intercepted the
path of this world.” Luke flickered and was standing in front of
Kiyan. He reacted by slinging a rock at the apparition’s chest. The
rock harmlessly passed through and Luke didn’t even blink.

“Erased? What do you mean?” There was silence for a
moment as Kiyan pondered Luke's words before he continued.

“The drakken managed to travel here. It took them
years even at warp and I have no idea how they even knew where here
is.” Luke paused before continuing. “They destroyed the probe that
carried Alpha before it landed, or more accurately, will destroy
the probe. That means every ship in the protectorate fleet was
never built. You and the other ascended with built up temporal
energy survived but were left drifting in space.”

“What about my crew, the rest of the unascended in my
crew.” Kiyan's mind flashed over the names of several of his crew
as he spoke.

“Long dead, or never met.” Luke was blunt. “You are
here to fix that. Your energy reserves are dangerously low, I would
suggest you find some way to replenish them soon.”

“I'm on a planet in the galactic void, where am I
supposed to find energy?” Kiyan stared at the expressionless
Luke.

“I detected some radioactive material a few clicks
that direction.” Luke motioned across the dark landscape.

“You're in my head, how do you detect anything?
Besides what am I supposed to do with radioactive rocks
anyway?”

“Have a little trust. I can access your abilities
when you aren't using them. Comes in handy when you need to make
course corrections. As for the rocks, you can metabolize most forms
of energy with your implants. Another possibility is reversing the
flow of time for roughly fourteen seconds.” Luke followed Kiyan as
he set out.

“Reversing time is too risky, I might not be able to
control it well enough. I might end up a thousand years in the past
and vaporize the planet in the process.” Kiyan trudged across the
barren expanses in the direction that Luke had said to go. Hours
passed before he began to see a greenish glow on the horizon when
he looked out his eyes.

“I didn't know that this planet had a sun.” Kiyan
squinted and held a hand up to shield his eyes as the star rose
above the horizon.

“Judging by its radiation profile I would say it is
an old star at that.” Kiyan could sense Luke pouring over data and
calculations before he continued. “The elements in this atmosphere
do not filter any of the ultraviolet wavelengths. Your shields are
filtering the dangerous radiation levels and charging off the
energy. We are still some distance from a substantial energy source
though.”

“That explains why it’s so bright.” Kiyan squinted at
the now brightly lit horizon for a few minutes at what looked like
a low mountain range. “Is that what I think it is?”

“I suspect it is worse. Your shields are too weak to
withstand a sandstorm.” Kiyan sensed Luke doing computations and
possible scenarios, only a few had somewhat positive outcomes.
Kiyan took matters into his own hands and reached out with his
bending and connected with the sand drifted around. He bent heat
into the swirling clouds until he was surrounded by a mist of
molten rock. Kiyan saw designs and calculations from Luke as he
began fusing the lava into plates. He relinquished control to Luke
and felt like he was watching from a third person's vantage point.
When he got control back he was encased in thick plates of solid
stone. The finished suit of armor was four times taller than Kiyan
and had a smooth black finish. Fully articulated arms and legs were
attached to the torso that encased Kiyan. He attempted to climb
onto his new legs but was only successful for a moment before he
crashed back to the ground. He had to use his earthbending to move
the heavy limbs. Slowly Kiyan raised himself back up as he began to
sense the suit's balance. Luke helped by translating Kiyan's
thoughts into commands for the larger form. Kiyan could still see
using his bending skills but otherwise was completely protected
from the harsh environment.