5 Monochrome Forest

A scrunched up power suit lay in an ancient, domed cathedral, lit by illustrious rays of moonlight that fell through fissures in a stone dome. Weathered carvings wrapped around crumbling pillars and walls while withered grey plants grew between the slabs in the floor. Fel lay on one of the eight obsidian platforms that sat in the centre of the building, still unconscious from his trip through the sea of light.

Fifteen minutes later, the battered power armour twitched. It tore at its faceplate, getting a handhold on it, wrenching it off, revealing the face of a unique young man. He looked to be 19 years old, dark-skinned with golden lines tattooed across his handsome, sharp face. His eyes were inky black, with an alluring hint of gold that glittering in their depths. Wavy, raven black hair, of medium length, peeked out from under the protective helm, dirtied by blood and slimy black liquid.

Fel hoisted himself up, resting an arm on a raised knee.

'Where on earth am I?'

As Fel looked around, Fel saw stunning, yet ancient, carvings and architecture. The carvings depicted four winged angels warring against thousand-eyed mountains of sludge while the other side showed a great war with hundreds of different creatures, six armed men among them, fighting against rows of flying, armoured humanoids with great horns protruding from their skulls. After admiring the surrounding craftsmanship, Fel tried to reach around to his back to fetch a few tools but his armour seized up. The pressure from the sea of light had damaged the joints, it was a miracle he could even sit upright!

'System, system! I had to rip off my faceplate because you wouldn't respond!'

No reply

'Umm, activate emergency power supply!'

No reaction

'System… noooo! Your life was too short, you didn't deserve such an early death!' Fel's mourning, however, was short-lived.

'I am here, how may I, bzzt, help-p-p yoou?' Though the voice glitched out, you could almost taste the smugness.

'Humph, who would want you? Anyway, get me out of here!'

'Of cour-coursse, acti-tivating em-mer-mergenccy deqquipm-bzzt procedures.' Following that spazzed out statement was the sound of clamps releasing and steel plates falling to the floor.

Unfortunately, the system didn't have enough energy to complete the entire procedure, leaving Fel in a scrunched internal suit of armour. On the other hand, he could now reach around to his back and tear open a compartment to spill out a few tools.

As Fel was dismantling the remaining parts of the power armour, he called out to the system.

'Hey system, you there?'

No reply. This time, the system was dead. It had used both the last of its processing power and the power of the suit to complete one last task. Six tears slid down Fel's face, but he wiped them away, he was in an unknown location with many potential dangers, the last thing he should do is to stay trapped in a metal cage like a sitting duck.

Fortunately, the place was deserted. Even the loud clanking of metal falling to the ground attracted no attention. An hour later, Fel freed himself. He peeled off his pilot suit, revealing stinking, bloodied flesh. Every suit of power armour had a kit for those who got lost in the wasteland. So, when it came to hygiene, Fel had no worries. He opened a crumpled compartment, albeit, with a little difficulty, Fel fished out a metal spray bottle, proceeding to spray it all over his body. Blood, grime and repulsive black liquid slid off his body, creating a cesspool of muck at his feet.

There was one last problem. Clothing. Even though Fel had his pilot suit, all sorts of disgusting substances had tainted it, even his miraculous spray wouldn't be able to fix it. Suddenly, something clicked together in Fel's mind, the robe!

After a little of scrounging through his storage compartments, Fel found it and covered his bare body, protecting it from the cold air. Fel was a tall person, towering over many of his peers at 189cm high. He was also rather muscular but not at the bodybuilder level as power armour pilots required both strength and flexibility, Evolved Power Armour pilots required ridiculously fit bodies to withstand the g-forces of their power armour. All in all, Fel was quite a hot guy. Paired with his friendly personality he was the object of desire to many. If only he wasn't as dense as a bag of bricks with only an eye for machines.

Fel was a fine specimen in his black monastic robe, the only flaw being the fault of the robe itself. It had six sleeves. Fel had two arms. Yet, surprisingly enough, the additional sleeves didn't get in the way too much. The robe itself was a rather good fit so overall, it was a keeper. As Fel didn't feel that the area was dangerous, he walked over to his disassembled power armour, fetched his tools and got back to work. An hour later Fel had assembled a makeshift backpack out of the compartments and battered power armour parts. It wasn't uncomfortable as you would think as he had bolted a layer of cushioning, that the inside of the power armour used as cushioning, to the backpack. He had also forced out the dents in the internal armour and used it as a base to put the compartments on, allowing for the 'backpack' to fit snugly around his back. Fel had also hollowed out his reactor, taking out the useful Energy stones and using the empty space for more storage. Although heavy, it was a very functional backpack.

As he sorted through the storage compartments, he found the items he had looted from the six armed skeleton, choosing to put on the accessories as they suited his current aesthetic. Save for the metal backpack on his back, Fel looked like a role model monk. Preparations complete, Fel decided that it was time, time to leave this ancient building.

But just before he moved towards his closest exit, he noticed something strange. Blue points of light swirled around in the air, looking like those he saw in the sea of light. However, they were much smaller and duller compared to those points of light, not to mention sparser, they were so insignificant that you could hardly see them. Fel beckoned them to him and in response, they jumped about in excitement and swarmed towards him. As they approached him, the weirdest thing happened, something hard to describe. They, 'jumped' out, increasing in size and brilliance. Although they were still smaller and fewer than the points of light in the sea of light, they were still larger than their earlier state. Fel decided that it was time to name these points of light. He chose to call them energy points, as he deduced that they were concentrated points of natural energy that floated through space, possibly even in another plane of existence.

While Fel inhaled the energy points and circulated them through his body, he noticed that they didn't seem to do anything. They flowed through his body but encountered no resistance as he directed them out of his body. Hit by a sudden spark of inspiration, Fel changed the way he cycled the energy points through his body, drawing in points from light through the pores of his skin, cycling in inwards while inhaling in energy points, cycling it outwards. The pressure on his body increased and as the energy points travelled through his body, they forcibly fused with his flesh and bones. Not only that, but when the two opposing currents of energy points clashed, instead of fusing into his flesh, they instead fused together into a greater mass of energy that exploded out through his body, forming a reservoir of energy. As the energy didn't fuse with his flesh, he assigned it its own name, internal energy. Fel continued to cycle the energy points through his body but after an hour, the energy had saturated his body. Cycling the energy points had no more effect.

But Fel wasn't done yet. He recalled simpler martial arts contained within the leather book. He twisted his right foot to a 90-degree angle and placed his left foot 30 centimetres in front, perpendicular to his right foot. After holding his palms by his head and hunching his head, he concentrated his internal energy in his heart, pumping the concentrated energy up to the golden ring above. When he concentrated all his energy within the ring, he propelled it out with a beat of his heart, sparking out strands of electricity as it went.

A ninth of his energy pumped towards his head, opening his four closed eyes, revealing the robotic golden eyes underneath that spewed out beams of golden light. In Fel's perspective time had slowed down and every shift in the air was visible to him. Two-ninths sped to his feet, and swirled around his soles, blasting out thunder and lightning, propelling Fel forwards at light speed. In the next second, Fel found himself by the wall of the cathedral with the last six-ninths of his internal energy rushing towards his two limbs and four circles by his shoulders. The burst of energy expanded the four circles into golden limbs and rushed through his two, fleshly, arms. In that instant, Fel had six arms, four made of golden light, two of human flesh. He flung out his fists and struck the wall in front of him, one fist after the other. His third fist blew the wall apart while the rest hit empty air. After he launched his sixth fist, his golden aura dimmed, his demeanour returning to normal as blacked out. Sucked dry of both stamina and internal energy.

Unbeknownst to Fel, a pair of blood-red eyes was watching him from the shadows, gazing at his every move. When Fel fainted, the owner of the eyes snuck over to him, moving as if Fel could wake up at any moment. As it concluded that Fel was unconscious, it left the shadows, revealing the figure of a female, slender, monochrome dryad. Black leaves covered her ash skin, styled into elegant clothes and in her hand was a long spear made of petrified wood.

The dryad didn't seem to want to kill Fel, instead, flipping the spear over and poking Fel with its butt, making sure he wasn't awake. After satisfying her requirements, the dryad packed the scrap metal of the power armour into a leafy bag and hoisted up Fel onto her shoulder, making off with Fel and his stuff.

Fel woke up on a soft, fluffy bed in a monochrome room. As he sat up, he saw a dark grey table and chair, along with his makeshift backpack, to the side with an unlit hanging lamp on the ceiling, the only source of light was from a sizable window to the right of the bed. Fel walked over to the window and looked out from it. He saw a monochrome forest, lit up by the occasional shining blue crystal. Arching his head, Fel looked up into the sky but a moment later Fel realised that there was no sky. Only a dark, stone ceiling, twenty thousand metres above him, illuminated by moon-like crystals. The door behind him opened, tearing Fel from his thoughts.

A handsome dryad stood in the entrance, bowing before him before speaking in a sing-song voice.

'Mal- er, i' cora merna quen- a' lle. Saesa Khila amin'

'What?'

'Sehweet, sem co shiape oo tel?'

'I don't speak your language'

The dryad began to gesticulate, eventually getting the point across. It wanted Fel to follow it, probably.

Fel followed the dryad out of the room, walking out onto a wide platform by the side of a thick, petrified tree. Before him was an entire village with circular buildings built around petrified trees, connected by swaying bridges. Everything was monochrome, save for the bright blue crystals that illuminated the entire village.

As the guide led him across the grey bridges, the gazes of all the dryads in the village followed him, their electric blue eyes filled both with fear and awe. Before long, Fel was standing before the second largest building in town, built between three trees with a broad bridge that Fel had walked across to get there.

The dryad ahead of him opened the door and invited him in. Inside was a room, split in half by a wooden wall and lit by hanging vines, embedded with glowing blue crystals. At the far end of the room was a lordly chair formed of black, intertwined roots and sitting on it was a female dryad with blood red eyes and flowing robes made of red leaves, decorated with ruby flowers.

Fel's guide stepped forwards, speaking his sing-song language,'Cora, i' mal- er naa il- able quen- i' nandin ri' i' aute lambe, mani lye uma?'

The red robed dryad waved her hand, 'Ta naa ilya quel.' She then dismissed the guide, waiting till he exited the room.

When the guide had closed the door behind him, the red-robed dryad stood up and strode towards Fel, gazing into his eyes. She halted a metre away from him, eyes glowing.

A rush of thoughts and images poured into Fel's mind, converging into one singular thought,'Can you hear me golden one?'

'You speak Esperanto?' asked Fel out loud

'Silly, I cannot understand your tongue, you must send me a telepathic message'

Fel could see amusement written all over her face. She was smiling ear to ear while restrained giggling floated in the air. Thinking about what she meant, Fel remembered one of the martial art diagrams in the book that depicted something to do with the brain.

He pushed a sliver of energy into his brain, directing it through the golden lines and runes within. As he did so, golden rings revealed themselves in his bottomless, dark eyes, making it hard to directly look at him.

'Testing testing, 1, 2, 3'

Laughter rung through Fel's mind, 'Haha, what's that?

'Something we do in my homeland'

'It works very well but now, we must get to business.'