Time passes and changes
Megan awoke as usual and climbed out of bed. Today, she knew it was going to be different. After weeks of first jogging, then push-ups, squats, jumping-jacks, and finally weight training Master Zanik said today she would finally get to start practising actual real combat moves. She was excited to do this as every time she saw Tau and Master Zanik spar, she could feel this burning need deep down in her stomach that ached to be released. Like there was a raging fire barely under control that needed to be tamed, and the only thing that could satisfy was those movements that were part dance and part magical spell.
She practically dragged a sleepy Tau down to the courtyard and flew through her initial warm-up exercise routine.
Master Zanik watched with bemusement, and when she had presented herself in front of him, a small smile graced his reptilian lips as he studied her.
"You have progressed quite well since starting only a few months ago, student. Today, you are ready for your next lesson." The old Zafreen stated and then proceeded to correct the positioning of her feet and arms, followed by her legs and shoulders and even the position of her head. Master Zanik patiently directed her movements over and over, only allowing her to move on her own when she could show competency in the actions required.
With every movement mastered and every action repeated to perfection, the burning fire in her stomach increased with intensity, and she instinctually moved forward without thought, acting on pure waves of understanding flooding her mind and her muscles moving to a faintly heard beat that matched the beating of her heart.
Master Zanik's eyes widened as he took a step back from the creature in front of him as he saw forms of the marital arts he had not even shown her suddenly erupt from in such a way that his battle instincts honed over so many years of training and actual combat requested, no, demanded that he pay attention and his arms lifted to provide the correct counter the beginning of the move displayed before him.
In a trance deeper than any meditation she had ever experienced, Megan felt resistance where there should be as Master Zanik's forearm and wrist pushed aside and she moved her arm down and turned her fist to prevent it being grappled. While these actions occurred at the same time her left foot lifted from the ground and her body twisted out of the way of a punch thrown by Master Zanik and kept going into a spin that brought her foot up towards Master Zanik's head.
Miraculously Master Zanik's head ducked under the passing foot as if by magic and then raised even quicker in order to bend backwards to avoid an uppercut fist from Megan as her body twisted again in directions not usually possible.
Watching from the side, Tau's mouth fell open, and he stood unable and unwilling to look away at what he knew was a once in a lifetime display of martial strength completely unparalleled in his experience. The two figures appeared to blur as movement followed movement in an almost dance of attack and defence, each action initiating a reaction, back and forth, up and down, around and across.
At first, both Master Zanik and Megan appeared to be equally skilled, but after thirty seconds, it was clear Master Zanik had the upper hand and Megan had neither the endurance or stamina required to keep the furious pace and soon began to falter, then Megan fell unconscious and was caught by Master Zanik before she hit the ground.
Master Zanik looked up at Tau and, seeing his vacant stare, waved his hand, and Tau seemed to jerk and paid attention. "What just happened Master? Is Megan all right?" he exclaimed excitedly.
Master Zanik quickly spoke, "She will be fine. Tau, I need you to go to the Workshop basement and get Doctor Harroc from his laboratory and bring him here, tell him to bring his advanced medical toolkit and be quick about it." He then placed Megan down carefully on the floor as Tau ran out the back gate. He then placed his hands on her belly and sat circulating his inner core of energy and peering into the same space inside Megan and couldn't help a gasp of amazement at what he found.
---
Megan drifted in a grey space of indeterminable size. Megan tried to recall how she got here. She remembered... being taught movement by Master Zanik, then, then... what happened then? Megan remembered... a rhythm. A sound that sung to her very soul in the depths of her mind. She could still hear it, no, hearing was not what it was. She had no concept for the action that was being used to make this noise. No, not just noise, a frequency, yes, that was what it was. It called to her, drawing her in. She felt movement and the sound increased in intensity. It didn't get louder, as such, more that she grew smaller and suddenly she was right in front of a burning blue flame of a fire that appeared to be ablaze with no fuel to feed it.
She stared fascinated by the flame and its movement that seemed to be the cause of the sound that beat a slow rhythm through her soul.
The more she studied the movements of the flame and rhythm of the sound, the more she understood what it was. The flame was her. Wait, no, she was the flame. Either way, as time passed, she slowly began to realise the pattern inherent to the design of the flame. Then she saw the flaws, gaps and tears abounded and if she had a voice she would have cried out in sadness at the injustice of it all that such a perfect flame was ultimately broken in this way. The sadness turned to anger and quickly to determination. With all her being, she wished to help, no, help wasn't it, she wanted to nurture, to softly correct and allow the flame to be the best it could be. Megan reached out somehow without using her hands but seemingly with a limb she didn't even know she had, she stretched and grasped with this phantom limb at the flame and found to her astonishment that the flame reacted. She was able to change the rhythm! Unfortunately, in her haste and without intention, she had moved the flame in such a way that the rhythm was now a discordant mess, and she felt pain, so much pain. The pain froze her phantom limb and for the first time she heard a noise that wasn't the sound of the flame, the sound rippled through the grey space, fluctuating and she realised what the sound was, it was the sound of her soul screaming in torment.
Panicking for a moment, she thought she had made a terrible mistake until she managed to locate what she had just changed and, with a push of her will, got the rhythm back to its original configuration. The screaming died down and vanished altogether, which releaved Megan immensely. Acting with more care and listening intently, Megan again attempted to correct the rhythm and control the flames and again caused discord to fluctuate and soul screaming agony and frantically had to push back the flames to stop the pain. Again and again she attempted to bring her control to the flame and suffered for it but she knew deep down that she needed to bring this flame to some semblance of order so she persevered and continued despite the bone weary exhaustion that kept building.
Finally, after so many attempts, she simply lost count of how many, the fluctuations came under her control and she managed to move the flame in such a way that the resonance and rhythm began to match the pattern she knew instinctually to be correct. Studying this pattern closely as she held the flame together, she beheld before her a glorious sight. Instead of a natural flame that burned without fuel there was now a distinct entrance where the flame exited in a rush more akin to a flame from one of those fancy lighter torches she saw people use to light cigarettes in the bar below the inn. The bright blue flame was now shaped in a tube like a neon light and twisted around in a circle coming back upon the entrance from where it first came. The flame then appeared to pass through itself and the entrance to pop back out the other side, where it circled around again back on itself. The whole thing now looked like a huge infinity symbol. It was majestic and beautiful, powerful and full of life. It was now that Megan realised she had a problem.
Megan found that if she relaxed her hold on the flame, it wouldn't hold together, and the pain was just there waiting for her to relax and she realised that although she had the current position the flame was in was the right one, the position it was in before she reached the current one was not showing any more. She thought for a little while, her reserves of energy she was using to hold the flame slowly trickling away. Okay, if she couldn't relax as what she had accomplished would fall apart, then what would happen if she flexed and condensed the flame?
This sounded simple but turned out to be incredibly difficult. Now, instead of holding certain points and pushing and pulling, she had to spread out her awareness over the whole structure itself and then flex everything at once and in an even pressure. Again, any slightest mistake and crippling pain ensued. Digging deep inside herself, Megan forced her flagging energies to succumb to her will, and double checking her positioning, she pushed...
---
Master Zanik took a moment after discovering what was happening in Megan's core. His double-lidded eyes blinked one after the other as he thought deeply. Coming to a decision, his hands moved around in intricate patterns, fingers crossing and bending in ways it appeared they shouldn't be able to, and glowing orbs of light began to float around his wrists, each differently coloured orb matching the movements made. After a minute of this Master Zanik took a deep breath and lowered his hands to Megan's stomach/abdomen, and as his hands pressed down, the orbs sunk into her flesh and disappeared. It was at this time that Tau returned dragging a reluctant being who looked to be avian in appearance with bright yellow and orange feathers in the place of hair and a large hookbilled bird beak like a parrot in place of a mouth with two holes at the top for nostrils and large completely black eyes on either side of its head. He seemed to be admonishing Tau with his words as he followed him, "... better be good, Tau. I am just on the verge of a breakthrough with this latest device and don't wish to be interrupted." He was carrying a large metal box that had a big red plus sign on it and lots of little lights blinking and twinkling.
The avian creature pulled up with a gasp, seeing the tableau in front of himself containing both Master Zanik kneeling beside an unidentified being lying on the ground and Master Zanik's hands resting on the stomach of this being glowing softly. He rushed over on bare clawed feet similar to chicken feet and knelt on the other side of Megan, putting down the box next to himself. He opened the box with appendages similar to hands but also looked like wings with feathers and everything. Out of the box took a small device that looked like a window cleaner with a small monitor on top and used it by pushing a few buttons and passing it over Meagn from top to bottom until the monitor on device beeped and he studied the results, his thin eyebrows which appeared to be comprised of small soft feathers rose as he asked Master Zanik, "Is what I am seeing here correct Zanik? This creature appears to have not only a natural core but it is seemingly awakening without any external stimuli?
Master Zanik looked up at the avian creature and spoke, "You would be correct in that assumption, Doctor. For some reason, when I was teaching this one the initial moves in my Centauri Fist Arts, she appeared to reach an epiphany and started to move into the tenth form without any instruction. I proceeded to assist with reacting forms automatically, and before I knew it, she had completed the forms almost 3 times flawlessly."
Doctor Harroc stared at Master Zanik incredulously, "Th-th-that shouldn't be possible."
Master Zanik confirmed, "I know, Doctor, I know." He removed his hands from Megan's stomach and reached down to pick up Megan in a princess carry. "We need to use the medical instruments available in your laboratory, Doctor. I hope you don't mind?" Master Zanik moved towards the open gate to the back of the courtyard leading out the back of the main building and turned towards the workshop where Tau had gone to get the doctor originally. They all entered a room behind some large cupboards, and the doctor pulled open a hidden panel and pushed a few buttons, and the whole room travelled down through the ground to a large underground space that appeared a cross between a mas scientist laboratory and a hospital.
Master Zanik carried Megan to a metal bed with a thin plastic looking mattress and carefully placed her down as the doctor quickly connected various wires and tubes to places on her body.
The doctor then wheeled a monitor with a keyboard over, connected some of the wires to the back, and placed a large bowl looking device over Megan's stomach area. "Right, let's see what we are working with here." Doctor Harroc mumbled as he pushed buttons on the machine.
His eyes read a few things and then widened almost comically as a gasp escaped his beak. "She has somehow already progressed past the forming stages and is attempting to condense her core! Where did she get the energy for all of this? It shouldn't be possible without training and extensive use of pills and techniques! Where did this girl come from? What is she?!?" Doctor Harroc pushed more buttons on his machine, appearing frustrated and then moved over to another monitor and pushed yet more buttons. He moved to another part of the room where a page was slowly coming from another machine. He ripped the page off and held it up, reading it. "Classified! There shouldn't be any classified information in the archives that I can not access!" He stomped around the room some more until distressing sound came from the machine connected to Megan. Running over the doctor read something, his feathers whilting and skin turning pale. "Quick, Zanik, inject some pure unaffiliated energy! She doesn't have enough for what she is about to attempt, and if she fails, there won't be any more chances!"
Nodding his head Master Zanik rushed to Megan's side and placed his hands on the device on her stomach, taking a moment to study what he found he gathered his energy, selected his targets, and pushed...
---
Megan had never felt such exhaustion before, thinking back, she could not remember a time she had felt so tired. She really wanted nothing more than to give up on whatever this was, but she knew that if she did, the repercussions would not be good. She had been trying to condense this flame for so long, and every time she thought it was done and relaxed, the flame would attempt to rage out of control and undo all her hard work. She rested a bit from her last attempt, then determined as ever made a last ditch effort and pushed with all her will. She pushed and pushed some more. When she felt her hold slipping and despaired at yet another failure that would ultimately be her last, she felt something that didn't belong but filled her with hope. It was the presence of Master Zanik. He drifted down from above and had somehow brought with him exactly what she needed, grasping at the newfound strength offered to her she immediately put it to use by pushing at the flame with everything again, she pushed, and pushed. The structure her flame had become creaked and grinded and then bang!
Everything went dark.