20 The Beach Boys Woes (1/2)
I finally did it! Barely! But it still counts as a success, right? Right!?
...I'll count this as a success. I won't let anyone rob me of my hard work.
Still, it doesn't look very imposing or threatening in the slightest. I'd go as far as to say that looks like a child scribbled something in the air.
It's sort of...pathetic looking, to be honest. And it's already starting to vanish. My technique finally worked, but it's still way too incomplete to be used practically. This is at best on the level of a party trick...
Ahhhhhh, fuck!
Those were my initial impressions of my creation, but Violett had a different impression, it seemed. She looked nervous for some reason as she started at my piddling spatial tear.
Violett broke the silence with a question and said, ”...You've only been shaping Anima since I've taught you, right?” She had a serious look on her face as she stared at the vanishing spatial tear with her bloodshot eyes.
”Well, yeah. Never heard about Anima and the like until I was sent over here if that's what you're asking.”
”If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would have never believed that you created it. You really are....too much, Reed.” The elegant princess rubbed her eyes as she secretly wished to be woken up. She wanted for all of this to be a dream.
”W-What? It's a bit small, but it's still the real deal. I bet even you had a time when you were still an amateur. I can't compare to geniuses like you, so cut me so slack...” Reed defensively barked back when he heard Violett's complaint. He wasn't going let his hard work be criticized by this super-genius of a woman.
Even the little guys had their own pride. I may be a worm in her eyes, but I gotta stand up for my achievements, no matter how small they may be.
”...”
It was like he wanted to piss her off on purpose; Violett struggled to keep her raging emotions in check as she mounted Reed and held him down.
”When I was an amateur? Did you just say that? Do you even understand the gravity of what you just did? I'm gonna strangle you! I'm really gonna strangle you!”
”Wait, stop! Mercy! What I have I done to deserve this unfair treatment!? This is domestic abuse!!”
”What you've accomplished in less than half a year took me fifty years of hard work!! Fifty! Years!”
”U-ugkh…”
”I've shed a sea's worth of tears and blood to reach my current level of skill over a half a century, only to see a brat do it in a half a year! And I'm the so-called genius!?”
As she shook him like a ragdoll, Reed felt his soul leave his body as he struggled to not pass out.
”Oh.”
'Oh'?
Violett felt a fire burning in her belly that she couldn't put out when she heard his plain response. What kind of goddamned reply was that supposed to be? This boy had a supernatural level of skill when it came to pissing her off sometimes.
”Listen carefully -- it's forbidden for you to ever reveal what you just did today. If news of this ever spilled out, the whole world would be set on fire. I'm positively certain that the empires would go to war against each other to claim ownership of you.”
”If you ever reveal that you've reached this level of Anima mastery to the public, you'd start World War Reed,” she warned. ”You wanna see the world blow up in a single day?”
Reed felt a shiver run down his spine when he imagined Violett's apocalyptic scenario and immediately blurted out, ”N-no ma'am! I want to live a slow and easy life! I don't need a world war on my doorstep!”
”That's a good enough answer, I suppose. Make sure you live up to what you just said because if you don't.....some real bad stuff may end up happening to you.” She stood up and quietly left after she said her ominous piece.
Reed thought she worried too much like an overprotective mother; the kind of parent that'd purposefully give kids wrong information such as, ”hold hands with a boy and you'll have a baby,” or ”the boogeyman kidnaps naughty children” and the like.
He felt like she was trying to scare him into being an obedient kid every time she brought up how dangerous the world was. Her act was a bit too over the top for him to buy into it, or so he thought.
Reed's days passed by rather slowly after he completed (albeit pathetic) feat of spatial manipulation. Violett no longer forced her insane sparring sessions upon him and instead ordered him to continue focusing on perfect his understanding of space manipulation.
She told him that he'd benefit way more from mastering spatial techniques and spent an afternoon lecturing him on the style of spatial manipulation that conquerors used in fights.
Everyone had their own preferred way of going about it from the way she described the major styles of manipulation. The most popular technique used by far was that of the warp; breaking space-time and traveling through the transitory void to another location back in real-space.
It involved departing the world for a brief moment as you entered the infinite void of imaginary space known as the 'Flux'. From there, you'd pinpoint where you wanted to exit and rip open another tear in the fabric of space and exit out at your destination.
Did I mention that it's extremely dangerous staying in the Flux for longer than a few seconds? Entering that accursed void puts your entire being at risk as you shift between existence and non-existence. You have to get in and get out as quickly as possible, or else you run the risk of being deleted from reality. Yeah, real fun shit, am I right?
Stories exist of some particularly unfortunate conquerors who had barely started comprehending the secrets of manipulating space-time. These poor idiots got cocky and attempted a warp despite only being fledglings at shaping space; I shouldn't have to tell you what happened to them, right?
Masters of spatial manipulation had full control over the word called 'distance.' They were a hundred million miles away and a couple of inches away from their opponents during fights. If they wanted to get up close and personal, they'd be next to you in a heartbeat and be gone by the time you realized that'd you've been attacked.