The Months of Falling

The White Room became a thousand worlds.

Under Polaris’s command, the emptiness transformed into deserts, frozen mountains, oceans without shores, forests of black trees, valleys beneath crushing gravity and floating cities surrounded by storms.

Every morning, Genesis fought Polaris.

Every morning, Polaris defeated her.

Sometimes quickly.

Sometimes slowly.

Never accidentally.

Genesis tried every weapon she knew.

Proferrum swords.

Spears.

Axes.

Chains.

Bows whose strings were made of condensed energy.

Heavy hammers that could fracture simulated mountains.

Ivoryta adapted with her.

The Symbiont Suit created shields before strikes, tendrils behind her, blades around her elbows, spikes along her shoulders and biological armour over vulnerable joints.

None of it was enough.

Polaris flew beyond the range of the weapons.

She redirected them telekinetically.

She froze the ground under Genesis’s feet.

She created walls of force.

She struck with energy from impossible angles.

She moved so quickly that Genesis sometimes felt the impact before seeing Polaris leave her original position.

The defeats became humiliating.

On the twenty-third day, Genesis lasted four minutes.

On the forty-first, eight.

On the sixty-second, she touched Polaris’s shoulder.

Polaris responded by driving her through three mountains.

On the seventy-fifth, Genesis trapped her inside a cage of Ivoryta tendrils and Proferrum chains.

Polaris smiled.

Then transformed into light and stepped through the bars.

Genesis screamed in frustration.

“Fight fairly!”

Polaris appeared behind her.

“There is no fairness in survival.”

A kick sent Genesis into a lake.

On the ninety-third day, Genesis refused to rise.

She lay beneath simulated rain, Ivoryta covering her bruised body.

Polaris stood over her.

“Get up.”

“No.”

“You are not finished.”

“I am.”

“You are breathing.”

“That is not the same as being useful.”

Polaris waited.

Genesis turned her face away.

“I cannot reach you.”

“Not yet.”

“I cannot see you move.”

“Not yet.”

“I cannot stop your powers.”

“Not yet.”

Genesis slammed a fist into the mud.

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it is true.”

“What if it is not?”

Polaris crouched beside her.

Rain ran down her red hair and across the gold lines of her Sublime Skin.

“What if I never transform?” Genesis asked. “What if Ivoryta cannot become what you are?”

Polaris looked at the pearlescent surface covering Genesis.

“Ivoryta already knows the path.”

“Then why does she not take it?”

“Because she is waiting for you.”

Genesis’s face tightened.

“For what?”

“For a Vision powerful enough to force both of you beyond survival.”

Genesis stared at her.

“I want to become Sublime.”

“That is desire.”

“I am willing to suffer.”

“That is endurance.”

“I train every day.”

“That is discipline.”

“What else do you want from me?”

Polaris’s voice softened.

“I want nothing.”

For a moment, she regarded Genesis with quiet affection.

“Arkana wants necessity.”

Genesis looked away.

Polaris remained there in the rain.

After a long time, Genesis whispered, “I hate losing to you.”

“I know.”

“I hate how calm you are when you hit me.”

“I practise.”

“I hate that I need you.”

Polaris smiled faintly.

“That one frightens you more than defeat.”

Genesis looked at her.

Polaris lay down beside her in the mud.

Genesis blinked.

“What are you doing?”

“Resting.”

“You are wearing the Sublime Skin in mud.”

“It will recover.”

They remained side by side under the rain.

Genesis listened to Polaris breathing.

Physical breathing.

A sound she had never heard when Polaris lived only within her spirit.

“You feel different outside me,” Genesis said.

“So do you.”

“What am I like from here?”

Polaris considered.

“Louder.”

Genesis laughed once.

Polaris turned her head.

“You are also lonelier.”

The laughter died.

Genesis looked at the grey sky.

“When you were inside me, I never had to wonder whether you were there.”

“I am still there.”

“No. You are beside me.”

Polaris reached across the mud and took her hand.

The contact carried a faint spiritual warmth.

“Then learn this too,” Polaris said. “Connection is not proved by absence of distance. It is proved when distance cannot break it.”

Genesis closed her fingers around Polaris’s.

For the first time since entering the White Room, defeat no longer felt like solitude.

The next morning, she rose before Polaris called her.

She lasted thirteen minutes.

---

The Discipline of the Impossible

Polaris changed the training.

Strength was no longer enough.

Genesis climbed a vertical mountain while carrying a complete suit of Proferrum armour over the Ivory Skin. Every time she reached the summit, Polaris doubled the weight and moved the summit higher.

She crossed a frozen ocean while blindfolded, sensing Polaris only through their spiritual bond.

She meditated inside a storm of energy that struck every time her thoughts became uncontrolled.

She learned to form a shield no larger than her palm and use it to stop attacks capable of splitting walls.

She balanced ten Proferrum blades around herself using only tendrils from the Symbiont Suit while Polaris attacked from the air.

She learned to allow Ivoryta to respond without letting instinct become panic.

At night, they ate food manifested by the White Room.

They sat together beneath false stars that looked real enough to hurt.

Sometimes they spoke of Kronos.

Sometimes of Urkulo.

Sometimes of nothing.

Months passed inside the room.

Outside, only days.

Within the simulation, Genesis and Polaris became each other’s entire world.

Polaris was still Magister.

But she also became healer.

Witness.

Opponent.

Companion.

They argued.

They laughed.

They fought with words harder than with fists.

And every morning, Polaris offered her hand after defeating her.

Every morning, Genesis accepted.

Until one morning, she did not need it.

Polaris struck her down.

Genesis rolled, rose and attacked before the dust settled.

Polaris smiled.

“Better.”

Genesis drove a white spear towards her chest.

Polaris caught it.

Genesis released the weapon intentionally.

The spear dissolved into Ivoryta, flowed around Polaris’s hand and reformed as a chain behind her back.

Genesis pulled.

Polaris lost balance for one fraction of a second.

Genesis stepped inside her defence and struck her jaw.

Polaris flew across the white plane.

She stopped herself in the air.

A thin line of luminous blood appeared at the corner of her mouth.

Genesis stood breathing hard.

Neither spoke.

Then Polaris touched the blood.

She looked at it.

And laughed.

Genesis smiled.

“Thirty-seven seconds.”

Polaris raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

“That was how long our first battle lasted.”

Polaris descended.

“This one lasted forty-two minutes.”

Genesis’s smile widened.

Polaris held out her hand.

Genesis looked at it.

Then pulled Polaris into an embrace.

For a moment, Magister and Prenova disappeared.

Only the two of them remained.

One born from flesh.

One born from spirit.

Two warriors.

One bond.

Polaris whispered near her ear.

“You are ready for the first enemy.”

Genesis stepped back.

“What enemy?”

Polaris did not answer immediately.

The White Room began to change around them.

The false stars dimmed one by one until the sky became completely black. The white ground beneath their feet hardened, darkened and split into long fractures.

A roar moved through the void.

Low.

Distant.

Too large to belong to any ordinary creature.

Polaris’s expression became grave.

“The kind that does not stop when you fall.”

---

The Trial of the Labyrinth Minotaur

The darkness closed around them.

Walls erupted from the ground with the violence of colliding mountains, sealing Genesis and Polaris inside a vast labyrinth of black stone. Corridors stretched in every direction, crossing, dividing and folding into one another beneath the starless sky.

Torches ignited along the walls.

Their flames burned green.

Genesis turned slowly, taking in the new battlefield as the final traces of the White Room disappeared beneath stone.

Polaris had waited until the seventh month to summon this trial.

By then, Genesis had fought her hundreds of times. She had learned to survive the speed of a Sublime Warrior, anticipate telekinetic attacks, combine Proferrum weapons with Ivoryta’s living forms and rise before Polaris could offer her hand.

But training against a Magister was still training.

Polaris always knew where to stop.

The creature approaching would not.

The labyrinth seemed older than Urkulo, although Genesis knew that nothing within it was truly ancient. It was a construction of the White Room, assembled from the visions of Kronos.

A future danger given temporary flesh.

Genesis summoned her Ivory Skin into Complete Form.

Pearlescent white flowed from within her cells and sealed itself over her body from neck to feet. A Proferrum sword appeared beside her, immense and dark, its edge reflecting the green fire.

Polaris stood several paces away, covered in the white-and-gold radiance of her Sublime Skin.

Genesis looked into the passages.

“What are we fighting?”

Polaris did not immediately answer.

A distant sound moved through the labyrinth.

Hooves.

Slow.

Heavy.

Each step made dust fall from the ceiling.

Polaris watched the darkness ahead.

“An enemy from another Universe. One of the countless beings Kronos has seen in his visions.”

Genesis tightened her grip on the sword.

“Countless?”

“This is only one example.”

The walls trembled again.

Genesis looked at her.

“And you chose it because?”

Polaris’s expression remained grave.

“Because it possesses the strength to crush a Kwasar.”

The next hoofbeat struck like thunder.

The green flames bent towards the approaching darkness.

A horn emerged around the corner.

Then another.

Then four more.

The creature entered the corridor.

It stood more than twice the height of Genesis, its humanoid body built from layers of black muscle and natural bone armour. A massive bull’s skull formed its head. Six horns curved backwards from it like the crown of some forgotten war god.

Chains were wrapped around both forearms.

At the end of each chain hung a colossal block of black metal, large enough to crush an entire house.

Its chest carried a wound shaped like a maze.

Red light burned inside it.

The Minotaur stopped.

Its empty eye sockets turned first towards Genesis.

Then towards Polaris.

The creature inhaled.

The corridor narrowed around the force of its breath.

Genesis raised her sword.

“What are the rules?”

Polaris lowered into a fighting stance.

“Do not let it kill you.”

“That is not a rule.”

“It is the only one it understands.”

The Minotaur charged.

The labyrinth exploded beneath its hooves.

Genesis moved first.

Ivoryta reinforced her legs and launched her towards the wall. She ran horizontally across the stone, passed above the creature’s horns and brought the Proferrum blade down with both hands.

The sword struck its shoulder.

The impact released a ring of force through the corridor.

Bone split.

Black blood appeared.

But the blade stopped before reaching muscle.

Genesis’s eyes widened.

The Minotaur turned with impossible speed.

One of its chains swept through the corridor.

Genesis summoned a shield through Ivoryta.

Living pearl erupted from her forearm and expanded into a broad, curved defence.

The enemy weapon crashed against it with tremendous force.

The shield endured the impact for one brutal instant.

Cracks of white light spread across its surface.

Then the shield dissolved into streams of pearlescent energy.

Genesis was hurled backwards.

She smashed through one wall.

Then another.

Then a third.

Stone buried her.

Polaris rose into the air and extended both hands.

Invisible force closed around the Minotaur.

The creature’s hooves stopped.

The ground fractured beneath them as Polaris’s telekinesis tried to hold its enormous body in place.

For one heartbeat, the beast remained trapped.

Then it roared.

The sound shattered the restraint.

Polaris flew aside as both chains struck the place where she had been.

She turned in the air and fired twin streams of blue-white energy into the Minotaur’s skull.

The beams exploded against bone.

One horn broke.

The creature staggered.

Polaris accelerated.

She crossed the corridor faster than mortal sight could follow, struck the Minotaur beneath the jaw and continued upward with the force of the blow.

The creature’s head snapped back.

Polaris appeared above it and drove both heels down between its horns.

The impact forced the Minotaur to one knee.

The labyrinth shook.

Genesis erupted from the rubble.

The Proferrum sword was gone.

Ivoryta had entered its wildest state.

The pearlescent surface of the Symbiont Suit rippled over her body. Blades formed along both forearms. Long tendrils emerged from her back and anchored themselves to the walls.

Genesis launched herself forward.

She crossed beneath one chain, ran up the Minotaur’s arm and drove both ivory blades into the exposed wound on its shoulder.

Black blood struck her face.

The Minotaur seized her by the waist.

Genesis gasped.

Its fingers closed.

Ivoryta thickened instantly around her ribs and abdomen.

The pressure continued.

The living white surface creaked.

Genesis screamed.

Polaris struck the creature’s wrist with a blast of golden energy.

The Minotaur released Genesis and turned towards her.

Genesis fell, landed on one knee and forced air back into her lungs.

“Again!” Polaris shouted.

Genesis formed a Proferrum spear.

The White Room placed the weapon directly into her hand.

Polaris attacked from the front.

Genesis moved behind.

The Minotaur spun both chains at once, transforming the corridor into a storm of metal.

Polaris’s Sublime Skin blazed.

Golden and white structures rose from it.

An ObiceX formed around her body.

A fitted breastplate locked across her chest. Layered shoulder guards unfolded. Golden segments sealed over her forearms and legs. A narrow helm formed around the sides of her face while leaving her expression visible.

The first block struck.

Polaris crossed both arms.

The ObiceX absorbed the blow.

The armour bent.

Golden lines flared across its surface and redirected part of the force into the ground.

Stone erupted beneath Polaris’s feet.

She remained standing.

The second chain approached from the side.

Polaris altered the armour.

One shoulder guard expanded into a curved defensive plate.

The block struck it.

The impact threw her across the corridor, but the ObiceX held.

Genesis saw the opening.

She rushed forward and drove the Proferrum spear directly into the glowing labyrinth wound in the Minotaur’s chest.

The spear entered.

The creature froze.

Genesis pushed deeper.

The wound opened.

There was no heart inside.

There was another labyrinth.

An impossible depth of red corridors extended within the Minotaur’s body.

Something moved inside them.

Genesis stared for one fatal instant.

The Minotaur struck her with the back of one hand.

The blow caught her across the chest.

The Proferrum spear shattered.

Genesis left the floor.

She struck the ceiling, fell and landed hard enough to crack the ground.

Ivoryta flooded towards the damaged area.

Too slowly.

The Minotaur stepped over her.

Genesis tried to rise.

One leg failed.

The creature raised a hoof.

Polaris collided with its side.

Her ObiceX had changed again.

The sleek armour had expanded into a heavier war-form. The shoulders were broader, the chest reinforced, the arms wrapped in golden plates powerful enough to magnify every strike.

Polaris hit the Minotaur repeatedly.

One punch.

Two.

Ten.

Fifty.

The impacts merged into a continuous roar.

The Minotaur slid backwards through the corridor.

Polaris did not let it recover.

She seized one horn, rotated her body and threw the enormous creature over her shoulder.

The Minotaur struck the floor.

Polaris rose above it and gathered energy between both palms.

A sphere of gold and blue expanded.

The Minotaur opened its mouth.

A red wave erupted from inside its skull.

The two energies collided.

The corridor vanished inside light.

Genesis covered her face.

Ivoryta formed a thin layer over her eyes.

The explosion tore the walls apart.

When the light faded, Polaris remained in the air.

Her ObiceX was cracked.

The Minotaur rose from the crater.

One side of its skull was broken.

The red labyrinth within its chest burned brighter than before.

It seized both chains.

Polaris descended.

Genesis forced herself to stand.

Her ribs were broken.

One lung was filling with blood.

Ivoryta was repairing the damage, but the symbiont had been pushed beyond anything it had faced before.

Genesis lifted one hand.

A long ivory bow formed from the Symbiont Suit. Proferrum condensed into an arrow between her fingers.

She aimed at the wound.

Polaris understood without being told.

She attacked from above.

The Minotaur swung one chain towards her.

Polaris formed a golden shield through the ObiceX.

The block shattered it.

The second chain struck her across the torso.

The ObiceX armour broke open.

Polaris flew through the remains of the corridor.

Genesis released the arrow.

The Proferrum projectile entered the glowing wound.

For one moment, the Minotaur’s entire body illuminated from within.

Then it pulled the arrow out.

Genesis stared.

The Minotaur looked at her.

And smiled without lips.

It charged.

Genesis tried to move.

Her injured leg failed again.

The horns struck her abdomen.

Ivoryta thickened.

Not enough.

One horn pierced the white surface and entered her body.

Genesis screamed.

The Minotaur continued running.

It carried her through the wall at the end of the corridor and into a vast central chamber.

Genesis remained impaled upon the horn.

Blood ran across the creature’s skull.

The Minotaur stopped at the centre of the chamber and threw her to the floor.

Genesis struck the stone.

She tried to breathe.

Nothing happened.

The Ivory Skin around the wound contracted desperately, attempting to close damage too extensive to repair.

The Minotaur raised one metal block.

Genesis looked up.

She could not move.

The chain descended.

Polaris appeared between them.

The ObiceX rebuilt itself around her in a fraction of a second.

This time it became a monumental shield-form.

Golden plates covered her entire front. Layered structures extended from her arms, shoulders and spine, creating a living wall over Genesis.

The block struck.

The chamber shook.

Polaris cried out.

The ObiceX cracked.

The Minotaur lifted the chain and struck again.

The shield buckled.

Polaris’s knees touched the floor.

A third blow fell.

Golden plates exploded away from her body.

Polaris remained over Genesis with nothing but the Sublime Skin.

The fourth impact sent her rolling across the chamber.

The Minotaur turned towards Genesis again.

Her heartbeat was fading.

Polaris raised her head from the floor.

The creature was already advancing towards them.

There was no time.

Polaris thrust out one hand.

The golden lines of her Sublime Skin ignited violently.

Her telekinetic power closed around the Minotaur’s body at the same moment a blast of blue-and-gold energy erupted from her palm.

The combined force struck it head-on.

The Minotaur was hurled across the chamber, smashed through a column and crashed into the opposite wall.

Stone collapsed over it.

For one brief moment, the creature disappeared beneath tons of rubble.

Polaris did not wait to see whether it was dead.

She knew it was not.

She crawled towards Genesis.

Behind them, the stones began to shift.

The Minotaur was already trying to rise.

Polaris placed both hands over Genesis’s wound.

The gold of her Sublime Skin began to dim.

“Genesis.”

Genesis’s eyes moved weakly.

“Do not speak,” Polaris said.

A muffled roar emerged from beneath the rubble.

The stones trembled.

Polaris looked back only once.

She did not have minutes.

Perhaps not even seconds.

She turned her attention back to Genesis.

“Ivoryta cannot repair this alone.”

Blood covered Genesis’s lips.

“Then let me…”

“No.”

Polaris’s hands began to glow.

Not gold.

Green.

A warm, living radiance flowed from her palms and entered Genesis’s body.

“What are you doing?” Genesis whispered.

“Vitalia.”

Behind her, a massive black hand burst from beneath the stones.

The Minotaur was returning.

But Polaris did not stop the transfer.

She could not.

Because if she removed her hands too soon, Genesis would die

“No, Polaris! Stop! Don’t do this!”

Genesis felt heat reach her heart.

She had seen healing before.

This was not healing.

Polaris was transferring life itself.

Her own spiritual vitality flowed across their bond, through Ivoryta and into every damaged structure of Genesis’s body.

The torn organs began to close.

The punctured lung expanded.

Broken ribs aligned.

The heart strengthened.

Genesis’s eyes widened.

At the same time, Polaris began to fade.

The light left her face.

The gold upon her Sublime Skin weakened.

Her red hair lost its radiance and fell against her shoulders.

“Stop,” Genesis whispered.

Polaris did not.

“Stop!”