ObiceX

“If I stop, you die.”

“And if you continue?”

Polaris opened her eyes.

There was no deception in them.

“I become weak enough that it may kill me instead.”

Genesis tried to push her hands away.

She had no strength.

“No.”

Polaris pressed harder.

Vitalia surged.

The green light flooded through Genesis’s body.

Ivoryta awakened inside every cell and accepted the energy. The symbiont used it to rebuild its host with impossible speed.

Genesis’s heartbeat became thunder.

The wound sealed.

Her lungs filled.

Her bones stabilised.

But Polaris collapsed beside her.

The green light vanished.

Genesis inhaled sharply.

She was alive.

Not merely restored.

Changed.

The Kwasar body had crossed the edge of death and returned.

And it had not rebuilt itself as it had been.

It had rebuilt itself stronger.

Ivoryta had recorded every injury, every fracture, every moment in which Genesis’s organs had failed. Guided by Vitalia, it reconstructed her body around the memory of catastrophe.

Her bones became denser.

Her muscles returned thicker and more efficient.

Her nerves adapted to the pain that had paralysed them.

Her heart beat with greater force.

The Bio-Skin reinforced every place the Minotaur had broken.

For a Kwasar, recovery from the brink of death was not simple restoration.

It was evolution.

When the body survived destruction severe enough to force complete adaptation, it returned with far greater power than before.

Sometimes nearly twice the strength.

Death itself offered nothing.

But surviving it forced the Kwasar to become a being that the same death could not easily claim again.

Genesis felt that new strength rising within her.

Then she saw Polaris.

The Pioneer lay motionless beside her.

Her Sublime Skin had retreated almost entirely into a dim Ivory state. The golden lines flickered weakly before disappearing.

The Minotaur loomed over them.

So completely absorbed were they in the transfer of life force from one to the other that neither realised the creature was already charging towards them.

Genesis tried to rise.

The creature kicked her across the chamber.

She struck a wall.

Even with the new strength, her body had not yet recovered enough to obey.

The Minotaur looked down at Polaris.

She was unconscious.

Defenceless.

The beast wrapped one chain around her waist and lifted her from the floor.

Polaris did not react.

Her arms hung loosely.

Her head fell backwards.

Genesis stared.

The world narrowed.

The Minotaur raised Polaris until her face was level with its skull.

Then it drew back one massive fist.

Genesis’s breath stopped.

Something passed through her mind.

Not thought.

Not decision.

A blade of awareness.

Polaris had given her life.

Not metaphorically.

Not symbolically.

She had emptied herself to keep Genesis’s heart beating.

And now the creature was going to kill her while Genesis watched from the floor.

The Minotaur’s fist moved.

Genesis’s eyes opened.

Violet light erupted from them.

“NO!”

The word struck the chamber harder than thunder.

The Minotaur stopped.

Not by choice.

The entire labyrinth stopped.

Dust hung motionless in the air.

The chains froze.

The green flames stretched upward.

The floor beneath Genesis began to tremble.

At first, the movement was small.

Then cracks spread from beneath her hands.

Genesis managed to push herself onto one knee and began to rise.

Her body shook.

The Ivory Skin brightened.

The Minotaur turned towards her.

Genesis rose.

Slowly.

Blood ran down her chin.

Her breath came in broken fragments.

But the new power inside her continued climbing.

The strength born from survival.

The fury born from love.

The Minotaur released Polaris.

She was no longer the immediate threat. It could finish her later.

Its attention shifted towards Genesis—the opponent it had already believed dead, now somehow rising again.

The creature changed its target.

It hurled Polaris aside, and her unconscious body struck the floor.

Then the Minotaur turned fully towards Genesis.

Genesis saw Polaris strike the stone.

Something inside Ivoryta broke open.

The white surface tightened over Genesis’s body.

A low vibration filled the chamber.

The Minotaur charged.

Genesis did not move.

Its hooves struck faster.

The floor split beneath every step.

Genesis lowered her head.

Her hands closed into fists.

A white aura rose from her body.

It expanded.

The Minotaur came closer.

Genesis screamed.

The sound began as pain.

Then it deepened into power.

The Ivory Skin erupted around her.

Pearlescent streams rose from her shoulders, arms and back like liquid fire moving against gravity. 

The transformation was happening inside the skin.

Inside Ivoryta.

Genesis’s renewed heartbeat struck once.

A golden spark appeared beneath her sternum.

The Minotaur was almost upon her.

The spark moved.

A thin line of gold emerged through the white Bio-Skin.

It travelled slowly across her chest.

The creature threw a colossal punch.

Genesis raised one hand on pure instinct.

The Sublime Skin responded before she could understand what she was doing.

A surge of white-and-gold energy erupted from her body and unfolded around her, forming a luminous shield that enclosed her completely.

The Minotaur’s fist struck the barrier.

The collision sounded like a mountain collapsing.

The shield buckled inward, but it did not break.

A shockwave tore through the chamber.

The ground collapsed beneath Genesis’s feet, and the walls trembled.

The Minotaur roared and pressed harder.

Genesis remained behind the barrier, her arms extended and her body shaking beneath the pressure.

Then a second golden line appeared.

It crossed her collarbone.

A third descended along her ribs.

More light emerged from within Ivoryta.

Not placed upon the skin.

Born through it.

The energy of the shield intensified.

The Minotaur drew back its arm and attacked with its other fist.

The second impact struck the barrier with even greater force.

The shield blazed violently.

A circular shockwave exploded outward from Genesis and swept across the entire chamber.

The walls cracked.

The ceiling fractured.

But Genesis did not fall.

For the first time, the Minotaur had struck with all its strength and failed to break through her defence.

Her scream rose.

Ivoryta had spent its existence protecting her by adapting to danger.

It had become shield.

Weapon.

Armour.

Instinct.

Second body.

But survival was no longer enough.

To protect Polaris, Ivoryta needed more than adaptation.

It needed authority over power itself.

The symbiont began to transform.

Its pearlescent matrix reorganised around the force now flooding through Genesis.

White light became incandescent.

Golden streams spread over her shoulders, arms, waist, thighs and legs. They formed living geometries across the Ivory Skin, each line pulsing with energy too great to remain shapeless.

Its hooves slid across the floor.

The transformation continued.

Gold flowed along Genesis’s spine.

It circled her wrists.

It formed precise contours across her chest and hips.

It descended around her legs like divine calligraphy written in light.

The Ivory Skin was ascending.

Ivoryta was becoming Arkana.

Genesis threw back her head.

The scream became a roar that shook the White Room beyond the labyrinth itself.

A pillar of white and gold erupted around her.

The ceiling vanished.

The labyrinth walls bent outwards.

The Minotaur was thrown backwards by the pressure and crashed through the far side of the chamber.

Genesis rose from the ground.

Not by jumping.

By willing the distance beneath her feet to disappear.

For the first time, she hovered.

The golden lines locked into place.

The transformation completed.

Genesis opened her eyes.

They burned with violet fire, blazing with fury.

Her body was covered in pearlescent white, but the living surface now carried the golden architecture of a higher form.

The Sublime Skin.

The first physical transformation of a Kwasar into a Sublime Warrior.

Genesis looked down at her hands.

Power moved through them like an ocean discovering direction.

The Minotaur emerged from the rubble.

Half of its bone armour was broken.

It roared and swung both chains.

Genesis vanished.

The blocks struck empty air.

She appeared in front of the creature.

The Minotaur’s empty sockets widened.

Genesis punched it once.

The impact folded the air.

The creature flew through seven walls.

Genesis crossed the distance before it landed.

She appeared above it and drove one heel into its chest.

The Minotaur crashed into the ground.

The labyrinth-shaped wound in its chest split open.

Genesis landed upon its torso.

The creature seized her ankle.

Genesis raised one hand.

During the battle, she was no longer acting through discipline, knowledge or conscious intention. The sight of Polaris broken and moments from death had driven her beyond reason. Fury overwhelmed thought, and the newly awakened Arkana responded directly to the deepest instincts of its Host.

Vision Powers that Genesis had never studied began to erupt through her in raw, incomplete forms. She did not understand them, control them or even consciously choose them. For a few impossible moments, rage, necessity and her bond with Polaris forced open pathways that should have required years of training.

Genesis had not mastered those powers.

She had merely unleashed them...

A telekinetic force closed around the Minotaur’s arm.

The limb stopped.

Genesis looked at her fingers in astonishment.

She had never developed telekinesis.

She had only opened the capacity to begin.

But in that moment, raw instinct had given the Vision its first imperfect form.

The Minotaur tore free and threw her across the chamber.

Genesis rotated in the air.

She did not fall.

She remained suspended.

The flight was unstable, violent, uncertain.

But it was flight.

The Minotaur charged again.

Genesis looked towards Polaris.

Still unconscious.

Still alive.

Arkana responded to the purpose before Genesis understood the command.

Golden and white matter rose from the Sublime Skin.

A breastplate formed across her torso.

Layered plates unfolded over her shoulders and arms.

Reinforced structures wrapped around her legs.

A great golden guard sealed across her right forearm.

The first ObiceX manifested around her.

Not graceful.

Not perfected.

Born for one purpose.

To finish the battle before Polaris’s remaining life faded.

Genesis descended like a meteor.

The Minotaur raised both metal blocks.

Genesis struck them with the ObiceX guard.

The collision shattered one block.

The second chain wrapped around her waist.

The creature pulled.

Genesis allowed it.

She flew towards the Minotaur, formed a long Proferrum blade through the White Room and reinforced it with Arkana’s golden architecture.

The weapon became half metal, half living power.

The Minotaur opened its jaws.

Genesis drove the blade through the maze-shaped wound.

The red labyrinth within its chest resisted.

Genesis pushed.

The creature struck her back.

The ObiceX absorbed the blow.

Golden plates cracked.

Genesis did not release the sword.

The Minotaur hit her again.

The armour adapted.

The plates thickened over the point of impact.

Genesis looked directly into the darkness of its skull.

“You should have killed me when you had the chance.”

Arkana blazed.

The Proferrum blade split into golden branches inside the creature’s chest.

They spread through the inner labyrinth.

Every false corridor illuminated.

Every hidden chamber opened.

Genesis closed both hands around the hilt.

Then twisted.

The internal maze shattered.

Red light burst through the Minotaur’s body.

The creature roared.

Genesis pulled the blade free, rose above its head and gathered every unstable fragment of her new power into one fist.

White.

Gold.

Violet.

The three energies compressed around her arm.

She descended.

Her fist struck between the Minotaur’s horns.

The skull broke.

The impact travelled through its spine, chest and legs.

The floor beneath it collapsed into a crater.

The roar ended.

The Minotaur remained standing for one impossible heartbeat.

Then its body fell.

The labyrinth became silent.

Genesis landed unsteadily.

The ObiceX withdrew into the golden trims of the Sublime Skin.

Her legs almost failed.

She caught herself.

Then she remembered Polaris.

Genesis ran.

The Minotaur no longer mattered.

Victory no longer mattered.

She fell to her knees beside the unconscious Pioneer.

Polaris’s breathing was almost absent.

Her physical body had become pale and translucent around the edges. The Ex-Codice vessel was beginning to lose cohesion.

Genesis placed both hands over her chest.

“Polaris.”

No answer.

Genesis closed her eyes.

Vitalia still lingered inside her.

The life force Polaris had given her had become part of Genesis’s recovery, part of her transformation and part of the power now burning within Arkana.

But Genesis had no idea how to use Vitalia.

No one had taught her.

She had never studied its principles, trained its flow or learned how to guide life from one body into another.

Then she remembered Polaris’s words.

Any power you witness in me is a power you may one day learn to reproduce. We are bound by the same soul.

Genesis closed her eyes.

Terror drove her deeper into their bond than she had ever gone before. She reached past thought, past memory and past the boundary that separated her spirit from Polaris’s.

There, within the connection between them, she found something.

A faint current.

A living thread.

The path Vitalia had followed when Polaris saved her.

Genesis did not understand it.

She simply recognised it.

Perhaps fear opened the way.

Perhaps their bond had become too deep for the power to remain hidden from her.

Perhaps Genesis could do it because she was unlike any Kwasar who would come after her.

Perhaps because she was the first.

Whatever the reason, she achieved something that should have been impossible.

Without instruction.

Without training.

Without mastery.

Genesis awakened Vitalia spontaneously.

She reached for the life Polaris had placed within her.

Not to keep it.

To return it.

Green light appeared beneath the golden lines of her Sublime Skin.

It flowed towards her palms.

Genesis pressed her hands against Polaris.

“I will not survive because you died for me.”

The green radiance entered the Pioneer’s body.

Polaris’s chest rose faintly.

Genesis gave more.

Her new strength diminished.

The golden aura around her softened.

But she continued.

“You taught me that power is not what we keep.”

Polaris’s fingers moved.

“It is what we can give without abandoning ourselves.”

The Ex-Codice body became solid again.

Red returned to Polaris’s hair.

A faint golden line appeared beneath the Ivory surface covering her chest.

Genesis bowed over her.

“Come back.”

Polaris inhaled.

Her eyes opened.

Weakly.

Genesis laughed and cried at once.

Polaris looked at the golden lines covering her.

For several seconds, she seemed unable to speak.

Then a smile appeared.

“You transformed.”

Genesis rested her forehead against hers.

“You nearly died.”

“That was not the assignment.”

“You are terrible at following instructions.”

Polaris gave a quiet, exhausted laugh.

Genesis helped her sit.

The destroyed labyrinth began to dissolve around them.

Stone returned to whiteness.

Green flames became nothing.

The Minotaur vanished.

Soon, only the two women remained within the infinite White Room.

Polaris raised one trembling hand and touched the golden trim on Genesis’s shoulder.

Genesis closed her eyes.

She felt the symbiont within her.

Familiar.

But changed.

Deeper.

More powerful.

Filled with pathways that had never existed before.

“Ivoryta is still here.”

Polaris listened through their bond.

“No,” she whispered. “Not as she was.”

The gold pulsed beneath her fingers.

Genesis understood.

“Ivoryta survived the transformation.”

“Yes.”

“She became more.”

Polaris smiled.

“She became Arkana.”

Genesis looked at the Sublime Skin covering her body.

The white was still Ivoryta’s living memory.

The gold was the architecture of its ascension.

Survival had become creation.

Instinct had become Vision.

The Bio-Skin had become the sacred forge from which powers, armour and impossible journeys could one day be shaped.

Genesis looked at Polaris.

“We did it.”

Polaris shook her head faintly.

“You did.”

Genesis took her hand.

“No.”

The spiritual bond opened between them.

The pain.

Vitalia.

The near death.

The transformation.

The hand that had always lifted Genesis from the floor.

“We did it.”

Polaris closed her fingers around hers.

“Team?”

Genesis smiled through the exhaustion.

“Beyond death.”

They remained together upon the white floor until both had recovered enough to stand.

The Minotaur had been only one enemy among thousands that might one day cross into Tzion.

But it had accomplished something none of them could have foreseen.

It had pushed Genesis beyond the final limit of survival.

It had forced Ivoryta to evolve.

It had transformed the bond between Genesis and Polaris into something death itself had failed to divide.

And it had awakened the first Sublime Kwasar.