The Terran shook his head. “It’s not that easy, Yen. If you want to know who I am,” the psychic explained as he pressed a finger against the side of his head, “you’ll just have to come find out for yourself.”
Anger brewed beneath the surface as Yen faced the psychic. The Terran was full of an unfounded arrogance, an arrogance that would only end when Yen humiliated the man. Though the Terran spoke with surprising confidence, he had yet to see what acts of retribution Yen was capable of committing.
If the psychic was foolish enough to mock him, Yen would show the Terran what he could do. Smiling, Yen rose to the challenge. The air around him shimmered and danced as he concentrated, building up the psychic energy within him. In a furious blast, Yen launched the psychic power forward, eager to drive into the Terran’s mind. He would not only tear away the information he sought piece by piece from the Terran’s brain, he would leave the Terran’s mind shattered and broken.
Yen’s eyes glowed blue as the underlying psychic energy all around him emerged like pockets of light amidst a drab and grey world. The plants and grasses remained unchanged, though they looked lackluster and bland; none of their vibrancy and life remained. The water turned dark and bottomless, stretching like a starless night. In stark contrast, however, the Terran stood like a funeral pyre. A rainbow of colors swirled around him like a blaze, burning far brighter than Yen had ever seen before. Concentrating further, Yen was consumed by a similar fire as he stood and stepped toward the psychic.
As he approached the Terran, the earth beneath his feet shook violently. Bursting from the ground, a perfectly smooth, dark grey wall sprang up between them, reaching higher than Yen was able to see. The Terran’s smiling face was the last thing Yen could see before being completely confronted by the impassable wall. Resting his hand against the wall tentatively, Yen could feel only a single word whispered as though from a thousand mouths:
Yen knew that this was just a trick of the Terran. It was a mental block, creating an impasse between Yen’s mind and that of the other psychic. The wall was meant to block Yen’s intrusion into the other’s thoughts. And, try as Yen might to break through the wall, he found it an effective defense. Slamming his fist angrily against the wall, Yen felt the physical projection firmly beneath his hand. A small sliver of dark grey material broke free of the wall and fell to the ground, where it evaporated into a fine mist. Sheathing his hands in blue energy, Yen slammed his fist again and again against the wall, slowly chipping away at its impressive might. Beyond the wall, radiating like a lighthouse in the drab, grey world, Yen could sense that his persistence was an annoyance to the Terran.
As his fist connected once again with the wall, Yen felt a terrible psychic backlash. Lifted from his feet, he was hurtled backward, where he fell to the ground. As his eyes focused once more, he found the wall gone. Lively greens had once again infused the trees and grass and the fine, misting rain once again fell on his face. Glancing left and right, he realized that he was on the ground exactly where he had been before approaching the psychic. Everything that had happened — the wall, his attacks, and the backlash — was all a projection from the Terran’s mind. He had shown Yen exactly what he wanted him to see. The Terran had toyed with Yen as though he were insignificant. Anger raced through Yen’s veins at the thought of someone so passively ignoring him.
“Achilles, is it?” Yen asked acidly.
“That is the name my father gave me,” Achilles replied coolly. He showed none of the frustration and anger that saturated Yen’s body.
Yen rubbed his temple as he tried to wash away the dull ache behind his eyes. He had never heard of a Terran psychic wielding as much power as Achilles did. It was unusual, unnatural. A sudden realization washed over Yen. Achilles was, indeed, unnatural. He was an abomination.
“Your father? You mean Doctor Solomon,” Yen replied. “Growing a science experiment in a test tube hardly makes him a father.”
For the first time, Yen noticed anger on Achilles’ face. “I was born of flesh and blood, old man! And Doctor Solomon
Yen brought his knees up underneath himself. Behind him, he let a blue tendril begin to manifest in his hand. “You’re a genetic freak, Achilles. How much do you want to bet that you weren’t the first psychic the good doctor tried to create? And what do you think he did with all the others?”
To Yen’s surprise, Achilles laughed. The Terran’s emotions rolled unabated from one end of the spectrum to the other, the man hardly in control of his own bizarre mood swings. Yen stared at Achilles with a hint of fear creeping up his spine. Mental instability was a dangerous trait for a psychic. If he wanted to defeat the Terran, Yen would have to strike quickly.
“Of course there were others,” Achilles replied. “And every one of them was found to be unworthy of my father’s praise. Only I was powerful enough to survive!”
Yen wrapped his fingers around the tendril as it grew in length. “And let me guess: if I want to get to your father, I’ll have to go through you?”
“Close, but wrong. Whether or not you want to get to my father, you’ll never get through me alive!”
“We’ll see about that,” Yen replied coldly as he brought his hand around from his back. The blue tendril elongated as it flashed outward, striking out like a whip. The air cracked as though from a lightning strike, as the whip struck the hard stone slabs near the pond. Achilles, however, was no longer standing on the stones. Looking quickly left and right, he found the Terran standing a dozen feet away, laughing maniacally.
“Your thoughts are imprinted in the front of your mind for all to see. I knew you were going to attack even before you did!”
Growling, Yen lashed out again and again with the psychic whip, its glowing blue length lighting up the area around the two warriors. Every time Yen struck, Achilles had already moved out of the way, his body little more than a blur as he constantly shifted his position just out of the way of the assault.
Retracting the whip, Yen made the tendril rigid like a spear. Leaping to his feet, he charged Achilles. Lunging forward, he drove the spear directly at Achilles’ heart. This time, the Terran didn’t dodge. Instead, quicker than Yen could follow, he reached out and grabbed the end of the tendril before it reached its mark.
“You are going to have to do much better than that,” Achilles mocked. A wave of psychic energy rolled down the length of the spear and passed into Yen’s arm. His entire body felt on fire as the energy rolled through his nervous system. His head rocked back in pain and a scream passed his lips. For the second time, Yen was lifted from his feet and thrown backwards. Soaring through the air, Yen collapsed into the shallow, rectangular pool. The frigid waters enveloped him and Yen quickly sat upright and coughed up the cold water. Wiping his dripping hair from his eyes, Yen looked to the confident Achilles.
Infuriated, Yen felt his blood burn with hatred as he looked at the Terran. Caught unaware once again, Yen had been tossed aside; humiliated by this Terran freak. Coughing, Yen’s gaze boiled with a deep seeded rage. “What are you?” he yelled in disbelief. “What do you want of me?”
“What I am is not important,” Achilles chuckled softly. “You’re asking all the wrong questions. If you want to know about me, you should know who I
Achilles jaw tightened as he remembered painful memories. “I had a mother once, too. She was kind and beautiful. But she died. They both died. They were killed by your people: mercenaries and soldiers with nothing better to do than annihilate an innocent merchant town. My biological parents did nothing wrong, but they were slaughtered by your kind.”
“You want me to feel sympathy for you?” Yen retorted. His goal, Doctor Solomon, was only a few hundred feet away. Yet instead of extracting his revenge, he was busy being thwarted time and time again by the doctor’s science experiment. “How many innocent civilians have been killed on the Alliance worlds? How about the millions that died during the Empire’s Manifest Destiny Directive? Who gives a damn if your parents died? The best thing that could have happened is if you had died with them. And if you stay in my way, I’ll make that a reality!”
“With what?” Achilles replied, his calm demeanor reasserting itself. The emotion was now vacant in his voice. He spoke as though the conversation about his parents never happened seconds before. “Will you make another whip for me? Your biggest failure, Yen Xiao, is that you are too stuck in the physical world. You have vast, untapped potential, but you waste it on these pathetic whips and spears. People like you and me could rule the universe, if only you had the mind to master your powers. Instead, you find yourself rooted in what you can see and touch.”
“You have no idea what I’m capable of,” Yen growled.
