EPITAPH 0.001 – Flight

by: Haziel May C. Natorilla
Volume 1: The Crystal Ephesoziel


Celestial Era, 2005.

Tinnic Moon Outpost

  “Great. We came all the way to this side of the moon just to be stuck in space quarters,” grumbled the little boy to himself.

  Seated on a one-seater office chair that resembled a racing bucket seat, he shifted impatiently from one edge to another. The carbon fiber drift seat was perfect for his father’s built, but it was too large for him. At least the complicated racing harness belts kept him in place, or so his father believed.

  “Hehe! You can’t keep me strapped in this. I’m goin’ out!”

  Somehow, the ten-year-old boy figured the varying contraption behind the chair’s harness belts. Wanting to surprise his father, he floated away to the hall, went round the circular midsection of the east wing and towards the meeting room. His excitement was cut short, naturally, by six guard smartbots that blocked his path.

  “You again?” sighed the little boy. “Araco! Balco! Coco! If you don’t go, I’m usin’ this Degrader on you three,” he teasingly threatened, still floating on mid-space.

  He was told that it wasn’t real, that it was a model toy, but you never know. His parents, talented physicists as they are, gave him unique birthday presents each year. This time it was a Degrader, to complement the bucky ball-shaped Container he got last year. The Container was quite handy, for it gathered all his unique toys in one place no matter where he’d left them. Expandable and retractable, it almost seemed like there was no limit to how far it could stretch or how small it could resize itself and anything in it.

               “Bzzzz!”

             “Please. Mercy, young master. Mercy,” recited Duco, the fourth of the six guard smartbots, in the flattest robotic tone.

           “Ezreco will tell you a secret. Please stop, young master,” bargained Fauzco, the sixth of the six guard smartbots, in a thin robotic tone.

               “A secret? This better be good, or else… pha! Pha pha pha pha pha!”

          Waving around his Degrader, the six smartbots moved in haphazard manner, as if to resemble panicking, if there was such an emotion in robots. With half of the guard smartbots twice as tall as he was, it never failed to amuse him whenever the smartbots were alarmed.

               “Rrrrnnng! Rrrrnnng! Rrrrnnng!”

               “What was that???” he asked the smartbots.

               “3D space damaged. Intruder alert,” replied Ezreco in a monotone.

               “Intruder? Araco, locate intruder.”

              “Intruder at x 3600, y 6400, z 8100. Warning. All bots must eliminate target,” Araco voiced out in a thick robotic tone.

              “What? Isn’t that…”

              “Yes, young master. Run,” answered Coco blandly in the smallest robotic tone.

            “Run,” shouted Balco in the roundest robotic tone, as the sentry robots missed Balco’s head by a centimeter.

              “Hey! Don’t leave me! W-aaaaait!” yelled the little boy as he quickly ran to catch up with the six.

  The sentry robots, in gray-and-white stripes, looked like a crossover between a tiger and a bear. Normally it would have been impossible for a child to outrun these sentry robots, but since the little boy was gliding on mid-space with his custom ATP-powered Spaceskates, he was fine. His Spaceskates’ seemed like ice skating boots, except that instead of a single thick blade that cut through ice, there were multiple layers of thin blades that cut through space as long as force was applied. His were special, somehow, because it was not the mass-produced Spaceskates that ran through limited terrain and fixed gravity. His gliding gear set allowed him to move freely in most terrains and in varying gravity. If this prototype birthday present had a setback, it was speed. The acceleration components were heavily dependent on the user’s athletic ability, or in the boy’s case, his poor athletic ability. Soon, he found himself near the southern exit of the space quarters. With a flick of the finger, his lightweight head-and-body space gear auto-equipped, preparing him for an area devoid of air.

              “Shoot! They’re gaining on me!” said the boy to the closest smartbot on sight.

            “We should head for that shelter, young master,” spoke Ezreco in that distinct monotone. “It’s the one your parents told you about before we arrived here.”

              “Okay! That’s a plan.”

              Still being chased by sentry bots, he saw that the bots suddenly stopped after a single high-pitched octave tune rang through the area outside the quarters. And then a most horrible thing happened. The Tinnic Moon Outpost space quarters exploded as the sentry bots chasing him self-destructed. It was a terrorist attack.

           

            He was safe, thanks to the six smartbots that erected a force field around him. When the moment had passed, he looked up to see what exactly happened and saw a great sea of fire in the enclosed area of the outpost.

  “NO! Dad! Mom!”

             

  He realized that the absence of Oxygen gas at where he stood saved him, for the sentry bots that self-destructed did not generate enough force or firepower to kill him then. However, the pain of losing his parents in an instant stirred something within him. A faint memory from a distant past resurfaced as he recognized the sentry bots. For the first time, he knew fear. He knew the enemy. And he remembered his fallen home, the Ephesoziel Empire.

  As the unseen enemy heavily bombarded the Tinnic Moon Outpost with a stream of wave attacks, a small surface of the moon cracked, pulling the little boy along with the rest of the six smartbots unto a distortion tunnel. Though deeply damaged from the previous explosion, Araco, Balco, Coco, Duco, Ezreco, and Fauzco surrounded the boy to protect him once more. With steadfast loyalty and unwavering strength, the smartbots accompanied their unconscious master through a tunnel’s exit - an unknown edge of time. While the little boy safely entered a new world from an exit among many exits, his smartbots ran out of energy as these activated the boy’s Container device to cushion his fall.

Cosmic Age, 5990.

Tureenar Central Park.

           “One Majella… two Lapupu… three Nekedii… four Babapor… five Tesvolpie… six Pikapsti…”

             B-b-boom!

           A little girl was playing quietly on a patch of green grass when she heard something from the north. Quickly shutting down her hologram dolls and items, her black pigtails hardly swayed as she hurried to the place where she heard the soft sound come from.

             “What’s this black bouncy squishy thingy?” said Leizah to her cute pet dog, Boka.

             “Arf arf!”

             “You think so?” smiled Leizah. “Hmm… maybe it this one???”

          Boka nudged a tiny opaque gel plate with its nose, and lo, the strange gel sphere with hexagon-shaped plates vanished. Amazed at this discovery, the nine-year-old Leizah was puzzled as she saw an unconscious two-legged creature. Poking the creature’s arms…

             “Arf???”

             “This suit looks so old. Hmm… switchy switchy,” Leizah playfully touched.

             Click! The head-and-body space gear automatically unequipped, leaving a sight that’s clearly young and human-looking. It was…

             “An alien! Um… uh… it’s not moving, Boka, now is it? You think it’s alive???”

             “Arf arf!”

             “Okay, okay,” agreed Leizah, as she placed her right ear over his chest, intently trying to listen to his heartbeat. Her head now faced his chin, but, since she was looking upward, she failed to realize that the little boy was wide awake. He stared at her for what seemed like half a minute, memorizing her features with one look. Having judged her as harmless, he finally spoke.

            “You,” said the little boy in an arrogant tone. “Get off me.”

            “Woof woof woof woof woof!” Boka barked defensively.

            “Oh!” smiled Leizah. “Good job, Boka! You woke the alien.”

            The little boy straightened himself with an air of dignity common to princes of the ancient Ephesoziel. Slowly, he stood up and looked at his surroundings without a word. In seeing that it wasn’t the Moon, he deduced it was somewhere foreign. That the smartbots were nowhere near worried him, for, should they be separated, his parents clearly instructed him to retrieve these… to never lose sight of the custom smartbots. It was imperative that he found his six guards. If anything, he possessed a strong sense of duty and love towards his second parents, his Empress mother, and the fallen Ephesoziel Empire. He has, after all, taken upon himself Myjim’s knowledge and had traveled this far to evade demise. He cannot lose. Not now. Not here.

            “You. Take me to your ruler this instant,” he demanded.

            “Ruler? You’re really an alien, aren’t you?” inquired Leizah, not the least bit daunted.

            Leizah, using a picocommunicator necklace, keyed in from the virtual keypad the seven-digit code to call Mitt, her twin brother. The green-colored gem wrapped in copper coil wires resembling an ancient atomic model masked the fact that it was more than a child’s fancy necklace. Mitt’s 3D image appeared as half of his body was projected from the necklace.

            “I found an alien at Central Park. It’s telling me to take it to our ruler. Do you know who that is?”

“Leiz! I thought I told you not to use this for fun!” Mitt said angrily.

            “I’m not lying! Come here and see for yourself!” she defensively answered.

            “I’m busy. Take it to Dad. Bye.”

           Mitt hanged up, but at least Leizah had some idea on what to do with the ‘alien’, as she called the little boy. She wondered whether the word ‘ruler’ applied to her Dad, so she stood quietly, still thinking about what her twin said when she heard police sirens.

            “Oh no! They’re coming to get you, alien! To Dad’s office!”

           “Who’s she calling an alien? Don’t I look human enough to her?” he thought. “I’ll show off a little,” he decided.

            He moved in an attempt to glide with his Spaceskates, but since his strength was fading, he quickly fell after about a meter high. Quickly taking him by the hand, Leizah whispered, “No, you can’t fly! They’ll catch you! Let’s just… um… walk! Walk away… walk away.”

            His hand was held by such a dainty one. Half of his mind wanted to let go, yet another half wanted to hold on. Ephesozen royalty can’t be touched by anyone from the opposite sex… at least in the Ephesoziel that he knew. However, he realized that it was much more dangerous to let go of his sole clue to some salvation that he chose to let go of tradition and hold on to this child.

Yes. He saw her as a child while he was a child himself, for he already inherited most of Myjim’s vast knowledge and experience. Still, while the little prince may have grown quicker than he should, he remained innocent in other areas… innocent in all other areas which Myjim locked in his heart – matters of a forgotten love, pains from a forsaken dream, and cries of a forlorn nation.

           His silence was suddenly broken when he saw that they had arrived at an enormous gate. The gate looked exactly like…

            “Ta Chia! Gate of the Eastern Ring,” murmured the little prince to himself.

            “What? You want to ring the bell too?” asked Leizah. “It’s that button… over there. See?”

            “I wasn’t talking to you,” he thought.

           Despite the little prince’s behavior, Leizah’s cheerfulness seemed oblivious of the moment. She just smiled.

            “This is the school gate’s back door, ‘kay. Well, if you won’t ring ringy, I will.”

           As soon as Leizah’s finger was millimeters away from the button, the gate opened. A young voice echoed from a distance.

            “Hey! Leizah!”

            “Fej!”

The boy was of the same age as Leizah Quinoa. Fej, firstborn of the Sonsi scientists who used to work under Leizah’s mother, Ilina Lotilcas, was a familiar playmate. After coming to play and finding the Quinoa twins gone, Fej walked back the way he came. Now, he saw Leizah and that ‘thing’ she held by the hand. Fej’s brown eyes stared deeper than his brown hair into the little prince’s clothes. Deciding that those clothes were odd, he figured that it couldn’t be human.

              “What’s that? A super robot?”

              “No! It’s an alien!”

              “No way!”

              “Yes it is!”

              “If that’s an alien, where’s its spaceship?”

              “It’s that black squishy squishy thingy that went poof when I touched it!”

          “If you’re done playing with that pet robo, come by our house. I’ll show you a rare one in the garage.”

              “Yeah yeah. Later, Fej.”

            Leizah told her ‘alien’ that they were at Saint Gabriel Hooskas, a school founded by her father’s ancestors. It has five sectors – three of which were open and two exclusive. The back gate led directly to the principal’s office.

             The walk was quick, as the tube at the entrance allowed them to enter the office without being seen by anyone else who did not know of the Tubes hidden all over Saint Gabriel. The tubes were fine, as these already existed in the time where the little prince previously lived. Still, a greater surprise fell upon his face when they entered the room. 

            “Hi Dad! I’m back!”

         “That was fast,” said the principal in his usual demeanor without looking up from doing his routine computer work.

            “Dad, do you know who our ruler is?”

            “Leizah,” lectured the principal, “go look it up in the history book.”

It was this strong, calm voice and familiar look that struck the little prince. This man was the splitting image of the former Emperor… of his Ephesozen father! The manner by which the principal appeared to ignore this little girl who held his hand up until now reminded him of how difficult it was to approach his father.

“Um, Dad… which history book is it?”

The principal’s room, with its matching chairs and working desk, was designed to have an antique look with its wooden furnishings. The word ‘book’, however, referred to digital files inside the Hazale Board series of computers. Leizah was moving her hand in mid-air as she touched through points in space when the little prince spoke.

“What nonsense. You have to put in the year when you type words on the search engine.”

“It’s hard to type with one hand,” argued Leizah.

“You could let go,” defied the little prince.

“No, I can’t! You’re goin’ somewhere far far away!”

 It’s amazing how this playful conflict of theirs went on without disturbing the principal. Or, at least it appeared that way. The principal was curious that her daughter brought a new playmate, but he wouldn’t let Leizah notice. He was more of pretending to be busy just so he could observe them some more.

 “This colony’s ruler is… um… this baldy beardy guy… Chon Kinsfer! He lives at Neleh Palace…” read Leizah.

 “What?”

 “Sir Chon lives at the Neleh Palace replica!” shouts Leizah.

             “Good. Let’s go,” said the little prince as he hurriedly tried to move back to the door.

             “Leiz,” said the principal sternly. “You go ahead. I must speak with him.”

 

            Leizah, seeing how serious her father looked at the ‘alien’ she brought, left the room quickly. As soon as she did, the principal waved his hand in a circular motion, and the room... its walls and everything in it transformed into something the little prince knew so well – the Ephesoziel Inner Throne Room.

            “Now, who might you be?”

            “Why father, it is I. The twelfth imperial prince of the Ephesoziel Empire, N---”

            “Save it.”

            “But father, I…”

           “It is best if you do not use your true name in an age you do not belong. That is the Rule of the Rule.”

          “Rule of the Rule. Yes, I remember,” answered the little prince, ashamed that in his haste, forgot about it.

         “First of all, I am not your Ephesozen father. I bear most of his memories and likeness, but I am not him. I am a citizen born of this time and age. Nebuer Quinoa.”

           Again, the principal waved his hand in the same, circular motion. The room returned to its usual state, with everything in order. This display of illusion and its sudden vanishing brought the little prince back to the reality he was in. The principal took something sealed from his drawer and carefully handed it to the little prince.

“Here. This is a protoDigiRex, a device our underground research team is working on. The device evolves based on its owner’s emotions and preferences. As a pure Ephesozen, I am confident that you can use this to its fullest. The decision to be a legendary Rexer soldier is yours though, little prince. Open it, and see for yourself,” explained Nebuer.

           

          Taking courage to unseal the package, the little prince found the device. As soon as he touched it, the device shone brightly. Its metallic luster changed from silvery to a deep black color like ebony. He knew that the dreaded Draispans may come after him in this edge of time as enemies did in his previous home. This time, he was going to fight. He was determined to protect this new land where he is.

          “Sakubgam akk as gnika sotu. Unlock.”

        The little prince transformed into one of the legendary Rexer soldiers – Black Rex. However, his fatigue undid the transformation and he fainted.

           

To be continued on EPITAPH 0.002