"Is this awkward for you? Fine." I took off the ring and slammed it on the table. "There! No one had to know, but you felt the need to tell them anyway, didn't you!"
"Sorry, Ian, I--"
"I just-- sorry Zoe, I'm stressed out right now, and that ring is the only thing that gives me comfort."
"So that ring does what, exactly?" asked Greta.
"It allows me to see things that are alive in... an odd way. I see them as what they are, things of nature, of simple beauty. Things that aren't alive appear as a haze. Things like cars, or instruments, or.... clothes."
"How is that comforting?" asked Alisha.
"What allows me to see things that way is this strange...force. It flows through me, and I don't have to pretend to be what I'm not. I don't have to be human."
"Ian, this is very important. What does this force feel like?"
I looked at Zaak, expressionless. "The Earth's beating heart."
"My God."
"What is it?"
"That ring is... forbidden."
"What do you mean?"
"The magic in that ring has the power to become nature itself."
I picked up the ring.
"Ian, how long have you had that ring on?"
"Um... four days?"
"And you haven't lost your mind?"
"Zaak, I lost my mind a long time ago."
Zoe decided to enter the conversation.
"What do you mean 'you don't have to be human?'"
"Zoe, I haven't felt like a human being since I was changed. With that ring on, I don't have to try to feel like I'm a person. I can be a force."
I slipped the ring on, and I felt relief flood through me.
"How does it feel?"
"I feel... alive. I feel like a force, an action. I feel powerful. I feel like I can do anything, but I don't have to do anything."
"So you can see... everything?"
I willed myself to stand in front of Zoe, and my body brought me there in an instant.
"I do. But I don't see things the way a human would. What is beautiful to me is the blood rushing through your arteries, the fibers of your muscles seamlessly contracting and relaxing, gliding back and forth to produce motion. But I appreciate their beauty the same way you appreciate the colors of autumn."
"Ahhh that is so creepy. It's like your looking right through me, to underneath my skin."
I looked into her eyes, sparkling with the gentle beauty of life.
"I am."
"What? You can see my insides?"
"And by simply touching you, I can learn everything that there is to know about your body."
"Really?"
"For example." I appeared next to Greta and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Greta, you've broken three bones in your life, burned your left palm twice once exactly eight years ago and once two years and 67 days ago, and you've drank 3.275 onces of alcohol since you were born."
"How do you--?"
"Your body remembers everything."
"That's creepy," said Zoe.
"Creepy? That's beyond creepy!" replied Alisha.

I'm not sure how I got to the house, and I didn't really care. I was numb, completely numb, and that was good enough for me. I was, however, tired of everything else moving so slowly. I found that with some effort, I could raise the pulse of the beating power that slowly washed over me. After some time, the heart beat in time with mine. But then something unexpected happened. The world changed. The air became humid, there was ozone hanging in the breeze. There was tension in everything, and the earth turned a strange color.
Slowly but steadily, I lowered my heart rate to match the Earth's heart before I had messed with it. And everything was at normal speed.
"Ian! How did you do that?"
"What?"
"You just appeared out of nowhere!"
"Sorry, I'm not sure whats going on. Zoe, where is everyone?"
"They aren't here?"
"Everyone is at the battle, I can conjure things from here... Zach, are you ok? The fighting just ended..."
"What! No time has passed? Then no else knows yet..."
Just then Zaak, Greta, and Alisha came through the door.
"Ian, what the hell happened back there!"
"I uh, well Zaak, uh." I showed the ring.
"What's that?"
"A gift Kuchiki left for me. It's hard to explain."
"Left for.... No!"
"I'm sorry Zoe, she died. Because of me."

We held Kuchiki's funeral that night. We cremated her, and scattered her ashes. When we came back to house, I headed for the music room. It was hard to walk through the halls when I could hardly make out the walls, but the occasional insect made it a lot easier. I sat down at the piano, and I began to play. I played Bach, Brahms, Mozart. And I played Beethoven. Lots and lots of Beethoven. After a few days straight, however, I ran out of music to play. So I began to play violin. Vivaldi, Mozart, Bach. A day or so later, I once again was out of music. So I began to play my guitar. I began to play around with minor chords, and an endless song of death flowed from my fingers. After a couple of hours, Zaak peeked in the door.
"Ian, I'm going to have to ask you to stop."
"Why?"
"Whenever you start playing, Alisha starts bawling hysterically, Greta breaks whatever she's holding, and Zoe has been in the shower for three hours straight."
"Oh. I'll see what I can do."
I made my way to the bathroom, not sure what I'd say.
"Zoe!?" I knocked. No response. I knocked louder. No response. I gave the door a good whack,... and there went the door.
I walked in, and I knew I was about to lose some hearing.
"IAN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN HERE!?" Zoe had thrust her head from behind the shower curtain, and I knew the red color of her face wasn't from the shower.
"I, came to get you out of the, uh, shower. And that sounded weird."
"Why are still in here!?"
"That shower curtain doesn't block anything anyway."
"What!?"
"I, ... nevermind. Zoe, we're worried about you is all." Zoe still looked like she felt akward, but I could tell a lot of the tension in her was gone.
"Ok, I'll be out in a bit."
"K."

The next morning, Zoe stood in front of the table at breakfast and proclaimed,
"You're all naked!"
I almost died laughing.
"Ian has X-ray vision now."
The others in the room stiffened, and akwardness filled the room.

It was the next day when it happened. At 2:31 in the afternoon, over 100 magic users attacked Zaak's house. All of us went to fight, each in our own way. Zaak and Greta launched several types of missiles, Zoe conjured boulders and made men disappeared, Alisha transformed men into twisted, disfigured shapes. Kuchiki struck out with the elements, killing many. And I killed. I snapped bones, crushed organs, and slashed arteries. I moved like a shadow, killing many before they even saw me. Suddenly, like before, a ring was formed around me. But this time at least thirty men had me surrounded. They launched lightning attacks all at once. I lept into the air, spinning as the attacks hit me. The attacks bounced off in all directions, some at strange angles. As I finished my spin, I saw Kuchiki. And I saw the bolt of lightning heading towards her. And I realized how inadequate I was. I couldn't protect her. I caught her before she hit the ground. She smiled that precious smile, and then the light left her eyes. The ring she gave me glowed on my right hand, and as I watched, the gold cracked and shattered, and silver was left behind. The black stoned turned to dust, and a red stone was in its place. Suddenly, my senses sharpened beyond belief. I could see everything. I could hear everything. I could smell everything. I could taste things in the air. I could feel every living thing nearby. I could see the blood pumping through men's veins, I could see everything about them. But the men's clothes were hard to see. They formed a shadowy wisp over the men, and didn't conceal anything. But that didn't bother me. They didn't feel like people anymore, they felt like living things, a part of nature. And I was one with nature.

The heartbeat passed through me, and I could feel its power. It was power that I wanted. I felt alive, at one with the living world around me. I could feel the gentle power of the world seeping into me, and I found it strangely soothing. I remembered that Kuchiki was dead. She could never feel what I felt. I looked to the men around me, and I realized that they were the ones that killed her. So I killed them. Then I realized that I was the one who killed her. Then the heartbeat passed through me again. I fell to my knees, my breath taken. A voice entered my head. Kuchiki's voice.
"Do not wear the ring for more than 34 minutes, or you will lose your self."
I began to weep.
An hour later, the ring hadn't left my finger. And I still wept.

Every thing went back normal after my birthday. I played several pranks with my portable hole, and it turns out that trapped lightning makes a great lantern. I still practiced religiously with my sword, but with no one to fight, I didn't have much use for it. I loved the ring that Kuchiki gave me, but I had no idea if it had any abilities or not. And as I went back to training, my voices began to speak less and less. At first it puzzled me, but then I realized that it was because I was leading a semi-normal life.


And then they came. Just after lunch, a rumble passed through the house. I was at the window in an instant. The thirty, a mix of all the classes, marched towards the house. And in the back were three that didn't match any of the classes.Their magic was unlike any I'd ever seen. It was dispersed over their entire body, and shimmered like a billion tiny flames. It hit me. They were knock-offs of me. I had no idea what they were capable of, and I had to be careful.


I was out of the door with my sword moving at a 350 mile an hour dead sprint, and I took out the first six attackers with my first swing. I could feel Death growing closer to the front of my mind, and I knew his power could overwhelm me at any moment if I wasn't careful. I hacked and slashed through the enemies. Suddenly, a ring formed around me. Launching numerous missiles simultaneously, my shield reflected the attacks, but I feel its strength waining. Apparently my shield wasn't impervious. The reflected missiles took out some more of the men, but I noticed that the three mysteries were still holding out. I decided to say hello.
I swung up, dropping my knee to cut under then up through his defences. He was fast, and manged to dodge almost all of my uppercut. When my sword hit his skin, the sword shattered. I threw the remaining three-fourths of the sword up in to the air. I knew that his shield couldn't hold up forever, and I began to barrage him with my fists. I found out after three punches that while his skin rivaled mine, his bones were normal. He crumpled to the ground, dead. Apparently he couldn't heal like me either. As the second launched himself at me, I spun and grabbed his arm, flipping him over. I threw him to the ground, and before he could move, my sword pierced his heart. I yanked and twisted, pulling my blade from his limp corpse. The third swung his fist at me, but I dodged and raked his stomach with the jagged edge of my blade. The thick red line disappeared rapidly. He swung his hand towards my face, raking a long, deep line across my eye. With my shield down, I couldn't stop his hand. The cut went from my forehead to my chin, splitting my eyelid. I clasped my hand to my face, clenching the skin together. I pulled my hand away from the cut a secong later, and even though the cut was fully healed, I knew that that I had a huge scar across my face. Before he had time to attack again, I slashed again, cutting a ragged welt over his heart. Stabbing my sword into the earth, I sprung. I pulled the gash open, ripping open his ribcage. I pulled out the man's beating heart. I turned to the remaining warlocks who were still fighting my friends. I raised the man's still beating heart above my head, and shouted,
"Leave me ALONE!"
The warlocks turned, horror on their faces. I crushed the heart, blood and heart spraying through the woods.
The warlocks died with fear on their face.

"What the hell is going on!?"
"Damn, Zach, how did you know we were in here?"
"I could hear you, Greta."
"Well, happy birthday anyway, Ian"
"Thanks, Kuchiki."
"Surprise!" Zoe and Alisha jumped in from the deck.
"Yeah, he already knew."
"S***, Ian, why do you do that?"
"I'm sorry I can hear, Zoe."
After the bruhaha died down, I actually did have a good time. I got an entire cake to myself, and some awesome presents. Zoe gave me a real portable hole and Alisha captured lightning in crystal, both of which were pretty much amazing. Greta made me a sword. A freakin huge, magically reinforced, mind-blowingly cool sword. But I liked Kuchiki's gift the best. It was a gold ring, with a small black stone embedded in the top. Inside the ring was an inscription.
"Zu Herrn Ian meine polierende Nacht."
"Nice play on words. And since when do you know German?"
"I looked it up on the internet."
"Thank you."
After spending an hour suffering through girls' obsession with photos, I finally got out of the house. The ring fit my finger perfectly, of course, and I didn't even have to adjust the strap on the baldric. It was kinda creepy that Greta knew how wide my shoulders were, but I didn't think much of it. I decided to put the sword throught its paces. It was a greatsword, with a blade a bit over four feet long, a little wider than a palm, and a two-handed grip. It was a beautiful sword, and I soon found out that it never lost its edge, could cut through almost anything, and was incrediblely resistant to breakage. After a few hours of chopping down trees, I headed for home. The house was deserted, and walking through its silent halls, I found that I had never been there when there was nothing to hear. I wandered for hours, never going anywhere. And yet I went everywhere. I visited my favorite places, including the practice room I had thoroughly destroyed when I was 11. Suddenly I remembered again. Zaak should have another apprentice. He should be about ten, and just be starting defensive spells... nothing made sense. When Zaak spoke to the council man that day... something was wrong.
And it involved me.

A few days after the knife incident, it began to rain. And it rained and it rained and it rained. I loved it. I spent entire days outside, reveling in the showers. And I only got struck by lightning once. But the look on Kuchiki face when I told almost ruined the whole experience. Her face turned red, and I had to relax my face to keep her from breaking her handwhen she slapped me.
"Why would you do that!?"
"I didn't mean for it to happen. I'm sorry."
"No you aren't."
"I didn't want to make you mad or anything..."
"You are such a guy!" And with that she gave me a shove. Kuchiki is small, but she's surprisingly strong, and when she caught me off guard like that, I started to fall back. Realizing that I was going to fall, she tried to grab me, but I was so heavy that she couldn't stop me. In fact it just pulled her off along with me. I had taken to shielding all the time, but the shove had broken my concentration. That was lucky for Kuchiki, because the boulder we fell off of was tall enough that she would have broken bones if I was shielding. But it still hurt when she landed on top of me.
"Oh, f***. Kuchiki, are...."
But then I started to feel really weird. Like seriously messed up. And then I blacked out.
When I woke up, Kuchiki was curled up in a ball asleep on top of me. And as I looked at her, she was so relaxed, so at peace. Then, as I looked at her small face, I felt something I had never felt before. I wanted-- no, I HAD-- to protect her. She was precious to me. It wasn't like I had to do anything she asked, I wanted to protect her. I set her down on the ground, but as soon as I pulled my arms out from underneath her, she woke up.
"Hey."
"Welcome back, sleepyhead."
"You're the one who blacked out."
"You pushed me."
We continued to talk for hours. And while it appeared on the outside that nothing had changed, if it was possible, Kuchiki's smile was even brighter.

Sometimes people get what they asked for. And I hate it when that happens. Not only did Zoe teleport the group straight to my favorite mountain clearing, they were fully equipped to distract me, even though they didn't know why. But the sadistic looks on their faces took the cake.
After three hours, I was exhausted. With torture devices ranging from stones to cattle prods, I was hard pressed to find a way to focus and shield. I was actually happy that none of the girls realized that I could harden my skin, because the look on their faces when I had perfected the technique would be great. Just as I started to find my zone while being hit with stones and fireballs, the sun began to set. I began to run sprints back across the mountains, leaving the girls behind.
The girls began to come with me less frequently, settling in on once a week. But Kuchiki would come by herself every few days. I'd stop and take a break, and we'd walk through the hills, just talking. One day we found a beautiful waterfall, and from then on we'd go there daily to relax in peace. It wasn't long before the other girls start harassing me, and Misery would cackle for hours afterward. I denied all accusations, but the girls didn't seem to believe me.
An occurance that began to happen more and more often was that I began to dream. I would be at rest with my other selfs, and suddenly I would faze out and enter a dream. The dreams were ambiguous, mostly swirling colors and voices that would drift across my conciousness. But one night the dream was different.

I stood on a grassy clearing in a wood. Kuchiki stood across the clearing, smiling as always. But then a look of terror shocked onto her face. A tall dark figure grabbed her by her robes and lifted her up. I didn't recognize the face, but the man had a large, ropey scar across his left eye. He blinked, and the scar even covered the eyelid. He laughed a dark, haunting rumble that rolled through the air and sent shivers down my spine. Then he rose into the air on huge black wings....

And I woke up. Misery looked at me with a grin and said, "Lovers always do meet tragedy, don't they?"
Before I could tell Misery to stuff it, Love defended himself.
"Very funny Misery. But she's just a friend."
I was amazed. It had been so long since Love spoke, I'd forgotten his voice. But there was a ring to Love's voice that I had never heard. And when I looked into his eyes I was met not by pale grey wells of despair, but by breathtakingly blue gems that looked like they belonged to a god.
Love grinned at my dumbstruck expression.
"Friendship is a kind of love, too."

The next morning I decided I was ready. As Alisha went to get herself some milk, I called from the table,"Alisha, see that knife? Throw it at Zoe's head." Everyone froze. Zoe looked at me with this look on her face.
"What?" I asked,"I'll stop it." But Zoe still looked pretty miffed.
You have to realize, this was no ordinary knife. It was one of those big knives chefs on TV use to cut vegtables. Reluctantly, Alisha gently tossed the knife in Zoe's general direction. I moved from the other side of the table in the blink of an eye to catch the knife just in front of Alisha's hand.
"No, no, no. If you're going to do this, throw it as hard as you can. Use your magic and everything."
I thought Zoe was going to kill me. But me sitting down back on the other side of the table probably didn't help.
Gathering her magic, Alisha focused and paused. Then, quick as lightning, she threw the knife. But not quick enough. Faster than anyone but me could follow, I lept over the table, landing next to Zoe between her and Alisha. I got there so fast I had to wait a little for the knife, even though for even a magical observer, the knife took an instant to reach Zoe. As the knife closed in, I shielded and swung my arm. The knife shattered as it hit my arm. In the same motion I grabbed the pieces of the shattered out of the air. To anyone in the room, I appeared by Zoe's side and swung my arm, making the knife disappear.
"What just happened?" asked Greta.
"Holy s***!" exclaimed Kuchiki.
Alisha almost fainted, and Zoe looked at me in both loathing and amazement.
Zaak didn't say a word.
I dropped the slivers of knife on the table, and walked out of the room, knowing I made the day interesting.

It took Death days to calm down. At first, he'd shout as loud he could for hours, swearing and cursing the "miscreants." After a day or two, he simply went silent, not speaking even when spoken directly to. Even after he began to open up again, I could tell that he was still angry.
Greta had managed to stop the fireball from burning her, but it would still take her around a week to recover. The first night of her recovery, she slipped in and out of conciousness a few times, and none of us knew if she was going to make it.
After Greta's condition began to improve, I began to train. I ran a couple hundred miles every morning, over and around the beautiful Rockies. I also went deep into the mountains and began to lift weights. Not just for weight, but also for reps.In the heat of the day, I lifted hundreds of tons thousands of times. As it began to cool off in the afternoon I would do millions of push-ups and crunches. When evening fell, I would run sprints back to Zaak's.
Greta healed, and I continued to train. When she was able, she even ran with me for a small while. As I trained more and more, I began to change. My muscles started to become hard as stone, and my training became too easy. I increased weight, number of reps and distance. But I also began to train my wings. I would fly with resistance, and I lifted boulders with only my wings. After several more days, I noticed a curious thing. When I focused intensely on one thing, my skin became incredibly hard. Despite everything I tried, nothing seemed to be able to pierce my skin when it was in that state. Unfortunately, I could keep it up for a few seconds at a time, and I had to have no distractions in order to do it at all.
And so I began to meditate daily. I cleared my mind, and focused on one object. I had some trouble at first, but soon I could harden my skin for minutes at a time. By the time Zoe and Alisha were back, I could almost "shield," as I liked to call it, for half an hour. But I still hadn't mastered it with distractions. So when the whole group offered to help me practice with distractions, I accepted. I went ahead running, and they said they'd catch up later.
So you can imagine my shock when I entered my favorite clearing to find the four waiting for me.

Even now that Greta was speaking, and I could speak to myself at night, the walk was still boring. I grew tired of having to stay with Greta, but I knew it was dangerous for her to travel alone. Finally, one day after breakfast, I asked Greta, "Greta, how fast can you run?" A wide grin flashed on her face, and then she was gone.

The thrill of a good run was welcomed by my legs, and even though Greta was no where near as fast as me, she ran quickly enough that I was no longer bored. We made great time, and it wouldn't be longed before we got to Zaak's house. Our last night in the mountains, I noticed that Greta looked drained. She'd been running with the aid of her magic for four days, and her body was wearing down.

When we rounded the bend and saw the field behind part of Zaak's house, I knew something was wrong. A group of magic users was standing in front of Zaak, yelling loudly. As I approached, one of the wizards in the group turned and threw a fireball at Greta.
Warlocks don't have strong defensive spells anyway, and in her weakened state, Greta ended up taking most of the blast. Greta flew ten feet back and landed limply. I could feel that she was alive, but that didn't save any of the attackers.
"NO!!"

Death, Pain, and Misery all spoke as one. A shudder ran through my body, and I felt a burning heat spread through me.
For the first time since I was changed, I was angry.

One of the mages grew vines, trying to ensnare me. The slowed me as much as dead air. The two wizards and one of the other mages hit me with a wind-fire-lightning combonation attack. It slowed me some, but I used my wings to thrust forward and close the gap. In close combat, none were a match for me. I could lift 10,000 pounds with my arm outstretched, and curl the same amount, and I could increase those amounts if need be. My uppercut took the wizard's head clean off, ripping muscles and cracking bones as if they were tissue paper. There was a crack, and a large boulder appeared over me. Before it even had a chance to touch me, I grabbed the boulder and threw it, crushing one of the mages. The mage who tried to pin me with vines lept towards me, brandishing two earth daggers. I swept with my foot out, breaking the mages ankles and knocking him off his feet. Before he hit the ground I grabbed his head, and, twisting my upper body 180 degrees, smashed the mage's face into the magician's temple. They fell to the groung in a tangled heap. As I turned, the other wizard launched a fire-lightning attack. The blitzbolt, as it is called, streaked towards me, gaining speed as it went. Just before the blitzbolt hit me, I jerked to the side, deflecting the bolt. Caught off guard the last mage was killed instantly by the exploding blitzbolt. Realizing that he was all alone, the wizard tried to flee. But as he turned to run, I was already there. He stopped with a jerk, a look of pure terror in his eyes. As my punch hit his chest, the man's body didn't have enough time to overcome its own inertia. My fist went through his ribs, his sternum and a chunk of his spine falling out the other side. I could feel his heart stop beating.
As the heat bled away, my conciousness returned,, and I saw the seven men I had killed.

And yet Death was not happy.