Infinity Worlds

Standing still as he finishes the punch, Tyrion marvels in the feeling, as energy continues to course through his body. Caltain, on the other hand, has completely stopped and can only gawk at Tyrion. Of the two of them, Caltain had hopes that they would both be able to enter the Kasper Academy, but he believed in himself much more than Tyrion.

"Tyrion how did you do that?"

"I don't know. All of a sudden it was like everything was new and I could feel the energy around me moving and flowing through my body. All I had to do was give it a direction and it would follow my orders, moving with my will." Tyrion responded while marveling at this new found feeling. Even now he can feel the energy traveling in and out of his body. With just a small nudge of his consciousness, he can keep it in his body forcing it to strengthen and heal his body. While he is standing still, the energy that his body attracts feels minuscule, but while performing the Ironhide Technique it feels drawn to him like a magnet.

"Tyrion can you teach me? I feel so close to being able to manipulate energy like that, but I just don't have a feel for it." Caltain pleads with Tyrion.

"I don't know...here sit down and I'll try and channel some energy into you. I don't know if it will work or not though."

After Caltain sits on the floor, Tyrion kneels behind him and places his hands on Caltain's back. Gathering himself and the energy circulating in his body, Tyrion directs the meager energy he has into Caltain's back.

"I can feel a heat coming from your hands. Is that it?"

"Yes. Focus on that feeling and try to capture it."

Quieting down Caltain continues to feel the energy that Tyrion is channeling into him. After a few minutes, Tyrion stops. There is only a small amount of energy entering his body and by the time it travels to his hands most of it has been absorbed by his body.

"That is all I can do. Are you able to feel the energy better now?"

"I think so. I need to practice before I lose this feeling."

"Ok, I need to practice more too. I think in a week I might be able to step into the Initiated realm."

Getting up both Tyrion and Caltain continue to go through the forms and feel the energy entering their bodies. For Caltain this is still a struggle, but one that he is confident he will be able to overcome. For Tyrion, on the other hand, it is a joy. Every time he performs a move, he can feel the energy around him. Like a tiny whirlpool, the energy is pulled into certain parts of his body.

The Ironhide Technique is a basic body refining method that is able to draw energy into every part of the body. Its drawback is that it can only draw in a small amount of energy. This makes it hard for beginners to learn how to feel the energy around them. From Tyrion's knowledge, there are much more powerful techniques that the more powerful families and sects have that can produce a more exaggerated response quickening an individual's ability to feel energy and step into the Initiated realm.

As the week goes by, Tyrion continues to acc.u.mulate energy into his body. The energy slowly starts to remold his body and in particular, Tyrion can feel his skin becoming increasingly supple and elastic, but with a toughness that is hard to describe. Caltain as well seems to be progressing more rapidly after receiving guidance from Tyrion.

Finally, after a complete week of practice, Tyrion is sitting on the roof of the building watching the stars at night. Everything seems familiar yet not to Tyrion as continues to adjust with Jack's consciousness in his head. Currently, his body is brimming with energy. From Tyrion's knowledge, his breakthrough to the Initiated realm should be soon. He just needs to gather a little bit more energy and his body will experience a baptism from all of the energy gathered in his body.

Slowly standing up, Tyrion starts to practice the Ironhide Technique. Every move contains incredible power as he produces concussions in the air. The feeling is incredible. Finally, Tyrion feels like an explosion in his body as the energy that has gathered starts to form a cyclone. This cyclone madly starts to suck in all of the energy around him forming a white colored mist. Tyrion quickly sits down and begins to analyze the changes happening to his body. His organs, bones, and skin are all being tempered incessantly and forcing the toxins to slowly filter out through his skin creating a slight black film that covers Tyrion's body.

As Tyrion continues to feel the changes in his body the most exaggerated is felt in his mind. His thoughts start to feel crystal clear for the first time in his life as the world around starts to brighten and become sharper. As he basks in this transformation of the body and mind, Tyrion can barely imagine the possibilities awaiting him. No longer will he have to live in some crappy apartment, no longer will he have to pay off those sleazebag loan sharks. Everything is going right, nothing can go wrong.

When suddenly it doesn't. Tyrion feels an excruciating pain radiating in his head. Slowly he can feel Jack and himself slowly separating. For something that took weeks to mold together, Jack and Tyrion synced thoughts are now being forcefully ripped apart. As the pain becomes unbearable Tyrion, slowly slips into unconsciousness and falls on the floor of the roof covered with the toxins that were purged from his body.

............…

Jack, on the other hand, is having a much worst time. He has nowhere to go as he feels pulled faster than he can fathom in another direction. The terrible burning left behind by forceful removal of Tyrion's consciousness is still making it hard for Jack to comprehend his surroundings.

Slowly, as the pain begins to fade, Jack feels more than sees a red light flashing around him. Groggily opening his eyes, he can see the spaceship that he was in before. With red lights flashing and the ship computer announcing a fire in one of the holding chambers containing some of the supplies for the outpost. Jack can also hear the computer announce that they are currently halfway through the wormhole. As Jack slowly works his way out of his cryogenic pod, he can't help to think about how interesting it is that they are currently traveling through the wormhole. Before entering the wormhole, the ship should have slowed down and awakened a few people that were critical to making sure everything is ok before proceeding through.

Still suffering from what scientist call cryogenic sickness, Jack stumbles out of the main holding bay for the colonist. Jack can see a few soldiers quickly making their way to the fire as he continues his way to the bridge to assess the damage. As Jack gets closer to the bridge he sees a soldier making his way with a small equipment case down an adjacent hallway. For some reason, Jack finds this weird. With the current emergency, everyone should either be heading to the bridge or heading to help extinguish the fire, but this individual looks like he is carrying his equipment to perform some sort of maintenance.

Thinking that he can go over the losses later, Jack starts following the soldier so that he can ask what he is currently doing. The soldier is about 50 yards ahead of Jack when he enters a chamber with his case. Before Jack has even made up half of that distance, the soldier comes back out, but without the case. Looking around he can see Jack walking towards him.

"Hey," Jack calls out to him while waving.

A surprised look passes on the soldier's face before he quickly turns away and starts to jog in the opposite direction.

"Shit," Jack mumbles as he starts to trot after the soldier. Something feels awful about this. After making it to the same room that the soldier exited from Jack quickly enters and sees the case sitting on the floor with the lid open.

Inside he can see an analog display slowly ticking off a timer. There is still about 5 minutes before it ends. Underneath the timer is what looks like a bomb from some television show. "No... computer please scan this device," Jack calls out.

"A small nuclear explosive has been discovered. There are currently less than 5 minutes before the detonator is triggered. Unable to analyze detonator. Please remove it from the ship as soon as possible"

"Alert, an escape pod launch has been initiated. Please refrain from launching until we have exited the wormhole" the ship computer announces.

"Crap that asshole is trying to escape," Jack thinks in his head as he closes the crate and quickly carries it out of the room and takes off in the direction of the soldier. After a few seconds of sprinting down the hallway, I finally get sight of the escape pods and the terrorist as he tries to quickly override the launch sequence. Hearing me run down the hallway and quickly approaching, the terrorist quickly finishes what he was doing and enters the pod. These pods are made to handle about ten people each giving them plenty of room considering how many are scattered across the ship. As the door to the escape pod closes, Jack finally arrives. Shoving the crate forward he blocks the pod door from fully closing.

Immediately, the terrorist tries to push the crate back out of the pod while Jack tries to push it in. With Jack's free hand he punches across the crate hitting the soldier in the jaw, stunning the man and allowing Jack to finally get the crate into the escape pod. Quickly though the man recovers, and a fight ensues.

While trying to dump the case in the pod and launch the pod Jack is tackled from behind by the man. With Jack's large build and prior military service training, Jack is able to quickly mount the man and pummel his face with hammer fist and elbows, almost knocking him out. Pulling the man out of the pod and depositing him into the hallway so that he can be questioned later, Jack starts to launch the pod from the spaceship.

"One minute till nuclear device detonates. Please remove it from the ship now" the ship computer coldly announces.

Finally, Jack is able to launch the pod. "Computer will we make it out of the blast zone?" Jack asks.

"Yes, we will be safely out of the blast zone by the time the device detonates. It should only slightly destabilize the wormhole, but we shouldn't experience issues."

"Close one" Jack mumbles as he wipes the sweat off of his forehead taking deep labored breaths. As Jack is bent over trying to gather himself, he hears a metal object clink across the floor to him. Looking over Jack can see a blinking round metal object.

"Shit" Jack quickly takes off down the hallway as he hears a creepy gurgling laugh behind him.

"You won't escape death!" Jack hears the man cry out from behind him.

That metal object is a grenade. While it won't be able to critically damage the ship, it will cause a breach in the ship's hull. While these thoughts are flying through Jack's head, he feels a large hot concussive blast him forward before an equally strong force immediately grabs him and pull him to the newly created hole in the side of the ship. Flying out the side of the ship, Jack can just see the sh.i.p.s breach countermeasures trigger sealing the hole in the hull before spinning through space and losing sight of the ship.

Quickly tumbling through space in the wormhole, Jack is surprised at how calm he feels. His biggest worry during that whole ordeal was keeping his family safe. Having accomplished that, Jack is at least secure in the knowledge of their safety. With the ship recording his actions he knows that the government will honor him as a hero and treat his family with the utmost respect.

Luckily, the initial concessive force of the grenade knocked the breath out of Jack. Otherwise, he wouldn't have even lasted this long because the vacuum of space would have caused his lungs to expand and rupture sending fatal air bubble into his heart and brain. As these thoughts quickly flash through Jack's head, his vision is blinded by an enormous explosion caused by the nuclear device that was ejected before him.

What is even more amazing is that as soon as the nuclear explosion erupts it is seemingly s.u.c.k.e.d into another space. Because of Jack's relative closeness to the explosion he can also quickly feel a massive force pull him along with the explosion. He can only think as his vision starts to fade that the wormhole must have partially destabilized around the explosion causing it to be ejected from the wormhole. Right before his vision fades Jack can feel something familiar tugging at him as his direction shifts slightly compared to the remnants of the explosion.