Darius slowly woke up in warmth that has soothed him for as long as he could remember. His body felt limp but he could still feel his legs and toes and his arms and fingers. He can tell he's lying on something soft and at the same time, his head being laid on something much thicker but soft nonetheless. Maybe it’s his pillow or one of his throw pillows, he doesn't care although a bit strange that it’s much warmer than anything else that he can feel. The peacefulness was even more enjoyable since his head was being gently massaged by tiny beads of warmth and softness... which made him realize what was going on and forced him to open his eyes.
“Hey... you okay, baby?” Aunt Joe asked gently. Darius nodded as he couldn't find his voice. He can breathe normally again although he doesn't think it was air he's inhaling, he tried to sit up straight and see where he was because everything is mostly dark but his arms felt too weak to support his weight. When did he become so heavy all of a sudden?
“What happened?” he croaked. It sort of stings when he said it but the pain is subsiding and he can feel his strength very slowly returning.
“You passed out... you've been laying on the bed for the past two days,” she replied. Darius would normally be shocked to find he fell in a short-term coma but he doesn't feel all that bad or surprising about it. If anything, he feels quite at peace with it although his memory is a little shaken.
“Where are we? Why is so dark here?” he asked as he sat up straight. His back is now numb but the blood is circulating in again.
“Well, it is nighttime... it'll be dawn in a few more hours,” she said but even if he couldn't see her, her voice was shaking and sounded as if she was trying to keep herself together.
“Everything is alright... I'm okay, my body still works and I can still--” he stopped when he heard sobs and a single sniff. A sudden hug by Aunt Joe nearly threw him off-balance but he slowly hugged her back and held her as gently as he could although curiosity did hit him as to when did Aunt Joe become so light.
“I thought you were dead...” she whimpered, “There was no pulse, no breathing, nothing... I could have sworn you were dead.” she cried quietly. She didn't let go of him and Darius simply sat there quietly and held her. He can feel her pulse, her everlasting warmth, and can feel every emotion she has with every drop of her tear. He couldn't see her face but he knows the sorrow she was going through and could feel every aspect of her sadness, to a point a tear leaked from his left eye.
“I'm surprised you didn't tell anyone. You could've called for help,” he said gently while caressing her hair.
“Somehow,” she said as she lets go of him, “I knew you were still alive, I knew you were still here... I just had to wait.” her voice was still shaking but had signs of extreme relief. He could feel her emotion of devastation if she had to bury another family member.
“We've had a pretty crazy weekend, huh?” he said trying to lighten the mood.
“Yeah... super crazy...” she replied with another sniff.
“Well, I'm back and I'll be kicking again real soon... why don't you go back to bed? I'll handle breakfast this time,” he said with a smile although Aunt Joe probably can't see it.
“I would if there was space. You're in my bed, honey,” she said with a small chuckle. Now that she mentions it, Darius looked around and could make out the shape of the room walls and can see that it’s much different than his own and obviously, the bed was a queen size.
“Whoops. Guess I'll go back to my room then,” he said. He got up to leave before being stopped by Aunt Joe's voice again.
“You owe me a really good breakfast later,” she said while struggling with her voice.
“You got it. Good night, Aunt Joe, and thanks for waiting,” he said and turned to leave.
“I love you, kiddo... sleep well,” she said lastly.
“I love you, too, Aunt Joe...” he replied and left. His walking felt weird as if he was tiptoeing on air but he managed to get back to his bedroom without falling. He lay on his bed but this time, the air wasn't thin or dissipating. If anything, he hasn't felt more alive. He walked around his darkroom whilst practicing to walk like a baby but it took him several seconds to master every single limb on his lower half. Perplexed, he stretched a little and decided to tease his body a little. He has never felt so good about himself, so free, so relaxed, and yet at the same time can easily hit the ground running at a moment's notice. He stood on one foot and flexed the other whilst flexing his arms and torso as well, he would normally feel some sort of strain or a slightly painful reflex but there was absolutely nothing. If anything, he felt like he just had a great stretch right before... and his adrenaline couldn't be more active.
Darius looked out the window and could see nothing but darkness, save a few stars and lights for the nearest house along the hill. He slid open his window and simply jumped out, landing fifteen feet after and as hoped, not a single sting.
“Huh, how about that?” he said to himself. Wanting to try more, he ran straight to the end of the hill and stopped at the edge. He looked back to his house and saw that all lights are out, he closed his eyes and could feel Aunt Joe's pulse is calm and steady which proves she was sound asleep. He turned around and looked over the horizon, and slowly like the sunrise, the darkness faded and he can see the trees, the eastern river, the nearby town, and the nearby wanderers that are traveling on foot. He looked down to his hands and could see them properly this time but it felt different, he knows it’s his hands and arms but there's something new about them. He looked up and laughed at himself because of the countless upon countless stars he can see this time compared to what he could see with his normal eyes. This time, the nocturnal world was as clear as day and if anything, ads the beauty of nature by at least triple. Is this what being a Psyon is like?
Forget the night vision; he can see rivers and vast streams of raw energy in the sky. Colors of all mixtures streaked across the heavens as they danced in harmony with each other, Darius laughed at himself again because of the wonders that he can see and excitement is now surging through his body.
He looked down and wanted to test his limits more, the excitement is too overbearing and the idea to jump is far too simple. He took several steps back before sprinting to the edge and jumped: high!
“Whoa!” he shouted but at this height, he doubts anything could hear him. He flapped and waved his arms and legs around but it doesn't help, as he slowly descended to the earth, he focused his sight and could see it all: where he will land, what he will land on, his altitude, his speed of fall, all of it. He narrowed his eyes and flexed his body to balance himself and thrust himself forward, arms to his side and legs straight behind him like a hawk about to capture its prey.
This appears to have made this thrust through the air that much faster and as he burst through the atmosphere itself, the power he feels surging in every pore of his body increases by the second. He widened his sight and he can see it, now! He flexed his body again flipped forward and landed hard on the ground, feet first. The impact wasn't loud but it left quite the shudder in its surroundings and a crater right beneath him.
“Whoa...” he said to himself again. Still not believing what just happened; he looked around and could see he landed right where he saw it or rather where he wanted it. He landed in a large clearing in between trees but quite far off from the hill. With an exhale of relief, he looked up at the skies again and everything is exactly as he first saw it. This is no dream, this is no trick or sorcery, he is truly a Psyon and whether he likes it or not, he's now become the very thing he once revered in fairy tales.
Flexing his legs again, he jumped high and landed several feet away from the crater. Looking around to ensure nobody sees him, he started to run. He got faster and faster until he exceeded his normal speed and realized he could go much faster than this. He kicked the ground hard and sprinted forward, now moving so fast everything else looks like a blur. He laughed at himself again for this; the air resistance didn't bother him one bit and he's now much faster than any animal that can run on land. What's best is that he knew where he was going, he can see everything just like when he was falling, he jumped from tree to tree and barely swung on any branches as all he had to do was jump. The landing, the grabbing, the hard surface of the wooden trunks was absolutely nothing to his skin. After a few more jumps, he reached the bottom of the hill where the steep sides were nonclimbable, or at least, it used to be.
Darius flexed his arms a little although at this point he sees no real benefit to doing that. He jumped high, much higher than the normal would have to, and reached a hold on the hillside. He chuckled at how he's capable of doing all this and continued his jumps, skipping from boulder to boulder until he reached the near top. But just as he nears the top, he looked at the sky again with all of its vibrant colors and swirling energies. He figured if he could run super-fast, jump super high, he sees no reason why the flight was impossible.
He breathed in and out slowly but this time, he knows what it is he was inhaling. The very air itself around him is teeming with raw energy in its very molecules and he's been sucking in every bit of it.
“Guess there's more to this body than I thought...” he said. Calculating where he wants to go, he sees his target: the cloud lines. He closed his eyes and tried to feel the swirling energy around him which by now is as easy as swallowing water; he opened his eyes and jumped straight up. This time, the jump is much higher and he could feel the air around him swirling and pulling him forward higher and higher until it stopped. He wanted to go higher but couldn't and at the same time, he's not going down either; he's stuck in midair.
“Okay, that's not part of the plan,” he said. The air up here is freezing but not as cold as it should be to him and he can tell it’s extremely windy here but again, he feels very little.
“Well, it’s not flying but I guess this does the trick,” he said to himself and eased his body this time. He slowly descended to the ground without a single sound made but the descent was more like a balloon losing air rather than him controlling the descent. Either way, the thrill of being capable of doing all of this is simply exhilarating.
He snuck back into his room the same way he came out but at a much easier pace compare to his previous attempts. As he washed himself off in the bathroom, he ponders his mind as to what else he can do. After all, Psyons are powerful beings of great might and justice; a few jumps and extra running speed is hardly the stuff of legend. He needs to get his gear together and learn more about all this.
Darius couldn’t sleep that night. Leaving aside the fact that he just woke up from a short two-day coma, so many things were running through his head. He knows things, things that you can only know by reading a textbook or having a teacher teach you those words themselves, and yet he knows them. This new profound knowledge is surging through his brain like wildfire but Darius is enjoying this new brainwave. For the first time in his life, many things that were once a jumble of information mess now made sense, and its surprising to him that he can connect them all so easily. Math, science, aerodynamics, energy nature, and acceleration, all of this felt like it was at the tip of his fingers.
He went to his study desk and tried to write something, anything at all, so long as it was off his mind and on a piece of paper. He tapped the paper with the end of the pencil thinking about what to write but now that he’s here to write something, nothing is coming up. The brainwave is still surging but he can’t write it down no matter how hard he tries it. It’s as if there is a barrier between his brain and his hand. Wanting to give up, he threw the pencil across the room; only to find it stuck in midair.
“What the...” he murmured. The pencil was just levitating a few feet off the floor; it spun around slowly in a circle and stops when Darius loses his direct attention. He raised his right hand and with a twirl of his forefinger, the pencil spun around according to the will of the finger. He chuckled to himself again, the discoveries of his Psyonic abilities are not yet over and once he telekinetically placed the pencil back on the study desk, he tried to move around another object. His study lamp, his books, his throw pillows, he could move it all with his mind. Although he could move them without any trouble (if anything, it’s a hundred times easier to move things by using hands), he had to use one or both hands to fully levitate multiple things at once.
“Freaking awesome…” he muttered under his breath. He then went on to his private study room just next door and ravaged the library on the topic of Psyons. Since Psyons itself are not exactly a subject of professionalism and sound facts, he has too looked back into the old pages of the original books from whence these legends came: his bedtime storybooks.
He has heard about them many times before their adventures, their stories of heroism, their prevailed sense of justice and equality. And now, he has the opportunity to accomplish the same feat.
“Found you!” he snapped. He took out a very dusty leather-bound book and blew the dust off the top end. He flipped through the first few pages and it smelled strong of moth and musk. The book is labeled The Adventures of the Three with most of it being depictions of how three brothers eventually became Psyons and journeyed through the world to discover more about themselves.
The first few pages were roughly about the three young boys themselves from ordinary farm-boys to something of a legend. Darius skipped several more pages to the part on how they became Psyons in the first place and what abilities they had in case any of them were similar.
“And thus it was, the word to which they called upon themselves were Psyon as they had no other name to call themselves as they were Chosen...” Darius recited as he read through a few paragraphs.
“They could move rocks and sticks and water without touching them as it was given as a Gift of Gaia and unto them, Gaia gave more.” Darius kept reading. He already figured out that was telekinesis but there had to be more. He skipped a couple of chapters or so until he got the more interesting parts that he remembered.
“The Three could outrun any animal on land or outfly any bird of the sky. They could sleep in the oceans as if it was home and not even the thickness of a mountain could withstand them. One of the Three could break any steel, one of the Three could shake hands with the ethereal and one of the Three could heal any wound of death...” as Darius continued to read further and further, he realized that the Three brothers had different abilities as their power grew and they used it to help other people. He took out a piece of parchment, a quill, and ink and scribbled down anything that these brothers had in common.
Telekinesis, excelled speed, submergence, and high altitude endurance seem to be the more commonplace of their abilities as Darius could deduce. Other than that, the rest of the book just told back the story of how each of them made use of their power which, during those times, was called Gifts of Gaia. In their younger days, the eldest of the Three brothers called themselves Fleshborne as they were still inhabiting a “Mortal body”.
“Hmm... Fleshborne... I guess that’s what I am now.” Darius mumbled. Nothing of the Catalysts was mentioned anywhere in the book except for one paragraph where it reads:
“The oldest of the Three learned all there is to learn and become an Explorer. He explored the worlds both known and unknown. He returned with knowledge vast beyond any Mortal and passed it to those willing.”
The oldest of the Three Brothers was easily known as perhaps some sort of scholar or professor but what other worlds were there, Darius did not know and it was never mentioned in this book at the very least.
“The middle-child of the Three feared death but he was the known warrior and his Gifts passed on death to not only the living but that of rock and stone and wood and metal. Mountains would bow before him and the heavens would weep in silence.”
That part made Darius scratch his head more than the previous brother. The middle child or the second brother of the Three could be the strongest of them but his skill or power didn’t specify itself in any way other than the fact that he could kill almost anything.
“The youngest of the Three could chase and cross blades with joy amongst the ethereal as they enjoyed the company of the living but the living does not suffer the dead to return.”
By reading that part alone, Darius realized immediately that this brother could communicate or at least see ghosts. The other two seemed more common practice even in the current age. As he kept reading, other than what’s already known about the Three, one of the last few chapters had written something very peculiar that caught Darius’s attention:
“The eldest of the Three passed his knowledge unto others and they followed him. The second and youngest of the Three realized they too could pass their knowledge unto others and they too would follow them but the youngest finds no fond of the idea. The second of the Three passed his knowledge vastly among his companions but in return, they did not follow him as the knowledge passed unto them was too little and they began to bicker like children for sweet spoils.
“What in the world is that supposed to mean?” Darius asked himself. There was but a brief description in the final pages of the book that the companions of the second brother began fighting each other over more knowledge until they addled with the air, the earth, the fire, the waters, the shadow, and the Light.
Excitement is still rushing in his brain as he cracked the Psyon code little by little reading this old story but right then and there, a cold, piercing fear erupted inside him. These Psyons had participated in battles and wars: thoughts of actual combat, killing, and chaotic destruction now swam in his head. While true Psyons have a powerful reputation for saviors of life and the world, the destruction they can cause is more devastating than any mortal army could create. The deaths that he will have to endure, the sadness of people, the ruins of homes and families… all of that will eventually be on his hands.
He placed the book back on the shelf with the rest of the dusty books. He turned to look at himself in the mirror, naturally, his body would change as well from an average to a well-built form but this is just another way to incite the unchallenged fights. But then again, their many merits to this as well as Psyons are known for their nature not to kill and is neutral to all parties being it a country or small village.
“What did I get myself into?” he asked the mirror. He lay back on his bed and closed his eyes, trying to sleep. Hopefully, he can try to adapt to this situation much better.

***
Joanna woke up with eyes still heavy. Her shirt is rummaged and slowly sliding off but she held it properly on her shoulder, she could smell the burning scent of waffles and eggs and smiled at the thought that her nephew would cook for her breakfast. She wanted to cry because of the happiness swelling inside due to Darius still being alive and cooking her breakfast! You don’t get that every day.
She got up, walked to her closet, and opened the right-side door, her clothes were basically messed up and not even folded or hung properly. She rummaged through her clothes, pushed aside her Palace Handmaiden uniform but stared at it for a while for continuing her search and found what she was looking for, a golden jewelry box. Using her necklace, she slotted her jewel in the keyhole and it opened, revealing inside pictures of the whole family… and its acquaintances.
I should tell him now, she thought, he’s old and wise enough to know who he is. She closed the jewelry box and put it back behind her mountain of clothes. Yes, it’s time to reveal to him who and what he is and hopefully, Darius won’t take it too hard. She went to the showers and prepared herself.
***
Darius set the plates and food on the table. Cooking has never been easier for him; somehow, he knows how hot the stove should be, how much butter is needed, how long he should fry the egg to perfection and so much more. His mind is racing on things his memories already knew, obviously, he knows how to cook but it’s like everything he learned just came back to him in a single zap; and he loves it!
Everything he knows, every single moment of knowledge he gained, he remembers it all from the first Light Runes to the first swing of the sword, and the best part is that all of this sudden jump-start of information in his brain isn’t giving him a headache. Aunt Joe walked in with her hair in a braid wearing a red dress with streaks of gold coming from the shoulder down but it was a peculiar dress because he’s never seen this one before… looks more formal than a casual dress.
“Good morning, baby.” She greeted.
“Morning… what dress is that? I’ve never seen it before.” He asked as he pulled the chair to let her sit.
“My, my, a gentleman today?” she asked as she tucked herself comfortably.
“Maybe, consider this as small thanks for watching over me for the past two days. Still can’t believe I passed out that long.” Darius replied with a chuckle.
Darius set the food down and after being properly seated, they ate their breakfast quietly and Aunt Joe is growing more anxious. He can feel her pulse quickening and her blood rushing more quickly.
“Everything alright?” he asked.
“Yeah, everything is fine… Dar, do you remember once you asked me what your parents were like?” she said. Coincidentally, he remembers every detail of it.
“Yeah, I was about four and I asked why I didn’t have a dad. And then you said you’ll tell me when I’m older.” He said casually.
“Well, I think you’re old enough now to know what happened to your parents.” She said gently. Darius swallowed his food whole and paid attentively for anything she might say next. After so many years of waiting, he can finally get the right answer… or at least he hopes he will.
“Your parents left a certain gift behind before they left. I think it’s about time you had it in your keep. Here,” she said as she placed the jewelry box on the table, “this was a gift for your parents on their wedding day… before they left; they had the desire to pass this down to you when the right time comes.”
“That's a cool box… what’s in it?” he asked.
“It’s a secret your mother left behind… while your father,” she said as she pulled and removed the necklace from her neck, “left this jewel. It acts as a key to the box.”
The jewel wasn’t a jewel but exquisite crafting of platinum and gold. Two wings bent downwards on its sides, a twirl of two X’s in the center with a small red ruby at its core. The ruby itself was radiating an ominous glow as if the fire itself was trapped inside.
“Wow… it’s really beautiful… how does it work?” he asked while his eyes were hypnotized by the glow.
“I can’t tell you that just yet,” she said with a giggle, “but I’m sure you’ll figure it out someday… I just hope you’ll like it.” She said finally and ate her waffles. Darius looked to her and then to the box and pondered on what was inside it. This is completely new because no matter how much his brain racked over it, no knowledge of this box was found. He could not wait to open it.
“Hurry and finish your breakfast, the barbecue will be starting soon. And we have a lot to do.” Aunt Joe said with a smile.