SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Ten
‘I wonder if he’ll ever come back’. Thinks Sharia to herself, thinking back to Ji despite her desire to try and forget him. If she’s honest with herself, she misses him dearly. ‘He’s been gone for three months already. How much longer will it be?’ She wonders. ‘At least he returned Antarctica before she left.’ She admits, relieved. It’d be a nightmare if he hadn’t. The whole debacle with China proved that. Somehow the entire country would be blamed for Ji’s actions, though it wouldn’t be quite as bad this time as Antarctica isn’t exactly inhabited, nor is it one of the few superpowers in the world. Still, it would be a headache so she’s thankful he didn’t leave things up in the air.
She then thinks to the current changes the world is going through. With no weapons, the dynamics of war have changed greatly. Now China is top dog due to an overwhelming population, and in an attempt to counter such advantages, martial arts and close combat training have become popular. Somehow all attempts to make any kind of weapon seem to just…fail. Complex weapons and the blueprints and knowhow on making them has disappeared, but even medieval weapons like a spear, sword, bow and arrow, and such just can’t be made. The most that seems to be allowed is a bat or a stick or something in normal everyday life such as a mop, that can be commandeered as a weapon. And even then, no sharpening it or enhancing it. It just didn’t work. Ji has really changed life on Earth as people know it.
Even more, with the lack of money and all things monetary, a lot has changed with inventions and technology period. Once people stopped holding out in hopes of money somehow reappearing, the level of technology on Earth rose tenfold in just a month. Technology hoarded by companies hoping to make a good buck (read: billions of dollars) has now been released, and with no weapons being possible, even governments have released their technology to the world. Life in general is much better with everything being free, and people getting everything they need without any real cost. She’s sure that soon Earth will be a utopia, and it will all be thanks to Ji. The very thought of it brings a wide smile to Sharia’s face. It looks like she was right about him being a good person, but ultimately wrong about hating his stealing as it’s brought more good to the planet than anything else ever has or ever could. If Ji weren’t such a close friend, she might even owe him an apology. Whenever he got back that is.
But for now, life was good, or as good as it could be without him. She’s still with the Keepers despite his absence, and with them she’s learned a lot of things. Useful things. Like how to operate high level technology, how to make high level technology, how to track and find nearly anyone or anything on the planet, etc. Interestingly enough the Keepers seem to be the one thing, the one group or organization unaffected by the stealing. For whatever reason, Ji seems to have spared them. Sharia couldn’t help to think that it’s because of her that he did so. He did claim he doesn’t steal from her so maybe he saw them as an extension of her by proxy. She also couldn’t help the feeling that maybe he simply enjoyed the chase and the…presence of an enemy, of a police force that the Keepers provided, and that’s why he let them keep their weapons (word play noted). Without them, they’d be no more than common police man or high tech agents that are useless in a fight. Either way, life was interesting for her as she tried to move on without the excitement he brought into her life, and instead replace it with the excitement of being a Keeper.
Ji whistles as he lays back in a brand new space ship that he stole from the King of some slime planet he was just on. The planet was pretty cool but also very monotonous. There was green slime everywhere, and it was very…vibrant. Everything on the planet was either made of slime or leaked slime like it was condensation. There was everything from geysers, rivers, volcanos, etc. of slime to even the grass itself leaking slime. The people were just stereotypical globs of slime, but they were somewhat sophisticated in their culture and technology. Overall, Ji was able to blend in, walk on top of all the slime, and steal both a ship to escape on and their prime slime ball. Ji holds up the ball as he thinks about it, looking it over once more. The ball is about the size of his palm and it’s made of glowing black slime. It’s not lost on him that this is no different than the main treasure on the gaseous planet he left earlier and had declared useless, so he vowed to make sure to go steal that super-gas-treasure-thing as soon as he wasn’t busy moving forward with these other planets. If he tried, it wouldn’t take more than an instant, so it’s not like it’d be a time-wasting endeavor. He then turns back to the treasured slime ball in his hand. ‘I wonder if it’s radioactive.’ He thinks, eyeing it closely. Just then he hears WUKOO! WUKOO! The sound of the space police. ‘Oh look, more space police.’ He muses with excitement. ‘I’ll just veer off to this fire planet and…’ He trails off as he does exactly that and steers the ship down towards to the fire planet at faster-than-light-speeds (as all spaceships had) with a sharp diagonal turn. He loses the police in the process, but makes quite a crash landing.
Ji climbs out of the rubble from the crash and dusts himself off as he looks around at the newest planet he’s landed on.
“Nailed it.” He says to himself with a grin, despite the wreck that was his former ship, a ship fit for a king. As he looks around Ji notices a few things. First, the planet was hot, super hot, very much like the magma planet he was on before. Luckily Ji’s been done away with his vulnerability to heat or any kind of temperature, having stolen it from himself, but he can tell that if he hadn’t he’d be on fire right now and likely turned to ashes by the time he had a chance to scream. Against all possibilities, all laws of physics, and…and logic this fire planet, this fire is somehow hotter than the magma and lava on the magma planet he left. Which is weird because everyone knows lava is hotter than fire. Then again that’s on Earth so maybe things are different elsewhere. With a shrug, Ji continues his observations.
The next thing he notices is that everything on this planet is just like the lavabeasts from the magma planet, the volcanic planet from before. Everything is just fire given shape. The clouds? White fire in the sky given nebulous form. The grass? Green fire that stayed close to the ground and around your feet. The ground? Normal orange-red fire that seemed to have somehow taken a solid form, but is still hot as hell. He could only imagine with the people and animals were like. And the water. Did this planet do the impossible and have water made out of fire? Or maybe they simply lacked water or anything like it. Or maybe it was gasoline, as unsafe as that’d be. He’s pretty sure that the air is nothing but gaseous fumes and butane anyhow. Regardless, he had things to explore and treasures to steal, whether they’re made of fire or not.
Investigating the planet happened quickly for Ji and he was rapidly becoming an expert in it. After exploring the rest of the world, Ji noted that the water was in fact, NOT gasoline, but some sort of liquid fire that didn’t make any kind of scientific sense. The people and animals are essentially the lavabeasts of this world, fire shaped as people and animals, with their own distinct personalities and such. Against all odds, the buildings, roads, and even technology are also made of fire, which just defied all reason. It didn’t stop there either; it extended to clothes, vehicles, jewelry, and so on. Literally everything is a form of fire.
Currently, Ji is the heart of the fire kingdom as he calls it, as neither the planet nor the civilizations have any sort of English or human name. He’s blending in with the wildlife (what he liked to call the aliens on their planets), the fire people, and is in search of the one treasure that will make this trip worth it. Right now Ji is on one of his last five missions before he moved up a step on the proverbial thieving ladder, and he needed to make these last five count.
After a little sightseeing, he whittled down his choices to only one possible target: the Fire Crystal, a jewel made entirely out of solid fire somehow. He didn’t question it anymore given what else he’s seen on the planet; instead he buckles down and prepares to infiltrate the armored castle that holds the crystal within it. He moves swiftly, through detection systems and force fields, dodging lasers that try to find his position and fire people that guard the area. The fire people are faster than they look, moving much faster than humans were capable of moving, fast enough to warrant the fire streams they left behind. This makes it slightly more difficult for Ji, but he adjusts quickly to their speed, his hands twitching as he resists simply stealing it from them, and instead makes necessary calculations to continue his quest for the Fire Crystal. Once the alterations to his plan are made, Ji reaches the crystal quickly and is somewhat amazed by what he sees.
The Fire Crystal is…beautiful, awe–inspiring to say the least. The crystal literally takes Ji’s breath away as he lays eyes on it. The crystal is shaped like a solidified wisp of flame that is multi-colored, encompassing every color of fire possible, all layered perfectly to create the best aesthetics possible. Slowly Ji reaches out to touch the crystal, still mesmerized by its aura and its beauty. His fingers brush the crystal gently, the sensation being that of extreme heat on a smooth surface that somehow didn’t cause pain or harm in any way. Well it wouldn’t do much to Ji regardless due to various things stolen from his body, as mentioned before, but he could tell by touching it that it would have the same effect even on normal humans, without his resistance and lack of vulnerabilities. In that way the crystal is extremely special and very unlike the rest of the fire and fire-made things on this planet. It’s unique, a treasure, priceless. And now it’s his.
Snapping out of his trance, Ji speeds up his movement and hastily snags the crystal and makes his way out of castle and back to his ship. ‘Mission success!’ Ji thinks to himself in jubilance as he fingers the crystal in his grasp while grinning. After this, there’s only five more planets to visit: The Darkness planet, the Light Planet, the Crystal Planet, the Alcohol Planet, and the Gold Planet as he dubbed them, naming them for the substance that the majority of the worlds are made of.
On the Darkness Planet, his target is the Dark Rain, a rare phenomenon where pure darkness burst like a cloud and condensates, forming pure liquid darkness. For the Light Planet, Ji wants to take the special ‘galaxy’ glass as he calls it. The glass allows all who look through it to see any and every frequency of light, even those normally invisible to the human and alien eye. It also works to identify those who would think themselves invisible or hidden in some way. The Crystal Planet, the Gold Planet, and the Alcohol Planet, have obvious targets: some intergalactic booze, shiny metal, and jewels, all taken from pieces of the planets themselves.
‘I wonder if I could’ve taken her with me on this trip, to bask in my happiness, my glory with me. These are special moments that I’d love to share with her…’ He thinks, his thoughts trailing off as he thinks about a certain someone, a childhood friend and Keeper that he left back at home on Earth. ‘No, most of these planets are inhabitable by humans and for some of them, the denizens aren’t even visible to human sight.’ He muses as he decides that he couldn’t bring her along with him. ‘Add in random extreme temperatures, poisonous air, super strong gravity, super light gravity, and so on and without her being completely initiated into the Keepers, she wouldn’t survive without me…stealing from her. And I never steal from her.’ He continues his train of thought as he moves throughout the fire kingdom, on his way to find a new ship to steal for further thievery off-planet. ‘Not without her permission.’ He added. He grins as he finds a military ship made out of solidified fire of some kind, with everything necessary to make it off-world and continue traveling for a while. His hesitance at accepting the logic behind technology made of fire (along with everything else on this world) vanishes the moment he sees the beautiful vessel and his way off the planet and to his other destinations.
With a wide grin, he steps into the military vessel and immediately takes the controls, revving it up for travel and getting it ready for take-off. ‘Then again, she could probably go now if she’s part of the Keeper Elite.’ His thoughts return to Earth and his best friend that he left behind. ‘Maybe I just needed to wait a little.’ He contemplates. ‘Oh well, too late now.’ He thinks as he gets the ship into the air and proper position to being his trip.
‘Still, would’ve been nice if she were here.’ He thinks as he begins his ride to and throughout space. He coasts for a small moment, feeling out the ship and how it flies, as well as the general motion it takes as it travels throughout hyperspace. ‘Let’s see if I can make a speed run on these last five.’ He says to himself internally as he activates the equivalence of a gear shift on the ship. ‘Once I’m done with these, I can move on to bigger and better heights. The moons and the stars. Maybe even literally.’ He then shifts the ship down to the next destination of the Darkness Planet.
‘Maybe I should let the space police catch me once. Or at least tell them my name and whatnot. That way I can be known as Merc both on Earth and in space.’ He thinks with a grin. ‘I’ll be the greatest thief in not just the world, or the solar system, but the galaxy, and maybe even the universe.’ He exclaims excitedly in his head, his grin growing.
“Merc: The Universe’s Greatest Thief.” He says out loud as he lands on the Darkness Planet. “No, The Greatest Thief in the Universe. Now that has a good ring to it.”