May 21st, 212.
Anoteri Epistemi; Early Forenoon.
The beacon was brighter now. Beams streamed down onto the campus quad just outside the dining hall, obscured by the large canopy built over it. A moment passed. Yaz watched the beacon. It was nearing completion of its early task to brighten the sky. Soon, he thought wryly, it would be morning in The Highlands.
Yaz was standing on the quad’s left side, leaning against one of the thick poles which held the canopy aloft. He had a sad smile on his face; an expression that his mom, Ula, used when disappointed with him. Being that it was two weeks until summer break, and a nice day, the grounds had a lot of occupants. They rested under trees, read books, or played frisbee in the grass. Whereas this annoyed Yaz, on the opposing side of the quad, Kenneth was basking in it.
“A noumenon! We’re having a fucking noumenon! I’m gonna kick his ass!” He yelled out to the, unfortunately, gathering crowd. His voice was loud, and a noumenon was interesting enough, but more people were turning to watch than should. Black motes leapt from Kenneth into the sky. Yaz’s disappointed smile tightened.
A noumenon was an ancient religious combat rite, of sorts. Two people would battle as the Gods, displaying the strength of human existence. They’d bare their souls before a crowd of onlookers, pushing their body, and psyche to the brink. A literal battle of spirits. Cathartic and honorable for participants. A ritual reinforcing belief and the power of those closest to the Gods, for the audience.
The concept had diminished in stature, as most profane knowledge, when made public. These days noumenon meant little of its original context. Overtime, the term had come to be used to refer to declaration of wars, disastrous vendettas, duels, and even sports. An almost too all-purpose appropriation, in Yaz’s opinion. However, it still somehow managed to carry a power. It was the power of most epics and half remembered folklore. An unconscious, almost metaphorical impact. This power, as these things go, had led to it becoming law.
As far as official Etre City rulings went, noumenon were now viewed as legally binding challenges. This included war declarations of the Hood 55 and various Spirit Commonwealth. Yet, because of the unique way Spirit Entities were seen by the law, Pneumacratic legislation had to include individuals too. Which meant, essentially, that people could declare war, on each other. Metropolitics. Yaz hated the class, but he’d picked up a few things.
Of course, even in such a might-equals-right oligarchy as Etre City’s, the citizens weren’t mandated to this constitutional rivalry. If an average person (who hardly would bother) declared noumenon, the challenged had legal rights to refusal. Yaz could’ve done that. Watched Kenneth struggle as the LADs dragged him off to Sector for pressing the issue. But, noumenon did still carry a power. Yaz, among many others, had fallen victim to this power.
Then, Yaz, having majored in Syncretic Culturalism at Ash U, felt stronger about this than most. His specialty were myths and legends. Of course he’d accepted the battle. Noumenon were sacred traditions that, although weakened, still seemed to be worth more than casually initiating in a dining hall. Especially for something that was wrong to do in the first place.
Most importantly though, taken literally, a noumenon was a challenge against the very ideals that a person stood for. This penchant for battling for his ideals, of course, was why he had even found himself in this predicament. Natch, in most predicaments of his lifetime.
“Looks like you have a fan club, little man.” Kenneth tipped his head toward him. Yaz was still very annoyed at the whole ‘little man’ discrepancy, but he did turn to peek.
They looked like Amazons, and a captured male for fertilization. Aggadah walked with the grace of a hunting panther, a pack of two other girls a little behind. Next to her was a skinny guy in a purple hoodie, his shaded expression turned in a smug frown. Somewhere on each of their clothing, they had a purple flower. An orchid. This was Orchid Swank.
Seeming every bit as badass as the rumors went, Aggadah posted up by a large oak tree. She leaned back against it, hard. So hard, in fact, that the plant vibrated, shaking branches and leaves. A peach fell into her hand and she bit into it sharply.
“Hey!” Yaz smiled at Aggadah, waving. With a frown, she nodded back. The guy in the hoodie stared, still looking smug.
“Okay, okay, I think that’s enough.” Yaz turned to face Kenneth. He was shirtless now, as he stepped onto the raised platform in the quad’s center. Girls were snatching feathers from his discarded jacket. He gestured with a hand, “This seems more than enough of an audience to stare, as I kick your ass, pipsqueak.”
Pipsqueak. Yaz noted. He wasn’t sure if that was devolution, or reverse. “Yes, a lithe frame can get annoying. Guess I kinda blame my DNA, from my mom. She’s the petite one.”
A laugh from the crowd shocked him. Yaz followed the sound. Viego. With Angie. Fantastic, now even people who he actually had to interact with were here.
“Shut up!” Kenneth roared. “Let’s go!”
“You know the rules. No killing. Pass out or tap out. Don’t obey, Nowy Loch you stay.” The LAD Youther, standing just outside the crowd beneath the platform, recited it all as if the entire situation was vexatious to her.
“Oh, he’s definitely gonna die!” Kenneth was on Yaz in an instant.
He tossed a jab. Like earlier, Yaz ducked beneath it, crouching. Springing upwards Yaz launched a strong uppercut with his right. Kenneth stepped back, swinging his large arm like a club in the same motion. Yaz’s left was already raised to block, and he used the opening to throw a quick jab. It connected.
Kenneth staggered back, wiping red from his lips. He’d already been retreating, so most of the blow’s force had been weakened. Still, Yaz had drawn first blood. Kenneth’s leg radiated black particles. Innumerable äni motes of cimmerian dust becoming so voluminous they appeared as a wispy cloud, Änim. Within the cloud the motes oscillated in a rectangular, surge waveform. Yaz knew the arrangement with deep familiarity, the Protest Āxis. Enhance āxon; affecting the personal physical self.
His heel met the top of Kenneth’s foot before the kick had risen. Too far into the strike, Kenneth tried to press into the advance and leave Yaz off balance. Bad choice. Yaz used the leverage, treating Kenneth’s kick as a fulcrum of sorts, bringing his own leg up in a backwards flip. There was a clattering of teeth as his foot hit chin. Yaz landed unsteadily from the backflip. Kenneth landed a few feet away on his back.
A squeal of worry erupted from Iago’s girls. Some shouts of encouragement rung out from the crowd. Yaz noticed Aggadah in his periphery. She was watching the battle with an experienced fighter’s scrutiny. Testing him? Her eyes widened; just a fraction. Didn’t matter.
Yaz had already sensed it. Felt the prickling of his psyche, soft vibrations on his skin. He leapt forward. There was a bwomp sound. Like a dense pillow slapping air away. The spot he’d been standing flared with motes forking in a square wave, making a feathery cube of Änim.
The cube faded. Dust and pebbles dropped back to the tile. Sculpt. An Outreach āxon. None of the area the cube had encased seemed different. Hadn’t altered the province, the terrain of their battlefield. A distraction then.
As Yaz landed, a kick hit him square in the chest. He skidded backwards, held his footing, and sprung up in fighting stance with arms raised, once the momentum halted.
“Ha-ha, finally got you to use your Enhance, little man?” Kenneth guffawed. Black motes floated away in a pulsing surge wave, just above Yaz’s solar plexus. There was a muddy footprint on his yellow button-up. He wondered how much Kenneth spent on shoes.
“Don’t sound so accomplished. You’re supposed to be trying to win, not making me take you serious.” Yaz smiled. “I still don’t, by the way.”
Kenneth’s entire body encased in an aura of Änim. It was tight on his form, translucent and wispy; a second skin made of plasmic dust. Änimizing. The Sixth Axis. The penultimate step to releasing who you were onto the world. An Eminence aura, allowing one’s Sobriquet to be enacted on the material plane. A purple-pink feather poked from Kenneth’s skin. Realizing he’d made a fatal misjudgment, Yaz turned to run. Too late.
His head snapped back to glance at the feather, almost breaking his neck. His lower body, already rotating to turn away, shuddered from the motion. He lost his footing. As he collapsed, Yaz’s chin speared into his knuckles, hands out to blunt the damage. His eyes dragged themselves up on Kenneth.
Aesmancy was the practice of using spirit’s perception to affect the world. Theology, science, philosophy; it was all these things in one. In particular, however, Aesmantic combat was a bit easier to explain. It consisted of only six forms, the Six Āxis. Five of those six were the base forms, sometimes called the Āxials: Counsel, Outreach, Reside, Protest and Influence. COPRI, for short.
The man, who’d been shirtless just moments before, was now sporting his feathered ‘jacket’ again. Well, technically, it was still a jacket. But not just a jacket. It was an Evince. This had been Yaz’s error; not picking up on the fact before. The way the girls were snatching up feathers… where the äni motes had floated… So many obvious signals. He should’ve noticed it sooner. He was better than that. Yaz stood.
Änim, the black particles now encompassing Kenneth, was the term Etre’s ancients had chosen for that transcendent principle inside every being. Their spirit. Itself part of a larger matrix, Æon Änim. Outreach provided, perhaps, one of the better methods for displaying this. The Second Āxis was the form for affecting the external space; a being’s province. Evince: materializing objects, and Sculpt: altering an area, were the Outreach techniques. Its āxon.
Kenneth was laughing, leaving himself open. Yaz rushed in. He threw two quick jabs with his right hand. Instead of blocking, Kenneth sidestepped the blows. This had the unfortunate side-effect of taking him out of Yaz’s sights. Yaz’s head snapped right, directly into a waiting fist. He bounced onto the marble tile.
Before he could pull himself up entirely, Kenneth kicked him in the ribs. The blow had enough force to take him aerial. Yaz swirled, landing on his back. His forearms slammed together blocking a follow-up stomp.
He pushed up, leaving Kenneth balancing precariously on one foot. Slapping his palms to the marble, Yaz gave himself just enough leverage to launch a kick across his body. Kenneth parried the blow, and with his other arm tossed a blue-green feather away.
“Fuck.” Yaz grunted, his head turning to follow the path the feather had taken. Kenneth’s foot hit the back of his skull. He was sent skidding across the quad. Face first.
Evince āxon was simple enough when it came to forging normal objects. Guns, swords, golf clubs. They all could be concocted and handle their regular task. But to truly utilize the full capabilities of being an Aesmancer, that required imbuing Sobriquet properties.
The final form, the Sixth Âxis, was special. It was Änimizing. Using the âxon of Eminence to create a personal reality, and allowing a Sobriquet to exhibit a spirit’s perception into shared reality. The unseen components of what made a person who they were. Extricated from transcendent depths and formed manifest. An ability to touch reality, in a way unique only to the very essence of a personality. All summed up in one word. A single adjective.
“…‘Peacock’.” Yaz groaned, slowly pulling himself up from the ground. He touched his side tenderly. There was a spasm of pain. Fucker had almost broken a rib. At breakfast. It was too early for this type of intensity. Who gangbanged over bacon?
“What?” Kenneth stopped his approach. He quirked an eyebrow, lifting the hairline of his tie-dye hair a bit.
“‘Peacock’.” Yaz repeated, without the groan. His voice stronger. “It’s your Sobriquet, right? Making others have to look at you? Like, peacocking?”
Kenneth glowered. Yaz smiled, continuing.
“I’m from The Highlands. It’s a rough hood, sure you’ve heard. Gotta habit for keeping my Espy active at all times. Low, but active. Felt you before you even kicked the dining hall’s door down. Figured it was just some petty Influence Exhibit, at first. Wasn’t till the fight that I realized. ‘Peacock’. Attention grabbing feathers. It’s cute.”
“Fuck you-”
“Can’t believe you were that stupid. Not only are you an asshole, using your feathers to make those girls like that. But, you keep your Eminence active just walking campus? Änimizing on the Sabbath?! Of course anyone you fought would figure your Sobriquet out. Idiot.”
A few people grumbled at the mention of the girls, glancing over at them and realizing what the battle was about. Causing people to do more than just look obviously took Kenneth focus and effort. With anger lapsing his concentration, the audience were freer to adjust their glances. Expletives, and other invective phrases soon followed. Some even mentioned it was Monday, and not quite the Sabbath. Yaz imagined it was for some culture though.
“FUCK YOU!” Kenneth yelled. To the audience as much as to Yaz. The crowd didn’t quiet. “You’re the first fucking idiot to get on my case about this. Duh, people know. It doesn’t matter! I’m the goddamn captain of the racquetball team! Either I get away with it, or I make sure I get away with it.” He glared, the ani motes around him pulsed violently.
“Whoa.” Yaz said in startlement. “There’s a racquetball team? With a captain?! …Intramural?” Some satisfying chuckles from the crowd. Kenneth growled.
“Look, it doesn’t fucking matter if you’ve guessed my Sobriquet, little man. Won’t make a difference when I stomp that irritating smile from your face.” He punched his fist into his palm.
“Oh, Kenneth. Poor boy. Knowing is half the noumenon.” Yaz shook his head, grinning.
A multitude of Kenneth’s feathers prickled. The beacon shining down made them glisten, colorful daggers. Yaz’s head snapped straight. Kenneth lunged forward.
“Okay,” Yaz sighed. “I wasn’t going to do this, but since you’ve made me have to stare at you… Guess I’ll return the favor.”
Kenneth’s fist was inches away from Yaz’s face when it happened. The smiling boy Änimized, his entire body surrounded by the diaphanous black particles. Yaz raised his fist.
“Exhibit: Don Light!” A second later, and the quad was blinding.
A brilliant golden-yellow shine emanated out from the quad’s center where Yaz had been standing. It was bright enough that the crowd gathered around swore aloud, casting their palms outward to shield sensitive retina.
It wasn’t long. The glow lasted for only a few seconds. Still, even after it was gone, the onlookers found themselves rapidly blinking. Small spots of tiny, white phosphene transfixed in their vision. The girls who’d made up Kenneth’s entourage were shaking their heads rapidly, gazing around with bewildered expressions.
Yaz stood over Kenneth’s prone body. The man was on his back, feathers gone, shirtless yet again. His eyes had rolled to the back of his head and droplets of tears wet his cheekbones. With his persona depleted, his will gone, the ambient Änim surrounding him hadn’t been strong enough to protect his gorgeous face. There was a deep-red, fist shaped indent on his right jaw. Rings of light pink radiated out from it. Gold flecks of photons whisked in the wind. The aura of translucent black particles around them both faded.
Yaz smiled.
“Turns out, you were a total featherweight, big man.”
Spirit of the City 