Invincible Earth! : Volume 1
Chapter 3: Phase 1

As Lance closed his eyes, he heard a female voice speaking as if it were right beside his ear.

“Welcome to Initiation Phase-1. Here you will experience and know about the current state of matters and the reason for your experiences so far. At any point of time, do not feel alarmed as this is essentially happening in your dream and anything that happens here cannot cause any physical harm to you.”

The voice was bubbly and relaxing, lulling Lance into a comfortable state. He opened his eyes to see himself lying on his favorite place to spend time in when he was back in college: in the middle of the football ground with the vast starry sky above him.

There was no one around him, and Lance had the feeling that this was the place where he could be his genuine self not caring about anything. Basically, he was in a perfect dream.

“Identified and placed initiate in optimal setting. Beginning Phase 1.”

As the voice faded, it was as if a giant TV had been switched on in the sky. Occupying half of his entire vision, the TV was showing images of his daily life. He saw himself wake up, get dressed and go to class. But there was something horrifying about the image that Lance couldn’t grasp.

As he saw the date on the bedside clock, he finally realized what was wrong with the images. It showed the date of the day after he had fallen asleep and woken up in the stone chamber! He was wearing the clothes he had gone to sleep in, and as usual due to over sleeping he could only rinse his mouth with cold water before rushing off to class.

Lance watched on as the other Lance proceeded through his day, exactly as he would.

“Am-am I dead?“, Lance asked, dreading the answer.

“No. You are alive.”

“Then who the hell is that?“, asked Lance, pointing at the sky.

“That is a soul imprint driven construct designed to replace you in your day to day life.”

As Lance couldn’t replace words to reply, the voice continued speaking.

“What makes you you? You are basically a set of neurons developed in a specific way due to the sum total of experiences you have had. We took a copy of your body to the very last cell and placed it back in the setting it was in before initiation began. What you see is what followed after that.”

“Testing question 1: At this stage, can you tell me what makes you unique? How can you say that you are not the copy but the original?”

Lance stopped watching the giant projection in the sky and looked at the ground to gather his thoughts. He remembered all the data he had found by days and hours of searching on the internet for every source possible with information about the paranormal. He knew he had the answer to this question, and it was also why although he had been scared, he hadn’t felt lost by seeing a copy of him living his life.

“My soul and consciousness. Even if you could make an exact replica of me, it would only be a zombie unless it was driven by my soul. The body is the engine, but the soul is the driver. Even in your explanation, you said that it was soul imprint driven. My guess is that you somehow made an imprint of my soul which can drive this replica. My subconscious could be controlling it right now but I wouldn’t know of it. It functions in the same way that you are sometimes controlled by something else in your dreams. You are actually the one in control, but you do not feel so because it is your subconscious doing it for you.“, said Lance, with a look of determination on his face. This was where he belonged after all, felt Lance as he vowed to never again doubt himself based on anything he sees.

This had been his goal all along. To enter the world beyond the one he could see, no matter how it was. And he was now reaching that goal. Lance felt excitement and adrenaline coursing through his veins as he steeled himself for anything that might come.

“Perfect answer. Score: 120/100.”

…

As confidence surged in Lance, the screen above him changed.

The image he saw now elicited an almost primal response from his heart and soul.

A magnificent dragon, golden in color and shining bright, coiled around the blue globe that countless humans called home. The dragon had a wingspan as large as its body. As on the screen it stretched its body and roared into space, its body and wings covered the earth fully, protecting it and sheltering it from whatever lay in the cosmos.

Lance roared with the dragon, losing his mind in the feral nature with a strong instinct to tear whatever that came in his path into pieces. As he regained clarity, the voice started speaking.

“This is the symbol for the Invincible Earth program, or simply, IE. IE was started roughly 12,000 years ago. Its heritage grew with repeated sacrifices by our ancestors who enabled IE to become what it is now: the last frontier for mankind’s survival against the threats of the cosmos.

The present IE is a superstructure present in Earth’s exosphere, roughly 10,000 km from the surface. Normally, it is in the form of two rotating discs with an inner and outer disc. We are currently in the lower disc of IE, with the upper disc being the main defense hub and the lower disc serving various miscellaneous functions. The rooms you have seen so far all have an artificial roof, as is the norm in this sector of the disc.

You have been selected as an initiation candidate because you satisfied the conditions necessary:

1. Must be a descendant of the founding members.

2. Must have awakened the questioning nature: must doubt the world order as seen to some degree.

3. Must have passed the pre-initiation test and awakened the intrinsic nature.

You have fulfilled the criteria and are eligible for initiation. Would you like to receive your first mission?”

“Yes”, replied Lance, not even giving the voice to finish.

“Candidate must note that apart from the equipment and abilities provided, no other help shall be given, even in dire circumstances. If death is imminent, it is advised to pull out using the safety mechanism that will be given. Do you stand by your decision?”

This time, Lance took a little longer to think than before.

“What is the consequence of pulling out?“, he asked.

“You shall wake up in a hospital bed due to going into a coma due to malnutrition and you shall have no memory of what has happened so far.”

This drove the nail in the coffin for caution in Lance’s mind. He felt that this what he had been waiting for all his life. All those moments reflecting, reminiscing about a world which would fascinate him instead of endlessly boring him like his present existence. All those moments wishing for something to happen, something to change. All those moments had led up to this.

He looked up, with grit and courage shining in his eyes.

“Yes, I stand by my decision.“, he replied, thus taking his first step into the world that was hidden.

“Affirmative. IE initiation phase-2 launched. Please standby for mission briefing.”

…

Lance laid back down on the moist grass. He felt at peace in his heart as the decision had already been made. All that remained was to do his best and face whatever came his way.

The feeling of having the power and control of everything around was still fresh in his mind. It was intoxication and he wished that whatever mission came, he could gain those powers again or at least something similar.

As Lance idly day dreamed of flying through the air with the powers of superman, he heard the voice once again in his ear.

“Anomalous condition 66 detected: Unknown intrinsic nature. Summoning ancestor.”

In the area in front of Lance, a human figure started appearing. In a few seconds, the familiar booming laugh echoed through the ground as Attok appeared.

“I knew it boy! You are one in a million! And here I had started to lose hope in my line. Well done!“.

Lance was by now sick of all the mysterious uttering of the old man with no explanation whatsoever. He snapped, “What are you talking about old man? Can you stop being all mysterious and for once give me a piece of information I can fully understand?”

This was Lance’s nature. He had an unruliness which surfaced when anything irritated him beyond his limit. His limit wasn’t really small, but it wasn’t all that large either. Once he had lashed out at a senior for just patting him on his head even though he had told him repeatedly not to do so. In his irritation, he had punched the thin as bones senior in the stomach resulting in him being hospitalized. What followed was repeated bullying until the seniors batch passed out of college, but Lance never once regretted his actions. The satisfaction that spreads in ones heart when one follows its wishes is worth almost any consequence, in Lance’s opinion.

Rage flashed across Attok’s face as he thought about teaching the kid a lesson. Reflecting that he had indeed been pretty ambiguous so far and that the kid in front of him was potentially a one in a million prodigy, he visibly composed himself.

“Boy, I admit my mistake of being mysterious, but if you take that tone with me again you will feel the full brunt of the fury that the denizens of Ashalok still dread about in remembrance even though hundreds of years have passed.”

“You have gone through the first phase of initiation but there still must be some things about what is going on that you aren’t clear about. I will first give you a succinct summary of what has happened so far and an overview of what your missions are going to be. Its all information that you were going to be debriefed about soon anyway, so there should be no problem with me telling them to you.”

Although he had inferred a lot of things so far, an overall understanding of his situation was still something that Lance was lacking. He resolved to apologize to the old man if he actually gave such an explanation.

If not, he thought, lets see what it is that the so called Ashalok is so afraid about.