[Umm… where’s the car?]
[The thing you wanted to show me?]
[Yeah, I don’t see it here.] Kain looked around the room, finding nothing but stone. He sighed, [Well, anyway, a car is a device that uses fuel to move. It has an engine and four wheels, and the engine propels the car forward by spinning the front two wheels, which dragged the car along with it.] He sighed, looking around at the near empty room. [Alright, enough about the car. We can talk about that later. Let’s try to open this thing.]
Luna looked at him with a confused expression, [How can we do that? The concept of a different dimension like you said makes no sense! Besides, even if we can do something like that, can we even supply enough energy to make it happen? I told you about the anti-gravity energy, so this may have an even worse conversion rate.] She said. She had heard of the concept of other dimensions or worlds, but it still made little sense to her. She had never thought about the world beyond her forest during her time as a normal rabbit, but now she had to contend with the image of another, entirely separate world. She had racked her mind trying to find a similar concept, but one simply did not exist in her mind.
Kain closed his eyes for a second, thinking of a way to verbalize the concept, before saying, [Think about it like this: there are four dimensions we deal with on a daily basis, up and down, back and forward, left and right, and time. The first three are obvious, but the last one is more vague, if not entirely confusing. Basically, think of this: imagine an infinitely long river and a leaf in that river. As the leaf flows, time moves forward, but if the leaf were to move backward, then time would move backwards as well. Imagine that river being called time. Now imagine another river with another leaf, but this river is perfectly still. Normally, we can’t move the leaf in the second river, but if we use energy to move it, we would be in a different dimension. Basically, each dimension of space is what can be used to answer the question of where an object is, and the hypothetical fifth dimension is what defines the world we are in. Did you get that?]
Luna simply stared blankly forward. She slowly blinked and closed her eyes. After 20 minutes, she finally exclaimed, [Oh! I get it! So each dimension is like a variable in a function that calculates where a person is, right?]
[Hmm… that’s definitely a good way of thinking about it; personally I would use coordinates, but since when have you been so good at math? And beyond that, my idea took a lot of background to think about, so it’s pretty impressive that you can get it so quickly.] Kain replied.
She stuck her head up for a moment to bask in the compliment before replying to the question, [I don’t know about how, but the math was easy. It came naturally, honestly.] She said with an honest expression.
He sighed in an exacerbated manner, muttering, [What was even the point of college?]
[What’s college?]
[It’s- ugh, nevermind, we can talk about it later. Anyway, do you know what the concept for this is? I’m going to help as well, just so you know.]
She beamed, [I understand! Let’s go!] She zipped over to the red pillar, preparing her energy.
Kain on the other hand widened his eyes when he took a better look at the red pillar, [Hmm… what the…? Why’s it blue?] he muttered.
Luna took notice of his oddities, asking, [Are you okay?]
He took a quick glance at the pillar, loudly exclaiming, “Ugh… Why’d it have to be blue!?” Luna jumped a bit, likely due to her being unaccustomed to hearing Kain use his actual voice. He soon sighed, saying, [I’m just frustrated about this red thing becoming a bit blue. I’m just sick of seeing it all around here. Anyway, let’s get started.] Kain looked at the pillar. It was mainly red, but had what appeared to be blue tiger stripes around the entire pillar. The large grey dot in the middle had become more defined, but was still blurry. Kain shook his head and took his position opposite of Luna, with the red pillar between them. [Alright, let’s do this.] he soon said. The two began to draw out their energy, imbuing the concept of the fifth dimension into it. The two noticed immediately the horrendous conversion ratio between raw energy and fifth dimensional energy. Their measurements were not perfectly accurate, but they believed that for however much dimensional energy they created, it would take 10,000 times as much raw energy to create it. Before there was ever any meaningful sign of the fifth dimensional energy being created, they had run out of energy in their bodies. Suddenly the energy burst, and like a pressurized container, once the compression was removed, the raw energy burst forth like a tidal wave. The air moved at high speeds, pushing both Luna and Kain back. They flew at the wall, but the surge of condensed energy allowed them to replenish some of their supplies. Luna dropped onto the floor and dug her shield into the rock below at an extreme angle, letting most of the force slide over the shield like a sports car’s windshield. Despite her clever move, she needed to put all of her energy into keeping the shield from crushing her underneath it. Kain did not fare better, as he had to hold his ground with his worse energy manipulation. In the end, he shaped a crude wedge that diverted the energy to either side of him, which helped him resist the incredible force of the explosion.
The two resisted the winds for tens of seconds, and when they were about to run out of energy, the blast weakened, and then vanished. They cautiously looked out from behind their forms of shelter and looked around. Despite the winds that threatened to crush them flat against the walls, the room around them was almost entirely fine. The worst damage it sustained was from Luna’s shield digging into the ground, making a tiny scratch on the red rock. Seeing that the force had ended, they sighed in relief.
Luna reconnected their energy link, which had been broken during the energy blast. [I told you that we wouldn’t have enough energy.] She said smugly.
He sighed, [Yes, you did say that. I just assumed that the energy would fizzle out, so that was unexpected.]
[Well, we were dumping vast quantities of energy into a tiny space to feed the concept, so it’s little surprise that it all blew up in our faces when we ran out of energy.] She replied.
He chuckled, [“Blew up in our face.” That’s definitely accurate for this.] He cleared his throat, catching Luna’s attention, [Well, we know why it was able to blow up, but did you feel it when we both ran out of energy?]
She shook her head dejectedly, [I didn’t. I can’t sense it as well as you can.] Her ears perked up, [What did you see though? Tell me!]
[Okay, okay, I’ll tell you. At the end there, our control over the energy was disrupted, likely due to our lack of energy. Luckily, we figured that out.]
Luna huffed, [How is that lucky? We were almost killed.] She stated.
He looked at her red eyes, staring deep into them, [What if we were fighting some enemies and we ran out of energy? If it was me, I would be stuck only able to run with weak legs. If it was you, you would have to do the same after falling from your shield. The only reason it still worked was that you nearly instantly gained your energy back after you ran out. I’m not sure how the logistics of it works, but you could still maintain the little your shield demanded.] He chided. He was thankful that he figured out such a glaring weakness so soon, because if it happened in a normal fight both he and Luna would have been slaughtered.
The little rabbit’s ears dropped. [I’m sorry.] She weakly responded.
He sighed, [I didn’t mean to be rude, but we have to think about this stuff. We may actually be able to use this in a fight if we time it right. Imagine condensing energy through complicated concepts, and then throwing it at an enemy, detonating them. Things like this provide both a danger and a benefit.] He asserted with a smile.
She lifted her head up, staring into Kain’s smiling eyes, [Then… any danger can be used.] She muttered.
He tilted his head, [If that’s how you want to put it, then that’s okay, but just remember to be careful. I’d prefer it if you kept yourself safe, okay?]
She happily nodded her head, [Not a problem! I’ll stay alive just for you!]
[And for yourself.] He humorously added.
[And for myself…] She added.
[Then I’ll stay alive as well, for both of us.] He said, stroking her soft head. After taking mental notes of what had failed during the attempt, they decided to find somewhere to sleep. The stone of the red pillar room was very odd, and both of them agreed that sleeping there would have been uncomfortable, so they left the cave system and swiftly moved to find shelter. They found an empty cave in no time and prepared to rest. Despite their preparations, they were not ready to sleep yet, despite the eventful day they had in the Dragonoid tower. They moved to different sections of the cave to practice their own types of energy control; Luna practiced using the concept of movement to create different variations of the same wind attack, and Kain pulled out the newly-forged axe to examine.
The axe was normal in its energy signature. There was nothing there except for the brilliantly radiant energy that permeated the whole forest. It radiated outward, trying to spread its energy. But it was pushed down by the atmosphere around them. Kain tried to feel the energy that was fused in the metal. He could feel it, and, to his surprise, he could control it. He rearranged the energy in the axe head, making all sorts of lines and shapes. The energy was not easy to control, but it was far from impossible. He shaped the innate energy present in the item and made a line along the blade. He imbued it with a concept of sharpness, which sucked away a small amount of energy from other places in the axe head. The process was not instantaneous, and took a whole half of an hour to complete, but he eventually did it. He picked up the axe from his lap and swung it at a wall. The axe clanged off of the rocky surface, startling Luna. She stopped her attempts of making a wind spear and watched Kain.
He looked at the axe head, surveying the energy and immediately saw the problem: there was no energy powering the concept he had imbued into the axe. He held the axe again and funneled energy into it. It glowed a dull blue and hummed with energy. He swung the axe against the wall again. The venerable cave surface stood no chance, as the axe buried itself into the wall a foot deep. Kain smiled to himself and Luna became excited, [This could be the beginning of a great thing…] He muttered.
Hope you all enjoyed the return of our two explorers, as well as their failure in getting home. As always, thanks for reading.
