Chapter 19
Animal World –
Ant Kingdom
Battle Wiz –
Our Expedition
Work on project Glass Missile is going on fine now, but we had to start again because of that spaceship, so that means more missiles for the mosquitoes to taste. Ναι!
The bad news is that somebody is warping my matter-change power1. This means that someone is around that is not happy with what I am doing, so that someone is most likely a spy of the mosquito army or someone not very nice. It may be that my doing has affected them, but that is just not possible, I specifically made the range of my disturbance to only here, but there is still the possibility of that.
How do I know about it? I hear you ask. I know it because I cannot extend my powers to the full extent these days and I keep getting signal disturbances from a place located in the mountains to the direct west of camp. Its signal is powerful, stronger than mine, so I have been having fits all the time, which sometimes resulted in parts of the vault collapsing. So, my position as head supervisor was taken away (so that I could not do any more damage) and Daniel took it. He is now General of the Royal Ant Army (RAA) / Main Supervisor of project Glass Missile.
Daniel was harder on the ant workers than me, any ant who was caught by him being lazy was given a full downing by him (not that it was harmful, it was just dumping a load of water on the head of said ant, it could substitute for a bath, although the falling speed of the water could be a little too fast sometimes and the) or a few lashes with an ice whip, but they did not complain one bit that it was too harsh. When I tried to do something like that, there were complaints everywhere and I just could not think straight with all those ants shouting at me.
Daniel used that to tease me that I was not as good with ants as him, he meant no offense though. But I have to admit, dealing with thousands of ants at the same time is hard work and would require professional expertise. I would have gone crazy long ago if I were Daniel. I truly do not know how he manages to do it.
I have now decided that I will follow the signal to its source and hopefully befriend it if it is a stranger not from the mosquito army or get rid of it if it is an enemy.
I have requested this from Daniel, and he has agreed for me to go on one condition that he must follow me to ensure my safety. I consented, because I really wanted to finish this thing quickly.
We were to go at noon tomorrow, and we packed our bags in case of emergencies so that we could use them (antidotes, oxygen tanks, etc.).
The next day at noon we started on our journey just as planned. The hitch was that after Daniel told Gustar about the trip, they had an argument, and now they are back to normal, well, almost but not quite yet. So, I feel really sorry for what I did, causing an argument between Daniel and Gustar (the General and the Deputy General), so I want to fix it after we come back.
We set off on the estimated route in search of that strange source, it really could be anything. A clump of super-bacteria, a supernatural vent, an alien, etc. The possibilities were infinite, it might even be something that I cannot even think of.
I could tell which direction the signal came from, but not how far away its source was. So, we trekked through the mountains until 10 in the evening and saw nothing but lush vegetation. We were so exhausted that we did not even bother to set up a proper camp.
That night, everything was quiet, except for all the thorns. Even though we were extremely exhausted, the pain of the thorns still cut through, it was agonizing, literally sleeping with your wings being jabbed by needles and feet being pricked by thorns!
I eventually got so fed up with it that I tried a technique suggested by Daniel — pairing the thorns with leaves to make something helpful. All the time at camp has obviously affected me, because I found a spear with an interior made of leaves and outer shell made of thorns beside me when I woke up. It could also turn into a cape or sword.
I interpreted it to be made by my brain while I was asleep, because I certainly did not finish anything when I was awake. I could also just be a hoax or gift of some sort that Daniel made when I was asleep. But how it came to be is not important, the important thing is that I got a cape, a sword, and a spear rolled into one. Let me see if it fits. It fits perfectly! Τέλεια! It does not sting me and fits comfortably.
Time to wake Daniel up. Ξύπνα Ντάνιελ! He’s awake, thanks to my ancient style voice, he was up in a second because of my words.
Let me tell you the secret thing in my voice that made Daniel jump. I used a megaphone to yell what I said, and there was a lot of noise made by my voice and electrical crackles. That definitely woke Daniel up. You can try it once in a while. I wonder if Gustar heard that, he would be surprised.
Now, let’s get down to business — breakfast. After Daniel was up and running, it was time to get breakfast ready. He was getting wild eggs (regardless whether they were natural or man-made) while I was on bread-making. I was not successful, the bread was too hard and gritty, so I gave up and started trying to make cereal. The cereal was all nice and such and so on the first look, but it was so bad that I threw up, so I guess I did not get something right.
Because I am not experimenting, I tried to make glass instead. That was successful (because I can control sand and glass is molten sand that is cooled again with some other things inside) and I had made a dozen or so glass containers before Daniel came back with some sugar lumps that he said could be molded into candy and weapons after it was worked on a bit.
He said that the reason there were no eggs was because the interior of the egg was too complicated, with all the proteins and such, that his brain could not replicate it. So, I guess that is the end of my dream of having scrambled eggs for breakfast on a real-life camping trip.
Even though, having some huge and inexhaustible candy bars (not that one bar had infinite amounts of candy in it, but that we had infinite bars of candy because we are constantly producing them) along the way. But it would still be quite dehydrating for us because sugar sucks water. So, we have to keep on trying to find ways to produce healthy, eatable food for later meals.
We could not replicate meat or vegetables or anything with cells in it, so we had to find it if we were going to eat it. So, we made some laser shovels with what we had in our emergency packs: two laser blades each. This meant that we could easily dig dirt.
But as with everything, the good side comes with the bad side. We had to be really careful that we did not accidentally destroy what we were digging for or accidentally mow down a patch of bush or a tree just because we left our shovels on.
So, we started digging aimlessly around. A shovel there, a stab here, a swipe there... We worked for hours, but our only trophies were worms that were only fit for fishing. We did find some fossil rocks though, but they were absolutely boring.
After 3 hours of continuous digging, we finally came upon a huge stone jar that was buried in the ground. After a lot of work, we finally unearthed it. There were engravings on it that read: 「Богатство тем, кто следует этому правилу: Segui la luce al suo destino non molto lontano, allora il tuo sogno si realizzerà」. This was puzzling because my interpreter could not recognize what it was. I think that it is Italian because of the combination of characters. I told Daniel that, and he agreed, but we still could not make head or toe of what the words said.
We thought about the engravings for a long time, but to no avail. I guess we have to open it to know what all the engravings meant.
We opened the stone jar and found what you would not believe. But it is not what you would call 「opening」, because the jar was kind of old and it turned into pieces. We collected samples and discovered that the stone was approximately 107 million years old, and that is old, no wonder it broke so easily.
Now, for the big guess. We found — valuable items. There were diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, jade, aquamarines, peridots, topaz, gold, silver, platinum, etc.
All of those things listed above were beautifully carved into some shape with extreme precision: Little jade turtles, tiny emerald kittens, small ruby puppies, teddy-bear-size sapphire lion cub, diamond TV sets, silver watch, gold goats, and more.
They were amazing even if they were not looked at. I mean, if you look at the air above, you can see the magnificent light emitted by the objects under sunlight.
We looked at each other and said, 「Wow,」 in unification. It truly was a spectacle that I am sorry you missed. But, the good news for us is that we have good stuff and food.
I dissected an emerald ant and found a little bit of food inside. Well, it was not actually food, it was something that looked like a peach but was made up of the letters 「PEACH」. We scanned the cap of the jar (it was not broken) and found instructions in Latin, it read: Facere quae tu tantum miscere litteris, quae faciunt nomen aliquid de speciali literarum continebat vis creare, in bona misimus te.
Translated into English, it reads: To make things, you must combine the letters that make up the name of the thing you wish to create with the special letters contained in the goods we sent you.
We were not astonished at this, since we had once watched a cartoon called Word World that was entirely made of these letters. You put them together into words to make something, and pull the letters apart to destroy something.
I tried some of my peach, and it was delicious. Daniel split open a coconut to find a salted pineapple, and it was also delicious. We set around destroying all the valuables (but we left 5 of each specific kind) and packed the letters inside them into our bags, and put the leftovers back where we found them. We made a mark on our map so that we could collect them when we came back.
We traveled on in two rocket jets made of those special letters just like those in cartoon movies, and I tell you, it needs a lot of fuel, but we can collect all the 「FUEL」s as 「GAS」s and 「DUST」s, for later use.
That method reduced our carbon footprint to 0 (a job well done) and it also increased the speed of fuel production. When we were at the edge of a very deep river (∞ meters deep according to scanners), we were running out of fuel (out of the letters that makes up 「FUEL」), so we parked by the river (which we promptly named the ∞ River because it was not charted, so we had the right to name it as the people how found it, and that it was infinitely deep).
The river was not very clear, so I could not see under its surface. Then, me, Daniel, and all our equipment were sucked into the river by a powerful force that came by surprise. I hope it will not 「spaghettify」 us like the black hole who shredded a star wandering too close to it into bits.
I now think this trip is crazy. This is probably the end of us.
The experience of being sucked into that river was not like a black hole. I actually felt like we were on solid ground when we were falling. I even thought we were on the ground until I accidentally made my falling speed a little faster than Gidure by moving.
I was not very comfortable in the air. I mean that it was comfortable sitting in the air (the air actually felt like a super-soft sofa), but all the ghost-like (maybe they were ghosts) things around were really spooky. They were shimmering, changing shapes, and moving.
I could see Gidure also sitting up and looking around. He said something to me, but I could not hear it, probably because we were moving faster than the speed of sound, but that is only a guess.
I motioned to Daniel with my wings what looked like a paddle, a long pole, and a cape, then I mentioned to him 「night」 and 「thorns」. He got it, I meant that thorn cape he made for me. I also motioned
to Daniel,which is 「Please give it to me, I found something about this thing」 to Daniel, which is 「Please give it to me, I found something about this thing」 in our own code language.
By this time, all our movement had made us at the same level as each other and the two gust of air beneath us stopped changing speed. That is a relief because I think I am going to puke if it does not.
Daniel handed me my cape, or it may be better to say that he threw me my cape is better because his hand could not come to my space, or mine to his, he cannot even touch something that I am holding or I something he is holding, so the only solution was for him to throw my cape to me.
I got my cape, and proceeded to turn it into a spear, only with the point of it sharper than normal. I then did something that was so "Gidure-ish" as Daniel would call it — I poked the air under me. I was searching for something on the air beneath me as if it was a solid thing. It is just typical Gidure craziness to Daniel.
But, he slowly saw that I had some kind of pattern. I was always poking around one point, when I did not find what I wanted on one, I moved aside a little, and just like that, on and on.
So, he then asked me (using our secret code language), 「What are you trying to find, Gidure?」 (「What are you trying to find, Gidure?」). I was just about to try another spot on my patch of air when I 「heard」 this.
I did not actually hear this. I saw this. This language did not use words. Instead, it used pictures in our heads to form our messages.
I replied: 「Well, I found a button in a hole on this, I tried to reach it, but my thumb was too thick, so now I am using this spear to press it. There was a caption beside it that said Press, so I am going to press it and see what happens.」
—[This is the translated version of Gidure’s word, you can try to work out what it looks like in our secret language. --- Authors’s Note] —
Daniel touched the air that I was pointing to and told me that he found a hole with a button inside it. His finger could reach it but he just could not press it. He suggested to me: 「Gidure, why don’t we use those special letters to help us? We could use a needle or a pin.」
—[This is the translated version of Gidure’s word, you can try to work out what it looks like in our secret language. --- Authors’s Note] —
I slapped slapped head and said: 「You’re a genius Daniel, why didn’t I think of it earlier?」 I then went to my bag, took out 「NEEDLE」, and made a long, thin needle with a dumb point for fear of hurting someone.
Daniel did the same as me, and we both pressed the buttons together. The effect was that the air around us changed into two half-clear (actually it was below 10% clear) pods made out of an unknown substance and we could control them to our will using a control panel. Plus, we were not falling anymore. Points of light each the size of 3 baseballs rose out of the buttons and merged together to form a ball of light 6 baseballs large in the midst of darkness.
We were encased in pods that did not look too big on the surface (when we looked at each other’s pod, they looked just big enough to fit one person/eagle) but surprisingly had enough space to hold all our stuff, rockets included.
Our pods were a little slow and heavy, I guess because of the rocket, so we took them apart and the pods got lighter instantly. We were weary and hungry, so we each ate 3 peaches and a Happy Moddy before anything else. We digested our Happy Moodies just fine, with no leftovers, but the 3 peaches we each ate came out as one 「P-O-O-P」 of each of us. We had to bear the smell and take them apart to make extra letters. I guess we will have to think carefully before eating so much letter-food next time. FYI, the letter-poop looked like real poop, smelled like real poop, felt like real poop, and had all the characteristics that poop had, like it could divide into 2 letter poops if you pull it the right way. It stayed like poop until it was taken apart into single letters.
We used the divide characteristic to our advantage, we pulled the poop into numerous small ones and took them apart. After all was done with, the smell of poop on our hands and in the pod disappeared because the poop had disappeared. I could finally breathe again.
The two pods had a connected set of walkie-talkies that were working fine, so I could communicate with Daniel, until at some point the cord broke. So we had to make do with a pair of wireless letter walkie-talkies, and they were good. We could hear each other clearly, did not have to use wires, and could put them into our pockets or make them into other things if necessary.
We sat in our separate pods and talked. Daniel talked about very boring things, like how to cut wood, so I went out to explore the pod. The pod only had enough space to pack my things (with a rocket-size space left over), a large empty room, and a boarding dock that I had not noticed.
When I came back, Daniel was just talking about how he made his first log cabin. I interrupted him and said in a loud voice, 「Daniel, I hear you, there is something I need to tell you. There is a boarding dock on the pods. Please check for yours so that we can dock with each other.」
As I spoke, I saw the ball of light starting to go away. I quickly added, 「And while you’re at it, please set your pod to auto-piolet and follow that ball of light. I think that it wants to lead us somewhere. I am going to do the same.」 He stopped speaking for a moment, then went on.
I observed no movement on his part, so I said: 「Daniel, if you aren’t going, I’m going.」 Then I set the auto-piolet to follow that ball of light.
Daniel was fairly surprised by my move, so he took it seriously and followed along. He went back, found the boarding dock, and docked with me in mid-air while in auto-piolet, a feat I had to give him credit for, auto-piolet and manual piolet at the same time!
After we docked, we met with each other again as if the first time in a decade, because the time truly seems to go fast here. We left the job of driving to the pods, and had a thorough game of monopoly, darts, etc.
After our first game of monopoly and the dart target was full of darts and arrows of all kinds (making it look kind of like a hedgehog), our computer told us that the ball of light had stopped. We were curious about where the ball had led us, so we all went to the cockpit to look. And we saw a city made entirely of water, people of water, we could see what people were thinking.
At the heart of the city, lay a magnificent water fountain that sparkled with mystery. The ball of light had led us to a world made of super-natural water!
The ball of light landed right in the middle of the fountain and promptly disappeared. The water-people did not seem to notice that, they just went on about their business. Daniel wanted to follow it right in, but I held him back, saying: 「Daniel, maybe barging in like that would scare those super-natural water people out of their wits, so we might want to try going in the legal way. Besides, they might have an excellent defense system made of those super-water, and we’re not sure if we can control them. So, I propose that we try to be friendly about going into there. If that doesn’t work, we』ll find out if we can control the water there and decide what to do on that basis, okay?」
He thought about it for a moment, and said, 「You’re right Gidure, going in like that is a bit overwhelming for those water people, I will follow your plan on the condition that it must be quick.」
「Okay, it will be quick on the basis that you follow my plan, so it is up to you.」 I replied.
He had to consent because I saw it was no use arguing anymore: I could always say that it is up to him to see if we are quick or not with reason.
We 「parked」 outside the city, well away from it. But it was not what you would call 「parking」. We actually crashed into the site where we had intended to park, but thank god the pods were hard and there was not a scratch on them.
We pulled our pods out of the ground and parked them neatly on the undisturbed turf beside them. I had named mine one the Millennial Falcon, or Falcon for short; Daniel named his pod Wise Whale, or Whale in short.
We had adopted the wise plan of faking water people. We covered ourselves with water and made the water move like a man, then we went to the gates of the city. We saw all the water people go in and out without any apparent guards.
We had only just made a few more moves before we noticed that there were numerous strings in the entrance made of steel wire that really cuts. The water people were okay because they were made of water and the wire passed through them, but we were solid people and would get cut into little slices by those wires.
We tried to think of strategies that would not be noticed by the water people. But none worked on the premises that we do not use matter-change, so we had to go through using matter-change.
Both our matter-change were excellent, so it would not have been a problem doing that, but we were a little hungry, so we had to double back for some of those special letters so that we would not be hungry.
We both ate one bowl of healthy vegetable salad, and each had a beef burger (actually I am not sure if it was beef, I only like to think of it as beef, but I can be sure that it was genuine meat). Then, we set off again for Water City (we had named it Water City because we would know what city it was on hearing the name).
We successfully went into Water City. We saw that the towers, walls, and entrance doors were all heavily armed with weapons made of water that I guess would be sufficient to blow up an asteroid or two if put together. So, we had to be careful not to be discovered.
「But wait,」 said I, 「what if we go straight to their ruler, we could become friends and the water people won’t hurt us, they might even treat us like gods because of all the high-tech equipment we have.」
Daniel said, 「You’re right. We should give it a try.」
And so, just like that, we went off to see the ruler of Water City, which proved to be a pretty surprising (and neat) guy (I think guy is the right word, but it is hard to tell).
We walked into the city, we wanted to meet the ruler, but we did not know where he lived, so we went into a coffee shop to plan our movement.
We went into a coffee shop, sat down at a table, and were just about to talk when a voice interrupted us, 「Hello customers, what would you like to drink or eat? What do you want to know?」
「We looked down, and saw that the table had turned into a big pad, so Daniel asked: 「Hello, do you mind telling us where the ruler of this city lives?」
「Oh, and bring a cup of Coco Cola!」 I added.
「That would be 1 Wero and 10 cents2 Mr.」 the table replied.
We looked at each other in dismay: we did not have any Weros or cents. So I told the table to wait a minute and went to somebody sitting at the next table to borrow money.
The person at the next table said that his name was Welly and that he would be happy to give us 200 Weros each and pay the money if we agreed to clean his house, garden, and cut 2 trees.
We happily consented. We found out we could control the water here, so we only had to make the water house clean itself by sucking all the impurities out; the trees proved to be made of real wood. He did not like them, so he wanted them to be cut away, so we cut them away. The garden was full of dried up plants and weed. He wanted them cleaned out so that he could start a new garden. We cleaned the garden by pushing all the water grass back into the earth and making it fertile.
We finished our work faster than he expected, so we each got an extra 20 Weros as a reward, so on we went, with pockets full of money, to the middle of the city (because the table told us that the ruler was there).
We walked and walked. We walked in silence because there was nothing to say and so much to see. We were admiring shops full of flowers made of water and cars made of ink-like water, so we could not see what was inside. There were clouds mad of water in the sky and occasionally, a hawk made of water or a pretty hummingbird would pass by.
The nearer we came to the middle of the city, there were fewer water-people. When we reached the large square where the fountain was, there was not a single person in sight. I cleared my voice a little and said: 「Hello, is anybody the ruler of this city?」
「Hello, my name is Watty the Fountain. I’m the fountain in the middle. I am the ruler of this Water City. Speak please.」 Said a cheery voice coming from the fountain in the middle of the square.
We were not too surprised because we had seen earlier that there was only this fountain here and no palace in sight, so I said: 「Watty, can you do us a favor, we』ve got a sticky situation here.」
「Sure, I can help you solve whatever problem you have.」
「Well, your signals seem to be disrupting my work, so can you not disturb my work? Second, how can we get out of here?」
「Oh, my signals, well, one way is that you could bring me onto the surface of the ground, the whole city will follow me, and the first problem is solved because it is the ground that makes my signals disruptive to your work. You can get out by going at the speed of light in those two pods of yours, but of course you need to tow me up too, but I won’t be heavy because I can shrink smaller.」
We thought about it for a moment, and agreed, so we started making preparations to go out again.
We developed a strategy that would allow us to move Watty up with no difficulties. First, we would separate him into 3 parts (he said this was okay): the body, the foundation, and the water. His water never ends and is made by expanding a few drops of this special water, and the water turns back into a water drop when taken apart.
We had asked him if he could travel at light speed. He said that he could, but that it would have effects on him. We decided to build a special transporter out of letters just for him. It works as follows:
Watty gave us a third pod to use, and then we made a round thing that connected all the tails of the pod and had an engine of its own. We put Watty in the middle and then we took off.
We communicated our plan with Watty and he agreed with us. He even gave us a few drops of special water to use as fuel because light-speed traveling is something that really drains your fuel supply.
But, Watty also said: 「But be careful, the thief is looking for me.」
I asked: 「And who is that, Watty?」
「I think that you already know the answer. It is the Helmet Thief, of course. She also stole other things from the gods, like Zeus』 Master Bolt and Poseidon’s Trident. I never told you my story, did I?
「Well, once upon a time, I was a rather powerful fountain, for I held the Jewel of Power, but Hecate stole it from me. She wanted to destroy me, but I still had some power left, so I created this place and hid where she could never reach. If I go out, she is sure to notice. So, I warn you, take care!」
Daniel said: 「But since she’s a god, what can we do?」
「You,」 Watty replied, 「can do your best to defeat her.」
「We certainly will. But what about you, Watty?」 I said.
「You can leave me here or you can take me out.」 He said.
「You can stay here, Watty.」 Daniel said.
「Thank you,」 said Watty, 「and I will give you the center of my power, a few droplets of magical water, and I will prosper here without affecting you.」
「Why, thank you Watty.」 I said as I he gave me the droplet.
「Now, good bye Daniel and Gidure, it was nice having you here. Hope you visit soon.」 Watty said as we took off.
Watty had instructed us to drink it, so we drank it. We felt as if we would float into the air any moment even if we were at light speed.
After half a minute of light-speed and reached the surface, where we were stopped by a ball of magical light, who said: 「You got away this time, next time you won’t.」 and exploded, sending us crashing into the ground.
The force surprised us, since it was so small a ball. And it utterly shattered our pods into pieces, except for the odd bruises and twists, we were fine. The pods disappeared before our eyes into the river again. I guess they missed home.
We still had a few drops of magical water that Watty gave us for fuel. There were 5 drops left, so we drank yet another one and prepared to take the other 4 home to Jerome, Gustar, Adolfes, and Costgera (she is a robot, so she cannot really drink water, but since this is magical water, it might as well go down).
We started on our journey home. It was definitely easier than coming, but it was still hard. This was because someone (we guess it was Hecate) made a river flow in our path, and an extremely fast and wide river to be precise. Since we felt like flying when we drank the droplets, we thought that we might give this plan a try since it would not do any harm if it failed.
We succeeded in flying over the river but received numerous hurts like a cut arm or cut feet because of all the metal blades flying up from the river. We did not even try to suppress the metal blades because we were using all of our efforts on flying and dodging blades.
We flew to the other bank in a condition that can be described as acceptable. We then went on to that place where we found those letters. We went there expecting to find a clearing, but instead found trees that had fruit made of the gems and precious metals we saw earlier. We logically deduced that Watty made these gems grow, since he did not seem surprised by the letters.
We did not harvest these gems immediately though, because there were so many that we could not carry them all. We planned that we would go to camp and call other ants to help, and then replant the trees in our camp, so that we could have enough crystals. We did not cut them down to see if there was anything inside because we know that greed leads to bad things.
We went on flying to base camp, and boy did we land in time. Just in time to participate in the Annual Ability Test of Virtual Shell. And we were just in time to deflect yet another mosquito attack, one step later and the base camp would have been destroyed.
So, we flew back to camp just fine, except with me kind of towing Daniel through the air because his hurts were worse than mine, maybe because he is a beginner flier (the beginner flier is someone who is not experienced at all in flying), so he got hit on that river more than I had.
Sheldon sure made the ceremony loud, we could head base camp even before we saw it. I guess everyone there had to wear earplugs (okay, that was not true, but the sound was pretty loud).
1 To warp the matter-change power of one is to use your matter-changing power (α) to control someone else’s matter-change power (β), but this can only be done when α ≥ β.
2 Weros are the money used in Water City. 1 Wero = 100 cents = $10. This money is usable in all the cities made of water.
*The story keeps in a state of 「to be continued at any time」. ---by Daniel