It had been about a month since the war with Invidan. Ever since, my visits to the Upper Four HQ became more frequent. I'd become somewhat of a regular, that even the guards began recognizing me upon arrival. This was all due to Enzo's desire to teach me his philosophies. Since he was First of the Upper Four, I knew I had a lot to learn from him, so I wasted no time on skipping on his invitations.
"As Fractless, we do not experience any targeted prejudice, but we are overlooked. Knowing that someone doesn't have a Fractal would instigate a natural underestimation of that person, even if it is without malintent. I became so powerful in position because I took advantage of this."
As I listened to Enzo speak, while sitting in a velvet couch across his desk, I could only imagine how steep the climb must have been for him to reach the number one rank as a Fractless.
"Was it hard?" I asked him. "To get to where you are."
He looked back at me, a scoff pursuing. "Not at all, Klyson. It had to be the easiest ride of my life."
He'd completely contradicted my thoughts. "Easy? How?"
"You're really asking that after everything I've told you? From the countless opportunities we are exclusively provided as a compensation for the lack of Fractals, to the constant underestimation of our abilities, the Fractless like us basically have stairs built towards the top. All you have to do is climb it, while stepping on some ants along the way."
"Ants…?"
"The ones with Fractals. They're all ants. There're millions of them, but they're all the same and all follow the same patterns. They can easily be squished. On the contrary, us Fractless can be the most unpredictable of them all. No one would have predicted me to become First in the Tenfold when I did. It was so unbelievable at the time that only a select few individuals were chosen to know that I was Fractless. Everyone else, including the masses of Melysia, still believe I have a strong Fractal that got me to where I am. The higher-ups chose to keep it like this, otherwise people would view the Fractless differently, and differing opinions would be born."
"Probably in order to maintain order among the Fractals and the Fractless, right?"
"Exactly. If my unusual situation were to be exposed all around Melysia, clear distinctions would most likely ensue. I understand why the Overseers chose to stick with my secret. At the same time, it retains my power at its maximum. So I'm content with it."
I began to understand that everything just so happened to line up perfectly for Enzo. He reached his current spot because he noticed the flaws in the system and worked off of it. He was a master manipulator, not only of people, but of laws itself. All this time, Enzo had been trying to get me to think exactly like him. I think he looked at me like a disciple. But as much as I tried, I couldn't match his arrogant view of the world. I hadn't been raised that way, even if the same conditions were available for me to use. Nonetheless, I continued to pursue his teachings. Even if I wasn't being replicated into thinking the way he did, he provided me sights to my life as a Fractless that I'd previously been oblivious to. He was giving me wisdom.
"It's been a month now since that battle with Invidan. How do you feel concerning it, Klyson?"
I thought back on the failure I'd performed, nearly costing the entire war if it hadn't been for the unknown person that showed up at the end. "It's something I learned from. After everything you've told me so far, I realize I hadn't been been in the proper mental state as a Fractless during that battle. I oversaw myself."
As I said these words to Enzo, I only meant half of it. It definitely was an experience I learned from, but that was just about it. The rest of it was just to please Enzo's ears. In reality, I still couldn't understand how to apply his thinking to the situation I'd found myself in during the war. As much as Enzo told me that I had just as much potential as he did to perform as a Fractless, I didn't exactly agree. In contrast to what Enzo preached, I didn't believe that all Fractless had the same amount of potential as he had just because they were Fractless. Confidence, pride, and IQ definitely made a difference. That's what I saw to be the primary factors separating me apart from Enzo: the unparalleled confidence he had in his potential, and his level of understanding of the system, which was not just something anyone could easily pick up on.
"That's right. If you and your current state were placed back into that battle now, you'd probably create a bigger impact in favor of Melysia."
I nodded, trying to agree with him. Besides these philosophical rants about Fractless than I had with First, the time I'd spent at the Upper Four HQ also came with the honor of meeting the rest of the Upper Four: Second, Third, and Fourth.
The first time I'd met Second, she immediately greeted me with a hug. "Klyson! Nice to meet you! We're twins!"
"Twins?" I asked.
"My name's Kyra. Both our names start with the letter 'K'!"
I laughed nervously, starstruck meeting her in person. Her hair was a flowy dark brown, the same color as mine. "That's great. I'm really honored to meet you, Second."
She slapped my chest playfully. "No need to call me that. Kyra's my name, so just call me that instead."
"Okay, okay." I soon realized how tense I'd become. She was so pretty that it made me nervous. At the same time, I felt insecure knowing she saw how bad I did in the battle against Invidian.
"I'm sorry you had to see all that," I told her.
"All what?"
"The war with Invidan. My flank attempt…"
"That? Come on, don't beat yourself up over it. I saw the vision. You had something going."
It was the first time anyone had reassured me about that.
"No way… They saw through everything. I was too predictable."
"For a Fractless, you did amazingly. Don't worry."
My mind returned to its root-thinking for a moment. "If I'd had your Fractal, maybe I would have seen it coming," I tried to laugh it off.
"No need. You're good enough without one."
Second's Fractal was known as Panorama. It was the ability to see through a 180 degree field of view as opposed to a regular human's 135 degree field of view. Both her, and her Angels, had a wider perspective of the battlefield. They could see things in their peripheral that no one else could see in the moment. As simple as the Fractal was, it was how she used it that raised her to the Upper Four. She was a genius in adaptation and application.
Next, I'd met Third, also known as Sav. His orange hair matched the bright colors of his floor and personality.
"Heya!" He called out to me. "What was your name again?"
"Klyson. It's an honor to meet you, Third."
"Nice to meet'cha too, Klyson. Heard you been hangin' with Enzo a lot lately, huh?"
"Yeah. Since a month ago."
"Never thought I'd ever see that guy get so passionate about someone else. 'Twas usually much of a loner, him. But seeing as you're Fractless, I get it." He suddenly got straight to the point. "Wanna see what I been workin' on?"
"Sure."
I joined him by his side. On his desk he had a large paper laid out with a number of barely cohesive sketches that were apparently meant to be strung together. "I'm coming up with a new form of pathing for my Fractal. Wha'ddya think?"
I looked at his drawings and tried to make understanding of it, but I couldn't. They were messy and all over the place, yet I could tell they were drawn in a way that only people who fully understood his Fractal would comprehend. Third's Fractal was known as Gateway. It was referred to as the Golden Fractal for his birth year, which was Melysia's form of crowning Fractals that are born every year based on how strong they were. Sav was blessed with Gateway, an ability that could create tiny wormholes in both space and time. He could transfer any subject of his choosing through one of these wormholes, which could either transport one into another space and location, or could transport the subject back and forth through time. When Sav was young, he could only transport tiny objects, such as toy cars or pencils. But as he grew older, his Fractal grew with him through repetitive use and training. Now, he could transport entire human individuals, which made him a threat on the battlefield since he could essentially teleport his Angels on a whim. The limits to Gateway's capabilities were currently unknown. At the moment, Sav could only transport subjects back and forth in time a maximum of 9.87 seconds. As for the manipulation of location, he had a radius of 10 km in which he could transport a person to any place. At the rate that Sav continued to develop his Fractal, the Overseers estimated that at a given time and a certain age, his transportation of subjects in space would exceed our realm and possibly enter into other, foreign ones. Still, that development had a long way to go.
"I'd love to say I understand, but it's so complicated…"
"Oh right!" Sav began to laugh. "I'm usually showin' the other guys in the Upper Four my sketches and they always understand. I'm so used to it I thought you'd understand too! My bad, my bad."
"No worries. I have to say though, your Fractal is one of the most impressive I have ever witnessed. I can't believe you can do all sorts of things like that." Just like with Second, I was starstruck with Third. I'd known about their Fractals ever since I joined the Tenfold, and that went for all of the Upper Four except for First. Only Enzo's Fractal was always kept hidden, and now I understood why.
Finally, I'd met Fourth, who was named Celeste. Unlike the rest of the Upper Four, upon my visit to his floor, I was quickly ushered out after a heated encounter.
"What the—!?" His eyebrows had furrowed underneath his glasses. "What are you doing here? Who are you?"
"Oh, my apologies, Fourth. I'm Klyson Rainer, previously Fifth in the Tenfold."
"Tsk!" He crossed his arms. "What's a lower six delinquent like you doing here?"
"Enzo's been inviting me over… He also told me I could visit all the Upper Four from floor-to-floor…"
"That damn Fractless! I never gave my permission…" He sighed of frustration. "Get out. I'm in the middle of something important. And you aren't worth my time."
Just barely looking past him, I could see he had a multitude of monitors set up above his desk that displayed grids and positioning tactics. To the right of his desk was a large blackboard on which he'd written numerous mathematical calculations. It was just as I'd expected from Fourth, who had the Fractal known as Trajectory. The ability allowed Celeste to visualize the the vector—the magnitude and direction—of any subject of his choosing, whether it was a person or an object, and for as many of those subjects as he could count. With proper insight on the physics behind vectors, a concept Celeste was very familiar with, his precision and accuracy for any chosen thing could be unparalleled. For something as simple as throwing a rock, since he could visualize its vector even before throwing it, he could easily nail a shot at someone's head a hundred times out of a hundred with perfect accuracy. Trajectory didn't only work for thrown items, but for anything under the earth's laws of physics that had a vector. As long as it had a vector, no matter its means of movement, Celeste could visualize it clearly.
"Go to someone else's floor! I don't want you here!"
A guard had escorted me back to the elevator. "Sorry about that. I'm guessing Enzo hadn't mentioned to you that Celeste likes to be alone on his floor…"
I shook my head, as the elevator hums got lower while we traveled to the first floor. "I didn't know that. It's okay though. It was an honor even getting to meet him in person."
I left the Upper Four HQ for that day and returned to my own established building, where the security was much more scarce, and where my living space was but a simple dorm rather than an entire floor. I looked outside my window hoping to see the same downtown skyline I saw outside the Upper Four HQ's windows, but it was just a brick wall. I sighed.
"There's no way I'd ever come close to reaching their level…" I thought about the Upper Four. Every single one of them were talented, whether their Fractal was strong or not, and whether they had a Fractal at all. Clearly, all four of them deserved to be at the top. After spending some time there and meeting everybody, it occurred to me how large the gap in experience was between the Upper Four and the lower six of the Tenfold. Even though I used to be a single rank away from Celeste, Fourth, the margin in skill felt like a difference of a hundred ranks.
The Upper Four were simply on another level.
I laid in bed and stared up at the ceiling, wondering when my next involvement in the military would be. Ever since I'd been disbanded from the Tenfold, I haven't done anything but wait, which is why I'd gone to Upper Four HQ so many times. I was awaiting the General's call to eventually be included in a mission, like he'd said. It made me wonder if Seventh or Eighth had been called-on yet.
As my eyes began to close, while I drifted off to sleep, I felt sadness thinking it might be another two years before I'm called-on for another opportunity like the battle with Invidan.
"Can't believe I blew it…"
Then, my phone suddenly rang loudly, quickly interrupting my slumbering thoughts. I shot up and grabbed it to see who it was.
General Michael was calling.