They all stood around, staring at Walker. He tried not to be uncomfortable, as standing in front of people waiting on you, waiting for you to put on a show and tell them you're ready for the next act, is what teachers did from one day to the next. But, it's different when it's just high school kids. Where you have the power to fail or pass them, and are granted a measure of control simply by holding the position of teacher. Sure you have to "act" as they call it. Make it seem like everything is perfect and you're just a happy-go-lucky type of person. But, in the end, you make all of the decisions and the fatigue that follows that kind of responsibility.

"At some point, we need to look in on the Battlefrog you know." Walker said lamely, rolling his feet back and forth.

"It will be fine on its own Walker. Was that not the purpose of creating The Monster System in the first place? So that the monsters became manageable?" Virgil asked. The traitor. He was looking at his screens fairly hard and didn't seem like he understood what he was seeing.

"Fair, but let me identify it real quick." Walker said, moving his hand toward the monitor ability.

Minos made a high-pitched humming sound, causing Echidna to laugh and even Zeus cracked a slight smile.

"What?" Walker asked.

"He makes that sound when he feels someone is scared, although I do not blame you." Echidna said with another deep-throated laugh. He tried not to hate her in that moment.

"I'm not scared!" Walker protested. "I fought in a war god damn it, that classroom was no joke, and I fought in Afghanistan too."

"Sure." Echidna said with a motherly smile. It was the type that said, "I know you're scared small baby child, but you're being so so strong!"

"I can watch over the Battlefrog." Rimi said with a hand raised.

Echidna turned to him, "Thank you, little one."

"My name is Rimi."

"That's nice." She said granting him a smile, then patted him on the head with a gentle touch. "So, are you ready Walker?"

He blew air through his lips. It couldn't be much worse than the American education system. "Yah, lets do this. How do I start?"

"Please sit down." She said, as she entered a seated position herself.

So Walker sat in the grass, crossing his legs. Echidna moved closer so she sat beside him, two long well-shaped legs sticking out of her thigh-split dress.

"Okay, my soul is open....ahhhhh the breeze is so fresh." Walker joked.

"Very funny Mortal. Take this seriously. This is only the first movement towards soul manipulation." Zeus admonished.

"It's okay, Walker. I hope you contain your humor when this is over. Now, close your eyes."

"That's how I access my soul? I close my eyes and....and what? Meditate?"

"Yes, and also no. Our Creator did this with the original inhabitants of Earth, who you know as the Titans, and they did the same with us. We continued this tradition with the great heroes of our time, increasing the power of their souls exponentially. The Titans themselves were inconceivably powerful, as their souls were so grand that they touched upon the fabric of reality, and gained the ability to shape it at will. Only Zeus here is even close to that power. While magic is wonderful, and can allow for many things, astounding things even, it cannot touch upon the soul. It cannot strengthen the core of a being, but instead only reaches the surface. With the addition of the power of the soul to magical beings, you will have creatures that other creators cannot come close to reaching. The biggest hurdle for any Creator to gain the power of the soul, is the ability to gain the first, who can then train the others. The progenitor of a world's soul power. It is quite difficult."

"Correct." Virgil added. "The first records of soulpower, as the alpha protocol registered it, were in the 8th rendition of the 2nd alpha protocol, or 2AH. From there, it spread from creators throughout different planets in the following renditions. It is not common to find a planet with soul power, and extremely uncommon to find both soulpower and magic. This is quite the boon."

"What's the difference?" Walker asked, thoroughly confused.

"It is not a simple explanation, but I will try. The accelerated evolutions you see here, which should take hundreds to hundreds of thousands of years, are because each world is implanted with primordial energy leftover from the creation of the new universe. Rather than allow billions to trillions of worlds to form, the alpha protocol gathers it into the one million worlds you see before you." He said, with a look at the planet-filled sky. "That is a great amount of energy brought into specific and localized areas. Once each rendition is complete, the winners are brought back to the AA, or original rendition, for that phase of the protocol. Sometimes this means broken planets will float through space, and sometimes this means galactic planeteaters will form."

"I swear I've seen that mentioned before." Walker said of the planeteaters.

"Regardless, that is the circumstances of the alpha protocol and seeding new worlds into universes begun from nothing. It is the energy of creation, filtered through the protocol. You have assigned your evolutionary scale, or primordial energy, to directly interact with magic. Magic has a tendency to allow for immediate changes, like gaining abilities or heat-resistant skin, which is an ability in itself. It also allows for the strengthening of materials, such as the roots and the metal beneath Symphony. Magic allows for great variation, and without a guiding hand like the systems you are building, is mostly randomized. Put a medium to high evolutionary potential entity within a cold environment for a lengthy period of time, and gain cold-resistant skin or even a cold-specific ability. It enhances, but it doesn't necessarily build upon itself. Thankfully your system will balance that out quite a bit, which is why I fully supported it. Magic can help you win the alpha protocol overall, but is terrible for a world over time without constant nurturing and pruning. Soul power, also known as chi, qi and life force, is entirely different. If magic is what applies to the outside of an entity, soul power applies to the inside. Allowing entities to gain greater strength, speed, and variations of that. Making a larger entity and filling it with bulging muscles will certainly give it strength, but enhancing its soul on top of that, which will then filter to the rest of the body as it adapts....that is something else."

"Okay, I think I'm starting to get it. So the alpha protocol gives us primordial energy which lets us create from nothing and causes evolutions, magic enhances those evolutions or can cause them to occur even faster. Can there be soul evolutions? Like magic does?" Walker asked.

"You have an understanding of the protocol's creation energy and magic, but not the soul. It can evolve, as I am sure you will soon experience, but it cannot evolve from the outside. It is internal only. If you should find a way to affect souls externally, I believe you would receive quite the reward."

"Well put squirrel, although it is blasphemy to create an external locus of control for souls. That is the first step toward the total destruction of a being, and should you start, I believe all of us would be at odds with you." Zeus said as he gestured at himself and the other two, "We have all experienced what you are about to go through. You will find that although the experience is painful, it is necessary. It will strengthen your sense of self, how you came to be who you are now, and allow you to further define your idol." He finished, pointing at a small emblem of a lightning bolt pinned to his robe.

"That just makes me think even more questions man." Walker lamented. "But we'll get there when we get there. Echidna, let's do this."

She nodded and started to speak in a soothing voice, "Eyes closed like we spoke of, and I want you to picture a black wall. There are no bricks, no images, just darkness. Pure darkness. Do you see it?"

"I don't see anything." Walker joked.

"Good. Now, I want you to imagine a large jar in the forefront of the darkness. It is impossible to fill, but you're going to try anyway. Put every bit of emotion, thought, and instinct you can into the jar. Feed it. Visualize it as taking in everything about you. You are empty, you are the darkness that surrounds the jar. Listen to my words, you are empty, you are the darkness that surrounds the jar. You are empty, you are the darkness that surrounds the jar. You are empty....."

Walker began to tune out her words as he fell deeper and deeper into a trance-like state, focusing only on the jar in his mind. It took a long time, hours even, for him to get to a point where no more scraps of thought and emotion could flow through him. As he settled into a meditative calm, unbeknownst to him, Echidna started to softly glow as she continued to repeat the words. It wasn't the cyan of magic or the golden glow of creation, but rather the same yellow color of her eyes. It started to drain away from the rest of her body and settle onto a single hand. She placed it against Walker's chest, who was so deep within himself that he couldn't tell someone was touching his body. As she pressed her hand against his chest, the yellow glow began to drain into him and fade away beneath his skin. Echidnas eyes slowly lost their luster over time as she continued to funnel her power into Walker, but as she began to sag in her seated position, she felt Minos place a hand on her shoulder. A bronze color erupted around him, much more powerful than what she had shown, and began draining into her as well. She couldn't look at him and express her gratitude as this was the hardest part, the first mind-to-soul connection, and she needed to focus entirely on Walker. The transfer of power from Minos, to Echidna, to Walker took quite some time as he continued to sit quietly amongst them.

There were dangers here, extreme dangers, but she was quite ancient by Walker's concept of time, and had developed powerful control over the process. This was why her children were called monsters in the past. She had granted them the connection when they were all just small children, so it could develop with them, rather than what they were doing now. This was effectively a soul shock treatment, and should only be completed on those who didn't have the benefits of a teacher early on in life. She felt Walker's body begin to push back on her and withdrew her hand, lest she overburden him and cause a complete internal collapse as her own power completely took over his body. The rest was on him now.

For the longest time, he saw only darkness. It was....comforting. Unlighted rooms had never bothered him. He had always slept best when lights were a non-factor, and he could fully relish in the feeling of being one with the night. He had placed blackout curtains in his old apartment because his insomnia would kick his ass once every few months, and it helped him knock out on those rare days he was allowed to call in sick. There was a joy here. Something profound and on the edge of his mind. But as much as he relished in the purity of this feeling, it was due to end, as a yellow light began to creep into his peaceful solitude from the outside.

The light encroached on his dark surroundings, blending into a gradient of yellow and black, until it reached the center of his imagined mind. Once it hit, everything flashed white, and suddenly a representation of himself stood in the yellow-colored space. He looked around, but all he saw was a sea of yellow. The only details to be found were creases in the edges of the environment that made it seem like he was in a box. While he continued to inspect the changes, one of the boxes lit up, and a screen flickered into his vision. It was from the view of a short man, walking around a living room that seemed quite familiar. A yellow dog came zooming by, running toward the tingtingting's of his food hitting a bowl. The short man watched it for a moment, did a delightful laugh, and chased after it. Walker realized what this was, a memory. A memory from his childhood.

The screen zipped time forward and he saw his father reading the paper at a smallish round and scuffed table. It was the morning, and he was drinking coffee while Walker's mom sat next to him, speaking of what was new in her over-bloated family. Hundreds of cousins. A relic of the boomer times when people got freaky after not having freakyness for so long. Following his time in Afghanistan, Walker could relate. His father looked at him, sitting at the table with some half-eaten pancakes on a plate in front of him, and said something that had stuck in his mind for a long time.

"You need to eat all of your food, Walker." He said with a hint of sternness to his voice.

"Why?" he asked.

His father put his mug down and looked at him. "I've said this before, but you apparently do not remember, so I'll say it again. If you take on something, you have a responsibility to finish it, no matter what it is. Be it food, a job, or even something silly, like a movie or book."

"But why does that matter Daddy?"

"He doesn't understand, Gene." His mother said, looking at her hands.

"He needs to. You're probably still too young to get it, but I've always found that who you are is defined early in life. I've met plenty of children at work who have integrity and are downright honest people, and I've met others who are thieving pukes who don't deserve what they have. Entitlement is a plague, Walker. You picked up that many pancakes from the tray, meaning your mother and I have less for ourselves. You take, and others do not receive. That is why you always finish what you've started, Walker, as each action you take has ramifications for others. Be wise with your words, and careful with your actions. That's the Reed way."

"Finish up your pancakes, dearest." His mother said with encouragement.

So, although Walker was already full, he ate the last three pancakes on his plate and waddled back to his room to get ready for school.

The screen flickered again, and judging by the height of the view, Walker could tell this was a few years later when he hit a small growth spurt in elementary school. He was about nine if he guessed correctly, because he was walking out of Mrs. Jorgenson's class and toward the lunch line. Nobody around him spoke to Walker, as he recalled having few to no friends. His father had received a promotion and they'd just moved there, better pay equaling better housing and schools according to the capitalism of his country. To put a cherry on top of being the new kid, his head was shaved bald. His old school had a lice outbreak right before they'd moved and his mother felt shaving his head was the best option. He knew now how fucked up it was, that she could've just combed his hair with a special kind of shampoo, but she chose to shave him. He was born with blonde hair and brown eyes, but after the shave, his hair grew to a light brown color. Now, everything about him was brown, from hair to eyes and skin.

He was toward the front end of the middle of the line, when someone shoved him from behind. Falling to his knees, he felt them scrap on the old concrete, badly, and tried his best to keep the tears in his eyes while laughter broke out around him. They said things like, "Stupid new kid", and "Baldy fall down." while he stayed there. Young Walker stood up to his feet and felt the burn from the scrapes on his knees as his skin stretched. A warm liquid feeling ran down the edges of his shin bones. Walker looked at his attacker, already knowing who it was. Joey Vade. He was the kid who always blamed him whenever someone farted in the class, and kept saying mean things to him and bumping him in the hallways. He was a bully, and Walker had finally had enough overt threats and physical punishment to take action. Everyone had a barrier for when they would fight back, and he had moved past his.

He pulled his leg back, and swung it hard, kicking Joey in the balls hard enough that he could feel the bounce as they pushed into the undercarriage where his hips met. Joey fell to the ground and started gasping, while the kids moved back around them. What should've been a funny incident in their minds, nothing other than picking on a new kid again, had now become a fight, but Walker wasn't done. He calmly walked over and tilted Joeys head up, then punched him right in the eye, hurting his own hand in the process. His dad's boxing lessons had kicked in. The mistake most people make is not punching THROUGH what you're trying to hit. If you just punched at something, it was a weak hit and didn't do much damage. Joey fell back to the ground and started to cry as walker stood over him victoriously.

The yard duties, as they were called back then, finally arrived and grabbed them both. Joey got a one-day suspension and Walker two, which his mother futilely protested. The yard duties only saw him doing the attacking and suspended Joey just because of Walker's word. He had rarely lied since arriving and Mrs. Jorgenson had seen Joey pick on him before. When his father asked him why he did it, he simply said, "A Reed always finishes what they start." His father clapped him on the back a few times and nothing more was said. It was a fond memory of his, and Joey never messed with him again.

Walker reflected on that for a moment, before the screen stopped flickering and a different one lit up. Was this all just memories? What was happening here?