Primal Light: Heroes with Oddly Specific Powers

By Brett P. S.

Primal Light, the beast whose mere reflection devours the weak. The Architects hound Spectrum across time and space while Miles awaits an encounter with Djinn, newfound emissary of the ancient progenitors of resonance. Beneath the persistent gaze of the Architects, a flooding energy escapes through cracks in the universe, bringing with it wanton destruction and annihilation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brett P. S.
• Release date: Apr 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311670533

Brett P. S.

Brett Sawyer (1986), born in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, is an indie author who writes short stories & novellas, from science fiction to heroes. He graduated from Eastern Illinois University in 2015 with a Bachelor’s in education and currently teaches game design at Lake Land College.Short Change arrived at retailers in November of 2014, the start of a hero series where ordinary people gained powers over oddly specific domains, following the story of a shorter than average hero who can telekinetically manipulate small units of currency.Short Change is free on “smashwords.com/profile/view/BrettPS” and Barnes & Noble along with other samples and short fiction.Brett’s popular releases in science fiction include “Dark Station” and “Tales from the Colony: An Interstellar Saga.” Dark Station is a deep space thriller set aboard an abandoned orbital science station where Ben Gebbley and his crew secretly investigate the disappearance of the original staff before others come to claim the lost assets.

Book preview

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

EPILOGUE

Prologue

Primal Beast

Distant Star System

Four years after the defeat of King Midas …

They called him Spectrum. William, the young man without a surname, now soared through the cosmos without a world to call home. What was the meaning in all of it? Why did resonance come to being in the first place? The Architects hounded him across the galaxy, but their efforts to capture him failed time and time again. The Architects were nothing more than a bunch of lonely bureaucrats, clinging to resonance and their own existence, fragile as it was with their crystalline bodies. Will wept for the lot. They sat inside their inescapable pocket universe, closed off, watching other worlds in the hopes of assuming others into their ranks. Will refused once before, and he’d do so again a thousand times more.

You’re fast, little bugger, Will said.

Will stood in the depths of outer space with a distant world looming in the horizon. A red giant spun silently to his back, searing his hard light body with cosmic rays of heat and radiation. Will was immune to disease, infection and he’d never have to eat, sleep or breathe for the remainder of his life, however much he might want to indulge regardless. The sun’s rays caressed his back in gentle waves while he withstood the gravitational pull.

It wasn’t difficult for him. He’d found his hard light body was capable of withstanding all sorts of forces, including intense heat and radiation. Gravity was just one more element of the universe he could defy. What kind of person would give him these powers? He contemplated to himself on the nature of it all while a fissure formed in the black of space a few dozen meters in front of him. A beautiful green shade of light emerged from the crack and out crept the clawed fingers of something guttural … primal, the beast whose own image devoured the weak.

Will braced himself as the creature outstretched its claw, eyes poking through the fissure. He placed the pressure on it through hard light constructs, lances of light that kept the tear from growing any further. It took the focus of an Architect to keep the primal beast from advancing, but the claw reached out and swiped at him.

Will kept his focus on the creature, disregarding the bottom half of his body floating off into the depths of space beside him. He focused with every fiber of his being to close it shut, the jaws of the creature seething a sort of hatred he couldn’t comprehend. This was his mistake. He owned up to that much, but he couldn’t keep doing this forever. Something in the cosmic order had to change, or else the creature would eventually claim even him.

He shot a lance of light through the portal and into its eye, wounding the creature as it shrieked in pain. It had known silence and unending pressure for nearly an eternity, but pain … now that was something it was not accustomed to. It lurched one final time with its hand before the portal closed shut. Will glanced down to see his body severed from the neck down. That was close. Too close. Wait a second. He spun his head around to see the real target as the primal light, imagery reflected from the nails of its claws, reached the star behind him.

Hot jam, Will muttered.

He deconstructed his body and leapt through space to a near infinite degree before he materialized at the outer rim of another star system. He looked back with most of his body missing to see the star he left in fair condition, though deep down he knew the fate that had befallen it. Light hadn’t reached this system and wouldn’t do so for