“Shrimp, you are a bit chubby; we need to practice more,” said blurry Taj.

  “Taaaaaaaaaaajj!” Luna exclaimed. She reached up to him and gave him a little flick on the forehead. “Right, right, but first, Taj, focus, look around. What do we think about it?”

  They traveled to Moon Three, reclaimed, but not fully. Which meant it was safe because there were not many people there. They were reluctant to come back and live in places that were attacked. The energy forms—their remains—sometimes reappeared.

  The attacks. Life was totally erased. Not only people died; all the animals, plants, and all life were killed. The terraforming needed to be repeated; even the atmosphere was affected.

  The bigger the attack, the worse the consequences.

  Both moons were reclaimed, but only Moon Three had terraforming redone. Moon Two, no, not yet.

  Taj was right.

  They talked about it; she needed to go out of her house and the library where he could materialize; they had to come back to practicing.

  She should go out more often—Taj, truth to be told, he wanted to materialize less often. But she wanted him to do it, to exist still.

  “Taj, so how is it? Not many people here; we can practice, right? Stop staring and admiring this rock; you saw videos. Leave this plant; stop touching… Taj?” Luna said, trying to grab his attention.

  He was so sad. It was years that he couldn’t freely materialize; they were avoiding detectors. But another reason was that he was sad.

  Everybody Taj knew was long gone, and he felt completely alone. He said he chose his blurry projection version on purpose because it helped him feel less sadness.

  Taj was trapped.

  She was hiding her identity, hiding that she had his Crystal, and that Taj was with her. That he was still there, some would say—alive. Others would say—active. Taj not once said that it was half-half, or he was treated as a person but in a different form, or as a thing, a dataset.

  “Luna. My name is Luna. I am Luna. I am. But I am also somebody else. To be honest, I am hiding many things,” she murmured to herself.

  She looked around.

  Taj was focused on some plants. She decided to let him have his fun for a moment. Terraforming was something he was very curious about. And to come here was risky. No need to hurry now, at least until there were no visible signs of problems.

  To reach the destination, Luna first needed to travel to Shadows territory. Then, go to the main library. Be careful, as she was still avoiding Silly. It had only been a few days, but… definitely he noticed that she didn’t come back after what had happened. Right, of course he noticed; she blocked his ID; he couldn’t write anything to her.

  Yes, she needed to be careful in the library.

  Then, the layers of energy. It surprised her the first time—that in the main Shadows’ library there was this Gate. The Gate that did not need any ID.

  What luck! There were layers of energy protection; it was interesting. She assessed it with Taj. Then she tried, and she passed all the levels.

  The last ones, using both her energies, one after another.

  “One of the things I am hiding is also this. I have energy. I have two energies,” Luna said to herself, again murmuring.

  The Gate worked as usual. Nothing new, nothing worrying. She wore a black scarf, dressed in black sweatpants. She always laughed about this when she traveled illegally; she must have looked hilarious.

  And here they were, visiting reclaimed Moon Three.

  It seemed normal. Trees were planted artificially; they were tall already. All the buildings were abandoned; not many people came back, not yet. All were afraid.

  During the attacks, Crystals’ users died the fastest and, as they said, in a painful way.

  Why? Who knew?

  She walked not far away from the Gate—to be able to escape fast if needed. She looked around before she asked Taj to project himself.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Water, Taj wanted to see one of the lakes as well; it was located a few steps away from the Gate, and what? He was there, checking it.

  Luna laughed. Then stopped.

  “… I have Taj. And people would like to find him. I cannot allow anybody to find Taj,” she said, louder, to herself.

  So many things to hide. But also—someone to protect.

  “O? Luna, I am excited,” Taj said; it was quite an unusual comment.

  He was looking around. Taj usually checked the sky to see completely other-looking stars, as they sometimes traveled during the day, sometimes during evenings. Planet Two fascinated him the most; everything was extremely unique. She also liked to go there.

  Taj didn’t admire the surroundings for long, and he also didn’t allow her to slack.

  As he said, she was getting chubby.

  Truly. How could he say that?

  “Let’s practice shortly. That will be fun, sure, but did you check what you needed to check?” she asked.

  She was curious. Was it possible?

  “Luna, I did. O, it is good. I sensed the energy used for terraforming. It could work.”

  “But Taj, what now?” she asked.

  Because, what? If they announced the terraforming of Moon Two, would he like to do it?

  “O? Nothing. Let’s check the news. Luna? Why this look? I won’t travel anywhere without you, no? If they announce a repetition of the terraforming, we will talk about it. You are the last, Luna; I do not plan to leave you just like that. I want to fulfill my promise. Though, let’s talk when we see the news. If it were possible, I would like to consider it. There are not many occasions, not many moments, when that vast amount of energy is released. It could be one of the very rare situations when I could be finally destroyed. O, not that I want to leave you, Luna?”

  “Right, right, I know, Taj, I know,” she said, trying to be calm.

  Taj disappearing—what a scary vision.

  Though, for her only. She could, truly could understand why he wanted to cease to exist.

  “To cheer you up, my chubby shrimp,” he started to say but didn’t finish; she laughed.

  “Taaaaaaaaaaajj!”

  He was right; she got chubby. She put the music on, and they started to practice as usual. This time they had a lot of space, and she could freely dance around.

  Taj, in the form of his blurry and fragmented projection, was observing her moves, commenting.

  They also wanted to check the other thing. Her both energies—the flow of them.

  Luna was wearing special rubbers, some old design; Taj knew what it was exactly. He said he wore it as well when he had his energy problems.

  They helped, these rubbers.

  She had one of her energies locked in her arm. The other one was in the rest of her body. She hid both of them the best she could.

  Luna wanted to release her both energies to see if what they recently discussed could work. She cut both her wrists; this way she didn’t need to untie the rubbers; energy was dropping with her blood. Unfortunately, it was igniting too fast.

  Taj observed it and decided to stop; he healed her hands.

  They tried again.

  What they wanted to achieve was a simultaneous flow of both energies out of the cuts. She was still not great at managing the two of them at once.

  Separately, she felt safe using it. But together, no.

  Luna was scared not to use too much. This would be detected even here.

  It worked a bit—the energies collided and produced a bit of lighting; she tried to direct it somewhere to see what it could do.

  … It was blowing things up.

  Right.

  Taj healed her hands again, observed further, and nodded. Then he looked at her and suddenly was near her.

  “I sensed two energies. One is strong. We need to go,” Taj said quickly, in a low voice.

  Taj trained her to recognize Shadows’ wave, their swirl of transportation. It was not common stuff, but she could sense things around her quite far. It was her family’s feature. The Clar family’s thing… and Taj; he researched Shadows before; he said it should be possible to detect the wave.

  When he said what he said, she sensed it too. One Shadow and someone else. This other energy she wasn’t sure.

  Taj dematerialized—this Shadow was coming closer.

  Luna started to run to the Gate.

  It was truly nearby; on purpose they didn’t go far away.

  She sensed this person just when was about to materialize near her. She dodged! Dancing with Taj, how useful.

  Luna ran; she felt this Shadow was trying to catch her; once again, two times this person tried to reach with energy to her. And two times more she managed to dodge, to slide, to whatever—to not be caught. But the third time, Shadow grabbed her hand and stopped her run slightly.

  She panicked.

  But before this Shadow person fully materialized, she made another dodge. She danced to let go of her hand, but the hold was strong. Then, Taj, he materialized; only for her eyes, he could do it like this.

  Taj used his internal energy and threw this Shadow far away from them.

  She ran, only a few steps, a moment…

  Taj dematerialized the moment she was crossing the Gate.

  … They escaped.

  Luna quickly went through the energy layers surrounding the Gate and sat in the library. She took off her black clothes, and wore the other ones, colorful; she had them prepared. Instantly, she looked like Anna.

  After long minutes, when her breath was calm, she slowly left the library. Put her new cap on. Even her Anna identity was now problematic—her fault.

  She was now scared to death.

  Luna walked for two hours before she managed to gather the courage and go to the official Gate. No one asked her any questions.

  She traveled to Unio and went back home. The moment she closed the door behind her, she went to the library, and there she started to cry.

  “Taj?” Luna asked; she wanted him to project.

  “How are you? O, shrimp, don’t cry,” Taj said when his projection appeared. Blurry, as always, even at their house.

  “I am scared,” she whispered.

  “Don’t be. You managed,” he slowly said, then patted her on the head.

  “Taj? What can happen now?”

  “I felt two energies. Two people. I am sure they didn’t spot me. Luna, your energy, you weren’t using both when I detected them?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Is there any possibility someone could recognize you in your masking clothes?”

  “So, Taj, here is the problem. Yes,” Luna said, feeling even more scared.

  “O? Tell me then. But don’t cry. We will manage it together. We will, Luna,” he said, trying to calm her down.

  She cried harder. What if she was left alone? What if Taj disappeared?

  Miserable, all miserable.