MASON'S POV

  After walking for what felt like ages, I sat down. The armor on my chest felt heavy, and I tried stripping it off. It didn't work, though.

  “Just get off!” I yelled as I tried prying it off. The core in the armor glowed blue, and it electrified my hands.

  “Ouch!” I yelled as the glow got brighter and brighter, then it jumped out of the core and appeared in front of me. It swelled with energy and took on the shape of a soccer ball.

  I held my ground and waited for it to make its first move. This was the L-cube, capable of destroying planets…er, galaxies.

  “Hello,” it said.

  “Uh…hi?” I was surprised.

  “Mason Ramirez…” The ball circled me.

  “And you must be the L cube.”

  It stopped in front of me. “Yes, I am.” It inspected me some more. “Hmmm…Interesting.”

  “What?” I stepped back.

  “You're not scared?” It asked.

  “I guess not?” I raised a brow. “Honestly, I'm a bit unnerved.”

  “Why's that?” It tilted to the side.

  I looked at it. “You're a big ball of energy. I don't know if I've gone crazy from walking in here for too long.”

  “Oh, I can fix that.” It said and started glistening. The light got too bright, and I had to shield my eyes.

  When the light dimmed to its original form, I opened my eyes and met a little girl blinking at me with impossibly bright blue eyes and blue hair.

  “What…”

  “Is this better?” it asked.

  “You can change your appearance?”

  “Indeed, I am synced to you. So I decided to take a form akin to your understanding.”

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  “And you took the form of a little girl? I mean, how old are you?” I eyed her. “Twelve? Thirteen?”

  “Actually…”

  “Wait,” hang on a minute… “You can change into someone else, right?”

  “Yep.” She smiled. Looks like she inherited the cheerfulness of a kid…

  “I can do this…” she said and turned into an old lady.

  “What the??!!” I yelled.

  “Look, I'm a granny!!” She hobbled around.

  That's weird. “So literally anything or anyone… Right?”

  “Look here, you whippersnapper.” She waved her finger. “I'll have you know it's anyone or anything.”

  “That is literally what I just said…” I muttered. Then I smiled, “So can you change into…”

  “Say no more.” A burst of light flared around her, so bright I had to blink. When it faded, she stood exactly as I’d imagined.

  She placed a hand on her hip, smirking. “Hot enough for you?”

  I couldn’t help but grin. “That’s more like it. How old?”

  “Old enough, hun.” She winked.

  I took a step forward, my grin widening—only to be blinded by another flash.

  “What the heck!?” I threw up an arm to shield my eyes.

  Her laugh rang out through the glare, changing from the teasing laugh of an adult to the teasing laugh of a kid my age.

  “Hiya!!” She chirped, throwing her hands up in the air.

  I was irked. “Now you're a teenager. Great.”

  “What?” She raised a brow. “Do I have something on my face?”

  “No, it's just… You said you're synced to me and…”

  “Yup.” She cut me off and disappeared into the core of my armor. “I'm inside of you now…”

  “Pause!” I yelled. That's creepy…

  She came out and threw her hand over my shoulder. “We're linked now.”

  I remembered Marmatov’s words, “So I'm not going to die?”

  “Well, I decided not to kill you.” She held her hands behind her back. “After the electrocution bit…” she turned around. “Sorry about that, by the way.”

  I nodded and followed her as she started walking.

  “You made up that whole ‘I’m dead’ move.” So I thought, This guy's funny. So I decided to stick around inside you.”

  Her personality shift was instant. From a little child, to a granny, to that hot lady, and now a chirpy teenager.

  “So if I hadn't… You'd have killed me?” I gulped.

  “Yup.” She smiled cheerily. “You should have seen the last guy they forced on me.” She clicked her tongue. “Blew all his cells out.”

  I gulped. “So, uh, what's your name?”

  “I don't have one.” She smiled. “I'm usually called L-cube and such…”

  “Bummer, I'll call you Lysa. Y’know, L cube, Lysa. They both start with L’s.”

  Lysa’s eyes widened. “That's so cool.” She twirled around. “I love it. Lysa!! I'm so glad I didn't vaporize you.”

  “Heh he.” I chuckled nervously. “Me too…” I looked around. “So, where are we?”

  “The Nullum.” She explained, "It's a sort of prison, a place with only one entrance. It's where Drax keeps the unwanted: war prisoners, defaulters, and those who weren't compatible with me. Time doesn't flow here, so we could be stuck here for years, eons even, and we'll never know. Or on the flip side, we could be here for seemingly decades, but only minutes would go by out there.”

  “Wait, really?” I asked her.

  “Uh huh.” Lysa was upbeat about it. “It takes a while for the body to decompress from the pressure in here, then decompose.”

  “Pressure? I don't feel pressure…” I touched my muscles.

  “That's because of your pulse energy.”

  I stopped walking. “Wait, you know about pulse energy?”

  She eyed me. “I created pulse energy, doofus. Every energy existing in the Infinitum began from me.”

  “So you're behind the pulse stream that happened like seven, eight years ago?”

  “Was it seven years ago?” Lysa tilted her head. “Felt like thirty-five eons or so.”

  “Nah, it was definitely eight years ago.” I shook my head. Oh wait, “The concept of time is different.” I muttered.

  “Yeah, that was me.” Lysa grinned. “I was bored, so I decided to have a bit of fun…”

  “But why universe nineteen?”

  “That's how high I can count.”

  “Are you for real?” I turned to her.

  “Yeah, see.” She counted with her fingers. “One nineteen.”

  “That’s not how to count.” I looked at her. “It's one, two, three, four, five, and then nineteen.” Heh. Nailed it.

  Lysa eyed me. “Now I'm no mathematologist, but I'm pretty sure that's wrong as well.”

  “It’s not wrong. That's how to get to nineteen.” I shrugged. “So, did you choose me to be a pure Pulseborn?”

  “Nah,”

  “Thank goodness.” I was relieved. “Then why did I get it? I mean, my friend Levi would have made a better Pulseborn.”

  “Heck, I don't know… I was just zapping everywhere, left, right, and center. I probably shot some out into other universes… but that's not an issue; I fully concentrated on universe nineteen.” Lysa said as she frolicked around. “Then I hit a big one towards universe nineteen. Which turned out to be you.”

  “Oh…”

  “So if you think about it, I'm your mom… In a way.”

  “My mom?” I eyed her.

  “Yep!!” She grinned. “So you're going to call me Mom!”

  “I’m not doing that.” I turned around.

  “Get back here, son!”