“Miles, thank you for this body. I will make sure to use it better than you did.” A voice reverberated in Miles’s mind. Coin due to a quick battle that mostly took place in minds, failed to catch what was going on. Thanks to being connected to Miles's brain, he could see the plans of his human companion, but the concept of energy was too abstract, and he couldn’t see what Miles was creating, even when they shared every single thought they had.

Similarly, he couldn’t see what the opponent was doing in Miles's mind. When Miles was using his maximum power to bring Samuel down to free Val, the opponent wasn’t watching either. Samuel reversed Miles's attacks back extremely deftly and left a ticking bomb before he departed. Taking Val’s body with him. Luckily he was pressed by time and couldn’t keep on attacking Miles, or he didn’t know what he would do. But as he was about to heave a sigh of metaphorical relief, he heard another dismal voice.

“John?!” Coin asked in absolute dread.

“Hmm?” Miles’s body spoke out loud, but the toning was different than Miles he knew. Coin could tell. They were together for more than fifteen years. He could tell from the posture that this wasn’t Miles he knew. “An AI connected to mind? Back in my time, we would never do something like this. This boy trusts you so much huh?”

“Get out!” Coin shouted as he tried to upload image after image to overwhelm Miles's mind. He didn’t want to hurt him, but he didn’t know what else he could do.

“Hehe.” John laughed dryly, as he touched a few buttons on the watch, “The design is still the same. We took all sorts of precautions against AIs so I can shut you off any time I want.”

After a few seconds of tinkering, Coin realized he lost his connection with Miles's mind. He couldn’t understand how. The wristwatch was created by Miles and was connected with his blood and energy. They were linked together. How did John separate that?

“You say I should get out?” John asked with an ugly grin, “No! You put me in this body, remember?”

“Please, I beg you!” Coin transmitted his voice from the watch. “Please, leave Miles alone.”

“How commendable. How heartwarming.” John said with a serious face. He was really impressed. He never thought a machine could be so attached to a human. That was almost against their nature. “But no. As Miles said, my will was so powerful that I manifested a power that would allow me to live forever. Deep down inside I want to continue living. I don’t want to die yet. Or ever.

Now, go to sleep.” With it, John touched a few more buttons and shut the AI function of the watch. Although it was still working, he had to do everything manually.

“The hell is wrong with this coding language? I have never seen anything like this before.” John muttered as he tried to find the map, but failed. “Gotta figure it out before I can leave.”

He sat down on the ground and focused on his mind, soon finding the ultimate Miles created just a week ago. “Not a bad ultimate. Afterlife. He wanted to review my life from my perspective to learn everything I learned in my long life. The restrictions are so strong that even I couldn’t escape if it wasn’t that attack that shut his brain off entirely. I guess I have to thank that Samuel person in the future.

But the ultimate is too weak for my taste.” John focused Miles’s energy and gathered all in the ultimate. Soon, changes started to occur. “There are only a handful of people who can do this, and one of them is me.”

As John muttered, a cube-shaped object disappeared from the pyramid and appeared in Miles's hand. Soon, it started to spin around itself, and energy was emitted from its body. John collected this energy and directed all to Miles’s second ultimate.

“Cube of One! Ultimate treasure of my tribe. It was created to carry out the wills of my people. Even after death, people’s dreams and regrets linger in the air. Those yearnings, through energy, manifest as a strong power. Cube of One is designed to collect that power and bestow it on future generations. In my tribe, even at our peak, there were only two people who could use the cube. Now that I am last of my kind, I can use it too.” John unleashed the power gathered in the cube and altered Miles's ultimate and strengthened it.

“There, with this, it is better.” He smiled. “Afterlife can look through a person’s memories from their perspective. But through different settings, you can see how they react and learn them better. Now, although it is not exactly the same, a person from the tribe had a similar ability. What was it? Utopia and Dystopia. He could place the minds of the deceased in heaven and hell based on their sins.

I will place your mind in Utopia and let you have all your wishes fulfilled and will watch how you react. As I do so, I will also see through your life. And after I learn all your secrets, I will replace you for good.”

————

“Where am I?” A voice reverberated in the darkness. “What is this place?”

Soon the darkness split open by a strange scene, and a beautiful baby boy was delivered to a gorgeous green-eyed woman’s expecting arms. The boy had dark blue eyes, looking at the woman curiously.

“Mother?” The voice asked in shock. “Is that Merlin? No, the eyes are darker than his, Miles? Is this Miles’s birth?”

The scene rolled forward, and the boy grew up. As he did so, the owner of the voice watched him. He had never seen Miles’s past, as they only met after Miles learned he couldn’t awaken his superpower powers. At the time, he was a bit older than four years old.

Soon, the scene he knew was coming had arrived. Miles was taken to the lab to be checked, but to his surprise, this time, Miles had a superpower.

“What is this? Is this John’s doing? Am I in Miles's subconscious?” Coin thought as he watched Miles jumping around excitedly. “I have to warn him!” He thought, but he couldn’t reach him.

He tried, tried, and tried, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t reach Miles, but when he saw how he turned into a bully, he couldn’t take it anymore. He thought of one memory. As he did so, he realized his memory manifested in that strange scene. Although not directly.

“I can influence them a little.” He beamed with joy and started to plant subtle images of Miles's life into the scenes. How Marooner and Coin traveled together. Adventures of Z and X, Maya and Principal Milosh. Monkey King, Alex, and Val. He hoped, seeing all those, Miles would find the power to break out of this prison!