Solutions

Yuki stood in front of the statue protectively with her arms outspread. Shoes slipped off her feet and she accidentally kicked one down the cliff. Her tormentor raised an eyebrow while floating over it.

“What have you done to Asami?! Change her back right now. I swear, if you hurt her, I’ll-”

Slightly curled fingers raised. His hand grasped air as if ready to catch a pitch. A solemn expression broke as dried lips twirled into a grin; they parted wickedly to reveal perfectly aligned teeth, “I think your friend is stoned. No worries. It’s temporary, she’ll be better than new once it wears off.”

“I don’t trust you. Make it wear off now!”

“I told you it’s temporary. She’ll be back to a carbon-based flesh construct in one hundred years. That’s no time at all.”

“One hundred years is a lifetime! No! That’s not going to work!”

“But she’ll be perfectly safe, the Valerexixian mineral data shell is practically indestructible and stops the aging process.”

“Zeep Zerp! I’m losing my patience with you. Change her back right now or I’m going to go into attack mode.”

He descended until he balanced on the hand rail, “Unfortunately, we can not perform your request at this time.”

“Why?”

“Because we don’t want to.”

Yuki darted forward, but her punch swung through empty air. Her target sat atop the Asami statue. She twirled but halted. Safety rails pushed against her rear, “I will delete you, old man.”

A younger voice came from the trail leading back to the stairs. This time, it was the acne-faced student with the black pony tail. “After all that you’ve observed, do you overtly think we are simply an old man?”

The old man smiled pleasantly and bowed with his eyes closed while remaining perched on Asami’s stone head, “Captain, you’ve caught up to me. It’s so good to see you.”

Yuki rushed to take the captain down with a punch, only for her fist to swing through nothing, again, “Okay, this obviously isn’t working.”

The younger apparition stood in front of the Asami statue blocking half the path. The old man balanced on her head with his legs folded.

Hands remained down as she moved towards the statues more calmly, tears streamed down her face, “Please stop hurting Asami!”

“We’re not hurting her. Hmmmmm, if you really hate it that much, we’ll tell you how to reverse it immediately. However, you must agree to say your goodbyes and come with us for the coronation ceremony.”

“I agree. Now how do we fix Asami?”

The young man pulled a flat screened device out of his chest. It floated in front of him while he scrolled with his finger, “You are not yet fully Valerexixian, nor are you fully human. Your saliva should be able to revert the mineralization and allow for the breaking of the shell without risk of indigestion.”

A bright blush rolled across her cheeks, “You want me to spit on my girlfriend? I could never do a thing like that.”

“Two hundred milliliters of your saliva should do the trick,” the old man laughed heartily as he tossed her a glass beaker, “A little extra never hurt. It’s lined with the same chemical structure of our internal membranes. Just drool into it, you should be able to.”

A glint of sunlight shone on the edge of the glass. Saliva swished on Yuki’s tongue. It washed her pointy teeth and made them shimmer. She looked at the statue, then at the old man, then at the younger man who nodded confidently, “How am I supposed to trust any of this? You haven’t explained how any of this crazy stuff works?”

The ponytail of the young man with facial acne swished, “Well, you seem to think this is all a dream anyway, so you can make your own choice. You can do as instructed now, or let her further solidify in the next ten minutes so we can have this conversation again, one hundred years from now.”

Yuki stuck out her tongue, which was now thinner and forked. It slid between conical crystalized teeth harder than diamonds. The inside of her mouth dripped with a clear acidic saliva that didn’t harm her teeth or the membranous flesh inside. The clear liquid shimmered as it slid down her tongue and into the container. Only a few drops pooled at the bottom of the glass.

The old man examined it while floating, “That won’t do. That’s ordinary saliva produced when we aren’t redistributing matter. Let’s try this.”

He pulled out silver from his chest, a small bar the size of chocolate wafer. It gleamed without so much as the faintest trace of tarnish. Yuki’s eyes widened. Her palate flooded. She almost closed her mouth and swallowed.

“No, no, keep your mouth open, tilt your chin. That’s right, let it flow. Direct it, don’t let any spill!”

As strange as it felt, she had two hundred milliliters of acidic saliva produced in a few minutes. The large open glass container was nearly full.

“What do we do next?”

“Spead it over her of course. It will digest the minerals, but if you care about the subject the acid will neutralize before harming her flesh. But if you don’t like her, well, she’ll be a puddle of goop!”

“What! I can’t take that risk… but of course I like her. I love her. So long as I care about her even a little bit, she’ll be fine?”

“Affirmative, there is no time! Dump your acid over her head and I will use a device to spread it evenly. Once you are done, you can have this silver. You look really hungry.”

Yuki approached the statue, lips pursed as she gulped. She gave the stone lips a delicate kiss. The stone tasted divine, even just kissing it. She pulled back with a snort to avoid taking a bite, “I love you. You’re the most important person in my life. I can do this!”

She raised on her very tip toes and lifted her arm high to dump the glass cup over Asami’s petrified head. Stone cracked, fizzled, dissolved.

The younger looking man pulled out a ray gun and aimed at the statue.

“Wait, what? No!”