The Four Mirrors
Sequel to ‘Legacies’
By MMM/AJ
Chapter XXII – OV
The little chunk of rock off of the southern coast of Kanto called New Island had a lot of history for Opulous and his family. It was the little island that Mewtwo had built a Temple on almost 200 years ago during his short stint with villainy. After seeing the errors of his ways though, Mewtwo had demolished the Temple and left the island totally empty. But at that point Giovanni, the maniacal leader of Team Rocket, was still bent on capturing Mewtwo and New Island was the first place he looked in his search. Unable to find where Mewtwo had hidden himself, Giovanni spent his efforts scanning every square inch of the island for even a molecule of evidence that would help. He built a huge lab facility there to further the study of the island, and it was abuzz with activity until one of his agents finally found Mewtwo hundreds of miles away in Purity Canyon. With Mewtwo found, Giovanni had no more use for the lab so it was abandoned. Too hurried to deconstruct and haul off the components, the Team Rocket personnel simply left it as is as they mustered to Purity Canyon. For nearly 190 years the lab laid silent; ocean storms pounded it and wild Pokemon built nests in and on it, but still it endured.
It was here that Opulous had spent most of his week away from the family. It had been the first stop in his soul-searching journey, and it quickly turned into the only one as its contents transfixed him. Naturally none of the equipment functioned properly anymore, but it didn’t matter to Opulous. Every little piece of machinery, every ancient and antique wire filled him with wonder and excitement. To him, this place was like a portal back in time to his grandfather’s age. The technology was so primitive compared to what he was used to, so figuring out how any of it worked was a challenge like a puzzle to him.
Best of all, Opulous discovered that some of the hard drives had escaped the elements and survived with intact data. The drives sheltered by the greatest amount of equipment and buried deep inside computer banks had not been touched by years of rain and snow. Opulous had been the only one of the four brothers that Tanis had managed to teach how to read machine minds, and this skill came in extraordinarily handily when he uncovered these drives. Opulous knew his siblings weren’t dumb, but they had proven incapable of this feat even with weeks of training and they had all eventually given up on learning it. But Opulous had finally managed to perfect the skill just a few days before his father’s death.
All it took was a little psychic power to power up the hard drives and he could access all the data within. Naturally the data had degraded over the years, but not so badly that Opulous couldn’t read any of it. Bits of corrupted data simply came through as hiccups in his thoughts as he translated and comprehended them.
The wealth of information on the disks was astounding too! Everything from written records of events to scan data to video recordings was hidden upon them, and Opulous spent his time pouring it into his mind, reading the text and watching the video against his closed eyelids. He even found a few entries written by Giovanni himself! There weren’t very many of them, and from what Opulous read they were very angry and terse. Giovanni had been beside himself with fury that Mewtwo had escaped detection for so long and was unwilling to wait another 15-20 years to clone him again. Then Opulous stumbled upon something even more fascinating: his grandfather’s complete genetic code! Then, on top of that, he found some of the software they had used to create it!
Suddenly, Opulous remembered a conversation he had had with his father when he had been a small child. He had asked Tanis why he had created him, and Tanis had said “I wanted to make sure that our species continued to exist even after I die. Hopefully one day you’ll have kids of your own one day too, even if you have to clone them. Maybe one day there will be as many of us as there are humans!”
With those words in his mind along with Giovanni’s old software, Opulous had a moment of blindingly bright inspiration. He realized that he needed a functional computer console to work on, and he needed it now. He was going to write a program, and he couldn’t do that just holding onto a hard drive. He returned it to its place in the computer banks and began to work on cleaning them all up. Caught up in his sudden tidal wave of inspiration, he threw caution to the wind and used his psychic abilities left and right with no mind to the possibility that he could be detected. He cleaned dirt and dust out of all the vital mechanisms and circuitry, repaired and replaced rusted out connections, and repaired the solar panels on the roof. In less than five hours he had brought their central computing core and a single station online, a feat by itself that he could be proud of.
Then Opulous began programming. With his robotic hand wired right into the console and his organic hand clutching it tightly, he immersed his mind into the machine and programmed with an insane speed and intensity. He used Giovanni’s ancient program for a reference as he went, his father’s words still ringing in his mind. He concentrated on his work so deeply that he didn’t notice time pass around him, and the sun set and rose as he wrote thousands of lines of program code. He didn’t notice as his stomach began to cramp up with hunger and his mouth dried out from thirst. After four days he began to slow down as bugs in his program interrupted and irritated him. He receded out of his concentration and noticed that he was about to pass out from dehydration, so he fetched some of the bottled water he had brought and took a drink. Then he noticed his hunger and exhaustion and decided to take a break to address them. He ate a ration of the food Asha had given him and slept the rest of that day and night away.
The next day Opulous continued his programming blitz. This time he spent three days straight working on it before being interrupted, and it wasn’t by his own bodily needs. He was concentrating when suddenly he heard his brother Cygnus’ voice call out to him telepathically.
“Opulous, where are you?” Cygnus called faintly
“Cygnus?” Opulous asked, surprised to hear from him.
“Yeah, where are you?”
“New Island, why? Is something wrong?”
“The family is regrouping, and we’re going to come pick you up tomorrow morning. Unless, that is, you don’t want to come back…”
“Of course I do!”
“Great! We’ll be there around 8-ish!”
The telepathic link closed just as suddenly as it had opened, and Opulous was left contemplating his family and his old home. Then another idea struck him: he could supplement his work with the programs and data in the computer in the bunker at home! In fact, if he went back there and used the more modern computers he could probably circumvent the problems he was having using the terribly outdated machinery here!
A new surge of ideas caused a wave of impatience to break loose in Opulous’ mind. He dumped his entire program onto one of the hard drives, stuffed it with as much data from the others drives as it could fit, and shut down the station to take it with him. He then decided to go for broke and took out a bunch of other drives too, not wanting to miss out on any of the data they held. Then, without thinking about the distance it would cover, Opulous locked onto his old home and teleported there.
When Opulous emerged outside the bunker the hard drives clattered and fell to the ground haphazardly. He fell to his knees and panted, the teleport had drained all of his energy, and he hadn’t had very much energy left to begin with after going for so long without sleeping. His muscles now felt like they were made from lead. He slowly laid himself down on the dried winter grass and tumbled into sleep a few minutes later.
When Opulous awoke it had been nearly 12 hours. The morning sun had already begun its daily climb into the sky and Opulous realized that it must have been long past 8 o’clock. He frantically reached out telepathically to contact Cygnus.
“Cygnus? Are you out there?”
“Goddamn it Opulous, where have you been? We’ve been searching the lab on New Island for 45 minutes trying to find you!” Cygnus’ voice responded angrily.
“I teleported straight home last night. I was going to tell you, but I was so drained afterwards that I collapsed and fell asleep!”
“Right. Nice one Op. If you had just teleported over here to Asha’s you could have met up with the rest of us!”
“I wanted to work on something using the lab computers in the bunkers!” Opulous said, trying to defend himself and feeling quite embarrassed over his stupidity.
“Alright, fine. We’ll be down there in about an hour.” Cygnus replied.
As soon as their communiqué was over, Opulous eagerly gathered up all his looted hard drives like pirate booty and hauled them down into the bunker. It was a major project by itself for Opulous to figure out how to connect them to the lab’s computers, their sockets were outdated and incompatible with the cables in his father’s computers. Not to mention the fact that they were far too massive to fit inside the cases of the smaller modern computers. Opulous found a very roundabout solution that involved using his own mind as a relay by psychically reading the data off of each drive and transferring it into the memory banks of the computers. It turned out to be an incredibly slow, tedious process since the data formats were different between them as well, so Opulous had to run a conversion protocol over every bit after dumping it onto the lab computers.
Compared to his last week of working though, the hour it took for Opulous’ family to arrive seemed like a split second to him. He was concentrating deeply on transferring the data when he felt Melicia’s arms curl around his shoulders.
“Guess who!” Melicia giggled.
“One moment please.” Opulous said in monotone. He needed to complete the transfer of a video file without interruption to prevent it from being corrupted.
“What’s he doing in there?” Venius’ voice called from the top of the stairs to the bunker.
“I don’t know, looks like he’s feeling up some slabs of electronics!” Melicia replied.
Opulous put down the drive he had been working on and opened his eyes. “I was transferring some data telepathically.” He quipped.
Melicia gave him a slanted smile and the two of them climbed out of the bunkers to meet the others. Opulous saw the hover car and hover van belonging to the Ketchums parked on the lawn, disgorging his family in tight clumps. Ashley and Asha were helping Nolus and Cygnus squeeze out of the side door like clowns emerging from a clown car.
“Here’s the goose that we’ve been chasing!” Melicia said triumphantly as they emerged, holding his robotic arm up like that of a champion boxer.
“The most elusive specimen of Dorkus totalus yet observed in the field!” Venius added with a hearty laugh as he walked alongside them.
Nolus took Opulous’ organic hand and gave it a mighty squeeze as the two groups met. “So how did your ‘journey of self discovery’ go?” he inquired.
“Amazing!” Opulous marveled. “You saw what had been built on New Island, you were there looking for me. I spent practically my whole week there, absorbed in study!”
“You weren’t bashing your robotic hand against any of it were you?” Cygnus joked, eliciting another laugh from Venius.
“No but I did also discover another new feature of my hand. Look!”
Opulous made a strange fidgety motion with the wrist of his robotic arm and a long, slender tritanium blade unfolded and extended out of his palm.
“Awesome!” Venius breathed his approval.
“That’s not all, watch this!”
Opulous concentrated a little bit of psychic energy through his arm and it collected over the edge of the blade in the form of an extremely thin film of hot plasma. The blade now glowed a soft incandescent blue.
“It can cut through solid steel like butter when I do this.” Opulous said.
Nolus looked less than impressed, but everyone else scooted in a little closer to get a sharper look. Opulous stopped the plasma after they were satisfied and retracted the blade.
“And to top it all off, watch this!”
Opulous saw a large boulder a couple hundred feet away sitting next to the rocky cliffs and raised his robotic tail to point at it. The glowing lights along the length of the tail intensified significantly and it began to emit a deep electrical hum. After a few seconds a little slot on the tip of his tail opened up like a gun barrel and fired a beam of blue light past everyone and struck the rock. The rock heated up bright red, then yellow, then white, and then melted into a pile of magma. Opulous’ shot finished and the little armor plates along the tail popped open on joints and jets of hot air hissed out as it cooled.
“My god Opulous, the med bay turned you into a walking arsenal!” Ashley exclaimed.
“I never knew dad was so good at designing weapons!” Cygnus said, staring at the now solidifying magma pile.
“I bet it was mom who designed all that.” Satoria piped up. “She must have figured that if we needed the med-bay to replace entire limbs like this, that we would surely have been in a situation where we needed them to have built-in weapons!”
“Yeah, she had to have realized that if we couldn’t use our powers to re-grow new limbs then we definitely couldn’t use them to defend ourselves anymore.” Tamista added.
“So… What exactly is this big project you mentioned to me?” Cygnus asked, changing the subject suddenly. “You sounded totally gung-ho about it.”
“Come down to the lab and I’ll show you!” Opulous said eagerly.
Opulous led the gaggle over to the bunker and set his hand on top of the console to mentally control it. He activated its holo-screen and dug out the little slideshow he had created to show them.
“When I was staying in the Team Rocket Lab on New Island,” Opulous began, “I discovered that many of their old hard drives were still intact and had data leftover on them.”
Opulous picked up one of the drives in question and passed it to the group so that they could examine it.
“On these drives not only did I find the complete genetic code of our grandfather Mewtwo, but also the program they had used to create it from the base sample of Mew’s DNA.”
A picture of Mew appeared on the screen and slowly morphed into that of Mewtwo.
“I’m not sure if the thought of this ever occurred to you, but our species has always been hampered by the fact that we have to clone ourselves to reproduce. Because we only have one bloodline, and because it takes years to manually modify DNA enough to create a new generation of unique children, it’s impossible for us to reproduce quickly enough or without inbreeding to make our own society. So the-”
“Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa!” Venius interrupted suddenly. “Who said anything about building a society?”
“I did! Do you really want the humans to be able to wipe out our entire species with one bombing attack? If they had dropped more bombs in that last attack they could have killed all of us in one fell swoop! That would be a terrible way for us to end after dad and grandfather fought so hard, don’t you think?” Opulous scolded.
“I don’t know about you Opulous, but I’m not exactly ready to have kids just yet.” Cygnus said.
“We don’t have to right away, just let me finish please!” Opulous said with an irritated tone.
Nobody interrupted again, so Opulous continued: “The program I’m designing will be able to automatically modify the DNA sequence we put into it so that the resultant clone is a complete genetic stranger. So in a way, they won’t really be like our children. I hope that it would only take a handful of hours for the program to process the genetic code, but it should only take a few days at the maximum, which is a huge improvement over the years it took our father to create us. If we use it to create a large enough starter population, we can start a society and never have to use cloning again!”
There was a stunned silence as Opulous finished his presentation. Everyone, including Ashley and Asha, looked absolutely floored. He could sense that it wasn’t his software that had shocked them, but the idea of them actually starting a whole society.
“First of all,” Ashley began, “Your software is ambitious and impressive. But really, are you ready for such a huge commitment? Especially when there is still a large element of the human population that wants to see you dead?”
“I’m not ready for it that’s for sure!” Venius exclaimed.
“Yeah, me too!” Cygnus added.
“Listen, we’ll take it gradually!” Opulous said. “We’ll only start out with a few children and work up as we go!”
“I think it’ll be great to have kids!” Melicia piped up. “I can’t wait to get started!”
“We’re not going to start right away though; I still want to finish my own personal education.” Opulous said.
“That brings up another issue that we need to address.” Tamista interjected. “Now that we’ve decided to stick together, where are we going to live? It’s not like we can live out of your lab and Venius’ cave. Are we going to build a new house here or move somewhere else?”
“I don’t think we should build over the remains of the old house, it would be like living on a graveyard. We should find a new place to live.” Nolus said sentimentally.
“Anyone got any ideas where we should go?” Cygnus asked.
“I don’t want to sound like an ungrateful ass, but I don’t think my house could fit all of you. It was a miracle that we could fit six of you last night!” Ashley said.
“How about New Island? Opulous obviously enjoyed it there!” Venius said with a snicker.
“That place was a dump and you know it.” Opulous said tonelessly.
“How about Purity Canyon?” Satoria chirped. “It’s remote and hard to reach, it has a great warm and wet climate for growing food, and humans barely ever get close to it.”
“But I don’t think we should sully such a beautiful place by building in it!” Nolus protested with special disgusted emphasis on the word ‘building’.
“You know we don’t make huge muddy polluted messes when we build things! Psychic construction is ecologically friendly, we can power our home with solar energy, and it’ll take hardly any space out of a vast natural preserve. It’s not like we’ll be throwing garbage everywhere and shooting wild Pokemon to get it done!” Opulous said.
“Sounds good to me!” Melicia said.
“I love the idea! It would be a great place to raise kids!” Satoria added.
“It’ll be a little stormy living in a place like that, but we’ll be so far from humanity that it sounds game to me.” Venius said.
Everyone looked at Nolus to see what he had to say. “Alright, fine. I trust you guys not to abuse the place.”
Chapter XXIII – CVI
Cygnus had never built anything in his life, he was certainly no architect. Opulous had designed their new house for them and was providing them with instruction and directions on how to build it. Opulous had gotten the idea to link all seven of their minds together so that they could act collectively, and to Cygnus’ surprise it worked astonishingly well. He could sense where Opulous wanted every nail, every pipe, and every wire, and he could sense who was responsible for different parts that needed to be built. They didn’t need a single word of verbal communication between each other to know what to do, when to do it, and who should do it. They all used their psychic powers in their work; they cut pipes, threaded wires, nailed boards, welded steel and lifted beams into place with their minds. Their new house took shape with unbelievable speed as they all worked together in perfect co-ordination.
To a human layperson, it looked like the house was building itself while Cygnus and his siblings just sat there concentrating. The beams lifted up into place and the walls and floors assembled themselves over them methodically. Pipes extended up inside the walls as they solidified and wires crawled like snakes up them. Huge puffs of foamy insulation bloomed inside them and tiling flew up and latched onto their outsides like scales falling off in reverse.
All in all it took less than one hour to build the home, a feat that even the most dedicated human contractor could never imagine. The house was two stories tall with a basement and had over 3,000 square feet of floor space. The roof was made up entirely of weather-proofed high efficiently solar panels, and it had a large greenhouse for growing food nearby.
“That was great!” Opulous’ voice echoed through all their minds. “Ready to do the next one?”
Their plans had changed a little bit in the week since Opulous’ little presentation back at the lab. Opulous had stopped work on his program to research and learn everything about architecture and home building, and Ashley and some of her friends gathered up enough money to buy the building materials they needed. They hit a stroke of luck when they discovered that there were several Protectorate storehouses full of supplies that had yet to be confiscated and redistributed after the organization’s dissolution. They decided to build four houses with all they found; one house per brother, and the sisters were going to stay one each with Cygnus, Nolus and Venius. That way when they were ready in the future to have children they wouldn’t have to cram everyone into one immense house. Cygnus was going to live with Tamista, Nolus with Satoria and Venius with Melicia. Opulous had volunteered to be the odd man out living alone, but he wouldn’t truly be alone since they were going to be neighbors after all. They had found a patch of clear land in the canyon big enough to fit all four houses side by side.
The last house was finished by nightfall, and there was still a sizeable pile of construction supplies leftover. Opulous took them to his house for storage, and the seven of them stood together to admire their workmanship. Each house was designed with a unique floor plan and furnishings, each was painted a different subdued color, and each was hooked up to a large well that drew upon the water table underneath the canyon. The solar panels were supplemented by small receivers that could draw upon the energy of the Blue River when sunlight was sparse.
“Well, ready to move in?” Nolus asked suddenly.
They all looked at each other hesitantly for a second or two. It almost felt like they were saying goodbye to each other even though they would be right next door. Cygnus was the first to walk over to his new home, and Tamista followed behind him as he walked onto the porch and opened the door. He heard the footsteps of the others as they did the same.
Cygnus’ home was designed with his love of the outdoors in mind. There were large windows everywhere to give him a stunning view of the forest around them, but these windows were made with triple-reinforced solid polyplexiglass to resist the intense storms that always passed through the canyon. The living room was spacious and had a large holo-TV and a treadmill for Cygnus if he wanted to keep up on the latest news while exercising. There weren’t any paintings or knick-knacks to decorate the place and give it a homey feeling yet, so it looked a bit bare.
“Well, now what?” Tamista asked him as he closed the door behind them.
“I don’t know… Before all this I was always busy studying or having fun with the rest of the guys. Now, I don’t know.
“Well, if Opulous really does want us to start a society at some point in the future, we’re going to have to study up on how humans run their society and learn up on it.” Tamista suggested.
“Hey Cygnus, come to your west kitchen window!” Nolus’ voice called telepathically.
Cygnus walked across the living room, through the kitchen and opened the window. He saw Nolus leaning out his window next door holding what appeared to be a water balloon. He wound his arm up in preparation for throwing it.
“Oh no you don’t!” Cygnus laughed and slammed the window closed. The water balloon burst on it with a wet splut.
“Going at it with the neighbors already?” Tamista giggled, entering the kitchen behind him.
“I’ll bet by 9 o’clock I’ll be yelling at them to turn that music down!” Cygnus laughed.
Epilogue
Flying over Mt. Kana was always a huge risk, even in the most modern flying vehicles. Storms could boil up over the other side of the Canyon at any time, ushering in winds violent enough to rip down sturdy old trees. Ashley’s hover van was hardly modern now, and the winds could easily knock it around and smash it into the ground below if they were to encounter a strong enough downdraft. But the sky was mercifully clear as Ashley brought them over the lip of the mountain. Asha looked through the window and gasped in delight at the beauty of the forests below; the trees of Purity Canyon were blooming for spring and showering the whole scene with soft pink petals.
“Wow!” Asha marveled. “I’ve never seen this place bloom so intensely!”
Asha and Ashley both marveled at the canyon’s beauty as they passed over it. After a few minutes they found the clearing where the houses stood and began to descend. Asha peered through her window and saw a large gaggle of children running chaotically around the clearing in front of the houses playing a game of swordfight.
“Holy shit, would you look at all the kids!” Ashley exclaimed. “We neglect to visit them for 10 years and they build a whole tribe!”
“12, 13, 14, I count 15 of them down there!” Asha said, trying to keep track of them as they sprinted around the lawn. “Looks like Opulous’ program was a stunning success!”
The kids halted their game and all pointed up at their van as they came within visual range. Some of them sprinted inside and others hovered up towards the van to get a closer look. One of them poked his face up next to the glass and peered in at Asha curiously and she gave him a friendly smile. He gave her a silly face and flew back down to the houses faster than them.
They landed quietly and stepped out of the van into the waiting crowd. The children immediately flooded them with questions.
“Are you Aunt Ashley?”
“How old are you?”
“Do all other humans look like you?”
“What are those things tied to your feet?
“Why are you so much shorter that dad?”
“Hey, calm down kids, listen to me!” Ashley said loudly. “Where are your parents?”
“They’re inside!” They all said in unison.
“Except for our dad, he’s napping on the porch!” A smaller girl with sky-blue fur said, pointing to Opulous’ house.
Asha and Ashley tried to push their way through the crowd, but the kids resumed their rapid-fire questioning and clustered around them so that they had to step cautiously to avoid stepping on their feet.
“How come you never visited us before?”
“Is it true you knew grandpa Tanis?”
“Yeah, what was he like?”
“Did he really have gold on his head?”
“Or a robotic arm like my dad?
“How cool was it when he beat Ares?”
“It must have been hard for you going up against Ares without powers!”
“What’s it like not to have powers? Is it boring?”
“Does it hurt?”
“Kids, quiet down! You don’t wake your dad up!” Asha said, pointing to the porch where Opulous was supposedly napping.
“He’s not dad for all of us!”
“Yeah, he’s only Amara, Kira, Jerin, Torrell and Jacobus’s dad!”
“Whoever’s dad he is, let’s be quiet and not wake him up!” Ashley pleaded.
They managed to push their way through the crowd and up onto the porch of Cygnus’ house. Ashley reached up to knock the door, but it swung open right before her knuckles could strike it. Tamista was the one who answered and her eyes lit up with joy when she saw them.
“Ashley, Asha! I’m so glad to see you two again!”
Tamista, who had seemed to have grown another few inches since they had last met, had to bend over to give Asha a hug. Asha felt a little of the wind squeezed out of her, but it was warm and affectionate nonetheless. Cygnus came up behind her with a big grin on his face.
“Well if it isn’t my two favorite humans on Earth!” He boomed happily. “Come here!”
Ashley was the only other one open so he hugged her too. Once they had finished, Cygnus invited them into the house. After ten years Cygnus had slowly collected various knick-knacks and decorations to deck out his house with. Asha noticed that he was especially fond of landscape paintings, as there were several hanging from his walls wherever there weren’t windows. He had an old fashioned fireplace in his den; the mantle was decorated with a few sculptures of various Pokemon.
“What’s this?” Ashley asked curiously, grabbing a little clear plastic display case with a glass shard in it.
A look of shame suddenly fell over Cygnus’ face and Tamista turned away as if unable to watch the conversation.
“Do you remember that mirror that you gave my father?” Cygnus asked softly.
“Oh no…” Ashley said sadly, and looked at the shard intently. “It must have broke in the wreckage when your old house was bombed.
“I’d be lying to let you think that Ashley, and I can’t bear to be dishonest with you. Even though I am ashamed of what happened.” Cygnus said.
“What do you mean?” Ashley asked.
“Well, not long after our home was bombed, Opulous dug through the rubble of the house to see if he could find the hard drives of dad’s computer so we could read his old personal log entries. Instead, he found your family’s mirror, still intact by some miracle. But that day dad’s death was hanging pretty heavy over us, and our moods were foul and unfriendly. All four of us, even Opulous, got into an argument over should get the mirror as inheritance. We were on the verge of dueling it out with real energy swords, and Venius and I were childishly trying to tug it away from each other telekinetically. Then for some bizarre reason, we both seemed to lose our grips on it at once and it fell to the ground and broke.”
“Oh…oh no.” Ashley said quietly.
“It was strange enough that our powers could somehow lose their grip on it, but to add to the weirdness it didn’t shatter like normal glass would. Instead of breaking into hundreds of tiny shards, it only broke into four large ones. We decided that perhaps that this was a little too convenient to be ignored, so we each took one of the four shards for our houses.”
“Well, you know it was always supposed to be a haunted mirror.” Ashley said with a sudden smile. “Maybe the spirits of older Ketchums kept it from breaking in a way that’s too difficult to fix!”
“…You’re not angry at us for breaking it?” Cygnus asked a little timidly.
“No actually, I think that if anything this is probably just a little more proof of the weird stuff that always seems to happen around it. Besides, you couldn’t ask for a cleaner break than that could you? It’s eerily close to a perfect quarter!”
There was a faint whooshing pop and Venius and Nolus appeared out of a teleport next to Cygnus and Tamista. They were quickly followed by Opulous, Melicia, and Satoria. They exchanged equally joyful greetings and many more bear hugs. Asha noticed that there seemed to be colorful swirls and smiley faces drawn all over Opulous’ robotic arm and tail.
“What happened to you Op?” Ashley giggled. “It looks like one of the kids was drawing on you while you were napping!”
“Yeah, it was Emael. You’ll have to talk with him soon Venius.” Opulous said calmly. He erased the markings quickly with his mind.
“So, what’s the occasion of this visit?” Satoria asked intently. “I know you’re both normally too busy to fly out here to Purity Canyon, so it must be big!”
“They’re finally going to do Dupree’s execution today, and the four of you are actually invited to come watch.”
There was a stunned silence for a few moments before Venius spoke up. “I’m there.”
“Me too.” Cygnus added.
“Yeah, I’m in.” Nolus said. Everyone stared at him for a moment; they knew that he hated the death penalty.
“Is there anybody who isn’t coming?” Ashley asked half jokingly.
Nobody responded, obviously all seven of them wanted to be there.
“Oh jeez. I know my little van won’t hold all of you guys, so most of you will have to fly behind us.”
“Who’s going to watch the kids?” Tamista asked suddenly.
“I’ll do it!” Asha piped in. Everyone stared at her for a moment.
“Not that I don’t think you wouldn’t be able to handle kids in general, but imagine a human with no powers trying to handle kids who could quite easily throw him or her into the upper atmosphere with a blink of the eye. I’m not saying the kids would do something like that either, but let’s just say that he/she wouldn’t be able to stop them if they decided to start drawing all over the walls or creating pyrokinetic fireworks.” Tamista said gently.
“Actually, I might have a solution for that!” Opulous said brightly.
“Let me guess, you’ve got a brand new gadget that you just finished for this situation?” Melicia asked as if this were a regular occurrence.
“Exactly. Though your initial reactions will probably be negative, I ask you to give me a chance here.” Opulous said. He opened his hands in front of him and with a little flash of blue he teleported his device into his hands.
“What is it?” Ashley asked curiously.
“It’s a limited-range psionic disruptor that I programmed to only function on our kids. Its field strength is gentle enough to only make them a little dizzy if they try to use their powers, but strong enough to keep them from doing anything harmful.” Opulous replied.
“Why should I subject my kids to something as foul as that?” Nolus huffed angrily. “After how much pain and suffering it has caused our kind?”
“Well, you can always be the one to stay behind and watch the kid Nolus, if you really want to spare them an hour and a half tops of a harmlessly low field?” Opulous suggested.
“I promise I won’t go and turn it up to dangerous levels while you guys are gone.” Asha said, her voice implying how absurd it sounded.
Nolus looked around at the others to see if they had any objections similar to his.
“As much as I agree with Nolus, I trust Opulous not to build anything dangerous. After all, this thing would affect his kids too!” Cygnus said.
The others nodded in general agreement and Nolus finally assented.
“When do we have to leave?” Opulous asked, setting the disruptor on a table gently.
“We still have about 10 or 15 minutes before we have to go, but I figure it can’t hurt to get there early.” Ashley said. “Are you sure you can handle all those kids Asha?”
“15 kids isn’t-“
“20 actually, my 5 are inside studying right now.” Venius interrupted.
Asha looked a little surprised for a bit, but her look of determination returned. “Bring ‘em on!”
The whole group walked outside and Venius’ five kids all emerged from his house. Asha realized that he had probably called them all out telekinetically, explaining why she hadn’t heard it.
“Everyone listen up!” Cygnus called to the kids loudly so that they would clam up. “We’re going on some errands with Ashley here, and Asha is going to stay behind and watch you all until we get back. That means no powers until we get back!”
“Awwww!” The kids groaned in unison.
“And to make sure that nobody is tempted, I’m turning on a little disruptor field that will keep you from using them until then. It won’t hurt, but it’ll make you feel woozy if you try!” Opulous added.
The kids moaned even louder that time.
“Asha, if they prove to be too much for you, you can call me on my cell.” Ashley said soothingly. “I’ll tell one the brothers to teleport back here.”
Ashley climbed into the van and three of the four brothers climbed in after her. Cygnus was the fourth who couldn’t fit inside the van, so he and the sisters flew behind the van as it started and hovered up off of the ground.
“Oh, and kids, stay outside until we get back! That way Asha won’t have to chase you around the houses!” Cygnus called as he flew off. “And feed Luxxy for Venius!” Then they were gone into the distance.
“I don’t think I’ll need to chase you guys down anyway, since I have some stories for you that I’m sure will keep you sitting in rapt silence!” Asha bragged at the horde of kids.
“We wanna play!” one of the kids protested.
“Oh, so you don’t want to hear the story of how I saved all your dads’ lives once?” She said slyly.
The kids all stared at her with a sudden look of impressed shock. They all crowded in closer to listen.
“Sit down everyone and get settled, let me show you something!” Asha said, and pulled a Pokéball off of her breeder’s belt.
Cygnus had a terrible sick feeling as he and the others were lead through the hallways of the prison toward the execution room. He knew this particular prison; it was the same maximum-security facility where he had been held after the teleporting incident at his father’s rave party. The walls had gotten a little dirtier during the years, but otherwise it was nearly exactly the same as he remembered. The memories of his six months of imprisonment swam up into his mind as he and the others strode quickly into the highest security sector, and he could suddenly recall the feeling of those horrible nightsticks slamming into his body again.
When a couple of prison guards saw Cygnus as he passed, their expressions tumbled into shock and they pointed their fingers at Cygnus in amazement.
“Holy shit! Is that…?” one of them stammered quietly.
“I think it is…” The other whispered.
Cygnus felt an involuntary smile cross his face. “Hey boys, enjoying the good life?” He asked and waved at them genially with that same smile.
Cygnus guffawed heartily at their facial expressions well after they had turned the corner out of sight of them. All of his terrible memories had been instantly wiped away by their looks of sheer terror and surprise.
“What’s up with you Cygnus? Remember a really funny joke?” Tamista asked.
“Oh, those guards that looked like they were about to shit bricks, I knew them. They sometimes guarded my cell; they were terrified of me!”
“No wonder they looked so horrified!” Satoria laughed, “To see you walking around here again, free this time must be like a nightmare to them!”
They all got another good laugh out of this before reaching a single, clean white plastic door with a skull and crossbones printed on it; the execution room. The single guard that was leading their group swiped his card across the reader next to the door and it swooshed open.
The execution room was empty for now, the guard ushered them into the little booth with the one-way glass that politicians used to watch the lethal injections. Once they were all snugly inside, Cygnus had to hover a few inches to see over the heads of his siblings. He watched as Dupree, now an utter mess with rings under his eyes and his hair grey and scraggly, was brought in. The guards made him lie down on the table and began to tie him down. One of them pointed toward the one-way window and said something that they couldn’t hear through the soundproof walls, and an expression of utter sadness fell over his tired face.
The psionic disruptors of the prison seemed to have been taken down or deactivated, so out of curiosity Cygnus read Dupree’s mind to see what the guard had said. He felt Dupree’s fear wash over him in great sluggish waves when he entered his mind, it made him feel like he was going to vomit and pass out. He dug into Dupree’s short term memory and heard the guard’s voice: “All of Tanis’ sons and Shakara’s daughters are in that booth right now, waiting to watch you die.”
Cygnus couldn’t decide what to think about this. A part of him thought that maybe they were being a little too cruel to the man, but the other part enjoyed seeing him suffer as much as possible after what he had done to their family. Cygnus decided not to say anything and just let it slide, but he continued monitoring Dupree’s mind.
Suddenly the speakers overhead in their booth turned on, so Cygnus didn’t need to read Dupree’s mind to hear what was being said.
“Do you have any last words?” one of the guards said.
“I just wanted to do what was best to protect humanity from them.” He said with an especially nasty emphasis on ‘them’.
Cygnus frowned and then decided that there was still nothing to cruel for Dupree now. If he was still this hateful even when facing down the Grim Reaper then he was truly irredeemable.
The medical attendant spooled the plastic tubing out from a panel in the wall and put a fresh needle in the end. Dupree flinched and Cygnus could feel the twinge of it piercing his skin over the psychic link he had established. Then he felt Dupree tumble into unconsciousness as the sodium thiopental poured into his veins and flowed up into his brain. The executioner dawdled about with the next needle and accidentally dropped it on the floor. He picked it up gingerly and began to sterilize it slowly and methodically, not bothering keeping track of how long it was taking. It took him almost 5 minutes to get the needle ready and attached to the next tube.
Cygnus hadn’t bothered to sever his psychic connection to Dupree; he found it soothing to be linked to someone who was asleep. The executioner finally inserted the second needle and the pancuronium bromide began to pump into Dupree next. After a few moments, Cygnus felt its effects upon him over the link, which proved frightening. He realized that he should only be able to really feel it if either Dupree was waking up or their mind link was complete. He knew the link wasn’t complete too.
After a few moments Cygnus could sense that Dupree was indeed starting to wake up little by little, but was unable to tell them about it because of the paralysis. Horrified, Cygnus terminated his link to stop that terrible suffocation feeling, the feeling of the paralysis stopping his breathing. But he didn’t make an outcry, didn’t try to stop the execution, and didn’t say a word. He just hovered there and watched Dupree’s silent form lying on the table and imagined how much that feeling was intensifying.
The third and final needle with the heart-stopping potassium chloride was injected, and in less than 5 minutes Dupree was declared dead. Cygnus and the others weren’t allowed to leave their booth until his body was taken away, so they had the pleasure of watching as his corpse was rolled onto a stretcher and wheeled out of a back door.
The eight of them, including Ashley, returned home underneath a pall of uncomfortable silence. The execution seemed woefully unsatisfying, it hadn’t provided any of them true closure and seemed to create a slight twinge of guilt. Nolus in particular felt terrible about it. He had been just as eager as his brothers to see Dupree put to death beforehand, but during and afterwards he could almost feel sorry for Dupree. Watching him die just brought back his own pain over Tanis’ death and reminded him of how much he hated death as a whole. It served to strengthen his resolve against the death penalty.
Venius too was unsatisfied by the execution, but for a completely different set of reasons. He felt that Dupree was good for starters, but that there needed to be more executions. He wanted to see the psi-slayers all rooted out and killed, and perhaps a lot more violently than with a few needles. The more he dwelled on it, the more it haunted him. He kept on repeating to himself that so many of them would get away with it and that there was nothing he could do about it. It tormented him during their whole flight back home, and only the sight of his children could expel the anger from his mind.
There was a huge congregation sitting around Asha including all of the children, all of Asha’s Pokemon, and Luxxy and her pack siblings. Asha’s Absol was sleeping gently in her lap and her Skarmory was roosting in a nearby tree. The van landed and they hardly even looked up to see. Cygnus and the others gathered at the outskirts of the group to listen.
“-Then it was just my Abraham here against his entire team!” Asha said in an excited tone while stroking Absol. “His Xatu had swept away the rest of my tiny little team, so it was up to him. Abraham KO’d Xatu with a critical Night Slash attack and brilliantly wiped out the Hitmonlee with a Psycho Cut attack. Then things got tough, his last team member was a Mightyena, which meant that neither of us could pull off an effective attack against the other. Then I remembered that-”
“Sorry to interrupt Asha, but it’s time for the kids’ daily meditation.” Nolus said gently.
Again the crowd of kids booed and moaned in disapproval.
“Meditation? What for?” Asha asked.
“It’s part of the training program to help them learn to control their powers properly. Meditation promotes mental clarity and self discipline, both of which are vital to a powerful psychic.” Nolus said wisely. “Would you mind giving me your spot?”
Asha stood up politely and Nolus teleported a small musical instrument into his hands. “You and your mom are welcomed to stay and try it!”
“Sure, but what’s that you’ve got there?” Asha asked.
“It’s a wooden Ocarina, my father brought it back from Hyrule for me once when I was a little kid. Opulous dug it out of the ruins of our old home a few years ago. I’ve been playing it since. It’s got a soothing timbre to it that makes it great for calming your mind.”
“You handle the meditation Nolus, we’ve got work to do.” Opulous called as he walked toward the houses. “I’ll turn off the disruptor.”
Venius and Opulous walked off while Cygnus, Ashley and the sisters sat down near Nolus. Nolus raised the Ocarina to his mouth and began to play. At first Asha didn’t know how he could play an instrument designed for human hands with only three fingers, but with a closer inspection she could see that he was using his powers to block the holes his fingers couldn’t reach.
Nolus didn’t exactly play a song, but a small melody that repeated over and over again. The kids all closed their eyes and sat quite still as Nolus played, and Asha followed their example. She listened to the haunting notes that Nolus played on the Ocarina and sat there, but she didn’t really see the benefits of it. Her mind didn’t seem to clear in any way, and she just felt boredom creep in. Eventually she opened her eyes, knowing that everyone else’s eyes were closed and they probably wouldn’t care anyway.
Asha stared at Nolus first, admiring how much taller he seemed to have gotten. His shoulder/horn/tail fur seemed to have grown out a bit longer and his fur color had gotten a little darker. Next she looked at Luxxy, who had by now evolved from a Shinx into a Luxio. She was sitting in the front of her pack, which consisted of her other 5 siblings who had all evolved into Luxios as well. Most of them were either meditating along or sleeping, but Luxxy’s eyes were wide open and prowling the surroundings like those of a watchful guardian. Next was Cygnus, whose chest scar had faded considerably. It looked like that he or one of his siblings had tried to use their recover abilities on it once or twice with only modest results. His fur tufts were a bit longer too, especially the fur on the tip of his tail. He twitched it back and forth as he sat and the fur danced and flowed over the grass.
Last but not least were the children. Asha had asked a few of their names during the time she had babysat them, but still didn’t know the majority of them. Asha had been especially impressed by the fact that the brothers had given all of the children surnames. It really seemed that they were going for their own society! Out of all the children, the biggest troublemaker was Emael Redclaw. He had been the one who had drawn on Opulous’ arm, but he had also thrown rocks at her Skarmory, and even cursed at her when she tried to pause the storytelling to go feed Luxxy. He had orange fur with yellow stripes, green eyes, and horns the same shape as his father Venius’.
Other kids she had gotten to know included Amara Bluetail, Elemir Skygem AKA Ellie, and Jeselle Nevica. Amara was a shy girl from Opulous’ family with sky blue fur and deep blue eyes, Ellie was an especially talkative girl from Cygnus’ family with brown fur and eyes, and Jeselle was a Pokemon-loving girl from Nolus’ family with dark purple fur. They had all been the most inquisitive of the bunch and Asha had stopped them to ask their names.
Nolus’ Ocarina playing softly came to an end and Asha quickly shut her eyes so that they wouldn’t see she hadn’t been meditating with them. She slowly reopened them again and saw that the kids were slowly standing up and stretching. Ashley crept up behind her and laid her hand on her shoulder.
“About time we went home don’t you think?” Ashley asked.
“Oh, do you suppose she can stay for awhile?” Nolus asked suddenly, walking over to them.
Ashley looked a little surprised. “Well, it’s not like she’s a kid anymore, it’s up to her to decide. She graduated from the Pokemon University 4 years ago, and I don’t know what her work schedule looks like.” Ashley said.
“My schedule is clear for the next few days.” Asha said.
“Great! I can even teleport you back when you need to!” Nolus said eagerly.
Asha felt a little stir of excitement at the thought of staying with Nolus and his family. “You don’t think Satoria will mind?”
“Not at all! We have plenty of room, and I can’t wait to introduce you to the rest of the kids!”
“Alright, sounds good to me! Just make sure you keep her away from any sugar!” Ashley said jokingly and walked back to her van.
End of Book I – To be continued in Book II: The Book of K’telle
