The Four Mirrors
Sequel to ‘Legacies’
By MMM/AJ
Part I – Brotherhood
Chapter VII – OII
The med-bay of Tanis’ lab had an atmosphere of extreme tension and terror that day as Opulous stood amongst his family in front of a console. Tanis was simply touching the holographic panel and psychically communicating with the machine with a silent, stony expression, while the rest of the family stood alongside and behind him to watch. They were staring through a large energy force field at Venius, Cygnus, and Melicia, who were now in total isolation quarantine. Cygnus was lying unconscious upon a steel table hooked up to machinery, with dried crusts of blood on his face from the bleeding through his eyes, nose and mouth that had occurred less than an hour ago. Melicia was awake and huddled on her table, silently weeping and hugging onto a blanket while the machine scanned her. Venius was sitting up straight on his table, his expression just as stoic and empty as his father’s as the wires dangled off of him like hair. Satoria waved at him from the other side of the force field, and all he could do was to summon up a weak smile in return.
“Have you found anything yet?” Shakara asked.
“I’ve isolated the virus in their bloodstream and started analyzing it. Right now all I know is that it’s some kind of hemorrhagic fever, and that it only spreads through contact with bodily fluids. Cygnus is stable and Melicia and Venius seem to be resisting it so far, but until I can finish scanning the virus’s genetic code, I won’t be in complete control of their conditions.” Tanis said quietly.
“I’m extremely nervous about this, dad. Are you absolutely sure none of the rest of us are infected? We’ve been exposed to Melicia all day today during our trip to the University, and Cygnus was all over the house while we were gone!” Nolus said.
“I’m sure. The virus cannot survive in air, and it doesn’t live long on open surfaces. I already scanned us all, and only Venius contracted it when he carried Cygnus down here and came into contact with his blood.” Tanis said.
“Are we going to die?” Melicia asked weakly, looking up at them from her crying.
“Of course not sweetie! As soon as I finish analyzing the virus’s DNA, I can design a whole slew of specific treatments that will target the virus with 100% accuracy! You’ll all be well again in at least a day or two!” Tanis replied.
Melicia’s woeful expression didn’t change, and she lowered her head between her arms and continued to cry. Venius’ cold expression didn’t change either, and Tanis frowned and continued working. For a few moments, Shakara stood silent and watched while grinding her teeth, until finally she had had enough.
“That’s it. I’m going in there.” Shakara said, and raised a shield around herself. The shield shunted her entry through the forcefield while keeping the seal airtight as she walked though, and when she was clear, it dropped and she walked over to put her arms around Melicia.
“Mom! What do you think you’re doing? What if it mutates and becomes airborne? What if Melicia starts to bleed and it gets on you! You’ll be exposed!” Tamista protested, fear in her voice.
“Shh, she knows what she’s doing.” Tanis said.
Melicia looked up at her mother with a great sadness in her eyes. “Mom, you didn’t have to. I don’t want you to die too.”
“Hey, listen. Do you think I would let you suffer through this alone? What kind of mother would I be? Besides, I trust Tanis’ ability and intelligence with my life. I walked in here without hesitation because I know that he can stop this virus.” Shakara replied.
The fear wasn’t completely banished from Melicia’s face, but she did look considerably better. She gripped her mother in a tight bear hug and held it for maximal comfort.
“How long do we need to be stuck in here?” Venius asked, suddenly breaking his silence.
“To be safe, at least a week. Though it will be easy to treat you in a day or two, we need to make sure to take every precaution to ensure it doesn’t spread to the rest of us.” Tanis said.
Venius nodded quietly and stood from the table to begin pacing. Tanis continued concentrating on the control panel and Opulous stood next to him observing. For a couple minutes all was silent except for the soft sniffling of Melicia as she clung to her mother.
“This is very disturbing…” Tanis suddenly said.
Opulous leaned in closer to look at the data scrolling on the readout. It was moving too fast for him to interpret thoroughly.
“This isn’t a natural virus I’m afraid, this is a pre-designed, manmade virus. The lack of introns, the synthetic promoter sites, and unusual sequences in its DNA make it obvious.” Tanis said gravely.
“Good lord.” Opulous whispered.
“Worse yet, it’s one that has been engineered to only infect our species. Somebody’s trying to kill us.” Tanis added.
Everybody in the room exchanged nervous glances, and Venius halted cold in his pacing.
“But who would want to kill us?” Opulous asked.
“We can only guess…” Venius interjected nervously.
“Mom, Tanis…I have a confession to make.” Melicia said, finally letting go of her mother.
Venius turned and gave Melicia a glare that would melt stone to magma, but said nothing. Opulous noticed it and frowned, wondering what kind of illicit secret was about to be spilled forth. Melicia struggled with her words for a moment before continuing.
“Last night…Cygnus and I snuck out.” She said with a terrible stagger in her voice. She paused again as if trying to think about how to say it.
“Where did you go?” Shakara asked, not appearing angry in the least.
“A little abandoned island in the middle of a lake. There weren’t supposed to be any humans there, but there were. And we got into a fight with them.” Melicia replied.
Venius returned to his pacing, now even more nervous looking than before. Opulous could see that he was starting to sweat. He still didn’t say a word.
“Cygnus and I ran into a group of them, and one of them shot us both with these darts. Another one shot me with a laser, and then I don’t remember much, but Cygnus told me that Venius came in and saved me.” Melicia finished.
“The darts must have been what delivered the virus.” Tanis said, nodding.
“Is this true, Venius?” Shakara asked, turning to look at him.
Venius just nodded without speaking, while continuing his pacing.
“And what happened then?” Shakara asked.
“I healed Melicia’s burns and the three of us fled before they could fire again.” Venius said, and stared at Melicia some more.
“That’s what Cygnus told me had happened.” Melicia said.
Shakara looked at Tanis and nodded. “I understand.” She said.
“You’re not angry at me?” Melicia asked.
“No, not at all. I just want you to rest and get better. That’s all that’s important right now.” Shakara said comfortingly.
“Thanks mom.” Melicia said, finally now looking at peace.
“Venius, I’m going to put you into a psychic sleep now.” Tanis suddenly said, urgency in his tone.
“Wait, why?” Venius interrupted.
“Because, in a few seconds, you’re going to be doubled over in agony from hemorrhages that are growing in your body. I need to put you into stasis like Cygnus to stop them.” Tanis said matter-of-factly.
Venius’ cold expression was finally shattered, replaced by a look of fear. He walked back towards his table to lie down so he could go back to sleep, but he was interrupted mid-stride by a sudden coughing fit. He hunched over and hacked like an asthmatic old man, and blood spattered all over the floor from his coughing. Tanis put him out at the moment, and the coughing reluctantly stopped. He psychically lifted Venius up onto the table, and Opulous could see that blood had begun to seep out of his eyes and nose now as well. It was a terrifying sight indeed, and Melicia and Shakara both looked away in horror. The blood ran down his cheeks from his eyes like morbid tears.
Tanis concentrated on the controls like a stone statue for several moments, and didn’t look away until Venius’ medical readouts stopped flashing red. He sighed in relief and said “He’s stable.”
“So what now? Why am I the last one left awake?” Melicia asked.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out now.” Tanis said. “I’m almost finished scanning the virus’ genetic code, but I won’t know for sure until I’m done. My theory is that when the designer created this virus, he wanted to make sure it only had a very narrow infection range so that it wouldn’t infect humans or other Pokemon, and he might have been too specific. The protein receptors on the coat of this virus don’t seem to stick to your cells very well, making it difficult for them to infect you. I think the answer might lie in the different bloodlines of our family. It readily infects and spreads through my two sons, but has difficulty affecting, which leads me to suspect that perhaps the designer only had the genetic data of my father or I, and so couldn’t optimize it to infect you or your sisters as effectively. Though we are all direct descendents of Mewtwo, the scientists who created Ares modified him to the point where it was as if he was from a completely different family. He was a genetic stranger, in other words, and since you and your mother carry his genes, then that explains why the virus would have a hard time affecting you. You’re not completely immune because of the fact that the virus can target anyone of our species, but it’s not likely that your symptoms will become too severe. You may not even have to be put into stasis.” Tanis said.
Melicia sighed, now looking relieved again.
“Tamista, I need you to do a big favor for me.” Tanis said without turning away from the controls.
“Name it.” Tamista said eagerly. “Whatever it is, I know that you need to concentrate on curing everyone, so I’ll take care of the whole house for you while you work.”
“I need you to go to Cygnus’s room and remove the bloodstained carpet. Raise an airtight shield around yourself to protect yourself from the virus, psychically rip all the bloody carpet out, take it outside, and burn it without touching it. Be sure to take it far away from the house to burn it, just to be safe. After you finish that, I’ll need you to pour some bleach all over the floor that was underneath the carpet, just in case any blood seeped through. And just to be safe, don’t touch anything in Cygnus’ room. Understand that I picked you over my sons since you are less susceptible to the virus.” Tanis said.
“Absolutely. Right away.” Tamista said. She looked a little scared, but also had an expression of stubborn bravery in the face of adversity. She walked off with an exaggerated stride.
“I’m going to help her.” Satoria said, and walked off to follow.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Nolus asked.
“Bring me a tall cold glass of ice water. I’m going to be down here for a long time.” Tanis said.
“You got it.” Nolus said, and walked out quickly as well.
Now it was just Opulous and Tanis outside of the containment bubble. Tanis stood silently and continued his work, and Opulous continued to watch him. Since she had succeeded in calming Melicia down, Shakara let go of the hug and stood. She walked over and hooked herself up to the monitoring system as well, and another set of vitals appeared on the screens in front of Tanis. She dragged a chair out of the corner, sat down next to Melicia, and struck up a conversation with her in hopes of helping distract her from their current situation. The blood on Venius’ face began to dry and form a crust. The heartbeat readouts on Tanis’ screens beeped softly, and the holographic clock flickered the minutes away. The atmosphere in the room now seemed to begin to calm. Shakara made a joke, Melicia laughed, and Tanis grinned a bit. It felt like the situation was improving dramatically, until the scan of the virus’ DNA was finally complete. Tanis scowled deeply and lifted his hand from the screen for a moment.
“Look at this.” Tanis said, gesturing for Opulous to look at the screen displaying genetic data. It had stopped at the end of the DNA strand, and displayed a sequence of bases that spelled ‘TTAACCGGCCAATT’.
“What does it mean?” Opulous asked.
“That’s a signature left by the author of the virus’ code. It’s commonly used to identify artificial gene sequences created by a student or teacher at the Genetech Branch of the Pokemon University. It means that the designer is an insider in the very same University where Ashley teaches. Whether he or she is a professor or student I don’t know, but it’s still a troubling thought.”
“Either they don’t think we’re capable of analyzing the virus’ coding, or they’re trying to taunt us into doing something stupid against the University.” Opulous said.
Tanis nodded. “They won’t get the satisfaction of seeing us retaliate though. I’ll have to take Shakara’s place at the Protectorate Meeting this week while she’s in quarantine, and I can tell them what happened then. We’ll let the University deal with it themselves.”
Tanis turned from Venius to speak to Melicia. “Hey, good news! I’m getting started on designing those treatments already! If I’m fast enough, I may be able to stop the virus before you even get the rash!”
“See, what did I tell you?” Shakara said, and patted Melicia on the back heartily. “Your uncle’s more of a genius than you thought isn’t he?”
Interlude
For the most part, it was a dreamless sleep for Cygnus. He had slipped into an unconscious state of near nonexistence after blacking out in his room, and thankfully did not have to suffer through his sickness awake. It was peaceful in that state of emptiness, and he slept soundly without any perception of time or the outside world.
But slowly, a dream began to form in Cygnus’ mind. He could suddenly feel himself lying on a table somewhere, and his vision began to come back. He tried to sit up, but there was a resistance like he had been glued to it. He blinked his eyes and opened them wide, and saw that he was in some kind of glowing plane of light. He turned his head to look around, and saw bright white expanses surrounding him and stretching into infinity.
Cygnus was struck with fear. Had the sickness taken his life? Was this the afterlife? He didn’t want to die, there was still a lot left in life that he had wanted to do, and he felt tears welling up at the prospect of never seeing his father of the rest of the family ever again. He couldn’t believe that he had been killed by some kind of sickness like this either, it wasn’t the death that he had hoped for. He looked around at the emptiness around him to see if there was anyone there with him to break this new incredible feeling of loneliness, but there was no-one visible, yet. He looked to his left, to his right, and then to his left again, and someone had appeared there in the second when he had looked away. He focused his eyes and looked harder.
Walking towards him was the spitting image of his grandfather, Mewtwo, hand in hand with a short, green haired little human girl. He wanted to get up to greet them, but he was still held to the table by the mysterious force, so all he could do was lay there and stare in awe as they approached him. Cygnus could see that they were both bathed in a gentle blue glow as they got close, almost like spirits of some kind. But they weren’t ethereal in the least.
Mewtwo stopped at the side of Cygnus’ table and looked down at him with a smile. The girl was just tall enough to peek up over the edge of the table. Mewtwo laid his paw on Cygnus’ and it felt warm and solid just like any living beings’. The glow the radiated from him was a calming aura.
“Don’t worry, everything is going to be alright.” Mewtwo said to him, his voice echoing slightly.
Cygnus couldn’t say anything in reply, he just stared into his grandfather’s eyes. They were a much deeper purple than he had imagined. He felt Mewtwo let go of his hand, and then the vision was gone. In an instant he awoke into the real world and burst upright on the table in his father’s lab.
“Are you alright?” Shakara suddenly asked, running over to his side.
Cygnus paused for a moment to take in his surroundings, and then turned back to Shakara and spoke, “Everything is going to be alright.”
Chapter VIII – NII
“Knight to C5.” Nolus said casually, with an evil grin on his face.
Across the quarantine bubble, a black colored chess piece moved across the board at Nolus’ command, and the white colored bishop piece that had been in C5 vanished and reappeared in the box of taken pieces. Shakara frowned at her dwindling forces, and fidgeted with one of the pawns that she had lost at the beginning of the game. She stared listlessly at the little starship shaped pieces on the board, concocting a new strategy. Nolus had exposed his queen to attack, and she wanted to think of a way to take it without losing her other bishop, but it would be a stretch.
Nolus however, was suppressing a laugh. He had exposed his queen on purpose to lay a trap. The pieces were laid out in a manner so that the only way that Shakara could take his queen safely would also expose her own queen to attack. He considered a queen for a queen to be a fair exchange, and now it was up to Shakara to agree with him.
“So, how do you think Tanis is doing in my place at the Protectorate meeting?” Shakara asked casually.
“Oh he knows what he’s doing. He might not be as strict as you, but he won’t let them walk all over him either.” Nolus replied. “There’s definitely going to be a stir when he brings the subject of the virus up though.”
Shakara twitched her tail back and forth, twisting the little stone pawn in her paws endlessly. “I still can’t help but admire the craftsmanship in this chess set he sculpted.”
Nolus smiled, knowing that Shakara was stalling for time. But he let her stall anyway. “I can remember when he made it last year. I was pretty impressed when he told me that he had modeled it after visions he saw in the Time Medallion.”
The black side’s king was a sculpted figurine of Darkest, and the white side’s king was Lightest. The pawns were Centurions and Light Soldiers, and the other power pieces were different classes of starships from their respective sides. They were all finely polished to a glimmering shine and stood upon an equally polished grid of black and white marble squares.
“Rook to F4.” Shakara said suddenly, and the little white piece shaped like a frigate-class starship moved in and took Nolus’ other knight.
Melicia, who was sitting on her table nearby, put down her book and walked over to examine the game’s progress. “You two are still going at it?”
“You can’t rush games like this, you know.” Shakara said, now sporting her own evil grin.
Nolus frowned and tried to think of what to do next, and Melicia bent over to take a close look at the layout of the armies. She frowned. “God this game is confusing. Give me a round of cards any day.” She said, and walked back towards the table to continue reading.
“Maybe later, after I’m finished wiping out Nolus here.” Shakara said merrily.
Nolus rubbed his chin, and then saw an opening and decided to go for it.
“Pawn to-” he said, and was cut off by the sound of Cygnus gasping loudly.
Nolus turned to see that Cygnus had sat up on his table with a shocked look on his face. Shakara immediately stood and rushed over to help him.
“Are you alright?” She asked urgently.
Cygnus looked around with a bewildered expression before replying, “Everything is going to be alright.”
Melicia stood up and walked over to see him as well, and Nolus wondered what he could do. Opulous, who was sitting in front of the monitoring screens, had a surprised look on his face. He was tapping the holographic buttons at a furious pace now.
“What happened?” Melicia asked.
“I don’t really know…where am I?” Cygnus asked.
“You’re in quarantine down here in the med bay of your father’s lab.” Shakara said.
“How long have I been out?” Cygnus asked.
“Two days.” Shakara said.
Cygnus’ expression looked like someone had told him that he had slept through the apocalypse. He reached up and felt the crusts of dried blood that had formed on his face.
“This is incredible!” Opulous interjected. Everyone turned to look at him expectantly. “There are no more viruses left in your system! They’ve just…vanished!”
“You’re kidding, right?” Shakara asked in disbelief.
“I’ve ran five different bioscan confirmations, he’s clean.” Opulous said.
“What about Venius?” Melicia asked. “What about me?”
Opulous paused while the machine ran more biofilter scans. “No, you’re all still infected, but you yourself are almost completely recovered Melicia. Venius is still tight in its grip though.”
“What virus?” Cygnus asked, still looking bewildered.
“Do you remember the night we went out to the abandoned island?” Melicia asked.
“Shhh!” Cygnus said, now shocked and scared.
“No it’s alright, I already told them about what happened.” Melicia said with extra meaning and emphasis laden on the word ‘told’.
Cygnus looked confused yet again, but then nodded. “Yeah, I remember.”
“Well, do you remember when we first walked in there, before Venius came to rescue us, and the humans shot us with darts?” Melicia continued. “Those darts were hypodermic, and they were filled with samples of a hemorrhagic virus. You didn’t show symptoms until Wednesday night when we found you passed out. Venius carried you down here to quarantine and got infected, and Shakara voluntarily came into the quarantine bubble to help calm me down. Everyone else managed to avoid infection.”
Cygnus began rubbing the blood crust off of his face. “A hemorrhagic virus? I guess that explains the blood. But aren’t viruses like that fatal 97% of the time?”
“If untreated, yes. But Tanis put you into stasis to slow the bleeding to a controllable level, and has been giving us all nanite treatments every few hours. So far it has worked well on everyone except Venius.”
Cygnus slowly climbed to his legs and stood off of the table. He wobbled a bit at first, but soon got used to his legs again. Nolus was still staring in wonderment. “You know, I could really go for a huge plate of beans and rice right now, I’m absolutely famished!”
“I’ll go tell Tamista to prepare an extra plate, now that you’re awake.” Satoria said, and ran off.
“Say, where is dad anyway?” Cygnus asked, scanning the room briefly with his eyes.
“He’s taking my place at the Protectorate meeting right this moment. He should be back in a few minutes actually.” Shakara said.
Cygnus walked around inside the quarantine bubble and stretched his arms and legs. He looked down, saw the chess board, and smiled. “Who’s playing?”
“I was just turning the tables against Nolus actually. We’re going to play cards after I’m done cleaning him out.” Shakara laughed.
Cygnus studied the board for a few moments, and then grinned. “Take your knight from C5 to D7 and you’ll have her checkmated in three more rounds.” He said psychically to Nolus.
Nolus grinned, and was about to make the move when the outer door to the lab opened behind him. Spattering sounds from the heavy rain drifted in through the open door, and Nolus turned to see that Tanis had returned from the meeting. He was completely soaked from the rain and had a pale look about him like he had been extremely frightened or shocked recently.
“Hey dad, what’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” Nolus said.
“I’ll tell you in a minute, how is Cygnus awake?” Tanis asked, walking towards the console.
Opulous stood aside from the console and spoke, “We don’t know. He just awoke no less than 5 minutes ago, and when I scanned him his system was clean. Not a single virus.”
Tanis examined the readouts for a few moments. “This is…incredible! Not only is it far too early for the nanites to have finished clearing out his system, but he shouldn’t have been able to wake so quickly. One does not simply sit up and walk around after being put in a class three stasis!”
Cygnus had a conflicted look on his face, as if he were stumbling through an inner debate. He turned to face them, almost as if he were about to say something, but remained silent. He frowned and walked back to sit back down on his table. “Are you going to tell us how the Protectorate meeting went?”
Tanis was silent for several moments at the console, only speaking after finishing another set of scans. “It wasn’t pretty. I told them about the virus, but none of them were willing to start an investigation. Though no-one said it, I could tell that they didn’t even believe it when I told them.”
“Sounds familiar.” Shakara grumbled. “You didn’t just let them turn a blind eye to it, did you?”
“I kept pushing it, but Artha insisted that it was the business of the University and not of the Protectorate. She then changed the subject on me before I could continue, and the rest of the councilors followed suit. It was incredibly frustrating, I’ve never seen anyone so adept at sidestepping.” Tanis said.
Shakara shook her head and sighed in dismay. “I guess I can bring it up in next week’s meeting. What other matters did they bring up?”
“A lot of bureaucratic nonsense. The only other issue of any real consequence was an attempt to repeal some of your military starship limitation sanctions.” Tanis said.
“What?!” Shakara growled angrily.
“I convinced them to table the issue until next week when you could be there, but it looked like the majority favored repealment.”
“Humph! They tried to pass legislation that they knew I’d never allow while I was absent! Of all the cowardly, conniving things to do! It makes me so angry!” Shakara fumed. “You can wager I’ll have some choice words for them next week!”
Shakara stood up from the floor and began pacing around inside the quarantine bubble. Nolus and the others held their tongues nervously, intimidated by Shakara’s rage. She had a glint of fire in her eyes as she paced rings around the tables, and her tail was raised high over her head as if she were ready to impale someone with her tail blade.
“I’m sorry, I should have been more stern with them.” Tanis said apologetically.
“Oh no, it’s not your fault. I don’t blame you at all.” Shakara said tensely, not even looking up at him as she paced. “I should have expected them to try to take advantage of my absence in fact. But it won’t happen again.”
Tanis stood bewildered for a few more seconds before turning toward the controls again to continue scanning Cygnus. Nolus watched Shakara continue to pace for several more minutes before resigning their chess game as kaput and stood to stretch his limbs.
“Hold it there Nolus, we’re not through yet.” Shakara said, turning to walk back over to the game. “It’s your move.”
Nolus blinked and then sat back down. “ Pawn to D7. Check.” he said.
Shakara stared down in disbelief as the pawn stepped up in range of attacking her king. She had been so worried about his queen and bishops that she had ignored the pawns marching into her territory!
“So much for putting me in my place eh?” Nolus said, chuckling merrily.
Shakara sighed and knocked her own king down to signify surrender. The white marble carving of Lightest clacked lifelessly onto the board.
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