The Four Mirrors
Sequel to ‘Legacies’
By MMM/AJ
Chapter IX – CIII
It was a glorious feeling for Cygnus, to finally be free from that accursed quarantine bubble. The sun’s warming rays were harsh on his eyes at first when he walked up the stairs out of the underground medlab bunker, but it didn’t take long for him to adjust. His facial expression reflected the ecstasy of finally feeling the long leaves of grass and soft earth under his feet again, and a cool breeze swept across the lawn to caress his skin. The sky was a beautiful azure plain, empty except for a few wispy contrails left by three human ships flying above them high in the atmosphere. He couldn’t wait to go on another jog, to spend a few hours lazily sunbathing, and to find the little stream that flows north of the house to wade in. The new nanomachines that his father had designed had worked flawlessly, and now that everyone had been certified virus free, they had been released back out into the beautiful, wide open world once more. He felt overwhelmed with things that he wanted to do now that he was free of the bubble, but there wasn’t enough time for it. The others had already teleported straight to the house and were packing their things, for a trip was planned for this day. Tanis was going to host a rave today, his second one ever. Technically, it was scheduled to happen last week, but they could hardly make it after the virus reared its ugly head. After spending as much time as he could afford enjoying the sun, Cygnus jogged back towards the house to meet up with the others.
Tamista was sitting in the hammock and Melicia was leaning on the side of the wall, the rest were still inside.
“Well, what did you think of the song?” Cygnus asked, walking up the steps onto the porch and grinning cheerfully at Tamista.
“Well, I had to delete and re-write a few lines, but mostly it was pretty good!” Tamista replied. “I hope you don’t mind that I revised it.”
“Considering the fact that I was nearly half dead from the virus when I wrote it, I’d say it turned out pretty well don’t you think?” Cygnus said, laughing. “Do you feel ready to get up there and sing in front of the humans?”
“I think so. I’ve never been in front of a large group of people before, but it doesn’t sound too hard. If these humans are like Ashley and Asha then it shouldn’t be too scary.” Tamista said. “Besides, Tanis said that most of them are his fans, so I shouldn’t have to worry about them not accepting me.”
The front door opened and Tanis appeared, followed by Shakara, Nolus, and Satoria. Tanis was carrying a large plastic carrying-case, and Nolus had painted himself with large stripes of neon lime green. Satoria was carrying a clear plastic case filled with jars of different colors of the same neon body paint.
“Whoa, body paint? Why didn’t I think of that?” Tamista said, pointing and giggling at Nolus’ new stripes, which were much brighter than the natural ones in his fur.
Nolus grinned. “If we’re going to dance and have a laser light show, I’m going to make sure we do it right! Here, there’s plenty of paint for everyone.”
Satoria handed the box of paints to Tamista, and Melicia crowded in close to grab a bottle as well. Cygnus wasn’t sure how comfortable he was with smearing paint on himself, but he trusted his brother wasn’t using the permanent kind.
“Come on guys, you can paint yourselves on the flight. Let’s get moving.” Tanis said.
“Venius and Opulous aren’t coming?” Cygnus asked.
“No, Opulous said he’d rather study, and Venius said he didn’t want to be cramped up with that many humans in such a small building.” Tanis said. “It makes me sad that they’re not interested in my music, but it is a common pitfall for fathers to try to force their sons to be like them when they obviously don’t want to.”
Tanis jumped up into the air and flew off, and the rest of them followed in kind, and Cygnus decided that he would apply a little bit of paint, just for fun. He used orange and yellow paint to make flame designs on his back and shoulders, like decals that some humans like to put on their hover cars.
“The best thing about this paint is that if you concentrate a tiny bit of psychic energy on it, you can make it glow!” Nolus said enthusiastically. He winked his eye and all the stripes he had painted on himself shimmered a brilliant, electric green. Then they began to blink, first randomly and then in a fluid sequence up and down his body, making him look like a phosphorescent fish of the deep.
“Whoa, that’s so neat! Let me try!” Melicia laughed in delight. She squinted her eyes closed and the rainbow spots she had painted on herself glowed blindingly bright.
“Ech, didn’t I say you only needed a little bit of energy!” Nolus groaned, covering his eyes.
“Oops, sorry!” She said, quenching the lights quickly. “I didn’t mean to blind you!”
“Just be careful next time alright?” Nolus said. If we do that at the party then everybody will fall over and people will get trampled!”
Cygnus chuckled and put a big orange paw print on Melicia’s shoulder with the paint, and then made it crackle and flow like it was on fire.
“Hey, you fink!” Melicia laughed, and threw a glob of purple paint at him. He dipped to dodge it and was about to throw another glob of orange at her when Nolus interrupted.
“Don’t waste that paint you guys, it took me two hours to mix that batch properly! Next person to throw any gets to make the next batch!”
Cygnus held back another laugh and stuck out his tongue and made googly-eyes at Melicia.
“You two do know that a little more maturity is going to be required when we get there, right?” Tanis said, looking back at them with an exasperated look on his face.
“I had nothing to do with this!” Tamista quickly interjected.
“Yes dad, of course. We’re just having a little fun is all.” Cygnus said.
“Just making sure.” Tanis said. He exchanged a look with Shakara and both shook their heads and sighed.
The flight to New Saffron City was a bit longer than usual since Shakara had elected not to call down one her ships to carry them. Though their psychic flight was still faster than any ground-bound hovering vehicle, they still couldn’t go as fast as a shuttlecraft without spending much larger quantities of their psychic energy. Since Tanis wanted to conserve that energy for use with special effects at the rave, and they had to fly cross country from Johto to Kanto, it was at least an hour’s flight. During this time, those who had opted to paint themselves finished and perfected their designs, and choreographed the light shows that they wanted to create with the paints. Tamista and Shakara both took turns practicing singing for the vocal songs, each helping critique the others’ performance for mutual improvement, and of course they spent a lot of time admiring the natural beauty of the lands that sped by below them. The mountains that separated Kanto and Johto were particularly striking as the sun left its apex behind and began casting slanted shadows across them at an angle. Once more, Cygnus found himself wishing that he could have time to spend down there, climbing and exploring. The others weren’t talking or doing anything particularly interesting, so he was left to contemplating how enjoyable it would be to go on a camping and hiking trip out in this wilderness. He wondered what kind of other wild Pokemon thrived in these environments.
They soon left the mountains behind and passed into Kanto’s airspace, and the evidence of the vast human population here was immediately evident. Hundreds of shining domes glistened in the sunlight below them, each one a high-yield farming center designed with sunlight regulating glass panels and multiple tiers of greenery fed by automated water and nutrient distribution systems. Complex rotating mirror systems had been built inside to allow sunlight to be allocated to large stacks of hydroponically grown plants, creating an extremely efficient system of growing many more yields of crops in much smaller areas of land. There were hundreds of these domes across the vast open spaces of Kanto, many varying to less than an acre to several hundred acres in size. Dispersed between them were processing and storage buildings, distribution centers with pads for hauler ships to land on, and a scant few apartment complexes to house the small number of people required to operate them. The whole system was designed to efficiently feed an extremely large number of people in a small area while producing practically no contaminants. All of this was necessary to feed the dramatically larger population here in Kanto, which made Johto seem practically abandoned in comparison.
Kanto was far from being wildlife free however. Large spaces of land were used as wild Pokemon preserves, especially in areas where conditions were less than optimal for agriculture, like on the borders of the mountains where the sunlight was blocked at certain angles in the evening. But these preserves were still nothing compared to the vast tracts of wilderness that still remained in Johto. It was never more apparent to Cygnus than now that the Johto Province was governed by preservationists, and he was glad that his father had chosen to live in a province like it. Apparently, there was nowhere left in all the reaches of Kanto that one could escape the effects of human presence.
Beyond several more expanses of farmland and forest, they finally caught sight of the city limits of New Saffron. The massive central tower that housed the city’s spaceport gouged high up into the sky, and Cygnus could see ships moving to and from the various branching docks of the tower far off in the distance. The tower had been originally built by Ares; he had rebuilt about 60 of this city after the great nuclear catastrophe that had wiped it out during his initial attacks on human society. He had known that the area was in a prime location to be a major production and distribution center of his empire, so he cleared out the radiation there and used human slaves as labor to build a new city, complete with a spaceport to send building materials up to his space stations for the purpose of constructing more warships. After his fall, the humans in the city took it as their own, and have been progressively expanding it in the years since then. It was now once more the largest city in Kanto, having almost double the population of nearby New Celadon City, and it showed no signs of slowing its growth.
“So where is the place anyway?” Cygnus asked, staring down at the thousands of indistinguishable generic steel and glass constructions.
“On the opposite side of the city in an old underground holoball dome at the edge of the city. I know exactly where it is, so just worry about following me.” Tanis replied.
Cygnus watched the city below as they flew, now fascinated with how beautiful it was in its own way. The architecture in the outer rim areas of the city prominently featured polished glass in artistically curved domes and towers. The inner regions of the city, which had been built by Ares, used polished steel at a much greater ratio to the glass, and the buildings were more ornately decorated with sharp looking spines and spires. There was evidence in many places that these buildings had been initially stained a deep metallic red as a symbol of allegiance to him, but had been bleached off long ago. They neared the central tower now, and Cygnus could make out more of its details. It was wider at the base and grew narrower the higher it went. The base at the very bottom was extremely wide, and the slope of the narrowing was a smooth parabolic curve. Halfway up the tower, 4 arms branched out, and each of these arms was covered with smaller ones where ships could dock. There was a massive cargo ship docked at the end of the primary arm nearest to them, and Cygnus could see the huge plates of worn titanium armor. He could tell that it had used to be one of Ares’ ships, there were large rough spots where the decorative spines had been ground down, and he could barely make out patches of old, faded red paint on the armor plates. It was totally inactive except for the gentle blue glow of the hover drives on the bottom, which were supporting its weight against gravity.
Cygnus heard a sudden whooshing noise behind them and turned to see a ship approaching them rapidly. It was a heavy gunship covered with menacing energy weapon turrets, all of which were trained upon them, making Cygnus feel instinctively nervous. It pulled up alongside them and matched their speed. A small scanner beam flashed from it and analyzed them in a split second, and a human voice blared over its loudspeaker.
“State your purpose here, Councils.” The voice demanded.
Tanis frowned and psychically replied so that only the humans could hear him. Cygnus wondered what he had said, but he knew not to try and psychically intrude to find out. The ship flew alongside them silently, as if pondering Tanis’ response, and then accelerated and dove down past them. The heat from its engines washed over him uncomfortably, and the energy they emitted made his skin tingle and his fur stand up on end. The paint began to glow a little bit in response to it as well. He ran his paws along it all in annoyance, trying to get it to stop.
By now they had put the spaceport tower behind them, and the outer limits of the other side of the city were visible. He could see that there was a small slummy sector along the entire Eastern border of the city, complete with run-down buildings and even a small shroud of air pollution. He didn’t feel eager about going to such an unseemly place, but his father was flying at an angle straight toward it, so he decided to swallow these feelings and trust his father. The ground swelled upwards at them as they rapidly dropped altitude, and Cygnus could now make out the holoball court in question. It was a squat and dirty little concrete dome filled with cracks and surrounded by littered garbage. There was a group of about 50 humans crowding around the front entrance, where a pair of burly human men stood guard, preventing entry. More hover cars were arriving sporadically and setting down in the dusty lot next to the dome, producing more humans who walked over to join the throng. Cygnus sensed that Tanis had suddenly raised a cloaking field around them as they entered the range of the humans’ vision.
“Is this the place?” Nolus muttered in surprise. “What a junk heap! Why host your rave in such a craphole dad?”
“Because the city council wouldn’t allow us to host it anywhere else.” Tanis said, slight annoyance evident in his tone. “They said it was for security reasons.”
“The usual BS.” Shakara added.
They gently touched down behind the dome in front of a plain steel door. The door was completely smooth with absolutely no visible means to open or even grip it. A single, featureless steel box was bolted to the wall next to it. Tanis laid his paw on this box, and it emitted a soft beep. The door clicked and tilted ajar, Tanis had psychically opened it by communicating with the machine that controlled the locking mechanism. There was a short hallway beyond, with only a janitorial closet and a utility closet before opening into a small booth. Their procession went straight to the booth, which featured a set of large one-way glass windows overlooking the holoball court below. A small staircase descended in a spiral, leading to the door to the court itself. Undoubtedly, this was the booth where judges would normally sit to watch a holoball match in progress. A large pile of electronics sat in a heap next to a deactivated computer terminal, and Tanis walked over and began rifling through it. He set his plastic carrying case down and pulled out what appeared to be a pair of some kind of headsets. He tossed one to Shakara and kept one for himself, and then began shuffling around in the pile of electronics. Once he had pulled some wires free from the pile, he put on the headset and hooked it up to the wires. The headset featured a small screen projector, a wireless antenna on top, and a voice receiver. The massive earphones nearly covered both sides of his head, and he reached up and pressed a button on the side of the left one to turn it on.
“Yeah, go ahead and start letting them in, Rob. I’ll be down there in a moment.” Tanis said into the mic. He winked his eye to turn the receiver off and then spoke to them. “Alright everyone, here’s the plan. I’m going to go out first and do a single song solo. Then Shakara will come out to join me for a second song, and after we finish is when I’ll introduce you all. Tamista will do her songs, and then we’ll do the trio songs to finish off the night.”
“What about those headset things? Do I have to wear one too?” Tamista asked.
“It’s not vital, no. But it does help amplify your voice if you’re singing with your vocal cords and not psychically.” Tanis said. “I don’t sing, but I wear one anyway for the visual appeal. Watch this.”
Tanis took a wire from the headset and clamped it to the gold crest on his forehead, and it began to glow just like the paint that the rest of them had been using. It also began changing color and even appeared to grow and shrink just a bit, which the paint obviously could not. Tanis bent over and began pulling pieces of what looked like black polished plastic armor from the same carrying case that had held the headset, and began strapping it on and hooking it together with wires. The segments were small enough that they didn’t cover him very much, but were still excellent platforms for the glowing lights that he had wanted to use.
Cygnus saw through the glass windows that humans had begun pouring into the holoball court below and suddenly felt nervous. There were many more than he had imagined, and he knew that it would be unlikely that there would be room for any real dancing when the room was that tightly packed. Even though it was pretty dark down there, he could still see well enough to determine that the vast majority of the humans were teenagers or young adults in their twenties, and many of them had bizarre outfits and hairdos.
“Alright, I’m going to go get this thing started. I’ll call you guys psychically as I need you, until then get ready.” Tanis said, and walked down the stairs out of sight.
Tamista smiled nervously. “I think I’ll try one of those headset things on as well.”
Shakara, who was now digging through the electronics as well, leaned over and handed one to her. She thanked her and clamped it on awkwardly, having to adjust the size to fit her head. Nobody else beside Tanis, Shakara and Tamista decided to wear them, and Shakara had to show Tamista all the functions and proper ways to use and adjust it. Cygnus, Nolus, Melicia and Satoria stood in the opposite corner of the room, chatting with each other as a method to calm each others’ nervousness. Soon they could hear the thumping bass of the music as Tanis started playing. Cygnus could see them dancing rhythmically to the beat, it looked odd since there was none of the usual holographic lighting effects that usually pulsed along with the music. He knew that Tanis was simply projecting these effects directly into the minds of the humans as they danced, and that as soon as he entered the dance floor he would be able to see them too, but from this vantage point it looked quite bizarre. Some of the humans reached their arms up into the air as if grasping at something that was hovering just above their heads.
Hardly ten minutes later, Shakara gave them a nod and then walked down the stairs to join Tanis. Cygnus could hear the music booming out there when the door opened, it was hypnotic and enticing. Then it was just the five of them together in that booth. Tamista walked over to the rest of the group to show off the DJ suit.
“Well, what do you think?” She asked earnestly.
“It’s exactly the same as the other two!” Satoria said jokingly.
“Oh fine, be cheeky then. I’ve got a question anyway. Mom told me that sometimes musicians of this genre think up DJ nicknames for themselves, and I don’t know what kind of nickname to pick for myself. Tanis is already using his own real name, so it would be kinda boring if I did the same thing. Mom’s nickname is just a shortened derivation of her own name, “DJ Shakra”, which is fine for her, but I want something unique and interesting. Can you guys think of anything?”
“Well your DJ suit certainly isn’t unique or interesting!” Satoria teased.
Tamista socked her on the shoulder.
“How about ‘Cosmic Wing’?” Nolus suggested.
“That’s fabulous! I’m definitely going to use it!” Tamista said eagerly. “I’ll tell mom about it right now!” she blinked, psychically communicating with Shakara, and grinned.
It wasn’t long before Cygnus heard his father’s voice calling them down to the court. He let the rest of the others go before him, and took one last look out the booth window. He then followed his siblings down the stairs, and when the door opened, it was like seeing into a completely different reality. Looking through the doorframe, Cygnus saw what looked like the inside of the Blue River. The walls of the room seemed to have vanished, just leaving the floor like a floating platform where all the humans stood. Most of them were dancing; others were standing entranced, watching the spectacle around them. Cygnus was extremely impressed with the beauty that his father could achieve with simple psychic visions.
The music’s tempo slowed dramatically as they emerged into the room, and the humans didn’t seem to notice them. An exit portal opened up in the top of the wall of the illusionary river, and the dancing platform flew up through it. Cygnus felt a slight twinge of nausea, the turn and speed were almost a bit too realistic for him. They emerged out into open space above Earth, and the music’s beat faded away into calmness.
“Hover up above the humans and I’ll reveal you there.” Tanis said psychically to the four of them, and Cygnus nodded.
“Friends and fans, now it’s time to introduce our special guests for the night, say hello to Cosmic Wing, Satoria, Cygnus, and Nolus!” Tanis announced aloud.
The humans in the room had various mixed reactions as Cygnus and his siblings became visible. Some of their faces were painted with awe and wonderment, while others cheered and clapped. Nolus felt awkward in front of them, and he waved slightly in a way that looked slightly pathetic. The three sisters bowed respectfully, Tamista now getting herself setup behind her own computer console.
All of Cygnus’ nervousness suddenly disappeared at that exact moment however, and a rush of excitement and energy flooded his system as he looked at all the faces that were staring at him. He acted on his enthusiasm by stepping into a dramatic pose, reaching up for the sky like some kind of heroic sculpture. He spiced it up by activating his glow paint, giving the appearance of metallic flames curving up across his body in reflective golds and oranges. The humans whooped and cheered at the display.
“You’re such a ham!” Satoria said psychically to him, followed by a stream of giggles.
“I guess it’s in my blood.” He replied, grinning over at her.
“Hey Cygnus, would you do me a favor? I left the tablet with your lyrics on it back upstairs in that carrying case. Would you go get it for me?” Tamista asked him psychically.
“No prob, I’ll be right back.” Cygnus replied.
“Hurry up, they’re waiting on us.” Tamista said, her psychic voice sounding suddenly nervous.
Cygnus sprinted back to the door, which reappeared out of the illusion of outer space, opened it, and climbed up the stairs back to the booth. He stumbled over a few wires lying on the floor and nearly fell flat on his face. He found the plastic case and opened it, and then began rifling through it to find the digital pad. He picked it up and suddenly the joint in the bottom snapped, letting both halves fall completely apart, spilling everything out on the floor. Surprised, he examined the case and found that there had been a decent sized hole in the bottom that had expanded and cracked far enough to lead to the whole case splitting. He shrugged and continued searching through the items that had fallen out. His heart rate steadily increased as he continued searching unsuccessfully as time passed, and his heart jumped when he finally realized that the pad probably had fallen out of the hole in the bottom of the case. The hole had been too small for the headsets to fit through, and the cords were too knotted up to fall out, but it was just the right size for a digital pad.
Cygnus felt himself beginning to panic. The show was on pause right now waiting for these lyrics, and if he didn’t find them the whole thing would crash like a starship striking an asteroid. He scrambled around the room, knowing that it could have fallen out anywhere but hoping it had been nowhere. The booth, the stairs, the back hallway, and even the parking lot yielded no results however, and Cygnus realized the grim truth that it was probably miles away. As a last resort, he reached out with his mind to try to psychically detect it. All of the equipment they owned always had some kind of beacon element in them; he just hoped the one in the pad wasn’t out of range of his senses.
Thankfully, he was able to sense it quickly, but unfortunately it was several miles away on the edge of the opposite side of the city. It would take several minutes to fly over there even at maximum speed, and he could already see the impatient and angry faces of all the humans back inside the dome, so he followed the only other alternative he could think of under pressure; he locked onto the tablet and teleported it into his hands. In his panic he had completely forgotten about the laws that forbade them to use their teleporting abilities inside the limits of a human city. He saw that the pad was intact and functional, so he ran back inside, down the steps, and handed the pad to Tamista.
“What took you so long? The humans were getting impatient!” Tamista said.
“I had a hard time finding the pad, the carrying case broke.” Cygnus replied simply.
By now, Nolus and the others were mingling with the crowd and chatting. Nolus was talking to a teenage human with a purple Mohawk and several piercings, and Melicia was showing off her glow paint to a group of admirers. The psychic image of space around them began to fade however, and the chattering fell silently as people realized that the show was continuing. The illusion morphed, transporting them to a rocky cliff somewhere on the Earth’s surface. The cliff was so high that there were clouds below them, obscuring the view of the earth below. The sky above them was sprinkled with shreds of cirrus clouds scudding along towards the horizon. The sun was rapidly sinking towards the clouds in the distance, changing the color of the sky around them from blue to a soft orange and pebbles tumbled along the red-orange rock they stood upon in a sudden breeze.
“I’d like to sing a song that my cousin Cygnus wrote for me. It’s simply entitled ‘Flying’.” Tamista said, the microphone amplifying her voice across the sound system.
Tanis and Shakara, who had been DJ’ing the last few songs, now stepped back and faded into obscurity to let Tamista take total control over her song. She couldn’t read the minds of machines like Tanis yet though, so she had to do most of the mixing manually and by herself. She manipulated the controls of the holographic panel skillfully, displaying her weeks of practice, and the music began to take shape.
At first, the song was a whirling mix of moaning winds and a steady crash of a tambourine, but a steady beat and a joyous melody of smooth synth tones climbed into the air around them. The rhythm and the melody flowed into perfect harmonic synchronization, and the humans began to shake their bodies and dance to the beat. More and more layers of tonal complexity evolved into the song, and Cygnus felt the need to dance coming over him now too. He hadn’t exactly taken dance lessons before, but the energy that had gripped him before when his father had introduced them was rapidly coming back. It guided him in his movements, and soon he was blending in with the movements of the other dancers.
As Cygnus was dancing, the psychic illusion began to change. From beneath the rocky earth they had been dancing on, a thick transparent platform that looked to be made of glass emerged. It was threaded with a steel grid for stability and had small hover pods around the edges. Like before, it was big enough to carry everyone in the room. It hovered up into the sky, leaving the red rocky cliff behind rapidly. At that point Tamista began signing the first stanza of the song.
Unseen wings aloft, you have flown
Silhouette so soft, night sky shown
You said one day, there'd be no end,
Our separate ways, forever friends
Her voice was soft and gentle despite the booming amplification from the sound system. She managed to mix the tonal qualities of hopefulness and vulnerability. The atmosphere of the song began to calm a bit as the sunset continued, and they began dropping altitude towards the cloud layer below.
The orange twilight, it brings new life
Fading skylight, a break in strife
Flying to you, flying home
Flying through the blue, still I roam
With a rush they passed into the cloud banks, Cygnus could even feel the damp breeze rushing over him. He was very impressed with the amount skill Tamista was displaying in her co-ordination of the show. When they re-emerged from the clouds, a breathtaking twilight cityscape played out far down on the Earth below. The landscape was now bathed in a deep blue-purple light as the last light from the rapidly vanishing sun faded away. Low-lying wisps of cloud vapor sailed past them, some of them brushing against the platform and embracing them for a few moments before slipping away. As night descended over the scene and they approached the ground, the song slowed to a crawl for a vocal solo. Tamista sang the chorus in a slow harmonic style.
City lights glow, in the dark
Overflow, blinding spark
In your arms, I’m riding high
By your charms, soar through the sky
By your charms, soar through the sky
By your charms, soar through the sky
The song rapidly climbed a crescendo into its climax, with all the musical elements slamming together dynamically. The humans suddenly flew up into the air and soared through the sky around them. Cygnus new this was part of the illusion, Tanis and Tamista were allowing the humans to experience artificial sensations of flight to add a final finishing touch to the song. The humans looked surprised at first, but their expressions quickly changed from surprise to joy and excitement. They all flew around in various patterns as the song finished its crescendo, and then hovered back as it came to an end. One of the fliers let out an exuberant ‘Whooooooo!’ to show his approval.
The rest of the rave seemed to fly by at warp speed. Tanis and Shakara rejoined Tamista to do a couple of trio songs with Shakara and Tamista trading vocals on a co-authored song about lies and broken love, before proceeding to a purely instrumental song about the deep ocean. The visuals on that song were particularly inspiring, great creatures of the deep rose up from the darkness below them, and rays of lighter blue glimmered down from the surface around them. The song itself had some of the most powerful bass Cygnus had ever heard, it made his innards rumble and his ears ring. A huge submarine rose up alongside them, its surface covered with inlaid glowing blue circuit patterns. Cygnus saw other lights among the crowd, Nolus and the others were matching the hue with their body paint. The lights along the body of the submarine pulsed to the rhythm, almost as if it were using some super-advanced underwater sensor system. The immersion factor of this illusion combined with the song was nearly perfect, until the front door of the holoball dome slammed open.
A set of bright flashing blue and red lights poured into the room, and a man’s voice boomed over a loudspeaker. “Nobody move! This party is over!”
A terrible sickly feeling suddenly washed over Cygnus and all his senses began to fog up and blur out. He stumbled to his knees as a paralyzing wave of nausea gripped him again. He wondered if the virus had somehow gotten back into his body again.
Human soldiers and police officers wearing armored suits pushed their way into the room and began ushering the partygoers out. Cygnus couldn’t see what they were doing, but he could see that the psychic illusion of the underwater scene had disappeared. He felt a gloved human hand clamp around his shoulder and twist him up to look its owner in the eye. Cygnus saw a dark plastic and steel visor through his blurred vision.
“You and the rest of your family are all under arrest for violating section 35 of the psionics control initiative; using your port ability within the limits of a city.” The visored man said.
“Oh….shit.” Was all that Cygnus could say before the policemen cuffed him and dragged him and the rest of his family of.
Chapter X – VIII
Venius scrabbled along the step rocky ground in between the cliff face to his left and the forest foliage to his right, following the little path it made leading away from the house. The sun was starting to set now, and it was harder to see the loose rocks and avoid them in the waning light. His feet were getting calloused and tough from walking on them over the last few weeks, so the rocks didn’t bruise his feet like they used to. Eventually he came across the little paw-shaped rock sticking out of the Earth and then flew upwards parallel to the cliff face to reach his little cave hideout up in the middle of the rock. The opening was barely big enough for him to crawl through, and it stayed that narrow for 10 feet before opening up into a cavern large enough to hold 30 people of his species.
Over the last few months Venius had decked out this little hideout of his with all the necessities of life, along with several luxuries. He has psychically shaved the floor flat and put in some carpet and then plugged any holes in the ceiling that leaked water to make the space comfortable. Then he had ‘acquired’ a few assorted pieces of furniture and appliances from unsuspecting humans and decked the place out with them. He had a mini-fridge, a small computer holo-terminal, a mini boom-box, and a lighting system that would draw electricity from the house’s power grid when on. He also had a big comfy easy chair with a reading light and even a small mattress for sleeping on.
Venius had built this place to use as a getaway whenever he got tired of being around his family. If he ever got in an argument with his father or siblings, or if he ever needed a place to go and study without being distracted, this was the place where he would go. It was an island of calmness and solitude where he could let his emotions settle, and it had saved him from overstressing and snapping at least twice.
Tonight he had retreated here not because of stress however, but because of boredom. Everyone except Opulous and himself had gone to his father’s rave, and there was simply nothing left to do. Venius had already finished doing his daily chores, and Opulous was too busy studying in the lab bunker to be bothered. Venius had also spent the last week inside that damned quarantine bubble, and he had spend practically ever hour in there wishing he could come back to this hideout again. He sighed with relief at finally being back and flicked the lights on with his mind.
If there was any one thing about human culture that Venius could appreciate, it was the variety and quality of their music. He wasn’t really into techno, rock, or any other modern variants though; his real passion was for classical music from centuries ago. There was something about the rich, full styles of composers like Mozart, Strauss and Stravinsky that really appealed to him. He walked over to his old antique boom box and connected a data pad to it to upload a few choice songs for the evening. The technology it had originally employed was archaic, when he had first acquired it, it would only run on the outdated ‘mp3’ file format. He had needed to upgrade it in order to play current day mp9’s, and he hadn’t quite figured out how to put the plastic case back on right, so it looked like some kind of freakish Frankenstein hybrid of technologies. It still worked perfectly well though, and the sound quality was excellent, so he was satisfied with it. He started the music playing and sat down in his comfy chair and closed his eyes to let the music carry him off. He drifted through clouds of his own thoughts like this for several hours, the relaxation healing and regenerating his mind like a cooling salve gently applied to a burn.
After an unknown quantity of time, Venius became aware of a presence entering his hideaway. He barely cracked his left eye open and psychically flipped off the power switch on his boom box in order to listen closer. He heard a slightly shuffling, but no cooing or other bird calls that would indicate a group of wild bird Pokemon intruding on his space. He stared covertly at the opening to the cavern and decided to cloak himself before the intruder would emerge. After a few moments he saw his brother Opulous clumsily climb out of the tunnel and onto his feet.
“Venius, show yourself. I know you’re in here.” Opulous said, his normally calm and collected voice shaking.
Venius de-cloaked and rushed over to his brother, wondering what could have shaken him so badly. “I’m here! What’s going on? How did you find me? Is something wrong?”
“A lot of things are going on. I was working in the lab when I got an emergency vid-mail from Ashley. She told me that father and the rest of the family have been arrested in new Saffron City! I came looking for you in your room, but you weren’t there. So I just used the scanners in the lab to sweep the surrounding forests and mountains. They detected the power drain from your appliances, which lead me here.” Opulous said, pointing the lights and boom box.
“I see…” Venius said, suddenly icy cold on the inside with fear. “Did Ashley say why they were arrested?”
“She said it was all over the news that they were using their powers illegally and dangerously inside the city limits, and that they’ve been taken to the highest security holding facility in Kanto, which is also in New Saffron. Aside from that, that’s all we know.” Opulous said.
Venius strode over to the passageway out of the cave and bent down to crawl in. “Come on, we haven’t got any time to lose! Let’s go!”
The two of them climbed out of the cave and Venius hovered in the air in front of the opening for a second, attempting to contact his Aunt’s protectorate ships in orbit. He was met with a simple, robotic rebuke from the pilots; ‘All fleet assets are paralyzed until further notice under order of Arch-council Shakara. Request denied.’
“I already tried that; apparently Shakara is keeping a non-hostile profile by putting her ships in standby in order to avoid angering the humans any more.” Opulous observed.
Venius swore excessively, he needed a faster method of travel than psychic flight. Opulous raised an eyebrow at his colorful language and then spoke again.
“I don’t know what you’re planning on doing, but if it’s some sort of harebrained scheme to bust them out, then I’m afraid I might have to restrain you. You’d only make things worse for all of us. What we need to do is go to New Saffron and find out what happened, and then see if we can negotiate with the humans holding them.”
“Oh come on Opulous, we both know that won’t work! Shakara controls a massive political body and all the warships from Ares’ regime, and the humans still don’t listen to her! Do you really think that they’re going to listen to us? Two teenage kids with no powers outside of the psychic ones that we’re not even allowed to use inside their cities? You might as well try telling Ashley that there’s a Pokemon out there that’s impossible to catch, they just won’t listen!”
“And the alternative of breaking in there, guns blazing death everywhere, is superior? You’re not thinking this through properly! Even if we could overwhelm the massive network of psionic disruption fields surrounding such a prison, such an act could be considered an act of war against humanity. Haven’t you been paying any attention at all during Shakara’s history lessons? Humans have been looking for an excuse to attack and destroy us for years!” Opulous said, anger now painting his face.
Venius remained incredulous and agitated, but his brother’s logic had quelled his protests for now. “Alright then, shall we go and negotiate then, Mr. Diplomacy?” he sneered.
“Yes, I told Ashley we’d meet up with her in front of the New Saffron City hall in about an hour. Hopefully she can use her influence as a higher-up in the university to some advantage for us. Let’s go.” Opulous said.
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