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From the Journal of Isaac Thomas (Doctor Renaissance):
The Camelot Wondercolts, based out of Santa Clara in California, were the first group of students I had when it came to teaching the ways of Yiziba. They are this dimension's counterparts of characters from the world of Equestria as depicted in the Hasbro toy and animation series My Little Pony and its sequels. Like me, they found their Gift crystals on their own; there was no one like Tariko Katabarbe or myself to come and explain things to them before the seeds of their Gifts forever changed their lives.
As for each of them and what they can do...
Rebecca Skylark — known to her friends as "Sunset Shimmer"; the story of her counterpart in the Equestria universe hasn't appeared yet in Friendship is Magic or any spin-offs in this dimension — was the classic Queen Bee type when she came to Camelot High School near Levi's Stadium and the southern reach of San Francisco Bay. She believed strongly that with her smarts, her talents and her looks, she would be the school's resident queen bee. However, those who she would one day count as her closest friends outshone her in all regards, making her quite jealous. Still, the very people she once saw as rivals elected to befriend her, making her lose that jealousy and become a far kinder person in the long run.
She still has issues with her temper, though...
Her Gift is that of the Moulder of the Solar Wind, Banum ("Hamon"). Like the ability many characters from the first two seasons of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure showed, she can wield a form of energy derived from the photon wavelength of the Sun's radiation. With this, she can gather energy to increase the power of her attacks; at full strength, such bolts of energy can be as hot as the surface of a main sequence star itself. Though previous incarnations of Hamon used different methods to gather said energy, Rebecca employs a special breathing technique as a means to focus herself to become stronger; again, she takes cues from those who used the ripple abilities in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
Of course, on being angered, her power output is quite enormous.
She studied how said ripple users fought and has based her fighting style on them, especially Joseph Joestar, who inspired me to learn how to be able to predict what an opponent might say next whenever I endure confrontation scenes. To help her in mastering her powers, I created gadgets that would be able to use the energy of her Gift as a power source.
She usually acts as co-leader of the Wondercolts alongside Tara Silva. During fight scenes, Tara analyzes the situation while Rebecca uses her own smarts and experience to help prepare battle plans...
The End of the Circus: A Tale of the Yizibajohei
Side Story: Friendship is Yizibajohei
by Dr. Tempo
C&C by Fred Herriot and Rose Ash.
Based on The End of the Circus: A Tale of the Yizibajohei, written by Fred Herriot.
Including characters and situations from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, created by Araki Hirohiko; Azumanga Daiō, created by Azuma Kiyohiko; My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, created by Hasbro and DHX Media; Sherlock, created by Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss (based on Sherlock Holmes, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle); Sweet Valley High, created by Francine Pascal; Harry Potter, created by Joanna K. Rowling; The West Wing, created by Aaron Sorkin; Urusei Yatsura, created by Takahashi Rumiko; and Stargate SG-1, created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner.
Also including characters and situations from Urusei Yatsura: The Senior Year, written by Mike Smith and Fred Herriot; and Magic and Canada and Wanderers, written by Fred Herriot.
INTRODUCTION
As noted above, this is a side story to The End of the Circus: A Tale of the Yizibajohei, set about two years prior to the start of the main story. The character of Doctor Renaissance (Isaac Thomas) and the interpretations of the characters from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic as they appear here are my own creation. The interpretations of characters from Azumanga Daiō, Sweet Valley High and Urusei Yatsura and other series as shown here are Fred's as they were depicted in the main story.
Writer's notes are contained at the end of the text of each chapter.
My name is Rebecca Skylark, though my friends call me "Sunset Shimmer".
Two years ago, something happened to my friends and I that changed our lives forever...
In the Santa Clara Valley (ten miles west-southwest of Santa Clara in California), Friday 5 November 2010, an hour after supper...
"Come on! This way!"
Rebecca Skylark chuckled as her friend Tara Silva ran towards where a meteor had landed. "All right, Twilight! I'm coming!" the former called back.
Tara felt a smirk cross her face at being referred to that way. Hearing that nickname applied to her, she was reminded of the character of Twilight Sparkle from the My Little Pony animation series. With her dark pink-streaked hime-cut raven hair, dusky tanned skin and blue grey eyes, she projected a bookish yet stylish look of a nerd who did pay attention to current fashion trends to her peers. It was quite befitting for the top scholar attending Camelot High School in Santa Clara...
...though Rebecca wasn't far behind in the social or scholastic order.
"Do you have to call me that, Sunset?" the raven-haired girl teased.
A laugh came back from the very beautiful girl with the wavy fiery red hair and bright blue eyes. "I can't help it!" Rebecca called back. "You're a lot like her if she was human." She then stopped before looking around. "So, where the heck is everyone else? Weren't they coming out here, too?!"
"We're here already, Sunset!"
A facepalm responded as Rita Diaz joined them, moving with the speed expected of one of the stars of their school's track team. While Rebecca was cheerleader material with how curvy her body was under her clothing, the petite pale girl with the rainbow-dyed raven hair and the royal blue eyes hadn't come alone. With her at this time was Tara's elder brother Lance and his best friend Mackenzie Appleby. "See anything yet, Twilight?" Rita then called out as they gazed towards Tara, who was now scanning around the area she deduced the strange meteor had landed on the west slope of Black Mountain.
"No, Rainbow, I haven't," Lance's sister said with a faint groan, calling Rita by her own My Little Pony-inspired nickname, "Rainbow Dash".
"You guys need any help lifting anything?" Mackenzie's sister Jackie asked the two star offensive guards in their school's award-winning football team as she joined them; Lance and her brother had volunteered to carry very heavy backpacks filled with various scientific equipment Tara grabbed from the science labs when everyone at Camelot High saw the meteor strike down after lunch.
"Can we get this over with, Tara?" one of the girls that came with Jackie groaned as the rest of the group Tara had got to come with her caught up with their "leader", she leaning on her knees. "I'd rather not get my hair dirty looking for some damned rock!"
The small expeditionary group from Camelot High all smirked at Renée Gerrard's whining and nearly accentless voice. The native of Lyon in southern France always dressed as if she had just stepped off the fashion runway. The svelte woman with the well-styled wavy black hair and the dark blue eyes always wore clothes she herself had designed and sewn; not only did such save her a ton of money, it also gave her considerable practice for her future career as a fashion designer.
"Come on, Rarity!" a small, pudgy girl with curly red hair and sky-blue eyes said as she came over to wrap her arm around Renée's. "Can't you enjoy this?!"
The native of Lyon tried desperately not to smile at Phoebe Pitts' antics. Given she was the resident class clown among the sophomores at Camelot High, the girl often nicknamed "Pinkie Pie" by other fans of My Little Pony planned to hit the comedy circuit as soon as she graduated from school.
Looking around, Rebecca then asked, "Where's Flora?"
A dramatic roll of the eyes responded as Phoebe thumbed behind her, making the others focus on the girl with the pink-shaded blonde hair and the evergreen eyes who was walking up to join them. "Fluttershy's right behind me, silly!" the would-be comedian teased.
People were quick to see Flora Sandford blush as she seemed to visibly shrink from the attention coming her way. Despite her love of sweaters, the lady often nicknamed "Fluttershy" by her peers was quite beautiful, often making Renée jealous. It never lead to something nasty between them; the two were members of an amateur band calling themselves the "Rainbooms" along with many of the other girls who had come out on this meteor-hunting expedition this evening.
"I found something!"
People's heads snapped over on hearing Tara's delighted yell, then they ran up to the edge of a crest in the trail, finding themselves gazing at a fair-sized crater with smoke emanating from some points. Quite visible in the evening twilight were nine glowing diamond-like crystals about the size of a clenched human fist. "Whoa!" Lance breathed out as he slipped off his backpack, then jumped into the pit with the practised ease of someone who often doubled as a passer in football games, jumping clear of defensive tackles to make the play. "What the heck is that?!"
"No idea," Tara affirmed with a shake of the head as she reached for one of the crystals. "Here, help me pick them up, guys," she then bade her companions. "They look like diamonds, but diamonds don't glow like this," she noted, making the other girls' eyes brighten instantly; who on Earth wouldn't WANT to get a hold of such large diamond-like objects? "Let's get these out of the ground, then clean them up. We can look them over in the lab on Monday when we have a free period."
"I'm game for that!" Jackie whooped as she hopped into the pit, heading over to where two crystals were nestled close to the other, picking up one to pass to her brother before pulling out the other one.
"Not too hot to the touch," Renée mused as she retrieved one for herself. "Nice and solid, too! Definitely some type of diamond..."
"Ooh...why do I feel so dizzy...?"
Heads turned to see Phoebe sway. "Hey, sit down, Phoebe," Lance urged...
...before a surprised groan escaped him as he dropped to his knees, a surge of nausea overcoming him. As an overwhelming wave of nausea slammed into her, Rebecca fell back to land hard on her butt. As her eyes fluttered, she gazed on the crystal in her hand...
...then she gaped in shock on seeing the glowing mass MELT into her body.
Tene lomher'buo, Rebecca Allison Skylark...
Somewhere...
"Wha'...happened...?"
A croak of nausea escaped Rebecca as her eyes snapped open. As she took a moment to regain some sense of balance, she looked around to see she was in some sort of brightly-lit bedroom with a closed door. Despite the normal look of her surroundings, one glance out the window revealed that she was clearly on some spaceship or possibly a space station of some sort; the arc of the Earth in the area of what appeared to be the Pacific Ocean, the northwest coast of South America and the southeast coast of Central America were visible beyond the very thick glass protecting her from the outside vacuum. "Holy..." she hissed out as she got up, walking over to stare outside to see a beautiful starlit sky around her home planet. "Where am I...?" she whispered. "Last thing I remember is that rock..."
She gargled as a new bout of nausea overcame her, her mind's eye being bombarded by a massive torrent of memories flowing past it like Niagara Falls. Memories that weren't hers. Staggering back to her bed, she dropped down on the comforting mattress, then reached over to the pitcher of water that had been placed on the nightstand. Pouring herself a tall glass of water, Rebecca gulped it down as that tsunami of memories and knowledge seemed to settle in the very core of her soul, she feeling now as if SHE had lived through those events, right from a time of history that made the events depicted in post-apocalypse films like Independence Day seem like spring breezes in comparison.
"Damn..." she hissed as she shook her head, the feeling of power akin to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake smashing into her brain fading. "What in the Crystal's Name just happened to me...?"
Huh?
Er...
Wait a minute.
"Crystal...?"
More memories came back. A time of darkness, like the period of the Great Depression leading up to the Second World War. A time of warfare, one fought by warriors with remarkable powers similar to that of America's legendary Liberty Legion or Nazi Germany's dark Übermenschen Gruppe. A time of chaos as governments collapsed under the weight of more and more people acquiring superhuman abilities thanks to the discovery of a massive Moon-sized ball of mesonium — the Atom of True Life, source-point of the vast majority of metahuman powers among Terrans of the Greatest Generation — within the core of an Earth-like planet orbiting a bright blue-white star named Kaeyu. How the breakdown of civil society started an urgent rush among the population — even in the home country of Rebecca's first-self on the northern polar continent of that world; 'First-self'?! What does THAT mean?! the crimson-haired woman then thought — to see people empowered from the Great Crystal of Power, forming vigilante gangs to defend against enemy metahumans trying to conquer them. How the fighting turned into something that not even Canada's legendary Major Dean Raeburn could have easily handled, unleashing a holocaust that would later earn the rather plain name "Dawn of Power".
How her first-self — Oh! That's right! The first person to have this Gift! she realized — mastered the psychokinetic ability to manipulate the solar wind of Kaeyu itself, shift its power into the atmosphere of the planet, allowing her to create very forceful stun attacks like those who welded the "ripple" ability used by characters in a manga series that Phoebe Pitts was a big fan of.
Realizing that, Rebecca then blinked as a rush flooded her right arm, making her look down to see a brilliant golden hue of energy shroud that limb. Smirking as she rose up, she concentrated for a moment, allowing the energy to pool into a glowing ball of raw power over the palm of her hand. "Yeah..." she hissed out. "Just like those guys in JoJo's Bizarre Adventures do it..."
A yelp then escaped her as the bolt leapt from her hand, slamming with the speed of a bullet into the bulkhead beside the door. As Rebecca winced on hearing the underlying metal be ripped by that impact, a sweat drop appeared in her hair. "Oops...my bad!" she eeped.
She then blinked as the wall started to literally REBUILD itself!
"Holy...!" she gasped as a jolt of fright overcame her, memories of her first life as the Moulder of the Solar Wind focusing on times that person — also a woman — raided camps in the western equatorial continent to free political prisoners who had been experimented on to make them a pliable metahuman army. The outrage that version of her felt on discovering such things instantly flooded Rebecca, her whole body glowing brightly as a result. Without thinking, she lashed out with a hurricane of energy-augmented blows. "SUNLIGHT YELLOW OVERDRIVE!" she screamed in both anger and panic.
Within seconds, the once-closing hole was big enough for her to walk through without ducking. Nodding in delight, Rebecca stepped through the wall to find herself in a hallway, with one end leading to a floor-to-ceiling window displaying the curvature of the Earth, the other leading deep into wherever she was at. "Okay! Go find the others!" she hissed out as she turned to her left...
...then stopped as the door to her guest room opened.
Pausing to stare at the clearly unlocked portal, Rebecca blushed.
"Uh...yeah...!"
Sometime later...
Rebecca paused to look around the large space she just walked into — which seemed to her as big as her school gymnasium — filled with strange devices and work stations that wouldn't seem out of place in her school's science laboratory. "Where the heck am I, anyway...?"
"My laboratory."
Yelping in surprise on hearing that man's voice, she spun around...
...then she automatically tensed as a very tall and slender man looking to be about the age where he'd graduate from high school stepped out of the shadows. He was dressed in the same halter top, form-fitting jumpsuit design Rebecca herself now wore, though his uniform was an off-white shade with a buff gold pouch-lined belt around his waist and matching buccaneer boots on his feet. A three-leaf Celtic cross-like insignia was on his chest. Welding goggles protected his very nice blue eyes, the temple straps tucked into his shaggy short-cropped blond hair. A hooded off-white cape was wrapped around his shoulders, though they didn't cover his bare wry yet muscular arms. Staring at him, Rebecca blinked before she hissed in a language she hadn't know of just hours before, "Raer'buo Erba...?"
A smile crossed his face. "Nice to be known," he responded in English with a clear flat New York accent. "A pleasure to meet you, miss. My apologies for not being there for you when the Gifts took you and your friends; the sensory suite of my station didn't detect things in time before it happened." A tired sigh escaped him. "It's always something...!" he then muttered in self-reproach.
Trying not to giggle at that obvious reference to Britain's famous consulting detective — the work that Sherlock Holmes had done in London over the last few years had made it all the way to metropolitan San Francisco thanks to Doctor John Watson's internet blog — Rebecca then tensed herself. "Okay! I want answers, buster!" she demanded as she seemed to mentally fight the urge to speak in the tongue of post-Dawn of Power Yiziba, which was now as familiar to her as her native English. "Why the hell were those crystals sent here to Earth in the first place?! And where are my friends?!"
A shrug answered her. "I can't say..."
"LIAR!"
He yelped in surprise as she charged him, easily manoeuvring clear of her now glowing fist as it arced for his jaw. "Next thing you'll say is 'Tell me what's going on'!" he muttered as he twirled on one boot to put distance between him and the just-Gifted woman whose uniform design he couldn't recognize.
"TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON, YOU JERK!" she shrieked...
KK-KRANG!
The older man winced as the laboratory quaked thanks to his guest's fist burying itself to mid-forearm in the bulkhead next to the main door. "Hey, take it easy! Calm down! I'm trying to help you here!"
"ORUKOTE! PAKAR'BE KU KAKATAO!"
Yanking out her hand, she charged him, her fist raised to drop a Superman punch on his head that would impress many mixed martial artists. His eye flicked to one sensor locus in his goggles to turn on his personal defensive field, which formed an invisible wall of energy that could repel all the power pumped out by a point-blank thermonuclear explosion, which was enough to make her glowing fist bounce back, causing her to stumble. He then swept in, using his eye again to deactivate his force field so he didn't smash her into another bulkhead, then he did a roundhouse sweep to knock her down. To his surprise, she dodged that with ease. "«Why are you speaking in Yizibajohei?!»" he asked.
Doing an impressive back-flip as she mentally thanked her teachers for all the gymnastics lessons she once loathed with a passion, Rebecca recovered, then gestured with her hands to send side-by-side pulse waves at her target. "«You're holding me prisoner!»" she snarled back in the tongue of the Children of the Forge, her Gift's innermost persona taking the driver's seat in her mind.
"«Oh! Are we a benokuku lo'obir'ba?»" he then teased as his defence field clicked back on, then he made a vast grasping motion with his hand to cause the heated air to rebound against the shields projected from his suit, thus prevent any damage to the experiments he had running in the laboratory.
That made her blue eyes flare with outrage. "DON'T BE RIDICULOUS!" she barked in English. "WHY WOULD I WANT TO BE ONE OF THOSE SUPER-JOCKS, ANYWAY?!"
"Well, thank God for that small favour! I do like to keep my station intact!" he noted as he lowered his arms. "Will you PLEASE calm down?! All I was interested in is learning what Gifts you and your friends just received! If you know me, you know what type of person I was forced to become three years ago!"
That made Rebecca stop as her jaw dropped, a horrified look crossing her face. "WHAT?!" she exclaimed. "WHAT ANAL-RETENTIVE JERK FORCED A GIFT ON YOU?!"
"I don't know."
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
Then...
Her hands dropped as the surge of adrenaline that resulted from Post-Gifting Shock drained away, the billowing outrage she felt at the fact that her "host" had his whole life turned upside-down like that causing the urge to duke it out with the Wise Lone Sage — who was a pretty handsome older guy even if he was on the nerdy side to Rebecca's eyes — making her heart nearly break at the shattering of THAT ironclad rule almost all Yizibajohei followed, even the darkest of heels like the Archangel of Mortality. "You don't know?" she hissed out. "What the hell happened to you?!"
A sigh escaped him. "Probably the same thing that just happened to you and your friends, miss...er...?" He gave her a questioning look.
"Oh, sorry!" she said with a blush. "Rebecca Skylark."
"Isaac Thomas. Pleased to meet you. Your battle-name?"
"Banum."
A questioning look crossed the face of the Wise Lone Sage as he shook his head. "Sorry for not recognizing you even now, Miss Skylark," he apologized. "I don't think any of our past-selves encountered each other. Where did your first-self come from?"
"Nesetimtuto. The state of Dotir'ba-kuo." Rebecca then sighed before she shrugged, the flash of confusion in her eyes making it clear to her host that the memories of her past-selves were still pouring into her mind. "That version of me really didn't do that much save for get people out of the cities. Which state were you from, anyway? Your accent shows you were Nesetimtutomem."
"R'bem-eke. My first-self was on the other side of the country from yours. He isolated himself in his laboratory while everything was falling apart."
That made her nod. "So do you have ANY idea why I suddenly got powers like those who use Hamon?"
That made Isaac gape before a delighted grin crossed his face. "You're a fan?!"
She smirked. "Had no choice about that! Pinkie loves the manga and religiously watched all the episodes, then talked all our ears off about it!"
He hummed. "I assume that's your friend with the rose-shaded red hair."
Her cheeks flushed. "Same! We all use nicknames from My Little Pony. I go by 'Sunset Shimmer', by the way. Changed it from 'Sunshimmer'."
A chuckle escaped him. "Not really familiar about the original name." He then gazed knowingly at her. "By the way, Miss Skylark, did you ever hear about the theory of what is fiction in one universe...?"
"...is fact in another," she finished with a smirk, finding herself liking this nerdy guy big time. Then again, the Wise Lone Sage — the newly-Gifted Camelot High sophomore had been quick to translate his battle-name to its English equivalent, Doctor Renaissance — had always been a neutral, working to help improve the lives of all Yizibajohei Named and Nameless alike. Her jaw then dropped as her eyes nearly bugged out of her head. "Whoa! Wait! You mean to say Equestria really exists?!"
"It actually does. It's on a planet in an alternate universe about twenty dimensions that way!" he said as he waived off in an odd direction just as the nanites in the bulkhead finished repairs to the hole she made when she attacked him. "I've probed into it from time to time, but never travelled there. Just as peaceful as it appeared in all the cartoon series. And yes, there's a 'Sunset Shimmer' there. If she was human, she'd be your twin sister. Save for darker skin to match a dark blonde coat."
"That is SO cool...!"
Isaac chuckled before he perked. "Oh, hell! What type of host am I, anyway?!" He then waved Rebecca towards the doorway she had used to step into the laboratory. "Here, your friends are all down in the main cafeteria. This way, please!" he bade her.
Hearing that, she smiled as she looped her arm around his, which made him smile as they walked off, the door closing behind them...
The cafeteria at Station Roberts, minutes later...
"You actually built this from metals you mined from the asteroid belt?"
"Indeed I did," Isaac responded with a proud tone to his voice as they stepped into the cafeteria. "It took a while to get it fully running even for the construction nanites I was able to retrieve from my immediate past-self's base back on Yiziba, but it got done."
Rebecca considered that for a moment, then she perked as she recalled something. "What about the snow people living on Neptune's moon?"
Isaac chuckled as he waved Rebecca towards one side of the vast cafeteria within the heart of Station Robert, which the Californian had learned was in geosynchronous orbit at the meridian of New York City, which put the large station named after a fictional scientist in direct orbit right over the southern frontier of Colombia near the border with Peru and Ecuador. "They're not as observant as they like to think they are when it comes to us, Miss Skylark. They're too dependent on the large corps of Niphentaxian observers that have been on Earth for a couple centuries, since just after the Revolutionary War. Since the people from that planet have been very thoroughly trained and are under very strict orders to not reveal themselves, they haven't really spread any word about people like us back to their leaders, much less their allies. Since we mostly fly under the radar, I doubt it will lead to leaders on planets like Uru or Ipraedos to invade Earth to 'save' everyone here from 'they who must never be named'." As the new incarnation of the Moulder of the Solar Wind laughed at that often-used phrase among the sames and norms living on planets near Earth and Yiziba, the Wise Lone Sage waved to the group of people seated off close to the serving area. "And here we are!"
"SUNSET!"
Rebecca groaned as Phoebe Pitts leapt out of her chair and charged over to nearly crush the taller woman with a hug. "Hey!" the former called out even as her mind registered the design of the latter's battlesuit, which didn't match any pattern the spiritual descendant of Yiziba's most democratic nation before the Dawn of Power could recognize. "Do you have to call me that, Pinkie?!"
That earned them a chuckle from the woman in the dark blue jumpsuit standing close to where Rebecca's classmates had been seated, her chest adorned with a familiar white mortarboard hat insignia over her cleavage. "What's so funny, Liz?" Isaac wondered.
The gorgeous woman with the sunflower blonde hair and the blue-green eyes behind protective goggles chuckled. "It's noting," Elizabeth Wakefield declared as she waved her older peer down with a hand.
"So do you and Liz here working together full-time, man?" Lance Silva asked as he indicated the traditional leader of the Circle of Thought, Daturie (the "Academician"), Yiziba's most smartest person bar none. "My past-selves always thought you were a lone ranger."
"No, Lance, Isaac still stays on his own even if he's willing to help Tánja and I from time to time," the lawyer's daughter from a fish canning town near Vandenberg Air Force Base answered as Rebecca and Phoebe took their seats and Isaac moved to stand beside his sister polymath hyper-genius from near Los Angeles. "We've yet to get the Sage back, but in this generation, people like Isaac and I actually find it much easier to work with each other on various projects than 'lone ranger' things."
"Were you forced?"
Elizabeth gazed on Rebecca, then she smiled in reassurance. "No. Back in the summer of 2007 — this was sometime after Isaac himself was Gifted — my twin sister Jessica and I met a woman named Tariko Katabarbe near our hometown of Sweet Valley; we're on the Santa Barbara coast near Vandenberg. Tariko's the adopted daughter of a Nameless woman who was then living in the old territory of Nesetimtuto. Aunt Ayone was the lover of the last Coyote; you'll probably remember the last fight scene he was involved in thirteen seasons ago." As the people from Santa Clara nodded, the Wise Genius of the Circle of Thought added, "Since she was adopted, Tariko — she's actually from Japan, having run away from an abusive home when she was six; she's our age — well, she's been on a quest to get Terrans Gifted, both as a means to protect our planet from alien invaders as well as direct people on Yiziba to adopt a more rational stance when it comes to being Gifted. Instead of doing it when one might be in kindergarten here on Earth, hold off until your mind is ready for such a huge memory download. I myself waited until puberty hit before I allowed myself to accept the Gift and become the Academician. Tariko is still waiting for the right moment to become Coyote." She sighed. "Unlike all of you, of course. As Isaac has no doubt explained to Rebecca, we have utterly NO idea who's spreading Gift seeds willy-nilly all over Earth. That's not the way to do things as you will no doubt have come to realize by now. Since Fate seems to want this, the best thing to do is help you all adjust."
"Has everyone properly adjusted to the Gifting?" Isaac wondered as he gazed at his new guests from Santa Clara. "Does anyone have any need for Liz and I to recap the story bible of the Great Show of Life to understand what all of you are getting involved in now?"
Tara Silva, Rita Diaz and Renée Gerrard raised their hands. "Okay, fair enough," Elizabeth stated before she gazed expectantly at her host.
Isaac nodded. "Okay, for those of you who still have issues accepting this, the Gifts you just received originate from the core of the planet Yiziba, which is the third world of the Kaeyu star system," he began as he called up a holographic image of the night sky close to the elliptic. "Most scientists here on Earth designate Kaeyu under the name 'Sigma Sagittarii'; it's the second-brightest star in the constellation of Sagittarius." He pointed the star out. "That's about 228 light years from Earth. The old Babylonians call Kaeyu 'Nunki'. For those who've seen the classical pictures of Sagittarius, Kaeyu forms the top of the spout of the teapot away from the Milky Way." Lines then appeared to create the asterism of the teapot image that formed the core of that particular constellation. "Using modern exoplanet designations, Yiziba would be called 'Sigma Sagittarii d' if all the planets in the system were visible from any telescope here from Earth and were designated in order from Kaeyu itself."
"Isn't the core of the planet a big ball of mesonium?" Renée asked.
"Yes, it is," Elizabeth answered. "Specifically, it's the very forge the First Race used billions of years ago to create the Power Jewels from what remained of the Primal Atom." As people's eyes brightened on hearing that, the Wise Genius of the Circle nodded. "Yes, some of us — possibly some of you — could go and impress Major Raeburn with your battle skills, especially once the knowledge of your past-selves sinks into your subconscious minds and you get used to making use of your powers. Since the major likes to spend a lot of time away from Earth teaching Jewel Warriors on how to use their abilities, this helped motivate Tariko and others like her in their missions to get people here on Earth Gifted."
"I keep seeing images of something that reminds me of old movies showing what the Nazis did to the Jews and everyone else they wanted to fry in their concentration camps," Mackenzie Appleby noted as he shook his head. "Did that shit REALLY happen there?!"
"That it did, Mack," Isaac affirmed as the images in the hologram changed to something that made all the people there shudder with a combination of long-repressed fear and outright disgust. "By the year 47 BCE here on Earth — just two years before Julius Caesar was assassinated in Rome — almost seventy-five percent of nations on Yiziba were dictatorships of one sort or another, some of which having policies towards certain population groups within their borders that would have given people like Adolf Hitler and Iósef Stálin nightmares. Technology on Yiziba at that time was pretty much pre-World War Two standard and there had been a couple major multi-continental conflicts similar to our own World Wars that had rocked the planet over the previous century. But for the decade or so prior to that year, many dictatorships began programs to create their own version of the Übermenschen Gruppe the Nazis created to fight the Liberty Legion and the Soldiers of Freedom back in the war..."
"...to only get served up to the War Hawks for the slaughterhouse," Tara quipped.
Dry laughter filled the room. "Exactly that, Tara," Isaac affirmed. "In retaliation, nations like my, Liz's and Rebecca's spiritual homeland of Nesetimtuto on the northern polar continent launched programs to create their own special super-soldiers for defensive purposes, which saw an effective 'metahuman arms race' begin. It got so bad that yet another world war began in that very year as the various metahuman battle groups fought it out. And THAT is when the very soul of the Great Crystal of Power — as the Seeker's Forge is called on Yiziba these days — responded by Gifting an ancient power onto a doctor that's known to us these days by the Yizibajohei term 'Batae Erba'; Liz's sister Jessica coined the term 'Doctor Destructo' to better address him here on Earth."
"He was like their version of Lord Rjazán', wasn't he?" Lance asked.
"Very much so, Lance. His first emergence was twenty-five thousand years ago when he dealt with interdimensional invaders wanting to seize the power of the Great Crystal for themselves. He appeared again five thousand years ago to repel an alien parasitic race called the Goa'uld from doing the same thing," Isaac confirmed with a nod, inwardly smiling on seeing flashes of recognition in the eyes of his guests. "Back two thousand years ago when the Final World War began, Doctor Destructo gathered a group of followers to start teaching normal people how to empower themselves for self-defence. The sheer level of metahuman battles on Yiziba back then made what we endured in America during World War Two seem like a tea party in comparison; because of the scale of the destruction, governments began collapsing within five years of the Doctor's return from the Great Crystal, especially given the sheer number of casualties that started to paint the planet red with blood. Since people like those who got themselves empowered by the Crystal directly — including my and Liz's past selves — didn't have the military training government metahuman battle groups had been given, the various civil wars happening during the time of the Final World War turned incredibly messy. This became especially true when the real heavy hitters — beings that could equal Doctor Destructo's power with ease — began to appear in the first couple of years after what we now call the 'Dawn of Power' began. Reality warpers like Infinity, Oblivion, the Weaver, Coyote, Lady Nature and their peers. The super-powered FISS-types like Mustang and Wildflower; Liz's sister Jessica is Rampage and her old best friend Amy Sutton is Trebuchet, by the way." As the people from Santa Clara perked on hearing the Terran battle names of the Charging Belle of the Heavens and the Shot-put Siren of the South, the Wise Lone Sage smirked. "And yes, we got the urban combat specialists like Caltrop — who hasn't rejoined us yet in this generation — and the real bad heels like members of the Fabulous Quartet and Doctor Death." As people winced on hearing the battle name of the Archangel of Mortality, Isaac smirked. "She has come back, by the way. She works for President Bartlet as his personal hit-girl. Anti-face this time."
"She gonna go after bin Lādin one of these days?" Mackenzie wondered.
As rueful chuckles echoed in the cafeteria, Elizabeth sighed. "Well, let me put it this way, Mackenzie. If you ever see a version of me in that costume with dark brown hair and grey eyes without the dimples, I'd RUN if I was you if you did something really stupid. Still, as Isaac just noted, Margo — that's her name, Margo Black — is more an anti-face in this generation than a real heel."
Another chorus of shudders answered the Wise Genius of the Circle. "Warning noted. We do not upset the unfunny Miss Black," Phoebe stated as she held up a finger. As rueful chuckles escaped the others from Santa Clara, she crossed her arms. "So how long did this Dawn of Power scene last, anyway?"
"Around thirty years...or 'seasons' as we would say it back on Yiziba, Miss Pitts," Isaac answered, inwardly smirking on sensing the use of a more common Yizibajohei term in Phoebe's speech appear. "For the next couple of mini-series — decades — after that came the Starvation Times; you'll probably start to remember periods when you went hungry unless you were in those farming areas which weren't hit bad during the Dawn of Power." As some of the people in front of him all winced as their newly-inserted memories came up to remind them of those dark days, he indicated Elizabeth. "Liz's past-self teamed up with two other polymaths — they called themselves the 'Circle of Thought' as you'll soon recall — to create very advanced automated systems that would help restore the planet to a semblance of habitability and get people fed, turning it into something that could be seen as a paradise...until a tidal wave of post-traumatic stress disorder cases effectively launched what is known these days on Yiziba as the 'Great Show of Life', which is running to this day despite efforts to get people to calm down. Once the memories you gained settle down, you'll probably recall times when you got involved in what we call 'fight scenes' to give your past-selves the chance to 'star' in the Show."
"Yeah! How's that work, by the way?" Mackenzie's sister Jackie then asked. "I mean, getting the powers is neat, but having the memories added to that is just weird!"
"That's because of a belief that was derived from the story of Doctor Destructo himself, Jackie," Elizabeth answered. "Once people learned that when past incarnations of the Doctor died, his Gift seed returned to the Great Crystal, it became seen as acceptable for people to bury their dead in the Crystal to allow the Gifts to return to their source point; for some odd reason, such Gifts didn't mutate the DNA of children to allow natural-born metahuman powers to develop. Eventually, when new people gained Gifts used by previous generations, it was discovered that the memories of the previous Gift holder's life were transmitted into the new Gift holder. Thus, the idea of 'battle lines' began to appear. I'm the thirtieth Academician, by the way." As the others nodded, Elizabeth sighed. "This is what ultimatly led to what happened to Tariko and by extension myself and my friends."
"Put simply, in the wake of the Dawn of Power, Yizibajohei eventually evolved into two distinct groups of people: Named and Nameless," Isaac added. "Named are people like us, who literally 'resurrect' through the Great Crystal of Power. Nameless are those who gain their own abilities through interacting with the biosphere. While relations between the two groups have been pretty cordial over the years, the Nameless — who try their best to preserve pre-Dawn of Power history and those elements of the cultures of various nations that aren't seem as harmful to other people — began to note how children of Named couples were Gifted when they were barely out of childhood. I've heard of cases where people as young as FOUR were Gifted. The human mind hasn't developed enough that early in life to absorb two thousand years' worth of memories all the time. Hence, Miss Ayone's move to make Tariko promise to not let the Gift seed of Coyote take her until she feels she's ready for it."
"There have been eager beavers," Elizabeth added. "The current Infinity, the first person Tariko helped to be Gifted, was one. But given how Ayumu — that's her name, Kasuga Ayumu — was like..."
A flash of energy made people gasp!
"O-ha!"
Isaac and Elizabeth looked over to see a smiling, slender Japanese girl the same age as the latter now standing there, her hand raised in greeting and a friendly smile on her face. "Oh, wow!" the current incarnation of the Goddess Who Walks Among Men, Nodim ("Infinity"), then gushed. "Whoa! Liz, Isaac, where did you find all these people to get Gifted?! This is WAY better than what Tariko does...!"
"They didn't get a choice, Ayumu," Isaac warned.
That made the Wakayama native — the omniversal translator system on Station Robert was rendering Ayumu's voice with a mixture of Brooklyn and eastern Texan accents — stop before she moaned. "Oh, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan...!" she trilled as her shoulders slumped. "That's so awful...!"
"You want to go tell Margo about this, Ayumu?" Elizabeth asked.
"Sure, sure..."
With another flash, Yiziba's most powerful reality warper disappeared. "Is she safe?" Phoebe asked as she stared warily at her host, pointing to where the Infinite One had stood.
"She grows on you," Isaac quipped.
The people from Santa Clara exchanged worried looks...
Sweet Valley (fifteen miles southeast of Vandenberg Air Force Base in California), Saturday 6 November, an hour after breakfast...
"Thanks for letting us call the parents, Lila. Given what just happened..."
Lila Fowler chuckled as she waved Tara Silva out of her private study to the large dining room where the newly-Gifted people from Santa Clara were enjoying a large breakfast prepared by the culinary staff working for Sweet Valley's second-richest family. Also present were members of the Sweet Valley Boosters, who had been alerted to what happened thanks to their nominal leader early that morning via text messages to their PAAs, which also came with a request from Elizabeth Wakefield to prepare a hearty meal so that the newly-Gifted could get over what just happened to them without any major issues concerning Post-Gifting Shock. "It's no problem, Tara," the dark-haired half-French computer systems magnate's child who was also the current version of the Living Nuclear Reaction, Tarutote ("Cyclotron"), affirmed. "Much that our own parents are aware of our own Gifts, we know how much of a shock it'll be once your parents get a clue and learn what happened last night. Lucky we have a few telepaths in the Boosters who could help keep the curiosity down for the next while."
"At least until we can be brave enough to admit what happened," Tara lamented as she gave the other girl a grateful look. Much that she was leery of the idea of having her parents' minds manipulated like that by people such as Caroline Pearce — the Living Chatterbox and one of Yiziba's top telepaths, Benum Bolem ("Pettegola") — Tara knew older generations had been taught to be VERY wary of a "second metahuman age" thanks to the well-recorded incidents of battles that rocked America during the Second World War. "Still, we can't stay down here forever. We do have classes on Monday."
Lila groaned, rolling her eyes. "Oh, yes! The boring stuff!"
They walked into the dining hall, where a whole chorus of people were busy either partaking of a large smörgåsbord of breakfast dishes provided by the platoon of Fowler family cooks or exchanging fight scene stories between each other. Some of the newest people to be Gifted were listening raptly as Jessica Wakefield described the time shortly after she became fully Gifted as the Charging Belle of the Heavens, Duohuo ("Rampage"), two years before, when she used her "patented Hulk manoeuvre" to wipe out a TSUNAMI about to swamp the Big Island of Hawai'i; seeing both Tara's brother Lance and Mackenzie Appleby gaze in awe at Elizabeth's identical yet emotionally more immature and wilder twin made the Living Nuclear Reaction smirk. Nodding politely to Tara, who was going to head over to join her own friends to finish her breakfast, Lila then headed over to join Elizabeth, who was standing with Caroline off to one corner of the room, they accompanied by Isaac Thomas and Sweet Valley's second polymath hyper-genius, junior mathematics star Peter DeHaven. "So?" Lila gently probed.
"Well, we got the list," Elizabeth noted as she held up her work PAA to display the names, battle-names and other information Caroline had been happy to gather with the agreement of Tara and her friends. "Quite the eclectic group. Not as all-out powerful as we are as a whole, but they can make an impact."
"Which is good," Peter noted. The bespectacled dark-haired polymath with the wise eyes behind reading glasses was the current incarnation of the Contemplative Genius of the East, Lutokikemem ("Pensatore"). An equal in overall capabilities, skill and knowledge to Isaac and Elizabeth, Peter was also a loner of sorts; his past-selves tended to stay away from forming deep working relationships with either fellow polymaths or the technokinetics who were their equal when it came to scientific knowledge. Known in the halls of government when it came to access to the "Ladyhawke File" — that was the title to the list of currently active metahumans in America, so named in honour of Major Dean Raeburn's radio call-sign from World War Two — Peter had plans to join DARPA once he got a proper university degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Like Elizabeth, the older boy had created his own working starship, a ten-to-one scale replica of the "fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy" that appeared in a famous science fantasy film back in the late 1970s thanks to a native of Modeso east of Santa Clara; despite his oh-so-serious demeanour all the time, Peter was a major Star Wars fan.
Lila looked. "Don't recognize any of the battle names."
"Carol?" Isaac prodded.
Caroline smiled as she indicated people in question. "Well, Rebecca there has taken up the name 'Hamon' in honour of the metahuman skill set that appears in JoJo's Big Adventure," the Living Chatterbox began. "Turns out that her battle-name back on Yiziba actually translates to what the Japanese term in the anime means. She's a solar-powered psychokinetic who can also fly, enhance her body with power which makes her a mid-range FISS when she pushes it, could even survive in space by using her powers to make a telekinetic bubble around her to keep air in."
"She can only use her powers when in the habitable zone of a solar system," Peter warned. "Her cells could keep charge, but she wouldn't be able to recharge herself if she had to fight on Triton."
"Let's hope the Tritonians aren't stupid anytime in the future," Lila mused.
Chuckles escaped the others. "Tara is Gabuor'be; 'Archmage' as it would be said here," Caroline then said as she pointed to the raven-haired half-Italian girl, who was now speaking with Maria Santelli and Annie Whitman off to one side of the room. "Top level magical, almost at Rose Potter's level. Her past-selves were always neutral between the Mage Guild and the Shadow Court." As people nodded, Sweet Valley's most well-known gossip added, "Her first-self was a senior monk on the eastern equatorial continent in our version of Buddhism. No one messed with her."
She then indicated Rita Diaz. "Samriluor'be; here, she'd be called 'Stormmaker'," the Living Chatterbox continued. "Rita's a meteorkinetic with hyperspeed flight and running capabilities. Not at the level of someone like Hyperspeed..."
"Thank God she's not one of the Young Guns," Peter mused.
The others winced as Caroline indicated Renée Gerrard. "Our French belle is Tadayate, 'Radiance'. She's a photokinetic who can warp light around and create all sorts of constructs with it."
"Like Green Lantern does," Isaac mused, nodding in approval.
"She's Yar'buo Nubuo," Caroline then said as she pointed to Flora Sandford. "'Wild Mimic' as it would go here. She's a zoanthrophe, able to replicate the powers and life skills of any animal she confronts, both Yizibajohei and Terran. Since animals back 'home' are a lot nastier..."
"Like B'wana Beast," Peter provided.
"I was thinking of Vixen myself," Isaac countered.
"Typical male," Caroline teased as Elizabeth snickered. "As for little Phoebe there, she's Nami; she chose 'Cartoon' instead of 'Anime' or 'Manga' in this case." She pointed to Phoebe Pitts, who was now twirling around a huge wooden mallet straight out of ACME Laboratories that she pulled out of...well, somewhere! Guiding her through the paces of using such a device was Winston Egbert; given that the class clown of Sweet Valley High was also the Master of Techno-Magic, Tuonor'be ("Lightmage"), his own sense of comedic good timing was of big benefit to the diminutive woman. "Clearly some sort of reality warper; she can literally master ALL forms of cartoon physics! Whatever THAT entails!"
"The Mask?" Isaac offered.
"Definitely Jim Carrey's version from the movie before the turn of the millennium," Peter affirmed as Elizabeth nodded while trying not to roll her eyes as she imagined how much "fun" Phoebe would soon engage in. "She'll be no doubt binge-watching every cartoon that's ever been made."
"I'm not cutting her off."
Peter snickered as Caroline giggled. "Now Lance there is Tadayato Tae..."
"'Shining Armour'," Peter, Elizabeth and Isaac translated with knowing smirks crossing their faces; Tara had told them that such was Lance's nickname in the eyes of many people at Camelot High.
"But at DeeDee's suggestion, he chose 'Caballarius' instead."
Eyes locked on DeeDee Gordon, the current incarnation of the Mad Artist of the South, Ito ("Canvas"), one of the two reality warpers currently in the Sweet Valley Boosters. She was currently chatting with Lance. "Good for her," Elizabeth mused. "Powers?"
"Telekinetic who can whip up force fields like the Unseen Lady," Caroline answered, then she indicated the Appleby siblings. "Mack is Yuotuo, 'Impact'. Jackie is Ledor'bemlo or 'Earthshaker'. He's a FISS with the ability to psychokinetically create armour. She's also a FISS with geokinetic powers."
"Is that a safe thing to have close to San Francisco?" Lila wondered.
Snickers escaped the others...
...before a polite cough made the four people turn as Rebecca approached them. "Is there something wrong, Rebecca?" Lila then asked.
"Well, now that we've got food in us — and please, give our compliments to the chef! — we need to get back to Santa Clara," the crimson-haired native of the Bay area advised.
Elizabeth and Peter exchanged a look, then the former nodded to the latter. "I'll get you people sent back to where you left your cars in the Valley Park," the Contemplative Genius of the East then offered. "You should be back home in an hour once you're out of here."
"Can we see your version of the Falcon?!" Rebecca teased.
Laughter filled the air...
Camelot High School, Monday 8 November, just before homeroom class...
A smiling Rebecca Skylark came in through one of the side entrances, making her way to her homeroom on the upper deck of the two-floor schoolhouse with a good view of Levi's Stadium to the south of the grounds. As she waved to friends and acquaintances while she made her way to Class 10-C, she fought down the urge to allow the "ripple" power she acquired on Friday night to overcome her; much that she was grateful to inheriting the experiences of her twenty-eight previous lives as Hamon, she knew she was still dealing with bouts of Post-Gifting Shock. Isaac Thomas had promised help in that regard, as had Elizabeth Wakefield and Peter DeHaven, but as to what the three geniuses had in mind...
"Oh, my God! Did you see him?!"
"He's so mature!"
"He just transferred in today!"
"No way! Is he single?!"
Hearing some of her classmates madly chatter as they peeked inside their homeroom, Rebecca blinked as she slipped past them to take her own seat, then she gaped in total surprise on seeing a familiar blond man seated in one of the desks at the back of the room. "What the hell are YOU doing here, Isaac?" she demanded as she walked back to sit down in front of the Wise Lone Sage, earning her a chorus of shocked and envious looks from her peers at the doorway.
He winked at her. "Even if I'm emancipated, I decided to become a transfer student and come to classes," he provided in a low voice, using the systems he could control through his glasses to provide a subtle notice-me-not field to prevent eavesdropping. "Since I missed out on three years of schooling after I was Gifted, I decided to catch up on things."
Hearing that, Rebecca grinned as she moved to take her own seat close to where Tara Silva was now relaxing, a knowing grin on the brunette's face. Looks like life is going to be very interesting from now on, the Moulder of the Solar Wind mused...
To Be Continued...
WRITER'S NOTES
Translation List: Tene lomher'buo — It is time; Übermenschen Gruppe — Group of Supermen; Orukote — Liar; Pakar'be ku kakatao — Fight me; Yizibajohei — Pronounced /yɪ-zi-bɑː'-woʊ-heɪ/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet, this is the demonym for the language or people of the planet Yiziba; Benokuku lo'obir'ba — FISS otaku (note that benokuku is short for "Betuo, Nokite, Kuoduo ku Kuoruto" ["Flight, Invulnerability, Super-Strength and Super-Speed"]); Dotir'ba-kuo — Literally "Island of the Successor"; Nesetimtutomem — Native of Nesetimtuto, Yiziba's most democratic republic before the Dawn of Power as explained above; R'bem-eke — New Yew; Recap the story bible — An idiom that refers to reviewing the general history of any particular situation; PAA — Personal Administrative Assistant, the Yizibajohei equivalent to the Mother Box concept created for Jack Kirby's New Gods comic series by DC Comics.
For your information, here is the basic encoding system Fred devised to create words in Yizibajohei. Basing it on the Japanese translation of terms (or the oldest on'yomi reading of Chinese characters if Japanese translations of terms is in katakana), it goes like this:
A and Y remain the same
VOWELS: I=E and O=U (the Ō, which is the Hepburn Romanization of either おう or おお, would be interpreted as it is in hiragana)
CONSONANTS: K=T or CH, G=D, S=R, Z or J=L, N=M, H or F=B and P=W
As a way of tossing in a "unique" sound into the language, Fred encoded the consonant element of the "shi" (し) sound into Yizibajohei as "R'B", which is approximately pronounced /ɯrʔb/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet when it starts a word or is in the middle of a word after a consonant; the glottal stop between the first and second consonants would be a syllable break and the vowel before the "r" would be a sound like the onomatopoeia for a car engine idling, but uttered very briefly. Note the vowel would be dropped if the "r'b" combination appears in the middle of a word after a vowel.
Please refer to Fred's writer's notes in The End of the Circus: A Tale of the Yizibajohei to understand the basic galactic situation surrounding Earth in the universe of this story.