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The End of the Circus: A Tale of the Yizibajohei
Omake: Governess and Anima
by Regina Magia

From a special written report by Asakura Kazumi (Windtalker) to the United Nations Special Committee on Alien Activities...

Although Tariko Katabarbe was the most successful Terran-turned-Yizibajohei "recruiter" that helped usher in Earth's Second Metahuman Era, she was by no means the ONLY one who actively sought natives of the planet to receive a Gift from the Great Crystal of Power. Several others across Earth that became Gifted by various means over the years can be counted among the ranks of those who solidified bonds between Earth and Yiziba, performing their own "recruiting drives", sometimes to the same degree as the Trickster of the Show did.

One of these other "recruiters" was a native of London named Eleanor Hawking, who became the twenty-sixth incarnation of the Teacher of the Young, Nutyuor'be("Governess"). Blessed with the ability to teleport, create force fields and heal with a touch, she continued her battle line's tradition of caring for the young, especially those who had lost parents to some disaster or another.

As part of this, she recruited a number of orphans, street kids and victims of parental abuse into the R'beketu Taer'be(the "Lost Kids"), which became a region-wide neighbourhood watch-type network active throughout New England...

Bangor, Maine, the White Pine Children's Home, the Friday after Redet Lum's expulsion from Earth, early afternoon...

"Oh! I'm so sorry!"

The prime and bespectacled brown-haired woman blinked before she looked over to give the red-haired girl a smile. "It's quite all right," Eleanor Hawking stated, her voice bearing the formal tones of the Home Counties of England mixed with BBC standard. "Truth be told, I was somewhat distracted."

The other girl gazed in curiosity at her for a moment before she nodded, then she ran off. Watching her race off to join her friends, Eleanor smiled as her brown eyes glittered with delight, then she turned and entered her current establishment. One of her current group of Lost Kids, a charming lad of ten named Bruce Dreyfus who now also went by the battle name Bemrim ("Strobe") — he was one of many Named metahumans who didn't have a special "tag line" that described his powers or his role in the Great Show of Life — had been hanging around looking for potential "recruits" to "join the club" when he noticed a boy sitting under a tree near the children's home crying softly. The boy was named Rudo Bockarie; he was a refugee from Sierra Leone whose older brother had been killed while serving as a child soldier during that country's recent civil war. Rudo had been watching a movie with some of the other kids at a local recreation hall. In that film, Rudo watched a boy being held hostage and ended up having a "flashback scene" that brought back very painful memories of his early childhood. Bruce had taken pity on the young refugee's grief, then invited Rudo to come meet with Eleanor.

Not long after that, Rudo became the new incarnation of Kaeyuotuto ("Sunspot"), soon showing he was quite creative in using his new flame-control powers...

"Um, excuse me?"

Eleanor jolted, then she turned to find herself facing a red-haired girl of about eleven. She recognized her as Holly Danvers, a close friend of Rudo's. "I remember you were here a few days ago, right before Rudo disappeared," Holly said as she pointed at the governess. "You know what happened to him?"

Eleanor smiled. "You remember Bruce, right?"

Holly nodded. "Yeah, he was here a few days ago talking to Rudo. I heard him say something about that Yiziba planet that's been all over the news because of that bomb those mean aliens put in Japan."

"Well, Bruce was inviting him to get a Gift of his own," the older woman explained. "Rudo's accepted."

"He's got superpowers?!" Holly yelped in a mix of surprise and curiosity.

"That's right!" Eleanor affirmed. "You want to go see him?"

The younger girl rapidly nodded her head...

In the back yard...

"Wow!" Holly breathed out after she watched her friend practice using his light-manipulation powers. Fortunately for all the Lost Kids, the property of the White Pine Children's Home had been layered with multiple defensive fields created by Elizabeth Wakefield to ensure no eavesdroppers would realize what was really happening here. Even if the local news was harping positively on the sudden arrival of what some pundits were now calling the "Second Age of Metahumans", there were the fanatic religious nuts, xenophobes and other such lunatics who wouldn't care for such beings possessing such powers living among them...especially given the understandable fear of how anarchic Yizibajohei society really was, with its open disdain of traditional Terran cultural mores such as belief in religion or the desire to be loyal to one's native nation-state. "So you have powers over light now?" she then asked.

Rudo nodded as he wiped his hands. "Yes!" the native of the northern town of Kabala near the border with the Gambia said. "I may not be very powerful...but I've found that how you use your abilities can give you an edge!" Here, he flashed his now-perfect teeth; a side-effect of the Gifting was to cure the young Sierra Leonean of any health issues like rotting bones and malnutrition.

"True," Eleanor mused. She was now wearing a lilac-and-white version of the older-pattern sleeved Yizibajohei jumpsuit, a symbol resembling a big heart with a little heart in the middle of it on her chest; she was one of the few who had a hood she could slip over her head mated to the top. Seated at a table on a veranda overlooking the large property the Centre was blessed with, she had been gazing on a group of crystals inside a box she brought out with her after she left Holly to watch her friend practice. "Odd!" she mused. "I thought there were thirteen Gift crystals here...but I only count eleven..."

"'Gift crystals'?!" Holly asked as she looked into the box, then picked up one of the crystals.

As she held it up to look at it more closely, it began to glow!

"Holly!" Rudo cried out...

...but it was too late.

Before anyone could react, the redhead's body lit up brightly, her clothes instantly disintegrating as the metaphysical bridge between the child born of the World of the Keystone Power Jewel and the very core of the Forge of the First Race was instantaneously formed; the crystal she had been holding had been instantly absorbed by her body as soon as the Gifting began. Seeing that, Eleanor winced as she remembered offering black forest cake of the same recipe that Tariko Katabarbe had long used when she did her own recruiting of potential Gift recipients to Rudo's friend a couple days before. With the crystals she had found drifting in the outer reaches of the Kaeyu system...!

She then blinked as a familiar voice boomed out from all around them...

Nesu...LO'OTATO!

As the Conservator's voice faded — and the Teacher of the Young found herself again thankful to the Wise Genius of the Circle of Thought when it came to including a sound-screen around her property to ensure people didn't hear the Voice of the Great Crystal speak like that — she gazed on Holly, who was now staring wide-eyed at herself, her body clad in a purple and light blue jumpsuit in the modern halter-top style, bearing a chest emblem resembling a will-o'-the-wisp from English folklore.

"Anima...!" the just-Gifted Holly whispered, gazing at herself in wonder. She then closed her eyes and slowly rose into the air...just as several rocks and other small objects on the patio began to float and move closer to her in lazy orbits like planets rotating around their home star.

"What happened?!" Rudo then demanded.

"It seems she had the right frame of mind to become the new Anima," the owner of White Pine calmly mused. "One of the more powerful telekinetics among the Yizibajohei; people call her the 'Conductor of Matter' as her tag line. Fortunately, her past-selves usually acted in a more supportive role when it came to fight scenes, only using their Gifts offensively to defend themselves or others." Her expression became grim as her eyes turned down again to gaze upon the collection of Gift crystals.

I just hope that whoever has the other Gift crystals uses them wisely...!

Fin...