Twin Terror Nathan Ryo written by Geia
Chapter 10-Of Pokémon and Whitecoats

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Three days of hectic unpacking and moving furniture later had revealed Nathan and Luke's unnatural strength. Each boy had picked up a box that easily weighed half as much as they did and carried it into the house much to the astonishment of the Erasers and Megan.

The boys had watched anxiously as their things were unloaded from the back of the moving trucks and more than once had ordered around the half human wolves to be careful. That was until a box labeled breakable for Nathan's room came into view.

The white box was about the same size as the average stereo system and had pictures printed on the sides of the contents. One NeoView Video Eye, or Closed Circuit Color Television, was packaged with care in molded Styrofoam and packaging peanuts. With their mother in the house supervising the distribution of the boxes there was no one close enough to keep the box from getting handled roughly.

Nathan had cried out and for some reason a clump of grass nearby had set itself on fire as the be-speckled boy and his brother raced up the ramp and into the dark interior of the truck to snatch the bulky box from the hands of the Erasers-turned-moving-men. The men snarled as their hands were slapped roughly and if not for their conditioning to follow orders from Megan, or any Scientist for that matter, they would have torn the impudent mutants to shreds.

The commotion had brought Leyane out in time to see Luke and Nathan carefully walking down the steep ramp with the half-blind kids' treasure. Nathan led the way and carefully felt the ground with his feet since he was walking backwards down the ramp with Luke telling him where to turn.

Megan, Leyane, and the Erasers stared as the un-winged bird kids carried the bulky box into the house and up the stairs with all the care a mother elephant showed her new baby.

the Institute of Living Science hospital was located deep n New York city, another of the BioTech branches that Itex seemed fond of in America. The boys had been weighed, measured and had a great many other things checked that would be expected in a normal appointment along with taking blood samples "since their medical records have not been received yet."

The boys had been sent to the waiting room while Doctor Yaker talked alone with their mother in his private office. They were being given a little respite before the next doctors arrived to check on how well Nathan and Luke could see.

The boys were occupying themselves between doctors and physical checkups with a children's card game. The brightly colored monsters and pictures attracted Megan's attention and despite her contempt for the way these freaks were treated as humans she was drawn to them.

Each boy had his own deck of cards with five or six cards face down to the side on their side of the little Lego table and two stacks of cards either face up or face down with a little row of face up cards directly in front of them and two cards each in the middle of the table.

Each boy held cards of varying types in their hands and played them with evident skill. Each monster had a short list of attacks with little colored symbols matching the colored cards placed underneath them and each monsters attack was accompanied by a number. For Example a little powder puff of a pink monster had an attack called pound with a damage of ten. Not the strongest thing around apparently seeing how ineffective it was against the little purple and yellow snake Luke was attacking it with.

Megan sat near Luke and looked down on the little game. Cards were attached to the monsters with colored spheres and a symbol and at the end of each turn, or attack if one of the little plastic coins had to be flipped. Red, green, and purple glass beads were used on the active card to indicate damage, strangely though there were only a few of the red and green beads and only one each were put on a single card at any time.

"What game is this?"

Nathan looked up as he put the little cream-puff into what had to be the discard pile and Luke claimed one of his three remaining face down cards.

"Pokémon."

Megan frowned. That game was quite popular everywhere. There was more than one movie and the whole thing seemed to multiply and grow like an amoeba with no signs of stopping anytime soon as new additions were made to keep the interest of each new wave of children. Megan watched the game with bored interest and over the next three games, most of which Luke won, and learned a little more about their personalities.

Like most card games this Pokémon game did require a little bit of strategy and reports from the psychologists showed a link between personality traits and how games of strategy are played. Even if these boys weren't collected right away The Institute would be able to test these little gems in innocent enough ways until it was discovered how the boys hadn't developed wings. But that was beside the point at the moment, for now the bounty hunter would watch and learn.

Luke put out weak creatures, resulting in early victories for Nathan, and strengthened his monsters that weren't active. Once stronger, the easily angered child took the creatures from the 'bench' and put them on the field where he proceeded to overpower his brother with brute strength. Megan would have to dig out those psychology reports but if she remembered correctly this indicated Aggression, impatience and a desire for power with a touch of foresight. Not that Megan knew that much about history but Luke seemed like a regular Napoleon here.

Nathan's strategy seemed to be more balanced as far as powering his creatures, keeping them more or less healthy, and using 'Trainer' cards. He tended to afflict his brothers little monsters with lingering effects like confusion, poisoning, and burns to steadily eat away at their health and used the special abilities of his card monsters to his advantage, at one point putting Luke's evolved snake to sleep with Long Range Hypnosis.

The slow yet steady chipping away at health and the patience Nathan showed to get where he wanted to go was most likely due to a rather submissive nature and lack of confidence. Again those reports would have to be consulted.

Their mother hurried from Dr. Yakers office and hurried over to her two dueling sons in a state of obvious agitation. She glared at Megan is if she were some kind of plague and sat down nearest Nathan.

"Are you two hungry? I think I was a McDonald's not too far from here. I'm sure the doctors wouldn't mind waiting. Lord knows how irritable you can get when you're hungry Luke..."

Luke snickered and nodded his head. The boys abandoned their game and everything; damage counters, cards, and the coins disappeared inside little chipboard boxes in record time.