Once again, I would like to apologize for not updating much. I actually didn't work on this much until this week because I just finished finals.. Anyway, I've got one year of high school down, so I can write more this summer.. Then those three other years are going to get in the way. I'm going to be done with this by the end of summer for sure though. I'm also going to start working on other stuff after I finish this one, because alternating between personality differences is going to be too hard, so I'm sticking to one story at a time. I might just post the little short story things I wrote before this was even conceived (Don't ask why I didn't post that.. I just kinda wanted to practice writing the characters and start with a serious story).
Reviews/Comments/Criticism is/are appreciated very much. I read all of them, and they usually brighten my day a bit.
Next update will be a lot shorter in time period separation (I'm not really sure how to word that), probably the next week or two. Enjoy.
"I think it's best that they don't know," Ninten whispered to Claus.
A cold silence fell upon Claus. "They won't trust you or me," he whispered back tiredly, looking over to the other three PSI users in the room, sleeping. "I have Lucas on my side though. I'm sure he'll stick with me. We might be able to tell them that you've been helping me."
"No, I need to gain their trust first," Ninten answered, "I don't want anyone to think badly of you without a chance to weigh the truth." Ninten's rationality was brought out lately by the recent events. He was much more quiet after realizing he was doing all the wrong things when he thought he was right. "I'm going to go now. Before they wake up." The only reason Claus had been awake as he was is because he naturally needed little sleep, and also because Ninten woke him up with telepathy. Ninten left the room and it returned to silence.
There was a stirring from the other side of the room. Claus quickly turned his head to check what it was. He saw the figure of Lucas in the dim lighting. "You okay?" Claus asked him.
Lucas didn't answer for a second. "I have a headache," Lucas answered when it was much more than that. He felt like his head was actually going to blow up.
"Did you consider healing?"
"It doesn't work," Lucas looked down and put his hand on his head attempting to relieve the pressure. "Claus," he said somewhat worriedly, "I think I have a PSI fever again." They both sat there, thinking about what happened last time.
"As long as.." Claus' voice trailed off. If this PSI fever was worse than the one he had before, Lucas might not survive it.
"I'll be fine," Lucas took a deep breath, trying to cool himself down. "I'm just going lie down for few hours." Lucas returned to his sleep eventually, despite the uncomfortable heat he felt.
Claus wasn't quite sure what to do now. He had been trying to figure out how to escape, but now people came to bring him out. He sat down at a desk in the room. Then he remembered what Lucas told him early in the morning when he arrived with Ness and Kumatora. Their mother was dead. He wouldn't ever be able to see her again, or even say goodbye to her. Already, only a faint memory of her face remained in his mind just before she gave herself to help him and Lucas.
An involuntary noise came from the sleeping Lucas every so often, as some sort of subconscious way to compensate for the fever. Claus sat in the room with the three sleeping people, thinking.
"Are you sure he's going to be okay?" Kumatora's voice sounded through the room. Ness and Lucas were too tired to wake up from their casual talking. "From what it sounds like, the last one of these was hard on him."
"No," Claus bluntly responded, staring at the ground.
"I know you know that PSI fevers can do some harsh things to people," she continued, "Lucas is going to have it harder."
"Why?" Claus seemed confused, as he looked up from the floor. "Why would he have it any different from me or you?"
"Have you not noticed?" Kumatora seemed slightly angry, "You've lived with this kid before you were born, and you didn't notice that his PSI radiates ten times stronger than yours does, and yours is stronger than most people's. All that energy is going to be able to be controlled by him in a matter of hours."
Claus actually hadn't noticed how brutally strong his brother's PSI was. For some reason though, he noticed how unconfident Lucas was in his psionic abilities since they felt weak to him, and Claus had always learned everything before him. This somewhat led to the unsureness Lucas has in himself. Claus had always subconsciously tuned out the strong disturbances of Lucas' PSI after a few years of getting used to it. "I know he says he'll be okay, and I think I might need to trust him on that."
There was silence between the two until Kumatora suddenly asked, "How'd you get to be friends with the general? And why is he not brainwashed like the rest of the people."
Claus was surprised at this question, thinking she was asleep during that whole conversation. "Ninten used to be a very proud supporter of Porky, and then after Lucas was taken prisoner, I told him things that Lucas had told him before."
"What kind of things?"
"We told him about how the pigmasks were destroying houses, and taking people away from their families just to be forced to forget everything.. and kill people," Claus explained, quietly. Word of his mother's death had clearly left a mark on his behavior. "He changed his mind, and we've been talking since then."
There was another silence between them, which lasted until Ness woke up. "So what's the plan?" he asked.
"I don't know genius," Kumatora said with an irritated tone, "I thought you were the one who came up with it."
"Actually Lucas came up with most of it," Ness pointed out.
"And he didn't tell you all of it?" she argued back.
"Well yeah, he did, but I may or may not have been listening," this statement irritated her and Claus more. "Why don't you just ask him? He's perfectly capable of telling you," Ness almost shouted, as if he were defending himself.
"Lucas can barely talk now, he's got a PSI fever, dumb-"
"Fine," Ness said, standing quickly in agitation, "All I remember is that he said something about getting Paula to help."
"Ness, she's not in her right mind, how do you think we'll get her back?" Claus asked him.
"Well I'm here and mentally well, aren't I?" he answered with a rhetorical question. "Kumatora used brainshock on me, and I'm fine. Paula knows brainshock also.. At least Lucas thinks she does."
"Well we'd need to do it right either way," Kumatora pointed out, "And since you clearly don't have the attention span to listen to what Lucas said when he explained it the first time, we'll need to extrapolate from what we already know. If we screw it up, Ness, both of us are screwed."
Ness, hoping he was right, breathed in nervously. He wasn't so doubtful in his memory until Claus said something, "Ness, I'm going to need to do everything in this. Fassad knows you were captured, and he'll notice if someone isn't brainwashed. I'm the only one who is supposed to be here right now, and you three," he nodded towards Kumatora, Ness, and Lucas, "need to stay hidden."
"Who is Fassad?" the two awake PSI users asked, to which Claus responded with a brief explanation of Fassad and the other important, high-level people in the base.
"I'd like to get out of here as soon as possible," Claus was closing their pointless-to him-conversation. "So I'm just going to go find her and bring her here until we get more information on how to destroy this place." He left the room, leaving Ness and Kumatora to themselves.. Along with Lucas who was trying to get over a PSI fever by sleeping through it.
"I'm not just going to sit here," Ness said after a long awkward silence, "I'm going to help him, and I'm going to do my best to not get found out. When we came here, we signed up for some difficult things, and we aren't going to let Claus, the only one who didn't want to get involved here, do all the work." Ness was ready to walk out of the room when Kumatora stopped him.
"If Claus thinks he can do this, let him. He has all the help he needs," Kumatora considered telling Ness about Ninten, the general, helping Claus. There's no doubt he'd be angry though. "Also, knowing what I do, Claus is willing to do this if Lucas is." Both of her points lacked flaw. Claus had a sense of pride in needing to be the stronger and braver between him and his brother. She also knew from what she had been told, that Ninten would be perfectly capable of helping all that was needed.
"I still don't feel comfortable sitting around and doing nothing," Ness told her. "I'm going to help Claus." Ness walked out of the room defiantly.
"You idiot!" she shouted, still not waking Lucas. Kumatora got up and began to follow him. As long as she didn't let Ness get anyone in trouble. The interior hallways didn't look much different than the ones at the anti-pigmask base, except for the fact that they were wider, and more spacious. All white and crowded with people. Half of these people were younger people, actually no older than 15, and as young as 9. There was an occasional adult, but otherwise Kumatora would be older than most of them. 'Sick,' she thought, 'This is sick and disgusting. Forcing children to fight for reasons they don't understand.' She had to focus though. Getting Ness back into hiding without causing any disturbance was most important.
Kumatora knew that Ness has good intentions, but after serving in the militia, Kumatora learned that sometimes she needed to sit back for the good of others. It was too late by the time she saw him. Kumatora could see that Ness had found Claus, who was trying to find Paula in the so-called cafeteria. It actually was a cafeteria, but that wouldn't be the right word for it. It was more like a large room without tables that gave food to all the people there.
'Ness you moron, what are you doing?' Kumatora said using telepathy to talk to Ness silently.
'I'd like to know also,' Claus joined in, apparently noticing each of them coming into the room, 'They likely have cameras in here, be careful about what you do. The slightest movement could tip them off.'
'I'm not going to sit around while you do all the work,' Ness answered stubbornly, 'I already explained my thoughts to Kumatora, and I don't want to again.'
'Fine, just help me find Paula,' Claus was about to pull his hair out, 'Follow everyone else, and don't do anything weird.' Claus sat down on the ground farther away from the rest of the people there. Even though they were being controlled outside of their will, they still talked and acted like normal people would, aside from the awkward movement patterns they had while moving from place to place (probably to keep them organized). Their talk, though, infuriated Claus. They all praised Porky and talked about how they wanted to destroy all nations who didn't abide by Porky's laws.
Claus couldn't stand it, and Ness and Kumatora soon found they couldn't either. Their rage was being suppressed by the fact that their lives were in danger. Ninten soon came to join Claus against the wall farthest away from everyone else.
'Why the heck do you know him?!' Ness asked in a spike of anger. 'Have you been plotting against us, Claus? There's no reason that someone sane would associate himself with this stupid-'
'Ness, I don't have time to explain,' Claus tried to calm Ness, 'Just trust me. He's alright.' That was somehow enough of an explanation for Ness, despite his sudden hotheadedness.
"What are they doing here?" Ninten asked, very worried and confused.
"They're idiots and decided to come try to help me find someone," Claus answered, still frustrated with Ness and Kumatora.
"Who are you looking for?"
"A girl named Paula," Claus answered him, "She was taken here the same day I was. She has something to do with a plan."
"I'm not going to worry about what plan or whose plan you're talking about right now, but I can probably help more," Ninten stood and began looking after being provided a physical description. He seemed to have wandered the room for what seemed like thirty minutes. It was a large room filled with people, after all.
During those thirty minutes, Claus' mind drifted to Lucas, and how he might be doing. Lucas' last PSI fever was awful, and considering he practically died and came back to life, the odds of him coming back to life again are going to be pretty low. Claus couldn't imagine how he would function if Lucas were gone. Since each of them were young, they had been balancing factors to each other's polar personalities. Lucas was the calm in Claus' storm of rage and anger, and Claus was the strength and bravery to Lucas' fearful tears. He hadn't been told how Lucas responded to their mother's death yet, but Claus knew that if he hadn't had Lucas with him, he wouldn't be able to function for three weeks.
"Claus," Ninten said on edge, "I've been trying to get your attention for almost a minute, are you alright?" he asked noticing the blank expression on his face.
"Y-yeah I'm fine," Claus composed himself. He had been worrying about Lucas so much that he didn't hear Ninten calling for him. "What is it?"
"I think I found her, but we've got a bit of a problem," he explained, "I can't get her to go anywhere without catching attention."
"Why can't we just do it here?" Claus asked impatiently, looking sick to the stomach.
"I don't know."
'I need a minute if you want me to get them back to normal,' Kumatora explained, having listened in on the conversation from afar. 'Claus, you don't look alright.'
'I feel like something is wrong,' Claus told her, 'Ness, can you please go back? I'm worried about Lucas.'
'Dude, you're worrying a bit too much about this,' Ness told him. Ness took a shaky breath, trying to hide his personal fears but be rational, 'That was only one time, and I don't think it's going to happen again. I'll go back though.' Ness left the room and awkwardly looked forward while he walked through the rows of people, trying to move like everyone else did. Ninten didn't bother asking what Ness was mentally talking about with Claus, but he had his own guesses.
Ness made his way over to the room where Claus had been for the past week or so. He opened the door to see nothing. The lights were off. He turned on a lamp, which dimly lit the room. Lucas was still sleeping, occasionally making a quick, spastic movement. It was clear Lucas wasn't in perfect condition, but it didn't look any worse than a regular PSI fever.
Ness stood around for a few minutes before something weird happened. Lucas started mumbling in his feverish sleep. It sounded like he was talking to someone, but his words were so slurred and quiet that Ness couldn't really make it out.
"I wonder what he's dreaming about," Ness wondered to himself. Ness knew he shouldn't actually try to figure it out, but his curiosity got the better of him. Ness used telepathic PSI to peer into Lucas' mind, even though something in his head told him that this was not a good idea.
"Claus, I- I.. Mom and dad are-," Lucas was sobbing. They stood in a dirt street. A black hill of charcoal sat in front of them. It was their house.
"We need to go, Lucas," Claus was next to him, "If they find out, we're going to be in even more of a mess."
"What about Boney?" Lucas asked, trying to find reasons to not leave. Claus didn't want to leave either, but he realized they had no choice. Lucas knew this as well, but he was more reluctant to change and tended to be more sentimental.
"We can't take him with us. It will be too hard to sustain us both, and even harder with a dog."
"Are we going to see them again?" Lucas' teary blue eyes were trying to find any kind of hope.
"I don't know," Claus wanted to break down and cry as much as Lucas, but Claus felt he had to be strong enough to account for both of them. "We need to go now."
They walked and everything faded. They were standing in a town square, people stared at the twins with sympathetic faces. A kid their age walked up to them.
"Why do you need to leave Tazmily so soon?" the brown haired boy asked them.
"Fuel, you know what happened. We can't stay here any longer," Claus explained to him.
"Why not? I can help you keep away from them for a little longer, until this all calms down," Fuel offered them.
"You know why we're leaving," Claus turned to face Lucas and they began to walk. They would need to walk for a long time before they reached anywhere safe. They would travel by boat. Lucas occasionally looked back, trying to remember what life was like before the war. Claus was determined to stay focused, and seldom got lost in fantasies of memories.
They had left Tazmily Village for now, not knowing if they would come back.