The Four Mirrors
Sequel to 'Legacies'
By MMM/AJ

A/N: I finished this chunk in record time not because my friend offered to pay me, but because it was so fun to write. When there's no writer's block to stop me and everything flows smoothly, I can write pretty fast. It's just that normally there's always one little block to trip me up. Not this time though! Anyway, this chunk is just one huge Venius chapter split into 3 parts. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter XIX – VV

Part 1

Life had become incredibly lonely for Venius now. It had been three days since his brothers and cousins had left; he was living alone in his cave now. Cygnus and Nolus had gone to live with Asha and Ashley, Opulous had gone on a journey of self discovery, and the three sisters had gone to search for their mother in Kanto. The brothers had tried to get Venius to come with them, but he couldn't bring himself to leave his old home yet. They had warned him that more hunter-seekers were bound to show up, but he was confident that they could never find his cave since it was so high up a sheer cliff. Since then he had discovered that there was a different enemy he would have to face if he stayed there. It was much more powerful and dangerous than the hunter-seekers, it was called loneliness.

During those three days, Venius hadn't actually spent too much time in the cave. He spent many hours walking in the forest that surrounded his home, ruminating upon the meaning of his life and its impermanence. When he wasn't walking like this, he would sit in the remaining bunker to read through all the documents in its computers. These logs were mostly written by Tanis and Opulous, so for Venius it was as close as he could get to his father anymore. Originally he had hoped to find something like a journal or personal log that his father had written, but unfortunately all documents like that had been stored in the computers in the house. The house had undoubtedly crushed all those computers when it collapsed, so Venius was left with medical research to read instead. He read them with intensity as if they were gripping mystery novels, and this had the unintended side-effect of teaching him more about medical science than he had ever known before. He had never paid this much attention to science when his father had been teaching it to him face to face. The cruel irony of it made him feel terrible, but he kept reading and learning anyway. Every hour that Venius spent out of his cave was gambling with his life, hunter-seekers could jump him at any time. He didn't really care though, he felt empty without his family and he still couldn't leave.

Near nightfall on the fourth day, Venius spent an hour of silence at his father's memorial. He still couldn't bring himself to call it a gravestone; it was too grim to think about. He kneeled in front of it silently and meditated on his memories of him. The sky quickly melted from orange to purple to black as he sat there. He hadn't meditated in a long time; Nolus had taught him to do it when they had been 13 years old. He remembered not liking at the time; it was boring to him as a kid. Now he realized that it was a valuable tool to calm his mind and to control his emotions. He finally felt his grief begin to calm, it felt like a tumultuous thunderstorm calming and turning to a soft, quiet rain. He concentrated on his father as hard as he could and the image of him seemed to materialize in his mind's eye. His eyes were clenched shut so it seemed like he was alone in the darkness, but the image of his father seemed to be coming into focus clearer and clearer every second. He seemed to be walking toward Venius out of a cloud of dark obscurity.

Venius suddenly felt the need to open his eyes to check and see if it was an illusion or a trick of his imagination, but he suppressed it when the thought struck him that it might vanish if he did. He was too happy to see him again to care if it was real or not. He remained frozen in place, hoping that he wouldn't do anything that would cause the daydream to stop. Tanis gave him a warm smile and bent down to put a hand on his shoulder.

"Venius, I'm sorry." Tanis' voice said. "I'm sorry for all the mistakes I ever made while raising you. I'm sorry I was careless enough to allow the human attack when you were a kid. I'm sorry for all the times when you felt stupid after getting the lowest scores in the family on the exams I gave you. Most of all, I'm sorry I never listened to you when you told me about how many human ships were always flying over our home. If I had only taken your fears a little more seriously, our family would still be together right now."

"Dad I-" Venius said softly before being cut off.

"Will this do to make it alright? I know it's not much, but there's not much I can do anymore." Tanis said.

Tanis grabbed Venius' hand and placed a small Jewel in it. It was a stunningly clear yellow Topaz about the size of a silver dollar.

"Dad…I wouldn't have needed anything to forgive you." Venius said.

Tanis gave him a warm smile. "At least there's one regret I can change now, I can say goodbye to you."

Tanis gave him a quick hug and told him goodbye before walking backwards a few steps and fading backwards into the darkness. The thing that amazed Venius at that point was how solid and real his father's touch had felt. He had touched Ghost Pokemon like Ashley's Gengar before, but they generally felt icy and mist-like to the touch. It was almost like his father was alive again, if only in his head for those scant few moments. When Tanis had gone, Venius finally opened his eyes and came out of his meditative state.

Venius felt his jaw hang open when he caught sight of the Topaz sitting there in his open hand, solid and real as the trees around him. A staggering thought struck him for a moment; maybe his father really was alive! His common sense quickly dismissed it though, so he sat there examining it curiously trying to explain what had happened. It didn't take him long to stumble upon the solution, it was in plain sight in front of him after all. The memorial to Mewtwo that Tanis had built had a large purple gem embedded in the plaque: Mewtwo's Amethyst. The memorial they had built for Tanis had no such gem like this. Venius stood up and laid the Topaz next to Mewtwo's Amethyst and saw that they were identical in size and very similar shaped. He moved it over to Tanis' memorial and set it down in the same relative spot as the Amethyst sat on Mewtwo's memorial. It fit perfectly.

Venius suddenly remembered what his father had said about these gems. "Mewtwo left behind the Amethyst after he died, and it carries his essence inside it. All of his memories are locked away in the crystal lattice, stored like data on a computer disk."

Venius realized that this Topaz must have his father's memories on it too! He dashed towards the bunker, hoping to put the Topaz under a scanner and extract the data from it. He imagined watching all of his father's memories on a computer's holo-screen. He leapt down the steps, slammed open the analyzer and stuffed it inside.

After a few moments, the computer readout showed basic statistics of the crystal: chemical composition, lattice structure type, karat size, but no hints at any stored information. Venius wasn't exactly a computer expert, so he didn't really know what to do at that point. He tried scanning it with all the other parameter settings he could remember, but nothing indicated any data had been stored in the gem.

Sullen and defeated, Venius gave up on the gem for now and went back to reading his father's medical logs. He decided that he would ask Opulous to give it a try whenever he returned and resume reading everything else in the mean time. There were thousands of entries in the database and it would probably take him many more weeks to read them all. He browsed idly until he found the entries of that hemorrhagic virus that they had been infected with a few weeks ago. He picked an innocent looking entry and opened it; his jaw dropped open when he started reading what it contained.

/Logfile entry 10.24.2206
/User: ShakaraEB

/Begin file:

Attached to this entry is the complete genome sequence of the Ebola-Gamma virus that I have modified. It is no longer infectious to me or the rest of my family, I have changed it so that it infects humans instead. Tanis had forbidden me from creating this strain to use against the humans, but I did it in secret anyway. Ever since the human war in Europe started I've felt that they've been preparing to stab me in the back. If they do, this will teach them a lesson.

/Virus Data:

/Fatality rate: 99.8 percent
/Contagiousness factor: Level 10/10
/Vectors: Body fluid, touch, and airborne
/Incubation period: 10-24 hours
/Symptoms: Internal hemorrhaging, extreme fever, degradation of internal organs, respiratory and/or cardiac arrest

/Attachments: Ebola-gamma(modified).dna

/End File

A plan quickly formed in Venius' mind. He opened the attached DNA sequence and dumped it into the lab's organic synthesizer. He was going to create a large sample of this virus and unleash it into a human city. An evil grin crept across his face as he watched the synthesizer work its magic; tomorrow he would avenge his father!

Part 2

The glimmering towers of New Saffron City rose in the distance as Venius approached. He landed a little less than a mile away from the outermost city limits and walked the rest of the way to avoid the humans' psionic detection systems. He pulled the hood of his cloak over his head and made sure that it would be impossible for anyone to see his face under it. Besides disguising his identity, the cloak also provided excellent cover against the biting winter winds which were lashing across the face of Kanto now. The grass under his feet had turned a sickly yellow-brown, but the crops inside the greenhouse domes all around him still glimmered a cheerful green. He walked briskly past them, heading towards the bullet train station on New Saffron's outskirts. A lump formed in his throat as he got closer and nervousness set in, but his determination drove him onward like a missile locked onto its target.

Reaching the stairs that reached up to the train station, Venius fumbled in his robes to find the money he needed to pay the fare. He also dug out an old plastic toy hand, shaped like a human hand. He stuffed the money into it as he climbed the stairs and double checked to make sure his tail was tied tightly around his waist before reaching the top.

"Good morning!" The teller greeted him cheerfully. She gave him a syrupy-sweet smile. "What's your destination?"

"The station on the opposite side of the city." Venius said awkwardly. He didn't know the names of any of the major stations.

"You mean Alpine Station?" The teller asked curiously.

"Yes, that's the one." Venius said succinctly. "How much?"

"Seven dollars please!" the teller replied. Her unnatural cheer had quickly returned.

Venius forked over the money without complaining about the exorbitant fare and took his tickets quickly.

"What's with your hand?" The teller asked, staring at the plastic hand.

"I lost it in an industrial accident." Venius growled.

Venius walked away from the ticket stands quickly before the teller could ask him any questions. It was still early enough in the morning that the rush to get to work hadn't started yet so he didn't have to wait in line too long before getting on the train. The inside was mostly sterile and well polished, but there were a few bits of graffiti scrawled on the wall in various places. There were even fewer people on the train, which made Venius worry if there were enough candidates for infection to start a significantly large outbreak. Nonetheless, he dug out his spray bottle filled with the virus and began walking down the length of the train car, spraying it in the air wildly. He got angry and disturbed stares from the people on the train but pressed on anyway, hoping that none of them would confront him. The train began to move, so he stumbled and took his seat. The other people slowly stopped staring at him as the train picked up speed, and he distracted himself by staring out the window at the cityscape as they sped along.

The train never got to top speed because of the number of stops along the way. At every stop they reached, the number of humans that boarded the train increased significantly. Venius carefully misted little clouds of virus at each stop, hoping to infect every new group of people that came aboard. He held the spray nozzle under his hood carefully and made sneezing noises every time he sprayed it, hoping to make people think that the mist was just caused by his sneezes. But his cloak was making him stand out like a cube in a huge group of spheres, and people started to stare at him again. His heart rate began to climb as he watched people stare intently at his face, trying to see under his hood. He saw one person talking on their cell phone and staring at him at the same time with a scared look on her face.

The little spray bottle ran out of virus right before they reached the final station. Venius pushed his way through the now crowded train car toward the exit, hoping that his cloak wouldn't snag or get stepped on before he made it out. Neither of those things happened, instead one of the humans actually stood up from his seat and put himself in between Venius and the exit.

"Wanna explain to me what's up with that cloak of yours buddy?" The man asked confrontationally.

Venius frantically tried to come up with an excuse, but his mind froze up. He could see hundreds of eyes turning to stare at him; he backed away from the man and headed toward another exit.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!" The man said angrily and grabbed Venius by the shoulder.

The hand pulled against Venius' forward momentum and caused the hood to come off of his head; exposing him to all those prying eyes. Immediately he heard shrieks of fear from some of the people and gasps of shock and terror from others.

"Oh my god it's one of them!" One voice cried

"Run away before it tears apart your brain with its powers!" Another yelled.

"I'll get it!" The man who had grabbed Venius yelled.

Venius sprinted towards the other exit now, dodging the man's insane lunge. He had to jump and swerve carefully between the terrified and angry people as he went; some stuck their feet out to trip him and others outright attacked him with their fists. He felt the cloak pull tight over him as a woman grabbed it and tried to pull him back, so he deftly shed it and kept running, now completely exposed. He didn't teleport because he knew that it would instantly attract the police, and it was very possible that they could trace it to discover where he teleported to.

Venius managed to emerge from the train out onto the station platform and found himself surrounded on all sides by a massive horde of humans that were waiting to board the train before it departed for Johto. More screams greeted his appearance and he quickly looked all around for any potential escape route. But the crowd was completely solid around him, and the humans on the train were emerging behind him. One tackled him solidly and the both of them landed with a terrible smack on the pavement. More would-be-heroes emerged from the crowd and came running up towards him. He now knew that he didn't have any other choice than to teleport.

The human that had tackled him fell and smacked his face onto the concrete when Venius vanished out from under him, and many in the crowd gasped again. He reappeared at the top of the station's stairs behind them and smiled when he saw that no-one saw him. They were all staring at where had just been, so he began sprinting down the steel steps unopposed.

Venius was halfway down the stairs when he saw a group of armored policemen gathering at the bottom. To his shock he saw that they were carrying military-grade laser rifles too! The first pair began climbing up the stairs toward him, so he changed direction and began climbing back up, hoping that the crowd was still gathered around the same spot so that he could sneak around them. He wasn't that lucky though, people had already begun descending the stairs above him. He was trapped.

Venius still hesitated to teleport, so he began flying and left the stairs behind him. He stuck his tongue out at the policemen on the stairs and began to accelerate towards the countryside. One of the policemen then pulled out a large portable psionic disruptor and activated it though, and Venius felt a terrible burning sensation cloud his mind as it washed over him. He plummeted out of the air and hit the concrete 10 feet below. The impact sent him spiraling into unconsciousness so he never felt the hands of the policemen as they picked him up and dragged him off.

Part 3

Venius slowly awoke lying on an uncomfortable metal table. He felt straps holding him down and a burning pain in his left eyebrow that felt like he had been branded. The back of his head throbbed terribly from where he had hit the ground. He opened his eyes and squinted, fluorescent light flooded his vision and made his headache intensify. He couldn't make out any details at first, but as his eyes adjusted he saw clean white plastic ceiling tiles and recessed lighting above him. He turned his head to look around and saw that he was being held in what appeared to be a research laboratory of some sort. He was alone in the room, and the holographic computer consoles were all logged out and idle. There was a large jointed medical robot looming over him; its sharp instruments glimmered imposingly in the intense light. It wasn't moving or showing any signs of activity, and Venius hoped it stayed that way.

"Hello?" Venius called, "Is anyone there?"

A few seconds later, the air in the corner of the room seemed to shimmer and bend before Venius' eyes. Something was turning from solid to transparent, and it only took a few more seconds for Venius to see that it was a human man wearing a lab coat. He had a large metallic dome of a backpack on; Venius assumed that it was the cloaking device he had used.

"Tricked you! I've been here the whole time!" he cackled at Venius.

Venius was utterly confused by the man's attitude. He shot him a quizzical look that quickly faded back into anger. "How long have I been out?"

"About a week." The man said, his voice sly like a predator toying with its prey.

"You drugged me!" Venius howled with anger and began struggling with his bonds.

"Well, not me personally." The man said with a suppressed laugh.

Venius scowled. "Who the hell are you and what's going on here?"

"My name is Dr. Richard Coalinger, but my friends call me Corkscrew!" He said, this time not suppressing his laughter. "You're in Coalinger Labs of New Saffron City my friend, and today we're going to be doing a few experiments on you!"

Venius felt a wave of fear flood his veins and he struggled more intensely against the straps that held him. An exasperated look washed over Dr. Coalinger's face; he walked over and logged into his computer console and entered a few commands. The straps holding Venius clicked open and fell away like the shed shell of a molting insect.

Venius sat up and eyed Dr. Coalinger with intense suspicion. "What kind of a game are you playing here Corkscrew?"

Dr. Coalinger giggled in happiness at Venius' use of his nickname. "Well my experiments require you to be mobile and active, and it's not like you can escape. There are psionic disruptors all over this building and armed guards just outside the door. It'd be foolish of you to try, and I know that you're aware of this. The only thing you'd accomplish by attacking me would be to bring the nightsticks down upon your head.

"Better them than those needles and laser scalpels!" Venius yelled, and jumped down to throw a kick at Dr. Coalinger.

Dr. Coalinger calmly entered a few more commands into his console without even turning to face Venius, and a small local force field appeared between them and blocked Venius' kick. Venius recoiled in pain as a small surge of electricity coursed through his foot upon contact, burning the spot where he touched it slightly.

"Please don't try that again!" Dr. Coalinger chided kindly, "I need you in top shape for my experiments!"

"What if I don't give a damn about your experiments?" Venius growled.

"Then I'll just have to calm you down for a bit!" Dr. Coalinger laughed.

Coalinger entered another command and Venius heard the hiss of an invisible gas entering the room. The force field contained it so it only Venius was exposed. Venius held his breath for as long as he could; his lungs felt like they would burst after 30 seconds.

"Oh come now! Do you think I would poison my most promising test subject? It's just a mood elevating compound that will make you feel better and more co-operative!" Dr. Coalinger protested. "Now take a deep breath!"

Venius held his breath for a few seconds longer before his lungs finally failed him and his breath gave way. The gas smelled sweet like watermelons and it instantly made him feel more content. He tried to fight the feelings of complacency as they flooded him, but it was entirely futile. A huge stupid grin crept over his face and he breathed it in more and more deeply; enjoying its smell.

"Now isn't that better?" Coalinger asked with a friendly smile.

"Definitely." Venius said calmly. "I'm sorry I was so rude."

Coalinger smiled. "Not a problem, now if you would please sit down, we can get started!"

The experiments that Dr. Coalinger performed seemed harmless enough for the first half hour. It was more like a routine physical than anything else. He was stretched, prodded, poked, and examined in a generally harmless manner. The only thing that Venius would have refused if he were in his right mind was the blood sample. But after that, Dr. Coalinger revealed the true purpose of his experiments.

"Now Venius, I've been developing a new type of Psionic Disruptors for the military recently, and I'd like to try them out on you. I've been designing them so that they can intermittently prevent you from using specific abilities but to allow others. Would you mind lifting that cup of water on the table with your mind please?"

Venius complied and the cup dutifully hovered in the air. Coalinger messed with the controls for a moment and Venius felt his control over the cup vanish. It clattered to the floor and spilled its contents.

"Good! Now will you try making an energy sword for me?"

Venius complied again, his sword flickered a brilliant yellow against the fluorescent lights. Coalinger entered more computer commands and the sword suddenly vanished.

They repeated these steps for another 30 minutes, covering each of Venius' psychic abilities until there was nothing left to test. He didn't have any second thoughts about it the whole time thanks to the mood altering gas. He would have happily told the scientist where to find the rest of his family if he had asked, but thankfully all Coalinger was interested in was the scientific data. The gas was only starting to wear off when Coalinger asked him to follow him to the holding cells.

"Holding cells?" Venius asked as his rationality slowly returned to him.

"Yes! Now that we're done with our work I'm going to give you a splendid little suite in the third cell block where we put all the Pokemon we have experimented on. This time tomorrow some nice men from the military will be here to pick you up for a trip!"

Venius' common sense didn't fully kick in until it was too late however. Panic began to fill his mind as the lock of his cell clicked shut.

"Wait Corkscrew, wait! Don't you know what they're going to do to me?"

"Of course! They're going to turn you into their pet and war machine! Why else do you think I've been designing these specialized disruptors? They want to use you as a weapon and servant!" Coalinger laughed with a strange mirth. "Good luck!"

Coalinger closed the door to the holding block and left Venius alone to stew as his emotions finished turning to normal. He felt a chilling terror about the terrible new weapon he had more than willingly helped Coalinger develop. He wanted to go back in time and erase all his actions of the last hour; he wished that he were back at home still reading his father's medical logs. Most of all he was afraid of the fate that awaited him. He knew that the humans would probably use more of that horrific mood altering gas to get him to do what they wanted, and that these tasks would probably be horrific and violent.

Venius rattled the bars of his cage, more to release his emotions than to try to escape. He knew that was futile, but he needed to get the terrible fear out somehow. He shook them as hard as he could and they clanged loudly to attest to his emotional turmoil.

A sudden shower of bright electrical sparks caught Venius' eye from somewhere else in the room. He stopped shaking his cell momentarily to turn and look for the source. He saw that there were other cages all around him as Coalinger had said. Most of them were empty now; a handful contained a few different kinds of electric type Pokemon. The cell to his left held a pair of Jolteons, a few cells down he saw a Raichu, across from it was a Manectric, and the cell to his right had a large litter of tiny baby Shinxes. The sparks had come from the Shinxes, and as he took a closer look at them he noticed something amazing: all seven of them had coats of yellow and black fur that shone and sparkled even in the near-nonexistent light of the room. He had heard of shining Pokemon before, they were supposed to be exceptionally rare and unparalleled in beauty. Breeding wasn't supposed to pass on the trait of a shining coat, so the fact that all seven in a litter were shiny was astonishing.

"You poor little things! What have they been doing to you?" Venius asked, crouching down in his cell to get a closer look at them

They simply mewled up at him weakly, not even able to say their own names yet. He wanted to try to read their minds but the psionic disruptors had returned to full spectrum blocking, leaving him unable to communicate with them. They all stared up at him with their luminous orange eyes; Venius found their gaze to be striking and powerful.

A powerful bang and crackling of electricity assaulted Venius' ears and he spun around to see the source of the noise. The two Jolteons in the cage on the other side of Venius' cell were standing against the bars giving him a threatening look. They released another blast of electricity, but the bars of their cage absorbed it easily. The lights overhead brightened for a moment as the electricity was absorbed into the building's power grid.

"I'm not trying to hurt them!" Venius said in most assuring voice. "Here, I'm a Pokemon like you, not one of those horrible humans!"

Venius squeezed his hand through the bars so that the Jolteons could examine it. One of them took a few sniffs and the other stared intently. The spiky fur on both of their bodies lowered quietly as their agitation faded. The one on the left looked up at him with its deep obsidian colored eyes; to Venius it felt like it could see his soul.

Venius withdrew his hand and the two Jolteons began chattering at each other in their native Pokemon language. As a young kid Venius could understand the language of other Pokemon naturally, but ever since his father had taught him English he had forgotten most of it from disuse. Now he could only hear them repeating their names to each other back and forth; the meaning was lost to him. He heard the Manectric in the cage across the room chime in, and soon the Raichu had joined in. They all talked incessantly to each other until Venius felt like he couldn't stand to hear their names one more time.

"Would everyone please clam up and listen to me for a second?" Venius yelled. The other Pokemon fell quiet instantly. "Thank you. Now here's the deal: I think I have an idea that will help us all escape, but we're going to need to work together to do it!"

"I noticed that when the Jolteons used their electric attacks, the iron bars absorbed the energy and sent it into this building's power grid. I think that if all of you were to use your strongest electric attacks at once, you might be able to overwhelm and shut down the grid!"

The Pokemon seemed confused. They had never tried this before, but they knew it was quite possible. The Jolteons nodded to him as if to show that they understood that he couldn't translate their speech.

"I don't know the strength of the electric attacks that you all know, but I'll trust you to do your best. Are you ready to give it a try?"

The Jolteons nodded eagerly again and the Manectric gave a cry of approval. The Raichu looked unconvinced, but it nodded slightly. The Shinxes didn't even seem to know what was going on.

"On three!" Venius shouted. "One, two, three!"

The room was flooded with bright white and yellow light as all the electric Pokemon unleashed their fury upon their cages. The lights in the ceiling suddenly glowed to full strength despite the dimmer switch that had been holding them at their lowest setting. The cacophony of the electricity that filled the room made Venius cover his ears.

But no overload occurred, and the Pokemon quickly ran out of juice to maintain their efforts. The lights dimmed again and Venius felt the icy grip of fear begin to curl around his heart again.

"Come on, let's try it again! Maybe that last blast weakened them!"

The Raichu gave him a disapproving scowl as he counted down but co-operated nonetheless. Once again the room was lit up with deafening cracks and booms of power, but the grid absorbed it easily without showing any signs of stress.

"Damn it!" Venius swore. A look of desperation crossed his face. "Come on, one more time!"

This time the Raichu turned away from him and refused when Venius started counting down. But even without him, the third attempt seemed to be ten times brighter and louder. Venius was shocked to see that one of the Shinx cubs had joined in, and its electric power was nearly ten times that of an of the others. A massive thunderbolt left its body and coursed into the grid, causing the overhead lights to explode and sizzle. The entire building seemed to hum and rattle with effort, and Venius distinctly smelled smoke and ozone wafting through the air. With one final gasp, the entire building fell silent. The remaining lights fell dark, the air conditioners hushed, the lights on the sliding door's control panel blinked out.

"Yes!" Venius yelled gleefully. "You did it! Brilliant!"

Venius immediately sprang to work when the psionic disruptors faded out. He locked onto every single Pokemon in the room and teleported everyone, including himself, out of the building and into the waiting arms of the nearby forest.

A/N: So Venius managed to escape his terrible fate, but the humans still got their new disruptor technology. Wonder what happened during the week while Venius was unconscious? That's what we'll see next chunk! Thanks for reading!