The Four Mirrors
A Sequel to Legacies
By MMM/AJ

A/N: Here we are at Chunk 7 of the Book of K'telle, and I'm not even CLOSE to being done with it yet! At the rate we're going, we might finish at around 15 or even 20 chunks! Hope you guys enjoy this one, a lot of interesting plot advancements packed into these 12 pages!

Chapter XIII – Venius 7

It had been a full year since the arrival of the ex-humans and Ayla was still as annoying as ever. Venius cringed when he heard the doorbell ring three times in a row; she had taken up the habit of ringing multiple times as a supposedly clever way to announce herself, and in a way Venius appreciated it. It was like an early warning of her approach, nobody else did it. He gestured to Emael to keep hauling more stuff out of the basement and walked over to answer the door and braced himself for the flood of sweetness.

"Hi Venius! Just wanted to let you know that our team finished disassembling the greenhouses and packing them up, and Team Blue has finished getting the other three houses emptied out. Opulous wanted to ask me if you guys were ready yet?" Ayla asked, her tone indicating a bit of excitement.

"No, not yet! We're still trying to get all of our stuff boxed up! Moving is a slow process, and we have to sort everything that's been lying around!" Venius replied impatiently, gesturing to the huge mounds of boxes that were piled around the living room, some half filled and others bulging severely enough that they had been duct taped closed.

"Want me to go get the others to help you now, or should I tell them to start the deconstruction without you?" Ayla asked, peeking in at the chaos.

Venius ground his teeth and stood there for a moment paralyzed with indecision. He didn't want to admit to his brothers that his home was too cluttered, and he didn't want to have to ask them all for help sorting and packing this clutter. But if they started without him, they'd have all of the deconstruction done and would be waiting on him alone before they could move to K'telle. They had been preparing for this day for months, designing modules to pack the materials into so that they could actually take apart their homes and move them to K'telle, and it would look extremely bad if he was responsible for causing such a hold up after they had all had so much time to prepare.

"You go ahead and go downstairs to help Emael box up the computer equipment in the basement Ayla, I'll go talk to the others."

"Alright, sounds like fun! Thanks Venius!" Ayla chirped happily before bounding off down the stairs, her tail swishing and hair jumping energetically.

Venius sighed and buried his face in the palm of his left hand. Normally cheerful people like her wouldn't bother him, but hers was relentless; she was always smiling even when he snapped at her and acted aloof. It almost seemed unnatural, normal people can't be that happy all the time! Nevertheless, he put up with her. She seemed to have taken to him quite strongly and spent a lot of her free time volunteering to work for him, and he appreciated her for that at least.

Venius bit down on his tongue a bit and went to go find Opulous. He immediately saw the stacks of boxes as he walked off of his porch, there were huge mountains in front of each of the other three houses. The stack in front of Opulous's house was a beautifully stacked square tower, and Venius rolled his eyes a little when he caught sight of it.

"Typical." Venius muttered to himself, almost chuckling.

"What's typical?" Cygnus said, appearing from around the corner of the big box tower.

Venius nodded upwards toward the box tower with a wry smile and Cygnus nodded.

"Yeah, leave it to Op to use a ruler and graph screen to draw out his box pile ahead of time. Yours seems to be a little small though so far!" Cygnus said, pointing to the three or four stuffed boxes sitting next to Venius's porch.

"Yeah, well that's what I came out to ask you about. I was hoping to get some help sorting the stuff in my house." Venius said, his voice suddenly getting quieter.

Cygnus raised an eyebrow. "So, you're finally willing to admit you have a clutter problem eh Venius? Normally you act as if it's a perfectly valid way of life, but now you need help!"

"This isn't easy for me Cygnus. Please, do me a favor and don't make things harder with your attitude! If you're going to be an ass about this I'll just do it alone and you guys will get to sit on your hands and wait!" Venius replied angrily.

"Ok ok, I'll help. It's just sort of shocking to hear this coming from you; I would have expected you to make us wait!" Cygnus said with a lighter tone, happy that his assessments were incorrect.

"I'll go get back to work on it now; you bring the others when they're ready." Venius said, about to teleport. "You don't have to always assume the worst about me all the time Cygnus."

"Sorry….you've just been so moody ever since the ex-humans moved in last month. Every time I or one of the others tried to remind you to hurry up and organize your stuff you snapped at us in a nasty tone."

"Yeah, it's been an… adjustment for me, both getting used to living peacefully with those ex-humans and the idea of finally leaving Purity Canyon behind. We've lived here for…..god I don't even know how long now! Ever since father died, at least. The prospect of moving has been really hard for me to face."

Cygnus nodded and reached over to give Venius a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "I think I can understand that Venius. It's not going to be easy for any of us; there's a lot of history for our species here. Mewtwo made his second and final stand against Giovanni here, Tanis and his friends slept in stasis under this lake for 40 years, half of Ashley's Pokémon team are buried on the other side of the lake… this place resonates with history. Even after a year's worth of cultivation under the tending of Nolus's green thumb, K'telle is still going to seem empty and barren in comparison."

"But K'telle has something else going for it," Venius said as his mind lit up in a sudden shift of paradigms, "K'telle has that wonderful feeling of raw untapped potential about it. Every time I go there to help Nolus with a round of his 'climate engineering', I always get this feeling of excitement and energy. It's this incredible sensation that this land is going to become something incredible, that we're actually going to really build something worthwhile there." Venius said, his sour expression finally fading into a smile.

"Heh, now imagine living in that excitement constantly once we move there, and feeling it build into a sense of accomplishment as we do finally build there! I don't know if you've seen any of the blueprints that Opulous has been drawing up, but he has some truly ambitious designs in mind!" Cygnus said enthusiastically, patting Venius on the back a little harder now.

"Heh, it's going to be fun watching that forgetful klutz accidentally drop the welder while building things when his mind wanders onto some other bit of scientific thought." Venius said with a chuckle.

"See, that's the cheerful spirit we need! Now why don't I go get that klutz and you go get started! I bet with all the families working together we can get your house empty in less than an hour!

Venius felt his heart wrench a little bit as he watched his home slowly disintegrate into key components under the careful psychic control of their combined psychic powers. He was contributing to the combined effort as well, but he couldn't help it if he fell to the wayside and just let them use his energy instead of actively helping in the disassembly. He watched as the steel beams, pipes, wooden boards, and everything else all came free and floated through the air and into orderly arrangements before being packed away into a huge yellow cargo container. A large freighter had arrived while they had been busy organizing Venius's belongings, and it was sitting parked nearby with its engines off, waiting to receive cargo.

"Cygnus, I'm glad you didn't cheap out on the movers this time!" Nolus said with a laugh after the disassembly was complete.

"Hey, last time I cheaped out on the movers it paid for enough grass and brush seed to turn half of K'telle into a prairie! You wouldn't have had enough water, fertilizer or seed to even make a single square mile of grasslands if it weren't for my cheapness!" Cygnus said, chuckling and smiling.

"Next time you cheap out Cygnus, I want to buy a new holo TV that can handle triple screens!" Talas quipped, eliciting a few laughs from the gathered families.

The laughter didn't last too long though, and the large gathering of family stood awkwardly silent for a moment. Nobody really knew how to say it, but leaving Purity Canyon like this was painful. All twenty of the younger generation had lived there their entire lives, and the four brothers and three sisters had lived there long enough to grow significantly attached to it. After the place had such an incredible history for them and their species, it was heart wrenching to think that they really were leaving.

"Man….I'm really gonna miss this place." Satoria suddenly interjected, breaking the silence.

Various heads nodded silently in the gathering and Nolus chose to break the silence next. "Well we do all have an attachment to this place, but it's time we let the canyon reclaim this clearing. I know you guys don't all share my strict environmentalist point of view, but it's time to let this place go back to nature. Besides, our new home is going to be much more wide open; we'll be able to build as much as we want without tearing down trees! Imagine, we'd have enough room to build holoball domes, research labs, a recreation center, a local steel mill branch to work for Montalbo without commuting, everything!"

"We could all have our own houses!" Kaira piped in excitedly.

"That's the spirit! Everyone will eventually get their own homes, but we'll all be neighbors so nobody will get lonely!" Cygnus said, wanting to get everybody enthusiastic about the move.

"Imagine it, a whole town of our people….maybe even a city eventually!" Opulous added, thinking again of Tanis's old dreams of their species growing into a full society.

"So who's ready to get over there and get started building our new future?" Cygnus called out loudly.

The crowd gave a deafening cheer, and Cygnus gestured toward the huge cargo containers. "Alright, then let's get these crates loaded and get our asses in the air!"

With that the crowd immediately dispersed back into the four families and people began to work together to lift the thousands of pounds of cargo up into the freighter. Opulous linked minds with his family members and their coordinated their efforts silently. Cygnus called out verbal instructions and encouragement to help his group out. Nolus's family just went for it haphazardly without any kind of co-ordination or instruction, but still managed to get their cargo in just fine. Venius however, barked out orders loudly and didn't bother encouraging them, not realizing how grouchy he was getting. Naturally, Venius's family was the last to get their cargo containers loaded, and in the mean time the other three brothers took the time to walk over and scoop up a few little bits of soil from where the four houses had sat. They brought a fourth one over to Venius in a little glass bottle just as he and his troupe finished securing the last container.

"Souvenir?" Nolus asked, tapping Venius on the shoulder and offering the bottle to him. "This way you don't have to take something that would harm the environment!"

A semi-exasperated smile crossed Venius's face and he took the bottle and held it in his hands. "You know Nolus, for a tree hugger, you're not that bad."

Chapter XIV – Emael 2

It was a dream come true, Emael finally had his own his house. He couldn't believe it, all those months of toiling for that damned dirty human, and here he was walking through the door of his own private home! Granted it was still a little bare, he couldn't afford any furniture outside of the bedroom set from his room in the old house in Purity Canyon, but he didn't care. It may have been small, and Spartan in terms of décor, but it had the one quality that he had been seeking ever since he had been a small child: silence. Growing up his whole life with 4 siblings, a dad and an aunt in the same house had always bothered him. He had hated it; sharing the bathrooms, enduring the sloppy tendencies of his other family members, and worst of all, sleeping through all the noise at night. Sure, he had been sloppy like them too, but it always bothered him even after had had taken up the mindset of joining them since he couldn't beat them. He had looked forward to starting anew and keeping things clean for once, and as much as he loved his family, he loved this opportunity too.

Emael drew a deep breath and smiled as the front door slid closed behind him, and he took in his new living room. A single holo-TV projector and a holographic console for the computer system built into the house, and nothing else. He let that wonderful silence fill his ears and closed his eyes to savor the moment. The house still had a strong scent of freshly cut wood with a tinge of metallic taste; it was the smell of a new house. He breathed it in deeply a few more times and smiled, it was wonderful.

It was at that exact moment that Emael's new doorbell rang for the first time. He growled at the magically terrible timing of his first visitor and suppressed his grimace as he walked over to the door and flipped on the view screen on the inside of the door to see who it was. He immediately recognized Melicia's cheerful grin and he couldn't help but smile as well. He practically slapped his hand across the button to open the door and stood aside to admit her to his new home.

"Hey Melicia, welcome! You're my first visitor!" Emael said, his good cheer immediately returning.

"Well that's quite an honor!" She replied, stepping in and looking around. "Looks like you could use a little help decorating!"

"Not sure if I want your help though, I'm not a fan of the whole spilled paint and candy wrapper look!" Emael joked with a wry smile.

Melicia rolled her eyes and slugged him on the shoulder. "I told you guys that I'm off of human candy now! It's not worth the risk of flying to human cities to buy! Besides, they were starting to go to my hips!" She laughed, laying one paw on her hip. "But in all honestly, I was thinking about helping you by designing some holographic sculpture for your place! That way I wouldn't get any paint splattered all over your precious blank walls, sweetheart!" She finished with a joke of her own.

Emael chuckled and took it gracefully. "Well I know you make your living with your art, Melicia. I wouldn't be able to afford to pay you anything; every cent I earned has been sunk into this house."

"You're still working for Montalbo aren't you? You could pay me later, I wouldn't mind waiting on you, and I know you're trustworthy."

"Yeah, I guess that would work. There's just one problem, I don't know what I want! My old room back when we were in one house was kind of chaotic. I didn't really have any kind of unifying theme setup, and I still don't really know what I'm going to do, or even what I would like. I can't tell you what to make, and I'm afraid of having you do something random and then not liking what you make!" Emael warned with a frown.

"Well I think I know enough about you after helping raise you from a baby, even if you don't know yourself! I'm pretty sure I can make a suite that you could enjoy!"

"Whoa whoa whoa, a whole suite? I'm gonna be paying you for months at the rate you're talking!" Emael said with a nervous chuckle.

"Hey, you really think you're aunt is going to turn into an all consuming black hole of a loan shark? You just get me the dough whenever you can and I'll be happy, I'm more worried about getting you settled in properly! It's not going to be easy for any of us getting used to living alone!" Melicia added, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"If you're worrying about me being lonely, don't be!" Emael began with a laugh. "I've been looking forward to the solitude for a long time, and if I take your lightning fast visit within the first five minutes as a sign of what's to come, then I'm probably still never going to be able to get a moment's peace around here either!"

Melicia laughed too and gave him a firm pat on the back. "Well I suppose I should probably get started on that art for you now! Gonna have a lot to do!"

"No that's alright, of all the people to visit; you're one who I would willingly keep around and entertain for awhile! My house is your house Melicia." Emael said, backtracking and feeling guilty about how rude he thought he had been.

"Heh it's alright Emael, I understand that you want some time alone with your new place. Besides, you're not the only one I'm going to be doing artwork for! There are 20 others out there with new houses too, and I'm going to be working for most of them! I'm going to be one busy little artist for the next several months!" Melicia replied reassuringly.

"Did you get a new house too?" Emael suddenly asked, half out of curiosity and half from not wanting her to leave.

"Actually I could have, but I chose not to. I didn't like the prospect of living alone, so I chose to keep staying with Venius. He and I are good friends, and I figured there was no need to leave when we had such a good setup! Now if you don't mind, I've gotta be going. I've still got or 8 more households to visit to advertise my art!" She said, walking back to the door and hitting the glowing green circle on the console to open the door.

For all of his love for solitude, Emael suddenly felt a pang of loneliness spike through his mind. There was something about seeing his favorite Aunt leaving so soon that made him pine for company. He followed her closely and gave one more shot at keeping her around.

"Are you hungry, Mel? Maybe I could get you a bit of something, or a drink? Even just a snack for the road?"

"Nah, I ate as soon as we got Venius and I's house up. But thanks for offering, that was very thoughtful of you! See you later sweetheart!" She planted a single kiss on his cheek before turning to leave.

As Melicia turned to leave though, she didn't see it as someone else came out of a teleport right on Emael's doorstep. Halfway down the patio steps she collided with Amara Bluetail, who had apparently gotten the same idea of visiting Emael before he could settle in too.

"Whoops! Sorry Amara! I didn't sense you coming!" Melicia chirped, catching Amara's shoulder to prevent her from falling.

"It's alright Aunt Melicia; I didn't sense you on the porch either, so it was both our faults."

Melicia turned back to Venius and called out to him as she walked off, "Looks like you were right about never getting any peace here after all!"

"Oh, I'm sorry if I'm interrupting your peace Emael. I'll go." Amara said, hearing Melicia's remarks and turned around to leave.

"No, no, that's alright!" Emael said hastily, bounding across the porch toward her. "I was actually just starting to think it would be nice to have someone around, and Melicia was only really job hunting to see if I wanted her to make me some art. I guess I didn't expect my new place to be so……empty."

"Tell me about it!" Amara said, turning back to him and brightening back up. "I was only really mildly excited about getting my own place, to be honest. I like to be around people a lot more than you do, and I especially have a hard time studying alone."

"Well come on in! Perhaps we can study together for awhile?" Emael offered, leading her over toward the still-open door.

"You know, I think I'd like that." Amara replied, smiling at him and swishing her tail back and forth behind herself contentedly.

"So then Eloniel told dad about how the Luxrays had pooped all over the back porch, and he got the most hilarious exasperated expression on his face! Apparently, Venius had been training them to do that to us as a prank!" Amara said with a wild fit of giggles.

"Oh yeah! I remember now! Dad was telling me about that a few months ago, and I remember telling him that I had wanted no part in it. Sometimes your Dad can be a little intimidating, the way he just stays utterly silent when any normal person would be yelling with anger!"

"You don't need to tell me about it!" Amara said with a chuckle. "He raised me, I know! Like one time when I flunked a test for the first time due to goofing off, he just stared at me quietly and then went to his room without saying anything. I swear, none of your Dad's rages has ever scared me as much as that did!"

"Just how many hours has it been since we even mentioned our history assignments anyway?" Emael suddenly asked with half a smile.

Amara glanced over at the holographic clock next to Emael's bed and drew a sharp breath in surprise. "Holy shit, we've been chattering aimlessly for three hours!"

"Ugh…. We still have most of that study guide left to do. We'd better get back to it." He replied, picking his digital pad and sighing as he scrolled through the reading. "Where were we?"

"The downfall of the Psi-Slayers following the war with Shakara's Protectorate. At least it's not a topic that's hard to get into huh?" Amara replied. "Do you want to read first or should I?"

"You go ahead. I like listening to your voice." Emael said with a smile.

Amara flushed a little from the flattery and nodded before lifting the digital pad and breaking into the readout. "The Psi-slayers had been a mostly covert operation, relying almost entirely upon political subversion and the distribution of propaganda to further their agenda. They were masterful at it too, they got members into essentially every major world government and even jump started the reconstruction of international militaries right under Shakara's nose using a new kind of cloaking technology to mask their shipyards where the new armada was being built. They siphoned and embezzled money out of all major governments to fund their new military up until the major middle-eastern conflict of 2206, at which point they made their military efforts to conscript new forces public. But they said that these fighting men and women were being gathered to help put together a middle-eastern peacekeeping force, when in fact the true purpose was to man the armada they had built to bring down Shakara's protectorate."

"Admiral Angelo Dupree was the head of the Psi-Slayers at the time, and was the one in charge of heading up this battle. He had expected the battle with the Protectorate to be a swift victory with minimal losses, thinking that the more advanced plasma weaponry on the new UN ships would easily balance out their numerical disadvantage, and that their more powerful shield tech would then further tilt the odds into their favor. What he didn't expect was the superior tactics and maneuverability of the Protectorate forces, who took most of the UN forces down with them during one of the bloodiest orbital battles since Ares's initial conquest of Earth."

"The results of the battle were grim; 99.99 percent of Protectorate Sentinels were slaughtered, 100 percent of Protectorate ships were annihilated, and 89 percent of UN ships and personnel were taken with them. The full death toll of Protectorate personnel reached 24 million, and UN losses peaked at 15 million. 17 trillion dollars worth of space faring craft and equipment were lost on the UN side, and over 22 trillion dollars on the Protectorate side. 87 percent of the Earth's combined Tritanium, Steel, and Iron resources were reduced to clouds of floating space junk. Economies began to crash, millions of families lost sons, daughters and husbands, and the last few tiny stores of fossil and nuclear fuel left on the planet were depleted."

"The ensuing political firestorms that swept across the globe were to make the French and American revolutions look like dollhouse tea parties in comparison. The universal chants of rage were aimed at the UN initially for lying about the military use of troops and resources. Riots broke out all around the globe, incurring billions more in losses to property. Massive mobs of millions of citizens filled the streets of most major world cities, calling for revenge against those responsible for wrecking the world economies and wasting the lives of loved ones. In order to avoid outright revolution, most world governments launched massive investigations into the actions of all UN leaders, including Dupree, and soon the existence of the Psi-Slayers was uncovered. The real turning point came with the discovery of Dupree's list though. In his personal computer, Dupree had a list of 95 percent of all the active members of the Psi-Slayers as well as detailed information on all of them, including which governments they had infiltrated, what departments they were in, what their duties were, and how to carry out these duties. The list also included all of Dupree's personal goals, including the destruction of the Protectorate and the extinction of the entire Mewtwo species."

"The moment this information became public, the enraged mobs called for revenge against the Psi-slayers. Millions wanted to see the vast majority of the people on Dupree's list tried for treason against the world government and executed for their crimes. Initially the world leaders wanted to simply have these people discredited and removed from power, but continued riots and acts of open rebellion by the people continued unabated until it was agreed that Dupree and most of his followers would be put to death."

Emael laughed and couldn't help but interrupt with a comment. "So those crazy apes had some sense after all. Even if they weren't doing it for us, they still knew the Psi-Slayers deserved every ounce of that poison that was injected into their veins!"

Amara's fur practically bristled from irritation when Emael made his racist 'apes' remark about humans, but she resisted the urge to call him out on it. She certainly didn't feel like getting into an argument with him after the hours of fun they had had together, and especially not in his own home. She sighed softly and kept reading.

"Over the course of several months, everyone on Dupree's list was summarily arrested, tried, and sentenced to death for their crimes. Most managed to delay their executions via the appeals process, but the world governments tilted these trials against them, fearing the public reaction should any of the Psi-Slayers be acquitted. As the months passed, the world economies slowly began to recover as burgeoning metal salvage industries began to thrive by collecting the remains of the armadas in orbit, and the Psi-Slayers that were now crowding prisons worldwide were shuffled one by one into the lethal injection chambers to be disposed of. Further economic recovery followed when a massive worldwide debt forgiving accord was signed, essentially putting every nation on Earth out of debt with each other so that global markets could be reset to start anew. Dupree himself was the last one to be executed, and in a startling move of reconciliation, the Japanese Prime Minister invited Tanis's four sons and Shakara's three daughters to bear witness to the execution of the ex-admiral who was responsible for their near downfall of their race."

Amara paused reading for the moment and stared contemplatively up at the ceiling for a moment. "We were just little kids back then, but I still remember it when my Dad came home and told us the justice had finally been done for our race."

"Yeah, I remember it pretty clearly too, though my Dad was a little less than satisfied. I remember he came home bitter, thinking it was still not enough, and was awful the whole day, growling and even yelling at us a few times." Emael said.

"Yeah, your Dad can be kinda scary sometimes. I mean, he's not terrible all the time, but he does have a bit of a temper." Amara said cautiously, trying not to offend Emael.

"Hah, now who's telling who things they already know about their dad!" Emael laughed, giving Amara a friendly telekinetic slap on the back.

Amara didn't mind the friendly gesture; she actually found it a bit heartwarming. But the force of the impact jarred one of her silver hoop earrings loose and sent it tumbling into the pile of school supplies that they had strewn out over the floor between them during their time studying. She made a dive for it, not paying attention to the fact that Emael had done the same, and in one blinding moment of pain their skulls collided, sending them both reeling backwards.

Amara made a muffled little whimper of pain and Emael released a string of profanities to put a sailor to shame. Then he quickly regained his senses and rushed over to Amara to help.

"Oh jeez, I'm sorry! That was incredibly dumb of me. Here, let me heal you." He said quickly, laying a hand on Amara's head and using his recover ability on her.

"It's ok, I'm alright." Amara began, not wanting him to be upset and blame himself.

For a few moments they were both silent, and as Amara's pain melted away shouldn't help but raise her eyes to look at Emael. As he finished psychically healing her, she lifted her own hand up to lay on his head, wanting to return the gesture. As she siphoned a little of her own psychic energy off to heal him, she inadvertently dipped into his mind psychically, linking them together for a few seconds. In the span of those few short moments, she sensed that Emael felt more than just friendship with her; he had a burgeoning crush on her! He had been keeping it secret for the last few weeks, she could sense it now. Feeling overwhelmed with embarrassment and unsure what to say, she immediately removed her hand from Emael's head and severed the link, blushing a deep purple from the red of the blush mixing with her blue skin. She quickly began gathering her stuff, wanting to teleport out as soon as possible.

"I should go." Amara said quickly, her voice shaky with nervousness.

"Wait, Amara! I was…" Emael said, just as shaken and nervous. "I….I was going to tell you."

Amara stuffed her digital pad and textbooks into her backpack and shook her head. "I need time to think, Emael. I'll talk to you later."

With that she vanished in a blink of blue light and left Emael alone in his house once more. He drew a heavy sigh and buried his face in his palm, knowing that things were probably really screwed up now. He gathered up his school things and tossed them onto his desk, then crawled up onto his bed to relax for awhile. Studying be damned, he had much more on his mind now than he could handle.

A/N: Ok, so our new generation of 'Twos continues to have romance trouble, and the construction of K'telle has passed through its initial phases quite well! But don't think our friends are going to slow down; Opulous still has some wild ambitions and quite a few new inventions up his sleeve! Stay tuned and we'll see them in action, and thanks again for reading!