Chapter 25: Agitated night

Penny's P.O.V.

It was late; everyone else at home was asleep but me. I had spent all afternoon asking Soul things, to the point that I completely forgot about my homework until he reminded me about it. I was surprised to hear that he offered to help me with it, it wasn't that complicated. When I asked why, he just said that it was a compensation for having taken so much time from me.

"Okay, so I move the one here, and it is… eight thousand three hundred and forty-six."

"That's right."

"Well, that was the last one," I said, tiredly. "Thanks for the help, Soul, but it wasn't necessary."

"I have nothing to do here," He replied. "I have plenty of free time."

That just sparked my curiosity. "Where are you, that you have so much time?"

There was a silence of a few seconds. "Right, you still don't know… Penny, I'm dead." He said before I had the chance to ask.

That was just a surprise. "What? How?"

I heard him sigh. "After you changed the flat tire and went on your way, I killed the leader of the shadows that were after you. They went mad and I got a blade sunk in my chest from behind… didn't defend myself, and I guess the rest is pretty deductible." I covered my mouth with one hand just of imagining that. "Hey, don't worry, I'm fine. I can help a lot more from here, and in ways that weren't possible before."

I was going to ask something else, but I heard a noise and turned around. Next to Bolt, Mittens was kicking and whimpering with a terror look on her face. "What's wrong with her?"

"A nightmare, I suppose."

I suppose? "Can't you check her?" I asked.

"No. If I enter her mind while she's asleep she might wake up. Moreover, if she's dreaming I could even spark a problem in her neural processes."

"What?"

"Look, you're seeing physics at school, right?" I nodded. "Remember the law on energy conservation?"

I thought about it for a moment. "It's not created or destroyed…"

"It's just changing constantly, yeah. When I left this world I became a bunch of energy. Wherever I go, wherever I am, I can be perceived by energy measuring devices, provided they're in the correct frequency. If I enter someone's mind my energy interacts with the guest's. If the guest is in the middle of a complex process, dreaming in this case, and I get inside, I can damage the energy on their mind and cause problems. The same I could do if I entered a TV that's turned on. You, on the other hand, could try and pet her."

I was a bit confused by his explanation, but it didn't matter right then. "Okay," I knelt down near Bolt's bed, he was holding her even though she kept kicking and whimpering. They had been sleeping like that for some weeks now… almost like if they were… a couple… "Hey, Soul, are Bolt and Mittens…?"

"Yes, for a week and a half or so. Cute, huh?"

"Yeah, a lot."

"It's no wonder, considering all they've lived together. When you can fully understand them ask them to tell you their story. You're not gonna believe where your puppy ended up when he got lost." He said with a chuckle.

I was already beside the bed, Mittens was still moving and whimpering, so I moved my hand to pet her. "Shh, easy girl, it's just a…" The moment my hand touched her head I began seeing things in my head. Bolt was hurt one way or another in every one of them; one in particular caught my attention. Bolt was lying on the floor, bleeding. There were many shadows around him, all of them armed, and in the background there were cages, and all of his friends were inside, all of them hurt, some were even lying on the floor, not moving at all. The two wolves and the hawk Soul raised, too, were lying on the ground… dead.

"PENNY!" Was the next thing I heard, and I separated my hand from her fur. My breath… I could feel my heart racing, just seeing that…

"What was that?" I cried.

"Calm down, calm down a bit. Tell me exactly what you saw."

"No, I don't want to remember that image, it was horrible. Soul, Soul, please, get it out of my head, please get it out!"

"Penny, calm down. I'll do as you ask, but I need you to describe it for me so I know what to remove. However, I can't get rid of the sensations that it caused, but you won't remember the image itself."

I took a couple of deep breaths to calm myself a little. I was on the verge of tears, I couldn't have that thing on my head for another second. "I… There were many shadows… armed. Cages, with all of them inside… and outside, there were your kids…"

"Dead on the floor, just like Bolt, yeah, I found it. Certainly it is unpleasant to see. Where did you get it?"

"I don't know, I swear, I was going to ask you." Before I continued I felt a slight headache that lasted for some seconds. Then I forgot that image, but I was certainly still scared. "I just touched Mittens and then I saw all those images of Bolt being wounded… and eventually found that one."

"Really?"

"Yes, yes, why?"

"Because that's what's making her so scared. You just saw her thoughts, her dream."

"Her nightmare, you mean."

"Nightmares are a type of dream," He said, and I thought of a question, but I didn't even tried saying it out loud, he always interrupts me. "Actually if it bothers you, you could just tell me."

"What?"

"That. If you don't like me to answer before you've finished asking then accept my apologies. It's not intentional, but I heard it twice, when you think it and when you say it, so it's easier to listen once and then answer. Now, regarding the question you didn't want to ask out loud, Mittens has been having nightmares all week long. Bolt's tried to calm her down, but apparently it's not working. I have to check for a solution to this mess." There was a small silence. "Well, off I go, to investigate. Good night, Penny. By the way, what you just did is not easy to achieve for a human, so consider it as some kind of unwanted ability, but still developed due to your capability for this stuff… thing. I just hope it wasn't a premonition."

"A what?" But there was no answer this time. He had gone. I took a few minutes to calm myself a little bit more and went to sleep. He certainly made me a huge favor by removing that image from my head. I would've not been able to sleep if it had stayed there.

Meanwhile, at some distance from the house there was still someone working on a plan. The shadow was minding its own business when a faint sound was heard.

The shadow took combat position immediately. "Who's there?"

Another small silence, the shadow began to get ready for a fight when...

"Guest delivery,"

"Ah, it's you."

From the bushes appeared a very small and thin shadow, carrying a notebook in the hand, which it began to read. "Order of a C size guest, animal species: 'bear' for a shadow with your physical description."

"So it is."

"Mark here, please," The elite shadow marked the space that was indicated to. "Thank you." Then the delivery shadow disappeared for a moment and reappeared dragging the bear's body. "You also requested… a remote control device?"

"That's right." The small shadow gave a kind of bracelet with a black crystal in the middle. "Thanks,"

"Sir, I know it's not my business, but why do you want to control the bear from a distance? You could easily face the dog without any guest."

"The bear is not for the dog. It's for his friends; when they are busy fighting it, I'll have a free way to take that cat."

"I see. Thanks for telling me, sir. Now I leave," And so, the delivery shadow left at once.

The elite shadow was left to its thoughts for some minutes until it received a communication. "There's a change of plans."

"What is it?" The shadow demanded.

"I don't want you to bring me the cat."

"Oh, really?"

"Really, I want you to bring me something… a little more specific."

"Yeah? And what's that, exactly?"

From an outside perspective, the shadow was talking alone. "For real? Do you have any idea of how much energy I'll use for that? Yes… yes, sir, I'll do whatever you ask. I'll bring it in… yeah, on second thought, you're right, that'll cause a lot more trouble for them."

Meanwhile, in the camp there was another sibling discussion in progress.

"No!"

"Yes!"

"I told you no, you girl!"

"And I told you to stop calling me that!"

"That's enough!" Helang intervened, back from a patrol. "Are you not capable of controlling yourselves? Since the master left you two have been arguing more and more."

"But…"

"'But' nothing, Mega. I don't usually do this, but I'm gonna bet you don't even remember what were you arguing about." The wolf looked down. "I thought so,"

"I do remember why… I didn't say anything." Byte felt silent as she received the hawk's glance.

"Thanks," Then Helang started talking to himself. "We need to know what they're up to, but we don't have anyone infiltrated anymore, and they've probably seen them all already. We can't risk sending anyone. Agh!" He cried desperately. "If I had worked more on that transformation…"

"Wait a second there, you can transform? Why didn't you tell me!? We could've done great things like…" Mega stopped as he saw Helang make a gesture.

"No, I don't know how to. It was one of the last skills I worked on with the master. Unfortunately I didn't progress enough. It's a skill that requires a lot of energy and concentration, and a total mastery of one's body. The idea is to be capable of physically changing into anything."

"Anything?" Byte echoed.

"Anything," Helang repeated. "a bear, a fox, a tiger, a snake, a dragon, a branch, a rock, a carpet, a grain of salt, whatever. But as I told you, I can't do it; I gave my attention to something more useful." The hawk saw Mega was going to ask. "But I'll tell you another day, now let me meditate." And he closed his eyes.

On another location, a few blocks away from Penny's home, Alpha was still awake and talking to herself. "No, no, no, no, no," Very frustrated, apparently. "I don't have the age to… well, I really don't know his age, I don't think he remembers it at all. But still, no! How did this happen?" She felt silent for a moment. "But I had already decided that I would give it a try… What's the matter with me? I've been on this for no more than a week and I look like I'm crazy. Is it always like this? I don't even know him at all, do I? For some reason, I feel that I do know him, that this little part I know about him is all there is to know, but…. Agh, this is horrible!" She threw herself to the floor as she pouted. "Wait a moment, I can clear up my doubts. Aunt Byte already knows about it, so I can talk to her, and with Mittens too, or anyone that lives with him! Yes, I can do that!" She yawned. "But… tomorrow, there won't be anyone awake to talk this late anyway." She returned to her bed. "Because I think it's real, even if it's sudden."

In the meantime, in Diego's house, everyone was asleep, everyone but Flor. She was wide awake, incapable of sleeping, so she approached the bed that was next to hers and whispered, "Peep?"

The little guy woke up as soon as he heard her. "What is it, Flor?" He asked in a sleepy tone.

She averted her gaze, a little embarrassed. "Well, it's getting really cold and I–" Peep stood up "What are you doing?"

"I'm going… closing… the window," He answered as he climbed up to a chair and then slid the window closed. "Better?"

She chucked to herself, nodded, said, "Yes, thank you." and then returned to her bed. "Goodnight, Peep."

"Goodnight. If you need anything… lemme… know." He said, and closed his eyes.

"Sure," Oh, Peep, you're so innocent, that's why we all love you. So pure and cute… What!? I just met him! Though… he is cute… Hmmm. I should spend more time with him, get to know him a little better. Yes…

Soul's P.O.V.

Alright, don't let it be a premonition, don't, please don't, please don't, please don't, please don't.

I got communication with the superior. I always do before searching for anything in the archives, sometimes he knows about what I'm going to look for and helps me with it.

"Excuse me, I'd like to ask a couple things."

"Yes, I know. Go on, ask."

"I have this friend in the physical world. She, well, she's been having nightmares and…"

"Search in the archives."

"But, sir, the archives–"

"The archives don't only hold the past of the planet, its present and all its possible futures, too. If her nightmare has any chance of becoming real, you'll find it in the archives."

Without wasting a moment I began searching in the archives. However I didn't quite knew how to look for the possible futures of the team I have assembled in the physical world… oh, right. A lot of images began to appear and get close to me. Among some of them there was Bolt saving Mittens, Rhino saving them both, Jonathan flying? Yeah, not that hard to believe… Peep doing… wow! Okay… I'll have to check on that later. My kids were in those images too. Playing, fighting, smiling, frowning, and… No…

There it was, growing progressively, the image I had taken out of Penny's head. All of them in cages, but Bolt and my kids. Most of them were dead… but, where was Mittens?

"You can't see her, she caused all of that." The superior told me suddenly.

"What?"

"The perspective of this picture revolves around Mittens' point of view. You're seeing all of it from her eyes. She caused that reality."

"That's not possible, she wouldn't."

"Not consciously, but as you can see the picture is growing, you know why?"

"No,"

"Have you ever heard this one? 'What you think, you will be, what you feel, you will attract, what you imagine, you will create.'" I finished placing the pieces together on my own, but I let him finish. "She's imagining the worst case scenario, and she's been doing so for a while. As she keeps on fearing that future, she'll keep calling it. If you can't stop her from thinking about it, that'll be the destiny of your team."

"That won't happen. My kids have never failed me."

"There's a first time for everything."

"They don't know how to fail."

"And so, they'll learn… in the worst possible way."

Okay, I had what I needed. I said goodbye to the superior and 'closed' the archives. Now I have to talk to Bolt, we have to do something.

Bolt's P.O.V.

I can't remember what I was dreaming, I just woke up because I felt someone moving me. When I opened my eyes I saw Mittens standing beside me, her eyes watery and her body trembling. "What happened, Mittens?"

She didn't answer. She just hugged me tight and sank her face into my chest. I held her for a minute or two in silence, trying to calm her down.

"Bolt…" She said in a broken voice.

"Did you have a nightmare?"

"I don't want them to come true, Bolt; I don't want that to happen to you." She whimpered.

"Bolt!"

What? Oh, hi, Soul; I was just going to call you. I need you help once more, please.

"Not this time, champ. I'll put you up to date. She's not fearing that something will happen to you."

What? Then…?

"She knows you're the one who's been progressing most, everyone knows it. What she actually fears is to be a burden to you, be the cause for you to suffer." I didn't get the chance to ask before he answered. "On T.V. you've seen that the bad guys trying to get someone close to the hero, right? Someone they can use to blackmail the hero to stop attacking. Well, that's exactly what she thinks will happen. She's afraid of becoming the bait, afraid of you getting hurt because you were protecting her."

"Mittens, that's not gonna happen. I won't let that happen." I held her tighter; I could her she was just sobbing now.

"Now, we have another tiny little problem."

What is it, Soul?

"You see, despite of what you're doing to calm her down, her subconscious is not giving a damn about it, that's why she's still having nightmares. The problem is that the more attention she pays to that dream, the more likely it is that it will actually happen."

I had to make an effort not to scream it out loud.

WHAT?!

"Mittens, by constantly thinking about that future, is calling it to reality. She's using the same principle you're using to develop your abilities, but for something that will cause harm."

So what can I do?

"I'll see if I can erase those images from her mind. But I need you to help me. You have to calm her down, almost to the point she falls asleep, but not so far."

Uh… How am I gonna do that?

"I don't know, Bolt, pet her or something."

'Pet her or something'? Really?

"Do you have any better idea, Bolt? 'cause I'm open to suggestions, but she must not fall asleep. If she does and I'm inside her head bad stuff may happen."

O-Okay, I'll see what I can do.

"Don't tell her what's happening, or her subconscious will close."

And so, Soul left my head. 'Pet her or something'. Let's see how that ends.

Slowly, I moved one of my paws from the hug and placed on her head. Then I began to move it gently from side to side. First Mittens stopped sobbing, and eventually she even started purring! Hurry up, Soul, I don't know how long it'll last.

"Thanks for calming me down, Bolt." She said after a few minutes, pulling out of my hug and getting ready to lie down again. "I think I'm better now."

Think of something, Bolt. Now! "Sure, but, uh…could you tell me…about your dream?"

She looked at me. "You want to know what I was dreaming?"

"Yes… maybe it could help talking about it… could help taking it away." From her look I deduced it was not pleasant for her. "B-But you don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"No… I want to tell you." She sighed and got close to me once more. "But it's not nice what it was."

"I imagine so." Hurry up, Soul.

(-)

Meanwhile, inside Mittens' mind:

Okay… let's what's inside here. If I'm not mistaken, and I'm usually not, her dreams should be around… there. Don't speak... she'll listen and this would've been useless. Okay, it should be in her recent dreams. There! Wait, why is it growing? Oh, man… what are the chances that you asked her to tell you about it, Bolt? Not helping! I can't delete it if she's working with it. Maybe I could change it with something else, though she would just start talking about some other thing from a moment to another. What could I use? Here… kids? How long's she been thinking about that? Well, I could use it to… okay, forget it, it stopped growing… I don't know what you did, Bolt, but you did well.

(-)

By how Mittens was describing her nightmare to me I wasn't surprised that she couldn't sleep. I even felt guilty for asking her to tell me. Some tears were coming back into her eyes. "Stop, don't tell me anymore." I requested. I saw relief flood her eyes, so I held her again and began caressing her head once more. "Nothing like that will happen, we'll be fine." She nodded with her head on my chest and stood still.

Suddenly she jerked away from me and looked into my eyes. "Bolt… Bolt, you were right. I-I can't remember it anymore, I can't remember my nightmare!"

Soul must be done. "That's so…" I couldn't finish the sentence, Mittens jumped on me and began to lick my cheek.

"You're her hero, Bolt."

But you did it. I didn't do anything.

"No, Bolt. Without your help it wouldn't be done by now. You are the hero, champ."

Soul said no more as Mittens kept on licking my cheek and thanking me over and over again. I responded the gesture, hugged back, licked her cheek once and waited for her to finish before kissing her forehead. "Goodnight, Mittens" I told her.

"Goodnight, wags," She responded with a smile, one that I hadn't quite seen in a week.

Both of them fell asleep a few minutes later, holding each other as usual. Soul returned to his world and stayed there for the rest of the night. Meanwhile, in the building, there was a lot of movement.

"What's going on here?" The shadow asked to young Shade.

"I don't know, sir. Everyone just started moving from place to place. They're also taking away stuff from the cellars."

"Stay here, look after the others and let me know if something happens."

That being said, the shadow went to a half-destroyed office, without even waiting for his pupil to answer. The door was ajar and the stranger behind it spoke even before the shadow had knocked on it.

"What do you want?"

"I want to know why there's so much movement in the building." The shadow answered as it entered the office.

"It's none of your business. You concentrate on training those newbies. We're one week and a half from thirty-one, and I only see one of your kids who stand out."

The shadow grunted a little. "Well, sir, I'll go back to training them." It said as it left the room. "How annoying he can be sometimes." It mumbled once it was far enough from the office.

"What is it, sir?" Shade asked once the mentor was back.

"He wouldn't tell, but I got orders for harder training. We'll speed things up; starting tomorrow, we'll focus on combat training."

"Yes, sir. I'll tell the rest of the group." Shade ran into a room.

Once alone, the shadow started thinking out loud. "This stinks more and more every time. I don't want to know what the hell's going on. Sometimes I just want to forget about all of this and flee… but hell I can't." Then it headed for the same room Shade had ran into.

The rest of the night went smoothly for all of the area. At dawn the first one to wake up were those at Penny's room due to her alarm clock. However, Rhino was the only one who woke up without problem. "Good morning," he yawned as he stretched, then saw that no one else had risen, not even Penny. "Now what's wrong with you guys?"

"Slept late… doing homework," Penny replied drowsily from her bed. "And I think Mitens had nightmares."

"What about Bolt?"

"I woke him up, I had to talk to somebody," Mittens said as she started moving. Bolt slowly opened his eyes and yawned.

Penny finished getting up and went to the bathroom. The animal trio headed to the first level a few minutes later, and Rhino turned on the T.V. The girl came down and gave breakfast to all of them and then left for school. Her three pets went out and waited for the rest of them. Jonathan came out almost at the same time, with Peep at his side and Flor on his back. Apparently she had been spending the night awake and was tired. Kass arrived a few minutes later, followed by both siblings. Alpha was in the same state as Flor. Finally, Soul's students arrived along with Beta, and another day of training began.

Hello once more! You see, plenty of time, plenty of chapters. Okay, this is it, next week we'll start seeing more action in the story, cliffhangers, and some unfortunate events, heh. But for now, I'm thanking you once more for reading, for having me patience, and my usual special thanks to Basbon and his always-present reviews, thanks buddy, you rock. Anyway, I think that's all I have to say right now, so see ya next week. Nos vemos luego!