Chapter 34: A race, a change and a talk

A couple of days later Bolt was already training his abilities again, proving that Mega had been right when he mentioned that they were still there, since the dog was getting to the point where he had stayed at a great pace; hyperspeed was the first one of this abilities to come back. As for the moment, Bolt and Mega where discussing the possibility of a race between them, with the rest of the group as spectators.

"Well, fine, but there's no way you could defeat the master," The wolf was saying, with air of proudness.

"That's settled, Mega. That's why he's racing you, and not me," Soul chuckled in response.

The wolf faked a laugh. "How funny of you, master," He answered. "I was talking about myself."

"I know," Then there was a small silence. "I have to go. Don't do crazy things."

"So, Mega? Are we racing?" Bolt asked. He was eager to measure his speed in comparison to one of Soul's students. Although he hadn't resolved his doubt yet, he had to admit that he always had a good time with the group.

"If you want to lose, let's do it."

Helang then spoke up.

"However, if you want to measure hyperspeed, it has to be a big distance."

"From here to camp," Mega said. "I'd like to say hello to my little 'friend'." Both Helang and Byte stared at Mega with some accusing looks. "What? He's out there, all alone," He said, with exaggerated sarcasm.

The comment didn't help, particularly with Bolt, but his eagerness was bigger, so he said nothing about it. Nevertheless, he remembered something that could be important.

"Wait a second. I don't remember where your camp is."

"It's in the woods, Bolt."

"He knows that, you genius!" Byte scolded. "He's asking in which part of the forest."

"Fine, fine, geez, calm down…" Mega got into thinking for some seconds. "I know! I'll show you the way to camp, and then we'll race from there to here."

"Sounds good," The shepherd answered.

"Oh, this is gonna be be-awesome!"

"And we'll see who's faster," Mega stated.

"Well, I hope it's you, wolf," Kass said. "If Bolt can beat you without memories and with no more than a week of training, then, boy you're in some trouble." The cat began to laugh at such thoughts.

"In a few minutes we'll see who laughs, tiger," Mega retorted, silencing Kass. Then the wolf looked at the dog. "Ready?"

"Sure thing," But then Bolt saw that Mittens wouldn't stop looking at him. "Just give me a moment."

Bolt then approached the cat and asked if everything was okay.

"Yes… just be careful." She said. He smiled at her and nodded, and then held her for a couple of seconds.

"Ready, Mega," Bolt said as soon as he let go of Mittens. "Let's go."

"Alright, champ. We'll walk so you don't spend your energy."

"Sure,"

Nothing more was said and they both began to walk, the dog behind the wolf, heading for the woods.

While those two reached their destination, in the abandoned building, Shade and Alex were still working. They had finished modifying the memories, but they still had to block them.

"How long do you say it will take?"

"At least one week, sir." Shade reported.

"So much?"

"Sir, blocking the memories is by far the most complicated part. It could even take after the agreed date, assuming complications."

"Then don't let complications arise, Shade. I'm counting on you; you've even impressed the idiot of my partner. You can show him what you're capable of."

"I heard someone calling me?" The elite shadow asked as it entered the place.

"Yes, I called for an idiot and you showed up. Funny coincidence, isn't it?"

"Shut up, pea brain, I'm here to check on the little guys." The elite shadow turned to the young ones who were working on the memories. "How's it going?"

"We're doing fine, sir. We've calculated that it will take ten days for them to be ready."

"December twenty?"

"Yes. A day or two before that if we worked non-stop."

"I like how it sounds; do it." Before anyone could object, the shadow raised its hand. "But not here. I need you to move to 2F."

"Why do you want to send them there?" The mentor asked.

"Because the Pitbull's gonna send the idiots there when he talks. But I'm sensing, and I hope you too, that the chances of him talking early are increasing more and more, so it'll be easier if the two get to work there and not here. If the wolves go and there are no memories for them to recover, then we win nothing."

"Okay, I guess," Then the shadow addressed its students. "Alex, Shade, take whatever you're using to work on the memories and move it to the warehouse 2F."

"Yes, take you stuff and move it there. Move."

As both students began to pick up things, Mega and Bolt were arriving at the camp. Mega was telling Bolt some stories from when he was with all of his puppies.

"I was surrounded, there was no way out. I closed my eyes, accepted my destiny, and it came. I was tackled and ended up in the floor with six little puppies playing on top of me." The wolf was saying as he came to a stop. "Look, we're here. Hi, buddy, I'm home," He said, addressing the Pitbull. That dog hadn't made an attempt to escape once, even though he was left alone for some hours every day.

"Why is he not doing anything?" Bolt asked.

"No idea," Mega told him. "We believe he's waiting for orders, or a specific day to talk."

Bolt looked at the Pitbull for a few seconds. The tied dog answered the look in an aggressive way, with malice in his eyes, making Bolt gulp. "I-I think we'd better get going."

"Sure, give me a few seconds," The wolf closed his eyes. "Byte, we're about to start."

"Understood. Don't do anything silly, Mega. It's just a race."

"Come on, you're talking to me."

"That's exactly why I said it."

"Oh, forget it," Mega opened his eyes and turned to Bolt. "Ready?"

Bolt nodded, and Byte said one more thing.

"Remember, the goal is the barn. Whoever gets in first, wins." Both competitors nodded. "Ready?"

"Yes," Both said at a time.

"Go!"

Both of them started running, initially with normal speeds and gradually increasing. Mega was the first one to reach hyperspeed, with Bolt following seconds later. The wolf was taking advantage, but Bolt saw a fallen tree, ran over it and jumped from its trunk to fall ahead of his rival. Neither of them said anything. They just were too concentrated. In a matter of minutes they left the forest behind. As the houses multiplied in the distance, they began to pay attention to which one was Penny's. The dog was barely on the lead when he found the right house and changed his direction to it.

When Bolt looked back, he couldn't see Mega anywhere. He didn't pay much attention and kept running. When he had the barn in sight, the wolf suddenly appeared from somewhere and began to run besides him. They both entered extremely close to each other to the barn.

"Who would've said it? It was a tie."

"What do you mean, 'a tie'?" Mega complained. "No, no, no, no; let's repeat it."

"Not now," Helang told him.

"Why not, Helang?" Mega turned to see what the hawk was pointed at and found a very tired Bolt. "Oh," The wolf moved towards the dog and shook his paw. "Well done."

"You… you too," Bolt said, catching his breath.

"You better rest for a while," The wolf advised. "Your body has to get used to these speeds and to moderate the energy you spend on it. Do you want to talk about something?"

"Actually, I'd like to be alone for a while."

"Okay, as you wish." Mega walked out of the barn without saying more.

In the meantime, the shadows were moving all of their things from the main building to the 2F warehouse by request of the elite shadow.

"Dwarves, how much more do you have to move?"

"You know," Shade said. "This would be much faster if you helped us; we would probably be done by now."

"It's a shame I'm not helping then. But you have pea brain for that."

The shadow entered the warehouse a couple of seconds later, carrying many things. "With this one, there have been seven. How many more trips do we have to do?"

"That was all, master."

"Then I guess it's a good time for me to tell you that you could've placed all of your stuff on an auto-transporter to move them here, instead of coming and going." The elite shadow laughed. "I'll call for the 'security' for this place in a couple minutes." And thus, still laughing at its prank, the elite shadow left.

"He's such a…"

"Master," Alex interrupted.

"What is it, Alex? Where are Bud and James?"

"They're both playing around, I guess. But it's not about that; the point is that we still have about half of our things back there."

"Then why did you say we were done?"

"Because from the moment we started moving things, he had a smile on his face. I thought that he was hiding something, and now we can you the transporter to bring the rest of our things here."

"Very well done, Alex."

"Shade will go back to the building and place the stuff on the auto-transporter, setting the coordinates for this place as destination. Meanwhile… I'll get to organizing this mess."

"I'll help you with that," The mentor told Alex.

Then Shade left the warehouse at full speed while the other two shadows got to organize what was there already-

The afternoon was past its mid-part and Bolt was still inside the barn. Mittens had come inside to talk to him for a while, before leaving him to think at his request. Mega and Byte were playing with the Labrador retrievers. Helang, Rhino, Peep and Flor were meditating. Jonathan had been looking for Kass' scent to track, for the cat had disappeared again, with no result so far. The white shepherd was trying to think on something that could help him, a reference point for which could be the "right" side. Despite having a good time with the group, Shade's doubt had grown as well.

"I need to talk to someone impartial," He thought out loud.

"Impartial in what?"

Bolt was startled to hear another voice inside the barn. "Who's there?"

"Ah, relax, dog," A third voice called, softer than the other one.

"It's not that easy, considering that you two are here, listening to me."

"And how do you know we haven't been here all afternoon long, huh?"

"Because you would've gotten hungry, and you would've complained about it." The other voice said.

"Don't talk, you just spoiled the mystery."

"Oh, shut up."

"Hey, calm down, both of you. And I would be grateful if you showed me who you are."

A few feet from Bolt a couple of shadows arose, one large and muscular build and another one small and thin, almost scrawny.

"He's Bud," Said the second one. "I'm James."

"You're shadows…"

"Uh… yeah."

"And what are you doing here?" Bolt asked.

"We could ask you the same thing," Bud retorted.

"I live here."

"Ah,"

"Oh, let me talk, Bud." James looked at Bolt. "Why that face?"

The dog didn't answer.

"He has problems."

"Will you shut up, Bud?"

"How do I know I can trust you?" The dog asked directly.

"You don't, as you don't know if you can trust them. Even so, you do trust them. Why?"

Bolt stared into the floor, trying to find an answer. "Because…"

"Look, let's set all of this aside, dog."

"What?"

"For a while, let's forget this quarrel. Light and darkness, betrayals, superabilities. Let's see another angle of things. Look for us at the edge of the forest." James told him just before disappearing. Moments later, Bud followed him.

Bolt couldn't be more confused. Even so, and without knowing why, he left the barn and headed for the forest, having to tell his friends that he was going for a walk. No one argued with that, so he went away alone, just as he had planned. When he was out of sight he used hyperspeed to reach the forest fast.

"Well, that was fast," Bud said. He was waiting for him, like a shadow in the trunk of a tree.

Bolt went straight to the point. "What do you want me here for?"

From the trees a shadow-dog appeared. Like the first one he'd met, it had no snout, no ears or nose; it was just a general, base form.

"To play," The somber dog said, approaching Bolt.

"What?"

"Play," The dog repeated. "Haven't you ever played?"

"Not with a shadow," Bolt commented.

"Hey," James said in annoyance. "One, I spent a lot of energy to take this form and two, what you're saying humans call it racism. And it's not cool."

"Come on, dog," Bud added. "It'll be fun. Forget light and dark, just play."

James got into playing position and waited for Bolt, who hesitantly imitated him a few seconds later. "Come on, dog, catch me of you can," James ran away.

Forget about the light and the dark, forget about the light and the dark, forget about the light and the dark… Come on, Bolt, he's leaving you behind.

Bolt shook his head and began chasing James, who had a little advantage on him. "Ha! You're slow, for being a real dog," He said mockingly.

"We'll see about that," The shepherd responded by turning on his hyperspeed, which made him catch James almost immediately. Bolt touched him on one side and then ran in the opposite direction. "Who's the slow one now?"

"We're about to see that," The shadow answered.

When the sky turned orange, Bud stopped the game and reminded James that they had to go back.

"True, buddy," The shadow-dog left its dog form and turned to Bolt. "It was a pleasure to play with you and forget about… all of this, at least for a while."

"Yeah, I agree," The dog answered.

"See you later, dog," Bud said as they left.

Both shadows sank into the ground and slid away from him. Bolt watched the direction they had taken for some minutes and then headed back home, his doubt more latent than before.

The dog stopped a few blocks before arriving home. He needed to think, a lot, despite being hungry from his playtime.

"But where?"

"'Where' what?"

Bolt jumped, stifled a scream and looked over the house where the voice had come from. Kass was lying on the roof, totally calmed.

"A place to think. Alone." Bolt explained.

"Well, I know several; it depends on which one suits you, or the topic you wanna deal with."

Bolt deciphered that the cat was asking him what was his problem and, for some reason, he decided to answer his question.

"I don't know who to trust."

Kass jumped from the roof and walked to Bolt. "Does this overwhelm you?" The dog nodded. "Well, that's reasonable. You have no memories, no references… Interesting." The cat smiled.

"What do you have in mind?"

"I want you to find me here tomorrow around noon. But I require you to follow certain steps. Pay attention."

Meanwhile at Penny's house, the wolves were already saying goodbye to return to camp, however Mega asked Byte and Helang to go without him.

"Why?"

"Please. I'll go in a minute."

Byte wasn't convinced by Mega's answer. Nevertheless, she turned around and began walking. Helang took flight, leaving Mega alone with Beta.

"What's the matter, dad?"

"I need to talk to you."

"It has to do with the Pitbull, doesn't it?"

"Your premonition is improving, my little girl. I want you to convince him that you still have a shadow on your mind, and thus, to get him to tell you what's going on."

"It won't work, dad. He's seen us together."

"You can tell him that you're undercover, that we're dumb and that you need to know what they're planning to help… or something like that, you can improvise. Okay, don't improvise, but you can come up with something convincing."

Beta nodded. "I'll do it."

"Thanks, kid. Now come on, the guys are waiting for us."

Arriving the night, two shadows were reported late returning to the abandoned building.

"And where were you two?"

"Playing."

"Playing?" The elite shadow asked. "Being so close to achieve a dark pillar you two get to play?"

"Well, Shade and Alex have covered the realm of altering the memories, and you and our master have been doing… whatever. So since we didn't get any assignments for today, Bud and I went out to play."

"And what did you play?"

"Tag."

"Just the two of you?"

"When did we become prisoners? Because I'm feeling like I'm being interrogated. Yes, both of us. Alone, and I'm not answering any more questions."

The elite shadow then shifted its sight to Bud.

"And you, big guy?"

"What do you want to know?"

The elite shadow stared into Bud's eyes. He was not moving, solid as a rock, and not willing to reveal anything.

"Nothing. Get out of here," The elite shadow told them simply.

The rest of the night passed on with no relevant events. Once dawned, Bolt was the first one to wake up. Careful of not waking Mittens up, he went down to have breakfast and then waited for his friends lying on the couch, thinking about what Kass might want with him that day at noon. About half an hour later Mittens and Rhino went down, somewhat surprised by the hour Bolt had risen.

After that the trio of friends went out to meet the rest of the group; Kass was missing, of course. They all trained for a while and played for another until it was almost noon.

"Guys, I'm going out for a walk," Bolt announced as he stopped running.

"Another one?" Mega asked. "Where do you go when you do that?"

"I'm just trying to clear my head, Mega. See if I can remember anything."

"Well, if you place your attention on a certain black cat with green eyes standing next to you…"

"Yes, I know," Bolt said. "But I would like to go out on a walk, alone."

They all looked at him in confusion. "Okay, Bolt," Mega said after a few seconds. "If you need anything, you know how to call us."

"Yes, thank you," Without saying more, the dog left the place, headed for the meeting place with Kass."

"He's worrying me, he didn't do that before," Mittens said once he left.

"The cat is right. That sort of behavior is brand new," Rhino added.

"Patience, guys, it will all be over soon," Mega told them.

"How can you be sure, Mega?"

"We'll get the Pitubll to talk and recover his memories. You trust me, girl."

In a couple of minutes Bolt was already at the place where Kass had told him they would meet, but no one was there. The dog lay down and waited while he kept thinking.

After twenty minutes Kass' voice became present.

"So, you did come."

The dog turned and saw him somewhat annoyed. "Where have you been?"

"I've been here all morning, but I wanted to make sure they hadn't followed you. Come with me." The cat led the dog for fifteen minutes to what looked like a small abandoned house.

"We're here."

"What's this place?" Bolt asked.

"The place where I come whenever I'm not with y'all. Now, when you leave this place, you'll probably still be confused, but you'll have another way of looking at things that may help you make a decision."

The cat smiled and entered the house through a pet door in deplorable conditions. Bolt followed him and entered the place; it was totally ruined. There were cobwebs everywhere, rotting furniture and broken windows. "And… what exactly do you do here?" Bolt asked, looking around.

"Before I tell you, I need you to promise me that this is between you and me; no matter light or darkness, you're an honorable dog, right?" Bolt nodded. "Well, then I'll tell you. I come here to learn, to inform myself, or whatever you wanna call it. The point is that I come to talk to them two."

When the cat finished that sentence two beings made presence in the place, moving around all of the room and not staying still until they stood up behind Kass. A shadow and a light equal and opposite. Both had six eyes, the shadow blue and the light orange in color, and were totally black and white respectively. Two hands, five fingers, they levitated on the floor and had the characteristic "tail" instead of legs, and floated near the ground. Almost the size of an adult, and had a mouth, which seemed to disappear if they closed it.

"Who are they?"

"Umbra," Kass pointed to the shadow. "And Lux," and he pointed to the light. "A shadow and a light I met shortly after this began."

"How can they not kill each other right now?"

"Remember Soul's story? Long ago, really long ago, shadows and lights lived in peace. It was an external influence that corrupted the shadows and them this madness began. Umbra, right here, is a 'clean' shadow; it's not corrupted. I mean, it does feed on negative energy, nobody can change that without purifying it, but it only feeds on the natural-generated one. So, for example, if someone dies and his/her family grieves for a week; Umbra will feed on that energy, but it won't be bothering that family for six months just to try and squeeze the same lemon for more juice. Lux, well, has no problem getting food…"

"Wait. I don't understand; if he feeds on the suffering of others he can't be good, can he?"

"That's why I say there are no accidents. If you hadn't put yourself between Mittens and that shadow, you wouldn't have lost your memories, you wouldn't have gone through all of this and you wouldn't be opening your mind a little more," The cat said. "First, light doesn't mean good, like dark doesn't mean bad, just like having a gun doesn't make you bad, or going to church makes you good. Good and bad are relative things, just like right and wrong."

"Seen that way," Kass kept going. "Things are from zero. No one seeks for evil; everyone's looking for something good. The thing is to seek balance between light and dark. Shadows and lights have always existed and, like Umbra and Lux, they used to get along; the problem started when someone altered the balance. There are two kinds of beings of this type," Kass pointed to both spectres, still behind him. "The first is the natural one; a lot of lights and some shadows. Both feed on the energy that physical beings generate naturally. The second, and pay attention here, is the 'soldier'. This type of shadow, or light–yes, lights too–, has no other objective than to destroy the other side. They have no other thoughts, no other goals, they don't know the word truce and have no reproductive capacity. All those shadows Centauri has artificially formed have no other purpose but to destroy the light. They don't want peace, they don't want vacations, family…"

"Wait, can shadows have a family?"

"Well, not in the way you know a family, but yes, and lights too. Well, not the soldiers, since without that issue their attention goes directly and exclusively to combat. Umbra and Lux could do it, but they rarely go out. It's not common to see opposite sides get along. Anyway, I repeat, it's not the case here, but it's possible, and likely, that light organizations somewhere are creating soldier lights with the only purpose of crushing the darkness. No, it's not about that; the thing is to seek the balance in between light and dark, sun and moon, day and night, black and white, yin and yang, fire and water. Humans think that animals, specifically dogs, only see in black and white."

Bolt scoffed. "That's ridiculous."

"You don't have to tell me," Kass said. "Though, certainly, they do see more colors than we do. But the point is that, from a certain perspective, almost all living things see only in black and white. This is good, this is bad; yes and no; I like and I don´t. But reality is that it shouldn't be like that, because between black and white there are thousands of gray tones. I agree, though not completely, with what the wolves and the hawk think. That's why I've been coming here. They have taught me to take advantage of both types of energy, to find a balance between earth and sky, a middle point between black and white.

Sometimes it's beneficial to use negative energy; correct me if I'm wrong, but it can be very difficult to stay happy or at peace while you're fighting. It's not impossible, but it's not easy either. In those moments you can use your own anger or annoyance to boost your abilities. However, you must not abuse on this, or on any of them both energies. Now, there's no point in trying to kill all shadow or light soldiers. No, the modifications to make them soldiers can be removed. To clean those shadows without purifying them, you would only need the light, or dark, power of a very capable being, probably the pillar, and use an ability to get rid of the programming. It's also true that as shadows grow, some characteristics get removed from their programming, for the very reason that nature always imposes. But it doesn't work in every shadow or on every aspect and that's where the pillar destroying the programming comes in.

Unfortunately, the objective has to agree since it's not like corrupting or purifying. So, even though many shadows will prefer to die before allowing something like this to happen, some will accept it and they won't be forced to change side."

Bolt couldn't even find the words to say something after hearing all of that.

"I…I…"

"Light doesn't mean 'good', and dark doesn't mean 'bad'. Both can be on the side of life, as on the side of death."

I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything," The cat told him and then turned to the specters. "Thanks, guys, see you in two days."

Without a word, Umbra and Lux moved through the place as they had done when they came in, and disappeared as fast as they had appeared.

"Come on, they must be waiting for you."

"You're not coming with me?" Bolt asked.

"It would be suspicious that you left alone and came back with company, wouldn't it? And I have other things to do."

"Such as?"

"Sleeping. But beforehand, I want to know your opinion."

Bolt took a few seconds to think. "I guess you're right. The idea is not to alter the things that happen naturally, and if it's natural that some shadows exist, then it's okay. Trouble comes when either side tries to alter that."

"Well said. Even so, you have to trust that everything will be fine, even…"

"Even when it's not!" Bolt's eyes widened. "Even when it's not! Kass, I just remembered something!"

The cat looked at him with a smile. "Interesting. So that's how it's working."

"What? How is it working?"

"Tell me if I'm wrong. Both now and the last time you were thinking or processing information. After that, you received a stimulus of some kind, but something that you had previously experienced. Thus, you remembered something related to the stimulus you received. That means…"

"That I should go to Mittens. Now."

Kass smiled. "Run."

Bolt ran off to Penny's house without looking back. "Thanks, Kass!"

"You're welcome," The cat muttered quietly. Umbra and Lux appeared shortly after Bolt left. "Well, at least someone else in the group sees things more clearly now," Both specters nodded slowly and silently. "Anyway, I have to go find food, you guys. See you later."

Kass then left the shadow and the light, who disappeared from the place a moment later.

Okay guys, here it is. I'm very tired right now, I have only two weeks left before returning to school, so I'm trying to do a lot of things at a time. But I'll keep on updating every week as promised. Special thanks to Basbon and ShadowScare for reviewing; special thanks to everyone following this story. I guess that's all I have to say right now, so nos vemos luego!