Chapter 45: Memories, confessions and songs
Two days. Under most circumstances that lapse of time happens in the blink of an eye, or vice versa and totally slowly. In this case, for some it was the first case, and for some the second.
Penny wasn't attending school. She and her mother had argued when Ms. Forrester insisted in notifying the police of her return. The girl, aware that she would be questioned nonstop about her whereabouts, moved earth, sea and sky until she convinced her mother not to make the call, promising that, on time, she would tell the truth. As a result, her classmates and teachers didn't know she was back yet. In fact, only those involved in the conflict, her mother and her neighbors, knew that she was home. Thus, it was easy for the girl to wake up early and leave the house pretending to go to school, where she would actually hide in the barn until her mother left. She would spend the whole days helping however she could to plan a rescue.
Alpha, to her brother's surprise, had taken the situation with unprecedented maturity and, with it, she had also taken the temporary leadership of the group. Peep was slightly saddened for his brother's absence, though he wouldn't allow this to interfere with his duty. Both girls interested in him noticed it immediately, and dedicated time for him (more), so that he could play and forget about it for a while.
Bolt, Mittens and Rhino, by an offering from the group, or rather an order, had stayed outside the situation, especially the couple. They all had decided that both lovebirds deserved to make up for the lost time, so they left them with plenty of free time and alone, keeping them noticed with the plans and progress the group was developing.
Bolt's, Beta's and Flor's knowledge of the building's structure and the guards hours were most useful in those forty-eight hours, though the group knew that Centauri wasn't dumb, and that he could change the guards turns any second, so they didn't rely on the schedules for a strategy. The structure would be enough.
Bud and James would keep on visiting them, giving them information of whatever they could. This way, our friends found out the location of the cells and their peculiar characteristics. Both young shadows began to raise suspicions among their companions, so they had to work in several excused. Alex and Shade were assigned to research, to help find out how to turn Soul's staff to the darkness. Kia, still resented, punched things a lot; her training turned more aggressive and she stopped talking to everyone. The vixen had also gone to "visit" the prisoners daily, never saying anything to them either, just watching them inside their cells. The mentor shadow had gained enough power to classify as a hunter shadow, and its companion had lost some power and job, for screwing up on the second day as security chief of the building.
Mega and Byte wouldn't stop fighting, for anything, from getting out to the color of the cells. Helang, though he didn't meditate, thought a lot about what his master had told him. Why? He wondered constantly. Kass and Jonathan did nothing in particular. The dog only hoped for his little friend to be okay and the cat had only one time a day to do something, when a six-blue-eyed shadow came into the room to check that the cells were still in perfect conditions. In those short minutes, with growls and grunts, the shadow would give this cat some details about the building.
Soul hadn't spoken since Penny talked to her mother. Centauri, quietly, was beginning to fear a failure for his plan A. However he didn't worry too much, for he had a B one for that. He could still remember the conversation he had had with the research shadows before he assigned the young ones to help them. One single sentence repeated again and again in his head.
This staff was designed by Genesis.
That very name made him shiver.
Genesis.
For ordinary people, it would be nothing more than a name, or not even that, but just a mere word. For anyone involved in the conflict, no. That name transcended, not only among shadows or lights, but among every person, animal or plant that knew about this conflict. The man was legendary, famous for mastering the twelve elements: the four basic, their variants and the four "epic," "untamable", "unexplainable", or whichever name you wants to give them. He had the highest premonition level seen in modern history, and even knew how to modify matter, giving place to rumors that he could change his physical form into whatever he wanted to. It was even said that he had deciphered the fifth, ninth and thirteenth elements. The first one was a perfect combination of the first four, the ninth was the same thing, coming from the variants and the thirteenth was the most complex: only achievable by a fusion of the first twelve. How in the world do you combine time, space, life and death, which are not physical elements, with fire, air, ground and water, which are physical? Nobody alive knows. That's the point.
He used only weapons that he made; most of them included crystals or stones of some sort. He had left the shadow organization previous to Centauri's in ashes, with few survivors and a lot of clean shadows. At some point he had met an ally, Frost, who had become his sidekick. Frost wasn't a direct warrior, but no one else knew better how to treat wounds and perform technical and tactical movements. Alone, both were invincible; together, they were untouchable.
They whereabouts had been a mystery for a long time, basically because they had no enemies to look for them. Until a survivor, and elite shadow had begun to rebuild what had been lost. Somehow, the shadow learned where he was in retirement and murdered the legend, along with anyone with him at the moment of the attack. How it was never cleared, since the guy had faced dozens of light destroyers without suffering more than a few injuries.
After that, the shadow had no trouble in creating a new organization that prospered well, until it lost the leadership to a young man. Being done, the first order had been to search for Frost. During his first months in charge, he had sent to look for Psyon, trying to show him what he accomplished. Slowly, this thought was replaced by another one: a train of thought that told him that Psyon would probably show opposition to his achievements. What he didn't understand was that from all of their friends, Psyon had always had the lead, so the other ones would probably try to stop him as well.
The idea began to eat him on the inside, lighting an anger born out of envy that prompted him to do something he claimed to no regret. Using shadow technology, Centauri had massacred his former comrades and friends. Few had survived his first strike, and he hunter the survivors down, taking one or two more before losing track of the rest. Xi had escaped, but he wasn't the only one, nor the most important. The couple… the couple had slipped from in between his fingers. They were the most dangerous for him, along with Psyon's students that, sooner or later, he would have to face. He and…
"Sir?" A shadow appeared at the entrance of his office.
"What?" The guy didn't hide the annoyance of this little interruption.
The shadow flinched. "N-N-Nothing."
The small specter left without even making the question it was going to make, and Centauri decided to stop thinking about past problems. He was only driving himself crazy. With that in mind, he decided to leave the building for a while and go for a walk. He grabbed a couple of things, including his robe to cover his identity, and left the place without anyone noticing.
Umbra ha recently left the room. It had only been a few minutes before Kia entered for her daily visit. The vixen walked among the cells, observing the prisoners inside, just as she had done the previous days. However, this time, she began to talk.
"First thing's first. You don't like me," She said, in a tone that showed resemblance to the one the shadow had used. "And I don't like you, but that's not relevant now…"
"This sounds terribly familiar to me…" Mega interrupted.
"Quiet!" The she-fox shouted. The her tone became frightening neutral. "I'll go straight to the point. I want my Bolt back. If you help me, I can… make a couple mistakes here and there to make it easier to get out."
"You're not worried about the security cameras that just recorded what you said, young lady?" Jonathan asked, getting on all fours.
"Oh, no. They're on lunchbreak right now, and too lazy to rewind the tape."
"Well played, John," Helang praised in his mind.
"Look, Kia, right?" Helang said, getting her attention. "I don't mean to hurt you, but the Bolt you saw fleeing from here is the real one."
"You're lying," She retorted. "Bolt loves me, I know."
"Did he ever said so?"
"Well, no… but that's not the point."
"In fact, it is," Byte intervened. "Bolt has known Mittens for a long time, and both traveled through the whole country. They lived a lot of things together and that's why they fell in love."
"She's right," Mega added. "Besides, even if Bolt's not an expert in love, he expresses what he fells when he feels it."
Kia was losing her temper, but did her best not to show it. "He was always nice to me."
"Sorry to tell you, but Bolt's nice to everyone."
"False."
"Look," Helang spoke again. "If you want to know the real story, we can show you. I don't know what Centauri said, but it was probably a lie, specially talking about Bolt."
"Shut up. I just want to see my Bolt again, and you're not helping!"
"First of all, he's not yours. I don't think even Mittens tells him that. Rather than love, it seems like you're holding on to him. Like you owe him something…"
"Shut it!" The vixen shrieked.
"Fine, I'll shut up."
"I'm going to get my Bolt back, with or without your help. The difference is that now you'll have to deal with your own problem yourselves!"
The vixen, angry as she could be, left the room and slammed the door behind her. "He's mine!" They all heard from the other side of the door.
"Well, that's a whole new level of attachment…"
"More than attachment, I think she feels she owes him something," Byte answered her brother.
"Well, she looks like a psycho. Poor Bolt."
Mega's comment marked the beginning of a silence that lasted about ten minutes or so, before the wolf broke it again with a sigh.
"Now what?" Helang asked.
"It's just…" His gaze turned absent for a moment. "I wish I could feel her right now. To know that she's fine and…"
"Alright, that's enough," Byte cut him off.
"Don't say anything. You have never fallen in love and then let her go, so you're in no position to judge. When you love someone as much as I loved her…"
"Enough!" Helang shouted, causing both wolves to look at him in surprise. The hawk took a deep breath to calm down a bit and tell his younger brother his truths. "Mega, I'm sorry to tell you, but you haven't let her go, just because you're still aware of her, delving into her life and watching her. Listen, I know you do it with good intentions, but you're not accomplishing anything, and you even hurt yourself by doing it. You always tell us that you let her go and that you didn't care that she went off with another wolf. Then why the hell are you still after her? Believe me, being in a pack, she won't have problems. Now, for whatever you want, fill your words and let her go." The four of them were staring at the falcon's cell. "I'm sorry, but I've been keeping it for a long time."
"But you're right, I haven't let her go," A tear rolled down Mega's cheek just before he sighed sadly. "Listen, I… I'm sorry, I know that it's wrong, that I'm contradicting my words and that I should've let her go a long time ago, but thing is… I can't." The wolf took a deep breath, trying not to break down while talking. "Master always talked about love based on detachment. I admired him so much… I wanted to be like him, I wanted to be able to say 'I loved her and I let her go'. When I met her, when she became my mate, I thought the day wouldn't come, I didn't want it to come… but it did. I did what Master would have done, but, oh hell! how easy it is to say and hard to actually do. I thought I would handle it, you know?, but I thought wrong. So I began to use the elements of my domain to keep watch over her… to feel her."
"Mega, I–"
"Let me finish, please," The falcon made a gesture with his paw. "I know that what I told the girls is totally opposite to what I do, I do. But I did not want them to follow my bad example. I know that I am terrible for this, but at least I didn't want to embark them on the same wrong road. I'm aware that it was not right, I always was. But I tried to ignore it, I tried to convince myself that my actions were justified by what I feel for her. Now," The wolf lifted his head and looked at Helang on the other side of the room. "I want to thank you for making me understand. Thank you, Helang, really,"
That being said, Mega dropped to the floor of his cell, without making any noise more.
"Well, that ... I was not expecting that," Byte whispered, slightly breaking the silence that had formed. Then she moved to the edge of her cell that bordered on her brother's. "Hey… are you okay?" There was no answer. "Mega?" She insisted. "Hey, I… You know you have…"
"Fooled you! The wolf shouted, jumping off the floor, scaring his sister. "Certainly, Helang, you opened my eyes, but come on, girl, I'm not that sentimental."
Byte grunted. "Oh, when I get out of here, I'll…"
"You'll what, huh?"
"I'm going to skin you alive!"
Wolf laughed. "Yeah, sure!"
With that the discussion of the half past five began between both wolves. Mega continued to laugh at his sister and she repeated everything that would make him suffer when they were freed; however, like any discussion, the talk moved on to a point where they were both arguing who was to blame for having ended there.
The arguments were accompanied by growls and threats as both wolves blamed each other for what had happened. Kass and Jonathan were there covering their ears again and Helang, for the second time in one day, was losing his patience.
"…and if we had gotten in the ventilation with Penny we'd be outside!"
"Then why did not you suggest it, girl?"
"Because I was busy dealing with your idiocy!"
"Forgive me, but at the time I was not doing anything!"
"I sometimes find it hard to believe that you are my brother!"
Finally, Helang spoke. "It's because he's not." With that, the two wolves were silent and the other two began to pay attention.
"What?" They asked at once, then it was only Mega. "She is not my sister?"
The falcon sighed. "Look, there's a part of the story the Master didn't tell you, and he left me to tell it when you were ready. You're not, but what better moment."
"Straight to the point."
"How to begin? I guess from the beginning." Then he looked up, as if remembering, and went on. "Your mother was there, with your siblings. She told us that you were hidden and asked for our help to take care of you. Certainly, we did not find you all day, and certainly, you dawned huddled together with the Master, but were…"
"'Very close together,' he said" Byte intervened.
"You were more than together, Byte." Helang took a breath, he seemed not to be able to say it. "You were…"
"Just say it!"
"You were united, clinging to each other!"
Both wolves left the subtlety and expressed their surprise almost with a shout. "What!?"
"You two were, what the humans call it, Siamese twins. You were attached, glued on one leg."
Mega joined the pieces. "Our weak leg."
Helang nodded. "Your left leg was attached to Byte's right leg. Some of the muscles in that area were shared, so that was your weak leg until you started training. In fact, we think your siblings followed your mother out when she tried to confront the hunter, but you couldn't hence the union, so that's what saved you."
"And what happened?"
The falcon sighed again. "The master had to separate you. He told me it could be dangerous, but you wouldn't have made it otherwise."
"But ... what did he do?"
"When we realized the situation, and since we didn't have surgical material or anything other than us and the staff, that's what we used. The Master 'cut' you from each other using energy, and a lot. But," His throat grew dry. "He didn't consider the whole picture. As he used energy for separating you, he not only separated you physically, but energetically as well, breaking with your sibling bond. That's why one is an immature and the other is very serious, that is why one dominates the aggressive and the other the passive, that is why you fight more and more, because you're not connected like all the other siblings of the planet. Biologically you never stopped being siblings; energetically you never were."
"And there's nothing we can do?"
"The Master always said that you could reform the bond by living together, accepting yourselves as you are. Becoming one."
"Hey!" Mega replied. "That's not right, she's my sister!"
"What?" The hawk processed what he had said. "No, silly, I didn't mean that kind of 'becoming one'; I meant to understand that you both are part of one, that you need each other!"
"Oh."
"Jeez, Mega." Then there was a few seconds of silence. "So, since we're already talking about it, I'll tell you about the Omicron project."
"And what's that."
Helang smiled. "It's that other skill I worked with the teacher that you'd been asking me about so long."
"Oh great! Well, tell us."
Omicron was developed by the Master as a way to regenerate your sibling bond and improve it. But he didn't stop there, because he expanded the project to cover us as well. The idea of the project is that the bond between two living beings becomes so strong that both can synchronize perfectly, meaning that one could see with the other's eyes, hear with their ears and smell with their nose, without even having to ask permission, a skill that in battle would turn out to be most useful. A perfect synchronization to such a degree that both could read the mind and communicate through it without spending energy and without possibility of interference or interruption. Skill, of course, you can 'turn off,' who wants to know what the other is doing all the time?
"And that's it?"
"That's the first part, the master's ideal was to regenerate your bond before leaving our last camp, but he did not find how. His ideal also included that I was part of this union, turning to the three capable of perceiving what the other two."
"Something like a collective intelligence."
"Quite close, Kass."
"And what's the second part?"
"In that part you two did not participate, Mega."
"But I want to know."
"Some other time," The hawk finished the sentence in their minds. "Since it can help us get out of here."
"Ooh, I see."
After that there was a silence of several minutes, which Byte broke. "Helang?"
"Yes?"
"How could we begin to regenerate that bond?"
The hawk thought about it for a few seconds. "With whatever you do together, without bothering each other, should work."
"How about singing?"
"I guess…"
"Then I have an idea," The wolf declared.
Centauri took about an hour walking around the city, doing nothing in particular, just wandering around aimlessly, when he received a call.
"Sir?"
"Yes, what is it?"
"Uh… the-the prisoners. They… are asking for more air supply."
Centauri came aback by that. "They said what for?"
"Yes, sir. They say they… want to sing."
"Sing?"
"Sing."
Within the young man's mind were a million questions: What the hell would they want to sing for? What did they gain from it? Why today and not from the first day? Are they trying to gain energy to escape? None was answered.
"Fine," He said finally, not sure of his own actions. "But as soon as they're done, I want you to return the air filter to normal."
"Sure. Though I doubt it will be soon. The wolf has mentioned songs like crazy."
"Sooner or later they'll get tired. Just make sure the filter returns to normal when they're done."
"Yes, sir."
At about eight o'clock on the third day after the escape, the group was returning home, with a strategy that was already beginning to take shape. "Goodnight." They all said in their respective homes before they all closed their eyes and went to sleep. On the other hand, in the building, there was a rhythm generating Kass and Jonathan as they knocked on the rock of the cells softly as the two wolves sang with the hawk joining them on the choirs.
…I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened of this thing that I've become.
It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you;
There is nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do.
I bless the rains down in Africa;
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had.
Oddly enough, the shadows that were monitoring their movements, after a while of listening to them, began to repeat what the prisoners were singing in a low voice. Unable to avoid it, they ended up singing alongside the wolves and the falcon, although the latter could not hear them. In that way ended the day for those who were still in the building.
Hi there, here's chapter 45. We're coming to the end, yes, yes we are... eventually. Anyway, not much to say right now, so I'll thank everyone, special thanks to my friends Basbon and ShadowScare for their constant reviews... and yes, nothing else to say, so nos vemos luego!
