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"Almost there. Providence is just a few hundred feet." Kenji shouted to Violeta who was sweating and panting. She flew erratically up and down. "You're doing great!"
"Shut up Kenji! You're just annoying her!" Jade yelled at her brother.
"I'm being encouraging!" Kenji retorted.
"Is that drivel what you call what you're doing?" Jade scoffed.
"Auuuugggghhhh!" Violeta lurched the last several feet right over the helipad before her build fell apart and the three crashed landed on the roof. Violeta rolled over on her back and wheezed, "Worst flight… ever."
"Oh my gosh! Are you guys okay?" Jasmine ran up to Violeta to check on her.
"Yes." Kenji said curtly picking himself up off the floor. Jade had made a three point landing. She also went to check on Violeta.
"You okay?" She asked Violeta who was still on her back.
"Fine. I love having to fly two arguing people across the desert while my insides are ripping apart." Violeta lifting her head said sarcastically.
"Good, then let's go." Kenji walked briskly to the entrance.
"All right. So who's going to carry me? I ain't moving." Violeta dropped her head back on the floor.
Kenji rolled his eyes and went back to Violeta. He grabbed her and placed her on his back. He carried her back to the entrance.
0o0
White Knight watched Angel wander around the room. Rafael sat patiently on his office chair.
"So… I'm your godfather?" He asked Rafael tentatively.
"Yup." Rafael nodded vigorously.
"Why?" He frowned.
Rafael shrugged. "Dad said that although you were an uptight butthole, you were someone with integrity and lived out his convictions. He said he hoped I would be like you… well, except not the uptight part."
White seemed to mull this over. "You know, your dad's annoying." He finally said.
"Ugh, tell me about it!" Rafael exclaimed enthusiastically. "He once signed me up for a soccer team without telling me. First practice I got twenty balls straight to the head. Twenty-first ball, I blew it up."
White raised an eye-brow. "Blew it up?"
"Oh, I have mom's sonic blast." He said proudly.
"You're an EVO?" He narrowed his eyes.
"Yeah, Violeta and I are the first two EVO born children in the world." Rafael said. "Uncle Caesar keeps trying to perform tests on us."
"I can imagine." White mumbled.
"Uncle White?" Rafael interrupted his thoughts.
"What?" He asked abruptly.
"Do you think we're going to be okay?" He asked earnestly.
White wanted to tell him in his usual abrupt way the worse case scenario. Something, however, stopped him.
"We'll make sure you are." He said firmly.
The worry dissolved from Rafael's face. He gave him a smile. White turned around and wondered what was wrong with him. The door slid opened.
"Violeta!" Rafael jumped off the chair and ran to the group coming in.
Kenji dropped Violeta on the ground.
"Owww, you could have warned me." She rubbed her backside.
"You're heavy." Kenji stretched his back.
"That's because he's weak." Jade told Violeta.
Kenji glared at her. "Then you carry her next time."
"Uh, guys, Uncle White." Jasmine hissed motioning her head to the man standing aloofly to the side.
The two siblings watched White Knight apprehensively as he walked towards them.
Looking them up and down, he walked around them. After silently summing them up, he walked to his window. With his back to them, he spoke slowly.
"You two look like your parents but you certainly don't act like them."
Kenji and Jade stiffened. White turned around suddenly.
"Stop your petty bickering and start looking at the big picture. One of your parents' most cunning, deadly enemies is on the loose trying to change your future. You need to get your crap together and stop it!"
The siblings fell silent. Kenji and Jade knew he was right. They looked away embarrassed.
"Now, we need to decide our next step." White Knight continued, ignoring their discomfort.
"We should tell our parents what's going on." Rafael piped up.
"I agree, but should we reveal ourselves?" Jasmine asked. "There could be consequences."
"Dad sent us back to stop Zag-RS." Violeta said. "We should be the ones to tell them."
"Yeah, they know more about this time period and can help us." Jade agreed.
"But what if we tell them and something happens to irrevocably change our future." Kenji noted.
"I don't think we should tell them. It would freak them out." Angel was playing with the tape dispenser and had taped across his eyes. He walked into a wall, falling over. "Hey! I see stars."
"They… uh… they're having him tested…" Kenji said to White Knight.
White Knight merely harrumphed.
"Well, it's three for and three against." Jasmine said. Everyone looked at White Knight.
White Knight crossed his arms and looked sternly at the children before him.
"Is there any indication that showing yourself to your parents will cause a paradox?" White asked.
"I think the fact that we are here is already a paradox." Jasmine stated.
"Fine, fine. But do you think it would cause a paradox that would destroy the world?" White asked dismissively.
"I… I don't know. I can only speculate. The letter says we don't tell our parents and only you know." Jasmine stuttered reading the letter. "No wait. Now it says we do."
"Does the letter say what happens after we do?" Jade looked over Jasmine's shoulder.
Jasmine flipped to the last page. "Nothing! The writing has disappeared!"
"This is really weird." Kenji rubbed his temple.
White Knight paced the floor. "Do you remember what the original letter said?"
"Well, it said that we follow Zag-RS in the time machine at Niagara Falls. Intercept her before she gets to Providence and blow her up. Then we take the time machine home." Jasmine said recalling the letter.
"Wait! That's not how we got here. Zag-RS blew up the machine before we could take it." Kenji interjected.
"Yeah! Breach sent us here." Violeta said excitedly.
"Then the letter's writing is a reflection of that first deviation. That's why the letter keeps changing. It can only tell us the consequences that occurs after we have made our choices." Jasmine concluded. "Or tell us things that are occurring that will affect change."
"Ugh, then that's no help at all." Kenji grimaced.
White Knight watched them debate back and forth. Finally, the discussion subsided.
"Well? What have you decided?" White asked gruffly.
"We should tell them." Kenji decided.
"Are you sure?" Jasmine asked apprehensively.
"No." Kenji admitted. "But the positives outweigh the negatives right now."
"You've never seen mami freak out. Ahhhhh! " Angel said slowly peeling the the tape off his face.
Kenji ignored him. Turning to White, he asked, "Can you set up a meeting?"
"Why do you think I have so many buttons here?" White asked.
"And make sure it's just them. We should keep the people who know to a minimum." Kenji decided.
"Of course." White replied irritably. However, he was impressed with the young man's reasoning skills. It reminded him of Six. In fact, he looked like a spitting image of a young Six except with messier hair.
"Six, Rex, Dr. Holiday, Agent Circe, Dr. Salazar, and assistant." White Knight barked into the intercom. "Proceed immediately to the main conference room." He then pressed another button. "Captain Calan, please secure the main conference room. Make sure we are not disturbed."
"Yes sir." Calan's voice answered him.
"Okay, kids… it's show time." White told them. "Go outside and stand in the inner hallway. I'm going to sterilize the room now with a powerful magnet. Believe me. You don't want to be here." He eyed Violeta and Rex. "Especially you two."
"We know, we know." Violeta said impatiently. "We've been through this before." She pushed her brother toward the door.
White made sure the door was closed after them before running the cleaning protocol in the room. When the light turned green to indicate that all nanites had been cleared, he took off his suit. Hanging it up, he straightened his tie. Sitting down in front of his monitor, he waited.
0o0
"What does White Knight want?" Circe wondered out loud to Beverly.
"I don't know. But I wish he'd actually call me by name." Beverly complained. "I'm not just Dr. Salazar and assistant."
"Yeah." Circe agreed.
"Hey, ladies. Going my way?" Rex jogged over to them.
Circe rolled her eyes. "You know we are, Rex. We've all been called to a meeting with the almighty albino."
Beverly giggled and Rex chuckled.
"I'm sure the albino wouldn't bother calling us unless it was important." A curt voice made everyone jump.
They all guiltily stopped as Six walked past them brusquely. He held a katana in his hand.
"Six seems on edge." Beverly observed.
"Yeah, today's been weird…" Rex began.
"Are you coming?" Six's voice interrupted him.
"I'll tell you later." Rex hurried to catch up.
When they walked in, Holiday and Caesar were already there. Holiday smiled at Six who walked over to stand behind her chair. Beverly sat next to Caesar, who was fiddling with his tablet. Rex and Circe sat down together.
White's grim face appeared on the screen. "Sometimes life is unexpected. The future is not always set." He began.
"Uh, I thought this was a debriefing on our mission." Rex said confused.
"It is, if I may continue." White continued clearly annoyed at being disrupted. "A few hours ago, several… people entered Providence unauthorized…"
Everyone sat up. "Is everything alright?" Six asked.
"Yes, yes…The threat from them was benign. However, the news they carried was not." White reached over his console. As the metal door in the front rose to reveal six people, white smoke billowed from around them.
"Aww cool! A fog machine!" Rafael said excitedly. "We totally need to get one. We can make awesome entrances."
"It's not a fog machine! It's to push out unwanted nanites from the entrance… you know what? Just move into the room." White said impatiently.
The kids stepped into the room. Holiday and Beverly gasped. Six's eyebrows went up. Circe's mouth dropped. Rex rose in surprise. Only Caesar who was still fiddling with his tablet had no reaction.
"Um, hi… uh, we're… um… we're from the future and um…" Jasmine trailed off. There was no movement from the adults.
"I think we broke them." Angel said in a loud whisper to Rafael.
"Listen, mom, dad. Zag-RS is here and she's trying to eliminate you so that we were never born so she can take over the world in the future." Kenji jumped in.
There was still no reaction from the adults.
"Okay, this is getting creepy." Jade said. "Hello? Anyone there?" She waved a hand at them. "I think Angel was right. I think we did break them."
Violeta made her Boogie Pack. Turning her turbines at them, she blew wind in their faces.
"Hey! Cut that out!" Rex yelped.
"That did it." Violeta rescinded the machine.
"Who… who are you?" Rex gaped.
"I'm your daughter, Violeta." Violeta sprouted a pair of Smack Hands before reabsorbing them.
"I'm Rafael!" Rafael jumped up and down. "This is Jade and..."
"And that's Dopey, Sneezy, and Bashful." Jade snapped. "Introductions later. Look. Zag-RS is on the loose. She took over most of our world before we stopped her. She's now here to stop us by stopping you from having us before we could stop her."
"That's an awful lot of stops." Angel observed. Rafael nudged him to be quiet.
"You're… you're our children?" Beverly squeaked.
"Hi Mami!" Angel waved at her.
"Who's your father?" Beverly asked in a small voice.
"Papi? Over there." He pointed at the distracted scientist.
Caesar looked up finally. He saw the kids. "What did I miss?" He asked innocently.
"That's our son." Beverly said softly.
Caesar frowned. "That's impossible. We don't have a son."
"You will in the future." Rafael announced.
"Oh, I see." Caesar mumbled before passing out.
"Bro? Bro? Serious, bro. That's so cliché." Rex slapped his brother to get him up.
"I'm up, mijo. I'm up." Caesar said pushing his brother away. "I just had the strangest dream." He looked up to see Angel waving at him. "Madre de Dios." He said turning pale again.
Angel turned to Rafael. "I get that a lot."
Six stepped up. "Is this one of yours?" He held up the katana.
"It's mine." Jade said reluctantly.
"Who are you?" He pulled it away as Jade's hand came to get it.
"I think it's obvious who it is." White Knight answered wryly.
"How did you get this katana?" Six continued to interrogate her.
"You gave it to me… well, not at first. But eventually, you said your father would have wanted me to have it." Jade said.
Six turned his gaze on Jasmine. He noted that she flinched. "And you are her sister?"
"Her twin." Kenji answered for her.
"I was not talking to you." Six said sternly.
"Yes sir!" Kenji said automatically stiffening in attention.
Six studied the boy. It was obvious who they were. He just couldn't believe it. As he intensely scrutinized them, he felt a hand on his arm. He glanced over to see his wife. She had her hand over her mouth.
"Kenji?" She said in a soft voice. "Oh my…, Kenji? It is you."
"Yes, mom." Kenji said with deference.
"But how? Why?" She sounded bewildered.
"Mom, you… all of you, are in danger. Zag-RS is here. She traveled back… or rather her emissary traveled back to the past to get rid of you so that we can't be born." Kenji said. Holiday looked at all the kids who agreed in earnest.
She shook her head. "This is all too much."
"Mom, remember the theories of time travel. Breach has already shown that it could be done. What's so hard to believe that we've come from the future?" Jasmine asked logically.
"You're right. You're right." Holiday put a hand to her head. "It's just a little overwhelming to see…" She stopped. "Kenji? What's wrong?"
Kenji had doubled over in pain. "I don't know."
"You're fading!" Jade gasped.
"Fading means something is happening to one of you so that we'd be in danger of disappearing." Jasmine explained to the puzzled adults.
"How? Our parents are right here. They're not being attacked." Kenji sputtered.
"And we're not fading." Jasmine checked both her and Jade.
"It's like only Kenji is being targeted." Violeta observed.
"Baby Kenji!" Circe cried in alarm. "Kenji is here in the present."
Holiday looked at Six in shock. "You don't think…"
Six didn't even bother to answer. He bolted out of the room, katana still in hand, followed by everyone.