An Age of Valour

by the Lady of the Mists

Chapter Twenty-six: The Truth Comes Out

Lydia heard the words, but she didn't believe them. There was no way that she could have heard what she had thought she'd heard. It wasn't possible, wasn't even in the same area code as possible. Umbreon whined as he climbed up into his trainer's lap as she absently pet him, still staring at Mr. Turner, who was looking at her with an expression of pity.

Jesse, upon seeing her expression, walked around the table, squatting down next to her. "Lydia?" he asked gently. "You okay?"

"I'm not sure." She looked towards his father for a moment, sure that she had misunderstood him. "I'm sorry, can you repeat that, because I could have sworn that you just said that my uncle was my father. And that's pretty much an impossibility."

"No, it's not," Mr. Turner said, his tone gentle as he looked at her, to the way that his son placed his hands on her shoulders comfortingly. "Listen, I told you I wasn't the right person to tell you this—"

"Well, you'd better tell me how that's even possible, because you can't just drop a bomb like that and then not tell me why!" Lydia was shocked to hear her yelling at him. Apart from her father—or William—she had never raised her voice to an adult before. She usually respected her elders. "I'm sorry, Mr. Turner, but please just explain it to me, because I'm drawing up a blank on how this is possible."

Mr. Turner studied her for a long moment, then nodded. "When I first met your mother, Lydia," he said finally. "I was seventeen, a young trainer with only one thing on my mind and that was getting to the championships and becoming a master. Nothing else mattered. Rosemary was an exceptional fire trainer, one of the best that there was. Not only was she a gifted trainer, but she was also a very kind and compassionate woman. She had a way of seeing people as how they truly were and not how they portrayed themselves to the world. A gift that truly set her apart from others.

"It was at this same time that I met Jack. He, too, was a well-respected and talented trainer, but in his own way. Being psychic, he specialised in training psychics, but he always sought to help Pokémon that were in need, no matter what the type. Rosemary and Jack met at the same time I met them and whatever else I was back then, I was no fool. I could see how they cared for one another.

"What nobody foresaw was the interference of his brother. William was no trainer, didn't even respect Pokémon or even people who respected them. He was an arrogant, power-hungry young man who would stop at nothing to find his way in the world and didn't care who or what he would have to sacrifice to get it.

"Well, as you can imagine, that didn't sit too well with Jack. He wasn't going to let innocent people or Pokémon suffer and die because of his brother's ambition. So . . . he went to go stop his brother before he started his vendetta. William had already started gathering followers, trainers who saw Pokémon as nothing more as tools of war. They called themselves the Order of Obscurus. Jack asked all trainers that he could find to help him stop William. I may have been a hard-headed trainer back then who wouldn't stop at nothing to become a master, but that didn't mean that I didn't care about my Pokémon or any Pokémon in general. I joined up with Jack and helped him stop his brother. William was defeated and he fled, leaving his followers to pick up the pieces. Eventually, he became a well-respected businessman with good influence and started again. By that time, Jack had already gotten his own team together, trainers who joined with him to stop William and his band of traitors. I was with Jack and so was your mother. We called our team the Defenders of Justice.

"But of course, we hadn't simply been fighting William all that time. We all had our own lives to live, as we should have. And we did. Rosemary and Jack fell deeply in love and got married. They were barely married one month when Rosemary became pregnant."

Lydia had been staring at Mr. Turner the entire time with Jesse's hands on her shoulders, his tale sinking in, but now she spoke. "With me?" she asked, sure that she already knew the answer. And she was right as she saw him shake his head.

"Not exactly," he said softly, staring into his mug. "It wasn't just you, Lydia. There was another."

"Another?" Jennie echoed. "What do you mean, another?" She looked around at Lydia, who had a pensive look on her face. "I thought that you said that you didn't have any siblings."

"I assume she was never told, since she didn't even know about this," her father pointed out. "He was raised far away from here, in Kanto."

Lydia raised her head to look at Mr. Turner. "It's Hayden," she said, understanding filling through her. Partly, anyway. "Hayden's my brother."

Mr. Turner nodded once. "Hayden Talon," he answered quietly. "Firstborn child and only son of Jack and Rosemary Talon and your older brother, born two years before you were. Why Jack never told you any of this, never gave you any clue . . ." He sighed and shook his head. "Anyway, when Hayden was a year old, I left to go track down some of William's old followers who were causing trouble. That was when I met and fell in love Cecilia and when she became pregnant with you, Jess.

"She was beyond furious when she found out that I was a part of the Defenders, but she reluctantly accepted it as a part of who I was. When I returned with my wife, who was a few months pregnant by then, I found Rosemary with another child, this time a daughter." Lydia stared at him; she was younger than Jesse by a few months. How was that possible? "And by that time, she was already with child again. With you," he added.

"I have a sister?" Lydia whispered, shock reeling through her. "A brother and a sister?"

Mr. Turner nodded. "When you were born, William seized the opportunity to kidnap your sister Alison. She was barely a year old and your father was nearly destroyed with grief. But he tried his best to keep the family together while searching for your sister.

"Well, then William did an unexpected thing: he gave her location to his brother and Jack, overjoyed, left to go bring her home. Your mother was thrilled that you would finally get to meet your sister and that your brother would see her again. But unfortunately, that happy meeting was cut short. Jack was attacked and thrust into a coma during his rescue mission and then William came for your family.

"He took them to his secret base, not too far away from here, actually, and kept your mother, your brother, and you there. When he threatened your lives, your mother agreed to his consents. She turned over custody of you and Hayden to William. It was the last thing that she wanted to do, Lydia, but she would rather love you as another man's daughter than to have to mourn you as her child."

Lydia felt the tears running down her face as Jesse wrapped her arms around her, holding her tightly. "And Jack?" she asked quietly. "When did he wake up from his coma?"

"Right after she agreed to his consents," Mr. Turner answered softly. "And when William found out, he knew that his brother would be coming for him and would destroy him for what he did to his family, so he did what he could to protect himself."

"He killed my mother," Lydia whispered, the foul taste in her mouth. "Took me to Rosewaters Isle to raise as his own child, sent my brother away from here."

"When Jack found him, he pretty much fought William for everything he was worth," Mr. Turner sighed. "I think he would have killed his brother if the police hadn't arrived. It was a mistake on Jack's part; the police had seen enough to know that Jack wasn't in his right mind and he was put on a restraining order, to stay clear of both you and your brother until you were thirteen years of age."

It fit. As much as Lydia's mind tried to find a loophole, everything made some sort of twisted sense. Why her uncle had left without contacting her since she was three. Why she was able to write him as her contact without any problems. It was after the restriction had been lifted. And the argument . . . that was why he had left, because of what William had done to him and his family. Her brother, sent away to Kanto, which was why she didn't know about him. And her sister . . . her sister . . .

"What about my sister?" she asked. "What about Alison? Did anybody ever find her? Did Jack find her before he was attacked?"

Mr. Turner looked at her with some pity in his eyes. "No," he said quietly. "No, no one ever did. She was presumed dead years ago, but nobody ever found the body. Jack gave up on finding her after he lost you and your brother. He became a broken man, until William started gathering his troops again. That was when he called in the old crowd. The war's starting up again, kids," he said with a sigh. "And I hope you three aren't around here when it hits."

--

Lydia sat outside the Turner house that night, Umbreon right next to her with his head in his trainer's lap as Jesse came outside, carrying two cups of hot chocolate. She looked up at him as he handed her one before sitting down next to her, taking a sip of his own mug. Slowly drinking her own, Lydia was silent for a long moment before she spoke.

"Thank you."

Jesse glanced at her sideways. "For what?" he asked, giving her a small wry smile. "For not telling you things that you already know? For not saying that it's all going to be okay when it isn't? For not—" He shook his head. "What good would it do saying anything about this? Everything that I could say, you already know."

With a small nod, Lydia looked at him. "He's wrong, you know," she said quietly. "William's not just going to leave me alone. Whether Jack or your dad or anybody else wants it, we're gonna be involved in this war, whether we want to or not. I've got the feeling we're not going to have much of a choice in the matter." She sighed.

"We've always got a choice," Jesse said quietly. "And my choice is this: no matter what you choose, I'm going to be behind you. You're my best friend, Lydia, and you always will be. Nobody is ever going to compare to you." He smiled as he wrapped his arm around her. "You're cold."

"Yeah, well, it's a chilly night," Lydia replied as she leaned into his embrace, staring out into the night. She sighed as she gazed up at the stars. "It seems like such a long time ago that I was back at Rosewaters Isle and the most important thing on my mind was finding out how I could become a trainer without my father's permission."

"My main priority was escaping from that jailhouse of a Pokémon school," Jesse mused. "That was over a year ago; it does feel like a long time." Lydia shook her head as Jesse grinned. "You know, I don't know if I ever thanked you for calling Jennie. If you hadn't . . . I wouldn't have gotten my sister back."

Lydia nodded silently. "I'm starting to think I finally understand what that feels like," she whispered, thinking of Alison, the sister she'd never even met, and of Hayden, the brother who was trying so hard to protect her. "I hope Jamie understands how much you love her one day."

"Me, too," Jesse agreed as he looked sideways at her. "You think that your sister might still be alive?"

"Hey, I'm supposed to be the psychic, not you."

"That wasn't me being psychic, that was me knowing you," Jesse said, mimicking her from earlier that day. She smiled faintly and he set his mug down next to him on the steps. "If you want me to say it, then fine, I'll say it: there's a possibility that she's alive, Lydia, yeah, but sometimes maybe it's better to cling to the fantasy of what might have been instead of ruining everything with reality."

"But what if she's going through unimaginable torture or something?" Lydia challenged. "William sent his nephew to an orphanage and raised his niece thinking that he was her father, never telling her about her brother or sister and not bothering to mention that he wasn't her father or that he'd murdered her mother. Who knows what he could be doing to her?"

"Who knows that he is?" Jesse looked at her with a careful look on his face. "Look, Lydia, you know that I understand this whole 'wanting to save your family thing' better than anybody. Except maybe Jennie. But going on a fixed mission trying to find a sister that may or may not be alive and who may or may not want to be rescued is no way to live your life. We'll keep our ears and eyes open, but wherever she is, if she's alive, she may not want to be found. She could be trying to keep herself safe. And anyway, you're forgetting something."

"What's that?"

"You've got a brother who may hold all of the answers out there." Jesse inclined his head towards the dark town. "Why don't you go talk to him?"

Lydia smiled as she saw the silhouette of Hayden in the distance. "Sure that's a good idea?" she asked.

"Hey, I don't like the guy, but that doesn't mean that he may not know something that could make you happy. Besides, he's your brother."

This thought obviously pleased him, knowing that Hayden was related to her, though she couldn't imagine why. "Boys," she sighed as she stood up, setting the cup of hot chocolate on the porch as she pulled her jacket on all the way instead of just sitting on her shoulders. "So . . . how about we get up early tomorrow and go to the gym? You up for it?"

"I'm ready and my team's psyched to go up against the ghost boy," Jesse said with a grin, "especially Gastly. I think he would love to prove to the leader how good a trainer he's got. But I'm a little worried about you. You've had a rough day and honestly, I'm not sure that you're emotionally ready for a gym battle, Lydia."

Giving him a smile, Lydia placed her hands on her hips as she turned to look at him, light brown hair falling into her blue eyes. "Trust me, Jess," she said sweetly, "I have never been more ready for anything in my entire life."

Jesse looked like he was going to protest further, but upon seeing the look in her eyes, he didn't. "You know," he said instead, "I really think that you might be." He glanced towards where Hayden was watching them. "Don't be too long, okay, if we're going to the gym tomorrow. We're gonna need some sleep if we're going to be battling for badges."

"I won't be." Lydia smiled at him. "Go on, I won't be long."

"I'll tell Dad to leave it open for you," Jesse said as he took her mug and headed into the house.

Lydia smiled faintly as she climbed off the porch, heading into the night as Hayden came fully into view, leaning against the tree. "Hey," she said conversationally as she folded her arms across her chest.

"Hey," he replied.

Just as he was about to continue, she cut across him. "So got something you want to tell me?" she asked, giving him a flat smile. "Brother?"