Chapter 2

Re-Living The Past

The boys had been doing well so far, the increase in the total income for number 14 Altru Park-Views had really enabled them to make the apartment much nicer and now they were living well. They had switched to a bigger apartment and amusingly, they had a sports car for transport since they had been assigned to work as a team. A sapphire blue McLaren 12C Spider with a specially modified engine which could recharge their stylers. Luckily they had bought it after taking the driving tests because Keith had crashed the test car into the office.

"There's an incoming call on the landline." Yelled Kellyn as he cooked sausages for breakfast, "Somebody pick it up." Keith groaned as he fell of the couch and woke up.

"What the hell happened last night? And why is there and ice bag on the floor?" groaned Keith as he headed for the phone.

"We held a ranger party last night, and since everybody knows that Wendy and Sven are dating, you tried to capture them around midnight to force them so close that they would have to kiss, and you succeeded, but you got distracted by that and you hit yourself in between your eyes and knocked yourself out for the night." Replied Alfa as he came down the stairs from the bedroom corridor.

"Guys that was the professor. He wants us down at the union ASAP, so let's eat and scram." Relayed Keith as he placed the phone in its holder. Eating a quick breakfast, they got into their customized uniforms. Keith was wearing a top ranger uniform without a jacket, and a line of capture discs down his left leg. The only difference in Kellyn's uniform was that his jacket was black and his shirt was white. Alfa had a sapphire blue V-neck T-Shirt and black jeans with white sneaker. Half covered by his sleeves he had two long strips of cloth, the same shade as his shirt which were wrapped around his arms from above his elbows to a little bit before his shoulders. They raced down with they're stylers and got into the car, Alfa driving, Kellyn charging their stylers in turn from a dock.

"Alfa, you know, you look exactly like the leader of the sinis trio, Ice. The only difference between the two of you is that his eyes were ice-blue. Yours are sapphire blue, otherwise you could have been twins." Mentioned Kellyn.

"Well, you know what they say, we all have a twin out there." Remarked Keith.

"Keith, that's the first sensible thing you've said since the day we graduated!" exclaimed Alfa as he drifted the turn from Union road to the ramp up to the Union's parking space.

"The professor is waiting for you three on the third floor with Chairperson Erma." Said the receptionist as the boys rushed past her to the third floor.

"Boys, you're here. Good, good, now we can get started. It seems that sinis trio leader Ice has finally been spotted. Somebody supposedly saw Alfa pitching a tent after coming out of a nearby McDonalds at one of the rest stops on the highway to Snowbelle city in Kalos last night. Then they remembered that Alfa was on duty in Almia and realized whom they had spotted and sent in a report. Apparently, Ice doesn't use a miniremo anymore but is actually befriending Pokémon and doing things the right way. He was seen talking to a large bird Pokémon before it flew into the sky and caused a blizzard obscuring his tent from view. Alfa, I'm sending you to Snowbelle city alone to keep an eye on him since we need four rangers here and Wendy back from vacation as of today. You are to pack your bags and depart immediately. Since you have never been to Kalos before, you can't fly there, so drive there. I happen to know that you drive very well." Stated the professor.

"But, how do you know and judge that I drive well?" asked Alfa with a confused expression on his face.

"Well dear," began Chairperson Erma with a suppressed smile, "We have security footage of you drifting the union turning at full speed successfully every morning. Everybody else who comes to work in a car or comes for other reasons in a car, has to slow down and back up. So get going, and stay safe."

"Yes ma'am," replied Alfa as he headed for the parking lot. "See you in a couple of days' time guys."

Five hours later, Alfa was cruising along the highway on his way to Kalos, Latios following him overhead. He was soon near the McDonalds where Ice was supposedly spotted. He pulled over and went to the back to examine the tracks and marks where Ice's tent would have been. Sure enough there were four peg marks, a few pairs of Pokémon tracks and a set of human footprints leading to the edge of the snow in the direction of Snowbelle city. He activated his own S-Lens as Kellyn had officially named his scope lens model, two more of which had been made for Keith and Alfa, the lens on Alfa's being blue.

"Articuno tracks!" Alfa said to himself, "Wow, Ice must really have fixed his ways to have befriended an Articuno!" He hurried back to the car and got back on the road, talking to Latios by telepathy.

'Latios, what do you make of this." Alfa thought.

"Well, from what the Keith and Kellyn's Pokémon told me, he seems to have been a pretty messed up guy, using his arrogant manner to hide the fact that his heart wasn't into using Pokémon as slaves. Apparently he seemed to be at war with himself mentally in the last few moments of Team Dim Sun's existence." Latios replied in a thoughtful manner, "I would say he was forced to do this either out of relation to Blake hall, or lack of money and other substances required for survival, from his looks and the way he behaved though, I'm going to go with the second one."

"Well, we'll find out soon enough." Remarked Alfa as his Styler notified him of an incoming call from the union. Alfa clicked the styler's receive button and put it on speaker.

"Hello? Alfa, have you found anything?" came Rythmi and operator's voice.

"This is Alfa, and yes I've found something quite intriguing. Ice seems to have fixed his ways enough to have befriended an Articuno, which presumably created the blizzard for him. He left tracks in the snow though, and he's definitely headed to Snowbelle. I'll report back later, I've just reached the end of the highway. I'm pulling in to the toll booth now. Alfa out." Reported Alfa over the ranger network's communication system.

Half an hour later, Alfa had checked into a hotel and had parked the car and was roaming the streets with Latios when he saw himself walking across the streets, or rather, he saw Ice.

"Ice, stop, I'm not going to arrest you." Said Alfa as he ran across the streets to where Ice had stopped in his tracks. All of a sudden, a cascade of snow struck the duo from between the trees on the hill next to them and they were left unconscious on the floor.

Alfa got up and saw himself in the mirror. He was around 7 years old. He glanced over at the calendar, it had been his birthday the day before. He glanced over at the next bed. There he was, lying down, no wait, that wasn't him, that was another boy who looked just like him. Suddenly, the other boy woke up and Alfa's point of view changed. Instead of looking out of the eyes of his seven year old form, he was looking down on the twins. They looked at each other and nodded, running out to the forest behind the house. Alfa's vision followed them. They ran out past the people sitting on the benches by the Snowbelle woods and they started looking for Zoroark claw marks in the trees. Whenever they found one, they would drop a little water on it and watch as black inky fluid streamed into a bottle they kept ready.

"Ice, we have enough!" exclaimed Alfa, "Come over here!"

"Finally! We've been collecting it for weeks." Replied the young twin, Ice, as he ran over. The boys examined the full bottle for a bit , before pulling out two ink pens made of carved ice with metal nibs, which they filled with the black liquid, Zoroark's ink, which couldn't ever be erased, emptying the bottle of it. Then, turn by turn, they etched each other names on their arm in calligraphic writing for each other. Well that explained the irremovable 'Alfa' on his left forearm.

Soon, a little girl of about three came out and ran to the boys saying happily, who started playing with her. Sicilia, their younger sister, she was living with Alfa's parent in Oblivia, but seeing this memory, Alfa was beginning to doubt that they were his real parents.

The kids' parent came out and sat with the kids for a while before telling to come in for dinner, before an avalanche struck them. It was a terrible sight, the moment his parent came out, Alfa's point of view changed back to his own seven year old self's point of view. He saw the snow and ice rushing towards them, and then…. Nothing.

Alfa woke up with a shock. He realized that he had been unconscious. He processed the memory realizing that Ice was his twin brother, his last name wasn't actually Hyrax, and that his parents weren't his actual parents.

Ice had woken up two and judging by his expression, he had probably seen the same memory brought about by the sight of an avalanche in the same place. Alfa unwrapped his left arm from the sapphire cloth and raised it. Ice removed his jacket and raised his arm as well. At that moment an old woman came in followed by Latios and Articuno.

"I see you two are awake. Do you remember me?"

"Yes you're Mrs. Frostover." Replied Ice.

"I take it then that the avalanche that knocked you two out has brought back some old memories." She noted.

"Mrs. Frostover, if I may, what happened after the avalanche, I just remember waking up after that in a hospital in Oblivia with my parent saying I had fallen off of Latios with Sicilia and Latios had crashed into a wall because of a wild Pokémon and we had slight memory losses." Asked Alfa.

"After the avalanche, diggers were sent to try to recover you, but only your parents had departed from this world and Ice was missing. You and Sicilia were unconscious and were suffering from such severe amnesia that even your arm marking could not remind you of your past and you two were in such a delicate condition that the shock of losing your parents could have killed you. We out a sign about the search for someone for adopting you, and the Hyraxes were in town on vacation, and decided to adopt you two, and were instructed by the doctor never to tell you about your past. But now you have unearthed it by chance. And by chance as well, it was that I saw Blake Hall have his men carry Ice away as he stumbled upon your unconscious form that day. He adopted you Ice." Finished old Mrs. Frostover, "Oh and by the way, you met Latios here not in Oblivia, I'll write about that to you later."

"Yes, I remember being raised by Mr. Hall along with Lavana and Heath. He told us we had been adopted. He always made us keep close a locket each and never look inside it, and we never questioned him. The day after operation Brighton, I opened it and found a dark shard in it. I discarded it immediately and I dug through my drawers before I left to see if I had any fragment of the blue gems to cure my heart. Deep in my things, in a small compartment, I found this." He raised his left arm as he spoke, showing a sort of arm bracer. It was made of thin silver and there were three flat rod along the length of his arm, all three next to each other which were bound by a band of silver near his elbow, the three bands converging into a perfectly cut shard of the blue gem.

Alfa raised his own arm, where there was an identical one.

"We are brothers. Now that we know that you're innocent for sure, let's go back to the union and prove your innocence to them." Said Alfa.

"Yes, let's." answered Ice.

"Get your stuff and get Articuno and we'll go in the car." Said Alfa before he turned to the Pokémon, "You guys hear that right, we're brothers, which means you guys are to be friends now, and Ice is innocent Latios, and solet's go!"

The Next Day, At Ranger Union HQ

"So Alfa, I take it that the only reason that you're allowing Ice to roam freely about while we have this discussion is that you had a concussion in Snowbelle city and you now remember your past, and that Ice was only working for Team Dim Sun because a dark shard Blake made him keep with him at all times but now the effects have been worn out by an arm bracer identical to your with a shard of the blue gem in it?" asked Professor Hastings.

"Yes, that's pretty much the entire story. And I plan on telling Sicilia on her 14th birthday and buying a place for the three of us to live together. And apparently I didn't meet Latios in Oblivia either. Let me read Mrs. Frostover's letter about that out loud, if I may";

'Alfa, you met Latios when you were but five years old. It was as young as you then. You found it under a net it the forest, some trappers had caught and had left it there so they could have their lunch. You removed the net and befriended Latios. It was on the same day that Ice encountered Articuno on the other side of the Forest in the same predicament. However, that Articuno was guarding a chamber which contained god knows what and had to leave Ice for that reason, but when Ice encountered it again, it's time guarding the chamber was done and it stayed with him. Oh and you might be interested to know that you and Ice were born when your parents were visiting Almia Castle, that is your birthplace.'

"Well, we must trust in our rangers and that we do. Ice is a free citizen." Said Chairperson Erma.

"Thank you, I'll be here tomorrow for duty, Ice can stay with me, now we have a fourth room." Replied Alfa, before he left to find Ice. The Snowbelle twins were re-united, and nothing would separate them this time.