Eventually the doors were locked, and the plane started to taxi to the runway, albeit very slowly. Latias was fully engrossed by the pretty flight attendant, who was demonstrating the correct use of a seat belt. While the hostess was bored to the point of cynicism, Latias was intrigued into all the workings of the belt.
"This belt works like any other seat belt, and if you struggle to operate it, you probably shouldn't be in public on your own."
Latias thought that was a bit mean, she'd never used a belt before, and she was on the other side of the world right now! But on the other hand, the girl looked like she'd said the same lines over and over and it wasn't like the upstairs was exactly packed. Latias had counted 20 people, even the though the upstairs was designed for two hundred. Latias guessed she was allowed to be a little sarcastic.
"If you are one of those people, the following guide may assist in buckling, tightening and unbuckling the belt. Please have your crayons ready should you wish to take notes."
Mac watched as Latias face visibly lit up when she realised someone was actually going to tell her how to use the belt. He chuckled. She WAS just like a small child.
"Pick up the belt with each half in one hand. Place the metal tab on your right into the holder on your left. Push the two together until you hear a click, like so." The girl demonstrated with a detached belt of her own, and Latias copied, mirroring the moves as well as she could. When it clicked, her grin widened. Easy. She'd never needed a belt before, and probably never would again, but learning this simple thing left her happy. If she was in her normal form, she would have probably laughed at the simplicity, after celebrating completing the task with an air-roll or something. Then Latios would calm her down, all the while trying to imitate the clicking noise of the belt...that would have been nice...to learn it with him...
"To adjust, pull the strap on your right until the belt is tight enough to restrict unintentional movement but not so that it restricts breathing or blood flow."
Again, Latias copied. But this time, she didn't quite manage, and over tightened the belt. Worst of all, she'd left one hand underneath the belt, so only her right arm was free to undo it. Which did not appear to be as simple as doing it up did. There was the word 'Open' stamped on it, but pressing that did nothing. With her free hand she wiggled Mac's shoulder to get his attention before pointing at the belt buckle.
Mac rolled his eyes and helped Latias with the belt, pulling the buckle open and freeing her. She showed her thanks by rubbing her head against his shoulder, a gesture that seemed effective in both forms. That's not to say it looked normal in her human form.
After the safety talk - and Latias being distracted by the shiny belt and yellow demonstration life jacket multiple times - the hostess sat down in her seat and a voice appeared in the cabin from speakers in the ceiling.
While everyone else let their eyes wander during the announcement, Latias was looking everywhere for the source of the sound, eventually staring up at the speaker in the roof above her.
"This is your captain speaking. We've just been cleared for takeoff and should be in the air in about five minutes, which is a first at this place. I think they're having trouble with the passport systems, though, so we've been messed around a bit with the crew. With you today is a measly crew of eight hostesses, Plus me, Sev, and your co-pilot, Gaz, to make all of your hundred forty journeys as pleasant as possible. Please double check you have your seat belt tightened and your luggage stowed, and any electronics in flight mode for the duration of the flight, and off during takeoff. Weather for the destination isn't great I'm afraid, crosswinds and light smattering of rain, though that'll probably clear up by the time we get there. I'd like to thank you all for flying with us, I hope you enjoy the flight." with a 'click', the message ended.
Mac turned to grin at Latias and she smiled back. They'd done it! They'd actually done it! Nothing could stop them now! If Mac was jubilant, Latias was in a state of absolute pleasure.
Home...she was finally going to get there. Think of all the stories she could tell Latios about! And Bianca would be amazed!
Mac rested his hands on the arms of his chair and lent back against his seat, ready for the blast of g-force as the plane would accelerate from about 30 to 300 miles an hour in under a mile and a half of runway. Latias realised it would probably be a good idea to copy.
He turned his head to the right, past Latias, in time to see the fan blades of the jet engines on the wing start to rotate faster, as a whine started to fill the aircraft. A few seconds later, a rumbling noise started to fade in as the wheels thundered down the runway. Latias would probably freak out, but Mac paused and had the one last moment to himself. For once, he wasn't looking at the jet engine, or any of the aircraft's neat technology. He was looking at the horizon, with the green grass extending a short way before the London skyline started to peek over some low buildings, black shadows on a red skyline.
All he'd ever done, everything he'd ever achieved, almost every place he'd ever been, everyone he'd ever met, friends, family, co-workers, associates, trolley ladies...all of them were on this island, Great Britain, this same rock he was staring at right now, starting to whiz past the window. The speed was alarming. Not just the immediate speed of the airplane, but the speed of which he was giving up all of his life. To help Latias get home. To start a new life in a place that seemed...impossible. That wasn't quite the word Mac wanted to use. He'd use magical, except that seemed too far fetched. Even if it wasn't.
Either way, he was taking his last look at the life he knew. It was saddening, to an extent. He was essentially scrapping the past eighteen years of his life. All those years in school meant nothing, all those friendly relationships. He doubted 'Hoenn' would accept a BTEC in Spanish from a place that they didn't even think existed. And there wouldn't be any going back to meet any of his friends.
As Mac was taking his last look at his homeland, Latias was sat in her seat, starting to get worried. Her body was telling her she was accelerating fast, but she wasn't flying anywhere. And the noise was getting scary. And the airplane looked heavy. If it hit something at this speed, a seat belt wouldn't stop her organs from disintegrating against her insides. And the cabin was very cramped. Even if she had time to, finding space to transform would be difficult. The toilet was cramped enough as it was.
The pitch of the engines changed noticeably and Latias felt her body get pushed against the seat. In a blast of panic, she grabbed the nearest stable object and did what she always did when she was scared, which was to force her head into said object as hard as possible.
In her dragon form, this would have worked better. But unfortunately, as Mac was about to discover, the human face is rather flat, unlike the dragon face, which is sloped.
Instead of Latias wedging her head under Mac's arm, He felt a force starting to push his arm off the seat.
"You okay?"
A tiny voice responded in his head, but Latias didn't lift her head from his arm. "No. Too loud. Very fast. Danger. Want to go home. Scary. Want Latios. "
Mac realised just how spooked the takeoff was making Latias, but he had to keep her calm. They were seconds from actual lift off, so he did what he thought would work best, which was move his arm to allow Latias to tuck her head under it, which she did, before moving the arm back, pressing it on her ears to dampen the noise.
Latias liked this. It was quieter. And although he didn't look it, Mac was strong enough to make her feel secure. Not as comforting as Latios was, not by a long way. But safer.
A few seconds later, the rumbling noise stopped and the ride felt smoother.
With a roar, the last wheel of the landing gear on the airplane left the tarmac and the Airbus thundered into the sky, just another blip on the radar to be managed and filtered though international airspace.
The seat belt light blinked off, but neither Latias or Mac removed them. Mac because there wasn't a need to, Latias because she wasn't aware she was allowed to. And because she still wasn't 100 percent sure how the belt worked, really.
The moment the light went off, Mac grabbed his bag and pulled out his laptop and a large black box with a variety of antennas on the top. The device ran off batteries, so Mac just pressed a few buttons on the side and dropped it back in the bag.
The box let Mac get online anywhere in the world via a satellite relay. It spoke to his phone and laptop via a special frequency designated specifically not to interfere with aircraft. It wasn't a commercial product, he'd made the last bit himself. But it'd been certified, so all he did when someone asked what he was doing was point to the sticker on the side.
Mac unfolded the laptop and tapped on a few buttons while Latias stared out of the window at the darkening world below her.
Whatever place she was leaving, it wasn't anything like Alto Mare. There were no canals, the buildings were - mostly - smaller, and the people were a lot more...violent. Only one person had tried shooting her in Alto Mare, and that was a one off. Admittedly it resulted in her being kidnapped, but...
She was glad she was leaving.
"Latias?" Mac suddenly asked her, snapping her out of her trance. She turned to look at him, and saw that he had the laptop half-open, looking a inquisitively at her. Like the response to his question was required for the laptop to work, or something else of use.
He took her turning her head as a need to continue.
"Where exactly are you from? I know WHERE, but how exactly did the military manage to kidnap you?"
Latias blinked. Odd time for a question like that, but a question nonetheless. Although she didn't really want to relive the answer. "It's a bit of a long story."
"Well then give me the short version. How did the military manage to catch you and put you in that facility?"
"You keep calling them the military. They aren't, they're a group of pokemon thieves we call 'Team Rocket'."
"But it wasn't! It was the government of the country I lived in!"
"Well, whoever they were, I was eating in the garden with my friends and the next thing I knew they'd got me in the spider-like thing. I don't like spiders." Latias paused to shudder at the memory.
"And then you ended up in England?" Mac's tone made it obvious that he knew bits were missing.
"Don't interrupt! So the spider thing managed to cage me."
"Cage you?! How? Couldn't you just fly away?"
"STOP INTERRUPTING! And no, because I was trying to move Latios because team Rocket had poisoned him. Anyway, so this woman shot me with this dart thingy and everything went wobbly. I can remember a helicopter though."
"I see."
"And then can't remember anything until I woke up in the same place you rescued me from. I was in the same cage and everything"
Mac waited for her to say more, but clearly she's shortened the story too much and that was all there was to say. He tried to dig deeper.
"Hmm... So, If you don't mind me asking, what did they do to you there?"
"Well...nothing, really. There weren't any other pokemon that I could smell. The food they gave me was horrible and the cage was only just big enough for my wings. But if your thinking about doing tests or measuring or stuff, nothing. I tried escaping twice, but the cage shocked me and turned cold, so I had to stop. What took you so long to rescue me anyway?"
Mac looked offended.
"Hey! I didn't even know you existed until last night! I didn't plan on any sort of rescue thing!"
"Oh..." Latias changed her appearance to look downcast. Mac decided to apologise.
"Sorry, it's just, this whole 'pokemon' thing is completely bizzare. I'd planned for a breaking-and-entering, not a full scale seek-and-return. I'd actually broken in to see what was there and possibly nick some of it. But now your here, I'm glad I've found you. I can't wait to see what your home looks like, it'll certainly be better than a place where people are trying to kill me!"
Latias nodded.
"It is! Sunny, lots of water, the people are friendly. I don't want to tell you any more and ruin it for you."
Mac nodded and leaned back in his seat. It looked like he was about to type out a book, but his hands stayed off the keyboard as he asked another question.
"So. I know you're a dragon, like, but...what exactly are you? Where did you come from? Originally, of course. You didn't just pop into existence". The voice was inquisitive.
Silently, in her thoughts, Latias wished SHE knew the answer.
"It's a very long story." Latias psychiced into Mac's head. It was a long story. She was nearly one hundred years old, and a lot of stuff had happened in that time.
"Well, we've got nine hours of sitting down. I think there's time. I could do with a story." He verbally replied with a smile.
Latias thought for a moment. What Mac wanted was a distraction from what was happening now, which is why he asked her such a complex question. He didn't want to think about all the stuff he was leaving.
Suddenly, an idea cropped into her head that would make Mac forget all about his current situation. Something that would blow his mind. Literally.
"How about I show you?" She quizzed him, adding a mystical tone to the thought.
"Show me? Don't tell me you've got pictures!"
"No. I can show you in your mind. Like a dream."
Mac's face faltered, trying to digest what she was 'saying'. She could alter his dreams?
"Wouldn't I need to be asleep?"
"Well kind of. But that's part of the whole thing. I make you sleep." She wasn't going to sight-share. That was boring. If she could put him into a lucid dreaming state, well, he'd forget all of his troubles.
Mac was curious and worried at the same time. What if he ended up in a coma? Then again, he'd done a lot of dangerous things in the past day, so perhaps a sleep was deserved.
"Well..okay then. If it's safe...what do I do?"
"Just sit back. And relax..."
As soon as the psychic message ended, his vision began to dim around the edges, and his back started to slump against the seat.
"Don't panic...you're fine... ". The pleasant voice appeared in his consciousness as clear as day, as his surroundings started to blur, become muffled and defocus. The whine of the jet engines on the airplane dulled, like it was becoming surrounded with pillows, until it faded away to nothing. Far off, he felt the sensation of the laptop sliding off his lap, but all his muscles had gone limp, and he couldn't really seem bothered to try and even move his legs out of the way. This trance-state was just...blissful.
Reality had faded over completely, replaced with an utterly blank entity, void of everything. Mac couldn't feel his body, not anything. The only sense that seemed to be responding was hearing, and he could hear Latias cooing. Not in the seat next to him, that was long gone with the rest of the airplane. He could hear her projecting her coos into his head. The weird bit was that he could understand them. Not translate. But understand. As he was a native speaker and he had spoken lati his entire life.
"Are you okay?" Latias asked him in the dreamworld. "You can speak?"
Mac tried speaking. "Err...yeah. Yeah. I can speak. Can you hear?" His 'voice' was in English. But that made him think, and he couldn't help but ask Latias.
"What do we look like to the people on the plane? And who's brain is this in?"
"We look like we're asleep. And I'm figuring this out in my brain, and then just telling yours what it needs to know. You can make the rest of this world up. Try it. Think of somewhere."
Mac thought, hard. Around him, parts of the place he was thinking about started to fade into the unreal reality.
"Can you see this?" He asked.
"If I want. This is your mind space, I can just drop in on it."
"So can I..." The disembodied Latias voice cut him off.
"No. You can't look at my mind space. It's too complex. This kind of thing is one way. I can send thoughts for you to look at, and I can peek at yours without you sending them, but you can't send yours or peek at mine. You have to be psychic to do that."
Mac was still overwhelmed. His dream body was looking around the living room at his house, wondering that if his brain was capable of reconstructing this room, what humans were missing out on by way of entertainment systems? If this dragon could make him think things and have them appear in his head...well...
Fibre optic broadband seemed a lot less impressive all of a sudden.
"Well...whenever you're ready, I can show you my memory." the disembodied lati voice coo'd. Mac wanted to try one last thing. He thought of Latias and her dragon form appeared infront of him in the faux living room. The voice seemed less disembodied once Mac thought about associating it in his head.
Latias saw this and was impressed. Most humans generally did nothing for the first few minutes, awed by the surroundings. But Mac had immediately started recalling places, moving around, and even associating psychic stimulus.
"Cool." He said, leaning forward to pat the imaginary Latias on the head. Which made it make cooing noises and happy faces, exactly as Mac expected it/her to. Because, of course, anything he expected would happen. It was his 'dream' after all. Even his sub-conscious was manipulating the environment.
"Sorry. I wanted to see if that would work." Mac apologised to the waiting Latias. She shrugged it off, but made the vision of herself in Mac's brain disintegrate, just to help him focus.
"No problem. Anyway, you wanted to know where I came from?"
"Yeah. Go for it."
The dreamscape faded and morphed, like Mac was being twisted from one place to another. The place he was stepping into was colder and smelled like freshly cut grass.
Latias had taken him to the garden. Not how she'd seen it at the time, but from his own perspective, with the garden fully recreated from more recent memories.
Mac looked around. On the floor, two paces ahead, were two dragons. One was like Latias, just a lot smaller. A quarter of her current size, easily.
She was curled up, head hidden under her wing, next to another dragon that looked exactly like her, but blue. So the blue one was her brother? Either way, he was curled up with his head under his wing, exactly the same as Latias.
Mac could see various white/yellowy fragments on the ground, like a plate had been smashed on the ground and spread out around the sleeping pair.
"Pick one up!" Latias voice - which was still inside Mac's head - urged.
Mac went over to the closest piece and picked it up. Obviously, he didn't 'actually' pick it up. He thought about looking at it and it appeared in front of him.
It was very thin, less than a millimetre, and looked really fragile, like an egg shell. The colour and texture was like an egg too, with a smooth inside and a rougher outside.
The 'outside' of this 'shell' was patterned too - a slightly yellow tinted colour with a red corner at the edge where it looked like a hollowed out red triangle pattern had been, but it was broken and the full picture wasn't clear.
"This feels like an egg!" Mac said outloud, to the dream world. Latias replied in his head, her coo sounding like it was her version of whispering.
"That's because it is..."
Mac paused, thinking long and hard about what Latias had just projected.
"You...this is when you were born?"
"Hatched. Most pokemon come from eggs, my brother and I included."
"But the shell is broken. Shouldn't you be inside it?"
"Er...how would I have remembered that bit?"
"Oh yeah. Sorry. So what happened next?"
"Watch."
Mac watched the two twins as Latias started recalling the memory. She'd only remembered a few things from the time, but what she didn't know then she'd put in later. So right now Mac could go around the entirety of the garden, even though Latias could only remember a tree and a lake from the original memory.
She had, however, remembered everything that she and Latios had said. Tried to say.
The Latias on the grass started to stir, it's wings twitching and fins on the back suddenly extending out. Next, the neck started to straighten out, untucking the head from the wing. She'd kept her eyes closed though for a few more seconds afterwards though. Eventually, they opened, the left one first, followed closely by the second.
The fist few noises she made were nonsense, random garbled half-coos. In a fit of panic, Latias ducked her head back under her wing.
As Latias started to whimper underneath her own wing, the blue dragon also started to stir, possibly woken by the noise.
He woke up in much the same way as Latias, except when he removed his head from under his wing, his eyes were open. The same string of unintelligible cooing noises that Latias made were repeated as Latios tried to use his vocal chords. His reaction to not being able to speak was different though. Instead of panicking, he gave up with speech and looked around at the surroundings.
Mac moved around for a closer look as Latios inspected himself, nudging his wings with his snout and watching the surprised look on his face when he felt a touch sensation in them.
With a jerk movement, the wing Latios nudged, moved. He raised an eye and looked surprised, as the thought transposed itself across into Mac's mind.
"I have wings?"
At this point, Mac somehow managed to interrupt the memory, making it jarr and grind to a halt.
"Latias, how come I know what Latios is doing? And thinking? I thought this was your memory? How can I even understand you now, you're only cooing?" - All very good questions in Mac's opinion.
The Latias in his head made a grunting noise.
"Well, me and my brother both watched each other's memories - like your doing now - so we both know what the other was doing. And you can understand me because thoughts are actually just 'notions' with a language attached. Me and you can think the same thing and we'll have the same 'notion', just different 'thoughts' since my notion is in lati and yours is in English. So this whole memory, the scenery and everything, is just a notion. I think of it, and send it to you, and your brain takes it and makes it a thought by attaching language. I can think of that tall tree and it be just a notion, but it won't make sense to you until you attach the English language to it."
"Okay. I get that...I think." There was a pause.
"So this is just after you and Latios hatched?"
"Yes."
"So you're twins?"
"Most likely."
"Right. Carry on."
The memory resumed.
Latios looked inquisitively at his other wing, and, after a look of concentration, moved it up and down, tracking it with his eyes as the limb moved up and down in response to a newly created neural pathway. Think this, and that moves.
Mac jumped as Latios suddenly and unexpectedly raised his neck all the way up, but kept his body on the ground. By the look of his head, Mac could see that Latios was sniffing the air, angling his snout to get the best scent he could.
After sniffing the air, he turned his head and looked at Latias.
The look of surprise was comic, in Mac's opinion. But why was he surprised?
"Red...red...same...wings. Wings the same. Wings red...". His thoughts echoed on Mac's head, and it made Mac chuckle. Latios was shocked because there was something exactly like him, just a different colour.
Apprehensive, he jabbed the curve in Latias neck where she'd tucked her head back under her wing with his snout.
Latias went from shaking under her wing to dead still.
"I thought it was a predator coming to eat me." Latias explained to Mac, who looked confused as to her actions.
Mac carried on watching, as Latios nudged her again, with more force.
"Red?" It was the first word Latios actually spoke properly.
Latias peeked her head out from under her wing, letting one eye see Latios.
"Blue?" It was also Latias' first word. Their first words were the colours of their twin. Who was now on the other side of the world.
Mac wasn't an emotional person. In fact, he'd danced around the apple store on the day Steve Jobs died, claiming that the PC had once and for all beaten him. He'd laughed when the dog died in 'Marley and Me' . And when his best friend broke up with his girlfriend, he cheered him up by setting the friend's hair on fire. But this emotional scene was making him tear up. Well, the dream version of him. The memory kept going.
Latias peeked the rest of her head out from under the wing, looking at the discoloured version of herself with both eyes.
"The same?" He asked her, tilting his head to indicate the question, slowly figuring out the simple usage of the language in relation to his vocal chords.
Latias didn't understand though, and Latios jabbed her wing with his snout.
"Wings. The same. Red. Blue. Can move?" The sentences weren't much, but considering they'd been alive less than twenty minutes, Mac was astounded.
Latios moved both his wings to highlight the point, looking behind him to check they were actually moving.
Latias reacted the same to Latios moving his wings as he did when he found out.
"I can move?"
Before Latios could confirm it, she was looking at her own wings, trying to get them to move under her own thought.
"But they wouldn't..." Latias mumbled in Mac's head. "Latios had to help me."
In the memory, Mac saw as Latios lifted Latias' wings up with his snout, then let them drop under gravity.
"Broken. Not move". He muttered, a long and sad sounding coo.
Suddenly, Latias' wing twitched and Latios became ecstatic.
"NOT BROKEN! CAN MOVE! LIKE ME! LIKE ME!"
Slowly, Latias started to raise and lower the wing without Latios' help. The two of them laid down and watched as the wing would go up, then down, then tilt, then go forwards and backwards. Eventually, Latias let out a long and happy cry, before resting the wing on the ground and waiting for a few seconds, unsure of the next thing to do after popping into existence.
Latias turned her neck to face Latios and smiled at him. Both of them simultaneously started moving their wings up and down, laughing and cooing and smiling as they stared at the other twins wing move around.
"Aww...wait a minute" Mac paused the memory in his head.
"Yes." Latias knew what the next question was, she could already sense it.
"So...you must have had a mother Latias and a father Latios, if I've got this right. Why aren't they there?"
The question was asked casually; perhaps they were meant to hatch alone or something? So Mac was surprised when the dreamscape warped, shifted and disintegrated around him. In seconds, Mac was enveloped by darkness.
A few seconds later, Mac jolted as he felt himself 'fall' into his body. That in itself was a surreal experience. But Mac was concerned for Latias more, why had she broken the psychic link or whatever it was?
Before we go on, I'd jut like to mourn the passing of my good friend, common decency. He was a good friend, but was brutally murdered by a woman who goes by the name of farla, a person who I considered a friend. While my back was turned, he was blogged to dea... *sniggers*. Sorry, I couldn't keep that going.
So, there's this girl called farla who I considered a useful guide, but quickly turned nasty, and even ended up blogging all about how much she doesn't like me! Pathetic, right? Anyway, if you fancy some entertainment, head on down to farla's blog and check it out. According to her, I'm "batshit crazy", which I'm assuming is a compliment. I'm flattered to have featured in this blog which has over THREE visitors EVERY DAY! ROUND OF APPLAUSE PEOPLE! GO ME!
Don't let that bother you though, read and review this chapter! THAT'S AN ORDER, SERGEANT!