"Shoot you moron! Shoot!"
"You are...let's say, a special case."
Protector of Silence
Chapter Twenty-Five - Football Frenzy, Rounders Rampage
It was a surprisingly warm day for January. The sun was shinning, there was a gentle breeze rolling through the trees. Everything was peaceful... well, that was until Keith arrived on scene.
"NICK! TO ME! TO ME!"
The brunet winced as Keith yelled in his ear, whizzing past him towards the enemy goal.
"NO! TO ME! TO ME NICK! OVER HERE!"
Nick covered his aching ears with his hands as Liam tore past him as well, waving just so that Nick could see where he was if he had been turned deaf. With a gentle kick, he passed the ball to Keith who zoomed on ahead of a flabbergasted Liam.
"OI! WAIT UP!" Liam finally snapped out of his horrified astonishment and raced after Keith.
"ALRIGHT! THIS ONE'S MINE!" Keith cheered.
"How did I end up being goalie?" Starlight groaned, standing in between two rocks that marked out the 'goal' with baseball mits on his hands.
"INCOMING!" Keith yelled and gave the ball a hard kick. Seeing what was going to happen, Starlight hit the dirt and protected the top of his head with his hands. The ball shot over his head and zipped through the open window of the training lab. There came a lot of crashing, the startling of Starlys and Kaplan's voice yowling with horror and surprise.
"I'll get it!" Rhythmi called, jogging towards the training lab to retrieve the ball. Keith meanwhile walked over to Starlight, who was still in the ground, tapped his foot and folded his arms.
"What was that Star?!" he complained "You're supposed to catch the ball!"
"Oh yeah!" Starlight looked up, his hands still protecting his skull "Well sorry for defending myself when my face is about to be smashed into a million pieces!"
Yup, you've guessed it. They were playing a good old game of football. It was Sunday and everyone had been bored to death lying about when Liam and Verity had found the black and white ball behind the back of the cafeteria. After inflating it with Cook's bicycle pump, they had found four stones to make the goals and stole a kitchen timer from the cafeteria counting down the halves. Since Ponte wasn't really up for sport, he was in charge of time and Isaac was handling the scores. Rhythmi was referee again. Becs was currently reserve until they had enough people to have even numbers. Until then, Nick, Liam, Keith and Tamie were Team Kool whilst Starlight, Kate, Verity and Sami were Team All-Stars due to Sami's baseball obsession. Tamie was in one goal, Starlight in the other. Currently Starlight was getting hammered by Liam and Keith's mammoth kicks and was now avoiding balls rather than stopping them.
"World's worst goalie" Keith muttered, then looked around and sighed "Where's Kellyn when ya' need 'im?"
"He's seeing his friend off" Kate answered the rhetorical question "He and his friend Clio are saying goodbye to someone...Luke I think...before he heads off to Sinnoh this afternoon."
Keith groaned. "Just when we could use him. He's like the fastest of us all!"
No one had forgotten the time Kellyn had lost to Kate in an arm-wrestling contest, so the others (excluding Isaac and Ponte) had come up with a punishment of chasing Kellyn all over the school. It had been 8 vs. 1 - surely there was no way for the poor shorty to escape. Unfortunately the plan backfired when Kellyn proved to be faster than all of them and scampered up a tree until they all got bored and gave up. That had led to the nick-naming of: 'Kellyn the Bullet'.
"Give him time" Tamie shook her head "I know what it's like leaving friends behind. He wouldn't be able to forgive himself if he didn't say goodbye."
Keith snorted, miffed. "Whatever you say. Oi Rhythmi! Hurry up! The timer's still going and I have a record to beat!"
"Shoot! Shoot you moron! Shoot!"
That was Sami hollering from the other end the field. It couldn't be helped, you would probably be yelling too if you were on the same team as the arrogant idiot that was busy doing two-footed flick-ups, around the worlds, head-bouncers and whatever else she felt like showing off with.
"I'm going! I'm going! Geez!" Verity yelled back, turning back to glare at Sami in the midst of Liam going in for a tackle. Somehow she managed to detect the player, despite her distraction, and manoeuvred off in a tight squeeze, breaking for the goal.
Just as the timer rang, a single kick that seemed a little too showy to call it a good attempt sent the ball reeling off a little left of the goal, hit the big rock marking the left side of the goal, ricocheted off, was sent flying back and scored a direct blow to Verity's head. She was instantly knocked off her feet and the ball innocently bounced away.
Sami abandoned her position to go over and tower over Verity, plainly furious.
"What the heck was that?" she yelled. Verity opened up her mouth to respond, but Sami kept going "I've seen toddlers shoot better than you!"
When Verity got to her feet, Sami had to tilt her head upward to keep eye contact. Stupid growth spurt.
"If you think it's so easy, why don't you play forward next time?" Verity gave her a smart-alecky 'what now, Sam?' look that Sami only met with an identical one.
Everyone was staring at the two now.
"You say that every time, but you never let me play forward!" Sami began to poke the older girl's sternum with her finger "Besides, I wouldn't wanna play forward anyway. I might catch the disease you have where your head inflates so you can't fit through the door!"
Sami stuck her tongue out at Verity immaturely before heading off to the sideline and wiping her face on her previously-abandoned jumper.
"Alright! Take five!" Keith called to everyone and Rhythmi blew her whistle. Her only excuse for not wanting to play was that she didn't want to get her high-heels dirty.
The others sat down along the sidelines, resting their weary limbs. Nothing but panting, birds singing and Verity and Sami glaring at each other shattered the serene peace. It stayed like this for several relaxing minutes.
Keith was just getting to his feet when he found the ball rolling to his feet. Looking up, he saw Kellyn making his way over to them, his rucksack over his shoulder and a smile on his face.
"Hey! Kellyn!" Keith waved his arm in the air to get Kellyn's attention. Kellyn waved back.
"We're playing football! Wanna join in?!" Liam called. Though really, he meant: "We're playing football! Get over here and play or I'll throw you head-first into Kincaid's basement!" In order to spare himself the physical harm, Kellyn just shrugged, set his rucksack down on the sideline and took off his coat and jumper.
"Scrawny" Keith grunted.
Kellyn stood on his tiptoes and whacked the back of Keith's head.
"I'd say that hurt, but you'll have to grow a few inches before you can successfully pull of the almighty Gibbs-slap." He in turn performed said attack on Kellyn. "Now that is how you do the Gibbs-slap. It's all in the wrist Kellyn! It's all in the wrist!"
Whilst Kellyn pouted, Keith turned to the others and yelled: "Break's over! On the pitch! You too Becs!"
He was immediately shot a snort of: "Who died and made you president?!"
"Less yatter, more patter!" Keith began jogging on the spot to emphasise his point.
Kellyn blinked, wondering where he got that from. Keith usually believed rhymes only existed to boggle the mind.
"Do we have to play football?" Tamie groaned.
Keith shook his head in exasperation, muttering: "Goalies. They make their job out to be so hard when all they do is stand there!"
"Oh really Keith?!" Keith froze and turned towards Starlight, who did not look happy "Well how would you like a ball to come whizzing towards you across the field at high speeds?! You know, kinda like THIS!"
With that Starlight kicked the ball as hard as he could at the ginger. It nailed Keith in the chest and sent him flying through the air before skidding to a halt on his back. Keith groaned and held his head groggily.
"Okay!" he groaned "I respect goalies."
Starlight was now satisfied.
"Are we gonna play or not?" Nick asked, remaining on the sideline of the pitch.
"There are other games we can play" Kate shrugged.
"Like what?" Liam blinked.
Kate shrugged again. "Rounders?"
Everyone blinked now.
"And where, pray tell, were you suggesting on getting the bats?" Becs folded her arms.
Kate paused for a few seconds, then smiled: "The styler wands. We can play rounders with our styler disks, launch them to throw. Plus it'll help with our launch and aim techniques."
This idea was succeeded by silence.
"Sure" Someone agreed.
Then everyone else did. Not like they had reasonable excuse not to.
Half an hour later, they had located three poles to suffice as bases and four rocks to mark a batting square. Normally, rounders was played with four bases, but due to a shortage of numbers this game only had three. They decided to split into two teams of six, with Isaac sticking as referee and Rhythmi locating more sensible footwear. The teams quickly became labelled: Team Almia and Team 'Elsewhere'; Keith, Ponte, Sami, Rhythmi, Verity and Kellyn on the former team and Tamie, Liam, Nick, Starlight, Becs and Kate on the latter. Kellyn had decided to stick with the Almian team, but he was disappointed when he found Kate and Starlight would be among his opponents. He was also terrified, since Becs of all people would be facing his team. Becs! Becs who could probably kick a ball right through a concrete wall from a mile away!
"Hey! Kel!" Kellyn turned around to see Keith standing right behind him "What position do ya' want? You're the youngest, so we're letting you pick first."
Kellyn paused for a second, before pointing at first base.
"First base?" Keith blinked "But nothing happens at first base!"
Kellyn shrugged and nodded - that was the idea.
Shaking his head with something like disbelief, Keith turned away from Kellyn and began barking orders to the others, much to the annoyance of Verity. In the end, Ponte and Rhythmi took the other two bases, Sami bowled and Verity and Keith were on deep-field duty. Gripping the pole behind him with both hands behind his back, Kellyn noted Liam was the first of the batters.
"You ready?!" Sami called to the blond-haired boy.
Liam nodded and they both turned to Isaac who signalled that the timer had started.
With a dramatic flourish of her arm, Sami launched her capture disk. Smirking confidently, Liam gave the disk a hard whack with the capture wand. The second the disk had left, Liam dematerialised the capture wand and ran for first base.
"IN COMING!" Keith hollered as he ran after the flying disk. He looked over his shoulder ready to catch it...
...and it conked him on the 'ead.
Kellyn face-palmed as Keith fell to ground, eagle-spread. Verity was there in an instant and gave the capture disk a huge kick. It was a big enough kick to take the disk all the way to third base. Unfortunately, Liam made it past the base before Ponte could stump it.
"WE GOTTA ROUNDER! WE GOTTA ROUNDER!" Becs and Liam immediately began cheering.
Keith rubbed the back of his head sheepishly as he got to his feet, Verity and Sami glaring at him.
"Who next?!" demanded Sami.
"I'll go" Starlight shrugged, moving into the batting square. He drew his styler ("A proper styler" Keith sulked), and released the capture wand. Then, for the first time, Kellyn noticed something. Sami did too.
"You're left-handed?" she blinked.
Kellyn blinked too. He realised, although he had known Starlight for nearly three months, this was the first time he noticed Starlight holding his styler left-handed. When he thought a little more, he recalled Starlight writing with his left hand too, but he hadn't really paid much attention to it.
'Not like it's particularly weird' Kellyn reminded himself 'A lot of rangers are left-handed. Cameron's left-handed. So was Rafe Small. Even Lunick was left-handed. I guess I just never noticed it before.'
"Rhythmi! It's coming right towards ya!"
Keith's voice snapped Kellyn out of his trance. He turned his head to the right just in time to see a blaze of white and blue whiz past him. He blinked back into focus and saw Starlight running for second base. Unfortunatly, Rhythmi caught the disk he had hit and stamped it on top of the base's pole.
"YOU'RE OUT!" Sami bellowed. Starlight shrugged and put his hands in his shorts' pockets. He made his way to the other side of the batting square and sat down in the grass.
Tamie now made her way over to the batting square. She was biting her lip nervously. With another dramtic wave of her arm, Sami launched the capture disk. With a gulp of nervousness, the dark-haired Unovian hit the capture disk as hard as she 's eyes widened as he saw where Tamie's disk was heading. Before he had a chance to defend himself, the disk nailed him in the stomach. He was sent crashing backwards into a sitting position, leaning against the base. Quite miraculously, the disk that hit him managed to hit the base of the...well...base.
"OUT!" Keith barked.
"You okay Kellyn?!" Rhythmi called from somewhere.
Kellyn gave a small groan of pain, holding his aching head, and nodded. Screwing his eyes shut, he kicked the capture disk somewhere and used the pole of the base to get to his feet.
"Me next!" a voice called.
Kellyn blinked himself back to normal. His eyes widened.
'Kate!' he thought.
"Don't expected me to go easy on ya!" Sami called.
Kate nodded determinedly. She gave Kellyn a wave and he paused before waving back. As if that was a signal, Sami then launched the capture disk. Kate swung the styler wand forward, but a fraction too soon. The disk skimmed the tip of the styler wand and bounced off behind Kate.
"Batted behind!" Isaac called. Everyone had blinked in surprise because they had almost forgotten about him "First base only!"
Kate sighed with disappointment and jogged lightly over to first base whilst Ponte took it upon himself to go and retrieve the capture disk.
"Hi" she smiled as she stood behind Kellyn at the base.
The small boy smiled and nodded in acknowledgement.
"I'm rubbish at rounders" Kate admitted.
Kellyn could tell she was red with embarrassment without even having to look at her. He pointed at himself to say 'Me too.'
"So, Luke's gone to Sinnoh now?" Kate asked.
Kellyn nodded, biting the inside if his mouth. He was trying not to think about the idea of his childhood friend being so far away. Clio was still here, but he'd never been as close to Clio as he had been to Luke.
It seemed to take forever for Ponte to launch the capture disk to Sami, nearly taking Becs and Liam's heads off in the process, and for her to launch it for Nick to hit. It wasn't that he minded Kate standing behind him, but he was a little nervous about her staring into the back of his head like that. He tried not to look in Keith's direction either, since he would probably give him grief later if he caught Kellyn red in the face when Kate was around.
"See ya later Kelly!" Kate giggled as she ran towards second base the second Sami launched the capture disk for Nick.
Kellyn tensed at the nickname but since Kate was gone, there was no sense in complaining.
"You missed!"
"No I didn't!"
"Yeah you did! That nearly hit my head!"
"Oh boo-hoo! Do ya want me to kiss it better?"
Kellyn turned his head towards the batting square. Apparently Sami had missed the hit and Nick was complaining, loudly.
"Quit it will ya!" Becs yelled from behind Nick "Sami just launch it again for Arceus' sake!"
Grumbling, Sami accepted the capture disk back from Ponte. She launched again and this time, to everyone's relief, Nick hit the disk. It wasn't a marvellous hit, he only just got to second base, but it kept Sami quiet.
Kellyn felt his blood freeze when Becs stormed into the batting square, twirling her styler like a cane. Sami looked a little anxious as she launched the capture disk at Becs...
SMASH!
WHEEEeeeeeeeeeeeee...
Everyone's eyes followed the capture disk as it sailed into the air, knocked a flying Wingull out and then vanished behind the tree-line. Well, at least it didn't blast off Team Rocket-style.
Everyone's, except for Becs', mouths were hanging open. Ponte then turned to face them, his ridiculous hair hiding his eyes emo-style.
"Well I'm not gettin' that!"
Meanwhile...
At the Northern entrance of Vientown, Crawford and Luana were having a chat whilst returning from a mission to help out some stressed Cherubis in the Vien Forest. Crawford turned his head to the left and saw Mimi playing with her Happinys. Mimi waved and he grinned and waved back. He turned back to Luana to restart the random conversation, but suddenly realised she was beside him anymore. Stopping mid-step rather stupidly, he turned on one foot to see behind him. There was Luana, lying face-down in the dirt.
"WHAT THE?! LUANA!"
He skidded baseball-style to his friend's side and spun her onto her back. He confirmed she was in fact breathing and was therefore alive. She had been apparently knocked out by a falling object.
Crawford's big brown eyes widened.
"Holy bananas! My partner's been knocked out by an un-reactive bomb! AHHHH! It's the world wars all over again! EVERYBODY RUN FOR COVER!"
After the whole Becs-being-disqualified-from-batting-permanently fiasco, the game of rounders continued. After several minutes, Issac called time and the groups swapped places. Nick became the new bowler for his team. Kellyn really wasn't paying attention. He was holding a long-distance mental conversation with Luna.
"...And we had to run all the way to the Vien Forest! Seriously! Do you know how far that is for small Pokémon?!"
'I'm sure it's very far.'
"VERY doesn't even come CLOSE to it! Anyway, we get there and find one human on the ground and another doing the funky-Torchic whilst blabbing on about World War 3 or something!"
'Riiiight.'
"I'm serious! And he just plain freaked when he saw me and Shadow! We had to check he hadn't had a heart attack! All, the while, Bubble-Gum is staring at us like we're some sort of tourist attraction!"
'Bubble-Gum?'
"The pink-haired girl. I didn't know what her name was, so I called her Bubble-Gum."
'Ugh, right. Palkia forbid you ever have kids; the names you could come up with...'
"I know quite a lot about the subject thank you very much!"
'What in all the regions do you know about kids?!'
"...lyn. ...ellyn. ...Kellyn!"
Kellyn jolted to his senses and he realised Keith was standing in front of him.
"Aren't you gonna watch me bat?!" Keith pouted.
Since the ginger inevitably wouldn't shut up until he agreed, Kellyn shrugged and nodded. He at least pretended to look vaguely interested as Keith gave the capture disk a good thwack and managed to get a rounder whilst high-fiving Becs who was on third base.
"Me next!" Verity grinned, bouncing into the batting square. Kellyn was interested to see what would happen, since Verity had no styler, being a mechanic-in-training.
Nick launched the capture disk.
"Batterrrrrrrrr-up!" she hollered. Out of nowhere, she produced a wrench and smacked the disk, sending it flying. Waving her wrench in the air with the joy of success, Verity then proceeded to run round the bases. The surprise made Liam freeze...until Starlight launched the capture disk right into the back of his head.
"Yow!" Liam startled. He eventually remembered how to pick up the capture disk and stump the base, but not before Verity got there and rubbed in his face the fact she had scored half a rounder.
"You wanna go next, Kellyn?" Rhythmi offered.
Kellyn shrugged. He made his way into the batting square and activated his styler wand, holding it out to the side of him.
Nick smirked as if to say: "You ready?"
Kellyn nodded. There came a loud click and the spinning capture disk came zipping towards him. Alarmed and with barely enough time to react, Kellyn swung his arm forward. Never thing he knew, the capture disk was flying somewhere to the left and Keith was screaming he had to "GO, GO, GO!"
Springing into action, Kellyn sprinted for first base. He thought Tamie waved at him from her position but he wasn't sure as he made the sharp turn for second base. Barely a second after he arrived, the capture disk shot over his head from Starlight to Liam who stumped his base.
"Hey" the blond boy grinned as he tossed the capture disk on to Nick.
Kellyn gave a nod of acknowledgement. He found himself lucky Kate was on deep-field so he wouldn't have to suffer an even more awkward encounter. Let's just say he was glad when Ponte hit the capture disk so he could run.
Kellyn honestly didn't remember much after that. He remembered Rhythmi borrowing Verity's wrench to hit with and failing miserably. He remembered Becs and Kate's combination getting Keith out and making him complain about it furiously. He some-what remembered his next four turns. He vaguely remembered their time being up and him returning to first base. He wasn't sure if he quite remembered Kate whizzing past his base and squeaking:
"Hiya! Bye-a!"
but he was fairly sure it was just his imagination. In fact, he didn't remember a lot, but what can I say? It's hard keeping up a mental conversation with an angsty female Pokémon whilst trying to focus on a game of rounders! Well, that was until something extremly strange happened to him...
SMASH!
Kellyn shook his head as he watched Becs hit the capture disk way above his head, flying into the forest.
"Ah! Come on Jackson!" Keith shook his head with exasperation as Becs quickly gain her team a rounder "Play fair!"
"Like you can talk Dazuru!" Becs stopped just before third base and shook her fist at him "You don't believe in playing fair!"
Ignoring their banter, Kellyn dashed up the steps to retrieve the capture disk. Making sure everyone was still yelling at each other and not physically fighting, Kellyn made his way into the forest.
'They're like a family' he thought 'A very dysfunctional family albeit.'
After about a minute of walking, he dropped his head to search the ground for the capture disk. Then he saw it, not too far away from his nose, cupped in a set of...hands?
Kellyn looked up in confusion. He nearly fell over in surprise.
Standing in front of him was a young boy of about nine. His hair was short and spiky and a cross between black and brown, closer to the former. Unusually, two locks of it were very long and were curled around his ears, giving him a Star Trek look. He wasn't tall, only coming up to Kellyn's shoulder. Though it was the boy's eyes that got Kellyn's attention - they were the darkest but most enticing blue he had ever see.
'Who are you?' he couldn't help but think. There was something about this boy, something that made Kellyn draw back with curiosity and...fear?
The boy chuckled and rested one hand on his chest.
"Greetings" he smiled radiantly "My name is Owari."
'Owari' Kellyn thought 'That means end.'
"Yes, it does, Hajime" Owari smiled.
Kellyn startled back. 'Did he...did he just hear my thoughts?!'
"Yes, yes I did" Owari let out a boyish giggle. He touched Kellyn's forehead with his forefinger and then touched his own with the same finger. Kellyn knew this was a typical gimmick between twins or best friends, but was astonished that this stranger did it to him as if they had been friends for life.
"That's because we once were best friends, Hajime" Owari responded "Many past lives ago, we saved Almia together. Of course, you don't remember that. I don't expect you to. But I never forgot you."
Kellyn was startled by these words. But only one thing managed to make itself loud enough for Owari to pick up on it.
'My name isn't Hajime. It's Kellyn.'
"It once was" Owari stated "And soon, that name will become important to you again. Owari means end, but Hajime means beginning. Never forget that."
Kellyn was still confused - everything that came out of Owari's mouth just brought more questions than answers. In vain, he tried to entice a useful answer from this strange boy.
'If you knew me lifetimes ago, how is it you remember me and I not you?'
"I was wondering how long it was going to take before you thought of that" Owari was still giving off that boyish giggle, making him look almost cute "See, you do remember me - the name is locked away in your subconscious thoughts. No, don't bother searching for it, you won't be able to put the name to the face. Your mind may remember my name, but not my likeness."
'What is your name?'
"Ah" Owari's face fell ever so slightly as he bit his lip "I would tell you, but if I did you would have 27 organisations, 143 bounty hunters and half of New Zealand on your tail, and I wouldn't want to put you through that, my dear friend." Owari grinned again whilst Kellyn just boggled at him "No, New Zealand's a country. Yes, it's like a region and a very big one, but it's in another world. And no, I can't show you it! That would go against my job!"
'Your job?' Kellyn triple blinked. This kid had a job?
"Hey! I'm not a kid!" Owari pouted. Then he immediately cheered up again; it appeared he was incapable of staying sad. "But yes, my job it special. It's like this."
Carefully, Owari levelled the back of his hand and balanced the capture disk on it.
"Most of the time, the worlds are balanced, like this. But sometimes..."
Owari tilted his hand slightly and the capture disk wobbled.
"...there come times when the worlds become unbalanced. Usually, these imbalances fix themselves, but sometimes, they escalate and..."
Owari titled his hand further and the capture disk slipped and fell. But before it hit the ground, Owari caught it in his palm, cushioning the blow.
"It's my job to prevent these imbalances, and fix them if they occur" Owari explained, straightening again "Which is why I'm here."
Kellyn gulped, but he didn't know why. He couldn't even remember giving the command to do so.
'Am I an imbalance?'
"You personally, no" Owari answered "But, I came here for two reasons. I first bring a message from Miss Lark Brown."
'Lark Brown? I don't know a Lark Brown.'
"No, but she knows you" Owari replied "But her arriving in this world would cause an imbalance, so she asked me to come instead. She wants you to know your brother is watching you closely, more closely than you think. And that he misses you." Owari's enchanting eyes widened. "Oh! And Lind wants you to watch over Shadow-Of-The-Willow-Trees. And personally cuff Starlight over the head if he mistreats him."
'Lind?'
"The Dazurus' unofficial guardian. Or something like that anyway. Lind sorta goes by his own rules. But he's on our side of the council...if Lind has a side that is. I think he just sticks with the leading team" Owari briefly stopped his rambling to bite the inside of his mouth. "He's pretty close to Shadow-Of-The-Willow-Trees, you know, the Umbreon. But I can't tell you any more than that, or I'll be going against my purpose."
Kellyn took several deep breaths, letting this all soak in. When he did, he took a deep breath.
'What's the other reason you came?' he asked.
Then Owari's face fell, dramatically. The change was almost frightening. A part of Kellyn's brain was telling him to run, but he fought the impulse back.
"I told you before, you're weren't an imbalance, but that's partially a lie" Owari said, making Kellyn's heart skip a beat with fear. "You're not a danger, but you have the potential to be one. See, you're not an imbalance, but a paradox."
Kellyn blinked in confusion. 'A...paradox?'
"Let me explain. Most psychic beings gain their powers from experiences, experiences where those powers are needed the most. For instance, you learnt invisibility when you were about to be spotted in a frightening situation. You learnt telekinesis when you felt weak and overpowered. However, this is not always the case."
Owari looked Kellyn dead in the eye, making sure the brunet understood what had been said and the severity of what was to come. But Kellyn was a straight as a pole, his eyes wide and drinking in the information.
"You are...let's say, a special case. Rather than just learning of your gifts from past experiences, you're somehow learning them from future experiences; in other words, your mind thinks it's experiencing things that haven't happened yet, such as your telepathy." Owari took a breath and ran a hand through his dark spikes. "There were once people who could see future events, but they have long since died out. So there leaves only one reason. To be quite frank, Hajime, you were never supposed to exist."
Kellyn's breath hitched in his throat. His heart began to race and he suddenly found he couldn't breathe. Owari's words ran around in circles in his head like Ponyta on a race track.
'You were never supposed to exist. You were never supposed to exist.'
"All of time is ruled by Dialga, who decides the fates of everyone within the time stream. She never intended for you to be born, but for some reason, you were. Your parents and Lunick meddled with time, and you are the result. You can't create things to use to your advantage like most psychic beings, but you can take what has already been created and shape it to your will. This is, of course, much more dangerous, which is why the Fallen Council fear you."
Owari saw Kellyn was frozen and let the boy try and get over his panic. When he saw Kellyn was going to have a seizure if he didn't breathe, he snapped his fingers. Automatically Kellyn felt his chest loosen and he was able to take several gasping breaths.
"I didn't come here you bring your destruction though, Hajime" Owari explained "I just came of warn you. I don't know when this paradox will end, or how it'll escalate or even if it ever will. But I just want to to be careful, and not to abuse these powers. You understand?"
Kellyn took a deep breath to steady himself and then nodded.
"I hope you're paying attention Lunick" Owari suddenly said, his eyes narrowing as he stared...at Kellyn? "You can't force Kellyn to do anything against his will, you're not his guardian yet. You've meddled in affairs you should never have touched already, I won't let you destroy my friend any further."
Kellyn was startled but Owari didn't even flinch as he continued this one-way conversation.
"A barely-human being with a great gift who has lived on for too long and hurt too many people, must learn when it's time for them to stop."
There was silence for a few seconds. Not even the wind dared to speak. Then, without any warning, Owari recoiled as if struck, his once pretty eyes glimmering with sadness and fear.
"I..." he breathed "I...I wasn't talking about me."
For a few seconds there was silence, neither boy knowing what to say. Kellyn was still confused about the previous conversation; why did Owari address Lunick when he looked at Kellyn? And who replied to Owari's words?
"KELLYN! HAVE YA GOT THE DISK YET?!"
At the sound of Keith's voice, Kellyn looked over his shoulder towards the rounders match. He felt Owari slip the capture disk between his fingers.
"You'll never see me again, my friend."
Kellyn turned back to Owari, but the boy was gone. He looked down at the capture disk in his fingers, a sick feeling in his throat and stomach.
'You were never supposed to exist. You were never supposed to exist. You were never supposed to exist.'