Sorry that this chapter came a little late. All I'm going to say about this delay is: laryngitis and band practice. Also, extracirricular activities are making it hard for me to keep up with my chapter posting schedule, so expect new chapters every 7-13 days.
"Are you sure they can help him?" Flint asked the pink haired girl.
"Yes, don't doubt it," she answered, "They've been doing this for centuries."
Lucas wondered if it was even possible for someone to live that long as he followed the two others down the long corridor. They walked out of what appeared to be a small fort. It was freezing outside. Lucas began shivering a good amount by the time they reached half way; granted he was still wearing shorts and a t-shirt while the other two had full military uniforms. "Are we there yet?"
"Stop whining. We'll be there in a minute." Kumatora was right, they got there in slightly over one more minute. There was a pink seashell with a door on it surrounded by a frozen pond. Kumatora knocked on the door.
Someone opened it. It appeared to be a somewhat tall woman, but it wasn't quite a distinguishable gender. "Hello there sweetie!"
"Hey, Ionia," Kumatora greeted back, "This here is Flint, who I believe you have met before," she pointed to Flint.
"How could I forget Flinty-pie?"
"And this kid is Lucas," Kumatora introduced Lucas.
Lucas stepped a bit backwards as the being took notice of him. "Aw, aren't we cute?" Ionia commented. Lucas wanted to crawl into a hole and die from embarrassment. "Come on in, guests!" she welcomed them into her home, "We don't want to stand out in the cold." They went inside of the seashell, and Ionia took a seat on a large velvet couch. "What brings you here?"
"Well, this kid can supposedly use PK Love," Kumatora explained, "I don't believe him yet though."
"Oh my-" Ionia put her hands to her mouth, "We have a gifted one here. What's to tell me about it then?"
Kumatora seemed a little confused on exactly what the problem was, and looked at Lucas. "Well," Lucas started shyly, "It's too much for me to handle."
"I'd imagine," Ionia said, "I could feel your PSI for hours now. And you're still so young for a human!"
"I need help," Lucas said, "Please, I don't know how to use this, and I can't control it."
"How have you been using it?" Ionia asked.
"I've only used it on one occasion before."
"And you still don't know how you used it?"
"I guess I..," Lucas was trying to form a sentence out of nothing, "I just used it I guess. But the problem was that it felt too strong. I don't think Love would do a thing like it did to the pigmasks before."
"Oh," Ionia seemed not the least bit shocked. "You need to use your own love in order to use it correctly."
"I was doing that," Lucas told Ionia objectively. Lucas recalled the feelings he had in the pigmask prison that night, and it wasn't quite love he was feeling. He realized that he was doing something all wrong, "No, I didn't. I mean I did at first, but then I thought of who I was fighting, and then it became hatred for them, and then I was ashamed after seeing what I'd to them." The three others gave him a confused glance, "What I mean, is that I hurt them. What I did was tear them apart, and I regret it."
"Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt," Kumatora blatantly interrupted, "But why would you regret hurting a pigmask?"
"They're people, too," Lucas explained, "And those people just aren't straight in their minds. They didn't know what they were doing, because they weren't given a choice."
Kumatora was put to her own shame. She didn't think about that pigmasks were people.
Ionia was growing excited, "I believe that you are a very loving individual to take notice of things in that manner that no one else does. Use that kind of love to make the ability stronger. Hate might be strong, because it feels good to take out your aggressions, but that hate will overwhelm you, and eat you on the inside." Lucas took it all in, and pondered on it for a moment. If only he could tell Claus about this.
"We need to go," Kumatora said after a long period of silence, "It's starting to snow, and we're going to get stuck out here if it picks up too much."
"I guess I'll be seeing you. Goodbye!" Ionia gave parting wishes, and saw the three off.
The snow was light at first, but it slowly started coming down a little faster. Flint gave Lucas his jacket, since Lucas was not properly attired for the weather. The jacket still smelled like their old home after all this time. Lucas wished they could go back there very much, but it was gone. He remembered how Claus would always wake him up and make him play, and he would come downstairs to see that mom... "Dad?" Lucas began asking his father.
"I'm listening," he replied.
"Where's mom?"
"Where did that come from?"
"I just want to know," Lucas said, "I haven't seen her in so long, and I figured since you're here, she would be also." Snow was coming down faster and bigger than it was before.
"This isn't the time, Lucas," Flint told him, trying to desperately avoid the question.
"Why not?"
"We're in the middle of what is going to be an ice storm in a matter of minutes. We need to focus on getting where we're going." Lucas was confused about his father's dodgy behavior, and started to hope it isn't what he thought. Thinking of the dreadful thing he was thinking of slowed his pace down significantly. It was harder to walk in the colder temperatures and bad weather conditions as well.
Lucas was patient enough to wait for his answer though, even with being constantly hurried by his father and Kumatora. They eventually made it back to the 'fortress,' as Kumatora jokingly called it. Inside, things were not as they had been left. Medical personnel rushed back and forth in one hallway, while people tried to stay out of their way in the next.
"What's going on?" Flint asked one of the nurses.
"The prisoners are dying, we have no idea why," the nurse answered, "We need PSI healers fast, and we have a very limited amount of PSI users on base in general. Kumatora, do you heal?"
"Yeah, a little, but-" the nurse began to pull Kumatora over to the prisoners.
"Wait," Flint halted her, "Lucas can heal."
"Great, follow me," the nurse quickly walked down the halls with Kumatora and Lucas following her. They reached a room where four of the captured pigmask PSI users were lying. Some of them were screaming and moaning, and others were unconscious and unmoving. Lucas's heart sank when he saw who one of the prisoners was. It was Ness.
"Ness," Lucas said quietly.
"You know him?" Kumatora asked, overhearing what he said. Lucas just answered with a nod.
"We need you two to start working. Now," the doctor told the two PSI users. Lucas and Kumatora went to one of the prisoners each. Lucas went to Ness, desperately wanting to help his friend.
"Ness," Lucas said softly. He used a Healing alpha on the unconscious boy, and nothing happened to him. "Please wake up, Ness." Lucas tried a lifeup alpha, and still nothing happened. 'This isn't working,' Lucas thought to himself after using beta levels of each of those. 'Maybe if I try to get into his head it will wake him up.'
'Ness,' Lucas said into Ness's mind. He was instantly removed from Ness's mind after that, and he had a pretty bad headache. "What did these people do to you?" Lucas whispered. Lucas tried again, and expected what was going to happen. He resisted. 'Ness.' He didn't reach anything in Ness's mind.
He tried to go deeper into Ness's subconscious mind. 'Ness.'
He got an answer, 'Who is that?'
'Ness, it's me, Lucas.'
'Oh, hey. I guess you were right. I was brainwashed. Can you possibly help me?'
'That is what I am trying to do right now,' Lucas explained, 'Your body is dying, and I think it is because your brain is confused since we aren't with the pigmasks. Can you fight your way out of your head?'
'That is easier said than done. I've tried.'
Lucas thought abut how to get Ness's mind to take his brain over again. He would need to disable the brainwashing that happened to Ness. Either that or un-brainwash him. If only he knew brainshock. Kumatora might, though. "Kumatora," Lucas said to Kumatora, who was standing on the other side of the room.
"What? Please tell me you have an idea," she called back.
"I do," Lucas answered her, "Can you use brainshock on them? It might sound a little odd, but just try it."
"Alright then," Kumatora used a brainshock alpha on Ness. It was almost instantaneous that Ness jumped to consciousness in surprise and shock.
"Ow.. that kinda hurt," Ness rubbed his eyes and sat up, cleary not hypnotized by the pigmasks anymore.
"It worked!" Lucas shouted excitedly, "Keep it up, Kumatora." Kumatora used brainshock omega to reach the rest of the people simultaneously. Kumatora was impressed with her work, and stood comfortably by the door.
"Lucas," Ness said, very confused on what was happening, "Where are we?"
"That's a story a bit too long to tell, but we were captured while we were on a pigmask ship," Lucas explained.
"That's weird, I don't remember anything since right when Paula and I were-" Ness froze in his speech. "Where's Paula?"
"I'm sure she's wherever Claus is," Lucas assured him. Ness was silent for a few moments, noticing that is somewhat safe. Lucas spoke up, noticing the expression on Ness's face, "I-I don't mean to be rude or anything, but why are you that concerned about her when you've only known her for about half a day."
"Erm-" Ness's face turned red, "No reason in particular. I'm just worried. We're friends, you know what I mean?"
"Yeah I guess so.." Lucas still had his doubts, but he went didn't want to invade Ness's privacy.
"I'm hungry," Ness said trying to change the subject, "I feel like I haven't eaten in days."
"That's because you haven't," Lucas also noticed the pit in his stomach, "Neither have I."
"Where do we get food here?"
"I don't know," Lucas answered him.
"Hey, dude," Ness started to ask Kumatora. Lucas noticed this and uncomfortably stepped backwards.
"I'm not a dude," she answered, "but I still like it better than ma'am or whatever the other kid called me."
"My name's Lucas," Lucas corrected her quietly.
"Well that's how I felt when you called me 'ma'am.' So get over it," Kumatora told him. Lucas seemed a bit offended but he looked more apologetic. "Anyway, what did you want?"
"Where can we get food?" Ness asked her.
"Down that hallway, take the second left, and then the first right," she answered, "Would you mind if I joined you?"
"I don't really know you, but Lucas is coming also, and you seemed angry at him a second ago," Ness told her.
"No, I was messing with him," Kumatora assured Ness, "We get along alright, right?"
"Well, yeah, I guess so. I mean you helped me with that thing," Lucas awkwardly replied to her. The three walked to what appeared to be a cafeteria to get food. It was somewhat large with circular tables placed about four feet away from one another, and a considerably long line circled around part of the wall in the wait to get food.
"Oh, great," Kumatora groaned, "We need to actually wait to get food. I thought we were just going to have a meal and go to sleep."
"I think you would get along with my brother very well," Lucas laughed lightly.
"Hey, you never told me," Ness started, "Where are Claus and Paula?"
"Oh, um," Lucas didn't want Ness to recall that the two mentioned were still with the pigmasks, "They're in the same place."
"Yeah, I know, you already told me that much," Ness reminded him, "And that doesn't even meet the context of my question."
"Well, they're- um- They're still with the pigmasks, and Paula is still not right in her head last I heard," Lucas let it out.
"What?!" Ness seemed furious, "Those pigmasks are going down right now!" Ness was about ready to run to the pigmask base and try to blow them up, "But I'm still hungry, and I'm sure they can wait. I mean Claus is there and I don't think he'll let the pigmasks do anything too bad to Paula or anyone else."
"Yeah," Lucas sighed in slight agreement. Before long they were sitting down at a table in a crowded room with food in front of them.
"I can't remember the last time I've eaten anything," Ness said, "I mean I literally can't remember the last time I ate something," Ness laughed. It took a minute for Lucas and Kumatora to understand his joke, but they caught on. "This steak is almost as good as what my mom makes. Almost. I miss my mom." Ness was rambling on, while Lucas and Kumatora paid little attention. "I wonder how she's doing. Don't you wonder how your parents are doing, Lucas?"
"Well, there's funny story about that," Lucas started, looking up from his barely touched food, "My dad is here."
"You're kidding?" Ness seemed surprised.
"I actually need to go talk to him now," Lucas said, remembering earlier, "I'll be back later."
"Are you going to eat your dinner?" Ness asked as if he were trying to get more food.
"No, you can have it," Lucas laughed lightly. Lucas left, and went to go find Flint, wherever he was. He checked Flint's room first, to see if he was there. Lucas gently knocked on the door, no answer. He tried again. Still no answer. Flint must be sleeping, it was late and he seemed tired earlier. Lucas turned around and began to walk away, and then he almost immediately saw his father leaning against the wall beside him.
"You needed me?" Flint asked his son.
"Oh, um, hi dad," Lucas was surprised to see that his father was standing beside him the whole time he knocked on the door, "Yeah, I was going to ask you something earlier, but I didn't quite get to it."
"I know Lucas," Flint looked down at the ground, "I know what you're going to ask me. Quite honestly, I was avoiding your question while we were walking back, because I've thought about how I was going to tell this to you and Claus for months." Lucas knew the answer that was coming, and it didn't take any mind-reading abilities to figure out the answer. Flint tried to remain stoic, but he couldn't help a melancholy appearance from sliding onto his face, "Your mother is gone."
Lucas's heart shattered at this four word statement, and tears began to form in the edges of his bright blue eyes, so much like his mother's. "Dad, by gone do you mean that she's..." Lucas was hoping for the best possible meaning.
"Lucas, I'm sorry," Flint walked into his room, turning his back on his child in need.
Thank you for sticking with me if you're still reading this after eight chapters. Reviews/Comments/Criticism is appreciated. I really do enjoy seeing what people like/dislike in this so I can try to please the audience by making it better.