CHAPTER FOUR

Lucifer, Lightning, and Blueaura arrived at their home around six that night, in time for dinner. Their house was not the largest- a three-bedroom-two-bath with a living room and a kitchen, all one floor- but Lightning and her boyfriend loved it nonetheless.

Lucifer at first felt quite uncomfortable in the space, though he adjusted fast and found he liked it there, which was probably because the aura of the place was so happy and warm. Blueaura and Lightning, both having auric abilities as well as Lucifer, made sure of that.

His room's carpeting and walls were colored a mellow baby blue; there was a window, closet, bed, desk, computer- it could easily be a teenager's bedroom. Lucifer could picture himself there, but he couldn't yet picture Blueaura and Lightning as his parents. He'd heard a lot about them- knew they were around thirty years old (a little less than double his age of seventeen), they'd been fighting since they were very young, were born pokemon, had no family but each other- but they didn't know much about him. He wondered if they would try and learn.

Around six thirty that evening Lightning knocked on his door. "Hello?"

"You can come in," Lucifer told her.

She opened the door and walked over to sit on his bed a foot from him. Her stark yellow eyes studied him a moment before saying, "I may not be Christian, but I'm still not calling you Lucifer."

"What are you, then?" Lucifer wondered, his voice curious. He didn't want to talk about his name... or himself at that moment, either. He didn't quite know it, but he was a tad bit afraid of "Jewish? Muslim? Some pokemon religion?"

Lightning laughed, but Lucifer could tell she didn't think it was funny. He hadn't meant it to be, either. "After all that I've seen, kid, I'm an atheist. Blueaura's religious, though I've never asked what his entailed. It's a pokemon one. Neither of us would know it."

Lucifer shrugged. "Probably not." He turned then to face the window and pondered, knowing the name question would come up again and probably that of his own religion. He studied the glass window intensely for a moment before he said quietly, "I don't know what I am yet... But... but call me Luce."

"Like l-u-c-e?" she asked.

"Yeah," he told her, turning to face her with a small smile. "Why not."

Lightning shrugged, and then grinned. "All right. Blueaura's probably done cleaning up now, so let's go eat."

"So you came here just to avoid cleaning?" Luce asked her, raising an eyebrow.

Lightning laughed again. "I came here so neither of us would have to clean. And because I didn't want to call you Lucifer anymore. Mostly for the second reason, though."

Luce grinned and felt his shyness start to melt away a little. "I like you."

Lightning grinned back. "I like you too, kid."

"I NEED TO figure out a way so that you can't cheat cleaning up," Blueaura said, looking directly at Lightning, who just grinned back at him.

"Maybe we should clean up after we eat, like normal people," she suggested slyly.

"You and I both know you won't eat anything hot," Blueaura reminded her, raising his eyebrows. "It'd be wasting time sitting and watching it."

"That's not true," Lightning argued, putting an elbow on the table meaningfully.

Blueaura scoffed. "Get your elbow off the table. And if it isn't true, why have you not touched your pasta yet?"

Lightning fluttered her eyes innocently and said in a very sweet voice, "But it'll burn me."

Blueaura picked up a noodle, placed it in the palm of his hand (where it would burn the most), and showed her it.

Lightning shrugged. "Touche." She preceded to "discretely" lean over to Luce and whisper, "We all know who really wins here."

Luce pressed the back of his hand to his mouth to keep from laughing.

JAESON

TWO WEEKS LATER I had enrolled Lucifer, now called Luce, in school, Johnson was a very grumpy clerk, Will had not had another heart attack, Blueaura was back in action, Destiny and I had elected Lightning as vice president of being vice president of PIPA's mission center, and I was about to go on a surveillance mission.

It was eleven forty, almost noon. I had eaten already and was walking towards the helicopter pad when Rishley called for me.

Rishley worked in the pharmacy. She was a year younger than me at twenty-six years old and had long blonde hair that reached her mid-back and sweet brown eyes. She wasn't a morph- was human- but that didn't bother her nor anyone else.

"Jaeson!" I heard her yell.

I sighed mentally. Rishley didn't quite appreciate when I went on missions without telling her. Turning around, I began with: "Honey, surveillance missions-"

She cut me off. "I know. Not that dangerous. Twelve hours." She smiled and raised her eyebrows at me. "Am I allowed to say goodbye?"

I smiled a little at her and she brightened. She came and gave me a hug, and I whispered, "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

She laid her head on my chest and whispered back, "Okay. Remember you can come to my house if you want; you have a key. I love you."

"It'll be past one in the morning," I reminded her softly. "But okay."

She smiled back up at me, but it didn't reach her eyes.

I smiled my small smile and walked into the helicopter with the other agents.

I mentally sighed. That was the fourth time she'd told me she loved me and the fourth time I'd avoided telling it to her back. I loved her, don't get me wrong; I truly did. But did I? The words... they felt so right to say. They lived at the tip of my tongue whenever I was around her, and repeated in my head whenever I wasn't. I just wasn't ready to make it... official, I guess.

I wanted to know she truly loved me for who I was... and what I was, too.

The helicopter took off. It was pretty small in there, and pretty dark, but neither of those things had really bothered me until that mission. I ignored the feeling and looked at my friends.

"Jaeson, you haven't been on surveillance for what, like a month now?" one of the other agents, a man who went by the name of Race, asked me casually. He was sitting across from me in that weird way with one ankle crossed onto the knee of the other leg.

I nodded distantly, still pondering my dilemma with Rishley and the condition of the helicopter. "Yeah."

"Been too busy solving medical mysteries, huh?" he asked, grinning.

I smirked, my eyes happy and my brain relieved for the distraction. "Been too busy stabbing Riverside with biopsy needles."

Race's eyes went wide and he put his leg down in surprise. "Whaaat? That kid seems too fragile to me."

I shook my head. "No. That kid's more of a trooper than most of you, and his fighting skills are incredible."

"Why ain't he out here, then?" another man, Casper, asked. He was sitting in front of me and had to peer over the edge of the seat to talk with me.

I shrugged. "He's a lover, not a fighter. He's amazing at it, but he hates it."

"I thought you hated fighting," the third and final agent, a girl named Kate, reminded me, raising her eyebrow. She was sitting in front of Race, but was taller than Casper, so she didn't have to struggle to see us; she just turned her head.

"I do," I said, shrugging again. "I hate war fighting, though. This kind of fighting, where thousands of lives are not killed everyday, I am okay with. Gawd knows I love the adrenaline," I finished, grinning.

The others laughed.

THE PLACE WE were at was as bright as a lamp in a box when we got there, so we could see the terrain pretty easily; we were basically up on a high plateau and looking down into a dense forest. Some of it climbed up onto the plateau and sat behind us. Settling into long grass with some binoculars, we got into the mission.

The first eleven hours and forty minutes went smoothly. No one spoke, there was no movement, I was able to distract myself from everything with the mission, and most importantly there were no attacks.

The last twenty minutes, however, sucked.

It all began with a bullet whistling inches away from Race's face.

We all jumped into action and metaphorically pricked our ears and stood still as the acrtic for an intense few moments, but of us found anything, so I cheated and used my auric abilities to find the enemies to be sitting just a few meters away from where we were hiding behind in the grass.

I made a daring move and climbed up into a tree, a gun in my hand. I knew what I'd find already, but this way we could go for surprise, and no one would question me.

Yeah, well, they apparently had some aura abilities themselves.

The moment I got into the one's range he started shooting like no one's business. Immediately I jumped down from the tree and yelled at the other agents to pull their guns and fire back, but the opposing force, ten strong, rushed the meager four of us in response to those guns being pulled.

I commanded everyone loudly and with purpose: they knew I was the leader and half of them went for me right away while the other half attacked the rest of my team. I fought the five with a bit more than ease, my skills sharpened by thousands of years of training. Still I suffered a few hits, and one got me with a knife a couple of times, but otherwise I was fine.

My team, on the other hand, each had less than forty years of training, and the opposing force was not exactly weak.

I fought off my guys the quickest I could, knowing full well none of us had much time.

I was right.

"Ow!" Race yelped abruptly, and my eyes went wide as he felt to the ground.

A bullet? No guns had been shot except that one, and I had assumed he'd run out of ammo. Wrong. Assumptions were usually wrong out here.

That is, of course, when I took a deep breath and screwed it. I felt my eyes turn bright white and the people fighting me froze purple in a psychic attack. I lifted my arms and then threw them down, defeating each of the people in front of me.

Next I threw a hand in the direction of the others and their enemies froze, but I was too weak to throw them up and down. Instead I said, my voice quiet but powerful, "Beat them. Hurry. I can only hold them for so long."

Kate and Casper shot and hit the frozen people until I grew so dizzy I could barely stand, and I released my grip. They all fell back and didn't stand again.

"Jaeson! Are you all right?" Kate demanded, watching me shake with the combination of exhaustion and adrenaline.

"I'm... fine," I mumbled, then slowly and calmly walked over to Race. He had a shoulder wound, thankfully. Shoulders were an okay place to get shot. Worse would be chest. Much, much worse would be chest. "Kate," I began, and I could hear the exhaustion settling in my voice. Damn exhaustion. I had to stay strong; these guys counted on me. "Apply pressure to his wound. Casper, call the helicopter in."

"Shouldn't we apply pressure to your wounds, too?" Kate asked, beginning to pull bandages out of her pack.

I looked down to see a couple crimson blossoms of blood sprouting on my chest and one on my right leg, then felt my forehead and came up with sticky red all over my hand. And, on top of that, my pager started to ring loudly. Pager? Hadn't I left it? Then my cell phone started buzzing. Cell phone? Everyone knew I was on a mission. It was for emergencies onl-

"Hello? Will?" I demanded, feeling yet more adrenaline start pumping through my blood and wake me up once more. "What's happened?"

Grimly, very grimly, Will said, "We now have three cases."

"Just what I need right now," I mumbled.

There was a pause. "I was just told that you guys needed a helicopter," Will said calmly. "I'll be there soon with a medical team and a few more agents."

THANKFULLY WILL'S TEAM arrived about five minutes later, before Race or I could lose that much more blood.

Two of the men I'd held frozen stood up, but Kate and Casper watched, amazed, as Will pressure-pointed them and took them both down in a matter of moments. He then proceeded to take control of the situation (Considering I was still shaking and had my eyes half closed, everyone figured I wasn't quite in leader-shape right now.) and had Race hooked up to an IV and moved into the helicopter. Then he turned to me and signaled for a cot.

"I'm fine," I insisted... just as another drop of blood from my forehead leaked down my cheek and plopped onto the ground.

"No" was all Will (very firmly) said. I felt the cot at the back of my knees and then he (easily, I might add) pushed me down onto it and had a couple nurses pull me up onto the pillow. I closed my eyes and felt a pinch as Will put an IV in me and then suddenly we were flying and Will was peeling my hand off my aching head and bandaging my forehead and cutting my shirt and half of my right pant leg off and I felt nurses, so many nurses, touching me all at once and their auras were smacking my exhausted face and where they touched they hurt.

I groaned loudly and muttered, "Stop. Now."

"Jeezes, you're still awake? Everybody back," Will demanded. I felt his gentle fingers take my pulse and breathing rate. "What's wrong?"

"Aura's overwhelmed," I murmured, then opened my eyes. I looked at my hands but couldn't tell if they were moving or not. "Am I still shaking?"

"Yeah, you are," Will said calmly. He looked up at everyone and directed people to go different places. In the end I watched as he and one nurse, only two hands rather than eight, cleaned me up. People were a bit confused, but no one said anything.

We got to the hospital moments after they had finished. I immediately forced myself up and made sure Race was rushed into surgery and that I was rushed a coffee, a shirt, and pants.

"You should lie down," Will insisted, following me out of the helicopter and then as I walked to the viewing room for the surgery once I'd gotten the above items.

"I'm fine," I told Will surely.

"You have a concussion and several deep chest wounds," Will retorted, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrows as he followed me. "You're not exactly fine."

"I'm fine enough," I said gruffly, speeding up a bit.

Will grabbed my wrist. I turned around and said, "Will-"

"Go. Home," Will demanded, putting his hands on my shoulders. "Please."

I ignored him as I abruptly remembered something. "What's this about a third case, Will?"

"I won't tell you until you freaking go home and bloody sleep," Will decided seriously, and crossed his arms across his chest while raising his eyebrows at me again, his trademark You-Better-Listen-To-Me-Mister/Miss pose.

I took a breath. "I'm-"

"If you tell me you're fine one more time I will actually pressure point you and drag you home myself," Will threatened.

I sighed loudly. "Fine. I'm going home, then." I rolled my eyes and walked past him. He followed, arms still crossed, and I knew he didn't believe me.

When we got to the door he told me, "If I see you again in this hospital in any amount of time less than twelve hours I will actually bring you to my house and keep you there until I see that you're better enough to go back to work. Got it?"

I nodded, again rolling my eyes.

Will smiled warmly. "Thank you. Go sleep now. Please."

AS I STARTED driving the exhaustion and pain started setting in. My forehead, leg, and chest were killing me, and I could barely keep my eyes open. I also felt cold, and my body did not want to sleep in its own bed. I knew what it did want, though.

I drove to my girlfriend's house and fell asleep the moment I laid down on her couch.

SO MUCH FOR sleep- I woke up shivering from a nightmare about an hour and a half after I'd fallen asleep.

"Jaeson? Is that you?" asked Rishley. I thought I had heard someone climbing down the stairs.

I groaned as she flipped the light switch on. "Yeah, it's me," I murmured.

"Oh, Jaeson, you look exhausted," she said caringly, kneeling down to gently touch my cheek. "What are you doing here? And up so late? And you're hurt!"

I propped myself up on my elbow, but stared at the floor. "I know, I know. I didn't want to be alone in my big empty house so I came here," I said quietly. I looked up at her and whispered, "You don't mind if I sleep here on the couch, do you?"

"I do, actually. Come sleep upstairs in an actual bed with me, will you?" she asked, raising her eyebrows in hopeful question at me.

"I'm fine down here," I murmured, looking at the floor again. I didn't want her to be troubled by me or be tired because of me.

She picked up my head in her hands and told me, "You're always fine. Now get upstairs." With that she took my hand and pretty much dragged me up the steps.

"Really," I mumbled as she dragged me, "I have nightmares. I toss and turn like all hell is breaking loose."

"I don't care," Rishley insisted.

"I do if you don't get any sleep," I told her.

She glanced back at me, rolling her eyes, and said, "Honey. Nice try."

"I mean it," I said at the entrance to her door.

Just then she whipped around and I knocked into her, but she took hold of and embraced me. "I know you do. Now let's go to bed, shall we?"

I laid my head on her shoulder and took a deep breath, giving up. "Okay."

We walked to the bed and she pulled the blankets back and tucked herself in, then watched me do the same. As I slowly climbed into her warm bed and sank into the softness of the sheets and the knowledge of her beside me, I happily realized my sleep could only get better from there.

ANOTHER HOUR LATER I woke up and sprung into a sitting position, my hand on my heart and its beating too fast in my ears. I breathed in and out, in and out.

Rishley sat up as well and leaned against me tiredly, putting her hand onto my heart. I felt my shoulders tense in response- this was the closest I'd been to her, or anyone, in that case, in a long, long time. Since Mary, the woman I'd loved since my first life thousands of years and hundreds of reincarnations ago. "Hey, you okay?" she murmured into my neck. "I can feel your heart going crazy fast."

I swallowed and breathed deeply a couple more times before answering, relaxing a little as my heart calmed. "I'm fine."

"You're always fine," she murmured groggily. "But are you okay?"

I sighed. "I'm fine. Really."

"I know you're fine. Are you okay?" Rishley said a bit more meaningfully. She turned to look up at me and I realized I had put a hand over hers on my heart.

I studied her face and her aura. She really did care, but I already knew that. I could feel it. I told her the truth: "I don't know."

"What happened, honey?" she wondered quietly.

I looked away from her and whispered, "Nightmare. That's all."

When I looked back at her she stared hard into my face, concern and worry in her eyes. "What about?"

I flinched at the memory of it. "I can barely think about it. It's too much to talk about it now."

"Okay," she said quietly, then took my head in her hands and whispered, "I'm here for you, all right? It isn't my job: it's my life choice."

Her life choice? Did she mean she had chosen to spend her life taking c- with me? That meant a lot to me, I had to say. Almost as much as when she first told me she loved me. But she didn't need to take care of me- I'd done it on my own for almost all of my memories, and I could keep doing it. But I didn't say that. "I know" was all I did say. "Thank you."

"Okay," she whispered again, and laid back down. I laid down next to her and was surprised to feel her slide closer to me. I felt my nerves ride up as I made a daring move: I put my arms around her. I didn't know why, but I was surprised to feel her relax and then quickly fall asleep, obviously happy in my arms. I pressed my forehead against hers and was a bit shocked to find how relaxed I was with her so close. I fell asleep myself just moments after.

THE NEXT MORNING I spent in bed. For the first time in a long time, I slept until about noon, and when I did wake up Rishley was there with an ibuprofen and lunch. We ate together in her bed and just stayed there, together. All the many pains, aches, and worries (of Will and his heart, of Race, who I knew would be fine, of everything) floated away, and not into my dreams.