Bill awoke to the earthy, sweet smell of incense and tea, and with that, he groaned heavily. His head felt foggy and hot, and a throbbing pain pulsed across his skull. Neither of these sensations were helped by the dry, heady smell of the incense, nor were they helped by the fact that Bill knew exactly where he was. Twisting around in his half-sleep, he pulled the cushions of Adam’s perch close and slowly opened his eyes. Next to his head was a silver teakettle with ornate, spiraling designs etched into its surface. A hand reached out for its handle and tipped its curved spout into a small, white, ceramic cup next to it. Fragrant, brown tea spilled into the cup for several long, drawn-out seconds. Then the hand righted the kettle and moved the cup and its matching saucer in front of Bill’s face.
“Awake?” Adam asked.
“Is that a trick question?” Bill muttered back.
“Sarcasm. Good. I had hoped we would not have a repeat of our last encounter in this place.”
“I hate you.”
“Open emotion is also healthy.” Adam nudged the saucer. “Sit up and drink.”
“I read
Alice in Wonderland, you know.”
Adam withdrew its hand. “Relevance?”
Bill squinted at the cup. “That isn’t real tea.”
“Well, if it comforts you at all, this tea will not shrink you.” Adam punctuated this by biting down on the mouthpiece for its hookah. Bill only knew this by the clicking sound of the creature’s fangs against plastic.
“The tea didn’t shrink Alice.”
“Now
that is irrelevant.”
Bill growled and turned over to face away from the tea. He wasn’t in the mood for this. “Why am I here?”
Adam sat back, the pillows ruffling around it. “Because of our fusion. There were some side effects I must discuss with you before you regain consciousness.” It paused. “You really should drink that tea, by the way. Illusion or not, it is impolite for a guest to let tea go cold.”
“No, I mean why am I
here?” Bill replied, his hands moving to his face. “What happened?”
“What do you mean ‘what happened’?” Adam leaned over him. “Surely you remember.”
Bill squinted. The moments after he met the monarch in the volcano were hazy, and he tried to grab onto any wisp of a memory he could. He remembered gold and screaming. Lanette’s eyes and…
“Do you need to borrow my memories?” Adam asked.
Something warm. The feeling of electricity.
“I must admit that this is possibly one of the side effects. Separating our minds as abruptly as I did may leave … holes on your side.”
Smiles. The monarch’s and … and his.
“Wait,” Bill whispered.
Adam pulled back. “Yes?”
The stench of blood. The feeling of his tail sailing through flesh.
So much blood.
“I remember now,” Bill murmured.
He sat up and stared at Adam.
“I remember now,” he repeated. His voice shook.
And the teakettle exploded between them.
Despite the spray of scalding tea and shards of silver, Adam didn’t flinch. But Bill, screaming the instant the tea touched him, tilted backwards and over the edge of the dais. The tent became a whirl of color as Bill smashed into the steps and tumbled down the mountain of chests between Adam’s nest of pillows and the floor. His fingers clawed for purchase, but every time his body hit the steps, he was shocked into momentary, blinding paralysis until he crashed into the landing at last.
Adam was instantly by his side. The creature didn’t even move from Bill’s perspective. It just vanished from the dais and appeared beside him in the exact same moment.
“You must learn to control your temper here,” it said. “Raw anger will only harm you.”
Bill ignored its advice as he pushed himself onto his knees. The pain was already subsiding, and Bill couldn’t tell if that was his own recovery factor, some kind of psychosomatic effect, or simply Adam’s doing. All he knew was that physical pain was quickly flooded out by an emotional one. One of overwhelming anger and sadness.
“It all was for nothing,” he said. “After all that, the entire nest died!”
“Yes,” Adam replied. “May I ask why this has made you angry with
me?”
“Why?” Bill growled. “Why didn’t it work? What do you ixodida
want?”
Adam blinked. “This frustration is most unlike you. You are typically more patient with pokémon, are you not?”
Bill shook his head and sobbed. He rubbed at his eyes with the heel of one of his hands. “And me … why was I so quick to kill that monarch? Blazes…” He pulled his knees up to his chest and shook. “What’s happening…?”
He felt a warm hand grasp his shoulder. Instinct told him to shrug it off, but somehow, he didn’t have the energy to do so. He merely shook under its touch, trembling with uncontrollable sobs.
“You are just now realizing your position,” Adam said. “You are a soldier in a war. It is as simple as that. I am deeply sorry that you must be involved, but you must remember, you are not a murderer. You are only doing what is necessary for the survival of yourself and of others.”
“Adam, all those people
died,” Bill replied.
“Those ixodida died because they had to,” Adam told him. “They will not accept peace. I have told you this many times. Now you have seen with your own eyes why they will not, and you are having difficulty processing it. That is all.”
Bill shook his head again. “I don’t understand. What do you
want?”
Adam sighed, and its hand moved. Bill felt gentle fingers grasp his chin and move it until he looked directly at his symbiont. Adam’s face was as expressionless as usual, but Bill could swear there was something in the way it looked at him—a kind of pity in its eyes that made the blankness somehow softer than it would have been otherwise.
After a few seconds of complete silence, Adam pulled away and stood. It padded to the drawers set into the stairs and pulled one out slowly. Reaching inside, it rattled something until it removed a wooden box with intricate, three-armed spirals adorning its surface. Adam turned to face Bill, resting one hand on top of the box while the other held it from underneath.
“I think you are ready,” Adam said.
“For … for what?” Bill asked quietly.
“For learning about where we come from.”
Adam opened the box, and a blue light surged forth from inside it. The light twisted in the air, forming a blue tendril that flowed from the box to the space between Adam and Bill. It snaked around them and glided upward until it swirled into a ball. A white light pulsed from within it twice before it burst into a brilliant flash. Bill flinched, shutting his eyes tightly and turning away until the light faded. When he opened them again, he felt his heart stop.
All around him, he saw stars. Literal stars, hanging in a black and violet expanse of space. But directly in front of his eyes—that was a sight that dwarfed the beauty all around him. There, before Adam and Bill, were three objects. The first and largest was a giant, blue orb with bands of clouds swirling across its surface. In the distance beyond the orb was a star, a twinkling ruby hanging bright but tiny some distance away from the blue mass. And the third object, smaller than the star but closer, drifted slowly around the blue ball. Across the smallest orb, oceans sparkled, divided by two giant landmasses and sprays of islands. The larger masses of land were covered with thick patches of green, lanced only by a wide, brown strip of desert across the equator.
“Bill,” Adam said, “allow me to introduce you to our homeworld, the gas giant Nila and its fertile moon Avani.”
Swallowing hard, Bill struggled to find his voice. At last, he spoke, and his voice was hoarse. “W-what is this?”
For once, Adam didn’t offer a snarky response. Rather, the parasite looked at him with a blank expression and responded evenly—patiently.
“A gas giant orbiting a red dwarf in what you know as the Carina-Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. The gas giant is, of course, not inhabited by intelligent life, but the moon…”
Adam reached out to grasp the tiny moon. As soon as its claws brushed the oceans dotting the orb, the whole thing burst into a flash of blue light. When it faded this time, Bill found himself outside of the tent, deep in the broad-leafed forest. Blinking away the remnants of the blue light, Bill shook his head and turned to Adam.
“Tell me. And I want a straight answer this time. If I follow you, will you actually answer my question?” he asked.
Adam turned and began walking past the trees. Bill felt his breath catch in his throat before he stormed after his symbiont. All the while, he looked around the forest, at the sight of the gas giant peeking through the broad-leaved canopy, at all of the little details of the trees and the planet. It was beautiful and awe-inspiring; Bill couldn’t deny that. But something about it bothered him. Something extremely important.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Adam!”
The symbiont didn’t stop. It walked on, pushing through the trees until it reached a stone structure jutting out of the soil. As Bill caught up with Adam, he glanced at it and realized immediately what it was: a cave. It looked artificial, hewn out of the stone by hand, rather than formed by nature. Intricate carvings—swirling patterns and a series of circles and lines interconnected with each other—sprawled up the smooth sides of the cave’s mouth, and just inside the opening, the path appeared to be made out of cobblestone, rather than mere earth. In the ceiling of the cave, colored jewels provided the only light, shedding a purple-pink glow onto the cobblestone path every few feet. The sight of this bothered Bill as well, even though he thought that this, too, was beautiful.
“Adam,” he said. “May I ask you a question?”
His partner started down the path, but without looking back, it said, “All of your questions will soon have answers. Have patience.”
“I doubt this one will,” Bill replied as he followed. “And before I ask it, I want to know if you’ll give me a straight, honest answer.”
“Of course,” Adam said without hesitation. “Have I ever given you any doubt that you could trust me?”
“Yes.”
Even then, Adam didn’t stop, although it sent a blank-faced glance over its shoulder. “That is rather unkind of you.”
Bill sighed heavily. “We’re not starting this argument again. Will you give me a straight answer if I ask you a question?”
“This is the time when you learn everything about what I am and where I came from,” Adam told him. “If your question has to do with either of those subjects, then yes, I will give you a straight answer.”
“Good.” Bill stopped. “What is all of this?”
“My memories, of course,” Adam replied.
“I thought as much. Then may I ask you another question?”
“Will that be your last?”
“For now.”
It was at that point that Adam stopped. “Then ask.”
“Right. Adam…” Bill motioned to the cave. They were deep enough underground that the surface was no longer visible, but Bill felt he had enough of an example all around him to support his one nagging question. “In your natural form, you don’t have eyes. How can these be your memories?”
Adam turned to scrutinize its host. This was yet another moment in which Bill knew the creature would have smiled if it could, and because of that, he felt himself shudder. But this time, he stood his ground. He steeled himself. He stared back, steady and determined and ready to rush Adam at a moment’s notice.
“Every day, your intelligence astounds me,” Adam said. “Your mind is so alien.”
“
My mind?” Bill scoffed.
“Yes. It is so simple, yet with an astuteness and cleverness that is very rare among the beings of the cosmos. It is a shame that our kind consistently underestimates Earth and its inhabitants. All of you are possibly the most fascinating creatures in our galaxy.”
“Adam,” Bill warned.
It held up a hand. “But yes. You are very correct in picking up on that detail. And I must apologize. I was not wholly truthful just now. These are not just my memories. They are shared memories.”
“Shared memories?” Bill asked.
Adam turned and motioned for its host to follow. “Yes. These are the memories of the first hosts.”
Bill raised his eyebrows. “The first hosts?”
“Yes,” Adam said. “Bill, it is counterproductive to continue repeating me. Come. I must show you them. You must understand what they are.”
Aliens! It took all of Bill’s willpower to walk calmly behind Adam, rather than jump or dash forward. Certainly, he had already gone through a literal first contact with Adam, but to see a real extraterrestrial species in its natural habitat? The scientist within him was alive, well, and screaming in excitement. And it was then that Bill realized how much he missed this, the thrill of seeing something new and different as an observer, as a researcher. He couldn’t help it. His heart pounded as he and Adam descended through the tunnel and approached the carved archway—the twin to the entrance—at the end.
Adam stopped there, just before the opening. Bill did too, his eyes fixed on the hazy, violet glow just before him. He couldn’t make out what was beyond it, and because of that, he moved his eyes from the door to Adam and back again.
“What?” he asked. “What’s going on?”
“Your heart rate has increased,” Adam told him. It placed a hand on its chest. “I can feel it.”
Immediately, a blush blossomed across Bill’s face. “Can you blame me?”
Adam gave him another unreadable look. “Calm yourself, Bill. I want you to pay attention to what I have to say.”
With that, it passed through the archway, and seconds later, Bill followed. A blinding flash of violet light blossomed across Bill’s vision, forcing him to blink rapidly once again. Then, slowly, his vision resolved, this time into a giant chamber. Stone paths wound around the walls, twisting down to a bubbling, golden pool at the bottom. Stone arches, mirrors of the one Bill stood under, dotted the walls along the path, framed with glowing, colored jewels. A violet crystal hung far above the chamber, directly in the center of the wall, and it was the internal glow of this piece that illuminated the cave. Beneath the glow, strange shapes—ones that looked like stingrays made of reflective, black metal—flitted back and forth from path to path, and as one zoomed close by, Bill realized it wasn’t a creature at all but instead a vehicle, a small hover car carrying creatures he couldn’t recognize. Tearing his eyes away from the car, Bill glanced around the chamber to find more of these creatures on each path—more spindly, gray creatures in rainbow-colored robes that hung all the way down to the ground. They reminded Bill of giant cats: pointed-eared, elegant beings with long, thin tails and large, golden eyes gliding up the paths as they chattered in quiet buzzes.
And they were beautiful to Bill. The chamber was beautiful. The cars were beautiful. This whole vision was beautiful.
But then, Bill’s breath caught in his throat for a second time. It wasn’t because the sight was awe-inspiring. It was because he recognized this. And it only took him a second to put a name to it.
“This is the nest in Mt. Chimney,” he said.
“Yes. In a way,” Adam replied. Its voice turned slightly bitter. “I do not know why those ixodida created such a similar place. Perhaps they were attempting to emulate layouts they were already familiar with. But what you see here is not Mt. Chimney; rather, it is why I was so upset upon seeing the nest. I apologize for not explaining this to you earlier, but this? This was our home. Vaidurya, capital of the Relian Empire.”
Bill looked at him. “The what?”
“The Relian Empire,” Adam repeated with a glance towards its host. Then, it swept an arm out in a long, dramatic motion towards the creatures. “Bill, I would like to introduce you to the dominant species of Avani, the first hosts … the Relians.”
“The Relians…” Bill rolled the word in his mouth, as if to test it. When Adam began walking up the pathway, Bill followed, but only with half his mind focused on where he was going. His eyes were trained on the Relians, studying each of them as they went about their daily lives.
As extraordinary as they looked at first glance, they almost seemed … ordinary to Bill. Some walked in pairs or groups, their hands looping in gestures as they chattered fervently to each other in conversations Bill couldn’t understand. Others walked alone, their arms full of brightly colored packages and their eyes determined and steady. Smaller Relians ran up the streets, their paths weaving back and forth as they chased after one another or after rainbow-colored balls that hovered in the air in front of them. A handful of tall Relians walked with small ones in their arms or holding their hands. Parents with children. Children at play. Adults with groceries. Relians with each other. They seemed almost human, had they not been seven-feet-tall and cat-like. Even their faces were almost human, each displaying different expressions that were completely recognizable to him: happy, sad, determined, angry … everything. They seemed so unlike the ixodida that it was almost a shock to Bill.
And because of that, because of how human they seemed, Bill was almost afraid to say anything, but he knew the next question was really the most important one he could ask.
“Adam,” he said softly, “what happened to them?”
“We will get to that,” it replied. “Come. I will tell you the story as we walk.”
Bill nodded and turned back to his symbiont. He picked up the pace now, striving to keep close to Adam with each step. His ears strained to listen carefully as Adam began.
“The Relians are an ancient race,” it told him. “They have histories that would date back for thousands upon thousands of years, had they been born on Earth. But they were also peaceful and technologically advanced, perhaps more so than any other in the galaxy. I wish I had time to show you all the fantastic things they created. The two you see here—” It motioned to the cars and the stone lights. “—are not enough to represent the wealth of inventions the Relians created in their long history. It was for this reason that they attracted the attention of other beings in the galaxy. You see, Bill, the Relians are a curious race. Of course they explored the stars. They were among the first to do so, in fact. But they did so alone, as they have always preferred to observe, rather than interact.”
Adam turned to a large, stone entrance at the top of the path. Bill stopped next to it and looked at the archway. He realized instantly that this entrance, this intricate, stone archway, was analogous to the opening of the throne room inside the Mt. Chimney nest. So he had a feeling he already knew exactly what was beyond the violet glow filling this stone threshold.
“There are many other beings in this galaxy,” it continued. “I know you have deduced this the moment I confirmed to you that I am not of your planet, but it is important to emphasize. Humans are not alone in this universe. As such, you must also know that politics is not a concept exclusive to Earth, either. The galaxy is rife with factions and diplomacy, and although the Relians avoided it among themselves by combining their races under one banner, they could not escape it between planets.”
“What do you mean?” Bill asked, his eyes refusing to move from the doorway.
“Out there, there is a federation,” Adam explained. “We call it the Intergalactic Association. It is a fellowship of many planets, led by a congress that calls itself the Galactic Committee. In theory, it is a benign idea wherein worlds share resources and knowledge to create an interplanetary utopia. However, in practice, it is a diplomatic mess, a tense balance between one senator and another in which the fate of entire planets depend on the fragile agreements between flawed individuals. Yet to refuse membership into the Intergalactic Association when it is offered is to put your planet at risk of being considered a hostile force. Imagine that you have hundreds of planets’ military forces wary of your every action. For that reason, the Relians were torn. Do they join the Intergalactic Association and benefit from its philosophy and protection at the cost of their independence, or do they join the lawless planets that stand alone and unprotected from the Association’s scrutiny?”
Adam passed through the doorway, and once again, Bill followed closely. Another brilliant light flashed before Bill’s eyes, this time fading quickly into a stone throne room. It resembled the one Bill had seen in Mt. Chimney, but this one seemed finished. Its walls were smoother, its lights brighter, and on its floor was a violet rug leading straight to a dais, upon which sat a smooth, golden throne.
There were cat people everywhere. Crowds stood at attention along the walls, one sat upon the throne, and on either side of the throne, there were small ones. Most of the cat people were dressed in ornate robes of violet and gold, but the one on the throne wore something more exquisite: a robe of every color, with gold swirls playing across the hems and glowing, colored jewels sewn in a straight line down the front. The kittens on either side of it wore robes just as colorful and ornate, save for the lack of jewels sewn into the material. Not a single Relian moved. Not to blink. Not to shift on their feet. Not even to acknowledge one another. The Relians simply existed, decorating the stone room like models in a painting. And at that realization, Bill could feel his skin crawl. To him, it was as if he and Adam were standing smack in the middle of a photograph. It wasn’t a sensation he particularly enjoyed.
“The Relians came up with a ridiculous solution, really,” Adam said. “Would you like to hazard a guess on what they did?”
Bill kept his eyes on the Relians. His voice, when it spilled out of his mouth, was faint and vague. “I don’t know.”
At that, Adam scoffed and moved its hands to its hips. “You see, Bill, the Relian people lived under an empire, and Relians themselves live for a long time. Yet the imperial family lives longer than most by necessity. An empire depends on its crown. Of course the imperial family had to evolve in order to maintain its rule. And with a peaceful, united race, no one had ever thought to take the throne. Yes, I know that may sound absurd, but it is true. No one had ever thought of it. And why should they, if the imperial family saw to it that their people flourished? So you had an ancient dynasty, ruled by an ancient monarchy, passed down through eons from parent to eldest child. This caused a bit of a problem. More than one, really. Not only was there the dilemma concerning the Intergalactic Association, but you also had the issue that was the fact that the emperor was old. Very old, Bill. And he had two possible heirs.”
Suddenly, the image began to move … in a way. The emperor on the golden throne began to rise, but his movements were jerky, as if he was a character in a very old flip book animation. The kittens beside him shifted as well, moving in the same halting, flashing steps as their father. With every step the three of them took, they each got older. The emperor’s gray skin grew wrinkled and pale, and his body shriveled until his limbs were sticks at his sides. At the same time, the kittens grew taller and more willowy, their robes stretching out to flow elegantly around their lithe forms as they towered over their father.
“You see, late in their years, the emperor and the empress gave birth to two girls—identical twins,” Adam continued. “In the Relian culture, much in the same way as among you humans, twins are significant. Twins are destined for greatness. And to have the imperial family give birth to twin princesses at a time when it was faced with political turmoil? All of Avani took that as an omen. Of course they used the princesses as their solution. That was only natural. Why struggle to raise one child with one set of ideals when you could raise two? So with that, they took the girls and raised them to follow different paths.” Adam motioned to the cat on the left, and a red aura flared around her. “Ahura, raised on the path of wisdom and peace, was trained to become the empress and lead the Relians to unification with the Intergalactic Association.” The symbiont moved its hand to the second cat, whose aura flared green. “Angra, raised on the path of passion and righteousness, was trained to become the empress and defend the Relians against the Intergalactic Association, even if it meant war.” Adam lowered its hand. “The twin who would ascend the throne was to be decided upon the emperor’s dying breaths, by the emperor himself.”
Bill looked at Adam, tearing his eyes away from the two cats for the first time. A small frown pulled at the corners of his mouth, but his emotions were otherwise restrained—oddly so, from Adam’s perspective. “So to put it simply, the fate of the entire planet came down to a pair of children trained to pursue two very specific and different goals with the intent of having only one of them fulfill the purpose imposed on them by their father? And one of these children was literally trained for war, yet no one saw this as being a horrendous idea?”
“Basically?” Adam shrugged and glanced back at Bill with a look that made it clear that the symbiont was studying him carefully. “Yes.”
“Terribly sorry, Adam. I don’t think I have a word for how stupid that is.”
“I do not remember ever calling it a wise idea.”
Bill frowned. “Nonetheless … weren’t the Relians the most technologically advanced people in the galaxy?”
“Technological genius does not equal capacity to make sound decisions,” Adam commented as it stared pointedly at Bill.
For the next few seconds, Bill glared back as he dwelled on what Adam was implying. “You know what? I’m going to ignore that. Continue.”
“As can be expected,” Adam immediately said as it turned back to the imperial family, “the old emperor grew too old for the throne. Relian technology is far beyond that of any other planet, but it cannot prevent a body from decomposing. Rather, it couldn’t at the time that the emperor died.”
Before them, the scene continued to move. The emperor, who had been struggling to stand until that point, finally collapsed, his body flashing with each jerking movement. At his sides, his daughters swooped in, reaching out to grab the arms of their father. The crowds of Relians to the sides of the room burst into action, moving forward in jerking waves. Their mouths—all of their mouths—opened in silent screams. Then, with a gnarled hand, the emperor reached up, towards both of his daughters.
“The emperor chose one to ascend the throne,” Adam explained, its voice growing quiet. “And she did. Gracefully, albeit with a heavy heart. They both loved their father, Bill. Although the old emperor had been a fool in how he raised his daughters, he was wise and kind. Strong and just. When he died, the empire lost one of its greatest leaders.”
Adam waved a hand over the scene. The emperor’s body vanished with a swirl of gray and gold. The Relians swept back into their positions at the sides of the room. One sister once again stood at attention to the right side of the golden throne, and the other sat upon the throne, straight and tall and expressionless.
“The first few … months, I suppose you would call them, were ones of glory,” Adam said. “The empress that was chosen was a brilliant ruler, the wiser of the twins. Though her reign was brief, she ruled fairly.”
Commoner Relians flashed in and out of the scene, bowing before the empress and raising their hands up in silent pleas. The empress regarded them all with a stoic expression before rising off her throne. Gradually, in flickering movements, she glided down the dais as commoners flashed in and out of existence before her. At last, as she stood at the bottom of the steps, she reached out and touched the head of one of them. It stopped, gazing up at her with wide eyes.
“She intended on keeping her promise,” Adam continued, “on fulfilling the purpose she was born and trained to pursue. But before she could rally her people behind her, something else happened.”
“What?” Bill asked.
“Her sister betrayed her,” Adam told him.
Behind the empress, the other twin lifted her chin, her eyes flashing as she moved. It was the first truly fluid moment Bill had seen in this room thus far, and something about it seemed wrong. He swallowed but kept his eyes on her.
“What happened?” he murmured.
“What do you think happened?” Adam replied. “She questioned her sister’s ability to lead. And so, she sought to create a weapon in order to overthrow her.”
“A weapon?” he whispered.
“Yes,” Adam replied.
The room dissolved around them, reforming into a completely new space. This, too, was a still scene, with Relians dressed in white locked in place like a photograph. But this time, the room wasn’t well-lit or open. It was instead a darkened space cluttered with glassy cylinders. Suspended in each tube were tiny balls of light—hundreds of them in a full spectrum of colors. At one end of the room, there was a door, and it was there that the princess suddenly appeared. She blinked in and out of sight, reappearing closer and closer to one tube in the back wall. The Relians she passed turned their heads and pulled away from other tubes to gather around their princess. And then, at last, they stopped: an entire horde of Relians and their princess standing motionless before a lone tube in the back of the room. There was only one color in this tube. Red. Brilliant, violent red.
Bill could feel his throat tighten. He knew what Adam was about to say before it spoke, but he waited for it to confirm his suspicions.
“Yes,” Adam told him, “she created us.”
Abruptly, the princess’s form flashed, her fist smashing against the tube. The glass gave instantly, spilling the tube’s contents all over the floor. Her hand pulled away, one set of claws holding onto a single parasite while the other set opened her shirt. In the next flash, the parasite was against her chest. All around her, the Relians in white scrambled in the same jerking, flashing movements to get out of the way of the wave, but one by one, they slipped, they fell, they toppled into the masses of angry, blood red. But Bill couldn’t watch them. It wasn’t that he was squeamish at that moment. It was that all of his attention was focused on one being and one being only: the princess. He watched as her arms rose, claws splayed towards the ceiling as tendrils laced across her bare chest. He watched her skin bubble and blister and split open to reveal black flesh underneath. He watched her drop to all fours, her teeth bared and her ears flat against her head. All the beauty he had seen in the Relians was gone at once, replaced by something feral and angry and ugly.
Bill had never been afraid of pokémon or any other creature, but he was afraid of the princess right then, right at that very moment.
No. Not just afraid. He was blindingly
terrified of her.
Adam didn’t have the mercy of acknowledging his fear. It just continued smoothly into the next part of the story, as if what it was seeing was completely ordinary.
“The Relian Empire could not resist her. She slaughtered the empress’s forces and assumed power, and with the other ixodida under her control, she quickly established an iron-fisted rule,” it said.
Around them, the scene shifted back into the throne room. The empress stood with her body half-turned towards the door. At her sides, four Relians in suits of armor crouched low, their claws curled around sparking, staff-like weapons. In a flash, the doors burst open, and the princess stood in the arch, her body barely more than a silhouette in the threshold. Her arm extended, and two infected Relians—one with flames licking off its body and the other with skin studded with ice crystals—bounded forward, towards the armored guards. In the next flash, the princess’s companions were on top of the empress’s protectors. Flame jets burst from the skin of the fire-type to engulf two of the empress’s guards, and ice crystals grew from the hands of the other ixodida to swallow the remaining soldiers where it touched them.
Then, there was the princess herself. Her body cut through the air, making a beeline directly for her sister. The empress cringed, her wide eyes locked onto those of the princess.
And then, suddenly, all Bill could see was blackness.
Blackness until violet fire erupted around him.
The next few scenes flashed quickly before Bill’s eyes. The sight of infected Relians marching in lines down the stone pathways of Vaidurya. Uninfected Relians fleeing in tight groups ahead of the ixodida troops. Relians chained together in dark, craggy rooms. Ixodida claws circling the Relians’ chains. Relians huddled in small groups within the tube-filled laboratory. Ixodida, each holding crystal orbs containing parasites, towering over their captives. One scene after another, each one containing another Relian with tear-filled eyes or another expressionless ixodida, burst across Bill’s vision and faded away like firecrackers. They hurt about as much too. With each flash, Bill could feel another spike of cold lance into his heart, and although it was irrational and although the practical part of his brain told him he needed to think things through, he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t help but feel the white-hot burn of rage bubbling up from the bottom of his chest. At the empress. At the old emperor. At the way this story went. He couldn’t decide. Bill just knew that with each new image, another burst of
something inside him threatened to swallow him whole.
And it made him feel sick. Very sick. But he could do nothing but watch, and that made his chest feel hotter.
It was a strangely familiar feeling. One he actually had a word for.
Helplessness.
At last, one final scene appeared. Another dark cavern, another horde of infected Relians. But unlike the tube-filled room, this room was neither cramped nor cluttered. It was a wide and long space easily the size of a stadium, with a cluster of machines along one wall and snake-like tubes lining the floor. But at the center of the room, taking up most of the cavernous space, was a single object hovering roughly a story above the ground.
The object in question was a massive thing: a sleek, black craft that spanned the cavern from one wall to the other. Its body was a deep black—black enough that it looked more like the shape of a stingray cut out of thin air than an actual solid object. The only part of it that didn’t look deep, dark black was the pane of blue glass glittering at the front of its body. In Bill’s opinion, to say that it was huge and imposing was an understatement; standing next to it, he felt small, insignificant, powerless. The thing must have been big enough to shadow the entirety of Knot Island, and knowing the Relians at that point, Bill had a feeling it possessed an arsenal large and potent enough to wipe the island and the rest of the Sevii Archipelago off the map.
“What … what is this?” he whispered.
“I think you know,” Adam responded quietly. “The moment one sister usurped the other, the new empress gained control of the entire Relian Empire—and, by extent, all of Avani. Where else would she go next but the stars?”
Bill turned to his partner. “You’re kidding.”
“Not at all,” Adam said. “Was it cliché? Yes. But this empress was never particularly creative in comparison to her sister. Luckily, that was her downfall. It meant she could not predict our response.”
Adam waved a hand before the scene, allowing it to dissolve into the tube-filled laboratory again. The former empress’s metal-clad guards pinned the few ixodida in the room to the floor, allowing their leader to stand at the center of the laboratory. Another uninfected Relian stood in front of her with a crystal orb held in its hands. She gazed at it in awe, her claws curving over the orb as a red glow pulsed within it. In the next instant, her form flashed, and once it resolved, she held the orb in her own hands, watching as cracks laced across its surface.
“We created the Gray Rebellion,” Adam explained. “I recall telling you once that what we were doing was a glorious thing, and it was. Our empress’s—that is to say, the
true empress’s … her forces created an underground movement, an entire army of our very own to overwhelm the forces guarding the false ruler’s laboratories. We had the remaining parasite eggs genetically modified, and from these, we were able to fashion an entire clan of a type the false empress’s forces had never assumed. These, Bill, were the steel-type. The Iron Clan.”
Another series of images flashed in front of Bill’s eyes, this time of battles. Steel-type ixodida rushed across stone pathways and flung themselves at the second empress’s forces. Steel-type ixodida slashed at the chains of captured Relians, and steel-type ixodida surged into the room with the black spaceship.
Then, the scene shifted one more time, back to the throne room. This time, the second empress sat upon the gilded throne, her body a black mark against glittering gold. On either side of her were the fire- and ice-type ixodida, and in front of them, two other ixodida stood at attention: one green and covered with flowers and the other white and clad in feathers. Together, all five ixodida stared across the throne room to the open doors. The creature Bill knew to be the other sister—the one he assumed was Ahura, the sister of peace and fairness—stood in the doorway, her skin now glinting and silver. On either side of her, four other steel-type ixodida crouched, ready to strike.
“So your empress … she challenged her sister for the throne?” Bill asked.
“Of course she did,” Adam said.
In the final moment, each of the guards faced one another other in pairs. The fire-type was engulfed in flames as it pinned one of the steel-types to the ground. A second steel-type was tangled in vines sprouting from the grass-type’s skin, but its claws slashed and cut through the tendrils wrapping its body. The ice-type wove a white ribbon of snow around its body while its steel-type opponent swung its glowing tail through the drifts. Overhead, the bird-like flying-type and a steel-type with bright, golden wings were frozen in mid-swoop, their claws grasping at each other. And locked in the middle of the floor were Angra and Ahura, the shadow pinned to the ground by the armor-clad ixodida.
For the first time, Bill moved. He walked forward, slowly and carefully, until he stood over the two sisters. Crouching, he examined their faces closely, staring deep into the glare of the one he assumed was Angra, the sister of war. The one who, unable to wage war against the Intergalactic Alliance, brought it home.
He almost pitied her. She was raised all her life to fulfill a certain purpose. War was all she knew. But the key word there was that he almost pitied her. Even as he stared into her face, he could only see her as she was: expressionless. Alien.
“What happened then?” His voice was nearly inaudible at that point. It was only because the entire scene was silent that Adam could hear him.
“I do not know,” Adam said simply.
All at once, the scene lit up with brilliant, green light, and then, everything went black.
—
A set of claws plucked the strap of a bag off a rocky mountainside. It was a tattered bag, clearly something meant for a young human boy, but as the owner of those claws pulled it to his nose, he caught the scent of metal and alien—of a being just like him, yet different. He growled and tore his stony fingers into the flap of the bag until plastic spray bottles spilled onto the ground at his feet. Plucking one of the bottles from the ground, he held it up to the light and swirled it. For a long moment, he watched its liquid contents slosh against the red container. The fingers of his other hand scratched at the yellow handle, at the red and white circle painted onto its side. Something about it seemed familiar. Uncomfortably familiar.
“What are these?” he asked gruffly.
“Who cares?” another voice replied.
The rock-type turned his head to his companion, a stocky ixodida made of pure muscle. This second ixodida didn’t even give the bag or its contents a cursory glance; he was far too busy staring over the edge of Mt. Chimney’s lava tube and into the ixodida nest.
“You do not find this interesting, brother?” the rock-type asked.
His companion snorted. “Hardly. How could you? You know where it came from. The little rogue who raided the Sun Clan. Not that I am not thankful for what he did. If that abomination had not intervened, the Sun Clan would still pose a problem for us. Now, with both them and the Flame Clan out of our way, who do you think will lord over this domain on behalf of Her Majesty’s army?”
“What? You?” The rock-type dropped the bag, and a gurgling, grinding sound not unlike chuckling bubbled up from his throat.
At the sound of his companion’s laughter, the fighting-type turned on him. “Do I amuse you, little gnat?”
“Of course you do,” he replied. “You? A general for Her Majesty? You can barely mobilize your drones, let alone manage your entire nest. Why, you are even struggling to care about our true enemy here. How can you possibly hope to impress Her Majesty enough to serve as her general?”
One of the fighting-type’s hands snapped out and gripped the rock-type’s head. Although the stone-armored creature was taller and lither than the fighter, he squeaked and hung limply from his companion’s grip. His own hands grasped at the fighter’s bulky arm as the claws on his head grasped him tighter and tighter.
“Easily,” the fighting-type said. “Perhaps you are intelligent, but your brains mean nothing if they are squished between my fingers. Let me make our competition easier by eliminating your entire nest right here and—”
A vine snapped around his wrist and jerked his arm back. Startled, he released his companion and stumbled in the direction that the vine had pulled him, but within seconds, he lost his footing and crashed to the ground. The rock-type sat where he was dropped, his eyes fixed on his companion and his jaws clenched tightly. He knew better than to laugh in the presence of a general. Or, rather, two.
The first general unwrapped her vines and drew them back into her bright, green arm. She stood at the edge of the lava tube, the wind rustling through the pink petals adorning her body and her long, leaf-like hair. Her hazel eyes settled on the two before her, narrowing dangerously in her round face. Behind the grass-type, a second female ixodida sat on an outcropping of rocks, but by comparison, she was simpler—a bird-like creature covered with white feathers. A pair of wings were folded neatly at her back, and the purple claws of her hands and feet scraped against her rocky perch. She, too, was staring at the two males with narrow, violet eyes.
Two generals. The situation must have been dire if Her Majesty sent two of her remaining generals to their territory.
“Enough,” the grass-type said. “Neither of you are worthy of a position among the Imperial Guard.”
“My lady!” The rock-type dropped to one of his knees, bowed his head, and arched his neck to expose it to her. “We ask for your forgiveness. We meant no transgression.”
She frowned. “See to it that it does not happen again.”
“Yes, my lady.” Cautiously, the rock-type lifted his head. “Now, how may we serve you?”
“We have come to investigate a great disturbance in this sector,” she told them. “Her Majesty has become aware of the fact that her northern general has lost contact, and another of the northern clans has gone inert. We have come to gather your report.”
“It was the humans, my lady!”
The grass-type shifted her gaze to the fighter, who had scrambled to his knees in the meantime. “The humans?”
“Well, the first attack, to be more accurate,” he continued. “The humans had organized themselves into an army that overwhelmed the Flame Clan. The clan leader himself was killed by a warrior riding atop a great, blue bird.”
“The humans possess more power than we have imagined, then,” the bird-like ixodida said quietly.
At that, the grass-type exchanged glances with her companion and then turned back to the males. “Tell us. You said that this was the first attack. Were the humans not responsible for the second as well?”
“Yes and no, my lady,” the rock-type responded. He stooped to pick up the tatters of the bag and held it out to the general. “The Sun Clan attempted to ambush the humans. They would have succeeded too, but their leader had been challenged by a rogue.”
“A rogue?” The grass-type’s claws circled the strap of the bag and brought it to her face.
“Yes. More importantly, please take in the scent of this fabric, my lady. Which clan do you detect?”
The general inhaled deeply and raised her eyebrows. “Metal. The Iron Clan?” She raised her chin to look at the two males. “The Iron Clan is extinct!”
“Apparently not so,” the fighter told her. “I saw it with my own eyes, my lady. There was a member of the Iron Clan here. It was wearing human clothing.”
“What?” She shook her head. “This makes no sense. Even if the Iron Clan had come to this planet with us, the leader of the Sun Clan should have been able to best an Iron rogue.”
“We can only tell you what we know, my lady,” the fighter replied. “It was an Iron rogue that killed the leader of the Sun Clan.”
The generals exchanged another glance, one that prompted the bird-like creature to rise to her feet. Her wings unfurled, and her eyes glared hard at her fellow ixodida.
“I have gathered enough information to discuss matters with Her Majesty,” she announced. “Sister, see to it that this situation is contained until our empress makes a decision.”
Her wings rustled, and she took off like a shot. The grass-type general brought the strap to her nose again as she turned to the males.
“What do you wish for us to do, my lady?” the rock-hide asked.
The fighter pounded one of his fists into a palm. “Track it down and crush it?”
“No,” she answered as she lowered the strap. “Goliath, descend this side of the mountain with your forces to delay this rogue. Samson, you will go to the other side. Contain this rogue in the humans’ nest if Goliath fails.”
“My lady!” the two rogues cried in unison.
Then, after glancing at his partner, the rock-hide, Goliath, rose to his feet. “My lady, I mean no disrespect, but this is an Iron rogue who bested the leader of the Sun Clan. My breed is at a disadvantage to those of the Iron Clan. Surely you cannot wish to have my forces be overwhelmed by this … this creature.”
“For once I am in agreement with our brother,” Samson said. “My lady, send me in his stead. I will see to it that the rogue progresses no further than the mountain.”
“I commend your intelligence,” the general replied, “but my word is final. Our goal is to delay the rogue, not destroy it. We must wait for Her Majesty’s final word.” She turned her head and leered down the mountainside. “Besides. I wish to observe the capabilities of this rogue for myself. Is that understood?”
Both of the monarchs before her shouted their affirmations together, but she was not entirely paying attention to their response. Her eyes had caught sight of movement in the fields not far to the west. She squinted just until she could make it out, and it was then that she realized it was a small head of green hair popping out of one of the caves once used by the Sun Clan. Shortly afterwards, a blue and brown blur followed the tiny figure. Neither the human nor the wartortle running beside her noticed the ixodida at the top of the volcano. All of their attention was devoted to bolting through the ash fields. Shortly after they emerged, an absol caught up with them and bounded at the girl’s other side to lead her through the ash. The grass monarch narrowed her eyes at the human and both pokémon. Then, she turned back to her subordinates.
“Good,” she said at last. “Then go.”
Samson and Goliath shouted one last “yes, my lady“ before parting ways. Samson twisted his body into a ball and rolled down the side of the volcano; Goliath leapt over the edge and onto the stone paths just inside the lava tube.
But the general remained where she stood. Her eyes were fixed on the girl at the base of the mountain.
Seriously though, huh so that's how Bill and Adam were able to make it to Hoenn.
