The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (107 page)

Six used a vicious clubbing downward and diagonal blow that was equally effective, despite the fact that the forty-four were trying every defensive technique they could think of.

What they didn’t realize was that the blows of the trio were purely psionic.  The motions of the punches and the kick were merely for show, and though the recipients
thought
they felt the stunning impacts and pain of the blows, none of it had really happened.  Therefore none of them were injured, or even bruised.

The forty-four were now weeping without exception, though some of them were still angry and defiant.

“Now we’re going to give you some Readings.” Val announced both verbally and psionicly, to be sure she was heard over the beaten children’s crying.

“The first Reading you’re going to get is our father.  Since we left the time-bubble we’ve started to keep a bit more to ourselves, and everyone has a few things they keep secret, even from their families.  But before we left the time-bubble we shared our minds with our parents with almost no restrictions, and they did the same for us.  We’re all still pretty open about most things.  For the first time, you’re going to truly know our father.  You’re going to know what he’s really like, and how much he loves you, and how hard he’s tried to do right by you, and how much you’ve hurt him.

“Then each of you is going to get a Reading of your mother, and the other mothers and fathers among the Volunteers who love you like you were their own.  They didn’t give their permission, but we Read them pretty deep, and we don’t think they’ll mind when they see what a difference it makes.  Again, you’ll know what they’re truly like deep down inside, and the depths of their love and their pain.

“Then, just to keep things fair, and hopefully to inspire you to be a bit more like us as concerns your honor and your work ethic, we’re going to give you
our
Readings. 

“You won’t get everything in any of these Readings; some things are private, and you’re not responsible enough to know the spell techniques, not even the few you’re capable of using, and you sure don’t have the capacity yet to absorb extra levels like all the information we’ve gotten from Readings of others.  But you’ll know all our personalities, and why we do what we do.”

“We’re pretty sure that knowing all that,” Six continued, “And feeling it with the full emotional transfer that comes with good quality Readings, will allow you all to see the errors of your ways, your attitudes, and your thinking.”

“And you better hope it works, because if it doesn’t were going to improve your behavior directly by performing surgery on your brains.” Fire added a nasty little smile.

With that, the three began forcing the Readings into the brains of the forty-four.  They took their time and made sure they didn’t overload anyone with the huge torrent of sense perceptions, thoughts, and emotions, but the forty-four were the finest young psionicists on Kellaran with the exception of their three siblings, who were in another league.  The entire process only took a bit more than an hour.

When they were done the forty-four were still crying uncontrollably, only now it wasn’t from pain, it was from an overage of remorse and regret and love.  Some of them desperately wanted to hug the three, who allowed them to do so and returned their embraces.

“Now that you’ve shared your parents’ minds, many of you will feel an urge to do the same for them; to show them how much you truly love them and how sorry you are for being such a bunch of little shits.” Fire told the crying children.  “Take our advice; do yourselves a favor and resist the temptation for a year or two.  Show them how you’ve changed with your behavior instead.  Let yourselves get some decent living and loving and thinking under your belts before you show them what you’re really like.  It’ll work out better for everyone if you do.”

“And by the way, you should know this;  We love you.  Welcome to the family, and to the outside world.”

In the next instant she removed the Reverse Stasis field, Translocated the tourists who had been in the council chamber back to their places in it, and Translocated all of her brothers and sisters and herself back to the exact places they’d been in when she’d Translocated them away.

They’d been gone far less than a second in real time, but their parents and the Volunteers knew for sure that something had happened, since the forty-four were still crying uncontrollably, and each of them rushed to whoever was the closest of their many parents and hugged them tight.

“We’re back!” Fire giggled.  “Told you we’d be right back.”

“What’s wrong with them?!” Mark asked in confusion as he held the two crying children who had rushed into his arms.

“Remorse.” Val stated with satisfaction.  “They’ve seen the truth, and it has changed them.”

“We’ll give you all some time together.” Six smiled.  “But you should find their behavior much improved, and you shouldn’t need to be multiple people hardly at all anymore.  They’ll still call on you when they really need you or they miss you and want to just spend some time with you, but they won’t call on you just to waste your time and to validate their own self-importance anymore, which was the majority of the times they called for you.

“Tomorrow, we think you should give us responsibility for their supervision, their training, and their behavior, at least for a while.  Assign them to our military command.  It should do them good, and you can trust us to keep them corralled.  You and the Volunteers here could use a vacation from them for a while, for a few hours a day at least.”

“Oh!  Well that’s considerate of you, thank you!” Balen said, speaking for the Volunteers, still off-balance by the sudden change in the children all around her.

“It’s our pleasure.” Six told her with a bow and a smile.  “But for now we’re still pretty tired, and our work here is done.  We’re going to reintegrate back at Hilia and get some more sleep.”

“We’ll see you all tomorrow.  Love you!” Val called with a smile and a wave to all around, and they were gone with no further ado.

They awoke the next morning to the murmur of many voices quietly talking outside.

Mark woke first, sat up, and stretched luxuriously.  He threw the curtains open with a bit of Force, letting the brightness of a clear tropical morning light up the room.

This roused the other five in the huge bed with him.

“I’m the only one of me there is right now.” he rumbled with a grin of satisfaction.  “It’s been so long, I can’t tell you how good it feels.”

“Mmm, me too!” Alilia smiled.

“Me three!” Talia laughed.

They shared a round of good mornings, hugs, and kisses, then performed a fast grooming with the aid of spells, and dressed in summer casual wear.

They walked through the cottage, and the three adults reveled in the familiar and comfortable surroundings that a big part of them had missed for so long.

They emerged into the sunlight on the patio to find it and the highest two lawns occupied by their three dragons and the Volunteers, who were finishing brunch and chatting.

“We saved you a place.” Povon said from the big table where she, Karz, and Kragorram were gathered, the dragons being in roughly human-sized Simulacrums.

Yazadril, Nemia, Dalia, Bezedil, and Sheramiv shared an adjoining table.

The forty-four were already finished eating, and were sitting quietly together on the lowest lawn doing their lessons.

Mark, Talia, and Alilia gaped at them with raised eyebrows for a moment.

“It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?” Balen quietly asked with a grin as she indicated her children with a slight head motion.  “I don’t know what these three did with them, but it’s like a miracle!”

“Damn!” Mark whooped with a huge grin.  “I’m so happy I could just…” Suddenly there was one of him standing beside everyone else there, including Stripe and Scout.  “…hug everyone here!” all of him finished, and proceeded to do so.  He took his time with it, saying good morning and I love you to everyone as he embraced and cherished each of them, glorying in having them all together for the first time.

Then he became one again on the patio where he’d been before he multiplied, and shivered a little as he grinned.  “Wow.  That’s a lot of love at once when you reintegrate from it.” he reported.

That drew a round of chuckles from the rest.

 Six, Fire, and Val gave hugs and greetings to everyone at Yazadril’s table, then they sat down to eat.

There was a lively conversation as those who had been in the time-bubble filled the rest in on what had happen within it, while those who had remained outside reciprocated with news of the latest happenings on Kellaran and in the new training programs.

The Volunteers related how their plans to form eleven households with eleven group relationships had not turned out as they’d envisioned.  Instead it seemed that once they were committed to loving each other, being lovers, and raising their children together, all of them had become much closer than they had already been.  Their loves and relationships had spilled over between their households, perhaps triggered by the closer, loving relationship they all now shared with Mark.  At this point, the bonds between some of the Volunteers were stronger than others, but there was some truth to the idea that all eighty-seven of them, including Mark, Talia, and Alilia, shared a single group marriage.

Upon hearing that, Fire had asked with a giggle; “So does that mean we should consider all The Hilian Volunteers to be our co-parents too?”

“You certainly can if you want to.” Zayobod told her with a grin.  “But I’m not sure it would really be that wise, since it’s debatable whether we’re really any more mature than you three, even after we’ve been parents for the last dozen years!  Your accomplishments since you left the time-bubble are entirely astonishing, not least being the change you’ve made in our children.”

“More mature than you?” Val laughed.  “Some ways yes, some ways no.  We like to think that we’re intellectualists;  We believe that our intellect should guide our behavior, rather than our emotions, and our intellects are good enough to make mature decisions.  But we do still feel the emotions and instincts of children our age, and we’re not perfect at being intellectualists.”

“None are!” Yazadril chuckled.  “I’ve been an intellectualist for eight millennia, and I still occasionally find myself behaving emotionally in ways that I wouldn’t have chosen intellectually.”

“Hmm.  I never thought of it in those terms.” Povon mused.  “It’s certain that I wasn’t an intellectualist before I met Mark, and I am now, and there’s no doubt that I’m better for it.  Though like most, I’m often not that good at it.  But are we really intellectualists?  I use my intellect to decide what I should do, but the goal is still happiness and emotional fulfillment.”

“Exactly.” Mark nodded.  “We use our emotions to decide what we want over the long term, and use our intellects to decide how to achieve it in the short term.  Our intellects are just a tool, like our physical strength.  They don’t really provide any motivation for our behavior.”

As they were talking, Kimran had made his way up from the lower lawns, pausing a few times along the way to give a quick hug to his mother and a few others of his co-parents.  He was both one of the largest and one of the most powerful of the forty-four, which made him one of the more dominant of the group.

“Excuse me.” he said with a smile after reaching the head table and waiting for a pause in the conversation.  “Brother, Sisters, we found a lot of diamonds on Hiliani, just like you did, mostly in the same ground you found yours in.  These are the best three, and we want you to have them.”

He placed a handful of fine gold chain with the stones glinting among them on the table equidistant between Six, Val, and Fire, and let the three choose for themselves as he continued.  “They’re all pretty equal in value; one’s a bit bigger but has a bit less clarity, and one has a tiny flaw, but you have to look at ‘em pretty closely to tell which is which.  We cut and polished them ourselves, we made the chain from gold bar stock and did the mounting, and spelled it all to make them as indestructible as possible, but we’d done all that before.  This morning before breakfast we charged ‘em up with as much of our power as they’ll hold, and we put our best spells in ‘em.  Our stuff isn’t all complex and weird like yours, but we’ve had some good creative and innovative moments over the years, and we’ve been developing some of them for a long time.

“And, we put a little message in them.  Whenever you put them on, you’ll hear all of us quietly say; thank you.”

“Why thank you, to all of you!” Val grinned as she put hers on.

Fire looked to the forty-three faces smiling up at her from the lowest lawn, and asked Kimran with a smile; “I assume they’re all listening psionicly?  If so it’s well done; I can’t detect it at all.”

“Not psionicly.” Kimran told her with a slightly smug smile.  “They’re using Felia’s Listener, which just focuses sound from a bigger area onto the listener’s ears.  You can use it any time you have line-of-sight to the target, and sometimes when you don’t, up to several kilometers away.  It’s a lot stealthier than using psionics because there’s no way for the target to know they’re being listened to.  It’s one of the spells in the diamonds, so you can try it if you want.”

“Well thank you, to all of you.” Six told them as he put his on.  The chains had no clasps, but were easily long enough to go over their heads.  “It’s very considerate of all of you, and very nice.”

“You deserve a lot more than that.” Kimran stated, a bit ruefully.  “You were right, we were stuck in a way of thinking that we should’ve grown out of when we were five, but we hung onto it because we’re all too damn stubborn for our own good.  We were ungrateful brats with no honor, and you fixed all that.  It was no fun at the time, but it sure feels good to be past it.  And to see the truth of things.”

“It was no trouble.” Fire grinned.  “It had to be done, and I for one had a lot of fun doing it!”

Kimran grinned at her as he waved a hand toward the three necklaces.  “How appropriate.  Six picked the bigger one that’s a bit more opaque, and you picked the one with the tiny flaw.”