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Phoenix: Would you please state your name for the record?

Kieron: Yes, My name is Kieron Kwest.

Phoenix: And what is today’s date Mr. Kwest?

Kieron: It is Satun, Octin 19, 4058

“Saty, please pause”

The image stilled and Gracen observed the two subjects. Phoenix was dressed in all black accessorized only with dark envirashades – standard issue for the cleaner types. But Kieron, wow. He was, at the very least, quite extraordinary looking. His hair alone gave Gracen chills. She walked over to wear he was seated, in the middle of her viewing room, and ran her fingers through it. It was freshly cut, bright, which if she looked closely enough, little tips of light, poring out of each strand. Wow. She’d never seen anything like it. He looked like a lighter, with his light hair and light eyes that he could change to probably any color, but even with the lighters she had never actually seen, real particles of light emanating from them. She looked closer at Kieron…it wasn’t just the hair either! Real particles of light, if one looked very closely. They were everywhere! He emitted light! She had to admit, she was impressed. She asked, to no one in particular,

“What are you, Mr. Kieron Kwest?”

She hoped that holographic report would provide some answers.

“Saty, please continue”

Gracen settled herself, back into her viewing chair, and continued with the interview.

Phoenix: If it is amenable to you, I’d like to take down, for the record, a memory recording, of your very first recollection of Steffana’s extraordinary power

Kieron: That’s fine.

Phoenix: Okay I just need for you to relax and think of the first time you witnessed these powers. Think of it and take me there please.

Kieron did as he was told and then they were there. He and Phoenix were in the center of his memory, which contained a slightly younger version of him and Steffana. Where they were at Gracen couldn’t say. She’d never seen anything like it. It looked like a warzone.

Phoenix: What’s the location?

Kieron: An abandoned city block in Ziona.

Phoenix: What where you all doing here?

Kieron: visiting my family.

Phoenix: And your family is from Ziona?

Kieron: As far as I know.

Phoenix: Okay, we’ll come back to that Later Mr. Kwest. Right now I need you to show me, what happened here that was so extraordinary, so I don’t want you to do anything except relax, and think of it.

And just like that, all three of them were inside of Kieron’s very vivid memory. He was communicating to Steffana, through speak thought. So obviously, they were both telepaths.

Okay, Darrie Doe, bring this one down too.

The remains of the building fell down completely. And Kieron was amazed. He’d never known a single sky fighter with this kind of strength and they were skythletes. They were playing demolition games in the real world.

Bring down both of these.

Two huge structures collapsed and Kieron shot up a good 1000 additional feet in the air with Steffana in his arms, to avoid inhaling the debris. He’d realized a little to late that they were too close to their destruction site. Once the dust settled, he landed with her. They’d destroyed an entire city block…what had been left of it anyway. It had been abandoned for years, due to stabilizer attacks. Kieron was thinking, frieking stabilizers…

Okay, now here comes the hard part, bring them back up…restore them.

Kieron sent Steffana an image of the city in its former glory, at least from what he could remember of it. What happened next almost stopped his own heart! New buildings appeared, almost immediately! He lifted the two of them to get a bird’s eye view, but within seconds she had manifested an entire city block. For several moments he was too stunned to speak or even think…at least he couldn’t form any thoughts to send to Steffana except…

Invisibility is still intact, correct?

She answered.

Yes.

They could not get caught, could not get caught, could not get caught! These thoughts ran through his head as he was overwhelmed by the immensity of what had just occurred. How could one little girl possess so much power? Had this happened to her while she had been gone?

It was a mystery that none of them had been able to solve. One day, at age seven, just days before her parents double homicide, she had disappeared. There had been speculations that Hamlet had killed her too, along with her mother, but a body had never been recovered. His mother had loved Steffana so, that she had literally never given up hope. Now, it seemed as if that eternal hope was justified. She was back home, all in one piece. She had no recollection of where she had been all those years, and seemed to be almost exactly the same as she had been when she left.

She’d grown bigger. Her powers had expanded tremendously and that was odd because her training and skill, seemingly, had not. That was where Kieron had come to her rescue, being a telekine himself, he had quickly figured out the seizures where related to a lack of training. Once properly trained, he was certain, she could control the seizures, and even if she couldn’t he could. Of this he was certain.

What he had failed to realize, however, was the extent of her power. It was much greater than he had initially imagined. And if anyone ever found out, what would they do to her? How could he protect her? In a way, he was sorry that he had even begun this exercise. He knew Steffana was powerful…but this power, it even frightened him and he considered himself fearless. No man should have this kind of power, much less a little girl. Would she grow stronger? If she could destroy and create an entire city block as a child, Kieron could only imagine her adult powers. And yet, she was so unskilled and untrained. In other words…dangerous. Very dangerous. He withdrew his connection to her. She had to learn to control it. So he decided to let her start with destruction. Destruction was easy, at least, far easier than creation.

Bring it down, all of it. He commanded soberly. What a waste. He took in the area, nostalgically. It reminded him of much happier times, bringing back memories of him and his father. Mentally, he captured image after image of his childhood neighborhood, while waiting for it’s imminent destruction. He questioned her impatiently,

Well?

I…I can’t. You have to help me. And this was the catch…at least for her. She couldn’t seem to do any of this without his guidance. It was true. He was a superior General, an excellent strategist. But, the raw power was hers. Why couldn’t she figure out how to tap into it on her own?

 

Try, Steffana. You have to learn to control it on your own. Focus.

Maybe it wasn’t fair to put such pressure on her. He’d had years and years of training, while she’d had none. Besides, demolition, destruction, and total annihilation…they weren’t exactly within the purview of most young girl’s experiences. She wasn’t a sky fighter, though, with the right training, she’d make an excellent one.

Bring it down Stef. Bring it down now.

Nothing happened though, nothing, finally, she brought a few shingles off of one of the roofs. Pathetic. GAW it! He couldn’t believe this. He was going to have to help her destroy his own perfect memory!

It’s too much. It’s too big.

But you manifested it!

With your help…Kieron, I don’t…I don’t like this game.

Fine. Give me your mind.

And it was seamless. A perfect connection. Never had Kieron felt so comfortable inside someone else’s mind. It was almost as if, he was her and she was him and together, they were unstoppable. But that scared him. He brought the city block down in seconds, all the while maintaining invisibility, and it was a good thing, because Sasha was near. He could sense her clearly, just one of the perks of being in Steffana’s mind. But, that also meant, Sasha could sense Stef. They had to leave quickly. He didn’t want to have to explain. But, just like that, the invisibility field disappeared. No doubt that was Sasha’s doing.

“What’s going on, here? And why is there so much dust everywhere?”

Nothing, don’t say it, don’t think it, tell her nothing!

Okaaaaaaaaay!

“I was showing Steffana the basics of destruction. We came here because it was deserted. I took down a few empty buildings.”

“You’re such a show off Kieron! We all know what you can do. We see it every week at the Division 5 War Games…why are you teaching her this stuff anyway?”

“She needs a hobby.”

“She needs to wash her hair! Look at all this dirt, grime and dust? Why would you do this to her? What will Aunt Kellis say?”

Phoenix: What did Aunt Kellis, say? Kieron: I don’t remember.

Gracen commanded, “Saty, Please stop.”

She could not believe what she had just seen. Impossible! Had that young girl, who, incidentally looked just like her Uncle Mercutio, with all of those insanely gorgeous purple and lavender features, really built and destroyed a city block in a matter of minutes?

Gracen commanded, “Saty rewind to the beginning of Memory Recollection 1, and replay please.”

Gracen reviewed the memory a second time, searching for loop inconsistencies, but she found none! She was truly intrigued! She had never seen anything like this in her life.

There were really skilled telemats, who could manifests large objects in short periods of time, but only after years and years of training…and there were really skilled telekines who could destroy things, perhaps something as large as a building. But usually that kind of work was done by groups of telekines or telemats working together. She had never, in all of her experience, not even in her own family, come a cross a telekine/telemat with this level of power, and especially not at such a young age, especially not one that was untrained!

And then too, she had the skill of invisibility! How dare she! All this time, Gracen had been the only living Scott female with that particular talent! Sure there had been others on the family history, but that one! That power was hers alone! She didn’t want to share it! Half jealous and half in total awe. What else could this girl do? She was both a telemat and a telekine, of extraordinary abilities…she also seemed to have other special side powers, as all the Scotts did…but how many? And to what extent?

Gracen’s heart leapt into her chest. Did Leevian know what she was talking about, after all? Did they have a destiny? And was this girl- this little purple intruder- who was actually her cousin- but in some weird twisted way, also her sister- the key that Leevian had been searching for all this time?

Leevian had been obsessed with this idea, for the longest, and oh Boy! Here it was, proof, that there might actually be something to it! Gracen could barely contain herself. She had no idea, when Mercutio gave her this report that she would be coming across anything as fascinating as this. Has she known she would have agreed to the task at hand immediately!

She struggled to remember everything that Leevian had told her over the years. There was a prophecy, about five sisters, no seven actually, if you counted their two dead twin sisters, which Leevian did. But the five living sisters, would begin life harshly, separated tragically in their youth. Well, all of that was true. But what wasn’t, at least it never had been, was the part about the youngest and most powerful one among them lifting the curse. It was in fact her destiny. Was Steffana the youngest? She didn’t even know. She guessed she was, trying to remember who was more pregnant back then, Angelina or Mica. Anyway, according to Leevian’s prophecy these sisters hailed from this mythology of the seven sisters of the Pleiades – an ancient mythology connected to constellations in the sky. Each of the sisters had been given one of those mythological names. This was a legacy, from the mother’s side. Their mothers who were not Shakespearean Scotts, but who, nevertheless, wielded considerable powers, and ancient ones at that.

As the Shakespearean Scotts could attest…names were powerful…but these names were not Shakespearean. The sisters had decidedly not been given Shakespearean names, their mothers had protested ferociously against them.

Their names, instead, were derived from Zealish mythologies, some of them quite ancient, hardly understood, and heavily encoded. Gracen’s middle name was Merope. It meant something like elegant beekeeper. What the hael? Leevian’s middle name was Maia, great mother, or the great one, the leader naturally.

“Saty, what is subject Steffana Scott’s middle name?”

Saty responded melodically, “It is Elektra, my dear Gracen.”

“And what does that mean, Saty?”

“ It means ‘shining’ or `bright’ from the ancient Indo-European wleik- verb which means `to flow, run’, as a liquid); electrum is an alloy of silver and gold, and means amber in Latin, as does the Greek electron- in our day and time the best translation would be conductor.”

Hmmmm. Gracen considered it all. Elektra? Conductor? What did it mean? Was it the name of someone who would have this incredibly powerful destiny? Maia, well you could see that. It meant Great mother. But Elektra? As far as Gracen knew it meant nothing. And she vaguely remembered some tragic story about a woman named Elektra, she jumped to her death? She slept her father? None of it was good news; and Gracen really didn’t even want to know the story because in her family, the names did seem to bring about some version of the curses associated with them. Just look at what had happened to her Uncle Macbeth and his sons.

Then there was her own father, Hamlet, who had killed his philandering murderous Uncle, who had his Mercutio’s and Macbeth’s mother. Certainly her own mother Angelina had filled the role of the long-suffering Ophelia, quite well.

Mercutio had been, as the mythology predicted, a joker, a fool, but also a dark horse. Her Uncle Mercutio was a powerful mover and shaker in all of the various worlds; and ruler of the Free World, now. In the mythology, Mercutio got killed off early in the game, but he laughed himself into his early grave. Why was he laughing? In a sense, her Uncle Mercutio had died, too. But he was resurrected and had risen like a Phoenix. Maybe that was a part of the Shakespearean mythology about Mercutio that had been lost.

And what of her Uncle Mercutio’s long lost daughter? Was she the one who would reunite Gracen with the rest of her sisters and fulfill this powerful destiny that Leevian had been blathering incessantly about for years? It had always sounded like nothing more than a dreamy fairy tale, coming from a deluded, disinherited princess, who wanted nothing more than to just escape the curse that was her family legacy.

But Leevian believed! She had given up everything, the power, the wealth, the life of luxury. Leevian owned none of the finer things, unlike Gracen who owned them all. Gracen had always thought Leevian was a little touched with rain, to give up all that she had been entitled to. But maybe she wasn’t. Just look at what Levee had gained in return. She had her freedom, she had plenty of friends, she moved around all of the worlds with relative impunity and she always managed to wiggle her way into a places of relative comfort. She certainly wasn’t starving. Most importantly, she had saved Gracen’s ass when it came down to it; and really Leevian was the only person she could truly count on when things got really rough.

Oh GAW! How she wanted to call Leevian! But, she had to think this through! She had been specifically assigned to this task by Mercutio, who would detest any involvement from Leevian. Oh what to do? What to do? Truth be told, she wasn’t quite sure where her loyalties should lie any more.

The path ahead for Steffana…at least the one that would be laid out by Mercutio…well Gracen had traveled that path herself. She knew where it lead, heartache, heartbreak and pain lots and lots of pain. But, Mercutio was right. Desdemona too, this family needed an heir. And a very powerful woman was needed to usher this new heir into the various complicated worlds of the future. But, the costs of such a pursuit where high. Gracen knew. Was it really fair to serve Steffana up on a platter? And as powerful as Steffana was it was going to be an incredibly difficult thing to do. But if she managed it, she would be very well rewarded, of that she was sure. And she would make sure, unlike before, that she had some blood ties to the power source. Gaw knew she needed them.

And why should she care about the costs to Steffana? Yes they were related by blood, but other than that, she didn’t know Steffana! She owed her nothing. That was what Gracen’s bitter side told her. But Gracen’s heart had not died completely, and she recognized in Steffana this frailty, this vulnerability, this naiveté, this hope…that was just devastating. Gracen recognized it and it made her want to cry. It reminded Gracen, ever so slightly of her former younger self.

She wasn’t inhuman, after all. She would not, she decided, turn her back on this girl. She was blood, after all, no matter how tainted, scandalized and cursed! And it wasn’t her fault that she had the misfortune to be born into such a wretched family. But maybe, just maybe, with Leevian’s help, they could turn it around. Maybe Steffana could do it. Maybe she could succeed where Gracen had not. Maybe she could not only save herself, but her sisters, and as the prophecy went, the rest of the world.

It sounded insane, Gracen realized, as she recounted bits and pieces of what Leevian told her. When there was no chance of it being real, it sounded like a dream, a fantasy one told oneself to comfort oneself, for the wretched life that she had inherited from her wretched family.   But now, as she viewed her sister Steffana, in the flesh, and she’s seen what she could do, now, well Gracen was astounded and confused. She had no idea what to do. Well for starters she was going to comb over every inch of this holographic report before making any important decisions. This would take time. Lot’s and Lot’s of time. She had to think this one through very carefully.