The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2
Chapter 184

Part 26

"While we admire our parents' honesty in wanting you to know that they never tried to hide it from you, knowing you all as we do now, it was obviously a mistake to tell you that when you were so young. It was also something that they weren't proud of, so having done their duty in telling you, they didn't bring it up after that. That was another mistake.

"We know that all of the problems with your behavior stem from two things.

"The first and most important is your attitude that 'they never wanted us anyway'. You think; 'Why bother listening to our parents when they ask us to do things, when they never wanted us anyway? Why bother doing chores, doing your lessons, having a work ethic? They never wanted us anyway. Why not just have fun and do whatever we want? They never wanted us anyway. We're just a problem to them, and we have been from the start.'

"You don't even talk about it among yourselves, but that attitude has poisoned every part of your thinking. You all stick together like some persecuted minority, because you're the ones they didn't want. It was already ingrained in you long before you became psionic, so you never shared yourselves except with each other, and not much of that. Because of that, you lost the chance to truly know anyone else, including your parents, and your psionic development has been stunted.

"But you're going to learn something, and learn it the hard way; being unplanned is not the same thing as being unwanted. You were always wanted, your mothers especially had desperately wanted to have you for years before it became possible for them to do so. You were only unwanted to the extent that you made yourselves unwanted with your own despicable behavior."

"In fact, because of your origins, your parents have bent over backwards to be there for you on your demand, the second you ask for them, no matter what. They spoiled you rotten in every possible way, and that was a big mistake.

"Your co-fathers among the Volunteers love you like you were their own, but you choose not to believe it because they're not really your fathers, and our father Mark was always there for you individually and or demand anyway, so you didn't need your co-fathers. And it's them that you've hurt the most.

"The second part of your problem was us.

"Our parents didn't want to make you feel bad about the fact that we're far more capable than any of you, so when they talked to you about us, they tended to avoid that fact, and just talked about the good times we'd had. They tended to not talk about us very much for the same reason.

"You chose to believe that they avoided talking about us because they were trying to hide the fact that they like us better. Of course our mothers do like us better, but your mothers like you better too, that's just natural. Our Father likes us better too, but not because of us, rather because your abuse of his trust and his love has ensured that he likes us better, because he likes you less. But he loves each one of you just as much as he loves any of us.

"You think that another reason our father prefers us over you is because he loves our mothers more than he loves yours. In the beginning that was true, but not since you were born. Our father was determined to love them equally, to be fair to them, and they all love him so genuinely and so much that it was easy for him to return their love. We're all capable of giving and enjoying an infinite amount of love, our only limitation is time, and Father has made sure to give lots of his time and attention to all of our mothers, the same as he did for you and for us. He's never going to be able to give any of them up, even long after all of you are grown and out on your own, and our mothers are perfectly comfortable with that, because they love your mothers too, and all of you.

"On the other hand, we know a lot of your parents among the Volunteers were less discreet about us than our parents. We know that the Volunteers have held us up to you as examples, and that you know from them and others in Homestead that we are in fact far more capable and mature than you. It's not fair, and we didn't ask for it to be that way, but there it is.

"Some of you think of us as your older brother and sisters, and you wanted to preserve that, so you wanted out of the time-bubble before you grew too far beyond us. There's no danger of that happening, but it's a nice sentiment.

"Some of you think that since you're subjectively twelve and we're subjectively seven that you must have grown beyond us already, especially as a group, and you wanted out of the time-bubble so you could prove it. You're about to find out how wrong you are.

"Some of you look up to us, some of you idolize us, but none of you are making any effort to actually be like us.

"Lots of you resent us, and a few of you think you hate us, but you don't. Fire and I have been in the mind of an insane Sylvan who wanted nothing more from life than to torture us to death, and we know what real hate is.

"As Father told us, all of you have improved a lot in the last two years. But none of you have changed because you've developed an admirable character, or because you choose to behave honorably, or because your feel any guilt or responsibility for what you've done. You only improved because you didn't want to be restricted to Hiliani for the rest of your lives, and because you realized that you're not going to be able to keep getting away with so much crap forever, and because your vows of justice force you.

"Now, your punishment and rehabilitation is going to take two or three steps.

"The first will be corporal punishment. It will show you where you stand in relation to us, and satisfy our personal sense of justice. No one hurts our parents as much as you lot have without answering to us for it, not even our own brothers and sisters!

"Each of us three is going to give each of you a good hard blow to the face. Block it if you can, and if you want to strike back at us, feel free to do your worst."

Before he'd even finished speaking the forty-four had already Linked, cast group and individual Shielding, and attacked with a maelstrom of spells while many of them yelled things like; "You can't tell us what to do!"

When the first wave of non-lethal spells failed to penetrate the trio's Shields, they attacked with lethal spells and all their power, which was considerable. Were it not for the Reverse Stasis field, which was practically invulnerable, the huge building would surely have been destroyed around them, along with much of the surrounding area. They yelled their defiance as they cast, and attacked as a mob with little co- operation. They failed to penetrate the Shields of the trio, who smugly floated there and absorbed it without counter-attacking.

Suddenly the attack of the forty-four diminished to almost nothing.

"Ah. As some of you now realize; the Source, raw wizard's power, and the warlock's source all fail to penetrate the Reverse Stasis field." Fire chuckled nastily. "Now you're almost out of power. I'm surprised you realized it in time to maintain your Shields.

"Now try to block me as I kick you in the face."

She cast a small floor of Force to stand on, then executed a perfect spin kick in mid-air with a lightning-quick motion. As it reached it's apex, every one of the forty-four reacted as if she'd kicked them in the face, crying out and putting their hands on the impact points.

"My turn." Val declared with a grin, and executed a quick roundhouse right punch that effectively hit every one of the forty-four in the face but not on their hands, despite the fact that many of them were still covering their faces.

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.☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐

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