- 1,032
- Posts
- 15
- Years
- Age 31
- Melbourne, Australia
- Seen Jan 8, 2013
ABSOLUTE
*
PROLOGUE
1: FREYA
2: ELLIOT
3: ISAAC
* * *
Current Status:
ARGH. The computer was recently wiped. Well, one drive anyway.
And all the chapters of Absolute have been wiped. I've only got
these chapters to show anymore. The next chapters were Kale,
Jaryd, Isaac, Imogen, Jaryd, but they're all gone. Sorry, it'll
probably be a long time before this is continued, as I have to
re-write everything from memory, which will also mean I'll be
missing lots of stuff D:
PM List:
...
(contact me if you wish to be added)
* * *
Other Information
Map of Sana:
No I don't expect you to know every place off by heart of something. This is just here as a
reference if you're interested and don't know where any of the places are. The slightly darkened
route represents an entirely underground route, uh.. yeah you can figure out the rest. Brown
is like mountains, light green is higher terrain, darker green is like closer to sea level.
Character List (SPOILERS):
Holloway, Hayley: Friend of Freya, mid-twenties.
Nightshade, Elena: Mother of Kale, Shar and Lor, in her mid to late forties.
Nightshade, Kale: 12 years old
Nightshade, Lor: 19 years old
Nightshade, Shar: 13 years old
Sawyer, Freya: Mid-twenties. Inherited position as head of the PokéMart corporation.
Spoker, Isaac: Fifteen years old, new student at the original Pokémon Academy.
Verday, Jayden: The man who stood on the rock and directed students when the train broke down.
* * *
PROLOGUE*
PROLOGUE
1: FREYA
2: ELLIOT
3: ISAAC
* * *
Current Status:
ARGH. The computer was recently wiped. Well, one drive anyway.
And all the chapters of Absolute have been wiped. I've only got
these chapters to show anymore. The next chapters were Kale,
Jaryd, Isaac, Imogen, Jaryd, but they're all gone. Sorry, it'll
probably be a long time before this is continued, as I have to
re-write everything from memory, which will also mean I'll be
missing lots of stuff D:
PM List:
...
(contact me if you wish to be added)
* * *
Other Information
Spoiler:
Map of Sana:
No I don't expect you to know every place off by heart of something. This is just here as a
reference if you're interested and don't know where any of the places are. The slightly darkened
route represents an entirely underground route, uh.. yeah you can figure out the rest. Brown
is like mountains, light green is higher terrain, darker green is like closer to sea level.
Character List (SPOILERS):
Holloway, Hayley: Friend of Freya, mid-twenties.
Nightshade, Elena: Mother of Kale, Shar and Lor, in her mid to late forties.
Nightshade, Kale: 12 years old
Nightshade, Lor: 19 years old
Nightshade, Shar: 13 years old
Sawyer, Freya: Mid-twenties. Inherited position as head of the PokéMart corporation.
Spoker, Isaac: Fifteen years old, new student at the original Pokémon Academy.
Verday, Jayden: The man who stood on the rock and directed students when the train broke down.
* * *
"Who was Tempest?"
"You must have heard of him before. He was the greatest soldier we ever had."
"You're calling them soldiers now?"
"He was. I'm not sure what I could say about everybody else. He was unique, but how he managed to be that is beyond me."
"You look about old enough to remember him."
"Thank you."
"It wasn't meant as a compliment."
"But alas, it is. Do you know how old he was?"
"I don't know who Tempest was."
"Can't you answer a rhetorical question?"
"Point taken. How old was he?"
"Tempest was a child."
Noon was the best time of day to be outside in spring. After a long winter the grass was still green, and the temperatures had just began to rise for the coming summer. The middle of the day was the hottest part, and soaking up the warmth was an activity undertaken regularly by the Kilshandra occupants. There were only four of them, and they all lived under the same roof. Sure, the whole area was under-populated, but that wasn't a problem to anybody who lived there. More space, more freedom, it was never a bad thing and you couldn't ever have too much of it. Most people living in the cities would have killed for a place like it, but it was so unknown that it slipped underneath the radar of real estate agents, of celebrities looking for a secret hideaway from the public and generally anybody who was interested. In fact, hardly anybody ever visited the one residence that existed in the place.
When the man in the coat showed up, it was entirely unexpected, and surprising. Despite how far away it was from wherever this man could have possibly come from, he still chose to arrive at their place. So he must have had a reason. He couldn't have been a doorknocker. Not even the religious freaks came out this far, and that was a feat in itself. He didn't seem intent on meeting anybody though. He settled down on the grass. He was far away from the house, too far away to see exactly what he was doing, but it had to do with something on the ground. He had a briefcase with him. Not a lawyer judging by his behaviour. Nonetheless, still a professional. Even from the distance it was easy to tell he was wearing a suit. Perhaps the man was lost? He would have seen the house by now if that was the case. It wasn't long until Kale stepped outside to investigate. Kale was the youngest member of the household. He felt strongly about almost everything but he was often ignored by the others. At only twelve years old he considered himself a force to be reckoned with. He sprinted out across the front paddock courageously towards the "threat", assuming that he'd be able to do something about it. After all, he was persuasive.
"What are you doing on this property?" Kale asked. He was slightly puffed out, but he was determined not to let it show. He couldn't show one sign of weakness to this man. Kale overreacted to a lot of things and this was one of them. Instead of welcoming a guest he was fending off an intruder, taking an offensive stance against a neutral stranger. The man had dirt and grass in various test tubes, a matchbox and various electronic gadgets laid out around his suitcase. He was doing something, but Kale couldn't think of what. The matches could have been for lighting a bushfire, but why would he do it out in the middle of a grassy field rather than closer to the trees, the actual bush?
"O-oh?" The man stuttered. Behaving like this after a threat from someone Kale's age was a clear show of how emotionally stable this man was. Not very, by the look of things. He was a scrawny male with thin black hair and a similar body structure. He started packing away his equipment away in a mad rush. "I'm just, err.." he began. He began to stuff his equipment messily within the case, about to make an attempt to run away from the angry boy when Kale prevented him from doing so by stepping on his jacket. The man didn't even budge. He had already conceded defeat. "I'm t-testing the grass." He said with the remainder of his breath. His speed and sudden movement surprised Kale. The jacket slid from under his feet and he tripped over, his weight unable to shift so abruptly from his foot. The man was disappearing to the trees by the time he could regain his posture. Too late to do anything about it. He turned back towards the house – Shar had been watching from the deck.
Shar was Kale's older sister of thirteen. Even though there was only a year's difference between the two Shar took on an authorative role, often behaving somewhat like an older sister but at the same time a mother who did not make it obvious that she loved her son. Shar had mainly dark hair, but streaks of it were bleached by the sun, unlike her brother of who sported pure brown atop his head. She overreacted to things sometimes, Kale thought. He was right as well. Shar was pacing up and down the front deck, anxiously waiting for her younger sibling's recount of the event. Kale could see the event of telling Shar unfold in his mind. A mysterious man "testing the grass". Sure, it hadn't happened before, but no big deal, he could have been with the government if you looked at the bright side of things. Kale relaxed a little bit. But of course, Shar wouldn't look at the bright side of things.
"Kale, what happened?" she asked, a hint of panic showing in her voice. She was doubly worried than she should've been, probably because she saw Kale being tripped over and suspected foul play on the stranger's behalf. Kale wasn't bruised from what she could see. That was a good sign. He had dirt on him and his elbows were greened by the grass from when he fell over, but apart from that he looked absolutely fine. Whatever happened down there must have been strictly verbal. She was still interested in what he had to say. That was one of the few exciting things left to do on the isolated farm-like property, listen to people. No television, no visitors, home schooling, their life was close to being completely shielded from the outside world. This was like a gold rush for Shar; meeting somebody new. Secretly she only wished that she had been in Kale's place. Been on an adventure for once…
"Some man in a suit was down there. Not a lawyer, he was getting his suit dirty and didn't seem to care." Kale said. From what they had been taught by their mother, lawyers were highly respected people who thought of themselves exactly that way, and that they earned a lot of money. This man didn't seem to fit the description. He was way too nervous to be full of himself. "He had all this stuff. Matches, tubes with grass in them and this other stuff. It was eel-lic-tra, tra," He was stumbling on the word electronic. He hadn't reached that in his home schooling yet. All he knew was that it powered the lights in the house and it was generated by a big metal thing that his mother tended to every morning. They'd been so excluded from the outside world; simple words like this would be second nature to somebody regular, but came as a struggle to him until he was taught it by his mother.
"Electronic?" Shar suggested. She didn't know exactly what this meant – grass in test tubes, electronic machines of some sort and matches? It didn't really make any sense. Kale hadn't given her an accurate enough description. "What was he doing, did he say?"
"He said he was testing the grass," Kale said, still out of breath from running to and from the grass where he first found the man. "I don't believe him though. Why would he come out here just to test some grass?" Kale could tell that his sister was confused as well. Nobody ever came out here, especially not to test grass. Why would they need their grass tested in the first place? "Maybe mum knows what to do." He said. He opened the front door, having walked past Shar, who soon followed. Their mother was sitting at the kitchen table with a blank look on her face. She was doing a crossword out of a book that was at least ten years old. It was a huge thing, but she was nearing the end of it. Recently her mother had been doing twice as many crosswords as she usually would a day. When the two explained the situation to her, she turned her head and smiled. She clearly didn't believe them.
"Maybe you should go and do something about it." She said. That was her answer to everything. Of course, she didn't have anything to go and do something about that didn't involve cooking, teaching and crosswords herself, so it was easy for her to say. She was rarely a help, but there was also rarely a stranger on the property. That was more likely than not the sole reason she didn't believe them. So they did what they always did when things got bad – they went to see Lor.
"Lor?" Shar called. She had just knocked on the door a few times. Lor was an introvert and didn't really seem to care whether others liked it or not (or at least he didn't show it). He enjoyed his privacy to no bounds, and rarely came out of his room, his reclusive hideaway, unless it was for dinner or to go off wandering through the bush. There wasn't an answer for a few seconds. It was hard to tell when Lor was in his room or not. When he did leave he often did it without alerting anybody. Shar opened the door. Lor was lying down on his bed face down. Shar assumed he was asleep but when she reached his bed he turned over.
"Hmm?" Lor's deep voice grunted. His eyes were open. It was if he hadn't been sleeping at all. Maybe he wasn't sleeping; it was hard to tell with Lor. He could have laid with his eyes closed for a few hours while others were having a long conversation next to him on any topic of choice, and then contributed to it suddenly, leaving people to wonder just how long he had been listening for. Even their mother had given up on cracking him. Years ago.
"We saw some man in a suit with electronic stuff, matches and test tubes on the property and when Kale tried to talk to him he said he was testing the grass and then ran off." Shar said, within the space of six seconds. She'd already explained the situation to her mother painfully slowly just beforehand. Speaking fast would save her time, and Lor knew her well enough to understand exactly how she felt and what she meant by what she was saying. He knew everybody on the property. And although there were only three people to 'get', the others could figure out each other but not Lor. He was at an advantage for not revealing himself. But what kind of advantage nobody could put their finger on.
Lor answered with a blank stare, no change from what was on his face beforehand. He promptly stood up and walked out of his room to a place that Kale and Shar could only assume was the place where the event happened. Lor's room faced the front of the property, so he might have been looking out the window. He probably was, Shar thought. Lor never missed a beat, and he always seemed to know things that he couldn't have possibly witnessed. If there was any slight chance that he was watching a little earlier, he almost definitely had been. Surely enough, Lor walked exactly to the spot where the man had been. He bent down and picked something up off the ground. It was made of leather. Shar could only see one side of it. When she caught up with Lor (who had taken off without caring to see if she had followed) she could see worn out gold-coloured writing on the tough leather. On the other side were a few protruding pouches, two of them containing test tubes. A test tube holder, for when you weren't mixing chemicals, of course. Or… burning grass, she supposed.
Lor handed the leather accessory to his sister and then began walking off in another direction. She didn't look as to where he was going, but instead focused on trying to read the writing, which was hard considering Kale was jumping around on either side of her trying to gain a peek at what the words said. Shar read them aloud:
Auburne Shire Council
Unfortunately, that was it, but it did give them an insight into the man's occupation. He worked for the Auburne Council. Auburne was the closest town to where they lived, and even then it was a three day's hike away at least. Shar had been there once when she was four and again at seven whereas Kale had only glimpsed it at two years of age. The Council pretty much regulated all of Auburne and where they lived as well, but that was never a reason for them to come to their doorstep. Suddenly a loud clang emerged from the garden shed. Something metal hitting the old tin walls. She could only guess that it was Lor in the shed, although come to think of it Lor wasn't ever clumsy. Kale didn't wait for an invitation and darted towards the shed. Shar quickly followed, carrying the test tube holder with her.
Lor was inside. He didn't seem to be in a hurry, but he wasn't taking his time either. His breath was a little louder than usual. She looked over to what he had moved. A giant metal safe, no doubt containing valuables that meant something to her mother. She and Kale had tried moving it together only a month ago because they'd heard a rattling sound behind it and thought it may have been a trapped mouse. They couldn't reach their heads over to look at it without moving the safe, because it was tucked into a corner directly under a shelf full of gardening books. Lor, however, had moved it with ease. Or maybe it was difficult; she'd never heard him put much effort into anything. He was as fit as a fiddle, as Kale would say. Probably from his ventures out into the bush.
He bent down on his knees and scooped up three identical balls. They looked like tennis balls, although they shined and were coloured strangely. Maybe they were made from plastic, or metal? They certainly wouldn't be good tennis balls then. They didn't have those green hairs sticking off them either. They were something entirely different. They had two visible sections; one white, one red, separated by a black line running around the perimeter of the sphere. The black line was painted so that both of the coloured sections had equal space. But then as she saw the balls move around as Lor put them into his pocket, she noticed a circle that stuck out of the ball, in direct contact with the black line. Curious indeed, she'd never heard of this, let alone seen it, in her lessons. Lor didn't say where he was going, but he moved out and headed towards the front gate. Maybe going on one of his bushwalks again. It didn't matter, really. Kale and Shar just wanted to go somewhere. Find something new. They were bored of having secrets kept from them.
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