Chapter 11

June 30, 1995

It was Coralis first flyball game with the Canadian national team, against Spain. Flyball seasons started mid-August and ended the first week of July. The top 8 teams then had 2 weeks of playoff finals to determine which team would win the Silver Cup. The season was almost over, with only 3 games left to it. The team wasn’t going to make it to the playoffs and the remaining games were on home turf, so the coach decided to let their three new reservists play: Coralis, Lydia and Sebastian.

Lydia was 17, a fellow attacker, while Sebastian was 16, a goaltender. Although Lydia and Sebastian were supposed to be graduating at the end of the following school year, the team had also signed them up for 2 years as reservists because of other contracts with other players already in place and just in case they would have an additional year of schooling to complete.

She was introduced to everyone as Blue Thunder, as per Martha’ stipulation. Coralis didn’t mind it: she was used to students calling her like that for the past few years. The team had heard of what happened between Blue Thunder and Lord Meozo and tried to question her about it, but she didn’t even want to think about it. It reminded her too much of her cousin Nadilla: the memory was still too painful and she was convinced that Lord Meozo was behind her death, but she couldn’t prove it.

They won their game. Impressed, the team wanted to keep playing them until they would go back to school: the 2 remaining matches of the season and the first few games of the next one. The team officials also negotiated with their respective schools to let them play in some weekend games. The crowd wanted more of them.

According to paperwork, she was supposed to be at the Fullemons for the entire summer: they were legally her foster house. When the school year ended, she went for a couple days to the Fullemons, then took a flight with them the morning of her game. They wanted to attend her first game and her social workers wanted to interrogate them, as part of the emancipation process. The twins didn’t sign up as reservists for the British team, so their first game would only be in mid-August at the beginning of the new season… against Canada.

They met with the social workers the next day and returned home a few days later, right after her next game against Mexico. When they left, she went to stay at Victoria’s house until the season was officially over. Victoria was happy to finally be able to practice animal transformation with Coralis. She went back to Glasgow after the flyball season ended, but came back to Montreal a day after her birthday: she had to complete the legal process to officialise her emancipation. Flyball practices were to start to following week, so she didn’t return to Glasgow and stayed at Victoria’s house.

As the day to travel to London for her flyball game against Britain was approaching, she decided that it was time to go look into her storage unit in London. She also had Nadilla’ storage key, but she refused to touch that one. Just after the funeral, Roberto gave her an envelope with Nadilla’s financial information, which included the key to her family storage unit: all of her assets went to Coralis. That envelope was still in the bottom of one of her suitcases, as looking at it was still too painful. She wanted Victoria to come with her. Victoria was about to ask her parents if she could go with Coralis to London, when Erik and Henry called on the hologram.

“Heyyy sister!” said Henry. “Are you looking forward to this weekend?”

“Very much so! It will be weird to be playing against you guys, but it will be fun.”

“Weird? That’s an understatement,” said Erik. “Girl, you’ve been our captain for the past 2 years, you do realize that me and Henry aren’t the only former Brazen Bolts players in the British team, right?”

“Oh I do realize,” said Coralis, laughing. Victoria was also laughing next to her. “However, we also have been playing AGAINST many of them… and guess what… now YOU are playing WITH them!”

“True true,” said Erik. “Anyway, we were calling for something else.”

“Were you?” said Victoria.

“Yes yes! As you know, the British national flyball team is based in London, so we kinda had to move there. Me, Erik and Gus found a nice and sweet looking flat in West London, so we were wondering, why don’t you come stay with us when you’re in London?”

“We are also trying to bait our parents to come to our London flat for the End-of-Year holidays, so you could come here instead for the school break,” said Henry.

“I’d be down for that,” said Coralis. “I’d actually love to see the place you guys found in London. Interestingly, I was just discussing the upcoming London trip with Vic. I need to go to my parents’ storage unit there and want her to come with me. You guys could come as well if you’re available.”

“You’ve finally decided to go there?” said Henry.

“Yeah, I think it’s time,” said Coralis. “I got no idea when I’ll get to go to the one in Alexandria, but I need to at least go to the one in London. The flyball game this weekend in London is a perfect excuse for that.”

“Agreed,” said Erik. “What about the one in Alma?”

“Eventually.”

Suzanne and Jonas Millous agreed to let Victoria travel to London with Coralis. They understood why Coralis wanted a close friend with her when going to her family storage unit. Plus, they knew that Victoria really wanted to attend the flyball game between Britain and Canada. Both girls were 15-year-old, Coralis was now technically an adult in the eyes of the human law and they knew where they were going to stay: the Fullemons twins were now considered adults in the elemental community.

The night before they had to catch their flight to London, Coralis succeeded in fully transforming into a panther and back. Victoria almost succeeded, but couldn’t quite fully transform yet.

“Hmm I didn’t think this through,” said Coralis. “I would have liked to be able to walk around the block in animal form… but I don’t want people to call animal control on me.”

“The book doesn’t mention anything about being able to transform into more than one animal, so I guess we will have to ask Martha about that,” said Victoria, laughing at her friend.

In London, Erik, Henry and their friend Gus were waiting for them at the airport and they took a taxi to their flat. It was a nice large 4-bedroom flat on the top floor of a 3-floor building.

“I’m surprised,” said Coralis, “why rent a flat in the middle of a human neighbourhood?”

“My aunt owns the building,” said Gus. “It was just convenient. The rooftop is heavily warded, you could stand naked there and no one will notice it.”

The next day after breakfast, Coralis and Victoria went to the storage unit. The boys couldn’t go with them: Gus had to work and the twins had a flyball practice. The storage unit was in a building ran by humans and they had no trouble finding it. The unit was full of stuff and all kind of items, but there was a little passageway in the middle, leading to a tall bookshelf and a small 2-drawers furniture. Sitting on the middle shelf of the bookshelf, was a letter. Coralis started to read it out loud.

‘Our beloved Coralis,

‘If you are reading this, it means that something happened to us that got us killed, probably by Lord Meozo, and we never got to tell you about this.’

She stopped reading, feeling her eyes getting wet. She couldn’t read it, but her instincts told her that she had to. She passed the letter to Victoria and asked if she could continue. Victoria took the letter from her hands and continued reading it out loud.

‘You need to know this: do not trust everything you hear about us. We wanted to walk away from him, especially when Anita, your mother, got pregnant with you. We wanted you to grow up away from our mess. We made mistakes and trusted the wrong people. Anita’s family are also deeply involved.

‘During the last 2 months of her pregnancy, we went to hide in the middle of the Egyptian desert. My family has a Temple there. This is where you were actually born. Anita’s friend, Dorothy, and my sister Dawn were there.

‘Two days after you were born, we received news that Lord Meozo needed to have a meeting with us. We presented you to our family god and arranged to come back home, where your mother filed for your birth certificate. The name you see on your birth certificate is not your real name. Corhaaliniakhys is your true name, but please sweety, do NOT repeat this to anyone, except to your mate and husband, if you ever take one and you two decide to bind yourself together.

‘We are truly hoping that if you are reading this, we at least were able to tell you about our world. If not, we are really sorry and hope that you will ever forgive us.

‘If you have any questions, you can trust my sister Dawn and your mother’s friend Dorothy, if they are still alive. Do NOT trust anyone in Anita’s family: they will just try to rope you in with Lord Meozo and we do not want that for you.

‘If you don’t have our god’s mark yet, you may not be able to see most of what is in our storage unit in Alexandria. I am hoping that one day, we can take you to our family temple, but if you are reading this, then it means that we didn’t get to do that and I can only tell you that you need to go there one day, when you are ready. If you are married at that point, bring him there if you want to.

‘With all of our Love,

‘Dad

‘PS: Just in case you are wondering: the gate and walls of this storage unit are heavily warded. Humans entering it wouldn’t be able to see the majority of what’s in here, including this letter. If Lord Meozo or any of his goons would have touched this letter, it would have instantly dissolved… so if you are reading this… it means that thankfully, you at least got here before him… unless he is next to you...’

Coralis struggled to contain her tears. Victoria’s eyes were also wet with tears falling down her cheeks.

“Something doesn’t add up,” Victoria said. “Your dad thought that he would be killed by Lord Meozo… but people said your parents had been killed by CMMA and EBEE agents raiding their meeting room.”

“That means that they got killed as soon as they got back to their home from Egypt,” said Coralis, with a small voice. “I didn’t know I had an aunt on my dad’ side, Roberto told me and Nadilla that they couldn’t place us with my mom’ side of the family. Nadilla’s dad was my mom’s brother, he said that their family was under investigation and that we had to be hidden in the human system… Hmm he said that my dad’s family couldn’t be located, nothing beyond that.”

“Do you want to find her?” Victoria. “Or to find your mom’s friend?”

“No, but I should. I mean, if they wanted to find me, they could have. I want to think that even if they wanted to, they probably wouldn’t have been able to, because my files with the orphanages and group homes are sealed and they don’t know that Blue Thunder is me… but according to my dad’s letter, they know my birth name… which means they can technically summon me. I’m sure they got stuff with my dad’s essence.”

“They won’t summon you if they think you’re a teenage student. Maybe they will one day, but you’re right… why let you think your entire life that they didn’t exist? Maybe they also got killed.”

“Maybe, and that’s the only reason why I think I should try to look them up, to see what happened to them.”

Coralis folded the letter and put it into one of her jeans’ back pockets.

“I will just add this, and then I want to change the subject. This letter changes everything for me. They tried to walk away from Lord Meozo. They failed, but they tried. Knowing how all of my mom’s family were involved with him, now I’m glad that I’m the one to have ended up with her family stuff, so that our other relatives can’t have it. I think that next summer, I will go to her storage unit in Alma, rent one in Montreal and move all the stuff there, to make it more difficult for them to find it.”

“This also means that this mess is not over. Your mom’s family will probably come after you.”

“I’m sure you’re right, but we’ll see in time, I guess. For now, I am glad that Martha had everyone call me Blue Thunder, so they shouldn’t know that their sister Anita’s daughter destroyed their beloved boss.”

Victoria laughed at that and they started to look into the rest of the stuff. There were a lot of boxes and some furniture, with all kind of items sitting on them. They suspected that most of them were either cursed or spelled, so they didn’t dare touch anything, except the boxes. In one of the drawers, they found a brown leather book containing what seemed to be an inventory. Coralis assumed that it was an inventory of what was in there, so she decided to take it with her, to look at it while at school.

They left and locked the gate back behind them. Coralis didn’t know what kind of wards her parents had set up around their unit and she didn’t want to worry about it at the moment. She was still processing the letter she read from her dad: they tried to walk away from Lord Meozo.

Coralis’ team, The Northerners, won against The Imperialists, the British national flyball team. The game was intense and kept the crowd on their feet the entire time. It was the opening game of the season for both teams. The British fans knew that Blue Thunder went to their Scottish school and were mad that she was wearing the other team’s colours. Some thought that she was a traitor: she shouldn’t have signed with a foreign team, in their eyes, she was British. The crowd didn’t know about her true origins. They didn’t know that Blue Thunder was Coralis Golmar.

At school, whenever they had the chance, Coralis and Victoria continued to practice animal transformation, under Martha’ supervision. Coralis transformations were becoming more fluid and she had to agree that it did help her adjust to her more potent essence. The twins failed to convince their parents to have their End-of-Year family reunion at their London place: Sean’s parents insisted on hosting it this year. Coralis traveled to the twins when the school break started, and the three of them went to Sean’s family from there: they lived in a remote elemental community in Eastern Wales.