June 30, 1995
When the school year ended, Coralis travelled with Erik and Henry to their parents. Like the previous summer, Kief and Barla Fullemon had been approved as a foster family to her. Not wanting to miss her first game with The Northerners, they took a flight to Montreal with her that morning. Erik and Henry didn't sign up as reservists for The Imperialists, the British team, so their first game would be in mid-August… against The Northerners.
The flyball season was almost over. The Northerners only had three home games left to play. Flyball seasons started mid-August and ended the first week of July. The top 8 teams then had up to 2 weeks of playoff finals, and the final game would determine the winner of the Silver Cup. The Northerners weren't going to qualify for it so the coach, with the agreement of the team's officials, decided to play their three new reservists.
Against Spain's national team, Coralis played her first game with the Northerners. The season was almost over, with only 3 games left to it. At 14, she was the youngest, even among the three new reservists. Lydia, a fellow attacker, was 17 and Sebastian, a goaltender, was 16. Although Lydia and Sebastian were supposed to be graduating at the end of the following school year, the team had signed them for two seasons as reservists.
She was introduced to everyone as Blue Thunder, as per Martha's stipulation. The team heard stories of what happened between Blue Thunder and Lord Meozo and they tried to question her about it but she dodged their questions by giving them vague answers. She didn't want to ignore her new teammates and the team officials, but she couldn't think about it without thinking about her cousin and the event was still under investigation. She was convinced Lord Meozo was behind Nadilla's death and thinking about it brought forward painful memories.
They won their game and the two following ones. Impressed, the team wanted their three new reservists to play the new season's opening game in mid-August, and keep playing until they return to school. The team officials also negotiated with their respective schools to let them play in some weekend games. The crowd wanted more of them.
Coralis was set to be emancipated when she turned 15 and her social workers wanted to meet with the Fullemons, so the family stayed in town for 2 weeks. They returned to Scotland in mid-July, with Coralis, and travelled back to Montreal the day before her birthday to finalize the process. On August 3, Coralis was emancipated by the court and without her, the Fullemons returned to Scotland the next day.
The Northerners were scheduled to play their first games in Europe, so she was to return to Scotland the day before their season-opening game against The Imperialists. In the meantime, as the team wanted their new reservists to attend practice before travelling abroad, Coralis stayed at Victoria's. Victoria was happy to be able to practice animal transformation with Coralis finally.
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. 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 she bought when they were in town.
"Hey, sister! Are you looking forward to this weekend?" said Henry, whose holographic image floated above her device, with Erik's beside him.
"Very much so! It will be weird to be playing against you guys, but it will be fun."
"Weird? That's an understatement! You've been our captain for the past 2 years and you do realize that me and Henry aren't the only former Brazen Bolts players in the British team, right?" said Erik.
"Oh I do realize and I still am their captain," said Coralis, laughing. Victoria was also laughing beside her. "However, we also have been playing AGAINST many of them… and guess what… now YOU are playing WITH them!"
"True! Anyway, we were calling for something else," said Henry.
"Were you?" said Victoria.
"Yes! As you know, The Imperialists are based in London, so we decided to move there. Erik, Gus and I found a nice and sweet-looking 4-bedroom flat in West London, so we were wondering, why don't you come stay with us when you're in London?" said Henry.
"We are also trying to bait the parents to come to our London flat for the End-of-Year holidays so you could come here instead for the school break," said Erik.
"I'd be down for that, I do need to give an address to The Northerners. Interestingly, I was discussing the upcoming trip to London with Vic when you called. I want to go to my storage unit there. I want her to come with me, you guys could come as well if you're available."
"You finally decided to go there?" said Henry.
"Yes, it's time. I don't know when I'll go to the one I have in Alexandria but I think I should go to my London one while in town."
"Agreed. What about the one in Alma?" said Erik.
"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 and knew Victoria wanted to attend the flyball game between Britain and Canada. Whether they played at home or abroad, The Northerners had a box reserved for the team members' guests so Victoria would be able to attend their games before the girls would have to return to school.
The night before they flew 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. I would have liked 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 transforming 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 large 4-bedroom flat on the top floor of a 3-floor building. They had the entire floor for themselves.
"Out of curiosity, why rent a flat in the middle of a human neighbourhood?" said Coralis.
"My aunt owns the building, it was convenient. We heavily warded the rooftop so you could stand naked there and no one would see you," said Gus.
August 19, 1995
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. Coralis had to be at the flyball field late afternoon for a short practice time before the game so she had some time.
Her storage unit was in a building run by humans and they had no trouble finding it. Her unit was filled with all kinds of items but there was a narrow 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 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 the gods 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 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 mated 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 sliding down her cheeks.
"Something doesn't add up. Your dad thought 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 they got killed as soon as they returned home from Egypt," said Coralis, with a small voice. "I didn't know I had an aunt on my dad's side. Nadilla's dad was my mom's brother and Roberto told us it wasn't safe to place us with a relative because they were under investigation so we had to be hidden in the human system… he also said that my dad's family couldn't be found."
"Principal Arthurio told you they were still alive, right? Do you want to find your aunt and your mom's friend?"
"Yes for my mom's relatives but he never said anything about my dad's. I should look for Dawn and Dorothy, but I won't. If they wanted to find me, they could have, it's been 15 years."
"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 might look them up, eventually, 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 was involved with him, now I'm glad to be the one with Nadilla's 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, and rent one in Montreal to move the stuff there before closing it, to ensure they can't ever find her family stuff."
"This also means this mess is not over. Your mom's family will probably come after you."
"I'm sure you're right. For now, I am glad that Martha had me known as Blue Thunder, so they shouldn't know that their sister Anita's daughter is the one who 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 kinds of items sitting on them. They suspected that most of them were either cursed or spelled so they didn't dare touch anything and barely looked into 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 an hour later 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 game was intense and kept the crowd on their feet the entire time. 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 and whose daughter she was.
At school, whenever they had the chance, Coralis and Victoria continued to practice animal transformation, under Martha's supervision. Coralis transformations became more fluid.
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 that year. Coralis travelled to their London flat 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.