The next morning’s walk to school was interesting. We got a lot of stares from the people we passed. Sure they lived in the same area as my new, and famous, family, but that didn’t mean they saw them very often. Not the adults, anyway. So it was a bit of a treat to see someone many viewed as a role model.

Me? I ended up clinging to mom’s coat. I wasn’t fond of all the attention. Never had been. Unfortunately, I had to get used to it considering who I was now that I bore the surname Oak.

Well, at least mommy was willing to put up with my grip, gently stroking my hair. On her other side was Sammi. She wasn’t all nervous like I was, having grown up with this happening, but she was enjoying holding mommy’s hand nonetheless.

On reaching the school, we separated. Sammi went to her class, while mommy and I headed for the office. Hopefully for the last time in a while. Even though I know I’m not in trouble, visiting it still made me nervous.

We had to wait a bit, since there was a couple of people with business ahead of us. An older grey-haired man in a slightly worn, but clean, lab coat over a t-shirt and jeans, and a young woman in a tailored business suit that showed off her figure beautifully.

They were directed to the left hallway. However, as they moved, the secretary saw my face.

“Oh! She’s right behind you. Good morning Rynn. You can go ahead and head back to Mr Carter’s office. These people came to talk to you and him.” Then he saw my mommy. “Oh, Mrs Oak. Welcome, how can I help you?”

“I was just accompanying my daughter to take care of some business.”

The secretary looked around, but not seeing anyone else had a puzzled look on her face.

“Are you waiting for her to arrive then?”

“I guess you hadn’t been informed yet. My husband and I adopted young Rynn here. It was finalized yesterday.”

“Really!? Well congratulations on your new daughter, and Rynn on your new family.”

The pair of adults, who’d turned to us at the secretaries words showed very different reactions to the news of my adoption. The man seemed happy, but the woman, a scowl crossed her face for a brief moment before returning to an unreadable mask. I don’t think mommy noticed, as she had been looking towards the secretary with a smile.

“Thank you. We haven’t know each other very long, but she is fitting in with us quite well.”

The man used this moment to join the conversation.

“It’s wonderful that she’s already found a home! Oh, I’m Professor Gabriel from Viridian University. After we heard about young Miss Rynn’s test scores, I was asked to come down here by the Department of Education. It’s a pleasure to meet you both!”

He moved to shake hands with mommy, but the woman interrupted.

“We should save that for later. We don’t want to leave Mr Carter waiting for us, do we?”

“Ah, yes.”

I had an uncomfortable feeling from the woman, though Professor Gabriel seemed to be nice. Since something felt off, I decided to expand my use of psychic powers to ensure my safety. We started walking off towards the counselor’s office, and while doing so I read the professor. He seemed happy, curious, interested. Nothing untoward in either emotion or thought that I could detect.

The woman? She was a blank. I got nothing from her. If I amped up my power, I could probably get something, but considering she wasn’t leaking anything, I guessed she had some kind of training against psychics, so she might be able to detect any more than this.

The knock on Mr Carter’s door was answered with a ‘come in’ from him, so the woman opened the door. She entered, but only just over the threshold looking around the place. It could hold a few people, but this many would not fit. At least not comfortably.

“Hello Mr Carter. I’ve been sent by the League regarding Telarynn’s case, and the child is behind us. Is there another place we can hold this meeting?”

Seeing the size of the group, he nodded in consent.

“Let me make sure we can use it…” He spent a moment looking at the computer before typing something in. “Okay. We can use conference room two. It’s three doors down the hall on the left. Give me a minute to gather some things and I’ll join you.”

We followed his directions and entered the room. Yup, plenty large enough. This place had room for a dozen to be seated comfortably, and more to stand around the edges. The chairs were the typical executive chairs with high backs, wheels, and made of pleather.

So I did what any child would do when faced with such an item. I sat down and spun in it! It was great!

I only got a few rotations though before mom stopped me. She had a smile on her face, but…

“Sorry Rynn. Now’s not the time for that.”

“Okay mommy.”

I pouted a little, but went back to smiling as she picked me up and held me in her lap, caressing my hair.

I’d never asked her to do this, but she really likes to hold me. I mean, I don’t mind, since it feels really nice, but is skinship like this normal for her? Meh, not important right now. Snuggling in is.

As I got comfortable, the others took their seats, including Mr Carter who came in with a few papers and a laptop that was booting up. He took the end of the table, while the woman had dragged the professor to the other side of the table and took a seat directly opposite us.

Once everyone was seated, we got started.

“Today has been full of surprises it seems, as I didn’t expect either the League to send someone, or for her to be adopted so quickly. So lets go through introductions just so we all know each other. I’m the counselor in charge of Rynn here at the school, George Carter.”

As he finished, he looked to mommy and me. He knew who she was, but was curious why she was here.

“I’m Victoria Oak, pokémon trainer and breeder. My husband and I adopted Rynn here, with everything finalizing yesterday.”

Mr Carter’s eyes opened wide in surprise, but he didn’t say anything as the baton was passed along.

“I’m Professor Charles Gabriel of Viridian University. The Department of Education asked for someone to be sent here due to the extraordinary nature of the situation. They’d like me to verify Miss Rynn’s results, and… well the last part is unlikely now, since they wanted her to be transferred to the university.”

“She is to be transferred to a special program watched over by the League. I was sent here to take charge of the child.”

The woman spoke in a cold and commanding voice. We all looked at her with varying expressions on our faces, negative ones. Taking a peek at mommy’s face I saw disgust and hatred, Mr Carter frowned slightly, and the professor narrowed his eyes.

I decided to be the kid who couldn’t read the room. Well, I kind of was, since I’d frequently had that problem.

“What’s your name though?”

I asked it with a curious tone and a cute tilt of my head, making her focus on me.

“You can call me Agent Smith.”

Now there’s a false name if I ever heard one. Plus the words she used to introduce herself were ‘you can call me’ rather than ‘my name is’ or ‘I am.’

“You’re name is Agent? That’s so cool!”

She frowned at me while the others chuckled, in mommy’s case darkly. Then she tried to take command of the meeting.

“Professor, do what you need to do to test her.”

“There are some who think she cheated somehow, so they wanted me here to check things out. So I just need to ask some questions.”

He did so, reading from a list with a pen to mark stuff down, though I noticed a small ball in his off hand. Is that some kind of lie detector? Interesting… let’s test it. I answered all the important questions truthfully, though I tried lying on some stupid stuff. He reacted to the lies, but didn’t say anything.

Finally I couldn’t stand it.

“Professor? That ball can tell if someone lies, right? How does it work? Where did it come from?”

His eyes, previously mostly focused on the papers in front of him, came to rest on me as he raised an eyebrow.

“Why would you think that?”

“Because whenever I lied your hand twitched and you gave a little frown.”

“So you admit to lying?”

“Yeah, I wanted to see if it changed color or something, but it didn’t.”

He sighed, setting the pen down and rubbing his forehead. He then turned back a couple pages.

“It’s called a truth orb and gives a slight jolt when you lie, hence the twitch. I don’t know where it came from, but they’re rare, and I was given it to use since if you aren’t lying you’re quite a rare person. And now, since you intentionally lied when you could have asked earlier since you noticed something, I’m going to have to ask you a bunch of questions again.”

“Sorry.”

We redid the questions I lied on, then picked up where we left off. When we were done he seemed satisfied. The whole thing took maybe fifteen minutes, though it would have been less if I hadn’t messed around or had to skirt some questions. If I’d given direct answers I would have revealed at least a bit of my secrets, and I didn’t want that.

“Well, you’re definitely not lying, which means they’re definitely going to want you.” He looked at me comfortably cuddled into mommy’s lap. “But that’s not going to happen, is it?”

“That is correct, and we appreciate your confirming her knowledge base, but the League has decided that she will be coming with me.”

She pulled a bundle of papers on the conference table. They looked very official.

“Not without my permission as her parent she’s not.”

“You’d object to official instructions from the government?”

“I would object to unlawful acts of anyone. It is illegal to take someone away like these orders state without consent, from a parent or guardian in a minor’s case. You aren’t trying to kidnap my daughter are you?”

Mommy had picked up and looked through the papers and what she found made her furious. Her anger was palpable and made me afraid and start to tear up instinctively, even knowing that she was angry for me, not at me. She calmed down as she noticed, apologizing to me, though not the others in the room, for the bloodlust she’d just exhibited.

“Ma’am, we’re just trying to do what is best for the child. Those in this program receive special attention and learn how to use their natural gifts from others like them.”

“I am well aware of what goes on in your special program and my daughter will have no part of it. If I had my way, your actions would be made public and the program would be shut down.”

“Whatever are you talking about. It’s just something to bring up those with special circumstances to be the best that they can be.”

The woman said this with a smile on her face, but her eyes said she was very unhappy, that she didn’t like how this was going, so she tried a different tactic.

“Why don’t we ask the child what she wants to do?”

Mommy was about to object, but I pulled on her shirt, getting her to look down at me. Unseen by the others, I winked at her. Then I turned to look at the woman.

“What exactly does your program do, Miss Agent?”

She gave a little frown at how I called her, but answered.

“We teach those like you how to sharpen your skills and work to improve lives.”

I tilted my head.

“How?”

“By teaching you what you need to know?”

“What is it that I need to know?”

“How to live your life and use your skills.”

“But you aren’t giving me any details. I don’t want to go anywhere if I don’t know anything about it, and you won’t tell me anything.”

I pouted and looked away from her.

And then I felt it. A tingling sensation. Not anywhere on my body, but in my mind. Had it been simple telepathy for conversation, I’d have responded in kind to allow it, but no, this was far more insidious.

Turning towards the woman, with anger on my face, I lifted from where I was seated to hover in the air.

“HOW DARE YOU! YOU DARE TRY TO ENTER MY MIND AND FORCE ME TO AGREE WITH YOU! IS BRAINWASHING AND COERCION WHAT THEY TEACH YOU IN THAT SPECIAL PROGRAM OF YOURS?! WELL? ANSWER ME, YES OR NO?”

She moved backwards, away from me. Little surprise as having psychic attacks cut off the way I did causes pain to the one who attempted them. She shook her head, refusing to answer vocally. Probably because of the Truth Orb the professor was still holding in his hand.

“Mommy, is it illegal to psychically force someone to something against their will?”

“Yes honey it is. I am calling the police right now.”

She had her phone in her hand, minimizing the voice recorder app that’d been running since the beginning to place a call.

“Thank you.”

I turned my attention back to the woman. She’d regained control of herself, acting as if nothing happened.

“You haven’t answered my question yet, Agent Smith, or whatever your real name is. Are you afraid to answer?”

“I have no need to answer the questions of a child throwing a tantrum.”

“A tantrum? Is that what you call the righteous anger of someone you tried to mind-rape?! If you can’t answer with a ‘no’ to a simple question like that, then the obvious answer is that you were taught to brainwash people.”

 

She ignored my words and went to gather up her things.

“I think we’re done here.”

Mommy stood up, blocking her escape.

“You are trying to leave after committing a crime, of trying to mentally coerce my daughter. Do you think I’ll allow that?”

“You don’t have the authority to stop me.”

“Yes I do.”

The villain tried to force mother out of the way, and she moved, but only slightly as I countered the TK the woman used, then forced her back and into a chair. She might be older, but I was far stronger than her.

“Thank you Rynn. Please keep her there until the authorities arrive.”

“Yes, mommy.”

During all of this, the other two people in the room just looked on with surprise. Mr Carter knew that there were rumors of a psychic being a student nearby, but hadn’t connected that to me. There had been no definite knowledge of who it might be, and numerous names were thrown around, mine among them.

The professor knew I was a prodigy, but hadn’t heard the rumors, having come from another city. That I was also a powerful psychic was something he’d never expected. In his mind, he thought that that might have been why she was cautious about how she answered some of the questions. He’d have had to be an idiot to not notice the difference between those questions and the others with a simple answer, but hadn’t said anything since he thought it didn’t make a difference.

I decided it was probably a bad idea to keep floating, so settled down into one of the chairs, legs crossed as I watched over the mind-rapist. She made numerous attempts to escape my control, but none succeeded. I not only blocked her movement, but also locked down any signals she might have tried to send with a mental barrier around her.

I did not touch her mind. I had already sensed the corruption and mentally disgusting feel of it when I’d had to defend myself from her attack, and wanted nothing to do with it. Plus, I didn’t want to be the one accused of breaking the law and interfering with another’s mind.

The topic of laws regarding psychics jumped to the top of my list of topics to study. Learning about it became my top priority over everything except survival.

The police, still no Officer Jenny, finally showed up ten minutes later, accompanied by a psychic pokémon, a hypno that took over restraining the woman both mentally and physically. She was also sedated, since it was unknown how strong she might be. Though it was rare, there were a few humans that exceeded the power of psychic pokémon, so precautions were taken.

Statements were taken, along with mommy passing along the recording of the conversation. The fact that the woman refused to respond to damning questions in the presence of a Truth Orb was noted specially. I don’t know how many of those things are around, but I hope they use one to get the truth out of the woman, though I had little actual hope of that considering her employer.

Although we’d started the meeting at the beginning of the school day, it wasn’t until after lunch time that the police finished everything and left. I’d been hungry, so I snuck some candy out of my storage via my backpack to tide myself over. I hadn’t brought a lunch today, since mommy figured on taking us out to lunch. She’d passed off some money to Sammi to buy food in the cafeteria since we couldn’t.

During most of the commotion, I just sat back and read. Mommy let me borrow her phone after she’d sent the audio file off, so I used it to look up laws regarding the use of psychic powers. There were a lot of them, but it mostly came down to don’t use them to hurt or bother others. Surface reading and empathy were not illegal, since it was basically impossible to prevent oneself from doing so. Using the information gained that way was mostly frowned on though. Even I couldn’t help picking things up, but I ignored them most of the time.

Outside of the national laws, there were some places that completely banned the use of psychic powers in public, though they couldn’t make it illegal to use in private places or on battlefields, arenas, gyms, and places that had permits posted that it WAS permitted there. Pallet Town didn’t do so. The laws applied to all psychics, regardless of species, so trainers had to also be careful to keep their charges under control.

The laws had become stricter just after the Wormhole Crisis.

Psychics had been highly sought after during it, and given a lot of power since they could make things easier and communicate with others faster than electronic communications in remote regions where there was poor or no reception. But that power and privilege had gotten to some of their heads and they got arrogant and did horrific things like taking control of others and making them act basically like slaves.

Combating this was the source of the League’s special program for young psychics. It was created to instill a sense of ethics and responsibility in the impressionable young minds with their budding powers. Attendance was specifically written as being NOT mandatory, as those creating it saw the potential for disaster in putting all of the eggs in one basket.

And a disaster it eventually came to be, as it too had been corrupted when it fell into the hands of those with power and greed on their minds. I learned about how it had gone bad from mommy, since she had a friend who had escaped from the program.

There was another group opposing the program, composed of psychics who hadn’t gone through the program, as well as those who’d escaped or been rescued from it. Unfortunately, they had been unable to get it shut down as they’d been unable to acquire evidence of wrongdoing for the organization as a whole. Those caught were often written off as rogue agents or just having made bad decisions and getting punished before they resumed their duties.

I shudder to think what might have happened had I ended up there instead of with mommy and daddy. I was also suddenly grateful, if only a little bit, for the negligence of the first social worker who failed to mention my abilities in my file.

---

My reading was interrupted by lunch. It had been delayed due to the situation, but even with sustaining myself with the candy, my stomach had been grumbling periodically.

We went to the cafeteria. There wasn’t much left, but were were welcome to what there was, since it’d end up in the trash otherwise. Yeah… there’s a reason I’d bring my lunch whenever possible. I might have to brown bag a bunch of the food I already have stored so it fits in.

After filling, but not satisfying, our stomachs we returned to the conference room and resumed our discussion as to my future.

The suggestion for being in class but working on something else was accepted surprisingly easily, though I did have to promise to not be disruptive. Not that I’d have intentionally done so anyway.

Professor Gabriel got involved in this, since he’d gotten an in depth analysis of my tests from the university. He pointed out where I’d gotten good overall scores but that there were gaps in my knowledge, and what needed to be studied to fix them.

When I brought up a suggestion of going through all the textbooks so I’d learn what everyone else did, he supported it, though he also said that it’d be reaallly boring.

Yes, even though I was more mature than my age, I still got treated like a child. I didn’t mind it most of the time, as long as people didn’t treat me condescendingly. None of those in this room did.

Since how I’d be treated was decided, it just left the where.

“Why don’t we put her in the same class as Sammi? They can help each other, Rynn can help Sammi academically, while Sammi can help Rynn fit in. It’ll also help them get to know each other, since they’re sisters now.”

I fidgeted on mommy’s lap, earning her attention. She knew I had something on my mind, and waited for me to speak, so I did, if a little reluctantly.

“I don’t think she likes me. Won’t she hate that I’m always around, or taking attention away from her?”

“Hmm, I hadn’t thought about that. I remember Henry causing a lot of trouble after Sammi was born, since he likely felt that we didn’t love him as much anymore, especially since Patrick liked playing with her, but he came around after a while.”

“A lot of children experience jealousy when they get a new sibling. You just have to make sure to show the jealous one that your still care about them. It also helps if you can get them to help look after their new family member, getting them invested in caring for them. Them being in the same class might help with that, since they’ll get to know each other faster than if they were separated.”

Wise words from the school counselor. Most of the time it’s younger kids that would experience that, so I’m sure he’s had to deal with it innumerable times.

Since everyone was in agreement, it was decided. From the next day onward I’d be following my sister to class.

I don’t want to raise a flag, so I won’t say what I was thinking.