They say it was something totally unusual. The tv networks couldn't explain the reason for the outage. It was half Nettai," Samantha was saying in the Belts' backyard. She and Gina were laying onto deck chairs.
"Whatever," Gina spelled while sipping on an orange juice, protected by a pair of sunglasses. Her face was straight to the each time less eternal sun, her mind assumed nobody else noticed what had happened but her.
Hunter was looking at them through the glass sliding door that connected the backyard to the kitchen room. Its face seemed a neverending frown.
"I didn't know you had a dog, Gina."
She answered nothing but she'd rather have her not be aware. Mr Mitchell slides the door and Hunter runs so Samantha can pet it.
'Hypocrite,' Gina thought carelessly.
"How soft!"
"Yeah, it's a special Dalmatian," the black-haired girl explained. "It has a plush-like fur."
The power service had been restored three hours after the happenings. Any concern alarm was pounded, any citizen witnessed the odd episodes from yesterday's evening: Gina Belt flying on a rusty tricycle along the Healtown heiress on a top-notch scooter, or Zach Mole running half a region chasing after whatever thing. If someone actually could notice, he just glossed over.
---
Gina got through the school assignments. She was in the living room watching a documentary on the duration of the sun while her father was working on a blade of aluminium.
"Hey dog, why weren't you worried about the fact that Paris Healtown won the rubin? She's nuts and I bet she's dangerous. What if she takes it to the scientists?" Gina formulated these 'gruesome' ideas, expecting her dog to fear.
Hunter, who was on a side of the dining room licking a donut–where does he get them?–, said: "Don't worry. We'll snatch it."
"How so?"
"We'll cope."
Hunter was really calmed. It didn't seem the dog it always showed.
"You're conscious she knows you talk?"
"I'll erase her memory."
"Can you do that?" Gina's voice sounded interested, she even jumped on the sofa.
"You don't know what I can do," it replied haughtily.
"Mmm. We have to take that rubin away. We don't know what she could do with it. She's not nice and you say those people shouldn't have them."
The dog got pensive. It stopped licking the donut. It wasn't sure about that burst over the sky was a real rubin or...
"I don't think it was a common rubin," it concluded, then it licked back.
"What you mean? You said it was a rubin." Gina shouted: "Did you dare to make me go after that thing for naught?" She was getting pissed off.
"There are two kinds of rubin, child. I'm sure that one, which flew with personality and orientation, wasn't a common rubin."
The dog took advantage of the fresh evening and without clues to follow and no activity, it told the curious Belts the story of the Teddysprouts according to one of them.
'You know that Nettai meteor is an aster that passes over the skies in this region every 100 years, don't you? Well, I was a witness of the first attempts to possess the geoid. New Heart Hill was founded in the year 2701 by Inberi Heart, who also created the technology of the endocapsulation that made him rich.
He was coming from Tokyo along about twenty migrating families. The accomplishment of the overpopulation forced people to move to uncharted zones. This was one of them. There wasn't trail of human prints in centuries, this territory was cursed. Here, a witch and her entourage of akkis and turned spirits* ruled. Nobody ventured coming to these lands.
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When those people arrived, they faced the witch, named as the Witch of Alzar, because that was how this town was whispered. She challenged them to go back but it was the very Inberi Heart who appeased her and sent her to the woods thanks to a powerful magic...'
"I think you're exaggerating, dog. This town ruled by a witch? Inberi Heart, an entrepreneur, playing with magic?" Gina got 9+ in history classes. She was into it, along with geography.
"Too fantastic that tale," a greasy Mr Mitchell said almost giggling.
"Don't interrupt me, I know what I say."
'The first coming of Nettai–later named as that for the current name of this zone–was in the year 2700, when the Tokyo migrants were starting to set up. The geoid crashed down to the eyes of Heart. These people heard about the rumors about this zone, the nearest to the woods, being governed by supernatural evil forces but that just made them walk south. In one of his excursions around the place, Heart saw the meteor and built the incredible Posterity Arm, a weapon that bulldozed any unwanted being's power source. The witch was frightened of this weapon so, she hid inside the woods with her akkis and the peace covered Alzar the whole.'
"So, we're looking for rubins to rebuild that Posterity Arm, eh?" Gina advanced, as usual. "Where are the Teddysprouts in your tale? What happened later?"
'The Posterity Arm–Hunter went on–is built from two minerals: the rubins and the orians; the first ones are found inside the meteor Nettai. When Inberi Heart slips away in 2752, the witch gets out of her hidings as there wasn't anyone who could stiffen her with the Posterity Arm.
Inberi Heart had a Teddysprout, a Spot like me called Han. The witch got rid of it by sending it to another dimension.'
"I read that when I looked Teddysprouts up online," Gina crossed in.
'The witch ruled over 148 years more after Heart's death. In that time, people were forced to serve her and be enslaved. Their vital energy was consumed by the akkis and turned spirits thanks to the fear she cultivated.
A century, four decades and eight years of generations of humans threatened by black magic. The Posterity Arm didn't exist no longer. The witch did try to steal it but it broke down as soon as Inberi died.
It was in 2800 when the second Nettai fell down. But this one, on the contrary, didn't carry any rubins with it.'
"How did that witch get to know that Nettai and the Posterity Arm were linked?" Mr Mitchell objected.
"The legend of the rubins is known by every dimension existing, Mr Mitchell. Every spirit, benignant or turned, knows it. Now, let-me-tell-the-sto-ry," the Teddysprout grumbled.
'...Han wakes up from the snooze spell the witch had cast on it in the year 2900, during the third coming of Nettai. However, it T hadn't returned alone. It'd brought a horde of Teddysprouts with it and the battle that followed is registered as the Posterity War. I was there, all the Teddysprouts that fought along me were coming from the first Nettai. The witch and her akkis battled against us. She even created demonic shadows to grab the rubins from the fallen geoid.'
There was a pause. Hunter closed its blue eyes and let its head fall down. It looked like it was having a headache. Gina's throat itched again. 'Do dogs have headaches? I doubt. Not Teddy's either.'
"I don't remember much of the battle but I know it was me who joined the meteor, it was a fusion. It gave me so much power that I used the same punishment on the witch. I did her the same she did to Han. I sent her to sleep to another dimension. About her shadows and remaining lackeys I remember they fled to the woods. The one behind your house. The Teddysprouts vanished until today. I came back because Nettai did too. For a fourth time. I ignore the other Teddysprouts' thereabouts but I wouldn't allow any of the witch's henchmen to take on the rubins."
Hunter spoke with a sad thread of voice. This topic was indeed something it didn't enjoy talking. A big deal united its gloom to the meteor. Like it was this geoid which tangled a curse in itself.
"Dog," Gina cut off, "you didn't belong to the first meteor, am I right? How do you know so well this story?"
"True. I wasn't in the first Nettai. I wasn't in any. I know all of this because I was Inberi Heart's personal assistant. That until that malignant witch transformed me in what you can see now."
"What? Really? You were a human and met Inberi Heart?" Gina wasn't sure to believe whether Hunter had been born plush.
"I can't tell you no more. All of my memories are staggering. I'm telling you what I trust I do know plus what the other Teddysprouts retold me. Before the Posterity War, my memories are unsteady, I have very few human memories but that I'm sure about, Mr Heart was my boss," the little Teddysprout said looking at the floor of the living room. Its donut was melting caramel.
"So, you fused with Nettai?" Mitchell asked.
"That's why I say I'm a Supreme Teddysprout. That fusion left me extraordinary abilities."
"Where do Teddy's actually come from?" Gina let escape. She knew now thanks to her cunning but she had this wish to confirm it.
"Teddy?" Hunter grimaced. It hadn't heard that shortening before. "As I told you, Nettai is conformed by two types of rubin: the common ones, shiny gems that glued together build a sphere, ingredient for the Posterity Arm. And the fusion rubins. Us, Teddysprouts."
"So, a common rubin is a regular gem just that shines a lot and the fusion rubin is you ..." Although he had his hands on his mechanisms, Gina's father was also paying attention.
"That means Paris Healtown took what rubin?" Gina's upsetness peeped through her violet eyes.
"I think it was a Teddysprout. Common rubins don't swallow lights or fly couch." Hunter licked its donut again.
"The hell? We must retrieve that one or she'll become a changer!"
Gina's feet were tapping hard the wooden floor. She was involved in her characteristic rage.