Chapter 17: The California Kingdom Part 2

“This here is the hydroponics farm,” Fumi said, pointing through a small window. “This here is where we grow the food needed to help maintain this place.”

The elephant goddess peered through the small window to see a vast farming area. Inside the enormous room was a single individual Yuki that was working on a large farm field. The well-lit lights showed several overhead sprinklers and shower drains that connected to the vast array of troughs with various crops growing from them.

“You manage to grow enough food for yourselves?” Ryujin asked.

“Actually, we don’t really need the food,” Fumi replied. “I don’t know if you mythics have this problem, but we noticed that humans eat way more than we ever do. What we grow here is more than suitable to help maintain ourselves and the adopted humans and mates that live here.

“It is true,” Vinayaki commented. “Us deities never really needed food, to begin with. I suppose it would be the same with the Yuki as well.”

“It is a blessing for us. It helps make things easier when it comes to food like this. Thankfully it allows us to take care of humans more easily. We grow everything from corn, wheat, vegetables, potatoes, even rice, and fruits. The one thing that we do have an issue is protein. We do grow vegetables for protein, but since we lack facilities to harvest meat, it becomes an issue when it comes to feeding humans. Thankfully our research department is on the ball when it comes to these issues.”

The elephant goddess continued to take note of the area. She looked at the Yuki that was inside. She seemed to be focused hard on the tomato plant in front of her. Her fur had a varied color and hair on her as she wrote things down wearing a lab coat. She then walked over to dig and look at the potatoes that grew near the tomato plant.

“Christina Yuki is our best at these plants,” Fumi noted. “She always had a level head when it came to plants. The wives and husbands of the human mortals are responsible for getting the freshly grown food here to bring back and cook for their mates. Essentially we have our own farmer’s market where the food is free. Well-fed mates equal plentiful pups,” she said jokingly.

“Hmmm...” The elephant goddess nodded. “Interesting and self-sufficient.”

“This alone helps reduce the number of things that need to be shipped into the den.”

“So we have seen your farm and school,” the elephant goddess continued. “I think we should check in on the research lab. You got me curious about it when you mentioned it.”

“Of course,” Fumi said, pointing to the direction of where they needed to walk. The hallway splintered into multiple directions. The purple carpet in the distance was the direction they needed to walk.

“Did you see anybody else?” Gary asked the elephant goddess as they proceeded to walk in the direction they needed to go.

“We did have a couple of the Yuki come and talk to us,” Vinayaki replied.

“I am quite impressed with the population here,” Taweret told them. “Your family isn’t too shocked at our presence.”

“I wouldn’t be too surprised,” Fumi told them. “My husband and I traveled from this location, and they know a little bit about you. The Yuki are fully aware that there are other non human species out there. You will see that for yourselves.”

“You weren’t born here?”

“Yes, but my mother took me and moved to the surface when I was just a baby. My poor husband,” she said, looking at him. “I lied to him originally on that when we first met, but that was until I could fully trust him with the knowledge about me. I told him the truth a little bit later after he learned who I truly was.”

“Yet you seem to know the place rather well,” Taweret replied with a smile.

“We made a couple of trips here to meet and talk with the family here every once and awhile. When they asked me about the mission to go and meet the mythics of the Coalition of Deities, I couldn’t say no. My husband and I wanted to do this. I don’t care if I am about to pop or not. It feels great to do this. Everybody has something to gain from this, and it was an opportunity I could not ignore.”

“We are happy to be doing this too. Regardless if there are some ... disagreements,” the hippo goddess said, looking at Ryujin. The dragon was quiet as he listened to the conversation going on. Instead, he seemed to focus on the long walk to the area they needed to go.

The passageway had another adult Yuki walk by with her husband in tow. Behind them were at least a cluster of five Yuki children that walked with them of various ages.

“I have seemed to notice the pattern of couples here,” Vinayaki commented. “I would always see an adult with many children around him or her. I would always see a female Yuki, but only once have I seen an adult male Yuki and that was in the classroom.”

“It is so rare that a male is born from us. The research lab will help explain all of that. As for the large number of children ... that is a different reason.”

“Why is that?” Taweret asked.

They reached a crossroads as they made a left turn to proceed down the purple carpet that led to the research labs. Fumi was practically in the center of the three deities as Gary walked behind near the dragon.

“Having children is important,” Fumi answered their question. “It happened pretty much recently in the last twenty years of a large pup boom. It became a priority to have as many children as possible.”

“Hmmm...” the dragon said as he thought out loud. Gary looked at him as he seemed to listen in on the conversation.

“Why the desire to have so many children?” the elephant goddess asked.

“The rat kingdom consisted of tens of thousands of rats that were ruled by the father of our great mother. When the kingdom was destroyed, it forced the great Yuki to rebuild her kingdom. While it has taken almost a hundred and fifty years to do so, it has been an act of respect for us to be a part of that rebuilding process. To us ... we feel like having as many pups as possible. Having a child gains respect from the other Yuki in the family. It has become a status symbol. The more children you have, the more respect and prestige you gain.”

“This can lead to problems in your future,” Ryujin commented to her. “You do realize that?”

“I am compelled to agree,” Vinayaki said, nodding. “I am safely assuming that you and your family members don’t age correct?”

“We don’t age ... but I partially agree,” Fumi said. “I just ... feel like having children, but I don’t do it because the others preach the idea of rebuilding some ancient kingdom.”

“There is no shame in that,” Taweret replied. “We have people in our Coalition that agree with you.”

“They do?”

“Yeah, Ammit is a good example. Everyone knows her as the devourer of the dead, but it hasn’t stopped her from popping more babies out than the rest of us ever have. She started doing it for the last four hundred years. She has had four husbands ... or is it five now? Whatever the case is, she is a happy mother.”

“Why does she want to have so many children, though?” Gary asked.

The conversation got cut short as they reached the large doors. The room seemed large and more prominent than the classroom that they saw earlier. It had a plaque on the wall that said “Research Lab” in both English and Japanese.

“Here we are,” Fumi told them, gesturing them to enter the doors. “Here, a lot of your questions will be answered.”

Gary walked up as he opened the doors for them to enter. Upon entering the room, they took notice of the scene. The room was a cluster of several rooms that all connected together. Lined like a collection of small boxes, each room had its own door, a window to see inside, and a description plaque to label the purpose of each place.

“We use the vast resources we gather here to fund the extensive research needed to help our dens grow. It is like you said, we kinda know that our population is going to explode, and we need to see what things can be done about expanding it.”

“The question I have is, how are you getting the money to make these dens?” Vinayaki asked. “Us deities have huge sums of money that we have gained by various means or sometimes create out of thin air. Do you or your family have magical abilities to summon money?”

“No,” Fumi answered. She walked up to the center room that led to the exit of the labs. She gestured them to look inside the window.

Inside the room was a single solitary tree under ample overhead light. It was a seemingly sizable tree about the size of a shed. It had all the proper treatment needed for its survival. A series of water pipes led to it with careful timers to keep the water going to it. The soil was pure and fertile for it to grow. The tree was a Pachira Aquatica variety. It appeared almost tropical with large stems that wrapped together from the base of the tree to form branches that had large round green leaves.

“It is said that money doesn’t grow on trees...” Fumi said as she held her hand for them to look. “But it does...”

“Not possible,” Vinayaki commented as she gazed at the tropical tree. “It does exist!”

“The money tree!” Ryujin reacted as well. “The legends are true.”

Along the base of the tree, they could see golden apples that lined the soil. These apples weren’t the golden-delicious apples but actual golden apples. They looked up to see apples as they grew from the branches near the leaves. The bright light made the apples shimmer.

“Incredible,” Taweret replied, looking at it. “So many myths and to see such a tree ... it is beautiful.”

“This is just one of the trees,” Fumi commented. “One of our agents found it just after World War 2. It was one of the greatest discoveries that she ever made. It is the reason why we have expanded a hundredfold in the last forty years. It is the reason why our population has reached the baby pup boom that it has now. It is believed that the tree...” she paused as another Yuki left one of the rooms.

This female Yuki had a solid brown fur to her and wore a lab coat that covered her body. She had a frame that she wore over her eyes that consisted of a magnifying lens that can be pulled down to align with her vision. She was also visibly pregnant as well as her distended belly clearly showed from her lab coat, but it wasn’t as pronounced as Fumi’s was. She had a surprised look as she saw the five standing near to her. She almost took her magnifying lens and lowered it to take a closer look at the deities near her.

“Umm ... hello?” the female rat replied in a pure American accent. Her pink tail swung a little bit. “Fumi? ... Umm ... who are these tall people?”

“Everyone, this is one of my cousins. Her name is Cassandra Yuki. She is the head researcher of the den here. Cassandra, this is Vinayaki,” she said as she pointed to each one. “This is Ryujin, this is Taweret, and you already know my husband. These are the representatives from the Coalition of Deities. You already know of our family’s interest in joining it.”

“Oh ... alright. Hello!” Cassandra replied as she waved her pawed hand to greet them. She seemed to have a skittish smile to them as they towered over her. “Umm ... actually, I am one of three researchers here. I wouldn’t say that I am much of a head researcher.”

Taweret responded with a wave of her hand and a smile.

“Cassandra, you are really good at your work. You should be praised.”

“It is ... good to see all of you... , “ she said with a nervous response. “What do you want?”

“We came to ask questions about the various things at the lab. I was telling them about the money tree that grew here.”

“Right!” Cassandra said as she put her hands together. She no longer seemed skittish as the words piqued her interest. “The money tree is where we get our income from. As you can see, the branches literally grow golden fruit that gets big enough that they fall to the ground. Once about twenty years ago, it sprouted one seed of its own that we moved to here in this den to grow. The original one still grows and bears fruit in Japan. The golden fruit is then moved to our smithy here in the den. There they are melted down into gold bars that are submitted to be sold and processed into the open market on the surface to give us money. It is believed that the tree only bears one seed during its lifetime before it eventually perishes. We have been taking care of both trees ever since.”

“That would explain how they managed to get so powerful...” Ryujin noted. “Hmmm...”

“It has revolutionized everything here. Our den was purposely chosen to house this tree. The location here in the United States will allow us to expand our population greatly. We were able to purchase the equipment and tools to make all of this. We even started the adoption program to ensure that all our women can have a husband with them. Of course,” she patted her pregnant belly. “That wasn’t how I met my husband.”

“You lived on the surface?” Vinayaki asked.

“Not all the time, but yes. I lived on the surface off and on, till I went into heat. That is where I met the pilot we cared for here that became my husband. I had a high interest in all sorts of science ... ehmmm ... mostly the technical side but I do dabble in a little bit of everything else. Our other two scientists work with the sacred tree and other projects.”

“It seems that you manage quite well here in the dens,” Ryujin asked. “How did you construct these dens, to begin with?”

“A dragon... , “ Cassandra remarked as she lowered her lens to get a closer look at him. “I see the whisker tendrils ... you seem to be an Asian dragon ... I admit that I didn’t think you existed or any of you existed,” her eyes lit up. “Wait! You are Ryujin!? Thee Ryujin?”

He nodded his head but seemed confused by her reactions.

“Oh...” She said as she shook it off. “My apologies. There would be those that would worship you here if they knew who you truly were. We descend from Japan, and you come from there as well...”

He shook his head to dismiss her. Instead, he decided to remain quiet.

“Anyways ... what was I talking about?” Cassandra thought as she raised the lens back to the top of her head.

“The money tree...” Ryujin replied, annoyed.

“Yes ... you would have to talk to the architect here. She happens to be very unique and helpful to us. I recommend that you get a chance to talk to her. She has also played a major role in the creation of all our underground dens.”

“We will keep that in mind,” the elephant goddess replied. “We would like to look into the research that you conduct here.”

“Of course,” she said with a smile. “Follow me. You already know the money tree, but there are other things that we study. Everything from basic shampoo to make us smell better to the simulator, we have it all.”

“That is the second time we have heard of the simulator since we have arrived,” Ryujin remarked.

“Oh... , “ Cassandra said, waving her finger at him. “You have seen nothing yet. That will come last after all this...”

“Yeah,” Gary nodded his head to the others. “It is pretty radical.”

Cassandra gestured them to follow her to the farthest door away, which they did. “You will be able to see each room and what research we have been putting in. You will find our information pretty interesting. You may already know this information, but the whole idea is putting all our resources together, right?”

The elephant goddess nodded as Gary opened up the door that led into the farthest room. When they entered the room, it appeared to everyone as a small medical lab. It consisted of various instruments from doing vital signs, to medical devices, test tubes, beds, cameras, and even a surgical table.

“This is the med lab. Here we learn more about ... well ... ourselves. I help the research here, although Agatha does most of the medical work here.”

“You actually have your own medical doctors?” Vinayaki asked.

“Yes, although we very rarely need them. Most of it is for research purposes. One thing nice is about our bodies. We are seemingly better than humans ... ehmm ... not trying to offend Gary there,” she said nervously with a smile. “We managed to learn a lot of different things, though.”

“You will find the information she obtained is very interesting,” Fumi commented to the others.

“For example,” Cassandra said as she took a knife from the table. “One of the things that we noticed when we heard about the concept of ‘mythic’ as you guys coined the phrase awhile back was that we could seemingly take way more punishment than a human can take.”

“Of course,” Ryujin replied. “However, this does not cover human deities. Human mortals, however, are vulnerable to everything.”

“Yes, like if I take this ordinary knife and try to cut myself,” the Yuki woman said as she tried to slash her arm with the metal knife. The knife did nothing to her skin and fur, though as the blade tried to cut into her. “As you can see, mortal made tools don’t do anything to hurt us; however,” she placed the knife down on the table as she pointed to silver like knife on another table. “But we learned that iron, where gold, silver, and chromium are added into the mix, can cause damage to us. We managed to create basic weapons where using this mixture can be used for self-defense or manufacture surgical tools to be able to study the inside of our bodies.”

“Mystic silver...” Ryujin remarked. “You have discovered what we call mystic silver. Almost 90% of our weapons have this coating, and it can be produced into a powder or melted into the weapons we use. It is the same with my twin katanas. It also works on steel as well.”

“Yes, exactly!” Cassandra said. “The results are amazing. We can create everything from bullets to swords ... ehmm ... not trying to scare you guys or anything. We just learned that it is better to stay safe than sorry. Not afraid of you guys or anything,” she nervously laughed. “We just don’t know what will hurt us,” she recomposed herself. “Erhm ... obviously, the other thing we learn was that we can hurt each other. Human ... mortals can’t hurt us, but mythics can hurt each other.”

“It was why I remember somebody punching Fumi when we were younger,” Gary added. “The guy threw his fist into her, and it just bounced off of her like she was made of brick or something.”

“Yes!” she replied. “We have been trying to figure that out ourselves on why that is the cause ... unfortunately, we still don’t have enough data on that, but we do need to know if you ... all of you experience that sort of phenomenon as well?”

“Yes,” Vinayaki replied.

“Absolutely!” Taweret noted. “It is why whenever I cook, I use ordinary cutlery, so I don’t hurt myself.”

“Of course,” Ryujin commented. “Although I can take more punishment than most of the mythics around me.”

“Ah, good! Good!” she got excited. “I just needed more data, and that was it. Yes, this is really interesting. We can start to correlate each other’s data.”

“What does it mean, though?” Gary asked.

“I still don’t entirely know yet, but the fact is that human mortals need food to eat, water to drink, air to breathe, etc. I subjected myself to different atmospheres and found out that I couldn’t hurt myself. I wasn’t trying to hurt myself purposely,” she nervously laughed. “I was just trying to learn, you know.” She paused for a moment as she grinned. “Anyways ... I learned that we don’t need to breathe at all. It is all just a reflex. It’s all in our heads essentially. For example,” she talked, but she made no show that her body was breathing. “I can operate in zero pressure. I don’t need oxygen to survive. I imagine that all of you can do the same.”

“I remember being in space to fight a creature that was hell-bent on wiping us out,” Ryujin commented. “Space didn’t affect us much at all.”

“Really?” she said as she noted it. She grabbed a pen and piece of paper as she wrote down the information. “What can you tell us about this creature you were fighting?”

“Ummm... , “ Vinayaki replied. “We will make sure to bring all our information about Cataclysm to your family to bring them up to date on what is happening.”

“Cataclysm ... of course!” Cassandra said as she put the pen and paper down. “Sorry, a force of habit for me to write things down.”

“It’s alright,” Vinayaki said. “Continue.”

“From what I know, our bodies bend the laws of physics. Technically we shouldn’t exist, but we do. It was like some event occurred that made us poof into existence, and here we are.”

“Magic... , “ Ryujin explained. “We do possess the ability to use magic to alter things to our needs. Not everyone has the same abilities.”

“Yeah!” Taweret explained. “I have the ability to affect people’s fertility. I can help people get pregnant and even help control labor in women.”

“Really!?” Cassandra said as she got so excited that she almost squeaked. “Taweret, you have this ability? Oh, you will like the information that I got.”

“Hmmm...” Vinayaki thought. “It is interesting that you brought up the idea of poofing into existence. Not everyone would agree with you. Everyone has different stories on how they came into existence in the first place. Some had babies and made others, and others remember just coming in with light around them like it was nothing. Others had unique. Strange events occur that made them into what they are. There is even some theory circulating around the Coalition of Deities of this ‘Thought Creation Theory’ where a comet that routinely shows up combined with the thoughts of humans was the source of our creation,” she said as she shook her head. “It doesn’t explain everything, but we have something like that.”

Cassandra lifted her finger as she ran up to her paper, picked up her pen, and wrote it into her notes before she put the pen down and ran back to them. “Noted. It is something for us to keep in mind, though.”

“So, with all the information, where does that leave us?” Gary asked.

“Well, we know how humanity came to existence, but I won’t go into that. I also don’t want to upset the others like Vinayaki of what I might think, but I always thought we were aliens. I am beginning to think that might not be true... , although the comet idea is an interesting concept. Halley’s Comet ... I wonder...”

“Cassandra,” Vinayaki asked. “There are two Yuki that have magical abilities. What are they capable of doing?”

“Ummm... , “ she thought. “One of them, by the name of Claire Yuki, can manipulate fire and light. The other one by the name of Rei Yuki has the ability to create harmonic tones and even use music and sound to manipulate, control, or even hurt individuals.”

“Interesting,” Ryujin commented. “We will bring this information to the Coalition of Deities. We have others with similar abilities that can help train and refine their abilities.”

“Excellent! Make sure that Kikoro knows this. Both of these Yuki do not live in this den, though. I figure I should let you know that.” She shook her head. “Anyways, this is one of the labs. Let me show you the next one.”

She left the room as the rest followed her out. She led them to the next room as she opened up the door for the others to enter.

Inside the room was a series of medical graphs that were connected to overlay lights. The various charts illuminated showed the skeletal structure of the Yuki. There was even a plastic mold of a skeleton of the Yuki themselves in one corner. There was a Commodore 64 computer on one side of the room, along with a large display on the other side of the room. There was even an x-ray machine in the place as well.