Travel is one of my favorite things ever, so its not much of a surprise that I thought of this while planning for a trip to China in two weeks. I've been on those ginormous plane rides before, and they really do suck! Using my experience for that and a whole lotta time staring at a blank page, I came up with this AU story for Golden Sun, keeping the characters' basic personalities in. Mia may come across as a bit of a smart-aleck, but aren't all quiet ones in their heads?

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I woke up staring at a 27,000 foot drop. 'Course, having just come out of a dream where I had fought off an army of pirates with the assistance of Batman, having the clouds beneath you can be a shocker. No more in-flight movies and Diet Coke at the same time for you Mia. No thanks to Jack Sparrow and his pals, I had to do a little reality check for a sec. Oh right, the plane. Oh right, the Pacific Ocean. Oh right, my face was stuck to a window. I peeled my face off the little sheet of Plexiglas, stood up, and took a good look around the plane. Drat, no lights on and no slightly smelly meal in the area. Still five hours more to go. I plopped back down into my seat, where a big squarish smiley face appeared to be floating at eye level.

"Good morning sir or madam! We are now approximately: Five. Hours away from Hong Kong" said the hideously perky smiley, with the five being thrown in as if in afterthought. Ignoring it, I poked it in the eye and watched some movie options flash on the screen. Yuck, nothing but Meet the Spartans and the new Rambo. Turning off the screen, I sat back in my seat and watched the clouds below seem to swirl through different pink-stained forms in the morning sunshine. I paused and thought about China. I was heading for Beijing after changing planes at Hong Kong. Dirty, smelly Beijing. If it were up to me, we would be landing outside the city, not going "back to the crap" as my kid brother puts it. Oh well, the suburbs are always better than the city proper, that being the land of lung cancer and pirate DVDs being sold by God knows who. Of course, I don't know if you could say Mentougou District is a suburb, since most of its farmland, and thank God for that. We get to stay in a big stone farmhouse in the countryside right underneath these huge mountains and next to a little lake. Evidently these Chinese guys took a cue from Gone with the Wind or something and built this old pile like 50 years ago that looks exactly like what you'd find on an old American farm. And no ones really been in it for 5 years, imagine that. That was when I felt the little itching on my eyes, telling me to go to sleep. Stupid random sleep urges.

"Five more minutes." I said aloud, earning a funny look from Megan who was sitting next to me. No cigar. I was asleep before my face hit that favorite of pillows, the Plexiglas window. This time, the dream was on ninjas.

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Let me get this straight. My name is Mia Aquos, and I'm a 17 year old American girl moving to China. My mom's advertising executives thought it would be absolutely hilarious to make us move there, even though she does most of her work at home on a laptop. Then there is the rest of my family. Justin and Megan were your regular generic brand, 100 Saturday morning cartoon raised little kids who still think potty jokes are side-splitting hilarious and pull pranks on a regular basis. Usually, this makes them fit for death. Back home in northern California, if if Justin did anything, he'd wake up trapped in his room with his door duct-taped closed. My father on the other hand, is dead. He died from cancer just after Justin and Megan were born. I wish to God he hadn't, but that's how things roll. I have to play second parent to Justin and Megan most of the time since Mom spends most of her time in her office doing something clever with advertising propaganda. But life is good, except for the fact that I have no social life. I don't think the semi-rich kids who live up in Northern California understand what being a mom means, but since I kinda do (barring duct-taping people to their beds), I'm pretty much an outcast since I never have time to go to the movies with boys, or worship cheerleaders or what ever it is popular girls do. That's not to say I don't like to have fun, just no time.

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I woke up two hours later. The sun out the window had graduated to regular yellow light, flooding the plane enough so that they didn't even bother with the lights. Better, I woke up just in time to keep them from dumping the regular airline crap on my lap. Buuuut, something was wrong. Of course. It took me all of five seconds to notice that Megan had pulled a Houdini and vanished. I groaned inwardly, thinking I'd rather not turn into Jodi Foster today and lose your kid on a plane. What disturbed me even more was the fact that there happened to be a boy my age that took her place. He was close to my height with a shock of dirty blond hair, and he appeared to be snoozing. I'm not sure what the disturbing part about him was, that Megan appeared to have morphed into him or the fact that a boy my age happened to be sitting next to me. More importantly, where was Megan? I stood up and did a aisle by aisle sweep of the plane. Nope, no Megan. Jodie Foster, eat your heart out. Sitting back down on my seat, I began to think up a plan. Instead of dashing around the plane like... well, like Jodie Foster in that dumb movie, I probably should just get the boy next to me to take me to Megan. I wouldn't have wanted to be him in that moment. My mind sifted through the various options of dealing with him. Maniacal rage w/ a side of maiming, going Jodie Foster and screaming "TERRORIST!" at the top of my lungs, or simply asking him what the hell was he doing there, what is his name, and where is my little sister. I opted for the latter, 'cuz maniacal rage, especially the maiming part is sure to get you thrown in prison, screaming terrorist on a plane ditto.

"Hey you, wake up! What are you doing there?" Cracking open an eye, I noted was bizarrely the exact same azure blue as my own, he struck back

"I could ask the same for you." popping open the other, he cocked an eyebrow, and did one of those little eye-chuckles that I find impossible to master. Oh, I could have punched him right there. Especially when my cheeks betrayed me right there. Damn you cheeks, stop turning red. Ok, close one there, only a little bit. Hopefully he won't notice...

"Hey, why are you blushing? Just a little question."

Dammit.

"You shut up. A couple of hours ago, my little sister about yay high was sitting where you have your butt planted, and you are going to tell me where she is right now or have child-molester tattooed on your ass for the rest of your life, capeesh?

"Whoa, slow down. First tell me your name. I promise I am not a child molester, or may the courts vigorously tattoo my ass."

"Mia Aq-- Hey, wait a sec, why am I giving you my name? My threat of ass tattooing is still very real."

"Ok, I surrender. My names Isaac Apollon. I'll help you look for your sister. I promise I didn't take her, it would be pretty stupid for me to take her seat if I had taken her." He stood up clumsily, as if he had been sitting down for twelve hours (which he probably had).

"Kinda paranoid that someone took her? Let me guess, Flightplan?" mind reading, another reason to punch him. I guess he saw my pissed expression, because he continued.

"Its okay, its not like that happens in real life. Have any ideas about where she'd be?"

"Yeah, she said something once about being a pilo-oh god, the cockpit. I thought that earthquake in my dream was just that, an earthquake. Not "turbulence"." I groaned and pushed past him, heading for the cockpit. I was intercepted by a flight attendant on my way.

"Hey, let me through! Is my little sister in here? She should have been up here"

Hearing this, the blood drained out of the flight attendant's face. Yup, Megan was here. She didn't need to say anything, just point to the sign saying bathroom on the wall. By now, Isaac had caught up with me.

"Hey. Is she up here? No? Geez, what fresh hell is your sister to freak out Bev here?"

"Hey, you know this lady? Why?"

"My dad's an avionics engineer, which is a fancy way to say he works with the little electrical doodads in the cockpit, so we travel a lot. Sticking around planes for like a million days is a way to get on first name terms with your friendly flight attendant. 'Course, his job aside I was going back home while he stays at LAX messing with one of their bigger planes."

"You live in China? But you don't look Chinese, and you have an American accent." yeah, this was me talking. Miss I'm-gonna-move-to-Beijing.

"Yep. Its kinda hard for him to find a job, and when he finally got one his bosses sent us over there."

"Heh, kinda like my—wait a sec, Megan will have blown up half the plane by now. Crap, c'mon." and with that, I just pulled him up the stairs. I have no idea why they put stairs on an airplane, but thats how it works. And why would they put the bathroom up there anyway? If it sprung a leak or something there would be stuff everywh—eugh, I don't wanna know. Anyway, there was a line outside the bathroom. Typical Megan. She's fallen asleep in those things before. Dragging her out of scuzzy water is not my idea of a good day. Dragging Isaac with me, I dashed up to the front of the line.

" 'scuse me, but is a little girl in there about yay high?" The poor man, doubled over in evident pain, shook his head weakly

"Megannnn..." She was not making this easy. Of course, he could be wrong but I really didn't want to burst into something ugly in there. I settled for scanning the upper deck. Crap, not there. Time for reinforcements. Isaac had slunk off somewhere, so I went to go find him. He was in the cockpit, talking to the stewardess who had helped us earlier. Getting details, I hoped. I really didn't want to contend with a flirt right now.

"Hey, found her?"

"No. Dammit Megan can wreck a day sometimes. Only my sister will disappear on a plane."

"Yep, my twin sister would do that sort of thing all too often when she was younger, 'cept she tended to set things on fire. Stupid Jenna." he chuckled.

"Pyro sister?"

"Yep. When she was five, she wanted to be a professional arsonist when she grew up. No lie. Her Christmas list that year? Gasoline, a flamethrower, bottle rockets, and 10 M80s. She didn't get anything except a sparkler. That night, we found the sparkler lit in the kitchen with the gas tap on. That was when she started counseling"

"Wow, and I thought my sister was bad. Are all little sisters the same?"
"Actually Jenna's two minutes older, I'm the youngest of triplets with Jenna being the middle. My brother Felix is oldest."

"Oh."

"Yeah. They won't let me forget that. Ever. Wait a sec, I know its off topic, but why are you looking after your sister so much?" I gave him a quick run through of my life (or lack thereof) and my babysitting duties.

"Yeesh, your father died? That sucks."

"Tell me something I don't know. But now, its my turn to go off topic, why did you sit with me in the first place? Its not like people get up and change seats during plane rides." And the truth will set him free. Not trying to be obnoxious, just want to know. I stared at him and he blushed just a little bit. Hah! Payback.

He shifted uncomfortably and said; "Well, truth is, I couldn't sleep in with Jenna snoring her head off. You should be thankful she's on the upper deck, I would be surprised if anyone can sleep up there. So, that seat was the only one open" my paranoid self smelled something fishy. That was by far not the only empty seat, I'll bet its rare for a whole plane to be full with all the pain at the pump right now.

"You liar. That isn't even the closest seat to the front of the plane, let alone the only empty one. Try again and make it believable this time, I doubt your sister snores that loud."

"Actually she does, I just threw it in with the rest of the lies. Yes, Guilty as charged. OK, so I looked out the window and just so happened to see a giant floating one-eyed rock-

"Don't even start with this crap" I warned.

He chuckled a little and said: "Alright, the truth now: I need someone to talk to. Jenna can be, well, an ass and my bro sleeps through plane rides, he hates I mean HATES them with a vengeance. I was just kinda bored and you're the only other person my age on the plane. I--

A voice came on the intercom, cutting Isaac off. I really was starting to hate these stupid airlines, but I started to think differently as the words echoed through the plane.

A deep, masculine voice said: "ALL OF YOU, SIT IN YOUR SEATS AND BE QUIET! This is a hijacking! You will not be harmed if you do not panic." Dead silence. I thought what everyone else must be thinking: 9/11. What are they going to do with us? Were we destined to wind up smashed into paste on some building in Hong Kong? Right then, I would have been contented to become a gibbering wreck, and very nearly would have, if it hadn't been for Isaac. Right then, his eyes flashed and it was as if he became a different person. An angry, vengeful person. Muttering something about his uncle, he jumped up. I pulled him back down and hissed in his ear "Where are you going? Y'know those are terrorists right? The terrifying I-blew-up-New-York kind."

"Yep, and I don't care what kind they are. They are dead." he said the last words with such venom that any terrorist standing there would probably have pissed his pants, ran for the airplane door, jumped, and splatted.

"Why? They probably have knives or something. You'll get yourself killed!"

"Dammit Mia, let me go. My uncle died on 9/11. He was on flight 93." that shut me up. The vengeance in his eyes was painfully obvious now. Duh Mia, why didn't you think of that? You even saw that movie too. Stupid! I let him go and he stood up and strode for the cockpit. The plane still was in eerie silence as I watched him stride up the aisle confidently, along with all the other passengers. I was probably the only one on the lower deck not thinking "what is that idiot doing?"at that point. After he walked out of view, I waited. I am not proud to say that I waited, but I did. And that waiting was the worst I may ever have experienced. What must have been only five minutes seemed to stretch into hours. I didn't want the guy to die, I considered him a grudging friend now that he at least tried to help find Megan. Thats when I stood up and took after him, heading for the cockpit. There were signs of a struggle, with some unconscious passengers, but no Isaac. Halfway I almost tripped over a body. I bent down for a closer look and with a shock I realized...

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I love cliff hangers, but you might not. You might want to tie me to a tree and beat the everliving s out of me. Anyway, it was a little long because I originally intended for it to be a oneshot, but I decided I liked Mia's voice to much and I grew a story out of it. Yes this story will have a mudship if you haven't been paying attention. A special cookie to those of you who have read my other story and discovered that that its valeshipping. If mudshippers are republicans and valeshippers are democrats, than I'm an independent so leave me the hell alone P. R.P.