Expensive preservation
For those who have been following me will remember expensive beauty, the fanfic for uglies by Scott westerfield. I thought since it was so popular I would write a sequel to it. I welcome to you the characters of expensive beauty as they join together years later to once again save the world from human oppression.
I watched my children playing in the yard before me. At the age of thirty I was pleased with what I was seeing. My beautiful son croy who at the age of seven was everything my best friend had been. Sensitive and adventurous he acted just like him. Shiloh was three and she was just like fuasto, her long red hair was the only thing she had that resembled me. Croy had reddish brown hair and his eyes where so bright and green that sometimes I thought they would start glowing.
Croy ran around screaming like a lunatic in the yard. Shiloh waddled around and tripped into the grass. She shrieked out crying, croy stopped and turned around. Croy looked at Shiloh and started crying to "I didn't mean to!" he cried as he came running to fuasto. Fuasto burst out laughing and I stood up rolling my eyes. I bent down and scooped Shiloh up "shush now, you have to be tough like a smokie" I cooed at her. "A smokie like momma and daddy!" croy asked through tears.
"No like mama, daddy is a scary cutter" fuasto tickled croy. "You're not scary!" Shiloh piped up. "No but you are!" I set Shiloh down and threw my arms up over my head as if I was frightened. "No mama!" Shiloh cried as she bounced around and put her chubby arms over her head. "Yes Shiloh!" I scooped her up and spun around with her. "Mama I'm hungry" croy announced. "Well good news for you kiddo! It's time to go to Maddie's" fuasto readjusted croy in his arms and we turned and walked inside.
After we strapped the kids into the back seat of our land car I turned around and looked at fuasto. "Hello" he said brushing my hair out of my face. "Hi" I leaned in to kiss him. "Ok I'm grossed out" someone said. I turned around and looked up to see David perched into our tree. "What the fuck? David!" fuasto shouted. "DADDY SAID A BAD WORD!" croy shouted. David jumped down from his branch and embraced us. "Where is tally and Zane?" I asked. "At Maddie's I thought I'd hitch a ride with yall!" David said as he slid into the land car. "So you hover boarded all the way over just to sit in a land car?" I asked. "Yup" David replied.
Fuasto looked at me and we exchanged a wondering look. Fuasto just shrugged and got into the car. David filled us in on the recent ventures as we rode on. Fuasto kept looking in the mirror at him and looking at me. I put my hand over his and squeezed it. When we arrived at Maddie's we were shocked. Everyone was there, the whole crew. The kids ran past us and tackled Zane. Over the howling children we all said our hello's and hugged everyone. As we sat down to dinner fuasto was sending strong mental messages. Why was the whole group here? Why where David and tally here? They never came out of the woods unless it was for a one day visit. They rarely visited to; they had just come two months ago.
Also the whole group didn't hang out like this since a year after the invasion. All of the cutters and the freeman unit where here. Finally when dinner was over and the dishes where cleared and we all were sitting outside in the back did I say something. "Ok so what's going on, we never get together like this" I set my drink down and leaned forward. Maddie sighed and nodded "yea something is going on, I think David and tally should share though" I looked at tally and she took David's hand.
"Well as you guys may know David and I have been working on preserving the wild and making sure that after the mind rain people didn't start destroying the world again. Well recently in South America they have started mining for metals. This project is big, we thought we could handle it ourselves but we can't" tally explained. "No" fuasto said instantly. "Why! Come on fuasto everyone else is on board except you, Megan, and Skyler! We need the help!" David snapped. "Because we have a life beyond the rebellion now! The rebellion is over! We got what we wanted! We have children tally!" I said as I pointed to Shiloh and croy.
"We have a kid to! Listen it's gotten so dangerous that when we leave Zane is staying with Maddie! We really need all the help we can get! We need our tech guy, we need our escape guy, and we need our defense girl! I know you have been working on new inventions" tally said looking right at me. "Yea hover rigs for recreation! I haven't built a weapon since the smokie days! That's 12 fucking years tally!" I said throwing my hands up. "Megan our world is in danger again" shay said softly. "Something I know you guys can handle" I replied crossing my arms.
"Who are you? The 16 year old Megan I knew would have jumped up at the idea of this" David said sitting back. "Well this is the thirty year old Megan speaking. I can't lose anyone else, I can't" I blurted out. "It's about croy and almost loosing Skyler isn't it? Megan if you don't come the chances are bigger that one of us will be lost. This isn't just a group of middle pretties doing this. They are bigger and stronger, these are specials Megan" I froze and felt my blood run cold. "Specials?" I managed. "Yes, someone had the bright idea of pulling cables work out from the ground and started remaking the specials. These guys are worse then the cutters" David explained.
I looked around at the cutters and took in there wild features. There wolf eyes and sharp features, the flash tattoos that ran over their faces and arms. The raised scars on their forearms. "Worse?" fuasto asked as he mirrored my shock. "Yes worse, ten times worse" tally handed me a tablet that was glowing. I exhaled in complete shock when I saw the pictures. They had big black cat eyes, features so sharp there was nothing beautiful about them. They had razor sharp pointed teeth and curved nails. "What the fuck are these things?" Skyler asked. "They are like Megan except on the opposite end of the spectrum. Instead of being special but no harsh features they are special with nothing but harsh features" Maddie explained.
"That's what I would look like if they decided to make me scary?" I asked as I traced the features of my face with my fingers. I put the tablet down and hung my head in my lap. A soft hand went on my back and I looked up to see croy standing next to me. "Mommy are you going to save the world again?" he asked me seriously. I had never seen croy so serious before, he was light hearted and fun just like his namesakes had been. "What are the threats if they are unstopped?" I asked tally with my head still down. "We don't know yet, that's why we are planning a stealth mission into their headquarters. We thought at first they just wanted to harvest metals from the ground but then shay noted the specials, why would they need such people for a simple mining project? We think they are planning other things" tally explained.
I sighed and sat up and pulled croy into my lap. "Yes mommy is saving the world again" fuasto took my hand and then nodded "I'm in" he said. We all looked at Skyler "well shit, I guess I'm in if that's ok with Kathy" he said looking at his wife. She nodded with hesitation then looked up at everyone. "Are you sure he will be safe?" she asked. Kathy had met Skyler after the mind rain; she never had to go through the fear of him being hurt during the rebellion. Everyone was silent for a moment until I spoke "we can't promise anything Kathy, I wish we could though" then I reached out and wiped the tear out of her eye that was welling.
Kathy traced her finger over Skyler's burn scars on his face. "You were almost lost once, Skyler promise me you will be careful" she looked right into his eyes. I could see that they had a deep love. In a way I was jealous of Kathy. I was never afraid of losing fuasto. I couldn't otherwise we wouldn't have ever been able to accomplish the things we had. You have to be ready to die for your cause when it came to being a smokie, when it came to being a freeman, when it came to being a cutter.
I use to feel heartless for not caring about fuasto safety until one day I told fuasto this. He chuckled and took my hand "I take it as a compliment that means you think I can handle myself in a fight. I don't worry about you dying either. It's not because we don't care, it's because we know we are fighters and if we died it was for a good cause" fuasto then kissed me. "Well tomorrow let's meet at headquarters and start work" Maddie then dismissed the topic and we changed the subject.
