Chapter 3 is up! Enjoy where I left off!

Melody saved her from being controlled by her own inner darkness. Melody saved her from going insane. She was still the person who protected and persevered.

So that's why, at that moment when her name was asked, and those two names were the only ones to choose from, she chose the way she did.

"Melody. For now, at least. Mel for short." she said. In her mind's eye, she could see Morgan pouting with her back half turned away, and Melody smiling and wrapping her arms around 'Asta in a warm embrace. She could almost feel the hug, and her arms warmed.

"Okay Mel. What are your views on robots?" Jack asked. The newly dubbed Mel turned her focus back to the real world and the question Jack had just asked. She silently reminded herself that Jack and Wuya wouldn't know that names meant a lot to her, and that she should stop thinking about it.

"Jack..." Wuya growled. Mel ignored her and answered quickly.

"They're cool, as long as they don't glitch or do something stupid. I'd actually like to learn robotics, but it's something I can't learn on my own, and I don't think I'd be very good at it anyways.(1) In my world, technology keeps improving, constantly advancing. The focus has shifted from robots to daily items and things we could use. Mostly phones and toys. I think the Japanese are the only ones who still might be interested in robots, but I'm not sure."

Jack seemed to take this answer with good grace. Now he asked, "What are your views on Good vs. Evil? And what side are you on?" Mel chose her wording carefully as she answered.

"I don't think it's so strictly defined. Good and Evil reside in the minds of the people. They are concepts; nothing more than illusions. They don't truly exist. At least, not in my world." Mel said. "I am aware that things are different in this world. Good and Evil aren't simply concepts here. They're teams; Xiaolin and Heylin. There are actual gods in this place who are in charge of such things; they're not myths or beliefs. I know Good and Evil exist here.

"As for my position? It's hard to say. I know that I go both ways in this regard. I can be selfish and petty, sometimes. I know I am sinister. I'm malicious and mean, and brutal, and hateful. I have the most sadistic of urges, and I know that part of me is truly Evil." In her head, Morgan sneered and whispered, "What sort of evil are you that you won't even embrace its name?" 'Asta answered back, "To accept your name would be to forfeit myself into submission to you. It would give you power over me and allow you to start over with taking control of my body. I wasn't even aware that you could poison me like that in real life until I actively fought against it. I accepted Melody's name to protect myself from you. I wanna be my own person, and no one will be able to influence my decisions unless I allow them to. I'm not making the same mistake again."

In truth, she didn't lie when she said that a part of her was truly Evil. She was talking about Morgan. Whether or not she was protected against the internal seductions of the personality, the fact remained that Morgan was a part of her, and ingrained into her soul. But again, so was Melody.

"But I also know that I have Good ingrained in me as well," Mel continued aloud. "I know I have love and compassion. I know honesty and truth. I practice temperance. I'm charitable. And I'm kind. I know that these aren't evil in the slightest. Because part of me is also Good."

At these words, Mel felt her new namesake stir within her, and felt a glowing begin in her heart. She struggled to quell it down, and managed it without changing her outward appearance.

"I believe every person in the world has the capacity for good and the capacity for evil; I have both. I have a Good personality and a Bad personality. It depends on how I feel and what's going on around me, where I am, and who I'm with. So I consider myself neutral in most cases." Jack stared at her and gripped his chin.

"So… What exactly does that mean?" Jack asked her. She had been hanging up her laundry by herself as she was talking; now she was done. She took off her sweatshirt and bared her arms, then tossed the garment onto her bed. She faced Jack and propped her hand on a cocked hip.

"Let's put it this way: If the Xiaolins had brought me to this world, I'd be indebted to them and I'd serve with them. It wouldn't suit me at first to do so, because I'm more selfish than they would like, but I'm impressionable and they'd rub off on me eventually. My better side would evolve more and it would show. I'd still be nice to you and try to pull my punches, cos I like you and admire what you do, but there isn't anything I could've done had that scenario happened. I still would've had to fight against you.

"But since you brought me here, I'm on your side. It suits me better because I wouldn't have to pull my punches and I hate holding back. On this side, there are no rules or obligations. There's still an honor code of sorts among villains, of course, but, eh. I have my own rules that I'll hold myself to, still, but I'll cope a lot better being with someone like me." She grinned toothily. "I'm a "first come, first serve" kinda girl, Jack. Now I serve you."

Now Jack grinned.

"I think she passed, don't you Wuya?"

"Impressive. I find no fault with her logic, even though I'm disappointed that she's still in tune with her sense of Good." The ghost witch turned to Mel again. "Do you think you're dedicated enough to serve on the Heylin side?" she asked.

"Didn't I just say I was? I'm loyal to Jack now; I won't be leaving this side unless he orders me away or until he switches sides. And I can't see him doing that anytime soon."

"Wuya!" Jack shouted. "She's the perfect minion! Now that we've determined that, we gotta help her look the part, so can we please go shopping now?" Jack pleaded.

"Hold on, Jack. I'm all for the whole shopping bonding experience but at least lemme finish putting my stuff away." Mel said. Jack excited expression deflated a bit.

"Can't it wait until after we get new clothes?" Jack asked impatiently. Mel laughed.

"The mall isn't going anywhere, Jack. And I'd rather finish up before I forget." As an afterthought, though, Mel worriedly said, "The mall will stay put, right?" Jack shrugged and turned around and left. He called over his shoulder, "Come meet me when you're ready."

Wuya observed the girl before her. It was faint, but she could sense an otherworldly aura around the girl. Most likely residual energy from her original world. Wuya thought dismissively.(2)

She was mortal and at least somewhat average. But there was something... off. Wuya couldn't put her finger on it (even if she had any), but the girl was... strange. And not just the way the air felt around her either. It had something to do with her appearance as well.

Wuya couldn't help staring at Mel's legs. They were pretty exposed, as the girl wore extremely short shorts. On the right leg, along the side of her thigh, were several scars. They were very small, and circular, so that they looked like pock-marks. On the front of the limb, just below the knee, the skin was mottled and distorted in another pale scar. The knee on her left leg had several smaller versions along the top and sides of it. Along both her shins, Wuya saw strange-looking scars littering the skin close to the bone on Mel's legs. And on the side of the left calf...

"Child, what is wrong with your legs?" Wuya finally asked. Mel looked down at her legs with a curious expression.

"What, you mean my scars?" she asked, looking back at Wuya. She turned to face the ghost witch fully. "They're scars. I don't remember exactly which ones I got when or how, but the gist of it is bug bites, bite marks, rough-housing, wipe-outs, and accidents." She sat on the bed and pointed to a few marks. Wuya hovered closer and saw that the marks along the bone had the distinct shapes of human teeth. She recoiled. Mel ignored it and continued.

"I was told that when I was littler and going back and forth from my Grandma Vicki's, my little brother Dakota, who was a little monster, decided that I was his favorite chew toy. He drew blood several times and always told people that I bit myself. Since he was the darling of the family at the time, and I was the child that no one knew my dad had, I was mostly blamed for everything and Dakota got away Scot-free. My mother was furious and doubted what they all said and she was proven right when I came home with giant bloody bite marks on my shoulder. They had to admit that I couldn't bite myself there, so the truth eventually came out. But I still had to keep the scars. I myself have no memories of any of that stuff, so I can only go by the story told to me."

Wuya avoided looking at the four vicious markings on the inside of Mel's calf. Mel noticed and slowly traced the scars on her leg, following the sharp, jagged edges and running her fingers across the dips in her skin.

"I got these last year. We went to Sterling State Recreational Park, and they have an old concrete pier there, way on the other side of the park. There're tons of huge rocks and boulders. I like to climb on them, to get to the old abandoned structures on the far end. They were built for the protected area for wildlife. Anyway, I was climbing on them, and I was maybe about halfway across, when I slipped." Wuya cringed to hear to story told. The girl's voice... It seemed to bring the memory to life as she thought it. Wuya could almost hear the waves crashing all around and feel the gritty surface beneath her feet. She even began to feel a phantom pain, even though she currently had no legs.

"I didn't see my brother anywhere when I got to the end of the pier, so I didn't expect him to pop up out of nowhere while I was on the rocks. The one I was on and the surrounding boulders where covered with gritty, sandpapery, and rough cement. I think a bag must've broken when they built the place and covered that group of rocks. It made them jagged and I tore up half my leg when Dustpan startled me and I slipped. I remember crying and screaming at my brother about what an idiot he is and why does he feel the need to be an annoying brat and was he trying to kill me? He helped me climb back to the pier and he walked my bike home for me.

"A few boys who were fishing on the rocks below the pier watched me as I left and one offer to help me. They both thought all the blood covering my leg was really cool but scary. So I let them clean up the blood and one of them escorted me back to the campsite and I got my leg bandaged."

Mel got up and stretched. "At school during gym, I would catch a bunch of people staring at my leg. It's always cold in there at the beginning of class, until I warm up. They turn purple when it's cold, so people stare at them."(3) Mel picked up her sweatshirt and Wuya forced her mind away from the scars decorating Melody's legs.

"You know the funny thing though, Wuya?" Mel asked. Wuya sighed.

"No."

"We had just come back to Michigan from Kentucky visiting my aunt. By the time we got to Sterling, my face was almost completely healed." Wuya's interest was piqued again.

"Your face? What happened to your face?" she asked. Mel pointed to her right cheek. Wuya hovered in close, seeing the pale, pale, barely there markings and the discreet dented scar carved into the girl's face. Mel spoke again.

"While we were in Kentucky at my Aunt Laura's house, I was playing outside with my cousins."

"A nice change of pace from what Jack usually does, to be sure." Wuya muttered.

"We were playing hide-and-seek-tag, and the tree in the front yard was Base. I was running from the backyard into the front. I was wearing cheep flip-flops and as I was running, the toe strap broke and I lost my balance at the same time. I tripped over an extended tree root and fell face-first into the tree and scraped half my face off. It was bleeding and it hurt and I went inside and showed Mom and the rest of the adults. Then I had to clean it up and it stung like a sonuvabitch with rubbing alcohol. And to add insult to injury, my family kept cracking jokes about being a tree-hugger. Mom even took pictures of that side of my face and posted them on FaceBook!"(4)

"FaceBook?" Wuya asked. Mel looked sheepish for a second and said, "Oh yeah, I forgot. This world probably doesn't have FaceBook. It's a networking site, to keep in touch with family and friends."

Wuya thought on these things as Mel continued with her unpacking. So far, she knew that the girl knew at least a little philosophy. She was smart, although Wuya couldn't figure out why Mel would want to work for Jack of all people. Wuya herself had realized within the first few days of being free that Jack was an idiot and almost worthless. What could Mel see in him? Better yet, what did Mel know? She was from a different world; she knew things that Wuya did not know yet, because of the world she was from. And what did she mean by being a 'fan' of Jack?

Moving on, Wuya also realized that Mel was a rough-and-tumble girl. She didn't seem to care about getting hurt; she seemed to rather enjoy having her scars. She played outside and looked like she exercised a lot. She was...healthy. Healthier than Jack by a far cry.

Thinking about her personality, from what little she'd seen so far, Wuya decided that Mel was a generally happy person. Which might mean that she'd be easier to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

Fump! A thick notebook hit the carpet floor and fell open. Mel was almost done packing and it slipped out of her bag unnoticed. Wuya floated above it and peered at the open page. A sketched drawing of a girl caught between floating and falling in the air is what Wuya saw. Her ghostly eyes ran over the contours and the curves that shaped the body. An apron over a long skirt, the folds and layers of fabric were frozen in place. The woman's hair floated upwards, her head tipped lightly back and to the side. Her eyes were closed, like she was sleeping. Her back was slightly arched, her arms and legs aloof. A long scarf was caught on the edge of being buffeted by the wind. Or the force of the fall. Wuya was impressed at the artificial beauty.(5)

"You drew this?" Wuya inquired. Mel looked down and saw the open sketchbook.

"That? Yeah, I drew everything in there." she said. She bent down and picked it up, dusting it off slightly from the grubby carpet. Her face screwed up as she thought, 'This place needs a good cleaning.'

Mel flipped a few pages in the sketchbook. She sat on the edge of the bed again and held the book open for Wuya to see the drawings. She didn't stop at any particular pages, just flipping ahead, apparently knowing exactly where everything was. She turned over a few more pages.

The last four pictures really caught Wuya's attention. Mel paused.

"I did candid sketches of some of my classmates in school. This one in the top right-hand corner is Matt Greco. He sat in my Biology class last school year. The girl here is Sam Robinson. I sketched her in Biology too. Cala Owen and Macey Barton moved too much in Art while they were working on their projects, so I wasn't able to get decent sketches of them in these last three." Mel pointed to each picture she was talking about as she spoke.

"They look real," Wuya rasped. "Not like the childish cartoon drawing Jack does." Mel turned the page.

"Cala's face looked like a fae imitation of her, which inspired me to draw this." Mel said. On the page was a picture of a fairy girl with her arms out, balancing as she tip-toed across the length of a branch. The branch in question was only roughly outlined and left unfinished, unimportant compared to the real drawing.

"I'm not as good with cartoonish characters as I used to be; my style has evolved enough where it's somewhat difficult to draw without looking at something to base the drawing on. That's why I'm better at realistic drawings now. I'm still pretty decent, though. This is good, even for me." Mel continued. She turned the page again. The drawing at the top was obviously a failure. It was labeled as such.

"I tried to draw a candid of Nick Cobb during History, but he never sat still long enough for me to decently do anything. I remember, I tried to make do with each new position to try and calculate what he'd really look like should he shift anymore, but the bastard got up and moved to the other side of the classroom." Mel scowled at the memory. Wuya read the label Mel had attached to the picture. At the top, it said, "Abstract-ish". The actual failed drawing took up the top third of the paper. Below it, more centered in the left-over 2/3 portion of the paper, was a detailed, flawlessly drawn portrait of a girl with her hair pinned up. It was a side view, so Wuya couldn't see the girl's entire face; just the left side. Her eyes were cast down, concentrating on something below, not drawn in the picture.

"That's Natalie Combes. She's pretty neat. I like her. She's funny, smart, popular (in a good way), nice; she's an all around good person. I know I'm supposed to be on the side of "evil" now, and that'll be easier because it's part of my nature, but I can't help liking the good people. The decent ones are always so hard to find. Anyway, she was doing the book work that Mr. Bragg assigned, and I was bored and frustrated because of Nick, so after he moved, I asked Natalie if she minded if I drew her. She let me, needless to say, and I was so happy because it turned out great and I got to show it off." Mel flipped to the next page.

The page was neatly divided into two horizontal halves. Centered in the top half was the profile of a boy, obviously in his teen years, with an obnoxiously ugly face, horridly nappy hair, fat, bulbous eyelids, and the word 'Dustpan' written next to it. Underneath the word in parenthesis, 'Dustin' was written. Melody made a face, as did Wuya, who recoiled just a little.

"That is my stupid brother. His name is Dustin, but I call him Dustpan, or Sunshine, or Hippie Hair. Aunt Pam or Uncle Gary, I can't remember which, came up with 'Dustpan'. Mom's called him 'Sunshine' forever, since we were little. I came up with 'Hippie Hair' when Dustin decided it was 'cool' to let his hair grow out to the point where if I ruffled his hair, he'd have an afro. He used to be called 'Fagnew' at school by Eddie Craft, but it stopped when Eddie was expelled for fighting. Anyway, Dustin was playing his stupid Miscrits game on his laptop when I drew him."

"I detect distain in your voice," Wuya subtly coaxed. Mel took the bait.

"I hate him. If it weren't illegal, I'd have killed him already."

"Why didn't you?"

"Augh, I'm terrified of prison. I don't want to go to jail and spend life behind bars, unable to do the things I want. It would've affected my whole life. And I doubt I'd be able to get away with it." Mel scowled. "I can't stand him! He's an enormous ass and a stupendous idiot. I could literally go all day about him and verbally bash him to bits, but it'll get me riled up and I'd be getting even more pissed off by the second. And that puts me in a bad mood."

"That sounds like a typical sibling rivalry to me." Wuya commented dryly.

"Not even close," Mel countered. "More like doing-the-world-a-favor-by-killing-him-but-can't-cos-the-world-is-stupid-like-that-and-I'd-get-in-trouble. I hate him and just thinking about him makes me seethe, so I'm gonna stop." Mel gestured to the bottom picture.

There was a girl lying comfortably on her stomach on a train bench. One foot lay straight out behind her while the other was kicked lazily in the air. She lounged gracefully with her head upon crossed arms, leaning on the arm of the bench. She wore a dark colored jacket, presumably black, and she appeared to be wearing a dress underneath. She gazed demurely and maybe a little coyly to the side. Two suitcases with a folded newspaper lain across the top of one of them stood off to the left of the bench.

"That's me. It was freezing cold that day. Mom had this project for college that she was doing, and she was in a Photoshop and Photography class. So she was doing 'Trash the Dress' as her theme and used me as her model. We went to the train yard behind the train museum and it was cold and windy. We took about 140 pictures and then went home. This is the drawing of one of the award-winning photos that Mom took. She made some copies and gave them to me." Mel stood up and went to the bookshelf and brought back an album to show Wuya the original picture.

"Maybe I can show you the rest later Wuya. Jack's taking me shopping, and he's probably waited long enough. You should come; I might need another female's opinion." Wuya was flattered to be invited, even though she planned on coming along anyway. She followed Mel downstairs, chatting idly about some of the things Jack has done and they swapped stories about what it was like in their own times and such. By the time they met up with Jack, who was in the basement, the two were getting along famously. Wuya was thinking that Mel would be the better minion between her and Jack, but held out the hope that maybe Mel might be able to make something of Jack.

'After all,' she thought. 'Two minions are better than one! I won't just have to settle for one thing only; I'll actually have a choice.'

Hope it was good! Now the #'s...

(1): I took a robotics class in junior high and we had to build robotic cars from lego-like pieces. That was easy. The hard part was programming. I tried to program my car to count strips of tape as it passed over thing... Epic fail.

(2): Never dismiss anything of the supernatural, Wuya. You should know better than that…

(3): When I got cold like, REALLY cold, my skin turns a purple-ish color and a lot of my scars get REALLY dark. It's creepy and just a little gross. Of course, it happens less and less when my scars start to fade.

(4): It sucked going to stores after that. People kept staring at my face.

(5): See the picture here: http:/ / dadles . deviantart . com /gallery/#/d3jzwtl

Most of the pictures I described, I haven't put on my DA account. No scanner, sorry. But they are a helluvalot better than the one picture I've provided a link for. If you want to look at the rest of my art or keep up with what I'm doing, I'm at dadles . deviantart . com

Without the spaces. Thanks for reading!