Chapter IX
Aries was sent back home, on Goldwing, around five o' clock that morning. Icefire promised her that she wouldn't keep her up again and would pick her up Friday night. Since Aries didn't have to actually wake up until eight, Nightfang gave her a dream to let her catch on a little sleep. Her dream was a something she had wanted for a long time; seeing her grandfather again. He had died about five years ago, due to brain cancer. He was the comedian in the family for a while until, in time, Aries started picking up on it for a bit. Now that she didn't have any friends, she could get pretty boring. No socialism leads to just being plain weird.
This time, she woke up on her own; no alarm clock. She had actually woken up two minutes before that happened. Because the blaring was worse enough in her sleep and didn't want to her it when she was awake, she dragged her arm over and tapped the off button on the digital clock. She flipped over in her bed so that her arms were spread out and she was staring at the ceiling. Through her time of being the one with no friends also gave her some time to realize things. Right now she was remembering how she had figured out how long a week could really be. If you're ever waiting for something to happen, the week becomes longer and longer and feels like you've just waited a month for that day to come. So that's exactly what happened to Aries. Wednesday felt like next week's Wednesday and Thursday felt like next month. When it got to Friday in the morning, she sighed.
"T-G-I-F," she whispered to her room. She went through school faster that day, even crammed through her math test as if that was going to speed up the time. She found out that it didn't and looked through the test again to see how oblivious she might've been to some of the answers. She was okay with them and noticed something on her shirt. She grabbed it and held the strand to her face.
"It's stress," she said, staring at that piece of hair. "That's one day off for me."
Hallelujah! Friday afternoon! She called her mom up on her cell phone and said she was going to be picked up by a friend. She knew she shouldn't have done that when she heard her mom screaming through the phone.
"You have a friend! Oh, that's wonderful!" she sighed.
"Yeah, mom. So, uh, I'll be back tomorrow night. But it might be kind of late when I get home, okay? But I'll be fine," Aries explained.
"All right, dear," her mom agreed. "Just be careful, okay? And have fun!"
She hung up.
Aries blew out the breath that she was holding. At times she had thought that her insanity might've come from her mom. She walked down the streets away from the school and turned to the forest that was in the middle of the city. The dragon had told her to wait there until nightfall--and to watch out for hobos, muggers, and rapists. Yeah, thanks for that, Icefire. To see if time would go away, she laid on the grass and fell asleep.
A few hours later, she heard a familiar voice wake her up. "Aries. Wake up, Sleeping Beauty." Her eyes opened slowly and saw the face of giant bird right there in her face!
"Holy shit!" she screamed and rolled over away from the beak.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you," Goldwing apologized. "You ready?"
"Kind of. My stomach hurts…"
"Did you bring a snack, like Darkjaw said?"
It was coming back to her; why did she just now have to remember that? Her stomach felt like it was eating itself and it almost got to the point where she would cry from the pain. As if reading her mind, Goldwing spoke.
"We could get you something when we get there." He looked at himself. "Sorry, I don't do drive-thru."
"It's okay," Aries laughed. "I don't feel like having a Mickey D's anyway." She climbed onto the eagle's back, trying to remember where she had taken her steps from last time.
"I promise to go slower; I don't want you throwing up on me." He flapped his wings to get airborne and Aries, having gone through this experience already, didn't have to hold on for dear life as they flew. She wanted to go to sleep on the way there, but her stomach was still too empty. So she brought up a conversation.
"Did you have any pets while you were human? Like dog or cat or something?"
Goldwing stared at her.
"I didn't mean it like that! I just…wanted to talk. You know, so it's not too quiet."
"Well, ironically, I had a bird; a parrot. He would not stop saying hello to everyone that passed by! It got really annoying, but…one day it got to where he had to go."
"Mom got a headache?"
"No. He…you know…passed."
"Oh. I'm-I'm sorry," Aries whispered.
"It's alright. We got a dog now, and I'm not talking about Nightfang."
"Of course you're not."
They continued their conversation until it ended up to where Goldwing got her talking about her school. She said how she somehow ended up as the oddball at school and had no friends at all.
"We're your friends, right?" Goldwing squawked.
"Well…Yeah, I guess you are."
"Guess?"
"Fine, you are!"
"Good. We need a reminder of what's it's like to be human."
Aries thought for a bit and came up with a question. "So what have you guys been doing all week?"
"We've actually been doing training and got a lot better, too! But the first thing we did was find that diamond that changed us; the one that Harvey Tri-Face was talking about, said it was called 'All Spark'. Darkjaw went down a few times underwater to check on the freak and asked him questions about it. At first the clown refused but we got him to talk. He said it was the most powerful Cybertronian artifact in the galaxy."
"What else did he say?"
"That some dude named Megatron was coming. I think Panthora's sensing it, too. She seems a little tense."
"Guess I better give her my Ben Franklin statistic," Aries muttered.
"The one about sleeping? Icefire's told me about that. Her history teacher's the bomb!"
"Wait, did she go to my school? Did she go to LaVilla?"
"The art school? Yep. She was in for violin. Her history teacher, Mr. Miller, was probably her favorite teacher."
Aries thought for a second of the class list that Mr. miller called out. She had not heard the name Brianna Summers because she heard on the news that they had now called off the search for all the Maximals. What must it be like to be a Maximal and not go back home because you're…different? Aries would never go through that to know.
"So what are you in for?"
"Huh?" Aries got out of her thinking and tuned her mind back to the conversation. "Oh, I'm in for creative writing."
"Really?" Goldwing said surprised. "I thought you were a dancer, or maybe even a visual artist."
"Nah. I don't do dance and I can't draw very well."
"Neither could Icefire. She just picked it all up as she went along. It started when she drew a still life picture in fourth grade and it was hung up somewhere downtown for young artists. In sixth grade she started reading anime and she learned how to draw them. Let me tell you, if you saw how she drew then and compared it to a picture she recently drew, there's a big leap in there!"
"Well, why didn't she go in for art?"
"Because they told her if she even wanted to take a class, she would have to change her entire arts area. She didn't want to change it because now she's been through seven years of violin and didn't want to quit."
"Did she get into D.A.? The high school?"
"Nope. But she's okay with it. She said 'That tells me violin wasn't my true love' and it 's true! She liked to draw more than she liked to practice."
"Oh."
"Well, we're here! Keystone Park!"
Aries mind had to catch up with this. Weren't they just seventy miles away? Now they were there! Wow; Goldwing is time so it just really flies. They landed on the platform outside the cave, no one out there to meet them.
"Where is everyone?" she said. Before Goldwing could say anything, she heard whooping and slashing going on further down the lake.
"Pool party!" Goldwing shouted. He took off into the air again and followed the sound. His voice soon became a playful growl. "And they didn't even tell me…" They landed at the point where the grass finally disappeared and became mud. Aries jumped off the eagle and took off her shirt.
"What are doing?!"
"I knew you guys would be swimming, so I got dressed with my bathing suit under." She took off her pants too.
"Oh! For second I thought you were playing a stripper! Jeez, don't scare me like that!"
Aries gave a slight nudge into his shoulder and it seemed like she pressed the right button for him to transform. He ran off, leaving the twelve-year old behind and flew up over the lake. He stopped moving his wings as he got to the middle and dove straight down.
"COWABUNGAAAAAA!" he screamed. Aries laughed at the bird's silliness and looked around. Biba was splashing in the shallow part of the water, Nightfang was staring at the sky (probably tempted to howl at the moon), Darkjaw was swimming so fast in the water it looked like the fin on his back was a tiny little speedboat, Icefire was floating on top the water, relaxing herself, and Tigress was at the edge of the lake, getting only her feet wet. But where was Panthora? Last time Aries had checked there were seven Maximals. She walked up to Biba.
"Hey, where's Panthora?"
"She ithn't feeling good," Biba said, her face looking sad. "She's been having nightmares."
"Nightfang's fault?"
"No. Jus something about a dark man. She's been rolling around in her sleep and wakes up shouting. She says he won't go away."
"That's frightening…"Aries breathed. She's had nightmares before where she would wake up and feel cold, even under the covers. For a few seconds she would think about bunking with mom for the rest of the night to make the dream go away. But since she was so cold and the house was dark, it felt like the being from the dream would pop out in front of her and grab her.
"Hey, look!" Biba said, distracting her. She pointed to her chest to show a symbol. "Ith a Ma-thimal th-ymbol! I gave one to everybody! Want one?"
"Um, I don't think that could work on me," Aries said nervously.
"It doesn't hurt."
"Probably not you, but it could do a lot to me! So, sorry, but no thanks."
"Aww," Biba pouted. She slumped back into the water. "Then come out here and play! We could be mermaids!"
"And I can be the serpent that eats the mermaids!" Darkjaw teased. He gave a wicked smile to scare the young monkey. It didn't work.
"Well, I can use my supa powers to take you down!" she said with confidence. Darkjaw had seen Biba's progression in training and swam away thinking Biba was going to hurl a boulder at him. Aries chuckled and swam out to Biba.
"I probably don't swim as well as you do," she grinned.
"Is okay," Biba shrugged. "Hey! You can go swim with Darkjaw! He'll have you on his back and go swimming! It's fun; I've tried!"
"If you say so…Hey! Darkjaw!" Aries called. She saw the shark's head sticking out of the water.
"What?" he shouted back.
"Get over here!"
"No way! I don't want little miss Curious George killing me!"
"No, no! I want to go swimming with you!"
Darkjaw raised an eye. He ducked under the water so only his back fin was up. He swam so fast and straight at her that she nearly froze! As soon as he was in front of her, he brought his head and neck back up. "Really?" he said.
"Yeah! Turn around, let me get on."
Darkjaw spun around and nearly whacked Biba in the face with his fin. He gave a sarcastic apology and waited for Aries to get situated.
"Ready?"
"Maybe…"
"Well, hang on!" Aries took a deep breath of air and Darkjaw splashed back into the water. He swam low, almost to the ground, and Aries was scared at how dark the lake was. The only light was coming from Darkjaw's eyes, which weren't all that bright considering their original color was black. They were down there for a few minutes until Aries realized she couldn't breathe! She tapped Darkjaw with her feet several times to try and make him go up. It seemed like he was ignoring it and she tried harder. She felt a low growl coming from the shark and he swam upward. As soon as they hit the surface, Aries swam backwards and gasped for breath.
"Why'd you kick me?!" Darkjaw shouted. Aries held up a finger to catch some more air. The shark's eyes changed and realized why she did that. "Oh…Sorry, I-I didn't-"
"It's all right."
"No, it's not!" he debated. "I almost killed you!"
"Darkjaw, really, it's…" Aries trailed off like Panthora had done. Was it her, or did something just brush by her leg? It was hard like a shell and sent a freezing shiver up her spine.
"Can we get out of here?" she whimpered.
"Why, it's just- Holy crap!" Darkjaw shivered. He grabbed Aries and placed her on his back. He decided to stay above the surface of the water and swam with whatever speed he had in him. To Aries' disadvantage, Darkjaw really was like a shark and his hide was slippery.
"Slow down!" she shouted. But her words were caught in the wind. She had to hold on to the fin tighter to get out of there. Daring herself, she looked behind and wished he hadn't. "Speed it up! Speed it up!" Aries changed her mind. Darkjaw listened and went ten miles faster. The edge of the lake was in view and she saw Tigress staring at the speeding shark.
"What in the world…?" she said. Darkjaw made it to the edge and Aries dropped herself off into the dirt. Anyone who saw came over and towered over her.
"Are you okay?" Nightfang asked.
"What happened?" Icefire said.
"There was…"Aries breathed, "an alligator…"
"And a big one too!" Darkjaw finished. Icefire sighed.
"And I thought the freak had escaped…" she said. The Maximals groaned and went back to what they were originally doing.
Back at the cave, Panthora was curled up in a ball, tempted to chew on her tail as she was feeling the cold air rush over her. The nightmares she had been getting were so real! They nearly paralyzed her into a freezing death! The man was like how Blitzwing, looked but tougher. There was a cannon strapped to his right shoulder and scared Panthora stiff. In her dreams, she had been alone, no one there to tell her it was going to be okay. The man walked up to her and behind him were three others.
"Who are you?" he said, voice so deep that it echoed across the area. He was intimidating at the fullest and Panthora could find the words in her head to pull through her mouth.
"Tell him your name," another voiced hissed. It was female and came from one of the figures behind the dark man. Again, Panthora was still.
"For Primus sake! Just tell him!" This one she could be sure if it was male or female. It sounded tough enough to be a guy, but it also sounded like a fat old lady that had been smoking for fifty years.
"In the name of the great and glorious Megatron, you will give us your name! And you shall tell our grand commander if you are an Autobot or Decepticon!" Okay, this one was just a suck up stuck inside a wrestler's body.
The black and red panther had forgotten her name, so she wasn't able to tell them. So she gave the name of the group like the largest one had asked.
"M…Maximal…"
xXx
Author's Note: If you didn't get this, the Mamimals are based off of real people. I'm Icefire, my sister's Tigress, my cousins (Aunt Jami's kids) are Cody [Nightfang], Cari [Panthora], Logan [Biba] and the other family (Aunt Monica's, though her actual name is Jami as well) is William [Darkjaw] and Andre [Goldwing]. So the details about Icefire were real then. [Yeah, I wanted to go for art, but the other reason I didn't was because I found out that the art teacher was really mean]
Who's getting freaked out like Panthora is? Raise your hands. *hand shoots up*
