Okay guys, I just now submitted chapter 9, so I can't thank everyone who reviewed (Rina could tell me who is going to, but she's gotta be in the story). Well, I thank everyone who did or is going to, you all get a huge plate of Dr. Martinez's chocolate chip cookies!
Okay, so does Ari 2 freak you out yet? He's kinda weird in my opinion, and he's all evil, unlike his original. Plus that guy can really hold a grudge! So anyways, did anyone notice that in Free Rina and OGR, the longest chapters ever were both chapter 9? Creepy, huh? So let's get the siege down now that I've done a bit of warm-up rambling!
Disclaimer: Look at the last disclaimer I did, I like how I phrased that one. It's not mine if it's well thought out and to the point and not random! And now for the chapter! Enjoy!
Chapter 10: Siege
POV Iggy (I really really like doing his POV!)
Everyone looked at us confused.
"Who's Ari?" Rina's mom wanted to know.
"When we saved the world Ari 2 captured me and Iggy. Threatened Iggy's life unless I became his genie. Then we got smart and Iggy wished me free so then I wouldn't be anyone's genie and I could kick Ari's butt. I made him a genie, and he recently got wished free. He's looking for me and Iggy as revenge for ruining his takeover." Rina quickly explained.
"And the wolves with wings?" Gina asked.
"Flyboys. Ari 2 probably found a few of them to use. Half wolf, half bird, no brains, all robot, and willing to do Ari 2's bidding." I informed them hastily.
"And with Ari 2's powers they could do some serious damage." Rina added. Everyone exchanged grimaces.
"Okay, everyone." Rina's mom became a general all of a sudden. I couldn't help but think that she lead some genie war or something. "Now that we know, we need to make sure Iggy and Rina are safe. Ari 2 will probably send a party to find Rina or Iggy if we send them away, but if we leave a fake trail that makes them think they're here, Iggy and Rina will have some time to run. Right?" She looked to Rina's dad. He nodded.
"If we split them up and send them to different places, he'll have to split more men up to search for them. Then we can lead a trail back here where we can take them out while Iggy and Rina are safe." Rina's mom was confusing me. Why were they so intent on leading the flyboys here?
"Split up?" Rina exclaimed. "I'm not leaving. It's me he wants, I shouldn't have to leave Iggy just because of that!"
"But if you leave with Iggy he'll know where to find you because apparently you never go without him. If you split up he'll have to guess where you both are."
"He wants you both." Rina's dad added. "That way if he doesn't harm one of you he'll at least have the other."
"Right. So you should split up so he doesn't get you at the same time. Rina, Gina, you two hide somewhere, Matt, take Iggy. Make sure you're as far away as possible, and don't contact each other unless you absolutely have to. Your father and I will stay here and fight the flyboys." Rina's mom finished, already liking the idea of this fight.
"Can't we leave some clones or something?" Matt asked.
"We won't get hurt." Rina's dad guaranteed.
"Can I get the flock to come fight?" Rina asked.
"Yeah, they could really help, they've fought flyboys before. It's like a sport to them." I included for them to consider. They thought it over.
"Fine, they can fight, if you're sure they won't get hurt." Rina's dad said.
"They won't. Unless the flyboys have powers?" Rina inquired.
"No, Ari 2's saving that as a last resort. He wants to have all the power, so he only cloned the flyboys to make an army. He thinks he needs to save his power until he meets you, so he's not going to make any more unless he's desperate."
"Good. Then they can fight with us." I said.
"With us?" Rina's mom asked. "Didn't you here me? You're leaving!"
"No, I'd never miss a chance to kill some flyboy. I'm staying, and so is Rina."
"Yeah, I don't want to miss a fight!" Rina agreed.
"No, you're not! We're going to hold them off so you have time to split up and run for it! They want both of you, and you're going to leave here and leave a trail leading them here so we can kill the reinforcements so they don't harm you!" Why would Rina's mom care about me? This is her daughter we're talking about! Everything was going so fast, spinning around before my eyes.
"They'll be here in five minutes. Get started." Rina's dad warned.
"Rina, get the flock over here. Then go upstairs, switch clothes with Gina, and both of you get out of here in the quickest way you can. Matt, Iggy, you two switch clothes and bodies and leave too. Stay away from each other until we say so. NOW!" Rina's mom's final orders made us jump, then obey. Matt hesitated, then grabbed me and raced me up the stairs with his speed. I got one last look at Rina as she made a portal to the mansion while waving at me. Then I was in Matt's room, which happened to be dark except for the lights the stereo system made. Matt was already tossing me his shirt and ripping off my own for me.
"Why do we have to switch-" Matt almost pulled my head off along with my shirt, and made me stop talking.
"These guys are wolves, so they kinda depend on your scent to find you. If we switch clothes we might be able to fool them into thinking you're still here and I was the one who left. If not they'll at least have a hard time tracking you. And the bodies just confuse them more. They won't know who to capture if they manage to track us. Basically the bodies protect you and the clothes protect me. You humans are so slow!" he complained as he finished undressing me and putting on my clothes. Once Matt switched our bodies and I finished dressing (correction: Matt dressed me because apparently I was slow), he grabbed my wrist, making sure I didn't stray away when we disappeared.
"Wait, aren't we supposed to say goodbye or something?" I know I sounded like an idiot, but maybe Rina's mom wanted to check on us or give some last instructions. And in any case I wanted to at least kiss Rina goodbye.
"The sooner we leave the better." Matt muttered back, then disappeared, me along with him. We ended up in a suite in a hotel with a view of the Eiffel Tower. We must be in Paris.
"Yeah, we're in Paris. Here's some history for you. That's the bed where my sister decided to go save you from that science lab." He pointed to the bed in the next room. This room had a couch, a T.V, and a mini kitchen in the corner next to the window with the Eiffel Tower. Nice place. But how long would I be here?
"Why France?" I asked as I sat on the couch.
"Because why would you go to France? You'd probably go back to the Denton place. Plus these French guys have American cable and edible food." He responded as he rummaged through the mini-fridge, looking to finish his disrupted dinner. Pulling out some Hot Pockets from the microwave, he offered me some.
"I eat a lot, so it would be best you acted like me." He held me one plate, already munching on one himself. I was mesmerized to watch my face in front of me, chewing with my mouth open.
"I'll take my chances." Matt shrugged, then plopped next to me on the couch, stole the remote, and turned on the T.V. It went like that for hours, Matt watching T.V and eating whatever was in the kitchen, and me pretending to watch T.V and wonder. Why do I have to sit here in France while the rest of the flock is busy killing erasers? And why couldn't Rina be here to make me feel a little better? I almost choked. Rina. Was she okay? Did she have to switch bodies too? Where was she? When could we speak again? Just the thought of staying here for more than two hours made me claustrophobic again.
"Worry doesn't look good on my face, you know." I turned to see my body, laid back and looking completely at ease. I don't think I ever looked as relaxed as that in my life. "Dude, I don't know how this happened, I mean, your stomach still isn't full!" Oh. That would explain why he was eating so much.
"My body goes through food faster than most humans. I need more calories." I answered, still off in my thoughts. I couldn't believe this was happening. Why would Ari 2 want this revenge? Was everyone okay? And why did Ari 2 want me too? Everyone was fighting this to protect me and Rina. I was here in Matt's body because this way I would be protected. But why? Rina I could understand, I mean, she made Ari 2 a genie and destroyed his plans. But I still don't know why I'm so important. Why was everyone fighting to protect me as well? I'm not worth it.
"You're wrong."
"Huh?" I swiveled around. Did Matt just say what I thought he said?
"You're wrong. You're worth it."
"No I'm not." I turned away.
"Yes you are."
"I'm not."
"Give me one good reason why you're not worth it."
"I can't help anyone."
"Yes you can."
"No, I can't. I don't have powers, all I can do is kick and punch people."
"You're helping us just by existing."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah."
"I don't believe you."
"You should. You're helping us."
"How?"
"Rina makes everyone happy when she's happy. And you make her happy, so she makes us happy."
"So?"
"So before you she was miserable. Even when she had friends and boyfriends and nothing wrong she still wasn't truly happy, and we could see it in her eyes. But then she heard about some blind kid with wings who she saw and fell in love with. Even when you didn't know she existed you made her truly happy. You really think we want to look her in the eyes again if something should happen to you?"
I stared at Matt and he stared back. "So you're protecting me because Rina will be really upset if something happens to me?"
"Yeah."
"I dunno, you don't seem to like me too much." I leaned back and pretended to watch T.V while he thought it through.
"True. But I guess that's because I wasn't ready for a brother, especially not one who looks about my age. I never thought Rina would love someone enough to get married, so I guess you're just a shock. Nothing against you personally, just the idea of you."
"Sorry."
"Not your fault. Rina needs you."
"How nice, you actually care about your little sister." I used sarcasm, and that might have been what made him laugh so hard.
"Yeah, sure, I care. I just hate it when she calls me Splat."
"Yeah, she told me about that one." I responded, glad that I broke through Matt's little barrier. I had to admit, I felt a little better about how everyone was fighting for us.
"Having fun?" A horribly familiar mechanical voice made us turn around to see ten flyboys surrounding the back of the couch. They all looked ready to fight us, and they surveyed Matt hungrily. Oh, right, the switched bodies.
"Capture the genie." One of the flyboys commanded, and another yanked me by the hair while a third one put some thick handcuffs around my wrists. Handcuffs? These guys don't have much imagination. A genie could easily break through these.
"Get the blonde boy." The same flyboy instructed, and the remaining flyboys surrounded Matt, about to capture him. And they probably would have if Matt didn't have any powers. But he did, and in two seconds there were flyboys scattered on the ground, malfunctioning and sending sparks everywhere. One was impaled by the lamp near the doorway, which would have been pretty funny to watch if Matt had slowed down enough for me to see.
"Can you get these off?" I held out the handcuffs to him.
"Duh!" he tried to rip them apart, but they did nothing. He leapt back from them the moment he couldn't break them. "Okay, maybe not."
"What?! Why not?"
"Those are special handcuffs, made from some rock that you can't find on Earth." He explained as he dug around in the pockets of the flyboys. "They use them to arrest us because they short out our powers as long as we're touching them. But they're only found at the capital. How did they get these?" he asked rhetorically.
"I wouldn't put it past them to break in and steal a few." I answered as Matt pulled a tiny silver key out of the pocket of the head flyboy.
"Aha! Hold still a sec." he placed the key in an unseen hole and they snapped open. I handed them to Matt and he shoved them off. "No way am I holding those. The more you touch them the longer it takes to get your powers back."
"Sorry." I tossed them onto the couch, surveying the mass of flaming flyboys. "Now what?"
"We relocate." Matt grabbed my wrist and we vanished, reappearing at a base in Antarctica. "This place good enough?"
"Sure, if you like penguins." I looked through the frostbitten window to see a blizzard going on outside. Matt rummaged through the fridge and came out with sardine cans.
"That's it, we're going." We came to stop at a Chinese hotel, probably five star from the looks of the lobby. One set of open double doors revealed a restaurant that fried Chinese food right before your eyes. One entire wall was a buffet. Matt rubbed his hands together, and I raised an eyebrow.
"What?" he asked skeptically. "I'm hungry." Needing no more excuse than that, he walked right in, got a plate, and started serving heaping mounds of rice, chicken, and vegetables. I handed the waiter some Chinese money (which Matt put into my pocket earlier to pay for us), got in line, and took what little food Matt left for the rest of the diners. We hardly sat at the table before Matt started shoveling food into his mouth. I think there were some points where he forgot to chew.
"Dude." Matt complained with his mouth full of shrimp. "Eat something. Eat faster. Eat. If you keep eating like this you're going to kill me." He handed me a roll.
"Don't you worry at all about how the fight is going?" Hey, it's why I wasn't eating.
"My parents can do anything. They'll get through this. Now start eating! I can hear my stomach rumbling, it's like an earthquake." Matt presses the roll into my fist.
"And what about you? You never stop!" I pointed to his fifth helping of food.
"I'm doing you a favor, trust me. I don't know how you can stand being so hungry all the time." He said before he got up for sixths. After that plateful he started to slow down. Once he leaned back on his chair and closed his eyes, I thought he might finally stop, until he snapped his eyes open and said "So what's for dessert?"
I shrugged. "I dunno." I only just now started cooperating with Matt, so I didn't mention that maybe he should wait a bit for dessert. He might think I just insulted him.
"I'm thinking Switzerland. Let's go." He dragged me out of my chair and through the crowds of people waiting for the cooks to make more food. Once we were out of sight, we went to Switzerland, in front of a chocolate shop. Matt marched right in and took half the store up to the registers for the woman to ring up. We were just about to go find a hotel or tourist attraction to eat at when a white bubble appeared in front of us. Rina's tired face stared at us, and I almost talked to her, but she started first.
"Okay, just so you know this is a prerecorded message. I don't have enough time to do it live. We need you guys over here, like now. Ari 2 is still taking over, and we need more reinforcements. No one's seriously injured, but we still need a hand, and that's where you two come in. So could you get over here and help?"
"But Rina!" Matt whined, ignoring the fact that she said this was a prerecorded message. "I wanna eat my chocolate! And he needs to eat too, he's going to starve me if he does this anymore!"
"I'm guessing Matt just complained about not getting enough to eat." Rina pressed on. "But what he doesn't know is that the flyboys totally wrecked the kitchen and now all the food is spoiling because they broke the fridge."
"NO!" Matt sounded as if someone just died. I would have tried not to laugh if this wasn't so serious.
"So could you come over? We need- oh, hold on." Rina turned away and punched a few flyboys in the heads for interrupting her transmission. "Please hurry!" Then the bubble popped, which left Matt shivering in the snow with his chocolate.
"It's too late." He kept muttering. "The food's all gone." And with that he started shoving chocolate into his mouth. "What?" he asked when he saw me give him a weird look.
"You never stop eating, do you?"
"Never. What do you want me to do, worry?"
"I'd rather you switch our bodies back and take me to your house." I said. Matt looked at me, and suddenly I was back in my old body, staring at Matt's. Matt keeled over, groaning.
"Oh jeez, you didn't eat anything!" he moaned, reaching for the chocolate.
"Wow, I feel full." I wobbled a bit, trying to adjust to the feeling of an overflowing stomach. Once I got over it, I actually felt kinda good. Energized, I mean. "This kinda feels good." I told Matt, who was stuffing his mouth full of chocolate once again.
"Told ya." He said with brown teeth and lips.
"Can we go now?"
"How come? 'M happy."
"You may be, but I want to fight."
He shrugged. "Your conscience." In half a second we were back on Rina's front porch, overlooking the doorway. I pushed it open eagerly while Matt swallowed, and we saw a huge battle scene playing before our eyes. Fifteen flyboys had Rina cornered on the couch against the wall, and she was trying to blow away as many as possible, but they just kept coming. No wonder Rina asked us to come!
I ran right in and started kicking flyboys in the bases of their spines. But apparently Ari 2 got smart, and the flyboys stayed upright. I tried kicking them in the necks, and a few wires broke, but they were still operational. Even when I tried harming them in every way possible, they just swarmed around me by the dozens. So I did the only thing I could think of. I blew them up. All I did was take some powder from the sole of my shoe and made the quickest, most explosive bomb I could without getting attacked too much, and let it rip. The explosion was great, and I stood there beaming as flyboy parts and bits of the walls rained around me. There was a flash of brown, and the next thing I knew someone was hugging me so hard I felt like my eyes were going to burst out of their sockets.
"You're okay!" Rina squealed. "I was so worried, Iggy, I overheard that you had to relocate because of a flyboy ambush but no one said if you had to go to the hospital or if you got ambushed again and got really hurt and I didn't even say a proper goodbye! It was so horrible without you, I was so scarred that if someone tried to get me you wouldn't be there to protect me and you weren't getting fed enough and someone might have captured you and-"
"Let 'im breathe, Rina, 'e's strugglin' for air." Matt advised from behind me while gnawing on a slightly smaller chocolate bunny, and Rina let go.
"Sorry." She blushed.
"It's okay." I kissed her. "I missed you too. How'd you get back here?"
"Gina can't hold me still when I really want to do something."
"Too true." Straightening up to look at the area, I got worried. "Is everyone okay?" Because of the occasional flyboy, the blood on the walls, the collapsing furniture, and the sounds of fighting in the distance, I figured the question was probably a good one.
"I think, I mean, I never saw any bodies or broken bones." Rina was interrupted by an earsplitting scream, and we raced to the dinning room to see what was wrong. Nudge was being suspended by her hair as flyboys took turns punching her in the gut. Gazzy was trying to fight through the wall of robots to get to her, but it wasn't working. Rina blew through the flyboys, and Gazzy and I rushed into the opening and got Nudge loose. The flyboys were about to come after us, but they were levitated out of the open window and dropped through the clouds. We turned around to see Gina, grinning through her various cuts and waving at us.
"You guys better come upstairs, Fang and Max need a hand with some more flyboys." she informed us before rushing upstairs herself. Gazzy and Nudge went to go help Angel, who sent a thought to all of us asking for help with a trap, and Rina and I sprinted up the stairs, where we saw Fang and Max fighting off flyboys through Matt's former bedroom wall. Occasionally a flyboy would literally fly up into the air if they punched them hard enough, but the flyboys were like rabbits, always multiplying.
Rina and I got into action immediately. She controlled their minds so that they would get away from Max and Fang, and while the flyboys were too busy staring into space stupidly we took care of them. Apparently their new weak spot was an indentation squarely in the chest, so once Fang found that spot we tried it on all of them. Fighting as a team, we worked our way up the stairs, where the most chaos seemed to come from. When Max took care of the last flyboy, we ended up in Rina's room. It looked completely different, partially because it was a lot messier, the window was broken in various places, and dead flyboys were scattered all over the floor. Rina's mom and dad were fighting the most surprising person of all. Ari 2 was dodging every shot they threw at him! Rina shot her laser vision at him, which he missed, but Rina's parents turned around to see who shot that.
"Rina? Iggy? You're not supposed to be here! Go back in hiding." Rina's mom ordered, afraid that we would get hurt.
"We're not going anywhere!" Rina and I yelled back at the same time as Max and Fang assumed fighting positions next to us.
"How sweet, they came back from hiding to protect her parents. This should be much easier!" Ari 2 snarled as he used his stretching powers to try and grab us. Max and Fang got there first, and twisted his arms together in a knot, which made him recoil to try and untangle it. This bought us a bit of time for Rina's parents to grab him by the arms and make sure he couldn't get any closer to us. But Ari 2 still remembered that he had powers, and poofed out of their grasp, reappearing a second later with a gun pointed at Rina's head. Ari 2's clone sprung to life out of thin air and held me hostage next to them in a similar position. The original sniffed Rina's hair with a twisted grin on his face.
"Ah, I love the stench of revenge." He murmured as he pressed the gun closer to her head. "Drop your hands and I won't harm them." He barked to Max, Fang, and Rina's parents. They all hesitated, then obeyed, posing no threat to Ari 2's reign of terror.
"Don't touch my siblings!" A cry that sound strangely like Gina's came from behind us, and Ari 2 and his clone were knocked away from us. We turned around to see Gina and Matt beating the crap out of them. We were all about to join in, but Ari 2's clone disappeared back into the original, and he leapt up, punching Gina right in the face. She stumbled back, her nose an odd shape and bleeding.
"Touching, the entire family is here." Ari 2 sneered. "And now for our little rematch. You didn't really think you would be the winner for long now, did you, Sabrina?" Rina snarled next to me. It's amazing she could still care about things as miniscule as nicknames when she was about to face one crazy guy with a whole bunch of powers. But just as Ari 2 was about to make his first move, we heard a huge explosion, and the floor collapsed beneath us. Everyone fell down to the second floor except me, who managed to grip the remains of the ceiling before I fell completely. Unfortunately I couldn't grab Rina before she fell, so I just hung there for a second, still coughing from the dust and trying to pull myself up. But before I could hoist myself up completely, army boots stomped down on my fingers, and hot, reeking breath blew on my face.
"This isn't over." Ari 2 only had to whisper, but I could still hear how fierce he sounded. "You may think you won, but you didn't even play. I'm going to come for you. Right when you least suspect it, there's going to be a noose around your girlfriend's pretty neck. And you won't be without her for long. Your days are numbered, one…" he pried my first two fingers. "…by…" by now I was suspended only by my last finger "…one." He slipped my last finger off, and I fell down amidst the rubble and into unconsciousness.
A little while later…
"Iggy? Wake up! Are you awake?" Rina was calling my name and shaking me, and I wanted to respond, but my jaw felt like lead.
"Rina, stop shaking him. He'll wake up when he wakes up." Gina soothed Rina.
"Is he okay?" Max wanted to know, sounding pretty concerned.
"He doesn't look too bad." Matt prompted. Now that I was gaining consciousness I could feel everyone's eyes on me. "Rina, you should care more about yourself more, I mean, dad said you were going to be captured! Aren't you worried that Ari 2 is going to come back from being disappeared and dad's prediction is going to come true?"
"Dad might be wrong for once. Fortunes change, remember?" Gina corrected. "Remember when dad predicted Rina would get married to Bruce and then Rina took another path and found Iggy again? It could be like that."
"Shut up, Gina, I'm just trying to make her worry a bit more about her own well-being. I don't wanna protect her all the time." Matt said.
"Is he going to wake up? Please tell me he's going to wake up!" From the vibrations on the floor, Rina was shaking someone. Since no one told her to stop, she was probably shaking Fang.
"He'll open his eyes in about in about fifteen seconds. And I wouldn't doubt that he can hear us right now." Gina promised.
"Iggy? Can you hear me?" Rina sounded a bit calmer, but still frantic for me to wake up.
"Mm?" I wanted to say "Yeah?" but I just couldn't move my mouth enough to form words at the moment.
"Oh Iggy, you're okay! Aren't you?"
My eyes snapped open. "Kinda."
"What do you mean? Where does it hurt?"
"Jaw." I struggled to say. Rina grazed my cheek, and the pain vanished. I moved it around a few times, getting used to the feel of a jaw that wasn't bruised or whatever.
"Thanks." I looked around, and only saw Rina, Gina, Matt, Max, and Fang staring down at me with different amounts of concern in their eyes. "Where's everyone else?" I asked.
"They're downstairs, being healed by mom." Matt answered.
"Can I see?" I asked.
"Sure. Nothing stopping you." Gina said. I tried to sit up, but groaned and fell back down due to the searing pain in my spine.
"What now?" Rina asked.
"Spine. Can't move it."
"Dude, you probably bruised it when you landed. Gimme a sec, and don't move." Matt said as he touched my back. I hissed in a breath upon contact.
"Yeah, because I can move so much right now." Ah, sarcasm, my outlet for my pain. Where would I be without it? Rina giggled next to me as Matt healed my back. I tried to sit up, and I succeeded, but I was stiff as I fought to stand up. Rina made me use her as a crutch and lead us to the living room, where I saw her mom fixing one of Gazzy's bruises while the others talked. Everyone seemed okay, and some even seemed to want to fight again.
"Hey guys, look who's back!" Rina announced us. We were greeted with several hugs (mainly from Rina's mom), a few waves, and some "hi"s. Gazzy ran up to me.
"Guess how many flyboys I got?" he asked.
"How many?"
"Twenty three!" he beamed, and I ruffled his hair.
"Great job, man!"
"Where's Angel?" Max did a head count and turned to Fang, a frantic expression on her face. "Where'd she go?"
"I didn't see her! She didn't go to the bathroom or anything, I don't think I even saw her come downstairs after she made those flyboys go upstairs and into the bomb we made for them, you know, the one that collapsed the ceiling…" Nudge said. Everyone froze, then ran for the stairs. Max got there first, and yelled "Angel!" repeatedly while looking under flyboy remains and bits of rubble. It turns out that bomb made the entire third floor fall into the second floor, and sure enough we found Angel under the air hockey table, sprawled out on the floor.
Max leaned down and cradled Angel's head in her arms. "Angel, sweetie, are you okay?" Angel didn't answer, and tears poured silently down Max's cheeks as she stroked her hair. Fang came and sat next to Max with his arm around her shoulder, looking Angel over sadly.
"She's alive." We all turned to see Rina's mom behind us, watching the trio with gloom in her eyes. "But only just. She could…go….at any minute"
"Is there anything you can do?" Gazzy asked, about to cry at the sight of his unconscious sister lying in the rubble. The kid was tough, but he was just twelve too, and this was one occasion where we could forgive him for crying.
"No. We can speed up the recovery, but sometimes…" Rina's mom trailed off, afraid to say what we were all thinking. She might never wake up. The room was silent, all staring at Angel's unconscious form. Max wouldn't let Angel go, and we weren't about to stop her. Fang just held onto Max, her only lifeboat in a sea of hurt. Nudge was crying into Gazzy's shoulder, and Gazzy just looked at his sister with no expression. He was trying to tough it out. Subconsciously, Rina grabbed my hand for comfort. I gave it a little squeeze, but in a situation like this not even I could stop the tears from forming in her eyes. Even Gina looked pretty sad. I could understand, because Angel was only a year or two younger than Gina, and they could have been great friends. The rest of the Baileys just stood there, looking sad, but a little out of place, not knowing how to feel. They barely knew Angel, so they wouldn't know how to mourn her.
Rina let go of my hand and approached Angel's body. Hesitantly, she reached out and stroked Angel's cheek with the back of her hand. A faint light showed under her skin, her scars healed, and the funny shape her left arm was making straightened out. But she still lay as lifeless as ever in Max's arms.
"That's it." Rina turned around to face us. "That's all I can do." She couldn't hold in the tears and ran into my arms, bursting into sobs. I just stroked her hair absentmindedly, trying to remember the last time I saw Angel. It was only this morning when she was cheerily eating her oatmeal. I only said good morning. I should have said more, should have at least said a goodbye to her before we went to our parents.
"She could have been the flower girl." Gina said, a sad look on her face. "I would have let her, you know. She looks like she could handle it."
"Wanna be flower girl…." Everyone jolted up and looked in Angel's direction. Angel's eyes fluttered open, and she grinned at Gina. "Cn'I be the flower girl?"
"Angel!" Max hugged her even tighter, tears of joy falling from her eyes. "Don't you ever scare me like that again! Oh baby, I was so worried about you!" Gazzy and Nudge joined in on the group hug, and Fang joined since he was there anyways, and Rina and I just couldn't miss being part of the group, so the entire flock was hugging Angel.
"Look at you guys, I leave you alone for just a few minutes and you lose it!" Angel said, giggling as Nudge gave her an extra-tight squeeze. Then she turned to Rina. "Can I be the flower girl?"
"You and Gina can both be the flower girls." Rina decided, knowing I really didn't care. "As long as you don't ever do that again!"
"Fine, I won't do it again as long as I also get to help you plan the wedding!" I suppose playing the death card had Angel feeling pretty confident.
"Fine, fine, but don't ever do that again EVER!" Rina was really excited to have Angel back, but who wouldn't? I was psyched just thinking about it! Angel was alive and at full spirits. Who wouldn't be happy?
POV Ari 2
Who would be happy just to have a ten-year-old come back to life? Humans are so strange, and so are the genies that communicate with them. Ignorant fools, all of them. Especially the older genie girl, Sabrina. She made more mistakes than accomplishments, and yet everyone thinks she's so great because she made her boyfriend free her and made me a genie. The idiot never learned. Now I was wished free, and I had hundreds of powers at my disposal. All of which to get revenge for myself and my creators, whose dream of a better world she destroyed with her friends.
Ah, her friends, where to begin? I could never see why my original loved them so much, and I was secretly grateful when my creators taught me to hate them. They especially hated the girl Max and her destiny to save the world. I saw what she really was: a weak link. She couldn't lead, but those airheads of a flock looked up to her anyways. Especially the boy Fang. Silent, dark, not at all like my creators had hoped for. He was only vital because Max depended on him to lead. She always needed reassurance that she was doing the right thing, and he was useful only for this pointless task. Then there was the girl, Nudge. She never stopped talking, which therefore made her a failure. She could only be an annoyance, no real use at all. The blonde boy, Gazzy, and his sister, Angel, were also pointless, mere obstacles for me to overcome to get to the grand prize, the last boy, Iggy. He was the only one worth having on our side. Explosives, wings, and he knew how to find and cook food, all very useful skills. But he ran with the wrong crowd, and he could never be one of us, therefore I was taught to hate him. But I didn't need to be taught. I hated him already.
Iggy always caused my creators pain. They never meant to blind him, but when they tried to help him he would shun them and never listen and only listen to Max, just like the other idiots in her flock. Then he found the genie Sabrina, and all hope was lost. Her enchanting aura made him fall for her, and she told him how to defeat us in exchange for his love. He was dangerous with this information, and he shared it with his flock, which only made things worse. I tried to capture the genie, make her become my genie, and I took the boy at the last moment to persuade her. But she made a plan for the first time in her life, and overthrew me with her boyfriend. So now I needed to overthrow them as the first step to get Itex's By-Half Plan back. They could pose a real threat. And I needed revenge for myself as well as my creators.
The genie's parents were just as stupid as her daughter. When my flyboys and I snuck into the genie capital to steal the handcuffs, we also shut down the security system on this house. The owners rarely checked on the status of their security, so the alarm never sounded when I left and clung to the roof of their house until they thought everyone was either dead or gone.
I climbed down the walls, like a spider some would say, and into the first window that no one could see me climb in. I took one of my injured flyboys and was about climb back onto the roof and fix him so he would be in full operation when I next needed him and his clones. But I overheard the conversation going on below me and paused.
"Can I be the flower girl?" the girl named Angel was asking while being hugged by the rest of the flock. It was sort of sickening.
"You and Gina can both be the flower girls, as long as you don't ever do that again!" the genie Sabrina answered while giving an extra squeeze.
"Fine, I won't do it again as long as I also get to help you plan the wedding!" I heard enough. I crawled back to the roof with the robot on my back. A wedding? That could be an interesting place. Maybe I could meet them there and get my revenge.
Once I connected a few circuits, the flyboy's eye glowed to life, and he sat upright and saluted me.
"Fully operational" the flyboy reported it's own status. "Awaiting orders."
"I want you to track the girl named Sabrina and the boy named Iggy. Find any information you can about a wedding." I instructed it. These new models of flyboys could do anything you wanted if you just asked it, not at all like the last ones where you had to program it into them. The flyboy saluted and flew off to spy on the flock, leaving me alone to think.
Iggy and Sabrina made me look weak and stupid, but that was their blunder. Now I was back for a rematch, and this time I was going to win.
Okay, right now I'm home sick, so I'm just going to post it right now. But because I'm sick, there's probably some mistakes in there. Sorry! But you could tell me what mistakes I made, I could correct them. Please review, I love them so much!
PS: I lied, this is now the longest chapter at 6,700 something words. I would have split it into two, but you guys deserve it!