bChapter 12. Reunion/b

iSomewhere in a farther corner of the British capital, a young thief was eating the last pieces of his stolen bread. /i

It had been more than a week that he had been separated from his ethereal friend and the mobsters had practically robbed him off everything but his clothes (well "robbed" wasn't the appropriate term since he lost it through gambling, although he was pretty sure they had been cheating), and to be honest he was lucky to have those, without holes and blood stains on them, ragged as they were. God only knew how he got away without getting shot.

His thoughts were interrupted by a low purring sound right next to him. He turned around to see a small black kitten. He couldn't be more than a few weeks old…or was it a "she", he couldn't tell. He frowned in a fake pouty expression, as the animal released another sound, almost pleading.

"Tch… Alright, alright, here…" he mumbled, throwing his last chunk of bread towards the clearly scared, but hungry animal. Dammit he'd miss that bread, but the little fellow seemed he needed it more than himself. Yes, let's go with "him", for now. The kitten jumped back at first, before he slowly approached the man, and started munching his meal. Ali stayed there, staring at the small animal devouring the food he had provided him with. A small smile spread across his lips, involuntarily, before looking up to the cloudy sky of London, wondering where his friend had ended up…

…

"Ugh!" The white-haired girl grumbled as she practically crashed on the ground. Genie appeared next to her in a sudden flash of whitish light that went off in the blink of an eye, resulting in him crashing to the ground as well, which was… surprising and exceptionally disturbing. It took him a few moments to gather up and get his levitating abilities back…And he still felt a little numb.

"What the…" he mumbled, before he noticed the young goddess aka his current imaster/i, had landed with her butt on the ground… "D-dammit…" and yes, he stuttered, as he extended his hand to her, to help her up "I'm…uh…sorry… I have no idea how this happened…My powers." He swallowed. As he spoke, he realised that this was probably one of the most challenging wishes he had ever had to fulfil…And it was just getting out of a house and teleport. Pretty much standard stuff. "That house…It's protected with very powerful energy"

"Well…" Lila took his hand, slightly blushing at the contact (and let it be pointed out here, that she still couldn't interpret that reaction, nor that she could actually feel him despite the fact that he looked like he was made of smoke) … "My grandma IS a goddess… I haven't learnt a lot about magic yet, but I take it there should be a 'White Energy Barrier' around it…Supposedly it's the most powerful type of light energy barrier that can be produced into the mortal world…" she explained, completely surprised that the lessons with Skylar had actually paid off. Genie was equally surprised. He had remained mostly absent from those classes, despite his inherent nosiness.

"That… makes a lot of sense, actually. Given I'm one of the most powerful magic creatures around and I still have hard time getting on my feet…" he noted, obviously bragging also, in the process. The thought, however, was quite disturbing, not so much because of the way he felt right now or the creeping sense of failure in the back of his mind, but also because he was just coming to realise what kind of forces he was up against…Because he would probably not get away with helping her escape from there. Maybe until now he had taken this whole situation a bit lightly. It wasn't exactly that he hadn't had all sorts of weird adventures and who knows how many of them were stored in the part of his memory that was still asleep due to his time in the bottom of the ocean, but this was a whole new level of dangerous. Gods… that was something he had never even grasped, although he knew of their existence. But now they were real… This fragile looking girl was before him and who knew how many immeasurably more powerful were going to come after her. He almost gasped out loud at the idea.

"Uhm… Genie? Are you alright?" Lila blinked repeatedly, in concern, pulling him out of his thoughts. Whatever was to be, would be. They were there now. And he had to find Ali before those mobsters did. And get him out of there. But it all depended on her, for she was in charge now.

"Yes, yes I'm fine, don't worry" he mused as he swirled his finger and cleaned the stains off her dress again "Lemme take care of that".

"T-thank you…" she mumbled as she looked at their surroundings. They seemed to be in some sort of…field? Nothing familiar about it. She sighed. "I wonder where we are…."

"Sorry… I told you I needed specifics although, given the power I had to use for this transportation, I probably wouldn't be able to take us to a specific place either way" he said rubbing the back of his head. "If I had to guess I'd say we're somewhere close to where you found me in the first place. My orientation works like that sometimes" he added with a silly grin, before he stretched higher, and looked around. He was right; a little farther to the north he spotted the Thames. "So…you're from around here right? Don't you know your way around?" he said casually, staring at the girl. Lila looked away blushing slightly in embarrassment.

"I don't get out of the house much…or, at all…" she said lowly. Her tone made Genie feel a little bad about his question although it was a completely justified assumption.

"Uh… don't worry about it. I have magic. We'll definitely find our way. Or well…maybe we can ask someone?..."

"Actually…"Lila was a little reluctant. She really wanted to go back home to her parents…That was the whole reason she escaped from Sophia's mansion in the first place. But now that she was out she thought about it… Her parents gave her up with no second thoughts… Did they ever actually see her as their child? Would she be welcome there? Would they even still be there? The possibilities scared her. So, instead, she decided to suggest something different for now. "Why don't we… go find your friend? It sounded like he might be in danger… We can look for my house after we make sure he's ok… I-if you want…"

"What?..." Genie was surprised to say the least. Had she been reading his mind?... Nahhh, that couldn't be possible, right?... Although, she iwas/i a goddess. She must have had some sort of powers, but he had never really witnessed her use any kind of magic and according to the her grandma (yes he obviously did eavesdrop a couple of times, mostly when she talked to her grandmother, that woman was annoying and amusing at the same time), it was too soon for her to start using it or even train for it.

"Find your friend… It seems important and well… you did realise my wish sooo… I'm grateful" the girl said a bit self-consciously. Genie was surprised, if not touched. He wasn't really used to masters that were…grateful, or so he thought at least. Ali was pretty cool but he had never heard a "thank you" from him, although he kinda knew it was there. He rubbed the back of his head and looked around.

"Well… yeah it's important but… about the wish thing, that's my job you know. So… no need for payback or…" Lila's pouty voice interrupted him.

"But it's not payback. It's gratitude. Just accept it alright?" she practically glared at him. Genie widened his eyes in surprise. He definitely didn't see that coming although he had noticed that she kind of had a sort temper when she was stressed, which was… cute… He shook his head.

"Ok, ok. Sheesh. I'll take it." He looked around a bit disgruntled, but in truth he really wasn't. He was probably trying to focus on the real purpose here instead of how Lila's eyes looked when she was pissed, or how soft her hair was, or whatever silly stuff he had started thinking about, the past two weeks. Nonsense. That was unimportant nonsense. And most of all, she was probably unreachable to someone like him so… better not even think about that. "I think I can track him down. I have the impression I know where he is…" he mumbled as he seemed to be sniffing the air, or something like that. Lila looked at him blinking again. She had to admit, he was amusing in a very weird way. She pretended she didn't notice him that much, but she did. "I don't think I can teleport us though…" he declared in disappointment, shrinking into a depressive little curled ball. Ok, that made her smile in compassion, she could definitely not help it.

"It's alright…" She said lifting her eyes and looking somewhere behind him with a rather stunned expression. "I-I don't think you have to…" she said with a matching tone of voice pointing to somewhere far ahead. Genie uncurled instantly and looked behind him to see a transparent smoke-like, sparkling, white line extending from the exact spot that he was standing on, passing over the ground, the river that was a few hundred meters away, swirling up a small bridge and passing through the people crossing it, no one seemed to notice it though; it looked like they were the only two people who could see that…trail. Yes, that was the correct word: trail. That line was apparently showing them the way to Ali. Genie's face was illuminated with a wide, satisfied grin.

"Yes! Perfect." he exclaimed triumphantly. All the gloominess went away in an instance and he started dancing around in hula skirt. The goddess couldn't but giggle at his childish behaviour. Yes, definitely amusing.

"So, is it what I think it is?" she finally said.

"Yes, yes indeed" Genie mused as he continued his brilliant performance, the grin ever present on his lips. "This will show us the way to Ali…Stiiiilll got it baby!" He was obviously too thrilled by the fact that his magic hadn't completely worn off, which was a very rare and strange thing, but after what had happened with the teleportation it was a justified reaction. As soon as he realised what he had said, he widened his eyes and in a moment of awkwardness he returned to his normal form and cleared his throat. "I mean…ahem…we'd better go" he scratched the back of his head, looked up ahead into the distance, inwardly wishing his friend is ok and hoping that he actually was where he thought he was. For that, was a trail created by Genie's memory of the place where he thought they should look, but there was no way to be sure Ali would really be there. "I… should probably jump back in there" he said pointing to her chest, something that made the girl blush, obviously, even though she knew he meant the tiny lamp that was hanging from her neck.

"Y-yeah… I just hope it doesn't disappear once you go in" she noted, quite quizzical about how this whole magic trail worked.

"Nope, as long as I'm present it's going to be there. And since you can see it now we're pretty much covered. So I'm going in…. JERONIMOOOOOO" and with that yell, he got sucked into the lamp in a split second. Lila jumped back a little and took a quick breath, instinctively. This definitely still felt weird.

i b Can you hear me?~ /i /b

Genie's voice echoed from the lamp.

"Yes, yes I can…"

i b Magnifique. Now follow the trail and if you run into any troubles let me know so that I'll take care of it/i /b

"O-ok…" she mumbled as she lifted the hood of her coat and started walking towards the bridge. "However, when there are people around I might not be able to address you…"

i b Point. Hmm…. just rub the lamp with your finger and I'll jump right out ./i /b

"Deal…" she mumbled again, and started walking a bit faster. It suddenly got a lot colder. There was something strange about the air… something she couldn't put her finger on… But it was there. She wrapped her coat tighter around herself and followed the trail. She had to admit, it was a pretty sight… All this magic was new to her and to a degree scary but she had to admit… it was beautiful.

As she made her way through the small crowd on the bridge (it was getting late so she met all the less people as she went) she looked over her shoulder, only to notice that the trail was vanishing behind her. For some reason she felt relieved by that. On the one hand, she felt a little guilty for running away like a child, and especially for Solar and Flare, they'd probably get it from Sophia for losing track of her. On the other hand, however, she could definitely not stay there and accept the predetermined future they had in store for her. In the back of her mind, she apologised to everyone, but she couldn't do that. She knew she'd be followed and searched for. She even knew the place she had thought of as a refuge would probably be closed for her… But she'd figure it out eventually. For now she just wanted to be away from that possibility.

….

It must have been at least an hour that she had been walking, following the trail. Her feet had started failing her.

i b Are we there yet? /i /b

"For the tenth time…No. I'll tell you when….." Suddenly, she stopped. Just a few meters up ahead the white trail faded and disappeared behind the wall of what seemed to be a small alley. Now, normally, a young girl wouldn't go near that place alone in the middle of the night but then again, Lila wasn't an ordinary girl. So, she just walked right into that alley. Her eyes widened in shock at the image of a young man, curled up in himself, seemingly sleeping, leaning his back on the wall. Next to him, a tiny black kitten.

i What the… it's freezing… /i

The man's clothes seemed to have been fancy at one time. A striped suit and a bow tie…But now they were torn and worn off. His eyes and skin were dark. Surely a foreigner. Instinctively the girl took her coat off and threw it over the man.

"Uhm… Genie?..."She whispered over the lamp, "I think I found your friend…"

…..

"This way… I can smell it…" the eel swirled around a particular spot over the ground "He was here…"

"Are you isure/i it was ihim/i" the pale man raised a brow at his pet's notion.

"Yes… Yessss… It was him…" the animal hissed bulging an eye out towards his master. "But… Mozenrath… shouldn't we be looking for the girl?" he asked. A wide grin spread across the sorcerer's face as he moved his gauntlet covered finger at the air over the spot where the eel was hovering. The area was lit with a dim purple light, flickering at first, but then it spread, more and more, to reveal some sort of path that lead over a bridge and into the city.

"Priorities, Xerxes. First, we go Genie hunting~"