Chapter 41: Take a Look, Its In a Book
Just another ordinary day in summer. Mew's happy to go on record saying that there's been NO enemy attacks since Dracula, and if luck be willing it'll stay that way.
He's enjoying this tranquil time with his adopted daughter Maria by finally introducing her to the wonderful world of video games.
He had failed Joe Dark, losing him to the grainy pages of books but Maria? He'll succeed no matter what. It'd be fun to drop her right into the stuff he likes to play but he gets it. There's a learning curve to this sort of thing. Right now he's focusing on the basics, and what better way than via the classic Super Mario World.
She's leaning out towards the TV with controller in hand and a good grip on the buttons, but her reactions aren't the best. She's died ten times on the first world. There's been a couple groans bordering on swearing and he's had to try and curb that cause Kairi introduced her to the big ol' F-Bomb.
But she's mostly smiling. Radiant, and full of wonder. This was her life now, she could be a normal kid, and do normal kid things.
Mew relaxed into the couch and put his hands behind his head with a smile. Then sounds of Mario's death played on the TV.
"Mmmm...drat!" Murmured Maria as she laid the controller on her lap and looked his way, "Papa, how am I supposed to beat the spiked turtle?"
"Want me to show you?" He offered, and she nodded.
He picked up the controller and leaned towards the TV, "Alright watch this."
She leaned in and watched as he cleared the stage in about a minute and a half, and the moment of Iggy's demise in the lava lit up a spark in Maria's eyes.
"Oooooh! You had to knock him off balance..."
"Yep. Just remember that, sometimes the stage hold the key to beating a boss," He handed the controller back to her and waved at the screen, "You're going to like this next world, it introduces my favorite power-up."
After a bit more spectating Mew rubbed under his nose and remarked, "Y'know Maria...I actually met Mario in person."
"Really?" She said, her eyes practically glued to the screen.
"A-yep! It was a few years ago, on one of my more...weird adventures," Mew dusted his knuckles on his shirt and gave a prideful smirk, "We saved the world together. No big deal."
She looked at him for a moment to say, "Do you think I could meet him too?"
"Uhhh, sure, why not!" Mew let her resume playing before letting his expression sag a little, "Come to think of it they probably still think something bad happened to me...Guess it wouldn't hurt to ask Saturn to take us there someday."
Maria lost another life dive bombing into a pit with the Cape and Mew jostled with laughter, "Hehe, its a bit finnicky but once you learn it you'll have tons of fun."
"I'm going to do it...!" She said, teeth grit like steel bars.
"That's the spirit!" He rubbed her head and she gestured at him to stop, then got up to go get a drink.
On his way around the corner he heard a knock at the door and wondered "Who could that be?" as he headed towards it.
He froze up on the doorknob as the current pattern is that he mentions doing something, then Saturn's popped up to help with that.
He quickly swung the door open and exclaimed "AHA!" but was instead greeted by the puzzled combination of Riku and Lunis.
Lunis had finally gotten some normal clothes with Riku's assistance, as Mew has been expressly forbidden from picking out clothes again for reasons that are not his fault in the slightest.
Not that Riku's help seemed to be any better. Lunis was in tight black jeans that rode around her thighs and didn't even cover all her legs. Fortunately her slim socks finished the job. But then there was her upper body, covered by a white t-shirt with a glittery yellow crescent moon laid over her chest. "Covered" is used loosely here, as its clearly too small for her chest and thus part of her mid-riff is showing.
Someone was to "blame" here but clearly neither guilty party seemed to care. Also, Lunis cut her hair to a more manageable shoulder length. Took a moment to notice that. Its a pretty jarring change honestly.
But enough of that, down to business...
"Riku? Lunis? What're you doing here?" And right away he got his answer from...
"About damn time you showed up..." Joe Dark, who else?
Mew pulled away from the door and watched Joe Dark and Alura come his way. Ever since Alura tore up her dress to add onto the swimsuit she's had to settle for wearing some of Mew's old shirts and jeans. He wasn't allowed to make her new clothes and he hadn't the faintest idea why...
"Oh, you guys are going somewhere?" He asked.
"We told you we were going to the library today..." Joe Dark took a dry look his way and Mew turned and whistled aloofly.
"Sorry I must've blocked the sounds of the devil's temple from my mind..."
"Uuughh..." Joe Dark ruffled his forehead and glanced around him towards Maria, "Oh, I see you're introducing her to video games."
"...Yeah?" Mew eyed him confusedly.
"Maria," He stepped around him and she stared at him with anticipation, "You're welcome to join us at the library."
"...What's a library?" The instant that was uttered Joe Dark had his eyes locked onto Mew.
"Mew what the actual hell." He sputtered dryly.
Mew threw his hands up in a shrug and was laid into again, "Don't shrug it off this is negligent!"
"Ah books are overrated!" Mew walked backwards to the TV and patted it fondly, "You can learn everything you need to from TV and video games. I mean come on, look at me!"
Joe Dark and Riku fluttered their eyes at him, followed by Joe pointing at Maria and then out the door, "You're coming with us."
"I think Maria's already decided where her loyalties lie." Mew said, crossing his arms defensively against his chest.
"We're going to buy ice cream afterwards." Joe Dark quickly peppered in.
Maria's eyes lit up and she laid the controller on the table. Mew's mouth was stunned agape as she got off the couch and ran towards their small group.
Her turning back and saying "I'll be back later papa!" did little to weaken the emotional bruise on Mew's heart.
"W-What?!"
As the group of five left the house Mew ran for the door and slammed his hands upon the frame, "Bribery?! You're using bribery on a child Joe?!"
Joe Dark was the only one not looking back as he used his dagger to open a dark rift in front of them. Mew gawked at the group and exclaimed, "See? This is what reading books leads to! You want to be a delinquent like your Uncle Joe?"
Maria hesitated, but with that curious look in her eye Mew felt his defenses crumbling. Joe Dark patted her on the back and said, "Come on, it'll be fine..."
"C-Come on...really? Really?" Mew watched them enter the dark rift and then hung his head with a sigh before getting out one last shout, "Don't keep her out after dark!"
Upon a quick traversal through the darkness the group of five arrived at somewhere...only a little less dark. An alleyway, secluded off from the gazing eyes of the city folk.
It reeked of moldy food and moss, just as Joe Dark remembered it.
"Lets get out of here quickly..." He said, hastening their exit towards the hustle and bustle of the city itself. It proved a little difficult not to avoid stepping on the discarded heaps of human waste that had gathered here.
Lunis squirmed the most, while Maria wound up clutching to Joe Dark's hip. Unbeknownst to him, she also stuck her tongue out at Alura, which is why they wound up clinging onto his other hip.
He took their actions with a heavy sigh and was grateful when they finally got out of this dank alley and into the sunny streets. Their timing was perfect for avoiding suspicion.
"Whoa..." "Ummm..." Went Maria and Alura as they unclipped themselves from his jeans and stared up towards the sky, where the buildings seemed like towers that pierced the clouds.
"So this is the big city..." Said Lunis, shading her eyes with one hand.
"HNNNNNKKKKK!" Screamed a car as it sped on by, making all but Joe Dark jolt.
"Yeeeeep...In every way, good and bad..." He took a couple steps out from the group and stood at the edge of the sidewalk.
"Now where was the library at...?" As he murmured aloud he found Riku coming to his aide.
"Need help?"
"Mrrr, it should be close by. If we go a couple blocks North..."
"You're familiar with this city?"
"...It was..." Joe Dark whispered the rest and rubbed the back of his head, "Necessary to survive."
"Alright." Riku backed off.
"Thank you for keeping it at that." After shaking off some mild discomfort Joe Dark rolled his shoulders around and decided they'd go North. But not before doubling-back to peel the curious duo away from skyscraper watching.
They had gotten a taste of city life from the mall, but this place more-or-less provided the complete picture. A fast food place on every block. Clothes stores! Jewelry stores! Insurance bureaus filling every other space! And a bunch of people wandering around bumping into each other because they were busy walking their dog, looking at their cell phone, being just plain ol' distracted. Not to mention all the traffic jams, the cigarette smoke...
And after going down a couple blocks there was one other thing he disliked...It was easy to get lost. Every damn skyscraper looked the same. This wasn't Seattle, there was no Space Needle to help figure out where you were relative to the rest of the city.
But he swore that they were on the right path to the library, and kept them on this path. But Riku quickly pointed out "I think we've gone more than a couple blocks" around the tenth block crossed.
Joe Dark spun around and insisted, "I know where we're going!"
He looked at Alura and Maria and noticed their eyes were in a trance. Sensory overload. Too much to take in at once.
"...Lets take a break here." He muttered with a groan. He sat on a bench with Maria and Alura at his sides while Riku tried to find a map in one of the nearby stores and Lunis walked around trying to get someone's aide.
"Hello?" She waved to a passerby, who gave her a wide-eyed glance and then hastened along.
"Ummm, excuse me!" She exclaimed to a group of young trendy females, whose chirps of gossip drowned out her voice.
So she went a little more aggressive towards the next passerby by putting herself in their path and exclaiming, "Sir! A moment of your time please?"
The man rammed face-first into her chest and rebound a couple steps back, resulting in him staring at her with a wide-eyed gawk. She leaned in with a smile and said, "Can you tell us how to get to-"
Blushing and fully flustered the man raised a finger with a ring on it and stuttered "I-I'm married...!" before dashing around her.
"W-Wait!" She tried but failed to call him back.
"Mmmrrrr..." Joe Dark glared on uncomfortably.
Alura and Maria patted their chests and sighed.
Riku came out of the nearby store a moment later with a map, "Fortunately they were free..."
"Alright how close are we?" Joe Dark said, rising to look over the map with him.
"Just a couple blocks off to the East." Riku pointed at the pink space on the map.
"Tsk, so that's what was wrong. I took us to the wrong alley." Joe Dark rubbed the back of his head and Riku, bless him, patted him on the back.
"Alright lets get going." Riku tucked the map away and Alura and Maria got off the bench.
"Hmmm?" Lunis suddenly looked behind her and the others did the same.
"What?" Joe Dark asked.
"I...coulda sworn someone's following us."
"There's always a few creeps in the city..." He groaned and brushed back towards where they'd walked, "Ignore them and move on."
Lunis slowly turned forward and they made their way two blocks East, finally arriving at their destination. The local library was three stories tall and looked about the shape of a government office.
"Oh my goodness!" Gasped Lunis, "This whole building's got books in it?!"
"Yes, but..." As Joe Dark prepared to give advice Lunis was already trotting up the stairs like a bunny in spring.
"Mrrr...Riku, keep an eye on your girlfriend..." He groaned.
"She's not..." Riku gasped and then sighed, trailing after her with a reluctant remark of, "I probably should stick with her."
A moment after the rest of them met up with the two at the front doors, where Lunis was being introduced to the concept of automatic doors.
"Whoa! You step on this panel and the door opens for you!" She waited for the door to shut, hopped off, then hopped right back on so it'd open again.
The few people exiting stared at her like she was loopy. After testing a couple more times, Lunis swung through the door and wandered inside. Maria hopped on the panel once but went inside right after.
Once they had all gotten through the entrance they got a good long look at the library's inner workings. Lunis was awestruck at the three tiers of flooring flooded with shelves upon shelves of books.
"WOW!" She exclaimed, making Joe Dark grimace like a bomb had dropped.
"Don't yell...!" He muttered through gritted teeth too little too late, for the people in the foyer were looking at them funny.
Now thoroughly embarrassed and wanting to die, he rolled up to Lunis' face and told her bluntly, "You need to be quiet in a library, got that?"
"Ooooh, sorry..." She sheepishly poked a finger over her mouth and hushed herself. Joe Dark pulled back with a sigh and brushed her off.
"Well...I'm going to go look around!" Lunis murmured and then took right off like a kid unleashed upon an unlucky new candy store.
"I'm going to check out the science section, what about you Joe?" Riku said next.
"I want to catch up on what I've missed over the last few years. Maybe if I scrounge up a few newspapers to start off with..."
"Good luck with that then. Any time we should meet up...?"
"Nah who cares. Maybe if we get hungry..." Joe Dark rolled his hand around and muttered, "Try not to get lost."
Riku tapped the side of his head, "Just exert a little power if we need to meet up."
"Ah, right. Later then." With that Riku was off, leaving Joe Dark to tend to the needs of the wandering eyed duo.
"Alright you two, you're sticking with me. What're looking for?"
Maria gave the first response, "Do they have stories about space cowboys here?"
"You can find plenty about space, and plenty about cowboys...Might be hard to find one with them combined," Joe Dark suggested, "There IS a catalog you can look this stuff up in. I'll show you how to use it."
"Ok Uncle Joe." She said with a nod and smile.
He felt the hands of time clawing wrinkles into his face, "I'm too damn young to be called that, goddamn it Mew..."
He huffed a sigh while looking at Alura, "And you?"
"I...don't know." Was about what he expected.
"Nothing I can do about that..." Joe Dark rolled his hand around and gave the best suggestion he could think of, "Just look around and see what catches your interest. But stick close to us, or some creep might try something."
"I'll punch any bad men in the face!" Hollered Maria, boxing against the air.
"Heh, that'd be funny to watch..." He murmured.
The three of them headed down the stairs and into the first floor, where all the computers lied. Fortunately there were plenty open for them to use. He sat on one and had Maria join him at the other. She made a big leap onto the chair and caused it to spin around.
"Alright so to use a catalog..." He hovered over the keyboard when he saw Maria spinning on the chair from out the corner of his eye. She went clockwise, then counterclockwise twice. Then she hit the ground with her feet and spun around quite a few times clockwise.
He glared at her and as the chair slowed down, she hung her head and pouted.
"...Anyways." He focused back on the computer.
Alura found her interests wandering away from the computers and towards a metal shelf containing a bunch of different thin books. They all had pictures and a bunch of words all over them. "65 tips to a thinner waist!", "How to grow your plants even in the winter!", "7 secrets to making your man purr!", "World-Renowned Actor Caroline Bismuth might be dying?!"
She felt dizzy looking at them all...
"Joe Dark..." She plucked the last one she saw off the shelf and faced him, holding it before her face, "This person's dying, we should go help them."
He looked over the chair with a gaping look of shock on his face, "Ooooh, you found the magazine section."
"Maga...zine?"
"They're like...mmm, I guess you can call them books, except these are published once a month and tend to focus on a single thing," He waved his hand out and then turned back to the computer, "Don't read National Inquirer though, they lie about everything."
Alura flipped the magazine around and stared at all the dire sounding words on the front page, "But this sounds urgent...'Asteroid set to hit the moon in two months...'"
"That's a lie Alura. Magazines print lies sometimes." He said in a dry tone.
"I see..." She stared at the magazine some more, "People spend five dollars just to read lies?"
"Its an easy business when your customers are suckers..."
"That doesn't sound nice."
"Welcome to news Alura." After that Joe Dark seemed more focused on helping Maria.
Alura placed the lying magazine back where she found it and tried looking for a more honest one. She wandered along to the end of the shelf and there a peculiar magazine caught her eye.
It was called "Black Rose Essence", and on the front cover was a woman leaning back atop a floor covered in rose petals. But she was almost naked, like how most of the girls were at the beach. Yet, there was something different about her swimsuit...It was black, and had frills like on her old dress. She had a hand over the center of her underwear, and another arm resting behind her head. Her chest spheres, while not as big as Lunis', still seemed to protrude quite far. Her lips were a shiny purple shade, and there was black on her eyelids, and a light shade of red on her cheeks. Most of her hair also covered her right eye.
"Become the sexiest you you can be." It said at the bottom.
"Sexy...?" Alura picked the magazine off and hovered it before her face. She stared all over this woman's body and felt her heart race, while her breathing got heavier.
"Mmmm..." She clutched the magazine to her chest and ran back over to Joe Dark.
"J-Joe Dark." She called out, feeling a little tired now.
"What now?" He turned his chair around.
"What does it mean to be...sexy?"
His eyes began to change and then widened all the way when she pointed the front cover at him. He spun right around and clasped his right hand on the arm of the chair.
"Jesus...! Alura where did..." He grit his teeth and swung the back of his hand at her, "G-Go put that back where you found it...!"
"Huh?" She murmured and stared down at the cover some more. Why did Joe Dark react like that? Is this...a bad thing to be looking at? Is it bad to be sexy?
"...I need to learn more." She clasped the magazine to her chest and wandered around a bit. There were no open computers...Which was bad. That was her only plan of learning what "sexy" means.
"Mmmm..." She wandered around some more, ending up close to where she started.
"Excuse me," A voice called out to her, from a man with a small beard standing behind a thick piece of wood, "Are you lost?"
"Lost." Alura repeated quietly, remembering what Joe Dark had told her. That word could mean not knowing where you're going, or having trouble figuring something out.
She looked the man in the eyes and said, "Yes. I'm lost. Can you help?"
"Sure. What's the name of your parents?" He asked, reaching for the phone.
"Dracula and...ummm..." Her mother's name was a blank in her mind.
Yet it didn't matter, the man stared down at her with one of those blank expressions and said, "If you want my help finding your parents, I need a serious answer."
"...Oh!" Alura perked up after a long pause, and realized what the man meant, "I know where I'm going, but I'm having trouble figuring something out."
"Aaah I see. Well don't worry," The man kindly gestured up to the sign above him that said 'Customer Service', "I'm here to answer all questions."
Alura laid the magazine down in front of the man and remarked, "What does it mean to be sexy?"
The man's face turned pale and he coughed into his fist. He laid a hand over the magazine, leaned in and murmured, "I...I don't think you're old enough to be reading this."
"16 is too young?" Alura said, tilting her head.
"...You're 16." The man said.
"Yes." Alura stated plainly.
"...A-Am I being pranked?" He rose and looked around with a chuckle, "Is this part of a show? Are your parents nearby filming me?"
He laughed some more as Alura slid the magazine back into her possession, and wandered away from the man getting louder.
"Come on, show yourselves! I won't be part of another one of these prank shows! You hear me?! JED?!"
Alura stared at the magazine and felt...empty inside. She hadn't found out what being "sexy" means, besides the word making people uncomfortable.
Yet, when she looks at this woman, she feels warm, and fuzzy...and odd, like with Lunis. This black-haired woman's body held an incredible power over men and women.
I need to learn more about the power of sexiness... She wandered back to the magazines, where the one she had became part of a slowly growing stack.
Meanwhile, Riku was combing the science section top-to-bottom.
"Chemicals, astrology..." His eyes perked up with interest, "Here we go, the nature books."
He pulled out a book titled "Green Thumbers: How to Become One with your Plants" and flipped it open, scanning the first few pages and nodding approvingly.
"Perfect. This'll help with my training..." He tucked that under his arm pit and backed up to the astrology section, "Now lets see what they got on Suns..."
"Riku...!" He heard whispered from the left. A quick turn saw him looking at Lunis peeking out from around the corner.
She pulled herself around with a book squeezed tightly under her chest and a big grin on her face, "I found this really great book!"
"What is it?" Riku watched the slow, antsy unveiling with growing interest...and then was taken completely aback when it was revealed to be none other than "The Very Hungry Catepillar" a children's classic.
He went stiff with silence as she flipped the book around and held it out in both arms, "I read through it a couple times already and love it!"
She squeezed the book up to her chest. Riku's jaw dropped but he shut it right back up, and looked her in the eyes, "W-What do you like about it?"
Well, She closed her eyes and smiled big, "Its a story about a character who worked hard to achieve what he wanted out of life, and when he did...He was happy. Satisfied. Its a reeeeeally inspiring story Riku!"
Riku's eyes widened in a vacant stare and he dropped one hand on his hip, "Everyone interprets things differently. I guess...even grown-ups can look at childrens' book and find a deeper meaning to them."
"So do you plan on getting it?" He asked.
"Yeah! I want to read it some more!" And I'm going to find some more books in that section. "See you later Riku!" She skipped off, missing the smile plastered on Riku's face.
He flinched and turned towards the books with his smile wobbling, "L-Lets see...'The Light of our Stars: The Sun and Its Effect on Us'..."
Back with Joe Dark, he's been forced to follow Maria on her search for cowboy tales. And sadly, his hunt for newspapers has proven fruitless.
"Guess I'll have to look elsewhere...If only Mew didn't hog the TV all the time..." He watched as Maria bent down in the current aisle and seemed to have found something she liked.
"...I guess I could find something to read myself." He turned to the books and thumbs through them individually. Maybe something fictional would do. Something...a little more grounded than his usual dealings with the unknown.
He pulled back on one of the books and saw someone peering through on the other side. They had a certain spiky brown hairstyle, and a certain black shirt with flame on it. But they wore sunglasses, and a clip-on mustache.
"..."
"..."
The person wiggled their nose and slowly raised a single issue comic book in front of their face.
"..." Joe Dark grabbed the book and decided he'd read it.
"Hmmm...! Hmmmmmmm!" Maria hummed an obvious cry of help and he bent down to see what he could do.
"What's the matter?"
"I don't know what to choose..."
He saw a line of books she was pointing at, all of them dealing with Westerns.
"Well I don't fucking know either!" He briefly widened his eyes.
"PSSSSSST!" Came a hiss from the other side of the shelf. As he looked he saw a book getting nudged out of the shelf and went to pick it out.
There was an obvious female cowboy lasso'ing aliens while riding a metallic rocket horse on the cover. "Captain Clementine in: Rodeo at Ranger Nebula." It was, by some miracle, exactly what Maria was looking for.
"...Here." He handed it over to her and her eyes lit up.
She took it in her hands and nodded her approval, "Thank you Uncle Dark!"
He quickly tried to peek through the shelves and the "mystery" man gave a thumbs-up.
Sometime later the group decided to meet up at the foyer. Joe Dark had the one book he found. Lunis had about a dozen children's books and young adult novels. Maria got a couple more cowboy stories and two movies. Riku got one big book for each element, and then one for the sun. Alura, however, had an impressively tall stack of books and magazines that covered her face and looked close to burying her alive.
"Haaa, Alura..." Joe Dark put his book on the stack and then carried half of it himself, allowing her eyes to look over.
"Joe Dark, I found a lot to read." She said with some mild pride in her expression.
I can see that, He stared at all the books and thought, "Will she even be able to read them all?"
"Alura you got so many books," Lunis was in awe, "Will you be able to afford them all?"
Joe Dark eyed her funny and muttered, "You don't buy books. You're borrowing this for a period of time. You can get as many as you want too."
"YOU CAN?!" She exclaimed like a restraint had been lifted off her morals.
"SHHHH!" Went a librarian, causing Lunis to squirm downward.
She smiled and murmured, "I should go get more books then...!"
"No!" He remarked, "This place is open every day 9-5. You'll always be able to come back."
"You sound pretty tired Joe." Riku remarked.
"I had a very...draining encounter in the fictional section."
"Then we should get some ice cream, so you can feel better!" Maria suggested.
"I did say we'd get that..." Joe Dark then realized, "Oh crap...!"
"What?" Riku noted the distress on his face.
"We can't leave with these books without a library card."
"Oh." Riku seemed to know what he was worried about.
"What's the problem?" Asked Lunis.
"A library card lets you check out as many books as you want," Joe Dark stifled Lunis' excitement by telling her, "But it requires you to put your name on it. First...AND last."
"That won't be a problem for me and Maria anyways. But you..." Riku looked at Joe Dark.
"I'm supposed to be a dead man." Joe Dark closed his eyes and thought of an idea, "We can make this work, follow me."
They went to the checkout and explained their need for library cards. Riku and Maria got theirs first, then Lunis did hers, but got a couple odd glares for her last name. Then Joe Dark stepped up and tried to remain calm.
"What is your name sir?" The front lady asked.
"Joseph Whiter," He said, swallowing all sense of hesitation inside him as he placed down the stack of literary he got off Alura, "I'll be getting all these..."
He looked back and gestured to Alura, "Then we don't have to worry about her name."
"Joseph...Whiter," The woman tapped on her keyboard and a card popped out of the printer a few seconds later, "Here you go, enjoy your card."
He took the card in hand and let the lady scan all the books, putting them in a convenient, easy to hold bag. With everything settled it was time to depart. Then, as promised, Maria got her ice cream cone.
All that was left was to sneak into another alley, and use a dark rift to return home. A short trip, maybe, but it felt like a very important step forward for all of them.
Joe Dark knocked on the front door and heard some stumbling behind it. Then Mew rushed over and swung it open, a bit of hair stuck on his upper lip.
"H-Hey guys, back so soon?" He said with a smile.
"Mmm hmm!" Maria took the lead and showed off all the stuff she got.
"I see you're satisfied Maria." Mew remarked.
"Yep! I want to go back some time," Maria then waved her hand up and giggled, "Papa you got something funny on your face."
Mew swiped the hair off his lip and hastily remarked, "I tripped and fell on the carpet. No big deal."
He bent down and tickled her bottom lip, "Look at you, you got ice cream on your face."
Once he cleaned that off she merrily dashed into her room to drop the books off and Mew looked to Riku and Lunis, "Hey stay a while, I'm making some hard-boiled eggs for lunch."
"Wish we could but Solaris'll get grumpy if we're gone too long." Said Riku.
"You know how he is..." Lunis sighed.
"Fair. See you later you two, thanks for dropping by." He waved them off and Lunis used her powers to send them back to the moon.
Meanwhile Alura helped carry the two bags of magazines in, catching Mew's eye immediately, 'You two got a lot of books...Sheesh, am I gonna have to worry about a bill from the library?"
"Those are all Alura's." Joe Dark answered.
"Ah I see..." Mew crossed his arms and then nudged his head at him to whisper, "Hey, I know I said some things but seriously...Thanks for taking Maria out today."
"As her 'Uncle', I suppose I had to..."
"Oh shit she called you that?" Mew said, forcing a snicker in, "I have GOT to hear that for myself..."
"By the way," Joe Dark turned to him with a wily smile, "You ought to know that some mysterious 'stranger' was watching us in the library. He had sunglasses and a...very weird mustache."
Mew rubbed his chin and shrugged, "I'm sure he was a harmless...handsome fellow."
"...So", Joe Dark looked him straight in the eyes and whispered, "Captain Clementine eh...?"
Mew waved his hand out from his face and murmured, "I-I don't know what you're talking about."
"Right..." Joe Dark smiled slightly.
Mew's eyes jerked his way with a mischievous touch to them, "Heheh...So, Joseph Whiter eh?"
Joe Dark closed his eyes and squirmed, "I-I don't know what you're talking about."
"Awwww...come here brother." Mew tried to go for a hug and Joe Dark shoved him with all the weight of a feather.
"Hehehe...!" Mew laid his hands behind his head and turned around, where Maria ran up to them carrying a sole DVD.
"Papa I got this movie for us to watch together."
"You...you did?" He took the DVD, it was a copy of "Manic Martian Invasion" Probably wouldn't be very good. Reeks of B-tier cheese. Didn't matter. It was the thought that counted.
She flashed him a smile, and he patted her on the head. He then stood up and said, "Joe, movie night?"
"Yeah I suppose," Joe Dark gave a shrug and then wandered towards his room, "I'll tell Alura. Make sure we have some popcorn."
"Right!" Mew smacked his palm and did a 180 out the door, "I'll go grow some corn right now! Come on Maria I'll show you how its done."
"Ok!" She eagerly sprinted out the door.
And thus, a comfy night was secured for them in front of the old TV. All thanks to the power of the library, and a little less stubbornness on Mew's part...
Next Time: Welcome to the Z-Z-Zoo!
