(insert disclaimer here)
Monkey see, Monkey do
Part I: The Long Trip Home
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Uncle CHRISTOPHER? Oh, dear. I don't – this is really exhausting me. I mean, whooo! That one's a doozy.
What's that saying, you know, watch out for that first step it's a –
No! Oh no… Watch out!
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CHAPTER 7: Brightly Flashing Lights May Be a Bad Sign
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Ryo stared mournfully at the closed doors. Yuli tugged futilely on the door handle. Cye raged.
"How could this happen? They were open then minutes ago! We were here!"
Ryo sighed, eyes running across the storefronts and their dark interiors. The strip mall was uniformly closed, Cye's cell phone was out of batteries, and there wasn't any way in sight to call for help.
"Jeez, you guys are screwed."
Cye jumped, Ryo blinked, and Yuli froze with one foot raised to kick at the glass door. "Chou!" Yuli supplied helpfully.
Chou sniffed and shoved his hands into the pockets of a painfully orange raincoat. He swallowed, blushing slightly. "Uh…I live kinda close…um…you could come over, if you wanna," he said, staring self-consciously at the ground.
Cye glanced at Ryo. Ryo shrugged. There was a pause as Yuli stared at them both hopefully.
Then Ryo swung one arm out towards the dark and rainy parking lot, surrendering the stage with one gallant gesture. "Lead the way, kid," he said with a grin.
~~~~
"Minako," Sage snarled from the passenger seat. Kento jumped a bit at that, wondering who the hell she was that Mr. Cold and Icy was getting so worked up.
Come to think of it, she had known Sage when he'd talked to her. Kento wondered if he should know her? He watched the dark haired girl carefully as she strode up to the side of the van and wrenched the door open. Without hesitation she climbed in, closed the door on the storm, and sitting primly regarded Kento without a word.
Kento twisted around in the driver's seat to stare at her. She stared back unabashed.
"Don't you have something you should be doing?" Sage asked nastily. His gaze never wavered from quickly working windshield wipers and the pouring rain while his voice was at best frigid if not murderous.
Minako didn't even glance his way, but Kento was certain he saw her eye twitch. The beginnings of a headache were starting to creep in behind his eyes.
"Sorry," she apologized to Kento, not to Sage, "I was wondering, could I have a ride?"
Sage snorted, slouching slightly in studied indifference.
Minako's face went from pale to scarlet faster than Kento would have thought possible. He could hear Minako's teeth grinding. "Or," she asked with painful sweetness, "do you only transport assholes?"
Kento's jaw dropped. "Um…I'm sorry, do I know you?" he managed finally.
Now Minako looked surprised. In the midst of staring stubbornly out the window, Sage froze. His head jerked around to give Kento a look like a rabbit frozen by headlights. Kento was stuck looking from one to the other, clueless. Then Minako smiled, a slow feral smile as her face faded back to its normal color.
"Oh, didn't you know?" she asked pleasantly. "He's my boyfriend."
It was a simple enough statement. For a moment Kento stared, then as Sage watched in horror, he started shake, biting his lip in a futile effort at self-control. A wordless guffaw broke free. Soon he was laughing uproariously like someone who'd never heard a joke before in his life.
Minako loved it.
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"Sekhmet…" Kayura warned. He ignored her, dragging the small woman behind him as they fled through the crowds that littered the ground below the steel skyscrapers.
When he failed to respond she narrowed her eyes. She waited for three patient seconds before simply leaning back with her entire weight and refusing to move her legs. Sekhmet jerked backwards as she suddenly became a lead weight dragging him down. His death grip on her elbow nearly ripped her arm from its socket.
He rounded on her furiously. "What?" he snapped.
She regarded him calmly before glancing thoughtfully back the way they had come. Then she looked back at him with eyes like steel.
"Uncle Christopher?" she demanded with no small amount of irritation.
In response, Sekhmet snarled, tightened his grip, and whirled to drag her through the crowds once more.
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Rain pounded against body and pavement alike. It hadn't seemed possible, but the rain had gotten worse. Yuli trudged on alongside Cye, huddled in the shadow of a larger body. Ryo's dejected and utterly soaked form followed after while Chou, in his glaringly bright orange raincoat, led the way. Above them, the rain and the thick clouds combined to form a threatening almost-darkness.
They were walking along the road that passed by the strip mall and the farmers market, moving farther away from civilization into a stretch where the road was surrounded only by trees and mud. Up ahead, the road took a sharp turn around which trees and storm made it impossible to see what was coming. Cye eyed it warily, hesitant to let four pedestrians just jog around such an effective blind.
Then Chou stopped. Pointing one finger imperiously across the street, he shouted over the storm, "That's a shortcut! We're going through there!"
Cye stared skeptically at the darkness in between the trees. "There?" he repeated loudly.
But Chou was already dashing across the road without so much as a glance for traffic. Cye blanched. Thank god the road really was deserted. He leapt for Yuli when the boy made as if to follow. Clamping his arms around him, Cye pulled him back with a jerk.
"Don't even – think – about it!" he warned dangerously. He saw that Ryo was also reaching out towards Yuli and would have pulled him back in Cye had not. For the moment, his confidence in Ryo as a responsible guardian was…mildly restored. Thunder crashed as lighting lit up the sky.
Glancing both ways with narrowed, hawk-like eyes, Cye locked his hand on Yuli's and walked them both across the street. Ryo followed at a more leisurely pace, glancing about with curious blue eyes and not having nearly enough caution on the wide expanse of pavement with so little visibility.
Chou was waiting on the other side, ankle deep in mud and not seeming to notice or care. Cye winced as he stepped in after him.
"Yick," Yuli said, nose wrinkling. Cye could barely hear him with the rain drumming in his ears, but he emphatically agreed.
Ryo jogged the last few feet of the road to catch up with them. There still weren't any cars. As his foot stepped into the mud, Chou suddenly gave a cry of surprise and almost dashed back onto the road. Startled, Ryo lunged to the side to block him.
"Whoa! What's up?" Ryo asked, flinging his arms out to form a sort of temporary wall.
Chou pointed back at the road. "I dropped my dinosaur!" Ryo looked back and sure enough he could just make out a small something in the road that was about the right size for a small dinosaur toy. Ryo watched it for a moment. Then he took Chou by the shoulders and turned him around towards Cye.
"Okay," he said. "I'll go get it." Then he walked back into the road. Cye was okay with that, agreeing that Chou shouldn't be left to go get it himself. In fact, he approved completely. He was so okay with it that he even turned his back on Ryo to begin to look for a path through the trees, forgetting Ryo completely.
At first he put the buzzing in his head down to the ever-present roar of the pounding rain, but the dizziness he couldn't ignore. The minute he stopped searching the woods to consider it, it overwhelmed him. He felt like he was the rain, stuck inside each individual drop pounding against mud and tree and road. Around him thunder rumbled.
The feeling changed…
…he was drumming against metal…
…the beaten hood of an old truck…
…a reckless driver going much too fast…
… and coming up on a blind curve in the rain...
He recognized the feeling suddenly, what was pulling him in.
Torrent. A warning.
It hit him hard and he was too long in recovering. Everything seemed to pull at him as he tried to turn. The raincoat was too heavy and the mud too grasping. Even the air thickened to slow his progress.
…No…
Maybe it was just the unimaginable weight of his dread that didn't want to turn, didn't want him to see what he knew was about to happen – but slowly, much too slowly, he did turn.
Around the bend the fast falling drops suddenly lit up, looking like an impossible, solid block of oncoming rain.
No.
Headlights.
And Ryo was bent down in the middle of the road, oblivious, picking up a stupid, worthless toy.
No!
Cye screamed out, but the water was too loud and his voice was too soft. He was too slow – too useless – and yet he had to try –
"Ryo…!"
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Pain lanced through Sage's head with all the subtlety of the Spanish Inquisition catching him completely by surprise. He lurched forward with an agonized cry until the seat belt across his chest slammed him back. Green light blossomed behind his eyes, stilling the pain and rushing to bring calm back to his mind.
He slumped there in the seat with tears coming to his eyes as Kento's laughter faded into shock and even Minako failed to gloat.
Something was horribly, horribly wrong.
~~~~
Rowen leaned nonchalantly against the counter while the cashier rang up their dinner. He favored Mia with a brilliant smile. "Well that's what keeps ME up at night. How about you?"
Mia sighed, unimpressed. "I …I want there to be heroes. Melodramatic I guess, but it just seems so cruel that you fought and now everyone has forgotten. I can't – it just depresses me."
The cashier hid an inquisitive look with a flick of her short hair. She thought they were nuts.
Rowen turned his smile on her. "Lines for a play," he grinned.
The cashier gave them her weird ass look again, adding on a noncommittal shrug.
Mia sighed forlornly. Rowen heard her.
"Ah, don't tell me that got you depressed!" he said incredulously.
Mia smacked him.
It was Rowen's turn to sigh. "Look, I never wanted to be famous," he said. "This is my life the way I want it. I know that and it helps."
Mia nodded absently but didn't really reply.
"Mia?"
"No. No, you're right," Mia assured him. She made a sudden decision. "This is my life and it is the way I want it."
"Then I guess life is good!" Rowen gave her another irrepressible grin.
As she retrieved her change and they turned away from the cashier, Mia forced a smile but couldn't resist one last melancholy mutter. "Just promise that you'll help me remember that."
In response, Rowen impulsively swept her up into a crushing hug, making her gasp in surprise. For the first time that day, life felt like it might just be worth living. She laughed.
End Chapter 7.
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Ah heh…so…
Okay. FINE. I have a weakness for melodrama. Bite me.
Melee
Maryd:
Thankies again. Dais isn't doing anything even relevant to the plot at this point. Something about an ex-girlfriend or whatever.
As for Sage's dread, well…um…I think that was resolved nicely, don't you?