Chapter Eleven: Training Has Begun
Tiffany and I never found a place that night. We ended up sleeping under Samos's Tree of Life with nothing but a rock as a pillow and some torn cloth we found on the street. During the day Haven City seems like the Wasteland itself, but during the night, it can get pretty damn cold no matter what part you're in. Although Tiffany didn't have much trouble getting to sleep, I lie awake all night thinking of ways to kill Vegar...
Hmmm, this is a tough one. Choices. Maybe if a set him under a huge rock and flipped it over... No, I wouldn't be able to keep his head. Maybe I could slice him to pieces with my claws! Nah, too messy... Or I could just keep him as a slave...
Evil thoughts zoomed in and out of my head for the remaining hours of the night. Since it was two in the morning, it wasn't long before Samos would show up. I shook my best friend as gently as I could. "Tiff, I know it's early, but we've gotta' go so we don't get caught! I don't want to be embarrassed!" She mumbled something that was too slurred beyond translation. Finally she got tired of me begging her to wake up and slapped my hand away. "It's freakin' three o'clock, Jordan! You don't wake up for seven more hours!"
"I know, I know. But it's just so hard to sleep in this city. This is so weird, it's like I've lived here my whole life with this instinct of knowing whether or not to sleep." She shook her head and lay back down. Unable to go back to sleep, we talked some more.
"Tiff, how's Mom?"
"Still a reck. She told me about that first time you called. Why did you leave?" I thought about it. Whydid I leave?
"I don't know. I guess I just needed some adventure, ya' know? It's like I was so desperate to have fun that I just took off.How oftendoes an opprotunity like this come along. I'll tell ya', never. You would've done it if Harry Potter had come along!" And it was true. She wouldn't even think twice about it if Harry and Ron were standing on her doorstep. Tiffany smiled. "Yeah, I'd like that." I just rolled my eyes, stood, and stretched. "Well, we'd better get out of here before-"
"Too late."
"Damn!" Sure enough, there was Samos about ten feet in front of us. Tiffany stood beside me and stretched out her arms and legs. "Wow, you got tall!" She stopped stretching and decided to play funny. "Wow, you got deformed!" I laughed half-heartedly. Well, at least it doesn't bother her... Indeed Tiffany changed a lot since I had left. Her hair was about the same length as when I cut my own hair. Mine had grown out a little since then. Like I had said, she had grown about and inch.
"Um, if you two don't mind..." Samos stepped between us. "Oh, sorry." We left the forest into the Metal Head camp. Last night was a living hell coming through this part. I couldn't find a cruiser to drive like last time, so we wound up walking. Luckily, we only encountered one small Metal Head. It looked just like the one I had killed back at the nest. When I picked it up, it started squealing. Tiffany put her hands up to her ears. "What are you doing!"
"Killing it."
"It looks like you're about to-" I bit down on the monsters neck where Jak had said. When I pulled out its skull, I turned to Tiff, who looked like she was about to throw up. "What?"
"Let's just keep moving..."
But the next morning was different. Since Samos couldn't possibly have walked all the way here, he must've driven a cruiser. And how right I was... It was really fancy, so I knew I would get in trouble for taking it. As soon as I climbed in, Tiffany pulled me out. Even though I had Dark Powers, she was still a lot bigger than me. In the sixth grade, Tiff was like my body guard.As a matter offact, she's still my body guard.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Relax, I've done this before..." Tiffany just stood there, froze. She knew I wasn't the same anymore, but this one cut deep. "How many times?"
"Let's see, the first time I tried, I got arrested, and they turned me into the fine piece of work you see before you. The next time I didn't get caught."
"Jordan!"
"What?" It'd been a long time since Tiffany and I had fought. I personally thought that I had forgotten how to argue with her. Then I remembered the most important rule: Tiffany ALWAYS wins...
"Come on! Live a little! It told you this was the way things work in this place!"
"Yeah, but that's not the way you work!" Oh, please don't piss me off! Bad things happen when I'm pissed off!
"Listen, you just need a little training, that's all. I'm gonna' make you the roughest, toughest citizen around! Besides Jak and me, of course..."
"What makes you think you're so tough?"
"The fact that I can do this!" I drew back my hand hit a rather deformed tree. It burst into a million pieces, leaving Tiffany speechless. "Now who's the body guard?"
"Y-you are?"
"Yup! I am the devil's child, so watch out!" Once she recovered from her shock, we climbed into the cruiser and started to actas if I were giving her a driving lesson. "Now, you just put this hand here...Good! Now about this one, you put that one on the steering wheel." When all of her hands were in place, she was ready to drive. "Jordan."
"Yeah?"
"Do you really know how to drive one of these things expertly?"
"...That's the fun of it!"
"Jordan!"
"Just do it!" I excited the cruiser just as Samosemerged fromthe forest. "What's all the commo-MY CRUISER! Jordan, you get back here!" He was too late. I made Tiffany switch seats with me until we got a safe distance from the old Green Sage. We made it to the Haven City Bazarre before I decided that the coast was clear. "Now are you ready for your lesson?"
"I guess so," she mumbled. "Seeing as you won't let me do anything else until I learn how to be rough." We switched seats again and she put her hands in the same places as instructed. "Now, all you have to do isdrive really really fast!"
"Jordan! Be serious!"
"I am! That's how Jak does it!"
"Why don't we get a lesson from him instead?"
"Okay, whatever floats your boat." So instead of taking a lesson from me, we ended upgoing to Jak. Before going to the Naughty Ottsel, we switched cruisers so nobody would catch us but Samos. We pulled up in a slightly smaller cruiser just as Jak was leaving. "Jak, wait!" called Tiffany. He stopped and raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing driving one of those?"
"We were wondering if you could give Tiff a lesson..." He waited a moment before agreeing. "Okay, move over." I jumped out and left Tiffany in the driver's seat with Jak.
"Okay," he began. "Now all you have to do is drive really really fast!"She slammed her head on the steering wheel. "I'm living with idiotic dare-devils!" Jak turned to me, confused by her strange behavior. "Was it something I said?"
