I own Aubrey and this plot line. NOW READ AND REVIEW, MY MINIONS! MUAHAHAHAHAHA!
Erm… yeah… sorry about that…
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Chapter 3New body, new powers, new…parents!
It was now November first. I was sitting in my old bedroom in Skellington Manor, looking in a mirror. Whatever Death had done, I liked it.
My eyes were now blood red instead of the bright pinkish-red they had been. My canines were longer than they had been, but the sun wasn't burning me, and I didn't have a sudden craving for blood, so I wasn't a vampire. My fingers now ended in claws, which were very sharp; I'd tested them on the wall earlier by carving out 'hi' with a few quick scratches.
My clothes had changed too. I was wearing a black top that looked suspiciously like the top half of my old ghost costume from last time I was here, only it had one of the sleeves attached to it and the other sleeve/glove thing wasn't even there. The end of the sleeve and hem of the shirt were still ragged and cut up looking though, so… Black jeans and slipper-like shoes finished the outfit, along with Lock's pendant.
But the biggest change was the wings.
A pair of black angel wings that were most definitely real, with a span that was wider than I was tall, had attached to my back. At the moment, they were folded up so they took up a lot less room. The weird thing was, they felt so natural to me that I fell asleep in five minutes once I'd gotten in my bed.
I hadn't tried flying yet.
A knock on the door pulled me away from the mirror, and Zero flew through the wood, floating up to lick my face. The door opened. "You know, people may start to think you're vain or something if you don't stop staring at your reflection." Shock said, sitting on my bed.
I shoved the ghost dog off of me. "I can't help it. It's kind of a drastic change." I flared my wings a bit for emphasis.
"I get it, I get it." She grumbled. All three of my friends had changed a lot since I'd been gone. Shock's wild black hair was even thicker and wilder now, and she'd grown a couple of inches. Puberty had been a lot kinder to her than it had me, 'cause she had more curves in more places. Her costume had ragged black stitches across it, and she was wearing combat boots over her black tights. "Have you tried to do any magic yet?"
I rolled my eyes. "Please. You remember last time I was here. I couldn't summon a fly, let alone do any actual magic."
"Yeah, but you were alive then." Shock paused to think. "Try this: knirhs sgniw."
"What's it gonna do?" I asked warily.
"Just look in the mirror and try it." She ordered.
I sighed and looked back at the mirror. "I better not blow up or something… Knirhs sgniw." I gasped as my wings shrunk down on my back until they were the size of a small bird's. "Cool!"
Shock grinned. "Can't do magic my ass! The reversal spell is wrog sgniw." I repeated her, and the wings grew back to their normal size. "That's just basic stuff. You could probably make them vanish, but I don't know the spell for that."
"S'okay, this is cool! Wonder if I can set things on fire…"
She rolled her eyes and shoved me. "No way, we've already got one pyromaniac in the house, we don't need another one, especially when they're dating."
I pushed her back. "Don't you shove me!"
"I'll shove you all I want!"
"Ow! You'll pay for that…"
"Ooh, cat fight!" Both of us looked at the door to see Lock and Barrel standing there.
"Breakfast is ready." Lock said, smirking. Both of us stood up and smoothed our costumes back down. I folded my wings as flat as I could, I didn't want to bother with the spell. Zero followed us down the stairs, barking and yipping happily.
As soon as we entered the kitchen, the dog went over and started attacking Jak with kisses, leaving us alone for the moment. "Morning." Sally said.
I looked at the clock. It read eleven thirty. "More like afternoon." I sat down as Sally sat a plate down on the table.
"PANCAKES!" Barrel yelled, grabbing six of them. Barrel was now about an inch taller than me, which was kind of sad, because he'd been about two inches shorter than me last year. His yellow-green hair was now more like green with yellow highlights. He, according to what all three of them had caught me up on last night, was on the freshman football team, though I couldn't remember for the life of me what position he played.
"Save some for the rest of us, will ya'?" Lock muttered, grabbing a couple. Lock's bright red hair wasn't curled up in the front like it used to be, but instead just spiked up a little. He'd obviously gotten it cut to show off the blood red horns that had grown on his forehead. Lock was still almost three inches taller than me, which kind of made me mad, but I'd live with it. His fangs, which showed when he smiled, were sharper than I remembered, but that may have been because one of Lock's actual smiles were pretty hard to come by back when I first met him.
Jack and Sally looked the same as I remembered. There wasn't really much they could change; Sally's a rag doll, and Jack's a skeleton. Sally could cut her hair or something, but she looked fine like she was.
"Aubrey, I've
enrolled you back in the High School, so you'll be starting again
next Monday."
Barrel grinned. "Oh yeah, we've still got the
entire week off!"
I laughed and finished my pancakes. "That's fine with me, otherwise I'd be sitting around here all day getting bored."
The rest of breakfast was… interesting. Barrel grabbed the last of the pancakes before Lock could, Lock set Barrel on fire, and when Barrel tried to put it out, he ended up soaking everyone and everything in the kitchen… except himself. Shock just poured her milk over his head and ended it.
And after everyone had dried off (again, courtesy of Shock) and the kitchen was clean, the four of us bolted. "You feel okay Aubrey?" Lock asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine, but I feel weird." I told him. "I mean, I'm dead."
Shock shrugged. "It's reasonable. So, what happened?"
"I got hit by a car."
"What were you doing, crossing the street?"
"No, I…" I grimaced. "I jumped in front of it."
"WHAT!" Lock yelled.
I winced. "It was a really bad decision, okay? I wasn't thinking straight 'cause I'd been sick and sleep deprived for the last week."
"Okay, it was a bad idea." Barrel muttered. "But getting hit by a car isn't fatal a lot of the time. How fast were they going?"
"Fast. Way above the speed limit." I muttered. "It hit me, I flew back into a tree, and…" I turned away and pulled my top up above my stomach. There was a hole going through straight through where my diaphragm was.
"And apparently got skewered." Shock said, looking at the hole.
"Cool! Does it go all the way through?" Barrel asked. The three of us stared at him. "Uh, never mind."
"Okay, so it wasn't the car." I muttered, pulling my shirt back down. "Well, now that we've figured that out, who wants to go do something fun?"
XXX
Aubrey's idea of 'something fun' include stealing the mayor's hat, stuffing a frog in it, then filling the rest of it with mud. I knew there was another reason I loved this girl! "I can't see Lock!" Barrel hissed. I looked over. A particularly thick tree branch was in his way.
Shock reached down and grabbed the back of his shirt, pulling him up on the branch next to her. "Now shush!" She hissed.
Aubrey giggled as I put my arm around her. "Here he comes!"
The mayor, hatless, walked into the town square, his upset face facing forward. When he spotted his hat, his head spun to the happy face and he flipped the upside down hat over to put it on his head. All the mud, and the frog, fell out all over his cone-shaped head.
All four of us were covering our mouths, trying not to laugh. If we did, we'd get caught. Then the frog, which was still sitting on the mayor's head, let out an indignant ribbit. We couldn't hold it in any longer.
We jumped out of the tree and broke into a run toward the woods, laughing our heads off. "Did… did you see his face?" Shock cackled. Barrel nodded, his hands on his knees for support.
"Th-that stupid frog! If it hadn't… hadn't…" Aubrey couldn't finish her sentence. She leaned up against me, holding her sides.
"Just… be glad that... you don't have… have to breath…" I told her, gasping for the air to form words.
After we'd all calmed down, which took longer than it should have, because Barrel started imitating the Mayor, we started back toward town.
Once I'd taken a quick look around and seen that the coast was clear, we ran back to Skellington Manor. Jack and Sally were sitting in the living room. We all blanched. "Aubrey, Sally and I need to talk to you." Jack said, surprisingly calm. Maybe we weren't in trouble…
"Okay." She followed after them into the kitchen.
XXX
"What is it?" I asked sitting down at the table. There was still a possibility of me being in trouble for the Mayor's hat…
Sally started first. "Well, Aubrey, Jack and I wanted to know if you would be all right with the idea of us adopting you."
That took a moment to sink in. "Wait… you mean, as in, becoming my parents?" I asked.
Jack nodded. "We had planned on doing this last time you were here, but with the… circumstances…"
I paused, looking at the paper Sally had given me. "Can I ask you guy something first?"
"Of course." Sally said.
"Um… do you guys mind if I call you mom and dad?" The smiles on their faces answered for me, and I signed the paper as neatly as I could:
Aubrey Skellington--
SC: See? I did all three things that the title said! Yeah, and Aubrey's signature is supposed to be in Lucida Handwriting size 16, but it might not be, so if it isn't, copy and paste it and see what it looks like. R&R!
Ja ne
SC