Chapter 14: The Start

Another day of working out, where all the adrenaline in my body is drained. Linda took me to the back of the house to teach me how to meditate and to stop my body from shaking. It was very difficult. Though during our meditation, she gave me long talks about how to focus your mind more than how your body feels. The way of letting your body know that the energy within us is stronger than it knows itself. There would be a thunderstorm one day and Yanni would love to come to me and play with my braid. Since my hair, to me, is so long now. Linda would tell me to wear some comfortable clothes and go outside to train with her. I thought she was crazy but she meant it. I even looked at Jack to make sure if she was being real or not and that face of his didn't tell me that Linda was joking. The face of no surprises anymore, stern look, and unforgiving. So I told Yanni I would be back and went outside. There was a huge storm and thunder crashing right next to us.

"Um Mrs. Rose, please tell me what are we doing today."

"We are going to sit on the grass and meditate."

"In the storm?!?"

"Yes."

I never liked the chance of lighting getting struck down on me or even next to me. But she looked at me dead in the eyes and I went walking outside in the rain with my head down. I pulled up my hood over my head and immediately felt the water seeping through my clothes. Linda was next to me and she sat down on the wet grass right away without complaints. I shrugged and sat down, holding my complaints because of how cold the ground is right now. Thunder crashed so loud next to me that it felt like a lightning strike was only a few meters away from me. "Calm down and focus on your energy inside you. Let the magic flow throughout your body." I was almost freezing at this point as my hoodie, pants, and shoes got all wet. The wind would blow harshly around my body. It was hard for me to stop shaking when my core body temperature started to drop. Another thunder strike happened and loud thunder sounds flooded my ears. I can barely hear what Linda was trying to tell me. I see her lips moving but no words were reaching my eardrums. If I don't want to catch a cold tonight I need to learn how to get my magic going. I focused as much as I could and I tried hard. I was able to stop myself from shaking and Linda knew I was getting somewhere. I bet she could sense some magic since Katy was able to do something similar before. But another lightning strike happened in front of me and hit a tree which caught on fire. It took me out of focus and I looked up to see the burning tree. Linda picked me up and we started to run back to the house.

We went back inside and Yanni was so nice to give us both towels for us to dry off. I took my hoodie off and hung it up to dry and then wrapped the towel around me. Linda was drying her hair as best as she could and going to her room to take a nice hot bath.

"What about the burning tree?" I asked Linda as she was about to disappear behind the door.

"Don't worry, I'm sure the heavy storm will take care of that."

Yanni looked at me and giggled, "Can I braid your hair?"

I checked my hair and saw that it did get a little messy when I tried to dry it with the towel. The hair tie at the end was already half off. It looked like a bowl of spaghetti was poured onto my head. So I told her, "Sure little girl. Let's sit next to the fireplace where it is warm and I can dry up."

She got all excited and ran to the fireplace screaming, "Yey!"

Yanni got all excited and started to run upstairs to get her comb plus a dry hair tie for me. While I saw her running everywhere in the house, I made myself some nice hot chocolate. I walked to the fireplace and folded my legs. Waiting for her to come downstairs as I take the towel and place it over my head. I drank the hot chocolate rather quickly since I wanted to be warm again. Yanni finally gets downstairs and she was just tall enough to see the top of my head from the way I was sitting. Yanni took the towel out of my head and started to comb my hair and tried to do my signature braid. It wasn't the best but she did try.

I was staring at the fire and Yanni excitedly yelled to get my attention, "How did I do? How did I do Mr. Shadow." She pulled up a mirror near my face and I checked it.

I looked at my braided hair and chuckled, "You did great Yanni." I patted her head and smiled.

Yanni screamed in excitement, "Yey!"

I knew it was a little off with some hair popping out. I kept it for the rest of the day just for her. I will fix it the next morning. I stared back at the fireplace and took a moment to think. After some time has passed, Mrs. Rose yells for her daughter.

Linda, "NINA! Come downstairs please."

Nina came from upstairs, "What is it, mom?"

"I need you to go to the store and buy some groceries. I got nothing in the fridge to cook for the family."

Nina whined, "But Mom, I wanted to go to the mall and buy some new clothes, but it is raining, dark, and cold outside."

"Go take Shadow with you and give him an umbrella. You can go to the mall after I get those groceries."

Nina exclaimed, "Why do I have to bring Shadow with me? That's so unfair."

Jack comes out of his office, "You are not allowed to go outside on your own at this age. It is very dangerous. Remember what I told you."

Nina sighed excruciatingly long, "Fiiiiiiiiiiine." She turned to me but I was still looking at the fire. "Come on Shadow, let's go."

I turned around and got up. As I begin to focus on Nina, she would be looking at me in anger.

"What?"

She said, "Come with me." I followed her and she seemed to have the car keys.

"Um, who's driving?" I asked.

"Me."

"But… aren't you… too young to drive."

"What, do you have a license?" Nina asked sarcastically.

"Yes, I do. I'll drive the car."

She sounded like today was just not her day, "Fine."

She threw me the car keys underhanded and switched sides. I got in the car and started the engine. Put the car in drive and away we go to the nearest grocery store. Nina was guiding me along the way since I was unfamiliar with the area. We got to the grocery store and as I scoped the area out. I even found out the mall wasn't far from the grocery store. We entered the grocery store and Nina took out a sheet of paper. I looked over, it had a list of all the groceries. Nina turned her back on me, showing that she was still upset. I just followed her and didn't say a word. Let her do the work she needs to do and if I find any snack, I will just buy it myself. I found a bubble gum packet so I bought it for a dollar and took one out. Started to go at the gum and try blowing bubbles up. When I got back to Nina, she seemed to get everything on the list. When she turned around I blew a bubble and popped in her face.

Nina rolled her eyes and leaned on one side, "You're kidding me, right?"

I asked, "What's wrong now?"

"Do you even know why you are here?"

"Because I drove you here."

"No, you wouldn't be here if you didn't have Katy's heart in you. I wouldn't have accepted my parents giving me the idea to take you. But in the past, Katy and I used to go together to get the groceries and do some shopping after. So now you are stuck with me."

Why was she telling me this? This didn't make me feel better at all. I stopped chewing my gum. She realized that it did so much damage to my self-esteem but she walked to the cashier to ring up all the items. She paid for everything and I carried everything to the car. We left the groceries in the car and went to the mall. The place was huge as we checked inside. At first, looking at it from the outside, it wasn't that impressive. But the mall stretches so far. I can't even see where the end is. When I got through the doors, beeps and conversations filled the air. A lot was going on at once. As I walked next to Nina, I was a bit more defensive than usual. Somewhat paranoid to the point where I took her arm and pulled her away from a group of guys that were walking toward us on the same path.

Nina snapped her arm out of my grip, "Get off me!" She shouted.

In a quick reply, I said, "Sorry."

"We are going to a women's store so you are not allowed to enter."

My face started to get a bit red and I pulled my head back. Though, I got curious, "Which women's store?"

"You really don't want to know." She answered me.

"Alright, fair enough," I replied.

She told me to wait here, to which I did. There was a stand that makes smoothies next to it so I ordered and paid to enjoy myself a bit. I threw out the gum and started to drink my favorite smoothie. Strawberry banana smoothie. If you mess this smoothie up for me, I will never buy from you again. I drank it and I found it to be okay. Next time I will let them know to add more coconut juice. As I walked next to the store, I sat next to the front door with my smoothie. Nina was walking out and it seemed like she was so happy that she forgot about me. I looked up to only see her in a collision course with some dude talking to his friend. It was too late for me to react and Nina collided with the guy. She fell on the ground with her bag of women's stuff on the floor. A piece of clothing spilled out of the bag which seemed to look like a new bra. My head quickly turned as I heard a phone smack screen first onto the floor. The stranger picked it up only to see his screen fully broken. As Nina was trying to put her stuff back in the bag. The guy got so angry and pulled Nina up on her feet aggressively.

"Watch where you are going you b-"

She yelps and eeks, "I'm sorry please put me down."

The guy's friend came out to say, "Oh I see you bought yourself something interesting in that bag."

"NO!"

"We got a fighter in our hands."

There were people everywhere looking. The scene only got bigger and bigger. I couldn't stand one bit of the situation that grew to be like this. I ran up to body slam the guy. "Back off!"

The guy flew a few meters back and the next guy could only see his best friend get annihilated. I puffed my chest to threaten him. He threw a punch at me and I avoided the attack to the side. I took my half-full smoothie and squeezed the cup. The entire smoothie from the inside went all over his face and trickling down his shirt . I raised it up higher to the top of his head to pour every last bit of it on his smooth, full-of-product, blond hair that he must praise about it a lot.

The crowd all yelled out, "OOOOH!" As they were reacting to the disrespect.

I turned to Nina to see if there was any damage, "What is it?"

"N-nothing. Let's get out of here."

"You don't want to buy anything anymore."

"No, come on. I have all these people looking at me now. I feel so uncomfortable."

I looked around and saw the crowd, "Yea good point, we should leave."

We got to the car, turned it on, and started to drive out. When we were going back home, our breathing was heavy. We got to the house looking like a mess. Well, Nina was the only one looking like a mess while I had my hoodie on hiding my face. But we were both still breathing heavily.

Linda yelled, "What happened to you two?"

"Mrs. Rose, sorry. I thought we might be followed."

"What happened though?"

Nina was about to burst into tears, "I bumped into someone and it caused him to get mad and yelled at me and exposed me and oh my God!~" She started to cry and walked to her mother to exchange hugs.

Jack, "Shadow, boy, were you with her?"

"Yes sir, I body-slammed one guy to remove his hands from her and drenched the other one with my smoothie."

Jack was confused, "Smoothie?"

"The details aren't so important." I looked away with an evil grin on my face.

"That's good that Shadow was there to stop the attack on my daughter. Go get yourself cleaned up Nina."

Nina nodded and grabbed her mother tight to go upstairs with her. I got to give her the benefit of the doubt since she really isn't trained as a fighter or isn't as tough as Katy. She's just a normal girl and experiencing that wasn't normal for her. I looked at Jack as he held a calm expression and I went upstairs to my room to relax for a bit. I laid down on the bed hearing the cries from Nina screaming from a closed bedroom. I looked at my phone and there seemed to be a video online of me pouring the smoothie on someone's face. Someone actually took a video of the fight. I was surprised because the fight didn't last for more than a minute. Nina was there but none of our faces were clear in that video and it looks like some shady dude in a hoodie went all out to disrespect the second guy. That's where the video ended for some reason. Which looked cool to me. I was scrolling through some social media to help me relax my adrenaline rush.

After some time, the adrenaline stopped and I started to get tired a bit. I put my phone down and place my hands behind my back. I rested my eyes and started to fall asleep until I heard a knock on the door. I opened my eyes thinking some random noise woke me up but there was another knock. The door opened and Nina was peeking out from the side.

Nina pops out of the cover of the door. I looked at her and it was just a silent stare for a while. She walked in with her pajama clothes on so I sat up to see what she wants. She got on one side and laid her ear on my chest. This surprised me the most. She started to wrap her arms around me tight and squeeze me every time the heartbeat got bigger and faster. I couldn't see her face but I knew she wasn't crying. She held me tight and I slowly hugged her back. Then I heard from her a quiet "Thank you." I was shocked but I couldn't push her away as she reminded me so much of Katy.

"Nina??"

"Shush. I wanted to hear my sister's heart."

There was a brief moment of silence...

"Thank you for helping me out there. I know I can use magic but I don't deal with situations like this commonly." She got off of me and sat on her knees and her hands were curled up as they lay on her knees. She looked away blushing.

"Hey, look... um... can I explain myself?" As I said that she looked at me. "I'm sorry… for everything. I wish I knew I held this responsibility on my shoulder and could've done better. I loved your sister and I was planning to protect her till the end. But she kept my true self a secret from me."

She took a breather, "I... I'm happy to know you chose the right path. She would be happy to see both of us fighting for a better life."

"And that is my plan to give back to you. I don't want you to get hurt. I can help protect you."

Nina hugged me immediately and I slowly hugged back.

When she hugged me, it was one of the longest hugs I have ever been with. The longest hug was with Katy and this definitely came in second with a very long hug. After all this mean talk and being so frustrated, it seemed like she turned a new side of the leaf. As we were hugging for what seemed to be an hour, I could feel a strong connection linking up with our souls. We started with an easy first step which was getting to talk to each other about ourselves. I even showed her a game on my phone that I play often and she got into it as well. She pulled out a board game and it was my favorite board game as well which was chess. We played multiple rounds of chess and had an exchange of wins and losses. We were getting close at one point for sharing embarrassing stories.

Linda called me in when the moon was high. Linda opened the door and saw Nina aversing me in a game of chess late at night. I had to train a bit more I suppose. I gave Nina one last hug as we both got up and I made the move to hug her before I left. As I followed Linda outside. We prepared another meditation session but this was more like a test. She told me to think about anything to give the boost to help activate that magic. I started to think about Katy. The event in the mall made me think about the call for help that Katy called for when I was bleeding out. I got so upset that I went and activated my demon powers. My eyes and hands felt like flames were going to be expelled out of them.

Linda used her magic and yelled, "Light Reflection!" which helped me view myself. It was a mirror.

I looked at myself and snapped out of focus and lost it, "Wh-what?"

"You did it, Shadow!"

"I did, damn." I was surprised.

"This is only the first step. Sooner you later we will get the magic you need to be used as a weapon. That's for tomorrow though. You are free to rest now but get ready for tougher training now."

I nodded my head and walked away.

I got to my room and took the katana from the side of the room. I laid down on the bed and held onto the sword tight in my arms as I rested my eyes and started to cry and pray. Started to pray as a distress signal to find some way to communicate to Katy in the other world that I made progress here. I went to sleep after a few minutes of crying and yelling in my inner self "I'm making progress Katy. I'm making progress." I held onto that katana tight and didn't let go of it all night. I want to hug Katy. Not a sword.