The Child of Scraps

Chapter 5

Leandro Mabini felt like helping the girls when he realized that their futures depended on it, but now he was seriously regretting the decision.

They had decided to have a meeting and try to think of what to do next. They went to Noah's house -if you could even call it a house, because goodness, what terrible living conditions did she have- and sat down together on the dumpy mattress. It had been an hour -or was it two?- and yet, there was very little progress.

Goodness, this was a terrible team. That foreigner girl, Avery? She was incredibly stubborn! She would reject all of his proposals and question everything. She would pace around, being so annoying, and Leandro would have to call her back into the discussion. She was always getting mad at him, as if it was his fault! If only she'd listen.

And Noah, the deaf one.  Leandro didn't really know what to say about her, other than she was incredibly quiet. She'd listen, yes, but she had nothing to contribute. It was difficult enough having to type all his thoughts with someone silently watching behind his back. Just why did he get into this?

They still had no clue what to do though. They had put up a list of things that they needed to figure out, but other than that, they hadn't progressed much in the hour they were together. If anything, all they had been doing was debate.

Yes, debate.

"Avery, I think we should stick with just finding your father. In the end, that's all you need to do. After all, what's the point of doing anything or going anywhere past that?"

"Because why did they take my dad? I really think we should at least know why they needed him. Maybe we can give them whatever it is they're searching for, and then they'll leave us alone."

"I think that if we could give whatever their goal is to them so peacefully, they wouldn't use forceful measures to retrieve your father. Besides, if they're evil, or whatever, we can't really stop them."

"But what if they were actually evil?" Avery, who had been pacing the entire conversation, sat down very suddenly and started fiddling with her reddish hair. "I mean, a good person wouldn't kidnap a person, right? And what if they're planning to do something bad, like assassinating the president!?"

"Okay, three things wrong with that train of thought: one, assassinating the president would be incredibly hard to do, with the security magic that has been developed to prevent such things. Two, I don't see why they'd even want to assassinate the president, as that does not help them in any case. In the case of a president's death, the position goes to the vice president, which you'd know if you actually care about politics enough to research it. Three, on the assumption you are actually right in any of this, how are we going to stop their plan anyway? We have enough trouble just thinking of how to break your father out."

"Well, first of all, I used assassination as an example, and it could be anything evil, really. And, well, I guess we can't help anyway, but isn't it bad to just think that we can't do it? I mean, we'd never tried it, so why can't it happen?"

"There is a difference between perseverance and learning your boundaries. Girl, they're going to have technology and magic that surpasses whatever we have. Do you even understand how magic works? I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't."

"Hey! I do know! Magic is a natural extension of energy that allows us to handle more than what our regular bodies can't. See, I'm not as dumb as you always think I am."

"Oh please, you don't even know the origin of magic. Magic isn't natural. It is-"

"Let me guess," Avery interrupted him, in a tone that Leandro felt was rather venomous for her normal speaking. "You're going to say that magic was brought by God. His prophets had been the first users of magic, and that Jesus, the Son of God, had been the one to actually teach people to use it."