Born To Die Part Two - The Charm Of A Conflict

A New Arrival

Alexis and Ashton don't bring up their brief visit to the AMI to the SPMP. In what seems like seconds, their time is up. They usher everyone from the theatre except two people; Cheri and Yen. Yen looks even worse than before; her legs are also bandaged now.

'Niall Trenton, that guy...' Yen sighs. She looks at Cheri, who has a full backpack on her back, along with a pastel pink glittery suitcase with a huge unicorn stuffie on top. Cheri waves at Ashton and Alexis.

'Yen, lovely to see you again,' Alexis smiles. Yen waves the pleasantries aside.

'Where's Kristoffer? Why weren't you showing your wings today?' Yen demands, her face utter fury. She taps her foot up and down, raising an eyebrow with hands on her hips.

'He was working for the AMI,' Ashton mumbles, 'They burnt my wings off.'

Cheri fiddles with the strap of her bag, but is met with a smile from Alexis, 'Let's not worry about him. Got any more stuff in Yen's car, kiddo?'

'Yes,' She smiles, 'Do you mind taking my backpack?'

'No problem,' Alexis takes the sparkly pink bag with stars onto her back, 'Wow, cool bag!'

The two talk like sisters as they leave the theatre. Yen and Ashton trail awkwardly behind them.

'I thought he was a good guy,' Yen hisses, alerting Ashton from a state of deep thought, 'He didn't seem like the AMI type. I can tell you... He... Ugh, it's pointless. Anyways, thank you for taking Cheri. I can't deal with three kids and no functioning limbs.'

'We love her, we're getting more of a benefit,' Ashton humours. Yen laughs, looking down at her shoes.

'You two are caring. You're understanding, gentle, and accommodating,' She mutters, 'And I knew you'd like to help someone who's in the same situation as you were.'

'Yen, it's no big deal,' He assures, 'Our house feels empty with only two of us left.'

Yen pulls the car keys from her pocket, pressing the button that unlocks the boot. The two see Cheri and Alexis in the distance near a white BMW. They open the boot and grab a few tote bags. They catch up to Alexis and Cheri.

'So, our car's just over there,' Alexis says, pointing to their red car. Cheri nods politely, 'Would you prefer to say goodbye there or here?'

'Here,' Yen's eyes begin to cloud with tears, yet she swiftly wipes them away. Cheri hugs her tightly, 'I'll see you again next week, Yen.'

'Aw, Cheri,' Yen ruffles her hair and wraps an arm around her shoulders, 'I hope it's good. You can text whenever you need, yeah.'

'We'll see you soon, Yen,' Ashton smiles as Cheri pulls away from Yen, picking up another backpack. Ashton takes her suitcase, and the trio walks away, waving to Yen once they reach the car. They see her wave back, rubbing tears away from her eyes. She unlocks her car and gets in. Alexis opens the boot and begins loading in Cheri's multiple heavy bags, making her give herself four strong muscular arms. Once they finish packing and sit in the car, Ashton asks, 'So, which room would you like?'

*

Kristoffer stares intently at his PC at his desk, looking for something to catch his interest. He types into the search bar; "how to become magic". The exact opposite shows up, instead showing "How to hide magic", "how to stop magic" and "top AMI assassins"; Kristoffer's name shows up in the description. He scrolls and scrolls and scrolls, trying to find something to help him. He hears someone clearing their throat loudly behind him. He spins on his chair to see Niall with a blonde eyebrow raised, a smug smile, and crossed arms.

'Strangelove wants to see you,' He laughs, watching him stand from his chair with shaky legs, 'I told you she'd find out...'

*

'How did it happen, Piercebridge?' Strangelove softly asks. Her mood seems to have changed from earlier. Eudora sits in the chair next to him with her ankles crossed over each other. She seems very focused on her nails, 'I understand, they've been difficult to catch, we've hunted them down for a total of three years. But if Jameson, Denzell, Trenton, Kathlyhan, and you can't get them, we might just need to give up on them.'

'I.. I don't know how it happened, Ms. Strangelove,' Kristoffer lies, maintaining eye contact to make himself seem trustworthy. He fiddles with his collar nervously, 'They're very powerful, and I guess they must've got out by themselves. Maybe they were conspiring?'

'True, we never know what's going on behind the scenes with those freaks. We'll need to have some sort of agreement with them for them to never appear again,' Strangelove spits. It makes Kristoffer wince internally and Eudora look up from her hands, 'I... Apologise for being so irrational earlier. Kathlyhan, you had the correct response. I think we should just forget about this.'

'That'd be best,' Eudora grins, internally celebrating that she won't get fired. Strangelove returns the smile, yet still has a cold expression underneath. Kristoffer doesn't comply with the smile, but simply nods in thanks.

*

'So, any luck on the "how to be magic" stuff?' Eudora inquires, her fingers flying across her keyboard. She's looking into a new case given to her only ten minutes ago, 'I'm not too sure about it myself.'

'Nothing yet, but I'm not losing hope,' Kristoffer murmurs, scrolling down a search page. A link finally catches his eye; Biserka Vorobera's Magical Spells. He looks at the website, which looks straight out of 2001. He looks at a picture of a spell book, with a caption underneath reading "I can make you magic!". Her location is close, only about a thirty-minute drive from his house. A smile spreads across his face.

'You look excited,' Eudora comments, eyes flicking from her keyboard to her monitor to his face.

'Eudora, I've found it.'