TURNING RED 2 : White Code

Chapter 6 - Shock Duet

New day begins and I leave positive by regaining confidence in myself. I change back into camouflage and go out to find a new supermarket, I am determined to find something to eat to calm this stomach which is crying out for hunger. Obviously I'm not going back to the same neighborhood as yesterday. After studying the choices available to me I opt for the Daisy Mart, the seller with his bob on his head looks completely elsewhere, he looks like a drug addict, it will be child's play to steal a few things, It's the customers I should be wary of. I spot what interests me by pretending to compare the products and I slip everything into my pockets, no one seems to have noticed anything. Once I have what I want I leave the store as if nothing had happened. I walk away with a smile on my face, taking out a chocolate bar and starting to eat it when I hear behind me, "Hey, you!" I turn around and I see a girl about my age, with flamboyant red hair, [round glasses, a pink t-shirt, a blue skirt and purple leggings], She looks at me with a air of reproach and accusation. I act like nothing and respond with a simple "yeah?". She tells me that if I thought she hadn't seen anything I was wrong, that it wasn't good and that I had to return what I had taken straight away, the good joke so just to taunt I bite again in the chocolate, telling her that I don't know what she's talking about and that seems to annoy her. She approaches me and tells me not to play that game with her because she sees little thugs like me like the ones who came to tag the walls of her temple every day. I just shrug my shoulders and to tell him rightly not to waste time and to go polish the dis-walls because they were not going to do it alone. I admit I'm looking a little but hey what could she possibly do to me? She seems like a girl from a good family... that is, until she comes up to me and grabs me by the collar, repeating in a threatening manner, "You're going to give back everything you have stolen or..." there is a burst of pink smoke and I suddenly find myself with my feet above the ground, with in front of me, in the place of the young girl, a large giant red panda of 2 meters, finishing her phrase "...or it's me who forces you to". I am quite surprised for a few seconds (now I know how my opponents felt during the organized fights) and I don't realize right away that I had just met someone like me, my instinct for self-preservation takes over and I frown eyebrows before becoming the tiger myself, thus surpassing her in size and eying her in turn while replying "And can I know exactly what you plan to do?" She looks as surprised as I was a few moments ago and all traces of anger seemed to vanish from her face as she let out a big "Wooooaaaaaaah..." of wonder, and I must admit that if I were not on the defensive, I myself would be too because I still realize that I am facing someone who is... like me? I then have a kind of interrogation, asking me who I am, where I come from, what the connection is with my mind, how long I've had it, why I'm using it for the wrong reasons. I would have answered well but you know I'm the type to keep my secrets, especially since there are people around, so I go back to camouflage telling him that it was neither the place nor the time and that we needed a quieter corner, which she seems to find strange when she points it out to me but she accepts my conditions by also changing back into camouflage, me who wanted to show off it was a failure. So we go to a quiet alley and I sit on a trash container telling her that I'm ready for her questions and that I certainly have as many to ask about her, but once again, she seem surprised that we're doing this in such a seedy place and that it would be better in a café... to which I reply that I can't do anything else at the moment. I also take this opportunity to lay down the rules of interrogation; for each question she asks me, she will have to answer it too. So I learned that her name is Meilin Lee, that she is a year younger than me, that she has always lived here because her family runs one of the oldest temples in Toronto, that her panda showed up at she was 13 years old and unlike all the female members of her family she decided to keep it... I didn't even know that there was a ritual that could imprison our spirits to return to what we were before... I also learned that this gift is a family heirloom asked of the god by one of his ancestors to protect his family in times of war... and that it is the Red Panda because this said ancestor was passionate about it to the point of wanting end becoming one. I realize that our stories are at the same time very similar and at the same time very different... Our ancestors both appealed to the gods to protect those they loved... over time those of his family sought to get rid of it and mine decided to keep it and make it our strength... even if the generations of now think that it is a mark of weakness, I do not agree, I think that it only manifests itself to those who show themselves worthy of wearing it. Well otherwise I'm not going to tell you again what I told him about myself, since you already know it, I'm just trying to be quite vague, I'm not talking to him about my situation and I'm mainly making the comparison between his panda and my tiger which allows me to avoid the question about my use. I also learn in detail what the famous pandapocalyspe was and the destruction of the skydome in 2002 and I must admit that I am admiring or even envious of his relationship with his family, that's when I decide to cut the story short discussion claiming that it was getting late and that I had to go home because "my overly protective parents were going to start to worry" yes I know, another fib but it avoids additional questions and suspicions. As she leaves she tells me that she would like to meet again and I tell her why not at the same time, same place tomorrow, I wink at her accompanied by a smile and I quickly disappear into the side streets. For once I'm sincere, I'm not trying to fool her, despite the way I acted it happens that I can remain myself in certain encounters without looking for profit... but hey once again I don't I won't have a very full stomach this evening but I tell myself that tomorrow I will do better.