Legends Never Die (Amourshipping)

Legends Never Die# 6 - A blast from the past

Kevin found Ash a room and showed him the ropes. Like where the washing machines were and where he could get toiletries and stuff, then left him to unpack. The room had a bed, a chest of drawers, a wardrobe with a locker on each side and two writing desks under the window. The kid who lived on the other side had decorated his wall with posters of random models and drake posters. boarder clothes hung neatly in the wardrobe: skinny jeans , a hooded top and T-shirts with adidas and Nike  logos on them. Whoever Ash' roommate was, he looked pretty cool. The other good thing was that the kid had a portable TV on his desk, meaning they could use the Playstation.

Ash looked at his watch. He reckoned there was about an hour until his room-mate got out of school. Ash got the cash out of the bin-liner. It was all 50 and 20 notes, separated into bundles by elastic bands. He counted a couple and realised each bundle was 1,000. There were forty-three bundles.

Ash thought of a way to hide the money in case Ron came after it. He had a old portable cassette radio from the flat. It was wrecked; half the buttons had broken and the tape player didn't rewind. Ash had only taken it because Ron had stolen the CD player on it.

Ash rummaged through his bags of stuff until he found his Swiss army knife. He picked out the screwdriver and undid the back of his cassette player. The inside was all circuit boards and wires. Ash worked fast, taking the guts out of the player, unscrewing and snapping plastic, leaving only the bits you could see from the front, like the speaker and the slot where the tape went in. He stuffed all but 4,000 of the cash inside the hole, packing the money tight so it didn't rattle. He screwed the back on again and slid the radio cassette into his locker.

Ash took the four odd 1,000 bundles and hid them in obvious places: the back pocket of a pair of jeans, inside a shoe, inside a book. He peeled a hundred off the last bundle to use as walking-around money and taped the rest to the inside of his locker.

The idea was, if Ron tried to break into Ash's room he'd find 4,000 easily and never realise there was 39,000 more stuffed inside a cassette radio so crummy looking even Ron wouldn't steal it.

Ash filled the locker with the rest of his valuables. He banged it shut and put the padlock key on a cord around his neck. He couldn't be bothered unpacking anything else. He threw as many bags as he could in the wardrobe and kicked what was left under his bed.

Then he slumped on his bare mattress, staring at the wall. There were hundreds of pin holes and blobs of blu-tack where previous kids had decorated the walls with.

Just after four, Ash's room-mate, Gary, came running in. He was a skinny kid, brown hair, black eyes, he was about the same height as Ash wearing school uniform, a necklace with a shiny orb hanging from his necklace. Gary slammed the door and tried to get his key in the hole to lock it. Ash wondered what the hell was going on.

Gary couldn't lock the door before another kid rammed it. This kid looked older. Same height as Gary but twice the width. Gary jumped on to his bed. The big kid bundled Gary over and pulled him to the floor. He sat astride him and punched him a couple of times in the arm.

'You think you're so smart,' the thug said.

'Take it,' Gary said.

Gary took a couple of slaps in the face. The thug slid a diary out of Gary's  blazer and cracked him on top of the head with it.

'Touch my stuff again, dickhead, I'll smash your face in.'

He got off Gary, kicked him in the thigh and walked out.

Ash sat up on his bed. Gary tried to act like it was nothing but couldn't hide the pain as he raised himself on to his bed.

'Yo what up I'm gary' Gary said as he walked over and fist-bumped Ash with a huge stupid grin

'I'm Ash. How'd you upset him?'

'His diary fell out of his pocket this morning. I found it. Most of it's shit, but he'd written this poem about a girl.'

Ash laughed. 'That big idiot  writes poetry?'

'Yep,' Gary said. 'I read a couple of lines out in front of his friends . He took it badly.' Gary was holding

his face.

'You OK?' Ash asked. 'You took some serious beats.'

'I thought he'd grab the diary back, not try and kill me ... One bit of the poem was great. You give me a buzz that's like a bee. Even when I feel melancholy.

'can use my Playstation 4 on your tv?' Ash asked changing the subject

'Playstation 4 !-We have Playstation 4 in this room? Fuck yeah Ash. What games have you got?'

'I don't know. About ten different ones,' Ash said.

Gary rocked back on his bed and started kicking his feet in the air
Shaking his head 'you must be so rich Ashy boy'

'What?' Ash replied ignoring the nickname . 'Don't kids in here have games consoles?'

'We get three pokedollars a week for pocket money. You see that Nike  shirt on the floor? Twenty-five quid. I had to save up two poekdollars for twelve weeks to get that. I had to steal my supreme shorts from a shop at Would have ended up with a security guard standing on my head if I didn't know a few moves.'

'You want to try the Playstation now?' James asked.

'I thought  you wouldn't ask Ashy boy'

Someone knocked.

'Yeah?' Ash said.

It was one of the house parents, a bearded hippie type. He looked at Ash.

'I've sorted you a place at Pokemon  dunwich School. You can start there in the morning. You'll have to come back at lunchtime. The counsellor wants to see you.'

'OK,' James said. 'Where's West Road?'

'Gary' the care worker said, 'can you find James a school uniform and show him to school tomorrow?'

'No worries boss I'll show my boy where to go' Gary replied his stupid grin plastered on his face.

Gary and Ash spent the whole evening together. After his homework Gary took Ash down to dinner. The food wasn't the best but it was better than Ash got at home. Afterwards they set up the Playstation. While they played they told stories about stuff, like fights at school and how they ended up sports. Ash said the only things he was any good at were sport and maths. But didn't mention his insane battling skills

Before they went to bed, Gary took Ash to the laundry and found a box of school uniforms. Ash already had school shirts and trousers, but he needed a blazer with the West Road badge and a school tie. There wasn't much choice and everything was trashed. They found a blazer that fitted Ash OK and a school tie that was in threads.

*

Gary fell asleep. Ash head was too busy. Tomorrow was going to be the first day of a new routine: eating meals with all the other kids, going to a new school, coming home and spending time with Gary. It wasn't the end of the world, but he wished Sapphire was here.

Ash remembered the little brown envelope in the safe.

He'd forgotten until now. He scrambled out of bed and slipped his sweatpants bottoms on. He rummaged in the pockets. His heart skipped when he didn't find it straight away. He had to go somewhere light where he could look without anyone seeing. The toilet was the obvious place.

Ash locked himself in a cubicle and opened the envelope gently so he'd be able to reseal it. There was a key and a business card:

REX DEPOSITARY

Deposit Your Valuables with Total Discretion and Security Individual Boxes in Eight Different Sizes

Ash flicked the card over. The address was on the back. It looked like his mom had another hidden stash. He put the key on cord on his neck with his concealed gold mega stone chain
He then pulled a out a Red holster sleeve from under his bed and removed the sword from it and examined it closely with a smile plastered on his face gingery fingering the craftsmanship on the sheath double checking that his pokéballs were where
He left them he replaced his sword back where it belonged. As Ash lay in bed trying to sleep he couldn't help but feel he recognised Gary's face and name from somewhere in his past.