Just a Phase

True Colors

Time seemed to fly by, ever since I started living with Scratch, Mikey, Squish, and Scoots.
Scoots and I had already began our training, together. Some days were spent exploring and figuring out how to use the resources around us, while other days were used to learn different fighting techniques. Scratch liked to compliment me on my upper body strength and ability to climb up tall structures, easily, while Scoots was more skilled with his legs. He was always able to run faster and kick harder than me.
Most nights, after training, Squish would make us a fancy dinner and we would all sit around the table, in our usual seats.
I began to see different things in the people that I now spent time with.
Squish seemed to have a dark side along with the immature side, that was always joking around. Sometimes, I would find him outside, sitting alone, just watching the sun slowly sink behind the horizon.
Scratch was normally focused on training and studying most of the time. His books would always be laying around on the tables, or in large stacks on the floor. There was also a large piano that he would sit at and play for us all, in the front room.
Mikey was almost always trying to act mature around us, but sometimes I would catch him singing and dancing alone. Sometimes he would, joke around with me when we were alone, about how Scratch's music was always too slow and boring. Even though I liked it.
Scoots was a lot like me, other than being a boy. He wanted to be the best at everything and tried to move forward by conquering his weaknesses.
They sometimes got onto me about my "bad language" even though I saw nothing wrong with it. It was just my way of expressing myself. I did stop using it in front of everyone, only because I was tired of hearing about how I'm too young for that. Most of the time.
I was finally starting to feel accepted by them. They seemed to treat me just like a normal family would. Or at least I thought so.

Eventually they had given me a special name of my own.
It started off as a normal day, outside training with Scratch and Scoots. Scratch was trying to show us how to get out of a headlock.
He already had his arm held tightly around my neck, "Alright... do it just like I showed you"
I took that as my signal and took a long step out to the side, tucked my chin, twisted my way out of his grip, and held his arm behind his back.
"Awesome," Scratch exclaimed. "You learn fast. Okay, Scoots your turn."
Scoots walked up to Scratch and copied my demonstration, and was able to escape the headlock just as easily as I could.
"You two are getting really good at this, but it's only going to get harder from here on out," he explained. "I think that's enough for today. Let's go back inside and see if the Squish cooking anything for us today."
Scoots and I followed Scratch back into the house, giving each other the "ya know I'm better than you" look.
As soon as I took a step inside our small house, the smell of homemade chicken and mashed potatoes hit me like a rock to the head. Except a rock probably hurts. This was heavenly to me. This is what happens when I try to be metaphorical... but that was meta-horrible.
Sometimes I wonder how my mind even makes it that far.
I walked back into the kitchen to Squish standing over the stovetop stirring up the pot of what must be the mashed potatoes I was smelling.
"Where do you even get the ingredients to make this stuff?" I asked, because honestly we only went to the villages to get supplies every so often.
"I smuggle them," He replied, then laughed and I began to laugh with him. "Nah. I just bring extra bags with me to the villages and buy extra food just for you guys."
He then took the spoon out of the big pot that he was stirring up and looked at it. "Yes. Seems about ready." Then he looked over at me and said, "Go get the others and say that the food is ready."
Because I didn't feel like moving very far, I just stuck my head out the doorway and yelled as loud as I could, to let them all know that I was hungry and didn't feel like waiting on them for very long to get to the table.
"Was that really necessary...?" Squish asked.
"Yes. It was." I replied, turned around, and took my seat at the table that was now set up with the usual dishes that we ate off of and the food that he had just prepared for us.
"My god, you're loud." Mikey mumbled, as he walked in with the others and they all took their seats, as well.
My god, you're handsome... Yeah I still found Mikey somewhat attractive.
We all began to serve ourselves and put food on our plates. It smelled absolutely amazing. The chicken was seasoned with lemon and pepper, while the potatoes were extra buttery.
It was pretty quiet at first other than the sounds of our forks clinking against the plates until Scratch spoke up. "Iv' been thinking... this girl needs a permanent name. We can't keep just calling her 'girl' and 'new kid' for the rest of her life"
"Yes we can..." Scoots snickered through a mouth full of food.
I gave him the "I'm gonna get you one of these days" for saying that. (We normally communicate through a series of facial expressions, like this)
But they were right, I didn't really enjoy being called things like "girl" and "new kid".
"Hey," Squish spoke up again. "We need to give her a cool name like us, something that fits her. I mean, something kind of like all of our nicknames. Except Mikey cause he does have a nickname. He can be a party pooper."
Mikey didn't like being called a party pooper and showed that by looking away and running his fingers through his dark green Mohawk. I didn't see how anyone with a green Mohawk could ever be a party pooper, though.
"What if we call her something pretty," Scoots suggested. "Maybe something like Rose, or Luna"
Scoots thought I was pretty? Except I didn't think that those names really fit me, so I shook my head in response.
"No we have to do something cool!" Squish exclaimed. He was almost standing up out of his chair now. "What about something like Jinx or Karma because she's always having bad luck or just because it sounds pretty evil."
I didn't consider myself to be evil, but I did like the sound of these names.
At first there was a moment of silence while everyone stared, waiting on me to make my final decision.
"I like Jinx," I declared.
"Then Jinx it is." Scratch agreed with me.
The name seemed to fit better and better, the more I thought about it.
That night was one of the most special nights to me. It made me realize that these people had finally accepted me into their family.

Later that night I helped clean up after dinner, and laid down on the couch to go to sleep, but no matter how hard I tried, it was impossible to keep my eyes closed.
This couch had become the place I slept every night because the others had already taken all the other bedrooms and they didn't want me sharing a room with anyone, because I was the only girl. I was perfectly ok with that though.
I looked around the room at all the books piled up in the floor along with a few extra blankets and pillows that sat in the corner.
I hadn't been into the city since I fell out of the clock tower and I wondered if I would ever go back. However, the only things I had back there were my dusty old pile of blankets and a few things I had collected on my travels throughout the different places.
That clock tower was the place I used to call home, but now that I had a new home and a family, I didn't miss it at all.