Youngblood Chronicles: Light Em Up

Chapter 12

The plane arrived in Kansas City, Missouri at about 7:30. To avoid detection, we got off last and stayed in the near vicinity until 9 or so in the morning. Then, after making sure no one was following us, we went in search of Jargon.

Mallord recognized him immediately, I did not recognize him at all. He had changed a lot. He wore a motorcycle jacket with leather pants and boots. He had dyed his hair hot pink and now had two tattoo sleeves and his right ear had 3 piercings. He had also grown about 5 inches, and was now 5'11".

"What happened to him?" I asked. Mallord didn't answer as we walked up to him.

"Hey," She quietly said. He nodded at her.

"Follow me at a safe distance," That was all he whispered, then walked toward the main exit. We waited for a moment, then followed him out into the parking lot. He lead us to a red Ford Taurus, then got in the driver's side. Mallord got in passenger and I got in the back. We were soon up and heading out of the parking lot.

The thing about Kansas City Missouri is that it is directly linked to Kansas City Kansas. Children's Mercy is in Kansas City, Kansas, so we had to cross the state line to get to it. We had been driving for about 30 minutes (traffic again!) before we crossed the state line. I saw the hospital out of the corner of my eye. Then I noticed we were passing it.

"Uh, we passed the hospital," Jargon shook his head.

"Voiceless has sent out a wanted notice for you. It's not safe to go anywhere big. I have a friend who works in advanced prosthetics. He has something for you," We continued down the ramp and toward the Mexican part of town, back into Missouri.

We reached our destination in about an hour. It was a run down red brick building with a large green garage door on the front. The shambly sign in front read RJ's Auto Repair. It didn't look like this place had been used in years.

We parked in front of the building and then walked into the green front door. We entered a dark room with blinds drawn. It had gross hazy white walls with black and white tiled flooring. There was an old wooden desk in front. At the desk was a man of Asian descent with dark skin and dark hair was sitting in a lounge chair reading a newspaper.

"Hey R," Jargon nodded. The man looked up, dropping the paper and letting me see his greasy white tank top.

"Jamie, my man," He got up and fist bumped Jargon. He then looked at me. I wore an oversized Kansas City Royals sweatshirt to try and hide my missing arm, but it wasn't a super good disguise. "Is this here?" He asked.

"That's her alright," The man motioned for us to follow him into the garage, which was vacant except for a few studio chairs and a tv standing on a wobbly desk.

"I have it right here. It's very nice, flesh colored. And it allows the same movement as your real arm would. Plus, you can turn it in a 360-degree circle," I gulped.

"Okay..." R opened up a dark cabinet and pulled out an arm. I gapped. It was exactly the same color as my skin.

"It will also change color as you tan and such," He pulled out some wires and motioned for me to sit down in a blue studio chair. He began to attach the blue and red wires with white tape. About 5 minutes later, he finished.

"Try moving it," I did, and my left arm moved.

"Oh my god, it works!" I could barely contain myself. I felt like a kid in a music store!

"Yes, it should. You'll have to keep those wires on at all times to keep the arm working. They are water resistant, but you probably should only go into the water with that on if it's an emergency," I nodded.

"This is amazing," I was flexing it around. "Thank you so much,"

"Anything for a friend of a friend. Do you want so deco?" I smiled.

"Hell yeah!" He walked to a different cabinet and pulled out some paint tubes and an airbrush.

"What do you want?"

About 2 hours later, he was done. My arm was covered. The first tattoo was on my shoulder, a bouquet of 4 black roses with the thorn vines wrapping around them. The next was a pair of red wings that looked like they were on fire. Then there was a set of silver drumsticks, a base and electric guitar making an X, and a microphone under that. Under that was a replication of the half American flag from the American Beauty/American Psycho album. The last big tattoo was the words Hey Youngbloods. They started out red at the top, the dripped into pink, then purple, and finally back at the bottom.

"Are you sure there's nothing I can do to repay you for this?" I asked R again. He smiled.

"Nah, you deserve it. A girl like you has her fight and needs to finish it," We waved goodbye and got back into the car. Our flight wasn't until 6 o' clock that night.

"What should we do?" Jargon asked.

"Well, I would like to get a real tattoo..."

Twenty minutes later we pulled up to a small tattoo parlor.

"Are you positive about this?" Jargon asked. I nodded as we walked in.

"You have some, Tiger has some, at least three other kids have them. It would be a good thing to get at least one. They don't have to be visible," We walked in and I was seated almost instantly.

"What do you want kid?" The tattoo artist, a man in his late thirties with purple hair and plenty of tattoos himself asked.

"Well," I pointed to the upper left part of my forehead. "I want four little gems in this order. Tan, black, tan, red." He had that one finished in about 10 minutes. The needle hurt, but not as bad as some said.

"I also want one right here," I lifted up my shirt to reveal my left him, not my right with the words on it. "I want 4 roses, two black and two red in a bouquet. If you could make a little vine that goes up my side a little ways that be really cool," This one took about 45 minutes to complete, but it looked super amazing.

"And right here," I pointed to my right ankle. "I want the words Voiceless with a lightning bolt going through the E," That one was done pretty quick.

"And one more, right here," I pulled down my sleeve to reveal a spot of skin on my right shoulder. " I want it to say Poison Youth and have a little vial of poison under it. He did that one quick enough.

When we left the parlor, I had 4 new tattoos. We decided to head to lunch in the Legends shopping center. We walked around for several hours but ended up leaving about 4 to get to the airport.

"Thanks for everything Jargon," Mallord said. I waved.

"Thanks again," I had taken off my sweatshirt and revealed an older Royals jersey of 25, the deceased Yordano Ventura.

"No problem. You saved me, I owe you." He waved and we entered the airport, ready to return home.