Free As A Bird

Chapter 13

Once the day started, the trio were off into the nearby city. "Good thing you can still change your age as well Stu. Now to see if there's anything going on in there." John told his friends. "Hopefully we'll be able to beat this sin very soon, the heat is getting too much for me!"

"Hey it's better than being stuck in a wasteland of snow and ice. But the less we talk the faster we can make to.. Well. Anywhere."

Upon entering a nearby town, the three boys were shocked to see everyone being either robbed or robbing from somewhere. "Yep.. Seems like Avarice is close. Once we take him down hopefully everyone will go back to normal."

"Can't we do something to help them Johnny?" George asked. "Maybe if we weaken his hold on the people here he'll be forced to come to us, then we can set up a trap for him!"

"Hm.. We could do that, but how can we?"

"I remember last night Linda told me that we could try to teach the inflicted to be more generous. I'll give it a try."

Heading up to someone trying to take money out of a vending machine, George offered him a shilling. "Here, this should help you get some food."

Looking confused, the man looked down and asked "Why are you giving me that?"

"To be kind. We saw how everyone's always taking from each other and we want to show some generosity, hopefully people will learn to give more to those in need."

"Give more.. What is give?"

"I'll show you mister, when you give something to someone, they'll be grateful and thank you for it. They won't have to steal anything anymore now that someone gave them something they needed."

Heading up to the other confused people, George managed to teach them how to share as well. "George's plan worked! Now all we need to do is wait for the big baddie to come and then we're on our way to the next continent!" John remarked.

"Yeah, hopefully he falls for it."

Meanwhile back at the factory, the shadowy figure from before was definitely not having the best day. "How is this possible?! Someone's trying to weaken my hold on the humans?. Grr! I'd better head over there and influence them again!"

"Hey boss, why go through all that trouble when you can make use of the Demon Creator the people made for you?"

"Hm.. I could do that. You demons will have to finish destroying the rainforest yourselves now that very few are still under my control, but fear not, I will get them back with us! I'm not lazy like Sloth was."

As soon as night had fallen and still no sight of Avarice, the boys decided to hit the sack. "At least now we'll get to sleep in a decent flat as thanks for breaking the influence Avarice had on these poor people."

"I hear ya George. He'll be a piece of cake now! But what about the jungles there? And the wildlife? It would take a long time to fix any damages that happened."

"We'll need to think of something.. Maybe Linda might know."

Placing the camera on the floor of the room, Linda's hologram appeared once again. "Hey everyone! Did you manage to break everyone's spell?"

"That we did miss! But how will we be able to reverse any ecological damages? The Amazon won't regrow overnight."

"That will be a problem.. I might be able to create a revival potion that can bring the rainforest back to its former glory."

"You can make potions?"

"Learnt a bit after I heard of the news that John broke the seal from Hell. I'd best get to work on it right away! I'll talk to you three later."

"Thanks Linda, you're the best!"

Smiling at her friends, Linda's hologram disappeared back into the camera. "While she does that we can finally get some well deserved rest." John yawned. "One bed? Looks like we're all sharing again."

"Well now that you're no longer under Lust's influence I don't mind that at all."

"Huh?"

"Oh, just a reference to what happened before you joined back in Chapter Ten, Stu."

"I swear, if we keep breaking the fourth wall soon we'll end up having to carry a copy of the story around just so we can point out parts that happened before in attempts to be funny."

Snuggling together onto the one kind sized bed, the three were dozing away. But what they didn't know was that a disembodied arm and floated inside and each cut off a small snip of their hair. "I don't know why boss wanted me to get their hair but hey, orders are orders."

Returning to Avarice with the hairs in hand, the arm asked; "Why did I do this instead of killing them right there and then?"

"Well for one thing you're just an arm that could be beaten easily by those guys. And second, I need the hairs to do this."

Placing the hairs from John, George and Stu in separate tubes attached to the Demon Creator, Avarice cackled and turned it on. "Now let's see those boys try facing off with themselves! Demonic but still it's them."

Soon the hairs began to take shape, almost exactly replicating the looks of the three, but with purple skin, black hair, claws on their fingers and toes, fangs (or in George's case larger fangs) and glossy red eyes.

"Very good. It won't be long until those three will be out of our hair!"