The Adventures of Rin and Aya

Aya glared at Raf’s back as she headed out of the classroom behind him. There’s no way that he could have gotten a better grade than me on that math test. He must have--

“I didn’t cheat,” Raf said as he turned his head around to look at Aya. Great! So he can read minds now too?!“And I can’t read minds either.” Her left eye twitched slightly but she said nothing.

“Will you two just hurry up? We’re supposed to meet everyone else over by the auditorium. Amaranta apparently needs us to go on a mission of some sort, and we need to get back to the other world as soon as possible,” said Sin as he hurried Raf, Soren, and Aya along. He trailed behind them a few paces, making sure that they kept up the pace, but also because he was extremely paranoid. Ever since the little incident at Rin’s house he had made sure that Raf and Soren were always in front of him where he could see them.

Sure enough, waiting just outside the auditorium was the rest of the gang. “Took you long enough! Now let’s get going!” Luka started bounding past everyone with an excited smile on his face, but before he could gain any distance Chase grabbed onto the back of his uniform. The short one was pulled backwards and ended up falling on his butt.

“Okay then…Rin, I think we should probably head home and let these guys do whatever it is they need to do.” Aya and Rin were about to walk away, but Ra’ Shari quickly stepped in front of them.

“I’m afraid that you two are going to have to come with us.”

“Hm, that sounds lovely and all but…WE AREN’T GOING BACK THERE!” Aya grabbed Rin’s arm, a little too roughly in the blue-haired girl’s opinion, and she started dragging her away from the group.

All of a sudden Chase and Raf stepped forward quickly and grabbed onto the two girls, throwing them over their shoulders. Immediately, Aya started thrashing, flailing her arms and legs around wildly, kicking and punching Raf in hopes that he would get sick of her struggling and just put her down. Rin, on the other hand, was much calmer. Sure she thought it was slightly awkward, but if she didn’t have to use her energy to walk then she was perfectly content.

“Alright, Aya you’re going to have to drive us back to your houses, and you’ll probably want to leave a note for your parents. Make up an excuse as to why you’ll be gone for the weekend and make sure it’s believable. After that you’ll both come back to our world and help us on this mission.”

Raf turned to Ra’ Shari with an accusing gaze. “Who died and made you leader?!”

“I’m leader because my pendant is the most important, AND because I’m from this world. That makes me more experienced than all of you combined, so that automatically makes me leader!” With that being said she led them all out to the parking lot and towards Aya’s Highlander. Everyone quickly found their seats, and reluctantly Aya drove them to her and Rin’s houses.

---

“We told them that we would be over at Chaz’s house for the weekend,” Rin told everyone.

“Good, that’ll work. Now let’s get going!” The whole gang, including a weary Rin and Aya, crowded around her tightly. “You know, anyone within ten feet of me will get transported back too so a little space would be nice.” When they gave her the requested space she grasped the pendant with her left hand while she placed her right on the ground. Almost instantly they all started sinking into the ground.

It was slightly surprising to the two girls that they didn’t feel anything, like the ground, brush up against them as they sunk lower. It felt, simply put, like they were still just standing there. The only the thing that changed was the lower they went, the darker it got, and soon they couldn’t see a thing.

Ever so slowly the darkness was lifted from them, first illuminating their feet, then legs, waist, shoulder, and head. When the light had reached their eyes they saw that they were back in The Middle Town. It looked like, however, that they were on the opposite side of the city to where the gang lived, and they were currently standing in front of another pleasant looking house.

The door was opened by a slim woman with light, reddish-brown hair, and out from behind the skirt of her dress appeared Cade who ran through the front door and over to Ra’ Shari. She knelt and greeted him with a warm hello and a tight hug. “Thanks again Lottie. It’s so kind of you to watch after him for me,” the blonde woman said as she stood up after Cade left to go greet Micah and the others.

“Oh it’s no problem at all,” Lottie said with a friendly smile. That was one of the things Ra’ Shari liked best about her. She was always so friendly to EVERYONE, and when you needed help with something Lottie would be the first one to offer a helping hand without asking for anything in return. Her smile grew as she continued speaking. “It almost feels like YOUR doing ME a favor by letting me watch Cade during the days, and its really giving me some experience with kids. Christian and I are actually expecting our first in about five months.”

Cue the jaw drops and wide eyes.

Almost everyone stared at Lottie with surprise written all over their faces. Of course that was a perfectly normal thing, but the two couldn’t even hug each other in public without getting embarrassed and red in the face! “Oh, congratulations!” Ra’ Shari was the first one to snap out of her surprised state. “Now I hate to ask, but me and the gang here need to go on mission and Cade needs to be watched…”

“Say no more,” Lottie said with her ever present smile. “I would love to watch after him. He’s such a good kid too; Never gets into trouble, he does what he’s asked to do, and overall he’s so well mannered. I only hope that I can raise my own child as well as you’ve raised Cade.”

Ra’ Shari beamed up at her, extremely proud of her compliment. “Thanks Lottie. But we better head off now. Gotta teach these two how to fly,” she said as she gestured towards Rin and Aya. With that everyone waved goodbye to Lottie and Cade, and they turned to leave the city.

“Wait a minute…did you say FLY?! We can’t fly because we don’t have wings!” Aya shouted at Ra’ Shari.

“YOU don’t, but THEY do.” They all stopped when they reached the small meadow of grass separating The Middle Town and the forest. “Micah come here. You’re going to be my guinea pig for this little demonstration.” The thought of being a guinea pig didn’t appeal to him very much…okay, it didn’t appeal to him at all, but he sucked in a deep breath and walked over to her anyway.

Ra’ Shari had crossed her arms across her chest and was currently drumming her fingers against her arm as Micah simply stood there with his hands in his pockets. After a few more seconds of nothingness, she bent down, picked up a pebble, and threw it at his head. It hit him just above his eye and he visibly flinched before looking at Ra’ Shari with a questioning look, clearly not knowing what he had done wrong. “Wings dude! We can’t fly without wings!”

He let out a frustrated groan, but just like she asked his dark gray wings appeared from his back. “Awww! His wings remind me of a fallen angel,” Rin said as she clapped her hand together in excitement.

Micah? An angel? Ra’ Shari almost laughed at the thought. Before she could say anything Raf popped up next to them and looked at them smugly. “A fallen angel huh? I wonder which one of the Seven Deadly Sins you committed.” He glanced at Ra’ Shari before turning back towards Micah and his eyebrows raised suggestively. Clearly he had eliminated Envy, Wrath, Greed, Pride, Gluttony, and Sloth…

“That’s it!” Ra’ Shari turned and headed over to the edge of the forest before searching through the thick grass, bushes, and fallen leaves, searching for something. Raf enjoyed pushing her buttons…especially since she was so touchy on subjects like this. He wasn’t worried at the current moment though. Usually she would retaliate by physically hurting him, but what could she possibly do to him at the current moment?

The cocky smile on his face quickly fell away when Ra’ Shari lifted a large stick above her head like a baseball bat. “Prepare to die Jerk!” She ran at him but he was quick to react, and in only seconds he had made his wings appear. The brown wings lifted him off the ground swiftly, keeping him just out of her reach. She swung the stick wildly, hoping that she would make contact with his shin or any other body part as he occasionally dipped lower, toying with her and trying her non-existent patience.

Micah walked up behind her, ducking swiftly when she almost whacked him in the head, and he reached up, grabbing onto the seemingly harmless inanimate object she had turned into a deadly weapon. “Allow me,” he said with a smile as he took the stick from her.

“Bring it on angel boy!” Raf jeered at him. Micah smirked, winding his arm back before sending the stick flying through the air. “Oof!” It made solid contact with Raf’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him and sending him falling back down to the ground below him.

“Anyways,” Ra’ Shari said as she turned back to Rin and Aya who had been watching with amusement. “It might be awkward, but you’re going to have to ride on someone’s back. Make sure you don’t choke them when your arms are around their neck, and if you can, don’t put too much pressure on the base of their wings. It makes it harder to fly by restricting movement. It’s pretty easy once you get used to it. Just watch me…”

She walked around Micah and swiftly jumped up onto his back. “Like I said, it’ll probably be easiest to just wrap your arms around their necks, but don’t choke them. I have… difficultieswith that so I have to do this a little differently.” Instead of putting her arms around his neck, she let her arms fall down in front of him, and he reached up to grab hold of her hands to keep her from falling back down.

If she had wrapped her arms around Micah’s neck it would have put more pressure on his collar bone, but Ra’ Shari’s arms always managed to slide upwards somehow and end up gagging him. To fix this problem she let her arms hang down in front of him and it would allow her to put more pressure on his chest instead of his collar bone. It makes it harder to hold in if you’re hovering, their bodies still vertical, but when they were actually flying and their bodies were horizontal it was exactly the same as putting your arms around their neck.

“You make this sound so complicated,” said Aya.

“It’s more complicated than it seems.” Ra’ Shari jumped down and strode over to them. “It’s like riding a horse. People who have never done it are always Oh, you kick them go and you pull back on the reins to stop. It’s so simple!Wrong-o! I rode horses for over six years and it is NOT that simple. And just like horse back riding, when you’re flying…” She reached behind her and grabbed onto Micah’s arm, lifting it up into the air and waving it around. “You’re working with a living creature that has it’s own mind and it’s own thoughts. You don’t know what they’re going to do next so you two better communicate! I’m not going to be happy if either of you fall and kill yourselves.

“Now, Rin you’ll be hitching a ride with Chase, and Aya you’ll be with Raf. Talk to them, make sure you know what they’re going to do next. Both Micah and I know from personal experience what can happen when you don’t communicate.”

“So what happened?” Rin asked curiously.

“Tree branches. I thought he was going to fly over this one branch, so I sat up but when he went underneath it I whacked my head pretty hard and it almost knocked me off his back.”

Aya cleared her throat. “Fabulous…so I have one slight concern. Do I really have to be with HIM?!” Everyone turned their heads in Raf’s direction to see him chasing after a couple of woman who had passed by the area. He caught up to them and put an arm around each of their shoulders before saying something that made them giggle “Anyone up for a game of Spot the Pimp?!”

The blonde woman sighed and looked at Micah, silently asking him to go retrieve the troublesome red head. “Him, Chase, and Micah are the strongest out of all of them and they can handle the extra weight. The others are already in charge of carrying the bags anyways. That’s why they aren’t here.” Sure enough, when Rin and Aya looked around Sin, Soren, and Luka were no where in sight.

“Are you kidding me?!” Raf asked as he stormed up to Ra’ Shari. “She’s going to purposely make me crash and die!”

“You’re so stupid!” Aya retorted. “If you crash and die then that means I crash and die too! Why the heck would I do that?!”

“I’m not psychotic so I don’t know how your brain works!”

As the two continued to fight Micah dragged Ra’ Shari off to the side. “Are you sure it’s really a good idea to put those two together? If they fight like that when they’re flying then they probably WILL crash and die.”

“Micah, trust me. They will be fine. Besides, don’t they remind you of anyone? Hmmm?” As he watched them fight with each other, calling each other names and the occasional kick or slap from Aya, he sighed and nodded his head. That’s exactly how him and Ra’ Shari had acted when they first met.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to end up like us.”

She put her hands on her hips indignantly. “I’ll have you know that I’m quiet good at setting people up thank you very much! In fact, I’m the one who set Lottie up with Christian.” Micah dropped his head and gave her a look.

“You bumped into Lottie on accident and she tripped, resulting in her bumping into Christian. I was there hon.” She simply rolled her eyes and dragged him back over to the group when she saw Soren, Luka, and Sin land next to the others with bags in hands. As soon as they reached the group, Jonan appeared next to Ra’ Shari with the usual dim blue flash that accompanied her.

“Amaranta told me to give this to you,” she said as she handed the map to Ra’ Shari. “This is where you need to go.” The dark haired woman pointed to a large rectangle with one of her long, slim fingers.

“What is it?”

Jonan shrugged. “Not sure. She said that there’s something there that you need to bring back, though she didn’t say what exactly. She simply said that you would know when you saw it.” She paused before continuing. “And one more thing. Whatever you do don’t get separated…and more importantly, don’t go anywhere alone.” After her eyes quickly flicked to Ra’ Shari she disappeared.

“Alright then, we should be going. Chase, Raf.” She nodded at Rin and Aya before moving towards Micah and hopping up onto his back. Awkwardly Rin did the same with Chase, and with some protest Aya soon followed suit. “Hold on tight,” the blonde called to the two girls, and before they knew it all of the guys seemed to push off the ground as one and their powerful wings carried them up into the air. The girls had to tighten their grip because of the force trying to pull them back down to the ground, but when the guys flew into the forest they soon found out just how thrilling flying really was.