A couple of days ago, Gina started to quest for rubins with the dog. She’s got two stones: one blue and another yellow, oblong. She came home with scratches and nicks as it seems the dog makes her climb trees, get into the mud and tundras to look for false alarms of its snout. Being a changer used to be funnier when she pictured it.
Mr Mitchell gets worried when he sees her daughter all jaded and bruised, and he has her a surprise so her quest for rubins will be easier. It’s weekend and he’ll take her to the flea market to find metal parts or buy clothes.
Gina looks herself into the mirror to see some flaw: her perfectly-combed long hair, as far as the hips, her pink hairband with a tiny bow to the left, her blue gem hanging from her throat, the tiger-patterned arm gloves. She mascaras her lashes so everyone can notice her blue violet eyes, she brushes her pink crop-top, and turns around to see how her blue tiered skirt girates, oh and her pink sneakers also match with her personality: Gina’s pink side. It doesn't matter if any boy takes a look at her, she needs to be flawless; she’s a vivid teenager.
"GINA, COME HERE!"
"COMING!"
Both of the Belts yelled at each other when one was upstairs and the other on the ground floor.
"Hunter told me evil spirits are after these rubins. I know you haven't run into any but at least... keep yourself safe."
Gina was getting downstairs when she received an ugly orange belt full with pockets and a pair of leather-like brown gloves.
"Eh, what's this, dad?" She knew none of this matched her.
"I provided that belt with different armament that'll help you fight bad guys. The gloves shoot plasma spheres."
It was one of the weird inventions Mr Mitchell was fixing. He was giving her that more to prove them rather than for her safety. Gina was more harmful than those 'bad guys' that didn't even exist. The most dangerous thing Hunter and herself ran into was a rabid doberman.
Gina's elation showed up. She took it as a vow of trust as she ignored what was going in her father's mind about this quest. Their relationship wasn't the best. He was too constraining and she felt under a monarchy she needed to defy.
The girl took her tiger gloves off immediately and put on the leather-like ones. These ones had an aluminium semiclosed bracelet onto the wrist with a pair of small blue crystals underneath as a matter of a fuse. She hesitated to wear the belt, though. It was unappealing.
---
There were so many people in the flea market as always. Gina held a leash tied to Hunter's neck–he had never felt this humiliation before, he was 'a human, not a pet.'
The flea market was an immense street filled with tables where all sorts of elements were sold. The noise produced by the gawkers and the irritant music from some busker reunited and created a shrieking buzz that made visitors speak aloud. Walking, shopping was never quick but it was the place where everything was inexpensive and findable. Around the flea market, a set of alleys like a maze was held. They connected to a part of the suburbs and the nearest streets out of Downtown. Two pair of luminous eyes lit from one of these obscure alleys. They set on Gina's gem. It was obvious it wasn't a quartz or some other painted knickknack; it was a diamond or a turquoise well polished, or an aquamarine of a pale blue. It must be worth quite something. The eyes got lost inside the shadows.
The Belts ran into Mrs Figg. One should say a prig like that would never be seen in this kind of places, but there she was. The same smug face she had in public.
"Hi, Mr Mitchell, Gina."
"Hello, Mrs Figg," they replied, he nicely, she with intolerance.
"Cute dog of yours. I didn't' know you had one." She continued her gait, grinding her big hips with despise.
"Mrs Fatso," Gina taunted.
"Gina!" Mitchell yelled. He couldn't believe how disagreeable Gina considered their neighbor.
"Sorry, dad. You know she's a pedantic and a snitch. I bet she's just here to smell our feet."
They kept on walking, trying to not collide against someone.
Gina took the time to observe her gloves. They covered her forearm in a material similar to leather but not authentic. The aluminium bracelet on her wrist astounded her. The blue outcomes must be the point where the plasma set free. There were some miniscule numbers in a clock to the side of the hand with a red arrow pointing numbers from 0 to 5. It was indeed the mechanism which Mr Mitchell was working on all of this month. Gina couldn't wait for killing bad guys with it. That's to say, defeat them.
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The girl thought that if that piece of invention worked well, her father would be considered a stupendous engineer despite he didn't finish his studies and worked in a mediocre pizza place.
In her belt there were several items inside pockets. Seven, in total. A kind of a numberless alarm clock in the center; more to the right side, a pen-like skyrocket and next to, a small canyon similar to those ones that shoot tshirts. To the left, some elongated capsules, next pocket contained a charging revolver and what Gina smiled for: one of the pockets had bombones, a hand explosive strong enough to hollow a wall and another, next to the clock, had small hand grenades. Where the hell did Mr Mitchell get these things out of? Was he an engineer this good to create his own armament or did he have a pact with a terrorist organization?
He should work for the government or the Healtowns. No, not this last one, Gina thought.
She wanted to try all of this system but she couldn't do it inside a crowded space like the flea market. She didn't forget most of her father's apparatuses blew in the kitchen counter. She stayed navigating for so long inside herself that once she looked up, she found herself walking alone. The girl had ducked into the crowd on her own, letting go of her dad and Hunter.
A hobo accosted her.
"Pretty girl! I'm gonna squeeze you..."
"Daaad!" She screamed euphorically.
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"Stay out, wretched!" Mr Mitchell said, running to where his daughter was. He hugged her and went back. The hobo had gone.
"Heaven! Those people should be swept away the streets!"
"How terrifying!" Gina sobbed. "You stupid dog didn't do a thing!" She recriminated Hunter, who dragged the leash.
"What did you want me to do? Bite him? I don't have teeth, birdbrain." The Teddysprout murmured.
"Stop! People could hear us. Be more careful!" The father alerted.
Although Gina was excited to leave the place, her father hadn't bought what he looked for: some photocells, a LED, and a CCD, hard-to-come-by pieces for an individual but cheaper here.
To take vengeance because of its inefficiency, Gina pulled down the leash while they were walking, dragging Hunter as far as the seller's spot. She chuckled but she hadn't realized the dog wasn't in the leash no more. Instead, a filthy teddy bear was tied.
Once the shopping was done, and already in the Jeep, Gina moaned when she found out the trick.
"Dad, stop!" She said concerned.
"The dog is not. Let's go back!"
"I can't. I can't turn around here."
Gina got out the Jeep and crossed through the crowd to look for her hateful pet. Half an infructuous hour after searching, she was vanquished.
"We'll come back later, Gina. The dog is conscious. It'll cope, as it says."
Mitchell looked up and the sky was studded in cumulonimbuses, a periodical fact when there's rain in New Heart Hill. Soon, the obscurity and the heavy rain took over Nettai's streets. Already home, Gina argued with her father, she had to find Hunter but her dad constricted her as usual. They couldn't be under the recent flood anyway.
"Go to your room, Gina!" Mitchell pointed the staircase.
"Fine!" Gina held her head down. She was clearly going to disobey, her accomplice look and false compliance exposed her.
Later, she opened the bedroom window and jumped fearlessly to a branch of the apple tree. This one touched Gina's bedroom window, she had sneaked out several times before, using the fruit tree. She sighed, then carefully, she climbed down the tree and trod the watery flowerbed grass. She got down quick and left the house under the rising rain. She took a bus and didn't take long to get to the flea market.
Gina always took risks. She chose the hardest paths, she liked to be a rebel, nobody symbolized authority for her. She didn't want to pose as the typical fragile tender girl. She was the protagonist of her own story.
"Hunter, Hunter!" She started to scream. The flea market looked like a graveyard. The rain worsened this vision and it disrespectfully caressed Gina's body. The raincoat she had taken with her didn't help much.
The drops were fat. They made a huge sound when crashed over the floor. They danced to one side and then the other, like insecure of the direction they wanted to follow.
"Hunter, Hunter!"
She didn't receive any reply. It was all dark and rainy, baleful. What could she expect from such a dangerous place, where homeless and drunkards lodge? She had to take shelter in an alley but she was enough wet as to catch pneumonia. Suddenly, a blue tail of light lit the alley, it looked like a phosphorescent firefly.
"Another rubin?" Gina followed the glare throughout the maze of connected alleys. She ducked into a long one but she lost the glare. This sensation that was produced in the air didn't feel like that adrenaline the light-eater yellow one that Paris Healtown stole did, it was more like that security and stiffness she perceived from the ones she had collected among the hills in Senyose.
The Belt girl caught the glare again. It came from another alley. She followed. The rain was stopping and the fat drops lightened.
There it was. Gina saw the gem. It was a blue one similar to the gem Hunter had hanging from its neck. Some shoe steps approached from another alley. Gina could observe a blue pastel pair of boots which stopped just in front of her own eyes, just next to the gem dropped on the humid and cold floor. A womanly hand, gloved in mesh, takes the little jewel.
"What do we have, here, Volpe?" The woman in rags said. She had a petulant look despite her worn Victorian blue dress.
The companion, a ginger, answers goofily his negativeness.
Gina hid herself behind a mountain of wet garbage. She didn't care as she was part of this soaked environment. The heavy rain had stopped completely. The black-haired girl held her eyes on that couple of threadbare hobos. They dressed up in bad intentions: the woman with the pompous dress carried a pompadour on her blond hair and the man wore a torn smoking and a top hat. He had a unibrow. Both of them looked dry, untouched by the cumulonimbuses. Gina was about to retire but she was grabbed from behind by a bunch of hobos, in cahoots with the couple.
"This looks like the one the girl has in her neck," Feline, the woman, said. She held the rubin she found in her index and right thumb. Gina was brought towards her by the hobos, who tossed her to the wet floor of the filthy alley.
The couple observed her while the hobos took off her raincoat aggresively. They all chuckled, then guffawed. They were after her gem.
"This one is mine," the woman said, "if you want one, take the girl's."
"It's ok," Volpe answered monotonously.
"Leave me alone! Don't touch me!" Gina screamed convulse. Her knees were on the floor and she felt a little uneasiness.
A hobo grabbed her arms strongly. Another pulled her hairs from her nape and Volpe slid his long nasty nails through her neck. She had a fabric necklace and hanging from it, the piece of gem she slit from Hunter's.
"Oh, hey Feline. I think this belongs to the one we tried to snatch from that dog. She has, like, the lid of it."
Gina open-widened her violet eyes. She could take a look at the bottom of the alley. Hunter's body was there. Swollen like a cadaver. It must've been the humidity. It had to be fainted.
Gina stretched, pushed, bit but she was still held by these scoundrels of the alley. Some bad breath came to her nose, they licked her ears. She was being humiliated. 'They'll steal my gem and then what?' Gina's thoughts were as quick as sooty.
The air became heavy. Feline laughed out loud while she admired her rubin. Volpe started fingering Gina's neck to take the gem off.
"Leave me alone!" Gina cried out. Her gem began shining stronger than the rubin Feline had just picked up. It was so lit that it shines over the maze of alleys. A newborn energy emanated from Gina's body and blew the hobos away against the walls and piled up garbage. Mrs Figg, who was nearby in a raincoat, was thrown away star-shaped to the sky. The wave of energy sent Volpe away too and the rats that clapped their owners' victory. Gina was in rage.
She stood up.
Gina was possessed by her rage. She didn't notice what was happening: her throat gave off a tremendous luminescence and from her hands a blue sphere was forming. Her hand said "Mode One" in a robotic voice and what followed was Feline being sent to the air by a plasma ball. The rubin the woman clutched fell down to the floor.
Another succession of light spheres came out of her left hand and hit Volpe while someone said "Mode Two."
It was Gina's gloves!
Feline sat up and dusted off the blotches, trying to hand the gem she'd picked up but another blast of plasma burned her mesh hand. She shook it off like she had touched a boiling pot.
The girl moved forwards, her throat was putting out until it didn't light. She approached Hunter's body. She lifted it up. It was heavy and the texture produced by touching it was disgusting. Feline and Volpe recovered and made their dead set against Gina but a gelid look from her eyes forced them to dart as cheetahs, getting away through the maze. Gina would make a phone call so that pair can get imprisoned.
"Wow, I can use more," said the girl while she got lost through the alleys. They noisily lit up in blue and orange as she walked away.