When the meteor blows, about a twenty brilliant particles are spread through Nettai and beyond, leaving polychromatic trails that don't catch anyone's attention.
One of those particles–they are actually pieces of jewel–falls down inside the Belts' switchboard and gets stuck there.
The alarm clock rings with that orchestral symphony that causes recurring nightmares on Gina. That where his father doesn't have arms but try to hug her to the rhythm of the anthem. She wakes up precipitated and before turning off the alarm, she notices the dog snuggled as a dove to her feet. She kicks it violently and it hits the wall soundlessly. It had neither spine nor cartilages to harm.
Seven and a half. Ready to start a new day of life. Recent episodes didn't take her away her boring routine but they made it amusing. Gina Belt couldn't imagine how the screw was going to turn.
An energy outage. The lightbulb flickers. It comes back to normal. Gina thinks that they should be happening all over Crown St but only the Belt house had this problem. The dog, half asleep half awake, hints that it's very important the collection of the gems.
---
Professor Chiyoko's biology class wasn't so boring before. What'd happened? Gina bit the pencil eraser. She detours her eyes through the classroom. She hadn't seen it that wide. Was it? And all the people looked exasperating. More Cindy Junson, why did she have to share this class with her? She rose an eyebrow with arrogance to Gina. She hated her. Samantha was in the back absentminded, rolling her vermillion hair in her index finger. Sure Mandarina Furutsu was going to raise her hand anytime to say whatever smart quip nobody is interested in hearing. Pedantic know-it-all.
They're talking about the date of the extinction of the gorillas.
Suddenly, Gina got lost in the public library again. She starts to mumble the passage she read.
'When the town was founded, Inberi Heart decided to weaken the witch with a powerful magic; he altogether his Teddysprout made a prosperous city.'
---
"You have no idea of the present problem," the dog says to Mitchell.
"You just have to hunt pieces of a meteor. I don't see danger in that." The man was welding a kind of touch screen. He was wearing a tight uniform.
"More than that, Mr Mitchell. If the wrong hands find it...! Ah, the end of the world as you know it."
"What do you mean, dog? Who else knows about this?"
"I haven't told anyone else, if you think so. The only person I've been in touch with is your very daughter."
"Then ..." He stopped a moment melting pieces.
"Other entities exist. Ones that crave for the power that the rubins emanate. A power they were dispensed with. It's vital to find them."
"And then what?" The man continued to open flying blue sparks. He seemed busy but also heard the talking dog.
"We'll rebuild the meteor and I'll keep it."
"Is that so? And if you have to reconstruct it, why did you take it apart?" His watch announced eight and a half. Time to go to work.
"I didn't take it apart!" Hunter rose up, it was mad. Well, if it was a human once, it was a short-tempered one.
The soldering stopped. The electricity was playing around since the early morning. Mr Mitchell took a look at the dim lights. Hunter opened its snout and lifted up its head, smelling something in the air.
"Gotta go," Mr Mitchell takes Hunter's paw in his hands, lifting its body. He inspects it, then places the dog back on the floor. "You know, dog. Same than yesterday. Quiet, noiseless, no mess, no peeping through the window. Be a normal pet."
"I know," Hunter replies frowned. The lights lit hard now. It could read onto Mitchell's bumpy chest 'Kimi Pizza.'
Hunter was to stay on its own until Gina or her father came back. It could climb up to the kitchen counter and lick the dirty pots but as a Teddysprout, it felt neither hunger nor thirst. It'd watch tv, dealing with the remote. As it had no thumbs and its paws were kind of sewn together, besides its lack of muscles or bones, zapping was a pain in the head. It was made of plush, a stuffed animal, despite it didn't seem like it first sight.
The dog did with watching an American sitcoms channel. But then, that smell again. It was so concentrated that it could almost see it. It was strange because Teddysprouts can't smell. They don't. Nor taste, feel, suffer. It is logic as they're plush. That smell belongs to the only thing Teddysprouts are able to sense: a rubin.
These ones had no smell, for sure, but Hunter is a 'Supreme Teddysprout' and one of its multiple abilities–if there are others–was this.
"It comes from nearby. It's a rubin," it lifted up its snout.
Another light outage. The living room lights got cut off. They're back. Oh, they're off again. Hunter sees them dimming, then flickering. The smell has condensed. It broke into the house. The Teddysprout got off the sofa and initiates a pursuit.
---
Gina searches the hallways in her way to the patio to catch a glimpse on the arrogant Paris Healtown. She was fancying how to convince her that what she saw was totally reasonable. The girl sits at the cement table in the patio she would with Samantha for a year. Nobody but them used it.
Gina was not popular. At least not as The Ashes, the most popular girls in the school, a year ahead her. Samantha had a small fame. A bad one. She was a bully. She didn't go through the school harassing students, but the ones who offended her somehow paid off. Hard.
The wishes to tell Samantha, her best friend, the experience as a changer were coming out her pores but the dog had told Gina clearly that everything must be kept under lock and key. 'Or the scientists could toss an eye on the situation, find it and dissect it' as the frogs from Professor Chiyoko's class. Hunter was emphatic. To a Teddysprout, a scientist was a phobia, a combat enemy. As a mailman to a regular dog.
Paris Healtown and her lackey were sitting a bit distant. Over the popular people's spots. Gina could barely see her among so many students dancing, but she did. What Gina could tell her best friend was the encounter between she and the striped girl. A very acid and disassociating one.
---
Hunter found out the origin of the peculiar smell: the switchboard to the sides of the house. But, it could do nothing. It couldn't open the small door of it. It proposed itself to wait for its changer.
When Gina entered the living room by the evening, her sight clouded in black. The lights had gone out. How so? She saw the light poles on outside. A pitchy voice talked from the darkness.
"It'd been in and out since the morning." It wasn't Hunter's.
"I know." Gina replied, tossing her pink backpack on the floor. Her neck started to itch. It hadn't since she was wearing the piece of gem Hunter gave her. "Where's the dog?"
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
"But a while ago, the lights went off." Mitchell continued dully. I noticed we're the only ones in Crown St without electricity."
"Dad–"
"Eh? Oh Gina, take a look at the switchboard."
Gina headed to the side of the house. She heard dangerous sparks. Hunter was on the grass as an expecting little dog. Somehow, Gina remembered it looked indeed like a cute doggie but it was no more than a bitter boss. The girl saw then flashes and the sparks coming from the inside of the box.
She was not scared but a bit surprised. She approached to it and tried to open the box poking carefully not to get electrified. When she finally opens the box, she was thrown away to the floor by a draught. Among the fuses, a blinding yellow light was stuck. The door of the box was hanging by a thread and this light floated to the sky, leaving Gina astounded.
Hunter moved.
"Grab it, grab it. It's a rubin, you dumbheaded girl!"
What an impression! What could the girl do? The burst was getting away to the sky and she couldn't fly and whatnot.
"Birdbrain!" Hunter recriminated while skipped and jumped.
"Don't you call me like that, you stupid dog!" Gina shrieked teeth.
The Healtown limousine parked to the front of the Belts'. It wasn't Paris's whim. She had seen the yellow light sphere that was floating over the light poles. If she squinted her turquoise eyes, she could see a figure disguised in all of the sparks.
What kind of rubin was it? Apparently one that accelerates as it gets away. It was starting to consume the electricity from the poles it got close to. It bumped them and sucked their lights. Soon, Crown St was being left dark.
Mrs Figg got out of her house. She was an obese prig.
"Oh. This has to be Gina Belt's fault," she uttered involved in a curtain of securement.
"If we don't catch it, it'll cause a general blackout in Nettai, and if it goes from pole to pole, all New Heart Hill will get dark," Hunter alarmed. Gina hadn't seen it so fussy but it was more like it was elated instead of concerned. It skipped like a dog when runs back into an owner that has parted for years. Mr Mitchell helped Gina with a glowstick. They were giving her things she would need.
This was the first rubin they both saw.
"Fine." Gina was almost numb. She was dragged by the strange episode, her emotions were nullified. She took the things her dad brought from a box from the garage.
"Where–Where you going, Gina?" He then asks worriedly.
"Gina is going to 'hunt pieces of a meteor,'" Hunter replied instead, snatching the man's phrase.
"How's she, eh?" The man used an irked tone.
Gina had some gloves, pads for knees and elbows, goggles and a butterfly net, but he was right. The girl just needed one thing. Hunter said she would just cope. Then, Mitchell went to the garage again and when he came back, he'd brought a tricycle.
"The tricycle!" Gina shouted miffed. Her emotions were back.
"I fixed it myself."
"Whatever. Let's hasten or we will lose the rubin." The dog followed her.
The light sphere floated over 3rd St now. Paris and Zach followed it running leaving the limousine behind. The twilight light started to paint the houses in a dusky blue.
"What are you trying to do?" Said Zach in a raspy tired voice.
"I want it for me." Paris now showed another of her senseless whims, very common when she notices something special and peculiar.
"And how do you think you'll catch that burst?"
"Keep your eyes together, Zach. You'll see." They stopped the marathon. Paris fished her striped hand in her bag and as follows, she got a small cube. She threw it to the floor and it disarmed itself, unfurling and unfolding, until it transformed in a scooter. She jumped in, cranked it on, and began ascending to the pinkish blue sky to chase after the light-eater aurora.
----
Gina Belt was behind the flying rubin. It had become bigger as it ate several lightbulbs from the poles and houses facades. Its velocity also increased and it headed upward even more. Gina was in the air too but to be so, she had to pedal consequently her old tricycle. This vehicle gave off fire from the new rockets Mr Belt had added.
[https://images2.imgbox.com/c0/53/b3rSPGYU_o.png]
But hell it was exhausting! She could barely keep going and the lungs perceived no agreeable air. She ascended very slowly, her legs felt strained. Somehow, her euphoria and her upsetness blended in to construct a new adventure sensation. She was about to give up when she saw Paris Healtown on a modern scooter rising up fast and effortlessly.
She felt wounded by jealousy and anger. She didn't have to pedal! She just stood on that machine and holds the handlebars. What an envy! The result of being the heiress of the Healtown Company. That model of scooter hasn't hit the market yet.
Gina fired up. There was a competition in the air. The rubin was leading the field. Zach ran through alleys and people. He was excited. If he would've gotten his megaboard with him, he hadn't been on the ground. A black and white silhouette was drawn beside him but suddenly it outran him.
It was Hunter. It flapped its ears and soon it was flying too. It was careful not to be caught by any curious eye, thanks to its camouflage and its appearance, it was possible. But Zach's goggles could see it. They were brand Healtown too.
The moloid boy murmured something while he kept running. "Zoom three," he commanded to the air.
---
The sparkling sphere headed Downtown. The most populated region in New Heart Hill; therefore, the most electrified one.
Paris could hardly see the burst of light. The winds were hard and the visibility was compromised by the altitude and the coming night. Gina was a bit behind her. Hunter was there somewhere flapping like Dumbo. Not it was only a talking dog but a flying one! It hid itself in the gelid clouds, making sure its changer accomplished its commands.
Both girls said no words. But they were aware they competed to grab the rubin. Gina had the information Paris lacked of while the Healtown girl just desired to beat. Neither of them would acknowledge the other's strength and the tension was thicker than the solidified nocturnal breeze. The light sphere stopped.
There it stayed. In the middle of the sky. The clouds destroyed themselves and covered the space. The visibility was indeed difficult.
Gina couldn't pedal no more. Her legs lost conviction. The tricycle was a reliquary. It was a birthday gift from her mother from the years when Gina was a docile girl. That old memory was falling down. Gina Belt began to fall too. She could feel the strokes of air blowing through her hair. She could say she had never felt this relaxation in her skin. It was like a Memento Mori. Was it the end of her? Where are her goals? What does she want to become?
For a minuscule moment, she felt a heat in her throat. Like a burning beverage inside her pharynx. The breeze was so chill. Flying felt awesome, even falling down completely. She was surrounded by a blue light. Where was the floor and the gruesome crash she assured she'd have?
She opened her blue violet eyes. She touched the blades of grass with her own fingers. What? Where was she? Her knees were filthy in dust. Her own body was as frozen as a cadaver but she was alive. She realized she was on a hill. The main hill Downtown. She saw behind her the enormous and scary statue of the town founder, Inberi Heart. It was a 32 ft bronze figure. You could see the entire heart of the town and beyond if you climbed up to his lifted arm.
The black-haired girl could pay attention to the statue. She'd seen it so many times, but not this close. She knew the goldsmith who made it carved his pet with him. Inberi carried a puppy on his right arm. She could say it looked similar to Hunter. Was it? Impossible. Heart died 200 years ago.
Gina set her sight on Hunter. It was in front of her, it looked like an authentic dog.
She let her head down. "We failed, Hunter." She rolled her black strands in her index. Her eyes had lost shine.
"Nevermind," it riposted very calmed. "We'll get it back."
---
Zach was talking to Jim, the butler, out the limousine. Paris's high-heeled boots tapped against the concrete and the sound reverberated all over. She was coming closer with a poker face and lacking of the scooter. She sure saved it in her bag again.
She observed Zach. He was more amazed than pensive. The girl didn't speak, she waited for Jim to open the door for her and she got in. When the rockets of the car whistled, Zach started to kill the silence, coughing.
Paris, who was admiring the thick black window glass, took a look at him like he wasn't by her side before.
His brown eyes demanded answers and the blonde just grabbed her bag and opened it. The yellow shine was blinding, it lit the whole chamber of the limousine. Zach thought he was going to find a fulguration of a gem inside it, like an immense yellow zircon. However, a Dalmatian puppy with a yellow gem hanged from the neck was instead.
"Tobby!" The 'animal' gasped. Zach looked at Paris very mixed up.