Chapter 13
Peace
Monty Uno was the only one at home when the phone rang…
It was well past noon the next day and poor Monty and his family had been up literally all night looking for Sasha. In fact they had all just regrouped only a little less than an hour ago... As Monty had insisted that his wife and Nigel get at least a little bit of rest before they tried anything else. Naturally Monty was completely exhausted as well, but someone had to stay awake in case anyone tried to call… whether it was the police or Sasha herself. He sat at the kitchen table with a mug of fresh coffee in his hand… although admittedly even with the coffee he was starting to nod off when the ringing phone startled him back to being fully awake.
"Hello?" Monty said as he quickly stood up and grabbed up the phone from off the nearby countertop.
"…Monty, it's Benedict."
"Ben? What's the matter? Did you find her?"
"Yes I have Sasha; we're at the hospital-"
"The hospital? Oh dear God what happened?" Monty exclaimed completely horrified at the thought of his poor niece possibly being injured or sick enough to have warranted her needing to go to the hospital. If Benedict had to take her there it was definitely not something minor, or a joke.
"She's pretty torn up and lost a lot of blood… but the doctor told me that she should be alright; however they're going to keep her overnight for observation just to be safe." Benedict explained in an oddly calm tone as Monty Uno grabbed his coat and was preparing to head over to the hospital right then and there.
"Thank you Ben, I'm on my way."
"…I'm keeping her Monty…"
This stopped Monty Uno dead in his tracks; did he just mishear his little brother? "What did you just say?" he asked in complete disbelief.
"She's my daughter Monty, I changed my mind… I want to keep her." Benedict stated again in that same surprisingly calm manner.
"You can't have it both ways Ben… you can't just be a parent when the mood hits you, it is a full time responsibility." Monty warned, although he was without a doubt extremely happy that his brother wanted to take his daughter… the last thing he wanted was for Benedict to change his mind again… as it just would not be fair to Sasha if she had to endure that again…
"Don't lecture me Monty… I already know that and I've made up my mind." Benedict said with a bit more of his usual agitation present in his voice… although it was restrained by Benedict's borderline non-existent self-control… which made it all the more surprising for Monty to hear.
"You're really serious then?" He asked.
"I am…"
"If that's the case… then I wish you all the best. You ought to know that I never signed the Guardianship papers. I asked Harths' lawyer to give it a week… just to see if you'd change your mind." Monty said breathing a long sigh of relief that things had turned out the way they had.
"…did… did you really expect me to change my mind?" Benedict questioned suspiciously. As he was more than a little surprised at this newly revealed information.
"I honestly didn't know." Monty said with a slight chuckle. "But, I couldn't help but think that if you did change your mind and it was too late… you'd never have another chance..."
"A chance for what?" Benedict inquired.
"For you to find your peace…" At that silence was all Monty heard; he even began to wonder if his brother had hung up on him! But the sound of Benedict sighing in what he assumed was a bit of annoyance assured him that he was still there.
"Well I'm going to go then… I'll call you later."
"Hey Ben…
"What?"
"Good luck... little brother." There was a bit of a pause at this, but then there was the sound of a dial-tone… naturally Monty Uno had not expected his brother to respond to his words, but the fact that he had paused for a moment to take his words in brought a smile to Monty's face… perhaps there was hope for his brother yet…
"Just give him a little time Mariah; he'll figure it all out eventually." Monty said to the air; after all Mariah had been his friend too… and he had no doubt in his mind that she was watching all these events from up in heaven… "But if you can… I do recommend the occasional nudge in the right direction." And at this Monty took off his coat and determined that he too was in need of a bit of well-earned rest.
…Two Months Later…
Sasha hadn't returned to Gallagher Elementary since her initial disappearance, and even though his father had told him not to worry about Sasha… as she was fine where she was… he didn't tell Nigel where his cousin was; (As Monty was aware that Nigel didn't much care for his uncle Benedict… and he didn't want Nigel to go over to Bens house and bother him and Sasha until they had finished adapting to their new situation.) After two more weeks of searching to no avail, Numbuh 1 reluctantly decided to listen to his father and stopped looking for his missing cousin… so two long months had passed since Sector V had seen neither hide nor hair of Sasha.
That was until today anyway…
It was Friday and the school day had just ended about ten minutes ago and there was the usual stampede to get out of the building. Yet on this particular day the members of Sector V had been among the first ones out and they were now heading back to the Tree-house. The reason they were in such a particular hurry today was because of what was supposed to occur later on that evening… as there was going to be StarShower tonight… throughout the entire night shooting stars were going to adorn the sky in spectacular display that only happened once every 25 years. Thus they were in a huge hurry to get back to the Tree-house, drop off their school gear, and then make their way out to the local park which was supposed to have the best possible views of the shooting stars... It was also to be noted that Kuki's arm was now in a cast; as during the fight with Sasha in earlier weeks she had broken her arm. Although she now seemed as happy as she usually was, but poor Numbuh 4 was left to carry home her books for her… (And he was grumbling about it under his breath the whole way.)
"Hurry it up Numbuh 4!" Abigail said to the irritated and weighed down form of her fellow comrade. Naturally this got her an agitated glare from her considerably shorter friend.
"I'd like to see you go faster while carrying all of Numbuh 3's crud!" Wally grunted darkly back at Numbuh 5.
"But you offered to carry my books for me; remember Numbuh 4?" Kuki pointed out innocently. This caused Abby to snicker and Wally to growl in anger… although that anger was mostly directed at himself.
"Yeah well I didn't know you had sooo much stuff!" he grunted again under his breath. Then he shifted his gaze over to the rest of the members of Sector V who had been watching this little exchange in silent amusement. "Any of you guys want to give me a hand here?"
…his friends applauded…
"Ha ha very funny you guys." Numbuh 4 retorted angrily; definitely not amused by that little dose of ironic karma. "But seriously… can one of you guys help me out with this?"
"Why don't you ask Sasha to help you?" Numbuh 3 suggested. Naturally earned her several strange looks from her fellow operatives.
"Was that sarcasm?" Wally questioned flatly.
"No." Kuki answered truthfully. "I mean ask Sasha… she's right over there!" She said gesturing with her good arm a little ways further down the street they were currently walking down.
…It took a few moments for this to truly register inside of the minds of the rest of the Sector V members…
…But once it did, Sasha quickly found herself surrounded…
Sasha wasn't exactly paying attention to the world around her as she had been taking a walk around town by herself... her mind had been elsewhere when all of a sudden she found herself being stopped in her tracks by several individuals who were all pretty much yelling at her at once. She blinked a few times in surprise but when she realized what was going on… she then smiled and laughed in an extremely nervous manner upon realizing that she was seeing her former friends again.
"Uh… hehe, hi guys." Sasha said nervously. She had every right to be; after all the last time she saw them she hadn't been in a right state of mind… and that was putting it very mildly.
"Where the heck have you been Sasha!" Nigel snapped angrily at his cousin. "Do you have any idea how worried we've all been?"
"Worried? …why would you worry about me? After I totally lost it and attacked you guys I thought that you guys would hate me." Sasha began…
"Hate you?" Numbuh 5 exclaimed. "Girl you've been to hell itself and back again! So… you lost it there for a bit; it's ok. Friends forgive one another."
"Yeah Sasha we're your friends!" Kuki said giving Sasha a quick one armed hug. Sasha smiled weakly, but her smile couldn't quite hide some discomfort at being hugged. Nigel noticed this and that was when he really looked at his cousin… and noticed just how different she looked. While Sasha still was wearing her normal clothes, it was still extremely weird how different she looked simply by being out of her wheelchair. Her eyes also seemed to be much more alive than they had been, shining an even more vibrant and deep shade of gold. But what caught Nigel's attention the most was that there appeared to be bandages wrapped around one side of Sasha's neck, and after looking a little closer he could make out even more bandages wrapped around Sasha's arm and he was willing to bet that she had even more around her torso.
"You're hurt." Nigel inquired… Sasha just let out a dry chuckle.
"Not really, I just got really torn up after fighting with the brats… I needed 113 stiches in my side and I'm on a lot of medications to make sure that I don't get any infections; and those medicines make me sleep a lot. That's why I haven't been in school for so long… this the first time in a long time that I've been awake for more than 4 hours so I thought I'd go for a walk. It's been… a very long time since I was able to do that." Sasha explained and rubbed the back of her head in a still somewhat nervous manner. "I will be seeing you guys again; on Monday I should be back at school… well, either Monday or Tuesday."
"You know the members of Sector Z have been looking for you just as much as we have... They want to personally thank you for freeing them." Numbuh 1 said quickly as he just remembered that little bit of information. "I guess I'll let them know that you'll be in school next week… but Sasha where have you-"
"Where have you been staying Sasha? I thought you were supposed to be living with Numbuh 1 and his parents?" Numbuh 2 questioned a little bit confused… actually that was a good question, since Nigel was about to ask the exact same thing. Of course then it was Sasha's turn to look confused…
"I'm living with my Dad… but I thought you knew that?"
"WHAT?" … that was pretty much everyone's reaction to this… and Numbuh 4 finally dropped all of Kuki's books.
"I thought that Father didn't want you!" Numbuh 4 stated flatly… and this earned him a very dark look from Sasha; in fact her eyes actually began to glow in a somewhat menacing way… but she didn't have enough time to reply before Numbuh 1 started in on her.
"Look Sasha, whether or not he's really your Dad… Father is evi- Wh-Wha?" Nigel never got a chance to finish what he was saying because he suddenly found himself being levitated off the ground… but only by a few inches… just enough to bring him up to Sasha's eye level.
"Listen very closely Cuz…" Sasha said in a very malevolent tone that made her shorter cousin gulp nervously. "My Dad isn't evil to me… and if you bad-mouth him around me, I promise that I'll make your life a living hell!" Sasha snapped with a burst of blue flames suddenly appearing around her body…
…along with her black and blue silhouette…
"Am I clear?" The silhouetted Sasha inquired coldly to the freaked out kids in front of her.
"Crystal clear…" Nigel said surprisingly regaining his composure and answering his demonic cousin in a completely un-intimidated manner. Then Sasha dropped him to the ground in which he quickly stood up and brushed himself off… an awkward silence then fell over the group after that; Sasha took a deep, calming breath and her silhouette quickly dispersed. Hoagie fidgeted a bit before he looked at Sasha with quite a bit of noticeable fear written on his face.
"So… um- does… does this mean… you're our enemy now?" He asked, partially fearing the answer.
"She's not our enemy Numbuh 2." Numbuh 1 answered before Sasha could. He brushed a little more dust off of himself before he looked at Sasha… and smiled at her.
"Father is our enemy… but Sasha is our rival." He announced, as he held out a hand to his cousin… and Sasha smiled back and she also extended a hand to Nigel.
…and the two cousins shook hands…
"Don't think that this means I'm gonna go easy on you when I'm helping Dad with his plans." Sasha stated with a cocky smile now very apparent on her face; her nervousness was gone and now replaced by self-confidence and strength. Although she did notice that Wally was busy trying to pick up all of Kuki's books and papers. Sasha moved her hand and suddenly all of the books and papers levitated off of the ground and neatly stacked themselves once again in Numbuh 4's arms.
"Uh… thanks." Wally said looking a little both freaked out and wary at Sasha who smiled good naturedly at him.
"Yeah some new powers woke up when I was in the hospital… I gotta practice them so… yeah." Sasha replied.
"Ooohh! I almost forgot! Sasha! Wanna sign my cast?" Numbuh 3 said merrily offering Sasha a blue marker.
"Sure…" Sasha said taking the marker and she signed her name in neat cursive on the cast. Then she looked up at the sky which was already starting to darken as twilight began to set in. "Well… I gotta get going now; I don't want Dad to worry about me. See you guys at school next week!" Sasha said and waved goodbye to her friends who also waved back at her as they continued. There was silence amongst the members of Sector V until Numbuh 4 spoke up.
"Look I know that the Delightful Dorks are gone now… but if Sasha's working with Father, did our problems just get better or worse-"
"Hey! Sasha didn't sign her last name! This is different!" Numbuh 3 exclaimed, more than a little confused as to why Sasha wrote something different. Curiously Nigel glanced at what was written on Kuki's cast…
…Sasha Uno…
"Oh yeah… they just got a whole lot worse." Nigel observed… and yet he found that he was ok with that.
…because right now there was peace and nothing to do but sit back and watch the stars…
(Elsewhere at the Delightful Mansion)
By the time Sasha got back home the sun had already set and the first shooting stars had just begun to streak across the night's sky. Sasha mentally kicked herself for getting so sidetracked and looked up at the large imposing mansion before her. She was supposed to meet her Dad on the roof so they could watch the shooting stars together… well Sasha was in a hurry and since she was still getting used to the entire interior of the mansion; she decided to take a shortcut… Quickly her silhouette veiled her body and she began to try her hand at shape shifting again. Although due to her severe injuries she couldn't try a full-body shape shift without running the risk of re-opening the healing wounds, so she tried something she assumed would be simple enough.
She created a pair of large angelic wings…
Sasha would have liked to have tried her hand at levitating her own body up to the roof but her levitation ability was still a bit faulty, so she went with the whole shape shifting idea… Sasha flexed her wings for a minute, then spread them and began to fly up to the mansions roof. At first her little shortcut seemed to be a brilliant idea on Sasha's part… that was until a sudden wave of exhaustion suddenly filled her entire body and she couldn't muster the strength to fly any higher and she began to plummet towards the ground… or so she thought.
It turned out that she was actually floating in midair and then she slowly began to float up towards the roof. This anomaly was suddenly explained when she saw Father on the roof waiting for her. Clearly her floating the rest of the way up to the roof was his doing. By now Benedict Uno's silhouette had returned to covering his entire body as it usually did; only now unbeknownst to every other villain, it may disappear from time to time… when he found himself to be in a good mood. But Sasha was the only one who knew this and she wasn't going to tell a soul.
"I thought you were only going for a walk." Father commented darkly to Sasha as he set her down on the roof. "What took so long?"
"I ran into some of my friends." Sasha answered honestly. "We got talking for a bit and I lost track of the time; sorry." Father sighed at this, as he was still getting used to this whole 'parenting' thing and how he couldn't just fly off the handle at every little thing like he would have done with the Delightful Children… In retrospect he had wondered what had happened to them… but when Sasha explained what she had seen happen to them with her music box he'd been more than a little shocked. But in actuality, some part of him was relieved that they were gone… this way he wouldn't have to worry about any future issues between them and Sasha. As for Sasha's music box, she had hidden it away someplace special prior to him having found her in the graveyard… and she wouldn't tell him or anyone else where that place was. He couldn't be angry at her for this… that device held some amazing power, and he couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't be tempted to use it in one of his future schemes…
"It's ok…" he said patting Sasha on the head and then he sat back down on the roof. Sasha immediately sat right next to him and the two began to watch the sky, watching the shooting stars. The view from atop the mansion was absolutely breathtaking. One could see for miles in any direction. After a minute an idea came to Father and he telekinetically opened one of the lower windows of his mansion and made an items on one of tables float out the window and come up into his hand… It appeared to be some sort of spyglass. Like the kind a pirate would own.
"Where'd you get that?" Sasha questioned looking at the item with curiosity.
"Won it off Stickybeard in a card game…" Father said with a smirk… not that anyone could notice due to his silhouette. He extended the spyglass and began to scan the sky with it… although he got a little bit sidetracked when he suddenly remembered something that was supposed to be taking place this evening and he glanced in the general direction of the town park. Where as it turned out another villainous picnic was currently being held that evening, so that all of the Adults could enjoy the StarShower without any annoying kids around. Basically to sum it up all of the villains were forbidding kids from entering the best area possible to watch the shooting stars. Father could even see that at the entrance to the park there was quite a gathering of disappointed children… the annoying members of Sector V among them. Father chuckled dryly; if those brats were there then one could be sure that something was going to be occurring that would spoil his fellow villains' fun…
…But maybe this time they wouldn't be the ones to cause the biggest stir at this picnic…
Father continued observing the crowds of villains present at the picnic but eventually his gaze settled on Count Spankulot who was unsurprisingly at this little gathering; but what was surprising was that he was apparently busy signing copies of his book for some of the other villains and chatting happily about its contents with them. (Father was still having a hard time believing that the Spank-Happy Vampires book was a best-seller; but hey stranger things had been happening as of late.) Still Father couldn't help but wonder when a certain something he'd arranged for the vampire would arrive…
He got his answer when the Count's attention was drawn away from his fellow villains when he noticed a young woman standing a ways behind them in almost an awkward sort of way. She was actually quite pretty; she had long black hair, large icy blue eyes, a somewhat noticeable pair of fangs protruded from either side of her mouth, and greyish colored skin. She wore a black gothic style dress and onyx colored dress boots. Like she wanted to walk up and say something but was having difficulty finding the courage to do so… but Spankulot had noticed her and even from his position far away from this little scene, Father could make out the look of dawning realization and disbelief on the vampires face. There was a long pause… then they both ran up and embraced each other, tears of joy noticeable in both of their faces.
What…?
Father hated loose ends; and it wasn't like it was hard for a super genius like him to track down the vampires daughter… who as it turned out had been looking for her father as well…
…no he wasn't getting soft…
He watched for a few minutes more, as he was getting quite a kick out of the surprised and confused looks on the other villains' faces. He didn't know what the Count and his daughter (Whose name was Luna btw.) were talking about, but he could tell that the words 'I'm sorry' were being used by both of them in excess for the next several minutes… then Luna said something that clearly surprised Spankulot and she then motioned for a young man who'd been standing a ways away from the two vampires to come closer… he was attractive enough, with pale skin, brown eyes and dark brown hair. And he was dressed in heavily gothic style clothing… and he had a pair of small children, a boy and a girl who were clearly twins, and who were each probably only about 6 years old at his side. Both were dressed in dark colors and had their mothers greyish skin, noticeable fangs, and black hair. While the Count was clearly stunned to the point where it looked like he was about to faint; Luna suddenly looked confused and appeared to take a head count of her two children… and then her attention was drawn to what was just behind her husband…
Apparently there was a third child; another little girl with skin a little paler than that of her siblings, brown hair that was streaked with black highlights, and was like the rest of her family dressed in dark clothes… only she was clearly the baby of the family maybe three years old at max… and she was currently having her fangs inspected by Knightbrace and clearly it wasn't exactly by choice…
Father stopped watching and folded up the spyglass when he saw Luna's blue eyes turn red as she began to advance on the ever unfortunate dental hygienist. As it didn't take a genius to know what was about to come next would more than likely involve a lot of pain… and even more blood…
"Oh, WOW!" Sasha's amazed voice suddenly drew Father back to more immediate topics. He looked up at the sky. There must have been at least a hundred shooting stars adorning the night's sky all at once; some even had bands of color to them. Subtle hues of blues, purples, gold's and reds. It was a truly a breathtaking sight.
"It is pretty amazing isn't it?" Father said taking the pipe from his mouth and emptying its ash over the side of the roof. But then he suddenly felt Sasha begin to rest her head against his arm; he looked at his daughter only to notice that she was starting to fall asleep… no surprise there, she still had a lot of medication in her system. Father was surprised she'd managed to stay awake for as long as she had.
"I'm… just gonna close my eyes for a minute." Sasha whispered sleepily.
"You do that… I'll be right here when you wake up." Father said with genuine warmth in his voice… true genuine caring.
"You promise?"
"I promise… goodnight my little Sasha." He said lovingly to his daughter and he gave her a quick kiss on her head. And within mere seconds afterward, Sasha was sound asleep. Smiling contently…
Naturally this little bit of peace and tranquility would come to an end...
In a few weeks Father would resume his scheming…
He would continue his war with the Kids Next Door…
But not right now…
Right now he was at peace…
Right now…
…he was happy…
/The End/
Wow… this took a lot longer to finish than I thought it would. But yeah, this is it; the stories finale! I hope that you all enjoyed it! ^_^
Now, there were some things that I didn't get a chance to elaborate on as much as I wanted to in this story such as Sasha's archery skills and her mysterious Jabberwock-esque stuffed animal; I actually am planning on writing a sequel to this fic, but admittedly I'm not going to start writing it for a while as I have quite a few stories in the works right now and a new one I've suddenly been inspired to write… but if all goes well I might have the first chapter of the sequel up around the beginning of Summer.
So thank you all for reading! And please don't forget to comment!