Chapter 3-Little Miss Shiri

Aiden was working in his almost fixed lab, finishing a gadget. The door to his lab opened. Dani entered the lab.

"Last night I found a route to Wild Shroom. It should get us there before the end of today." Dani said.

"Good, we leave now." Aiden said, getting up from his seat, he grabbed a small box. "Here, I made something for you."

Aiden gave the box to Dani. She opened the box, and it had a yoyo in it. The yoyo was pink, with a Bouncy logo on it. Dani was confused on why Aiden gave her a normal customised yoyo. Aiden walked past her, patting her on the back. Dani stuffed the box inside her inner jacket pocket and followed Aiden to the living room. Jacob and Phin were arguing about a game they were playing, Arron was eating leftover pizza, and Shiri was squeezing Bouncy while Adenzia laughed at Bouncy. Aiden smiled.

"Alright crew, get your things packed, we need to get moving." Aiden said.

"OOOOOO!!! ROAD TRIP!! ROAD TRIP!!" Shiri screamed, jumping up and down, in doing so, she threw Bouncy.

"Sure, why not turn it into a road trip." Aiden said. 

Everyone stopped what they were doing to pack their bags, except Phin, because he still had his bag packed from yesterday. 

"Hmmm, should I carry my bag or should I make BOB carry it?" Jacob said.

"Carry it yourself, lazy ass!" Phin screamed from across the penthouse.

"YOU SHUT UP OUT THERE!" Jacob screamed back. 

BOB looked down at Jacob. BOB shook his head "no" and walked out of Jacob's room.

"Bouncy, should I pack the pizza coupons?" Arron asked.

"I mean, I could never turn down pizza, nor could you." Bouncy said. 

"Wait… you can eat?" Arron said, confused that a teddy bear had a digestive system."

"Who do you think eats all your leftovers?" 

"You know, I would be mad but I'm more confused, do you uhm, do you sh-" 

"No, it's like a bottomless pit down there." Bouncy said, patting his stomach.

Arron packed the coupons, so him and Bouncy could get food if they were ever hungry. 

"Dani, I don't have anything to pack, what should I do?" Shiri asked.

"Just go down stairs to the van, Aiden's down there. Maybe we can go clothes shopping when we get back." Dani said.

"OOOOO that sounds fun." Shiri said

Shiri went to the elevator and took it down. By this point everyone was downstairs except Dani. She pulled the yoyo box out of her jacket. She looked at the yoyo again. She moved it around, she noticed that there was a type of liquid in it. She was about to use it, but she didn't want everyone waiting for her. She packed it back up and threw it in her bag. She took the elevator down. Aiden and Arron were talking about who gets to drive. Jacob and Phin were arguing about who called shotgun first. BOB was juggling Bouncy to entertain her, Bouncy was not enjoying himself. 

"Okay, so you'll drive?" Aiden said.

"Ya, hopefully your fixes on it actually worked." Arron said.

"Hey, when do my fixes on this van ever fail?" Aiden said.

"Quite a lot actually." Arron said, getting in the driver's seat.

"Yo love birds, stop arguing, cause both of you aren't getting shotgun, I am." Aiden said, walking backwards and grabbing the door handle. 

"Too slow, Aiden, I got shotgun now." Dani said, already sitting in the front seat.

Everyone started laughing. The rest of them sat in the back. Adenzia and Shiri started playing cards together. Dani was reading a book. Jacob and Phin were trying to figure out how the tv in the back works. Aiden was just sitting still, thinking. 

Hours had passed from when they left. They were close to Wild Shroom, but of course, the van does what the van always does, and it breaks down. 

"Well so much for those repairs." Arron said, getting out of the van.

"Now c'mon, no need to be so negative, me and Bouncy will have this fixed up in no time." Aiden said, also getting out of the van.

"It's getting dark, can we do some camping?" Shiri asked.

"Sure, we could camp here. I'm sure the boys wouldn't mind it." Dani said.

"Ugh, in a place like this? This place is disgusting. It's just a wasteland with nothing in it." Jacob said. 

"What? You thought there was gonna be a Wic Dolans in the middle of nowhere? Plus this place isn't even half as bad as how you keep your room." Phin joked.

"How would you know, you've only seen the place when it got destroyed." Jacob fired back.

"That's probably the only time your room has looked good." Phin said. Aiden started laughing.

"Please stop arguing and just kiss already, like damn." Adenzia said, flying by to get to their planned campsite. 

B.O.B grabbed camping materials from the back of the van and moved it to the campsite. Dani pulled out her wand and casted a small fire spell to start the fire, Arron looked at her confused, knowing he could have set the fire with his weapons. Phin and Aiden were trying their best to set up the tents. Jacob was of course laying down doing nothing. Once they had everything set up, the moon was about to come up. They all sat around the campfire to relax.

"Ya know, now that I think about it, we've been friends for years, but we don't know how eachother grew up. So let's talk about that." Jacob said.

"Uhm sure I guess… I'll go first." Dani said. "It all starts with me running away from home. My dad was absent, and my mum wasn't the best person. I ran away and a group of nuns found me and took me in. They told me it was dangerous for a young girl to be outside in a world of demons, so they taught me my magic."

"Learning magic from nuns is so cliche." Phin said. 

"A few days after I turned 11. I was ordered to go to the main hall, so I went to the main hall of the church and saw the nuns losing a fight against a man in black, The Ghoul Greaver." Dani said.

"The Ghoul Greaver? I heard about that guy on the news the other day." Jacob said. 

After what Dani said, Aiden froze. He couldn't move at all.

"He killed all the nuns, the closest things to motherly figures I had. He didn't kill me though, he just left me alone and left."

"That's similar to what happened to me." Arron said. "I was taken in by ninjas."

"WOW NINJAS!!! That's so cool!!" Shiri said, her eyes widened in amazement.

"Yes, it was cool. They taught me all my skills, that's why I'm so good with a sword. The day it all ended was the day I was gonna have the 'ninja' ritual, it was ready to begin, until The Ghoul Greaver came in, and killed all of them. He spared me, just like he did Dani." Arron said.

Aiden's heart dropped, sweat starting to fall from his head.

"Ya know, just like you guys, The Ghoul Greaver ruined my fake family too." Jacob said. "Was in an orphanage, was called down through the intercom, but then BOOM. The orphanage explodes in a purple explosion. The Ghoul Greaver grabbed the orphanage lady, said something cryptic, and stole her soul."

"Wow, am I the only one that hasn't had a run in with him?" Phin said.

"I didn't, but hearing all that I don't know if I wanna meet him, he seems like a bad guy. Maybe he works for the people trying to take me." Shiri said.

"Don't worry about that Shiri. He probably isn't." Adenzia said.

"Well we don't know about Aiden, has he had a run in with the big man himself?" Bouncy asked. Aiden didn't say anything.

"Aiden? You alright?" Dani asked. He didn't say anything.

"Yo Boss man, you good?" Jacob said.

"Jacob…. Please promise me you won't ever say boss man ever again…" Aiden said, breaking his silence. "And fine, I'll tell you guys."

"Yay, more stories!" Shiri said, clapping.

"As you guys know, human demon hybrids aren't treated well in society. Taken from their homes, experimented on, killed. I met Adenzia and we became close." Aiden said. "Few days after that I was taken off the streets. They took me, experimented on me, tortured me. One day, they finally decided to come and kill me. One of them walked up to me, I stared him in the eyes, and his head blew off, shortly after that, all the other ones started to explode."

"You think it was the big man himself?" Jacob asked.

"Most likely not." Aiden said.

"Wow, my life was so basic compared to all of you." Phin said.

"Trust me, it's better that yours was basic." Arron said. 

Everyone started to get tired, so most of them went inside the tent to sleep, except for 2, Aiden and Adenzia. Aiden sat at the top of a cliffside nearby and thought about everything he's done.

"Aiden, did you know about this all?" Adenzia said, sounding considered.

"Of course I didn't. I killed those people for a good reason." Aiden said. 

"Good reason? They sounded like amazing people, they raised the group to be who they are now, what the hell would've been a good reason to kill them?" 

"Of course you don't wanna listen to me with your 10 year old brain, if you just let me explain I'll tell you why." Aiden said, getting a bit aggressive.

"I…I… Go ahead, explain." 

"Look, Adenzia, I'm sorry I got aggressive there, I didn't mean to. I killed those nuns because-" Aiden stopped. 

He heard a noise coming from the camp, but that shouldn't be, everyone was asleep. He looked down at the camp and saw a gang of neon painted men approaching the tent Shiri was sleeping in. 

"Aiden? What's wrong?" Adenzia asked. 

"I gotta go do it. She's in trouble." Aiden said. He pulled out a black brimmed hat from his jacket and put it on and his eyes went from green to purple. He then jumped off the cliff top, as his outfit changed.

The gang was approaching Shiri's tent.

"Hey little girl, we've got something for you." Thug 1 said.

Shiri came out of the tent out of curiosity.

"Who are you guys? you guys are scary." Shiri said. 

"We aren't scary, we're just here to ta-" Thug 2 got cut off. 

The veins on his body glowed purple, followed by his eyes. A hand was placed on his shoulder. He was then thrown into the cliffside. The other thugs looked over to see who it was. There he was, The Ghoul Greaver standing still, ready to kill every last one of them.

"Holy shit, get the fuck outta here!" Thug 3 said.

Two thugs split up and went to Aiden's left and right. Tendrils came out of his hands reaching for both of them. He grabbed them and slammed them together, only leaving the skeleton after impact. There was only one thug left. He started firing shots at Aiden, he just kept cutting the bullets with arm blades he made with his power. He ran to Shiri, grabbed her and pointed the gun to her head. Aiden just stared him down continuing to walk towards him. He got close enough to box him right in the face. Aiden grabbed the thug's neck and turned away so Shiri wouldn't see what was gonna happen to him.

"Tell your boss, he doesn't have much time to live." Aiden said, in a demonic raspy tone.

He dug sharp nails into the thug's neck. His veins turned purple. He struggled, throwing a punch at Aiden. He grabbed the punch and disintegrated his hand. Aiden dropped him. He took his hat off and threw it at the thug's head, the hat acting like a razor blade. 

Someone came out of one of the tents, it was Dani. She saw Aiden standing with his back to Shiri. Dani took out her wand and shot light magic at him. It hit Aiden in his back and he wailed out in pain. His wailed scream switched between the Ghoul Greaver voice and his normal voice. 

"Get away from her you monster!" Dani yelled. Shiri ran to Dani.

Aiden, now on his knees, looked back at Dani, shaking while pointing her wand at him. Shiri looked terrified.

"I'm sorry for everything." Aiden said, his voice still switching between different tones. He ran off back to the cliffside. 

The sun started to rise. Everyone was getting up and packing everything to get ready to leave. Aiden was limping around because of what happened to his back.

"Hey Aiden, can I drive?" Phin asked.

"Aren't you like 14? You don't even have a licence." Aiden said.

"None of you guys have one so I don't see why I can't." Phin said.

"Fine, you can drive."

Phin started jumping with joy. Everyone quickly packed everything and got in the van. Phin started the van up, surprisingly the repairs were working, for now at least. Dani stared at Aiden, thinking about why he had a bad back this morning. Maybe it was because he didn't sleep right, she thought, or maybe it was something else.