V3 Chapter 31 - Happy Birthday?

RYAN POV

June 4th, 2010

08:30 AM

Today was an early morning for our family.

With my parents as we had a day of celebration for the youngest member of the family all of us decided to gather and celebrate together.

We had planned for the last two days and invited all the people that we wanted to invite.

During the last two days, I was not completely idle and made plans for the Arc Reactors I gathered, but I realized I have too many, which is not a bad thing at all.

'I mean who complains about having too many glowing blue infinite-power batteries.'

Shrugging off my thoughts I decided to use some of them to create an off-the-electric grid lab for my parents and one for a safe house and I will keep the rest till I can think of something else.

Back to the matters at hand....

As per the orders of the head of the family(Grandma), all of us were to gather at home for an aarti(long prayer, slightly ritualistic) and ask for blessings for Sasha.

Oh and if you are wondering, Sasha knows Hindi under the tutelage of my Grandma and is an avid fan of her stories. That girl is smart as she grasped a new language in less than half a year(so did Aunt Heather but she was slightly proficient beforehand.)

'My little sister is a genius alright.'

I thought with a smug smile.

We had breakfast at 11:00 and after that was 'The Cake Cutting' with my family, all of Uncle Raghu's family and Sasha's friends gathered at our house.

The party lasted till 4:00 PM, after which the guests left and my parents too left for work at the lab.

After Sasha took a small nap Aut Heather decided to drop us off at the Apollo Theater, we were here for a concert on Sasha's demand.

Aunt Heather went away after dropping us off and since we had some time before the concert we decided to wander around and have some snacks.

At a hot dog stand near the theatre, I was waiting in a line for hot dogs Sasha sat on a bench a little further away waiting when I saw a man in tattered clothes approach her and talk to her.

As I was preparing to go there I saw her hand him her ice cream walk towards me and said

"Brother, he is hungry buy two more for him too."

I smiled at her and said "Okay."

As soon as I got the first two hot dogs she took them away from me and handed them to the homeless man and started talking to him.

I kept an eye on them as I saw the homeless man take something from his coat in put it on her hair.

Till I took another two hot dogs and walked towards her the man had already walked away to an alley.

Reaching Sasha I saw a peacock feather in her hair, it matched with her blue princess dress.

Seeing her happy I asked her

"Why did you help him?"

"Because it was my duty." she said proudly.

That answer surprised me so I decided to ask more.

"Oh, and how did you know that?" (Ryan)

"Because Grandma told me we should help those we could and be compassionate towards the one we should be." 

Sasha said as she tried to mimic Grandma's tone acting like she was teaching me.

'Of course, she did.'

"Oh, and why not everyone?"

I asked her.

"Grandma said being compassionate is good but we must distinguish right and wrong, we should show compassion yet we must not be gullible."

.

.

.

'....'(Processing....system rebooted, malfunction removed, code GRANDMA activated)

'As expected of Grandma.'

Were all the thoughts my mind registered?

"Good girl, What were you talking about with him?"

I asked as I sat beside her on the bench.

"I said since he is physically able he should work instead of begging and gave him Uncle Raghu's number to look for a job." Sasha replied.

'Are kids all so smart nowadays? What did my Granma teach her!!'

"You did great." 

was all I could say.

And we proceeded towards the theatre for the concert after finishing our food.

....but, god works in mysterious ways - because what happened next, was something I never expected.

JUNE 4th, 2010

Apollo Theater 

NEW YORK

07:30 PM

It was chaos, Mayhem that's what it was.

As I stood outside the door of Apollo Theater, I could see people running around in panic, and vehicles being toppled over.

The uncontrolled crowd of the theater caused Sasha and me to separate and I was running around trying to find her.

All of this was caused by the target Army soldiers firing weapons at trying to save their own lives, I know because I saw that greenish monstrosity over 12 feet tall was running around causing destruction.

"SASHA" (Ryan)

"SASHA" (Ryan)

As I was screaming her name looking for her, someone patted me on the shoulder.

I turned around and saw the homeless man from the morning was the one who did it, as I looked at him he pointed his hand in the direction a little away from the monster and said

"That way."

Not questioning him, I quickly burst into a sprint towards the direction he pointed. 

Soon found Sasha standing on the roadside holding to a lamppost a distance away from the monster and quickly made my way towards her.

'How did she get there?'

I thought and a quick look around gave me an idea of her plight and how she got there.

From what I could guess, she was probably pushed around and grabbed the lamppost to stay in place but then the monster and the shooting scared her too much to move around so she remained in place.

Seeing her so close to the monster I burst into full speed while observing the surroundings and planning the best route to get her away from there.

While I planned multiple routes in my head I quickly ran in her direction making my way closer to her.

But it seemed like the world was mocking my pathetic attempts as I was tens of meters away from her I saw the monster pick up a car on the road and send flying it straight at Sasha.

As the car came hurling towards her I felt my mind go blank.