Shangelina

Chap. II - Crossing Destinies part. II

Rob is happily humming, having a smirk of satisfaction on his face. "I feel that today is a lucky day!" He affirms and slowly starts crouching to sneakily walk underneath the big window of the Fioriluna store. The store has a counter that just faces towards the street, so, if he sneaked underneath it, Rob wouldn't be seen.

Giggling to himself, Rob stands up few meters ahead to get his way, but he immediately stops, finding himself face to face with Jack, who is staring at him with a serious face.

"Hi, Rob!" he turns back to his usual cheery mood. "Have you lost something, again? Fortunately, I was delivering a bunch of flowers to the door next to the store, otherwise I would have missed you passing by!

Are you going to the training? Got any news? I'm walking with you for a while! I have great stuff to tell you!!"

Rob deeply sighs for the failure of his plan, and starts walking slowly, followed by his talkative friend.

"There! That's the human I talked to you about, the one who already knew about the monster!" Sebastian affirms.

"Let's listen to what he's going to say!" Brixi incites and the kitties follow them on top of a long wall that runs along the street that the humans are walking down.

The voice of Jack is too far to be heard, so the cats decide to get more near, though this was against their principles, just in time to catch some precious informations. "... and then she said that she turned and saw something moving fast and disappearing! She described it as a shadow coming from the wall, the poor thing was still under shock when she told me this, so I couldn't catch any more details!! I knew it was not just a rumour!! Something is really threatening the town and, if they don't do something, someone takes the risk of getting seriously injured!" Jack is an unstoppable torrent of words, and Rob passively lets him carry on. "We even don't know what he's looking for, but he's surely not friendly, otherwise he wouldn't hide and escape every time someone sees him! Maybe he's looking for other living creatures to dry all the vital energy from! I'm worried about my store! Everybody knows that flowers bear vital energy! If that monster touches them, they'll certainly be destroyed! I often think that, someday, I'll enter the Fioriluna and discover that all my plants were cruelly dried up and then I will realize there will be nothing for me to do! Seeing everything I worked on for years destroyed! Seeing so many little lives interrupted!" For a moment, the attention of Rob is grabbed by these words. "Of course, if I owned a mobile store, everything would change..."

"Never mind!" Rob thinks, falling back to his own thoughts.

"I don't think that that creature could suck electromagnetic waves!" Jack continues unstoppable "Also, having a mobile store would make everything simpler! I could grab one and call the police... or maybe you!" Rob starts to get annoyed. "Of course it wouldn't be nice, I would risk to wake you and your wife up, but, of course, being my friend, you wouldn't mind it and you immediately would run to my store, which I'd maybe call "Planet calls Planet" or "Estrella del Norte"... And maybe your wife could come too, because, of course, you wouldn't leave her alone at home knowing that a horrible monster is loose in the town!" Rob's attention is on his friend again. "I bet you'd face that monster to protect her! Yeah! Your wife is really lucky to have such a great person like you around! I bet that monster would regret that day he tried to get near your wife!!"

"My wife?" Rob speaks up "If that shadow just tried to look at her, I'd pulverize it!"

"Yeah! Even if I've never met her, I know she's in good hands!" Jack observes." Jack holds his own speech.

"I'd smash it like a tomato, I'd pulp it like rotten paper, I'd steam it like the dirt on the shutters..."

"I bet that your wife is delicate like a rose, fragile like a bluebell, shy as a violet, velvety like a primrose..."

"I'd destroy it like the limestone on the sink, I'd cancel it like a stamp... And that's what I'll also do to you, if you don't stop making assumptions about my wife!" Rob ends, threatening Jack with a glare.

"Got it!" he replies, figuring that he went too far.

"Anyway, you shouldn't believe that rubbish! If people get scared by their own shadow they shouldn't turn it into an urban legend... or worse... a gossip!" Rob concludes, leaving Jack, who tries to answer back "Wait!"

"That would be perfect! These humans could help us! One knows the movements of the shadow and the other knows how to face it!" Sebastian exults.

"Don't be ridiculous" Brixi brings him back to reality. "We won't ask help from two unknown humans! We can't trust them, you know it!"

"But..."

"No 'buts'! I knew that following those two fools was a bad idea! Let's move, we've just wasted precious time!"

Sebastian leaves, disappointed, followed by Brixi, who takes a last peek at the strange pair.

"JACK!" Rob shouts, pointing at the 'Fioriluna'. "Your supplier is leaving you photoSYNTHETIC plants!!"

"WHAT?" Jack turns, surprised, while Rob slinks away as fast as he can, leaving him alone in the street.

"No way..." Brixi ends, contemptuously.