Nine Lives

[Gildarts]

But first... The nagging thing in the back of his mind finally took shape. He recalled his leader, probably worried sick about him, as he had been gone for at least a few days. He tried to contact Guu. “Hey, do you have a... Cell phone I can borrow?”

Cal narrowed his eyes, “Yeah, but it’ll cost ya...”

Gildarts forked over his pouch, which had food and gold coins in it. Cal seemed pleased and examined his new treasures, “Pleasure doing business with ya.”

The ‘call’ went straight to voicemail, so Gildarts attempted to text with one hand, the other -completely metallic- he used to hold up the phone as he typed.

When he was finished with the flip phone, he snapped it closed and offered it back to the boy. The food fell from Cal’s mouth in shock as he realized the phone was broken.

“Hey, it’s broken!” Cal spoke up, defiantly.

“Hah, oh sorry about that. People where I’m from know better than to give me something without expecting it to be returned broken.” Gildarts challenged. Meanwhile, Cal was left to wonder if the text Gildarts had sent, even got to its destination.

“You owe me a new one.” Cal grumbled.

“Beat me first.” Gildarts challenged, satisfied by the sudden lightignited in Cal’s eyes.