Yeah, Your probably right N14. anyways, here's chapter nine!
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Chapter 9: Side Stepped Side Story 1: R.O.A
It’s been fifteen minutes since Olette and Rinoa left Buddy sitting on a bench, and ten minutes since the two purchased their Dawn to Dusk CD, bypassing the line of die hard fans thanks to Rinoa’s connections. Ten minutes that where spent, at the insistence of Olette, with the elder of the two holding a cup of Moon munny coffee, and Olette herself, sipping on an Italian Soda while seated at a sofa so common to cafés and coffee shop. Olette was reclining in her seat while her teacher was starring at the girl with a bit of puzzled look in her eye.
“Shouldn’t you be getting back to your friend?” Rinoa inquired inquisitively, intent on finding the source of Olette’s peculiar behavior. “Isn’t he waiting for you?”
“Ah, let him wait!” She scoffed after taking a sip of her drink. “It’s his punishment for acting like an ass earlier!”
“Come on Olette, don’t you think your being a little too hard on him?” Rinoa asked with a note of reason, uncommon for her age. It was one of her traits that made her so popular with the students and teachers alike at the school where she worked. She would often get forced into the role of intermediate when disputes broke out between her coworkers, her students, or between the faculty and the student body. “It’s not the first time a teenager dropped the ball when they met me for the first time, and it probably won’t be the last! It’s no big deal.”
”Well it’s a big deal to me!” She said in a loud voice, eyes closed out of irritation, raising her plastic cup in preparation for another sip. “He embarrassed me in the middle of one of the busiest places in Twilight Town!”
Realizing that her current strategy isn’t going to work, she abandons it and adopts a different tactic all together. She casually retrieves a pack of coffee cream that had been sitting on the table in front of them, opens it, and stirs it in to her coffee with a little plastic stir stick she had acquired when she picked up her order. She brings it close to her lips, smelling and savoring the aroma of Twilight Town’s exclusive brew as she gently brushed away her hair that had fallen in front of her sight behind her ear. Before she takes a sip, cradling the cup with her hands, she asked Olette a rather innocent sounding question.
“So, if Buddy’s your boyfriend, does this mean you’re over that crush you had on Hayner?”
”PFFFFFFFFT!!”
Caught off guard with a mouth full of soda water, orange flavoring juice and whipped cream by her elder compatriot’s question, spits it out in a fine spray out of the surprise and astonishment that the question had wrought. She struggled to catch her breath between coughs as she attempted to compose herself. The educator couldn’t help but smile slightly with a glint of sneakiness in her eyes as she thought: Bingo!
”RINOA! WHAT THE HELL WOULD GIVE YOU THAT IDEA!?!” The exasperated Olette asked, wiping away the left over soda from her mouth with a handkerchief, her cheeks burning from embarrassment.
“Well its true, isn’t it?” The elder inquired, setting the cup down onto the table. “Telling from your behavior around him, it would be obvious to anyone that you would be involved with him.”
“No it’s not true!” The younger said hastily, her face still red. “It’s just that—“
“You got jealous when he looked at another woman.” Rinoa interrupted.
“NO! It’s just how I keep all of my boys in line.” Olette replied nervously. “And I do not have a crush on Hayner!”
Total BS. Rinoa thought to herself with a sigh. I can see that you’re head over heels for him.
“So let me get this straight. You got angry with someone for looking at another woman who you are not involved with, saying that he is just, and I quote, one of ‘your boys.’ So tell me, how did he become one of ‘your boys?’ And don’t tell me that you guys just up and decided to add a fourth to your little trio!”
Feeling pressured from the interrogation Rinoa was putting her through, Olette tried to think up a way to appease her teacher in a way that wouldn’t reveal that she had only met the boy a few days ago when Hayner found him naked in the forest, and that the boy has no recollection of his past.
“He’s… a friend from Hayner’s.” Olette replied, trying to avoid eye contact. “He’s from out of town.”
“Right…” Rinoa hummed, eyeing the younger girl. She knew her pupil was hiding something from her. She decided to give Olette one more push before she would try to find her answer elsewhere. “So why would you be so strict with someone who is technically a friend of friend, and that you don’t have any direct relationship with what so ever?”
“Well…” Olette hummed. She placed her index fingers upside down under each eye, bobbed her head slightly, and gave her best good girl smile. “Me no know!”
And in one swift motion, Rinoa wrapped her arm around the Olette’s neck, pulls her in close, and secured the young girl into a head lock and grinded her knuckle into Olette’s scalp, ruffling the girl’s hair.
“Don’t be cute with me!” She said, a tad annoyed with the girl.
Olette gave a slight sad pout at the comment. But I am cute! Once she was free from Rinoa’s head lock, she pulled a brush out of her bag and started fixing her hair.
“So where do you think Marlene is?” Olette asked in an attempt to change the subject as she ran her brush through her hair. “It’s the second Saturday of the month. She always goes to Mall Street on the second Saturday of the month. And with the new Dawn to Dusk CD out, I half expected to find her fighting her way tooth and claw through that line!”
“What?” Rinoa asked, surprised that Olette would ask such a question. “You mean you don’t know?”
“Huh?” Olette replied, looking rather puzzled. “I don’t know what?”
“Oh my god…” Rinoa whispered. She crawled over closer to Olette and looked her in the eyes.
“Olette, about Marlene, she’s…”
“What about her?” Olette muttered with worry for her friend in her voice.
“Marlene is in the hospital.” Rinoa said softly. “She has been for the past two weeks.”
“What?” A stunned Olette said softly. It wasn’t uncommon to lose touch with school friends over the summer, but to not hear about this for so long was too much. “HOW? WHY?”
“Calm down, she’s okay.” Rinoa hugged Olette and gently stroked her hair, trying to calm the panicking teen. “When her father noticed that she was late coming home, he went out to look for her. He found her in a really bad shape near the upside of town. He managed to get her to the hospital in time, but when I checked a few days ago, she was still in a coma.”
“Poor Mr. Barrett” Olette muttered sadly. Marlene’s father, Barrett, was the gym coach at her school. He was supremely protective of his daughter, and would snarl at anybody who would even look at her at the wrong way. He was big, gruff, and surly, but he had a kind heart, and would crawl from the depths of hell to the tops of the heavens to protect the people he cares for. He was one of the strongest guys in all of Twilight Town, and many would say that he would be able to take down the entire wrestling league with one hand, which coincidentally, was all he had. “He must be sick with worry.”
“Poor Barrett?” Rinoa asked with a slight smile. “Don’t you mean poor hospital staff? He hasn’t left the hospital since Marlene had been checked in. Have you ever tried to get a guy the size of a tank to move when he doesn’t want to? Let me tell ya, even if they had a fork lift, it’s not happening.”
Olette giggled with a smile at the thought of the entire staff trying to push Barrett out the door at the end of visiting hours. But that smile faded soon after as she thought about the unfortunate news. “Who would do such a thing?” she asked. Rinoa looked into Olette’s sad eyes, throwing around a thought.
“I honestly don’t know.” The teacher lied, not wanting to burden the emotional brunet any further. Truth is, she had a suspicion. In the past year or so, there have been a bunch of gangs cropping out of the woodwork, claiming a certain section of Twilight Town as their territory, with each gang said to have strange abilities. The Council of Masters, the group of individuals that acted as the government for Twilight Town, had been pressuring the media to keep their existence silent in fear of it tarnishing Twilight Town’s reputation, leaving only gossip spoken at remedial conversation. She didn’t even know of their existence until a student of hers broke down and told her everything from his involvement in one of these gangs to the gang’s customs, rules, and their traditions. Out of concern of her students, she started asking students from different areas that she had noticed were experiencing similar stress to the first. She had found out that the gangs that had sprung up were seemingly unrelated. The only connection they had was that all the groups had names with the initials of D.o.T. Marlene had been the latest that had come to her before the summer break, concerned about the boy she had been seeing had been running around with these gangs, making them the most likely suspects. She had tried to talk to the authorities, but to no avail. She decided that if they won’t do anything, she’ll do all that she is could to protect her students.
“Maybe I was too harsh with him.” Olette said, interrupting Rinoa’s train of thought. Rinoa looked at her with a blank stare.
“Before summer vacation started, Marlene and I kind of had a fight.” Olette said frankly. Rinoa still just stared at the young girl. “It wasn’t anything all that bad, but it isn’t something that I want to end a friendship on. It’s probably even worse to start one with a fight.”
“And I guess I shouldn’t blame him for losing it in front of Twilight Town’s most popular bachelorette.” Olette said with envy as she eyed her teacher’s physique. Rinoa couldn’t help but chuckle nervously. Olette returned her brush to her bag and deposited the plastic cup she was drinking out of into the trash. Throwing her bag over her shoulder, she stood up.
“We should be getting back.” Olette said plainly, and with that, she walked out the door.
“Hold on Olette!” Rinoa pleaded as the girl rushed out. She collected her purse and quickly followed her student. When she exited, she looked to the left to see Olette standing in front of an alley.
“Let’s cut through here! It’ll be faster than going around. Come on!”
“Olette, I really don’t think--“the educator tried to say in an effort to stop the teen, but she dashed down the alley before raven haired woman could finish. With a sigh, she rushed to follow the teen into the alley, and straight into a brick wall, stopping them from proceeding.
“Why is this here?” Olette asked, rather perplexed. She was quickly joined by an angry Rinoa.
“OLETTE! YOU SHOULDN’T RUN OFF LIKE THAT WHEN YOU’RE WITH SOMEONE!” Rinoa said sharply as she scolded. “And you shouldn’t go through alleys anyway. It’s really dangerous!”
“It’s dangerous around noon time?” Olette replied, seeing flawed logic in Rinoa’s argument.
“Hey, anything can happen.”
“Well, well, well! Look what we have here!” An irritatingly scratchy voice rang out into the alley. “A couple of butterflies have fluttered their way into the Spider’s web!”
“See, this here is case in point.” Rinoa said with a sigh. Moments later, a group of five men, all wearing black leather jackets, black t-shirts that were numbered one through five, black jeans, and headbands with blue snowflakes patched on them quickly descended down from the fire escapes of the buildings on either side of the alley and quickly stood between the girls and their exit. The last one to descend had a scrunched face, a protruding nose, beady eyes, and hair that stood straight up like tall grass. He seemed to be the leader of the group, as he took a stance in the center of the of his compatriots, along with the fact that his shirt was labeled “1”. Rinoa instinctively placed herself between the gang and her pupil.
“Unclench sweetheart.” The small guy said in the same scratchy voice from earlier. He had a crooked smile plastered onto his face. “We’re not interested with the kid. Why don’t ya ditch her and come have fun with us?”
Rinoa kept silent. The group started to creep forward.
“T-teacher…” A scared Olette stuttered. Rinoa gave her a quick glance to signify that things would be okay.
“Come on.” One continued. “If you promise to behave yourself, we’ll promise to try and not be too rough.” He reached out to grab her wrist.
OLETTE! STAY BACK!” Rinoa yelled in a commanding voice. She grabbed one’s wrist and pushed it aside, and in an instant, she thrust her other hand and slammed the bottom of her palm into one’s large nose, breaking it instantly and sending him falling to his knees, screaming in pain. The other four rushed her almost instantly, but Rinoa took them all down in an unexpected barrage fists and kicks, sending the whole lot of them to the floor quickly and easily. When she was done, they were all groaning on the ground as she stood in a martial arts stance, one leg lifted off the ground like a crane. Her left hand was held high in the air while her right was held low with poise and grace.
“Honestly, did you think it would be that easy? Looking the way I do, I would be an idiot not to prepare for such an occasion.”
“DON’T GET COCKY SWEETCHEEKS!” another voice called out. Rinoa turned looked around to the far wall to see another gang member with a t-shirt labeled six had captured Olette and covered her mouth with one hand, held a knife only a couple inches from her neck with the other. His compatriots crawled to their feet as Olette struggled against her captor.
“Good work six!” One said when he was back on his feet. He glared at Rinoa coldly as he squeezed his nose to stop the bleeding.
“Now, let’s try this again. You do as you’re told, or else six gets to have his way with your little friend over there, got it?”
Panicking, Rinoa quickly looked from one, to the captured Olette, and back to one. Her eyes were wide from terror of what could happen to her student. Defeated, she nods her heads with closed eyes as she tried to hold back tears.
“Excellent.” One hissed as he snickered. “And you can forget about getting off easy. Oh no, you’re gonna have it nice and rough. It’s what you get for messing with the Disciples of Twilight, subgroup B!”
All of the sudden, Rinoa’s eyes went wide. She replayed one’s words through her head. Disciples of Twilight? Subgroup B? Does this mean…
“Enough! Let’s get started!” One barked. The five started chuckling, while the sixth that stood by looked on.
“It’s too bad.” Six whispered in the panicked teen’s ear. “I kind of have a thing for younger girls.”
This sent Olette into a frenzy, desperately trying to escape. Six took a deep breath, sniffing Olette’s hair, evil thoughts running through his mind when suddenly…
CLANG!
The sudden sound of metal caught the attention of the others and they looked for the source. Six had been nailed across the face with a trash can lid thrown like a Frisbee. Dazed, he released his grip on Olette. Rinoa took the chance and dashed over, grabbing the girl and holding her close. While Olette cried, Rinoa joined her gaze with the gazes of others toward the entrance of the alley to see who their savior could be.
They saw a man, roughly Rinoa’s age, wearing black jeans and a black t-shirt with the words ‘Trial by Fire’ emblazed across the front. They couldn’t see his face because he his nose, mouth and chin were hidden by a scarf wrapped around his head, revealing only eyes with a triangle tattoo under each one. He hid his hair with a ski cap.
”WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!?!” One demanded angrily.
“Just a good citizen, going around and picking up crap off the streets.” The mysterious figure said matter of factly. He looked over at the direction of the girls. “Hey! Are you just going to stand there? Move! Find a cop or something and tell them that there will be six goons gift wrapped for them.”
“Alright…” Rinoa said solemnly as she recovered from the daze of the stranger’s unexpected arrival. She momentarily pushes Olette aside and glared with untold anger towards six, already on his feet. “But first…”
She swung her foot as hard as she could between six’s legs, landing a crippling blow to his sensitive parts, knock the air out of his lungs. He fell to his knees as he cupped his throbbing appendage, gasping for air.
“That’s for calling me ‘sweet cheeks!’” She said sharply. She lifted her leg up and brought it behind her. “And this…”
”THIS IS FOR THREATENING MY STUDENT!” Rinoa roared with ferocity she had never felt before as she swung her leg around, slamming her heel into the side of six’s head as hard as she could, pushing it until she slammed it once more into the brick wall. Six slumped down as blood trickled down his skull, fainting from the teacher’s ferocious attack. Not giving a seconds pause, she grabbed Olette and ran out the alley, not stopping until she found the closest security station.
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“DAMN!” An astonished Axel gasped as he looked at the fallen number six, his look of surprise hidden by his disguise. “That lady can FIGHT!”
Axel, in awe of the fighting prowess and savageness of the black haired girl’s attack, noticed that suddenly his left hand felt really cold. He looked down to see that it was covered with ice.
“And I was having such a good day too.” One said coldly, his right palm open and facing Axel. The snowflake on his headband glowed light blue as his hands were surrounded by a blue aura.
“Oh, really? I didn’t notice.” Axel remarked, taking note of the headband. He flared up the temperature in his left hand, instantly turning the frozen ice into vapor. This act had gone unnoticed by the thugs. “I’d never consider a day when I had to get five of my friends together just to gang up on a couple of girls a ‘good day.’ You people are honestly pathetic.”
“What do you know?” One rebottled. “Me and my boys, we were just out and having a good time. Trying to have some fun, ya understand? Now you came along and ruined our good time, and now we got this frustration built up. We’ve got to let it out somehow, preferably with a little payback to the guy what caused it. And they say payback is a dish best served cold!”
With that phrase acting as a signal, the snowflakes on the headbands of the remaining four started to glow, a similar aura growing around their hands. Axel looked at the sight and chuckled slightly.
“I don’t think I have anything to worry about.” He said, trying to contain his laughter. “What do I have to worry about from a couple of morons too dumb to use magic when they were getting their butts kicked by a girl?”
This sent one over the edge, as he no longer was able to control his anger.
”SHUT THE HELL UP!! I DON’T THINK YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE DEALING WITH! NOBODY MESSES WITH THE DISCIPLES OF TWILIGHT! NOBODY!!”
Axel couldn’t help himself. He laughed out loud as he clenched his stomach. After about a minute of this, Axel started to calm down, his belly laugh reduced to the occasional snort.
“Damn, that was funny.” He said, wiping a tear from his eye. “I’m going to assume that the pun was accidental. You just don’t seem that smart.”
”THAT’S IT! KILL HIM!!” With the signal given, the five of them casted a barrage of blizzard spells, two from each hand, for a total of ten. Axel sneered under his disguise, and with his right hand, he summoned one of his chakrams. He held it out in front and spun the chakram as fast as he could as he increased the heat of the metal, creating a wall of hot air. His maneuver Instantly dissipated the blizzard spells, and the blast of air caused his scarf to blow away, leaving his face visible. Before his enemies had time to register what had happened, he stopped spinning his weapon and dashed at them, chakram raised in the air…
It was over before it begun. The five remaining gang members laid unconscious on the cold concrete of the alley floor, bleeding from their sides that were slashed open. He had already collected the headbands from all six members after depositing his cap in a near by dumpster, and inspected them with scrutiny.
“I see, so it’s the headbands that did it.” He said with a sigh. “I thought something was strange with these things.”
He reached down to the unconscious number one, lying face down, and grabbed him by the hair, yanking him up just enough to reveal his face.
“You jerks don’t really have any magical potential at all, do you?” He asked the unconscious gang leader, not really expecting an answer. “These things are like spell books. They are able to give norms like you the ability to use magic. And like spell books, you can never use their full potential if you don’t know how to use them properly. These headbands are far more powerful than you realized.”
He released one’s hair and sighed, his thoughts currently on his latest discovery. These headbands are defiantly native to this world, but how did punks like these acquire something like this, much less something this powerful? It’s not something you can find at Mall Street, and that is saying a lot! Something is defiantly going on here. Something big.
“What a pain.” Axel said with another sigh. “This is supposed to be a simple recruitment job. It shouldn’t get this complicated. And why do I have a feeling things are just going to get worse?”
Depressed from the new complications making his mission more difficult, Axel quietly retrieved his newly bought backpack and pulled out his jacket, slipping it over his shoulders as he buttoned it up. He took out his new gold rimmed aviators and put them on after he tied a bandana over his forehead, once again hiding his hair. He stuffed the headbands into his bag, thinking it better not to leave them here. When he was done, he looked around the alley at the dying gang. With a moment's thought, he pulled out a bottle filled with a green liquid. With but a thought, he brought the liquid to a boil and threw it down into the alley, shattering the glass. A green mist slowly crept over the six fallen, partially healing their injuries. As he watched, he spoke to the slumbering bunch once more.
“You know, the normal rule of thumb here would be to harvest your hearts, but I’m not gonna. Personally, I don’t care if you losers live or die, but with the Heartless coming closer to Twilight Town, there’s a chance that you lot will become Heartless yourselves if you die like this. And if I’m guessing the plan right, and if the newbie has the power that I think he does, there would be a chance that your hearts would end up in the same place they would go if I did harvest them, and that’s just not gonna fly!”
Axel turned around with his backpack slung over his back. Before he exited the alley, he says one last thing to them without looking back.
“If I ever allowed hearts as rotten and as weak as yours to be added to Kingdom Hearts, Boss Xemnas would be pissed with me.”
Once these last words were spoken, the Flurry of Dancing Flames strikes forward with the intent on completing his mission, come hell or high water.
Chapter 9: Side Stepped Side Story 1: R.O.A.: End.
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Attention: If you saw this long-ass chapter and didn't drop an f-bomb, then you are a true friend of mine, and a far better person than I. Either that, or you have some sort of anger issues that I've never even heard of, and you should seek counciling immeadiatly.
All jokes aside, I'm sorry that it's so long. when I typed it up in word processor, It was thirteen pages long! my longest chapter yet. I'll try to keep it shorter in the future. It really wasn't this long in my head...
So besides being as long as hell, It's a fairly important chapter. If anyone has any questions, I'll be happy to answer as long as it doesn't reveal any future storylines.
One last thing. Did you honestly think that I would let that happen to Olette and Rinoa? honestly, for shame on you!
<.<
>.>
If my author's corners are annoying, please let me know and I'll shut up and just post the damn fic from here on in.
Well, it's late for me now. You all know what I say last, so it doesn't matter if I say it again. Until the next chapter of BoD, keep doing your best!:thumbup:
