Chapter One
There are loads of dirt underneath flowers
It was not a typical day and there was nothing to do in Radiant Garden.
Really.
Sure, he knew that life was great and the Gardens is filled with entertainment for old and young. His room was clean. The arcades were open, the neighbours were friendly and his family was home together today. He had plenty of nice friends and he was passing all of his courses, but there was something missing.
Video games have lost their charm after completing the ridiculous achievements. What could he do to fill in the missing space and time? Mixing his father's precious shampoo with glue was getting old, and wrapping the neighbour's motorbike in foil was now annoying. Everyone else had to finish his or her bloody summer homework. Dad was resting in the living room. The annoying sibling is in his room.
Oh.
So that was what it was.
"Voice?" a black haired boy glanced around the room.
"Vooooice?"
"Out of town again? Tch, traitor," growled the teen as his yellow eyes narrowed. Something was off. It was fa-
"DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADDDYYYYY! SAAAAAAAAAVE MEEEEEEEEEEE! The evil overlady is going to kill everyooone!"
"Sora, shut up." A great and thunderous crash echoed through the house and a muffle yelp of pain was heard. "Put some ice on that, and go clean the mess up." Grumbling, the short boy proceeded to do as he was told.
Yes. It was not a typical day in Vanitas' life. Nope. It was far too quiet.
He needed to fix that. Fast. "Oi. Sora, let's go outside."
Allow us to take this opportunity to introduce our characters. Vanitas is your typical teenage boy, or as typical one can get with a fictional life as a video game character in the realm of fanfiction. The boy is rather short for his age and has black hair and yellow eyes.
See? Nothing special. Just a normal boy.
A mentally deranged boy, but that is nothing new in the family.
Sora is his younger brother by a year or two. Like his brother he is quite normal. Unlike his brother, his mental growth seems to have been stunted when his father dropped him on his head when he was seven. Sora is quite the … imaginative boy believing that he is the hero that will save worlds and lands of all kinds. His father occasionally plays along. This does not bode well for the neighbours, especially the one across the street with spiky blond hair.
Their father is a mercenary for a particular company and that's all you need to know at this point of the story. Perhaps later in this chapter. Or the next chapter.
See? Just a normal family.
The Frost family is composed of four members. There were two children, a boy and a girl, both similar in age. The mother is a successful business woman and the father is a famed scientist.
Currently, the father, Even wished that he could not see the spiky nuisances hiding behind the fence. Their hair swayed in the breeze, similar to the odd weather doll his daughter had made. An unsettling chuckle escaped the wiry man's throat.
"Did he see us?" The shorter boy stage-whispered and shuffled uncomfortably, "He giggled after glancing in our direction. What kind of man giggles? You sure he's not a-"
As an angry hiss filled the air, the patch of black hair shook furiously and Sora's voice was muffled. The fence shook with the children's impromptu wrestling match. Even groaned, just why couldn't those boys leave him alone? "Xion?"
"Yes, Papa?"
"Do you mind grabbing the paper for me?"
"Okay," said the girl as she scrambled down the stairs. The girl took a few steps out and halted. Big blue eyes blinked several times. Big blue and yellow eyes stared back. "Vanitas, Sora, what exactly are you two doing?"
As helpful as always, Sora blurted, "Seeing if the rumours about your dad being a pedophile is true." After all, a hero ALWAYS has to help others, right?
"I know my dad is a bit… eccentric, but a pedophile?"
Vanitas buried his face in his hands wishing death upon his simple sibling as his brother continued to speak. "You never know!"
"He has a wife and two children," paper forgotten, the two neighbours listened with amused interest.
"So?"
"So it's like people saying that you are married to your stuffed bear on the basis that you are childish."
"I am? Hey, Vanitas, am I married to Teddy?" Sora's face scrunched up in concentration. He just couldn't remember. Did he marry it at the kindergarten ceremony?
Vanitas tuned his brother out and glared at the girl in front of him. "Xion, stop changing the subject," growled Vanitas. He was bored. He wanted a brawl and Xion was a hard hitter. The black haired boy could always wrestle with her when he was bored.
"Who told you that anyways? Marluxia?" The girl irritably tugged at her shorts under her little sundress. Vanitas' eyebrow rose at Xion. The tomboy that beats the living daylights out of her older brother? In a dress? Perfect, more information to add to the tiny pile of evidence against her father and his questionable hobbies. "Vanitas, answer the bloody question."
"Chocobo-head…" An incredulous stare slapped him across the face from the three people around him. Chocobo-head? The only person that resembled the statement was a certain cadet. A cadet named Cloud Strife.
"You fool!" snapped Even as he finally joined the conversation. Xion quickly agreed with her father.
"Vanitas?" The mentioned boy ignored the spluttering neighbours and turned his attention to his sibling.
"What, Sora?" The boy fidgeted under the newfound scrutiny, opening his mouth and then promptly closing it like a fish. Sora's expression twisted from confused and shock, until Vanitas lost his patience, "Spit it out."
"Why can I figure it out before you do?"
"What?" Xion was laughing. Vanitas spun his head around, and now, even Even had his creepy smile plaster across his face.
"Did Cloud say that when we were setting booby traps in his garage?" Spikey black hair bobbed up and down. "Do you think that, he might have said that just to distract us? I mean, he reaaally likes his bike."
Oh. That was just brilliant, Voice, why didn't you tell me that I was being made a fool? Why?
Even's voice cut through his daughter's laughing, "Vanitas? I think I have JUST the ploy to exact our revenge. Would you care to come in, have some tea, and listen?"
Sora's eyes widened at the statement and proceeded to run away screaming "He's a pedo!" or "I want ice cream!"
Nobody could tell.
It involved paint, more specifically, pink paint. Nice, bright Barbie paint.
And flowers. Lots and lots of flowers.
There is nothing wrong with pink paint, nor is there anything wrong with flowers. So when Aeleus saw Xion walking across the road with several pots of flowers, and a pail of paint, he didn't look twice.
Then the boys ran out hollering with paint rollers and shovels.
Sighing, the man dropped off his groceries in his house and wandered over to the three children. Sora and Xion were digging up Strife's lawn while Vanitas was tinkering with the garden hose. The brown haired boy was destroying the sod at a frightening pace while Xion was carefully planting the rows of flowers. It seemed innocent enough. Making his way around the piles of dirt Aeleus strode towards Vanitas who had just finished cleaning the wall. The black haired boy plugged in several electric heaters, angled them at the damp wall and jogged towards their neighbour.
"Ello Vanitas."
"Hello Ael. Is dad making you babysit us again?" The giant shook his head in a negative answer.
The duo stood silently as the wall slowly dried. After the fifth 'Sora, aim the dirt towards his bike, not the house!' from Xion, Vanitas finally broke and asked "So, what brings you here?"
"Curiosity."
"Oh. Well, we are helping Cloud redecorate." Vanitas pointed at the pristine and crisp white walls of the house, "and we are repainting his walls. The paint is peeling, so we decided to help." The older man chuckled and nodded. "And the color really doesn't fit his personality, so we are spicing it up a bit for him."
"Need a hand?"
"What?"
"Do you want me to help?"
"Seriously?" A bemused nod from the bigger man sent Vanitas into a grinning mess, "You are the best babysitter in the world." This was going to be amusing. Very, very amusing.
"Xion?"
"Yes, Uncle Aeleus?" The lass turned around to look at her father's co-worker, wiping her sweat off her forehead. "Is there anything wrong?"
"Where is your brother?"
"Repliku? Uh, he's kind of avoiding society at the moment. He's… balding." Aeleus stopped his paintjob and shot an amused look at her. Vanitas cackled, splattering paint over the windows.
"Why doesn't he just get his father to … fix it?"
"It's because he doesn't want 'girly' hair. Papa has to use either his, mother or my sample to regenerate his hair. But he deemed our hair too feminine for his so called manliness," snarled the child as she spitefully beheaded the flowers beside her. Facing toward her house, Xion shouted, "Considering the fact that the PANSY has even nicer hair than me, I don't quite understand why he is so concerned! Eww, I don't want to touch dirt. Or, gross! I'll get paint all over myself! "
An angry shriek of rage shot across the road, "I am not a pansy! I'm just more sensitive than you!" Vanitas only laughed harder.
As the two older males applied the finishing touches, a bicycle turned the corner. Riku halted in front of the demolition/ refurnishing team, raising his eyebrows in amusement. "Redecorating?"
Vanitas nodded in reply, "If you are looking for Sora, he's… he is…" The older sibling glanced around the yard. Aeleus was cleaning his brush and Xion was stomping on the dirt around the flowers. "He's somewhere," and promptly returned to his masterpiece.
Sighing, Riku turned to Xion and asked, "Have you seen Sora?" The girl nodded and proceeded to stick her head into a nearby pile of topsoil. Riku's bored stare immediately turned into morbid curiosity when Xion started to shout some sort of incoherent message. Sora was a bit over enthusiastic in his digging, and when he had finished mutilating Cloud's lawn he begun to create a net work of tunnels under the house. Vanitas and Aeleus connected the dots and ignored the girl's method of communication.
Riku did not have the luxury of have said information.
"Vanitas? Aeleus? Come over here."
The black haired boy ignored the panicking boy, thus Aeleus looked up and glanced at the other two children. "What?"
"Xion. She's- … I… " The muffled shouting got louder and louder as the girl start flailing, thumping her fists against the wet soil. The boy spluttered and eventually asked, "Why is she acting like Sora?"
"She isn't."
"She is burrowing into a pile of wet dirt. I'd say that is Sora-worthy."
"…She isn't burrowing."
"She's flailing like a mad goose."
"She isn't a goose."
"She's shouting into a pile of wet dirt. Xion has lost it."
"No, she hasn't."
"Will you actually answer my questions?"
"I am."
"Can you please stop screwing with me and leave the mind games for Strife?"
"Sure," shrugged the soldier and the man returned to his work. Riku stood quietly for a few more minutes.
"Now will you tell me what is going on?"
"… No."
The visiting boy viciously kicked a daisy.
After a few minutes, Aeleus walked over to the girl and nudged her, "Xion. Do you need me to get Even?"
The girl finally looked up. Smeared with mud, Xion blinked and nodded. Sighing, Aeleus moved across the street to Frost's home and rang the doorbell. Riku glanced at his company. Vanitas gave him his trademark smirk and Xion was still shouting at the mound of earth. The boy promptly followed the older man.
Vanitas made his way over to his neighbour, "So, Sora is stuck?"
"Yeah, he's somewhere by the foundation. Sora said that he ingested a gopher." Xion paused and thought for a moment, "Either that or he split his skull against the concrete. I couldn't tell. Sorry."
"Eh," Vanitas proceeded to stick his head down the same hole. "Sora?"
"-and then I put gasoline, three meters of rope, duct tape, ham and a bucketful of crickets and cockroaches into the desk. Oh, hi Van."
"On a scale of one to ten, how much help do you need to get out?"
"Uh, I like the little cave I made… but I can't reach the exit tunnel. I need someone skinny and tall. Someone like Mr. Cloud... He isn't all that tall, but who cares… Can you shove him down here so I can use him as a stepladder?"
"Fine, don't answer my question, but I like that idea. We better use it for another time, it's pointless to throw everything at the Chocobo in one go."
"Vanitas, don't you DARE leave me down here," snapped Sora.
"Xion! Sora's fine and doesn't need rescuing. We don't need to get Even, tell Aeleus." Xion promptly kicked Vanitas in the shin as Sora's irritated wails seeped through the open tunnel.
It is important for children to have good role models. In a land far, far, away in the realm of canon, certain children did not have this luxury. Role models are here for the future generation to learn about the standards for society and why should we follow them.
Or so Riku hopelessly thought.
"Have the children brainwashed you, Aeleus? I cannot fathom the fact that you assisted the children in their little scheme. It's just foolish."
"This? Coming from the man who told said children to sabotage a gossipy brat?"
"It was merely a simple suggestion."
"You supplied them with your beta paint bucket."
"A little paint wouldn't hurt the children and their daily activities. I'd say it would help the children in their artistic development."
"You gave them enough paint to drench three houses."
"And just exactly who helped the children drown the house in the eye-scarring paint? I thought you had more common sense than that. What kind of joy do you, an innocent bystander, derive from jumping into the fray like a schoolboy? It's quite ludicrous for a man of your standard and rank. What would Dilan and Braig say? No, those two fools would probably join you… What would Ansem say? Or even the little one? Your actions…"
The blond man continued to ramble as Riku looked at the silent man for help. Aeleus only shrugged in reply and interrupted his co-worker. "Even, Ienzo would film the entire process and force Strife to watch it for hours. You know that Braig has already corrupted the kid."
Even didn't reply, opting to fume at his colleagues' interesting tastes. Why can't everyone be sane?
"Mr. Frost? Ael? Uh, can we go get Sora now?"
"Right, I forgot about him…" Even turned around to retrieve some supplies, pausing only to ask the other man, "Aeleus, why can't you just use your earth magic and rescue the boy?"
"Do you want me to uproot the entire city block?"
"Point taken. Riku, come along, I'll need your help." The silver haired boy obediently followed the blond as Aeleus returned to the arguing children.
"…"
"That doesn't mean that you should abandon your brother!"
"Like you are the one to talk, Miss. 'Let's leave Repliku behind and go bowling.'"
"That's completely different. He won't die if he missed a game or two."
"And Sora won't die if we left him alone for a day or two."
"What kind of logic is that?"
"It is the logic of a sane person, Xion."
"He's your brother. With no food or water."
"And he is made out of steel. Next!"
"… Will the two of you stop bickering and finish cleaning up before Strife gets back?" Grumbling, the children turned around and returned to their duties, sweeping the dirt off the drive way and moving the gardening tools back to the Frost's.
Vanitas expected Even to bring some sort of new gizmo that would destroy Strife's home. Xion expected that her Papa would use that strange contraption that he was building in his workshop. Aeleus and Sora just hoped that Even and Riku would hurry up and distract the two children before they decided to get creative with their spare time.
Much to the children's disappointment and the victims' relief, Even left the house with a ladder. Riku was following closely with a set of flashlights. "Vanitas. Xion. Take your things back," commanded Aeleus as Even and Riku set to work.
"Vanitas, in which area of the garden is Sora in?" asked Even as the blond probed around the newly installed garden. Vanitas pointed to a random spot and stumbled after Xion with the painting tools. Dropping the ladder, Riku wandered over to the spot.
"Sora? ... Sora? " No response. "… Even, I don't think he's here anymore…"
"If that's the case, we need to- ARGH!" Riku spun around and saw a lovely hole in the ground. The older man was cursing profusely as the boy edged to the newly made manhole. "Why in Ansem's name didn't those three warn us about this?"
"Uhh… Mr. Frost? Are you alright?" The boy continued inching his way over to the opening.
"Riku, don't you dare come any closer, the soil is unstable."
Ah.
DONK.
Too late.
A/N - Enjoy and please review. Critique, both negative and positive are greatly appreciated. English is not my first language and I would greatly appreciate any sort of assistance or friendly statements in regards to grammar. Hopefully, I'll be able to upload on a weekly basis. As a work of fanfiction, the context of the story does not belong to me, but as copyright laws say, I still get to keep my idea. Weird, huh?