Roxas and the Monster

It started as any ordinary mission. Me and Roxas. Twilight Town. Defeat twenty Heartless. Easy, right? Wrong. The first problem was the mission's location. Twilight Town was a very urban area, but just outside a crack in a wall was a humongous forest. Guess where our mission was? Yep. There. And I just had to be a fire element. Not that I'm complaining, or anything! I love fire! But when fire comes in contact with wood... well... bye bye forest. So I had to be extra careful where I threw my Chakrams, meaning I couldn't help Roxas as much as usual. I knew he could handle it, but I wanted my share of the fight too! Mega Shadows, Poison Plants, a few Storm Bombs... Why couldn't I join in on the fun? Ugh... stupid rules. Who honestly would miss a few trees?

"Axel! Watch out!" Roxas cried, slicing the Storm Bomb about to blow up in my face.

"Phew, thanks, Rox! Gotta stop ranting to myself..." I muttered, summoning my Chakrams again. We were almost done, having killed eighteen Heartless. Just two more until delicious sea-salt goodness.

Roxas chuckled. "Ranting, huh? About what?" The Heartless in this area had been wiped out (save the one that had almost mauled my face), so he dismissed his Keyblade and flopped on the ground.

I tossed him a Potion. "Bout people's strange love of trees."

He muttered a "Thanks" and gulped down the green liquid. I felt bad. I should be helping! If only I could do more. Why oh why did Xemnas have to be an environmentalist?

Roxas tossed the empty potion flask behind him (ignoring the Superior's rule of recycling it, I might add), and grinned at me. "Wish you could burn down the whole forest, don'tcha?"

"OF COURSE I DO! But apparently, it 'hurts the environment'." I made exaggerated quotation marks in the air as I quoted our leader. "No, no! I can't go burning down forests, but Demyx can go off and drown every google he sees!" I threw my hands up in the air exasperatedly and sighed.

"Demyx does have an excuse, though," Roxas pointed out.

"Oh yes, because we have to believe he was mentally scarred by googles when he was a Somebody and that doesn't sound like a lie at all! Hey, Xem-Xem, by the way, did I mention I'm allergic to trees? Meaning I have to burn down every forest I see so that I don't spaz and DIE!"

"I thought you said you were going to stop ranting," Roxas said between laughs. He was just having a kick out of this, wasn't he?

"I said I had to stop ranting to myself! I'm ranting to you, now!"

"Aren't I lucky?"

"Yes. Yes you are." I smirked at him, quite proud of myself, though I have no idea why. "And if you keep mocking me and my ranting, I will bring your little crush into this conversation."

Roxas glared daggers at me. "Don't. Even. Go. There."

"Roxas looooooves X-"

"SHUDDUP!"

I laughed. "Maybe you shouldn't mock my ranting, then."

He just rolled his eyes and stood up. "Whatever. Shouldn't we be going now?"

I responded by heading off in a random direction, which would hopefully lead to two more Heartless. Roxas followed, still snickering quietly.

"Roxas, I'm sure if you just ask, she'd love to share an ice cream with you. Ya know, that's technically indirect kis-"

"Axel, shut up!" he yelled, his face turning bright red. Oh, yeah. He had it bad for her.

"I'm just saying-"

"And I'm 'just saying': Shut. Up!"

"Okay, okay, okay..." I said, waving it off. Sheesh. Ya try to give a bro advice and he yells at you. What's a guy to do?

Suddenly, I saw movement from the corner of my eye. I was about to tell Roxas, but I saw him already summoning his Keyblade and running at the Heartless. I summoned my Chakrams, prepared to help as much as I could (which wasn't much), when Roxas came running and screaming back to me.

"AAAHHH! A MONSTER!" he cried, his arms waving in the air like noodles. His eyes were so dilated I could barely see his pupils. He ran past me and used my body as a shield. He was staring in the direction he had run from, so I followed his gaze. Coming out of the trees was a small brown puppy with a white chest and black-tipped ears. It's tongue was hanging out lopsidedly, and he looked like he was laughing. I deadpanned.

"Roxas, that's a dog."

"AAAHHH! A DOG!" he screamed. I facepalmed. Roxas, Number XIII of Organization XIII, the Key of Destiny, Nobody of Sora the Keyblade Hero, and known Heartless killer, is afraid of a puppy?

"M-make it go a-away, Axel..." he whimpered, clutching onto me like a little kid. I rolled my eyes and pried him off of me, much to his dismay. I slowly approached the puppy so that I wouldn't scare him, holding my hand out in front of me. He sniffed the offered hand and licked it.

"See, Roxas," I said, stroking the puppy's ears. "Nothing to be afraid of!"

"B-But... it's... huh?"

I sighed. "Puppies are normal animals, Rox. They're not evil. They're one of the nicest creatures there are."

Little by little, Roxas slid up behind me. "So... he won't kill me?"

"Does he seriously look like he's gonna hurt you? Look at him!" As if to prove my point, the puppy flattened his slightly button ears and gave us the 'Puppy-Dog Look'. None can surpass the puppies themselves when they do that face. He wagged his tail a little, and I noticed it had a black tip. Kinda like-

"Well... I guess it is... sorta … cute. C-Can... Can I pet it too?" I swear, Roxas could be a puppy; he almost did the 'Puppy-Dog Face' perfectly.

"Sure." I moved aside and let Roxas come up to it. The puppy stuck out its tongue out of the side of its mouth again. My blonde friend did as I did, holding his hand out to the puppy. It sniffed his hand momentarily before leaping on top of him.

"AAAAAAAHHH! AXEL AXEL AXEL GET IT OFF! IT'S ATTACKING ME!" The puppy started licking his face, making him laugh. "Nononononono! S-Stop it, puppy!" He squirmed away from the wriggling, licking puppy (as I laughed my head off) and sat up quickly. The puppy laid down in his lap and sighed contentedly before closing its eyes.

"Looks like you've got a new friend, Roxas," I chuckled. He grinned at me at scratched underneath the puppy's chin.

"We should name it, Axel. What about-"

"Ooooh no! We are not naming it!"

"What? Why not?"

"Because, the minute we name it, you'll get too attached to let it go."

Roxas' entire face drooped. "We... we can't keep it?" he asked.

"No! Saïx would flip out, we'd get in trouble, and we have nowhere to keep it anyway! We don't even have the right items for keeping a puppy!"

Tears formed in the corners of Roxas' eyes. "But... I like him, Axel! Surely we could hide it from Saïx! Xion could help us! We could take turns keeping him in our rooms, bring him on our missions, teach him to fight Heartless..."

"And what about food? And bowls? And toys? And how is he supposed to go to the restroom? We don't know if he's house trained or not. And what about-"

"We can figure that out later, Axel! Just pleeeeeeease let us keep him? Look at him!" He lifted up the puppy and showed him to me. "How can you say no to this face?"

"Easy." I leaned down into the puppy's face. "No."

"But Axel-"

"No 'but Axel's'. I took in a puppy when I was your age and a Somebody. Named it Blaze."

"What did he look like?"

I chuckled. "That was my first mistake. Blaze was a girl. Do you know how long it took for me to figure that out?" I left my question unanswered. "Blaze was a setter puppy. A red setter. She also had a black tip on her tail, like this one." I pointed at the puppy Roxas held. "Anyway, I insisted to my parents that I could take care of her. Two days later, I gave her to the shelter."

"Why's that?"

I shrugged. "Too much responsibility. I couldn't handle it, and I was a Somebody then. I doubt you could."

Roxas' shoulders slumped. He looked down at the puppy, who had fallen asleep. His hand traveled down the puppy's back, stroking slowly. I hadn't even see him take off his gloves. "I would miss him so much," he mumbled. "I'd wonder where he was everyday."

"As if you didn't worry enough," I muttered. "I can't believe I'm about to say this..."

"Say what?"

I sighed. "Tell you what, Roxas. I'll let you take him home, take care of him, and all that, but the minute he's too much to handle, he's out, okay?"

He nodded quickly. "I got it, Axel. Oh, thank you thank you thank you!" I'm sure he would have hugged me if the puppy hadn't been on his lap. I made a mental note to sneak him some steak later to thank him.

I waved him off. "Yeah, well, don't go thanking me just yet. You don't know how much responsibility he's gonna be."

"I'll take care of him, I promise!"

I chuckled. "So, what are ya gonna name him?"

Roxas looked over the puppy. "I don't know... What do you think we should name him?"

"Umm... Nacho?"

He shook his head. "Pickle?"

"Hell no!"

He laughed. "Just kidding. Uh... what about Skittles?"

"Nah, he doesn't look like a Skittles... Hershey?"

"Nuh uh. Hmm... Lucky?"

"Nope. Cinnamon?"

"I don't think so... Wait, I know! His name should be Smore!"

"Smore?"

"Yeah! See?" He pointed to the black spots. "This would be the chocolate chips..." He stroked the puppy's white chest. "And this would be the marshmallow, and this," He stroked the puppy's brown back. "...Would be the graham crackers! It's perfect!"

I thought over it for a moment. "...Alright. Smore it is."

"What do you think, Smore?" he asked the puppy. "Do you like your new name?" Smore licked his face and yipped. Roxas laughed. "That's a yes! Yay! I got a puppy!"

I chuckled. "Alright, time to go," I said, standing up. He did so as well, gently pushing Smore off of him.

"I can't wait to show Xion!" he said excitedly, summoning a DC to the Clock Tower.

"Uh, Roxas?"

"Yeah?"

"We still haven't defeated our last two Heartless."

"...Oops."

(A/N: ...I can never seem to end on a serious note. XD I was wondering what would happen if Roxas ever saw a dog for the first time. The result... this. Hope you liked! R+R for Smore!)