DISCLAIMER: I don't own Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy!! -cries- Some ideas also taken from Van Helsing and Blade, neither of which I own either...
CHAPTER WARNINGS: Cussing, mention of bblooooddd and fighting and crap. Nothing much elsewise.
The sound of heavy falling footsteps rung out through the darkened alley as the cloaked figure sprinted through it. The hood, recently drawn up over its owner's head, slipped backwards and the figure grabbed the top edge to pull it back into place. Suddenly the figure turned, ducking behind a garbage dumpster, clouds of breath rising from the figure and into the chilly night air.
There was a buzzing noise and the figure appeared to wince before jerking off his hood to reveal blue eyes and brown hair. He raised a hand to his ear and held a button down on the small machine hidden there. "Roxas! This stupid thing keeps short-circuiting!"
Another voice, apparently on the other end of the ear-piece communicator, seemed just as stressed as he was, "Oh shuddup Sora! You know we're getting the updated ones in the mail this weekend! Just hurry the fuck up and kill the damn thing!"
Sora rolled his eyes, tightening his grip on his weapon, a mechanic crossbow. There was a large screeching noise and he dived away from the dumpster just in time for a spiked tail to crash down where he had been sitting. The creature, sitting now half on the roof of the building and half on its side, its claws digging into the rough texture of the brick wall, screeched again. Its mouth, lined with at least four rows of razor sharp teeth, stretched open with the earsplitting noise and its long tongue flicked out between its teeth.
"If you haven't noticed you haven't exactly given me a way to kill the thing yet!" he yelled back into the earpiece. He could practically see his blonde brother roll his own eyes on the other end of the connection, "Alright, alright! Here it is, 'Flezzio Lekrtol, a large beast resembling a lizard with two extra pairs of legs. It uses its tail for a weapon which can…' uhhh…"
Sora leapt out of the way as the creature spun around and dragged its tail across the ground and directly towards the teen. "WHICH CAN WHAT ROXAS!!?!?"
"'It uses its tail for a weapon which can shoot poisonous barbs that paralyze the victim although they are still viable to feeling pain.' Shit man; don't get hit by that freaking tail." Sora nodded, although he knew Roxas wasn't about to see it and dodged yet another tail swipe that crashed into a few trashcans which in return went sailing into the air and down the alley.He was sure he heard Roxas muttering something about a "tail from hell" on the other end of the forgotten line, but he didn't really have time to laugh at his jokes.
"Alright, Roxas," He grit out through clenched teeth as he pushed off from the ground to barely skim past the barbed tail of Flez, but his leg gave out as he hit the ground on the other side and he rolled onto his back. "I need to know… how to kill… this mother fucker." He took a second to pause between words he accented just to roll out of the way of the tail crashing down where he laid only a mere second ago. He could hear Roxas pause in his ranting. It was very rare that Sora ever cussed, considering he hated when his brother did it, so Roxas probably got the hint quite fast. "Alright… calm down Muffin." Sora rolled his eyes at the pet name. "Just shut up and tell me the way to kill this… thing."
Roxas, by far the techie in their duo of crime fighting, sat in a truck at least a good mile away. The dim vehicle only lighted by the bright screens of computers. He turned, rolling the small wheelie chair across the van and towards another screen where he clicked on the keyboard a few times as his ice blue eyes scanned the screen, "'Says the tail takes quite a fast blood flow just to power that swing and shooting and poisonous barbs and whatnot. I'll bet if you can cut the damn thing off, the fucker'll just bleed to death." He answered, leaning back and causing the chair to squeak in vain protest. "Are you sure nothing in there says anything about rejuvenation or something? Because I don't wanna take the time to cut off something that'll only grow back."
Roxas reached up a hand to scratch the back of his head nervously, "Well, nothing I read said anything about thaaattt…" he replied. "Sure Roxas, that's what you said when I fought the Coltivatore. I mean really, someone who minored in diverse languages should have known what that freaking meant!"Roxas rolled his eyes again, "Fine! I'll check it!" he snapped and clicked a few buttons on the keyboard above the one he had just been using and confirmed his original hunch. "Told you, says nothing about growing back limbs, just that it's invisible to the human eye."
The brunette nodded from his position being a truck on the street, the creature was too busy dealing with getting a metal arrow out of its shoulder to really care what its enemy was doing. "Which is why I have to wear these retarded goggles?" Roxas mmhmm'd in response and Sora nodded, reaching under his coat to grasp the hidden weapon there, he laid the crossbow on the concrete and untied the top of his cloak and dropped it to the ground behind him. He didn't need to thing in the way. He ducked and rolled towards another car behind before sprinting towards an alley corner across the road.
The reptilian beast was nearly walking in circles by now, trying to twist its head at the right angle to grab onto the arrow. Finally it gave up on that approach and simply bent its head over backwards to rip the thing out and chuck it at a nearby wall. Sora winced, nothing should have been able to bend in the way that thing just did. For all he knew the thing had no bones.
He ducked behind the brick wall just as the eyes of the lizard drifted towards him, its huge eyes trying to locate its mortal enemy of the moment. Roxas had been explaining to Sora a few hours prior that it had heat vision, so he stuck out like a raw thumb to this particular creature, no matter what he was wearing. As soon as its eyes turned around, the brunette dived forward and leapt over a trashcan just in time to be knocked out of the air by the creature's thick tail and smashed through the window of the car he had just leapt over. He winced, feeling the glass of the window dig into his calf, but after a moment he simply forgot the pain and pushed open the car door.
The creature's tail shot out at him though the car window in a stabbing motion which he was able to avoid and as it jabbed out again and grabbed the door and slammed it, bending the tail at an awkward angle. He leapt forward, grabbing the concealed weapon from his pocket and pressing a button on the side of the small thing, it suddenly snapped open and extended, as soon as it reached its final length the ends flipped outwards and bright blue light appeared between the two end tongs. As soon as the creature found the common sense to simple tear the car door off instead of struggle with it, the limb was already separated from him. The skin around the wound making a sickening sizzling noise and the creature screeched angrily and stumbled to the side.
Sora stepped backwards, watching as it screamed in pain and eventually just collapsed to the side. The brunette sighed and pushed the button on the side of the weapon and the light vanished and it snapped shut a few times before it remained as a small, compact, metal tube that looked remarkably like a lipstick container. He walked back over to the crossbow and picked it up before retying the cloak around his neck.
Roxas looked vaguely sick as Sora trudged back into the back of the van, half covered in the creature's blood and half covered in his own, and dropped a few barbs that he had obviously taken from the beast's tail onto the keyboard he had been working on. The blonde made a move to pick one up but recoiled a second later. "Well, it seems you had a fun time." He muttered, before grabbing a pair of tongs and a jar from a shelf above his head and dropping the barbs inside. Sora nodded, "Mmhmm, it's much better out there, I don't know how you can stand it safe in this car all day" He replied sarcastically, but with a smile nonetheless. Roxas internally wondered how the brunette could still have that much energy and… happiness inside of him after killing such a beast.
The brunette sat down on a trunk on the far side of the vehicle and grabbed a much larger jar, full of what seemed to be teeth. He reached into his pocket, before pulling out another, a canine considering its length, and dropping it into the jar before recapping it.
Roxas nodded, "Cheerful aren't we?" he replied, his voice dripping equal sarcasm before standing up a sigh to grab a towel and toss it to his twin.
A nod in return, "Yeah, I haven't had a good fight like that in months. That thing actually got my heartbeat up." Roxas rolled his eyes for what seemed like the thousandth time that evening, "Maybe I should just let you fight these things alone all the time then." The blonde replied, so much more venom in his voice than in his twins. They really were polar opposites.
"So… head back to the hotel now?" the techie asked as he watched his brother wipe the bright red blood from his face and arms.
"Yeah, just as soon as you call the Order and tell them to get a cleaning crew out here to tidy up. I'm sure as soon as someone gets up tomorrow morning to drive to work they're not going to be happy about running into an invisible entity laying on the road." He replied jokingly.
Roxas just sighed again and grabbed his phone from the desk.
Their hotel, which was really more like a small, rundown condo they had rented that sat above a bar that their friend owned. He was really the only person they had told about what they fought and protected the human species from. Of course this particular friend just happened to be their older brother as well.
"So… you just killed another one of those… things?" he asked, unlocking the back door where Roxas and Sora always parked so no one would have to see the brunette, and occasionally the blonde, walk up to their rooms covered in blood.
"Yeah, Cloud. But don't worry, I mean… I do it all the time." Sora said nonchalantly. Out of the three brothers, he was the one that was laid back enough to just accept that they had been chosen to fight these things and whatnot and actually have fun doing it. Although Roxas too had a smartass side, he was normally much more reluctant and solemn about their whole hidden life. He hadn't been able to keep a normal friend, much less girlfriend, for quite some time now; and even he wasn't going to sink so low as to hire a prostitute or anything to relieve his sexual frustration.
Of course Sora wouldn't either, but he never really wanted a girlfriend or boyfriend in his case. True, Sora was gay, but that didn't make him less of a kick-ass fighter. He was just content to have a friend here and there and of course have his two brothers.
Roxas though, as most people knew, wasn't ever really happy about where he was in life. Sometimes he would be perfectly content to sit in the car while Sora fought the creatures as he fed him information, and others he would rage at the thought of being left out of such a thing. Other times he would be thrilled to work with a secret organization such as the Order, and other times he got near suicidal just to escape from it.
Sora knew that below the checkered wristbands his brother was always wearing there were slash marks from his times when the pain felt much better than anything else. Of course Sora had scolded him for it several times before, but he promised he wouldn't kill himself. Sora pretty much left it at that.
Cloud locked the door behind them as the twins headed upstairs, before following them up. "So... remind me again why there is absolutely nothing strange about you guys killing these things?"
"Oh come on Cloud, we've told you tons of times!" Sora yelled over his shoulder as he headed towards the bathroom, shutting the door behind him to start the shower.
Roxas laughed, "Yeah, I just explained to you this morning!" Cloud had to laugh too and the blondes could hear their brother chuckling with them from behind the bathroom door. "Okay, well. There is this thing called the-"
"The Order, yes, yes I know." The blonde, bar owner finished for him as he walked over and picked up the jar fully of bloody barbs to examine them, "but how did they find these things were living? And how come you have to fight them? And why if you have to fight them that I don't?" he asked, stopping himself from continuing his endless line of questions.
"Well, the Order was originally a group of people who were, themselves, creatures like these. There was, or course, a vampire and a werewolf, and then a man who was half troll, a man half goblin, and their friend, a human." He recited, although he couldn't remember the names of any of them.
"Yes, yes. Then they banded together and decided to help their friend, the human, because they knew his breed would die out given they did not give them knowledge and train them and blah, blah, blah." Cloud trailed off, obviously bored from the speech as he sat down in an arm chair, "But how did they find out so much about these creatures and stuff, they can't even see most of them!"
Roxas shrugged as he fell backwards onto his twin bed, "Hell, I don't know!"
Cloud sighed, raising a hand to rub his temples to avoid his oncoming headache, "Okay, fine. Answer my second question."
"What was it again?"
"How come you have to fight them? And if you guys do why didn't I? I am your brother!" Cloud's voice raised in his confusion.
"Jesus, calm down. I didn't ask for you to go all scream-y on me." He put up his hands in defense, "We have to fight them because we were chosen by the Order, and anyone chosen by the Order has to fight. I mean, really. It's not like you can just run away from all this once you know about it," He answered, "And you don't have to fight them because you weren't chosen; simple as that."
Cloud made a dramatically, angry noise, "but why wasn't I chosen and you were?"
"Pfft, you know that answer well as I, Cloud." Roxas raised his head to level a gaze with his older sibling.
Cloud crossed his arms as if he was actually younger than he actually was; which was 27 years old compared to his sibling's age of 19, "Fine, I'm much happier with my job as my own boss anyways! And I get free drinks! You don't get free alcohol!"
Roxas knew he had won this fight as soon as that had been said, "Cloud, you forget, I'm only 19, I can't legally drink yet. So technically, even if they could give it to me, they wouldn't."
Cloud opened his mouth to answer, but his mind couldn't think up a retort and so he just kind of sat there, mouth gaping like a retarded fish while his brother smiled before getting up and walking into the large closet, which was about the same size as their bathroom, and shut the door behind him to change into his pajamas.
The next morning, Sora awoke with a start as he fell off his bed with a thud and screamed just for the heck of it. Or something like that.
Roxas, startled by the sudden change in volume, twisted under his sheets with a yelp of his own before falling off the side of his bed as well. The blonde sat up to glare at Sora over the edge of his bed. The narrowed, blue eyes and spiky blonde hair giving him the pointy resemblance of a shark. Sora just grinned nervously before crawling into the nearby bathroom to escape his brother's angry rage.
By the time that Roxas had eventually found enough strength to get off of the floor and waddle downstairs he found Cloud in his own little kitchen sitting at a table with a cup of fresh coffee and his newspaper. He glanced up over the rim of the black and white pages to glimpse Roxas in his sleep ridden form.
The younger blonde had on a pair of baggy, plaid sleep pants and a black tank top. His hair, which usually defied gravity anyways, now stuck up into a shape entirely different on its own. He had bags under his eyes and red marks on his arm from where he had been sleeping on it and it had pressed a little too hard into the sheets. Cloud chuckled at the appearance before dropping his eyes back down to the recent editorials, "There's hot coffee on the counter there, go ahead and help yourself."
He received a grunt from the younger blonde who padded over to the coffee maker and grabbed the pot, pouring himself a cup and drinking it directly after. He didn't even set down the pot. Cloud lifted his eyes again, "Oh, gone to drinking it black I see."
The comment was ignored, but not forgotten, as the younger chugged the last of his brew before dropping his arm to refill the cup. This time he set down the pot back into the coffee maker and drifted over to pull out a chair from the table and slump into it. His eyes glued on the coffee mug and his fingers gripping it's sides like the small, porcelain thing was a lifeline.
After another few minutes or so, his hoarse-from-sleep voice broke the silence, "I had another dream."
Cloud raised his eyes from his paper for the third time, "About mom and dad?" he questioned softly. When he received a nod in return he set down the paper altogether and leaned his elbows on the table to gaze at his brother, "Roxas it's not a bad thing to feel sad when you think about them."
Roxas kept his gaze where it was on his coffee, "I know, it's just… I don't want to keep seeing their faces every time I close my eyes." He answered quietly. It had been a conversation they had had many a time. "I don't want to mourn about them forever."
Cloud sighed, reaching a hand over to grasp Roxas' wrist gently and stroke his thumb along it, "Roxas, you have to face it sometimes. If you keep refusing to think about it and feeling bad for yourself, you'll never get over it." He answered, his eyes remarkably soft compared to how they usually looked, "You need to be able to accept what happened and know that it isn't the end. You believe in reincarnation don't you?"
Roxas nodded solemnly, his arms relaxing their death grip from where it had been on his coffee mug as he concentrated on the feeling of being comforted. It wasn't that Cloud was a particularly comforting person too, but he was his brother still and anything he could get he would take. "It's not going to go away just like that, it'll take time. You just come and talk to me whenever you have another dream and we'll sort these things out, okay?"
Roxas nodded again, he was really grateful for having such a caring brother. He wasn't sure what he would do it Cloud had seen his nightmares as a weakness or something likewise. Roxas was just happy that Cloud gave a shit about how he felt.
Cloud's gaze rose from where it had been on Roxas and he dragged his arm silently from where it had been resting to watch as Sora walked into the room and immediately headed towards the fridge. Roxas cast a silent glance towards Cloud who nodded, confirming he wouldn't say anything about it around Sora.
Sora had taken the death of their parents much easier than Roxas had in the long run. Of course the first few months after it though, he was hell. He barely slept, considering he was always thinking about them and how he couldn't go on and nothing would be the same without them. He was constantly staring off into space or just plain weeping. At that time, Roxas and Sora were still in school. They were just out of ninth grade actually, and they were sent to live with Cloud, who gladly took ownership of the twins. The government put them through school considering Cloud had just opening his business and they needed a bit of help, but otherwise they had remained a tightly knit family the entire time.
Roxas knew that being strong for Sora's sake had just managed to make him worse in the long run, but back then he probably thought that being strong for Sora would eventually help him to forget. Truth was, he didn't need to forget, but to accept what had happened.
There was the infamous clinking of bottles inside of the fridge before Sora resurfaced with a jug of apple juice and a frozen waffle stuffed in his mouth. Setting the juice on the counter he pulled over the toaster and popped the ego in before reaching up into a cupboard to fumble around for a glass, which he eventually found. He pulled out the chair across from Cloud and next to Roxas and sat down with his glass of juice, taking a sip before noticing Roxas' death stare on the inanimate object.
"Roxas, are you alright?" he asked his brows furrowing in concern for his twin.
The blonde jerked slightly from his dazed state and nodded over-enthusiastically, "Oh yeah, just feeling a little under the weather this morning, I think I caught a cold, running around yesterday." He answered.
Sora, oh ever oblivious Sora – it was a wonder the boy could manage to kill such strange things with such an attention span – just smiled, "I told you to wear a hat. You lose 70 of your body heat from your head you know."
Roxas nodded, his gaze drifting to glance at Cloud, finding he had already returned to reading the paper, before turning back to his twin, "Yeah, uh. I guess you were right." He muttered.
Sora graced him with a confused expression, Roxas never agreed with him on anything, but he shrugged it off thinking the blonde was just tired. The toaster popped and he got up to pour, what seemed to be, three gallons of syrup onto it before returning to the table with a fork to begin cutting into it.
"Hey Roxas," he stated, never lifting his gaze from the sparkly syrup, "I didn't know you started drinking your coffee black."
Cloud snorted and Roxas turned his head to glare daggers at the man.
Roxas trudged back into the bar, from the correct side this time, his hood drawn over his head as shuffled along, his boots making light "tmp, tmp, tmp" noises as he walked along.
The noises of the bar were somewhat of a comfort, it was almost like a second home to him, and he pushed the hood off of his head. He glanced around before making his way through the hustle and bustle of the bar towards the actual bar itself, nodding to a few faces he recognized on the way. Sure he had talked to some of the people that frequented the place – considering it was a bit hard not to – but he hadn't even thought of any as a friend to him. He elbowed himself a spot at the bar and even managed to steal a barstool for himself too.
Cloud spotted him easily, his form almost glowing compared to the sullen look of everyone else, and walked over, "What, you want a coke or something?" he asked with a smirk, remembering their argument from the night before. Roxas rolled his eyes but smiled nonetheless, "How 'bout a Shirley temple instead?" Cloud chuckled before reaching for the correct fountain nozzle and filling a glass with it. "You know I don't have any money, so I can wipe down the tables for you to pay for my drinks, alright?" the younger asked, receiving a nod in return.
"So do you have anything important you wanted to tell me that you need to drop in here and soak up all my time to do so?" Cloud asked as he set the glass down on the counter.
Roxas nodded, absentmindedly taking a sip of his drink before drawing away to glare disgustedly at the drink before him, "What the hell Cloud?!"
Cloud looked hurt and confused and shocked all at the same time, "What? What'd I do?"
Roxas rolled his eyes, lifting the glass to shake it gently in the man's face, "Forgot the cherry." He replied with a grin. Cloud rolled his eyes and grabbed the glass, dropping in three cherries just for good measure before handing the glass back.
Roxas took another long sip from the drink before releasing the straw with a content smile, "Thank you."
Cloud leaned forward onto the bar counter, "So what was that about something you needed to tell me? Anything that might interest me in the slightest, or is this a strictly-Sora-will-know-what-the-hell-I'm-talking-about kind of thing?"
Roxas thought about that one for a good moment or two, "No, no I think your small brain would actually understand part of this one." He answered, and chuckled seeing Cloud's narrowed gaze. He took another sip, "Well, I just got a call from the Order, and they said they're having a problem with some of the local tie between breeds."
It was Cloud now who took a moment or two to think about this one, but he nodded slowly in the end, "Okay, so which breeds are having the problems?"
"That's the problem; it's the vampires and the werewolves."
Cloud's jaw dropped, "Are you shittin' me?!" he practically screamed and Roxas slapped him upside the head. The older blonde rubbed his head with a muffled "ow" before returning his gaze to Roxas, "Aren't those the two most powerful breeds or whatever?"
Roxas nodded, "Mmhmm," he answered around a straw, "But don't worry, it's just a little skirmish. We'll have it cleared up in no time. The two breeds are sending some envoys here to meet with us and settle this quietly."
Cloud seemed defeated, "Roxas, you can't handle a "little skirmish" between two of the most powerful breeds quietly. It just isn't a quiet matter to handle." He replied, but Roxas just waved him off.
"Cloud, you really need to stop worrying and just relax for a while. The Order knows what they're doing and if they say this is just a little skirmish than this skirmish is, indeed, little."
Cloud just rolled his eyes and grabbed the now empty glass to refill it.
That's right, another story. This one I promise will be SO much better. I actually have BRILLIANT plot ideas for this one!! -squee-
Anyways, sorry for the lack of excitement in this one, but I needed to get some bones down first before I ripped my face off from sheer excitement to begin writing. Do note: I wrote this in six hours and I AM prone to making typoes and shit like that. If it happens just leave a quit comment in a review and I'll fix it up ASAP. Danke.
1. HO YES. SORA IS TOTALLY CALLED MUFFIN. I mean really, I needed a pet name for him because he just needs one. And... I just happened to be eating a muffin... and suddenly it looked like Sora. No, I was not imagining I was eating Sora, but you get the point!
2. HELL YES. ROXAS DRINK SHIRLEY TEMPLES. --- this shall arise later in the story. I can garauntee it!!
3. The weapon that Sora used was also featured in the movie, "Blade", and I forgot what the hell they called it. Anyone got a name for it? Please comment and tell me?
4. The name of the creature Sora was fighting is a Flezzio Lekrtol. This was a name I made up. Of course, Flezzio is derived from Flessione, which means in italion "flex" because the damn thing is so freaking flexible, and Lekrtol is derived from Lecertal or something that means "lizard" because that's what it looks like. So hah. The other creature mentioned, the Coltavitore, translates to "grower" in italian. Because apparently that one can regrow lost limbs. I dunno, I just needed some cool names that somehow meant something. So thar you go!
5. If you can guess any of the other characters and what breed they might be, I'll give you thousands of cookies, because I made it HARD dammit. I don't even know how I came up with how some of them matched or anything. It will be impossible to guess what Xigbar and Demyx are going to be. I assure you shall never guess it. But the two big breeds I used were Vampires and Werewolves, so everyone else is one of those. If anyone can even mention the breed that either Xigbar or Demyx is they automatically win the internet. But none of you will, because it's impossible. SO HAH.
Charries to look forward to!: Xemnas, Xigbar, Xaldin, Vexen, Zexion, Saix, Axel, Demyx, Luxord, Marluxia, Larxene, Leon, Vincent, and Riku. So thar. Give them breeds I say. You'll never guess them all! NEVAH. MUAHAH.
O.O -slinks away- Oh, and please review. It makes me feel HORRID when people just favorite and walk away. Because I just stayed up until eleven o' clock for you! So be happy! Reward me! Or I'll just crawl up in a corner and die! Even if it's something horrible like, "I hate you and you're stupid writing and I hope you die in a hole!" just post it. I beg of you. I live off that kind of shit.