Oh, so you clicked on this, and now you are going to read it. I thank you for—*Roxas runs up and starts blabbering* …Yes, Roxas. I'm writing your fic right now. Can you please at least wait until I'm done with the Author Note? *Roxas goes "OK" and waits outside the door excitedly* Sorry about that. *wink*
Yes, it is finally time for Roxas to star in a fic, after three straight Xion fics—I revoked her mind control device privileges. :) This is a giftfic for DementoFantasy, for winning the quiz in Castle Cleanup. His/her prompt was as follows (not his/her exact words at all):
Incorporate the following elements: 1) Takes place in a Frozen world, or otherwise references the film Frozen, 2) Pokes fun at bad AkuRoku fics or My Immortal, 3) Includes an OC psycho stalker who follows Axel around.
Ah, the perfect prompt. Frozen is the film that restored my faith in Disney, I'm perfectly happy to tear apart bad fanfiction, and as we all know, crazy stalker exes/fangirls/whatever are comedy gold. I'm going to have some fun today, yes sir, I am… :) Congratulations, DementoFantasy!
This takes place in the Reluctant Father universe, the morning after the events of Castle Cleanup. There will be references to the other fics in the series. You do not need to read the other fics to understand this fic (much, anyway), but some things might make a little more sense if you do. Besides, you'll like them, I promise. :)
*notices word count* Bleeping bleeps! Roxas, I'm ready to go!
DISCLAIMER: Kingdom Hearts belongs to Disney and Square Enix. Frozen just belongs to Disney. I do not stand to profit from this work in any way. May I suggest a Frozen world in KH3? :)
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Interesting Situations
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Roxas woke up. The ceremony and other festivities the previous night had been exhausting, but that didn't cancel work. He sighed and got ready to go.
Roxas' morning routine was just about the most generic, boring morning routine in all of history, so we'll just skip it and get to the part where our Key of Destiny enters the common room. The only other people in the room where Axel and Saix.
Roxas finally thought to check the time. The clock read 10:00 AM. He cringed—he was supposed to be up an hour ago.
"Don't worry," Saix called. "I let you sleep late today. I would have allowed Xion more sleep, too, if she hadn't been ready to go at seven."
Axel whistled from the couch. "What do you know? You really are getting soft."
"If I recall correctly, I only let them sleep in because you agreed to exchange you mission opt-out for my approval of it."
"Right, you just keep on thinking that, Sai."
Saix sighed and turned back to Roxas. "You're going to a new world today. It's called Arendelle. It should be basic recon. Get in, find out what you need to know and get out. You'll be with Axel today."
Roxas was perplexed. He and Axel both shared a serious distaste for recon missions—they were long, dull and hard, and they both had a feeling that Saix had already scouted things out himself and was just making sure they were actually doing the missions. Now they were being sent on one together, when anyone else could have done it? Maybe Saix was trying to regain his reputation as a scary boss with a scarred face or something.
Axel got up and sighed. "Maybe I should have just woken them up myself and opted out."
"You should have thought of that before. Get to Arendelle now."
"All right, I'm going." Axel walked through the portal Saix had created. "Come on, Rox, today is going to be real fun…"
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It could have been a desert. Or a tropical island. Or hey, it could have even been another forest…
Arendelle was none of these things. It was going through a miniature ice age.
Axel stepped out of the dark corridor and immediately felt a blast of cold air. The portal had opened into an alleyway—probably in the main city, he guessed. There was ice everywhere. The whole town looked like it had frozen over. The wind chill of something like thirty gazillion degrees below zero didn't help matters a bit.
For a man who constantly wore an entirely black coat and could make himself warm whenever he wanted, Axel hated the cold a lot. Likely, it was instinct from his fire powers. Fire had such an aversion to cold that it actively tried to drive it away, after all. Whatever the cause, this place was top on Axel's mental list of Most Annoying Worlds, surpassing even Monstopolis, where the locals flipped out if they saw anything remotely resembling a human.
Axel gritted his teeth. "OK, most noticeable thing, it's freaking cold out here and everything is ice. Write that down, Rox, it's probably important somehow."
Roxas snorted. "Why do I have to write it down?"
"Because I'm doing the hard part, actually figuring things out. While standing in possibly the only human settlement in an ice-covered wasteland."
"You don't like the cold, do you?"
"No, I can't say that I do. Let's just get this over with."
The duo walked out of the alleyway onto the city square, keeping their hoods up to stay warm. Too bad the locals treated mysterious people in black, hooded outfits with suspicion, because there were a lot of them in the square today. If Heartless attacked right now, things would get very ugly.
There was a handsome man standing in the middle of the square. He was dressed in a regal outfit—he was probably a prince or a general. More importantly, more eyes were on him than on the Nobodies.
The man was speaking. "We don't know what these things are or what they want, but they are probably connected with the Snow Queen. I promise you that we will capture her and bring an end to both this long winter and the threat of these so-called 'Heartless'."
Okay, some things could be gathered from that speech, even if it was just as boring as the ones Xemnas gave out. Apparently, there was a 'Snow Queen', and she was the cause of the cold climate, or was at least considered to be. Plus, this guy was probably the boss around here, and people looked up to him. New breakthrough! In less than fifteen minutes, no less.
"You writing all this down, Rox?" Axel asked, pulling his hood back up as a gust of wind blew it down—Xion had had that problem once, and it had aggravated her to no end. Axel could see why.
"Word for word," Roxas replied, ever the diligent one.
Axel smirked. No wonder Saix let Roxas sleep late. This was going to be easy.
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Kacela would have closed her eyes instinctively when the wind blew in her face, had she not been just behind a creepy hooded man. This was the luckiest break she had had in years.
When the hood got blown down, Kacela saw the hair she would recognize anywhere. Red, spiky, every strand at exactly the right angle. Could it be? But it couldn't be. That man had disappeared with Radiant Gardens. The one good thing about the Gardens being destroyed and her move to this frozen wasteland was that she didn't have to think about her ex boyfriend anymore.
But the hood got blown down again, and the hair checked out again. Yes, it was definitely him. What he was doing in the goth getup, she had no clue. She didn't really care.
She tried to get closer to him, but both he and his buddy moved forward in the crowd before she could reach them. His partner looked shorter, and was probably much younger. At least it wasn't a new romantic partner, she thought to herself.
After all, for everything Lea had done, he wasn't that gross…
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Roxas looked up at Axel. "I think someone's following us."
"Say it nice and loud, why don't you…" Axel sighed and looked around. "Who do you think?"
Roxas pointed, rather unsubtly, at a blond woman clearly trying to make her way through the crowd. Axel's eyes went wide. But she couldn't be here! Her whole world had been completely consumed by darkness, for crying out loud! What in the worlds was she doing here, in Arendelle?
Roxas noticed his friend's reaction. "What's wrong?"
Axel held on to his hood to make sure it stayed up. "I know her. From when I was a Somebody."
Roxas blinked. Axel never talked about the time before he was a Nobody, at least not in front of him and Xion. Sometimes, he would catch odd names or phrases when Axel was talking with Saix and he was nearby—'Lea', 'Isa', 'the Gardens'. But he didn't pay much attention to those—Axel had taught him that eavesdropping was only acceptable on a mission.
He kept an eye on the woman. "Is she bad?"
"Very. Let's get out of here; she might not have noticed us yet."
The duo slid into the shadows. As they watched to see if she was still following them, Roxas started asking questions, as usual. "Who is she? How do you know her?"
"One thing at a time, Rox. Her name is Kacela. I used to like her—really like her, the way I like you and Xion. But then we, uh, got in a fight, and now she hates me and wants to kill me. Literally kill me. I had to dodge a few attempts on my life when I was still a Somebody. That's all you need to know right now."
Roxas cringed, thinking of Xion's reaction to the water heater a few nights before. "Yeah, that's bad." Then he looked up at Axel again, terror evident on his face. "Will she want to kill me, too?"
Axel thought for a moment. "That depends. She might think you're my child, and that might make her think… well, let's just say it could cause a little confusion."
Roxas himself was thoroughly confused by this point, but he knew that Kacela was bad, and that was good enough for him at the moment. Now he had to figure out which of his two default responses to bad things to use—hit the bad thing with the Keyblade or run away. Given that Keyblades were generally ineffective against actual people except as clubs, he decided that running away was the better option in this situation. This was the height of strategy for the Key of Destiny.
It was fine for now, though. It was very lucky he had thought up the rudimentary plan so fast, because Kacela had spotted them again. Axel had the same idea, and they ran down the street, occasionally shoving passerby out of the way. Normally, such a brazen move would blow their cover completely, but there were enough people in the large crowd that they just looked rude rather than suspicious. Not that they currently cared either way.
Most of Organization XIII was proficient in the fine art of parkour. They could leap from building to building, jump over fences, use walls to reverse their direction without losing speed, all while running. Axel was particularly good at this, having done it when he was a Somebody as well.
Unfortunately, the Keybearers were horrible at it. They had gotten pretty good at falling from really high places without breaking anything important, and that was about it. Roxas had once tried to reverse his direction by running up a tree in Wonderland. It was good thing that pile of leaves had been right underneath, because otherwise it would have been a lot less funny. Even Demyx was better at it, and he had once fallen flat on his face onto solid concrete trying to wall jump.
This hampered Roxas' attempts to get away from the crazy blond lady. Axel, in a moment of forgetfulness that he would soon regret, went all-out in his parkour skills, leaving Roxas trailing behind. The ice didn't help, either. Really, it would have been best to just dark corridor, but again, there were a lot of people out on the street, and mysterious teleporting hooded figures would probably not elicit a good reaction.
Soon enough, Roxas slipped on the ice, falling on his side. It hurt, but it wasn't nearly as bad as finding Kacela standing right over him.
At this point, Roxas would have just tossed the cover out the window and dark corridored, but Kaclea grabbed his hair and pulled him up. The pain made Roxas pretty much forget about dark corridors. "Hey!" he said, grasping at the strong hands. "Put me down!"
Kacela called to Axel. "Yoo-hoo! Hey, Red! Been having flings without me? I'd say 'to shame', but you're already pretty shameful."
Axel whipped around. "Kacela, if you hurt him…"
"Don't worry. I'm just going to take him somewhere. I wouldn't do anything nasty to him, you know that. He is a kid, after all, just a fuzzy-wuzzy kid…" She shook him like a doll.
All right, that's it, this show is over! Axel dark corridored to Kacela and summoned his chakrams. This might have been more questionable, if Kacela hadn't been carrying an impressive-looking battleaxe on her back. It was as big as Lexaeus' tomahawk. How she carried it, Axel had no clue, but then again, everyone in Radiant Gardens had been suckers for ridiculously large melee weaponry.
Kacela didn't reach for the battleaxe, however. Instead, she threw some dust on the ground, and the two were gone.
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Elsa basked in the beauty of her castle. Those jerks back in Arendelle could never grasp how she had suffered for so long, and how amazing it felt to just finally let it go. She didn't care that she was alone in her domain—it was actually a pretty major perk. She could finally use her powers to full effect without hurting a single soul.
So imagine her disappointment when two random people she didn't know suddenly appeared in her fortress of ice, in a cloud of purple smoke. There was a blond woman in a heavy coat, with a battleaxe on her back, and a teenage boy, only a few years younger than Elsa herself, also blond and dressed completely in black. The boy apparently did not want to be there—he was punching and kicking, rather ineffectively, and the woman was pulling him by the hair.
Elsa called down from the balcony. "Whoever you two are, you aren't welcome here. I don't want to hurt you. Get out now."
The woman called up. "Does this place get internet?"
"Inter-what? I don't even know what that is!"
"Oh, right, hasn't been invented yet. No worries…"
The woman pulled a thin, metal block with a glass front out of her coat pocket. She pressed a small button, and the glass lit up, though Elsa couldn't see what it was showing. The woman tapped the 'window' a few times and put the block to her ear.
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Axel felt vibrating in his pocket. His old phone had survived the destruction of Radiant Gardens, and he had kept it ever since. He wasn't sure why he kept it. He also wasn't too sure he was getting cell phone reception in a place where cell phones were probably still about a thousand years off. Then again, these sorts of things tended to happen in situations like this.
He picked up the phone. The contact read SCARY—DO NOT ANSWER. Instead of a portrait, the picture was the word 'NO' in big red letters, over and over. That explained the reception—making the cross-world internet work had been a profession for her. She knew how to bend the rules of Wi-Fi.
Axel sighed and pt the phone to his ear. "Kacela, where the hell are you?"
"I'm just in a big ice castle with your kid, what's his name… Roxas. Interesting name. Anyway, get over here now, or I'll force him to read My Immortal, out loud and in front of this lady here,and neither of us wants that, right?"
"You wouldn't."
"Oh, yes I would! Better find me fast, Red…"
Before Axel could throw various non-Keybearer-friendly curses at her, she hung up. Axel rubbed his face with his hands. I'm the official assassin of Organization XIII! My title is the Flurry of Dancing Flames, for crying out loud! Why did I end up with these kids? Why do these things always happen to me?!
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Saix looked up at the clock. It now read 2:45 PM. Axel and Roxas were supposed to be back two hours ago. There really wasn't that much to Arendelle—the main objective was to find out the relative Heartless level compared to other worlds.
A dark corridor opened to his right. He hoped for a second it was the duo. Unfortunately, it was just Demyx and Xion returning on time.
"…And that's why you should never, ever eat wild mushrooms, especially the ones in Wonderland," Demyx was saying. Saix would have to 'inquire' what that was about later.
Xion seemed to be ignoring him, looking around the room. She looked at Saix. "Where's Axel and Roxas? I thought you said…"
"They'd be back by now," the Luna Diviner finished. "Yes, I know. I have a feeling they're getting themselves into serious trouble right now. But don't worry—you three seem to have a knack for getting out of any interesting situation…"
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Axel was growing increasingly frustrated with the ice seller, the reindeer and the clueless-as-Roxas princess. The last thing he needed was a talking snowman who wanted to see what summer was like. This was probably the reason he found one—inconvenient, cute things followed Axel around a lot. Except the snowman wasn't even cute, so he didn't feel bad at all for the construction. He would have just told him the truth about summer, had he not channeled his inner Saix to keep calm.
He did have one complaint, though. "Enough with the singing! It's annoying!"
Anna looked at him weird. "Singing? Who was singing?"
"Oh, my God, you don't even notice, that explains this whole darn multiverse, you don't even notice your own darn singing…"
Axel looked up and saw an icy castle. He ditched the group without hesitation, leaving them rather miffed that he didn't share the gift of teleportation with them.
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All in all, Kacela was a surprisingly civil captor. She talked with Roxas casually about the weather, as the Snow Queen grew increasingly horrified at the conversation. So she wasn't aware the damage she was causing, Roxas noted. That was something to put in the report.
When the clock struck three, Kacela got out her phone again. She tapped it a few times, made sure it had a full charge and gave it to the Keybearer. "Read this, out loud," she said, an evil smile on her face.
The screen was readable enough. Since he had no real reason not to, he started reading. "Hi, my name is Ebony Raven… no, wait… I can't read this, it's isn't in English."
"I assure you, it's all English. An attempt at the language, anyway. Just say the closest word to the word you're reading."
Roxas sighed and tried again. "Hi, my name is Ebony… why do I have to read this?"
Kacela's scowl made her look just like Larxene. "Just do it."
"Okay, okay… Hi, my name is Ebony…"
The phone blew up in his hands. Roxas bit his tongue so he wouldn't scream in pain as he shook his hand and wiped it on the ice-chair. This was just before a dark corridor opened in front of them and Axel stepped out, chakrams in full view.
Axel took one look at the charred remains of the phone and smirked. "It was that bad, huh?"
Kacela rose from her chair. "Hi, Red" she fake-cooed, smiling even more. "You came just in time. Rox couldn't even read the opening paragraph before it exploded."
Axel made a flourish of flame, and Elsa screeched. "Only I get to call him Rox," he said slowly, anger rising in his voice. "You are to call him Roxas."
"Oh, Red. You're just as fierce as I remember. Such a… fiery personality."
"Your puns have gone downhill since I last saw you."
"Yes, I am losing my ability to make creative puns. Won't matter in a minute, though." Kacela pulled out the huge battleaxe and swung it as hard as she could.
Axel dodgerolled, and a full-blown boss battle ensued. It was quite an impressive display of acrobatics for Axel and an actually pretty beautiful dance for Kacela. Roxas summoned his Keyblade and joined in after the first half-minute or so, and then things got truly impressive. Elsa desperately trying to rebuild the castle as Axel melted it with his fire caused even more of a spectacle.
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Saix sighed once again when the clock hit 3:15. "I'm checking on them. Come with me, Bright Shadow."
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Taken out of context, the situation makes no sense whatsoever. Axel, Roxas, Xion and Saix were all battling a crazy ex-girlfriend with a giant battleaxe in an ice fortress that was crumbling around them, even as its creator worked hard to keep it standing.
We call this a 'Super-Awesome-Spectacular CGI Moment'.
Kacela pinned Saix under the handle of her axe. "It's been a long time, Isa."
"That name is dead to me, Kacela."
"Whatever, Wolfman. I've got nothing against you personally, but since you're in my way…"
"You've forgotten the first rule of combat."
"Oh? And what would that be?"
"Less talking, more fighting."
Kacela looked perplexed. That was about when the Key of Destiny whacked her lightly upside the head with his Keyblade, knocking the crazy stalker out.
Roxas pulled the battleaxe out of the table and threw it on the ground, freeing Saix. Everyone caught their breath for a moment. Amazingly, the castle was still standing.
After a minute, Saix looked at Axel. "We've completely blown our cover here."
Axel snorted. "Not my fault, blame the crazy ex."
"Most crazy exes don't follow you across worlds."
"Well, I seem to have a knack for getting in really interesting situations, don't I?"
"And getting out of them."
Elsa was sitting on the floor, breathing hard. Saix helped her up. "We apologize for this. We can pay for anything you want."
"Don't worry… this place… didn't cost a cent…"
"You tell no one about this, understood?"
Elsa took one look at the claymore and nodded.
Xion looked down on Kacela. "What do we do with her? We can't just leave her here."
Saix picked Kacela up and dark corridored. When he came back, his hands were empty.
He left everyone in suspense for a second before saying, "I put her in her bed. She'll wake up in the morning and think this was all a dream."
Axel raised his eyebrow. "That's a little manipulative, don't you think?"
"She tried to kill us."
"Oh, right."
With that, the four Organization members left Arendelle with one heck of a story to tell…
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THE END
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Whew. Finally, it's done! *looks at clock, sees it's four in the morning again* Darn it… :)
This was a ton of fun to write. At first, it was kind of stiff, since I had gotten used to writing Xion and her more fluid thought patterns, but it picked up and hit the mark in the end. I even managed to throw in some light AkuSai banter for good measure.
Notes on Kacela: The name is an African name that means 'hunter'. I think it fits—I was just looking for an intimidating name that had a meaning that had something to do with stalking. And yes, she will appear again at some point. I don't know when, but you don't just use an awesome character once and then never pick her up again, right, Square Enix? *holds up Xion drawing—hint hint, wink wink* :)
Credit where credit is due: The idea of Organization XIII knowing parkour comes from a Youtube video purporting to be a fan-made trailer for a theoretical Kingdom Hearts movie. The video was mediocre (they had the Organization using wimpy daggers), but the parkour looked cool, and the idea of Axel going all Assassins Creed on Arendelle made me sparkle with joy. They should add parkour to KH3. :) The idea of cross-world internet and cell phone service came from Raberba Girl's story 'Wireless Connection'. I believe I faved it, if you're interested. And of course, whoever owns the My Immortal excerpt can keep it, thank you very much. :)
I apologize for putting 'Let It Go' in your head all over again. I just couldn't resist that line. :)
If you're new here, Saix was referring to Xion when he mentioned the 'Bright Shadow'. Read Castle Cleanup for more details.
I hope you enjoyed this… not short story. :) Remember, reviews are always appreciated. Also, three words: Super Bowl Special. Tune in tomorrow!
Final word count for the main story and the ANs: 4,429. Happy now, Roxas? :)