Chapter 2: Key…..blade? Wtf?
OR
I wish I could read these words floating around my room.

Note: All text in italics, unless obviously part of the story, is commentary from the authors. Everything else is, obviously, part of the story.

Roxas awoke in his bed and sat up quickly, startled that he had passed out in the sleezy back alley and had woken up at home. Brushing it aside, he stared at his hand and muttered, "Key….blade?" In the room next to him, floating improbably in the air appeared some words. Roxas stared at them blankly for a few minutes before shrugging. "I really wish I could read the words that just appeared in my bed room," he said. "This seems to be becoming a regular thing." Just so you know, the words spelled out "Day Two" in scripty white letters, but Roxas had never learned how to read or write as a child.

After an implied time skip to later in the morning/day/perpetual twilight, Roxas is wandering around town, lost, because he couldn't read the street signs. Still muttering about keyblades, he stopped, looked around and found a stick. He pointed at it and said, "Keyblade." Picking it up, he swished it around like a sword and said confusedly, "Keyblade?" Shrugging when it didn't do anything but be a stick, he threw it behind him and it hit Ri--an axe murderer. In black clothing. What the hell?

Being the stupid naïve boy he is, Roxas apologized rather than running from the strange person watching him from the shadows (aw, Roxas has his first stalker!). The man walked away and Roxas blinked. Assuming that he did some more walking and more time passed after this encounter, Roxas entered the sleezy back alley where Christine, Lola, and Frank were eating ice cream bars and talking about him behind his back.

Christine handed him one of the "special" popsicles that was laced with the "special" flavor powder. He sat down as Lola slurped his ice cream down in one mouthful and started on his fifth. Christine was a little turned on by the fact that Lola could fit all that ice cream in his mouth at once.

"Do you think we'll always be together like this?" Lola asked suddenly.

"I sure hope so," Christine replied, lost in his own dreamland fantasy world.

"Wait, what?" Frank asked, watching as Christine wiped drool from his chin.

"Nothing." He looked at Lola. "Where did that come from?"

"Yeah, well, you know. Just thinking. Out loud."

Roxas looked at Lola in disbelief. "You have enough brain cells to think! Really? Awesome, congratulations, man!"

Lola glared at Roxas. "Yeah, well, why don't you just go out and tell me the name of the street we're on, Roxas? Oh wait, you can't, that's right. Because you can't READ."

"Why do always say the words you know will hurt me?"

"Well, I doubt we can be together forever," Christine said, ignoring the bitch fight. "But isn't that what growing up is all about?"

Lola and Roxas stopped glaring daggers at each other to listen to Christine try to sound heart-warming. "What's important isn't how often we see each other, but how often we think about each other, right?"

Lola started laughing. "Get that off a fortune cookie?"

"That's it, no more ice cream for you," Christine huffed. "Man, today's turning out to be a drag."

"Maybe because of yesterday's memory thief," Frank suggested, licking her ice cream bar suggestively at Roxas.

"No, you know what it is?" Christine said, completely ignoring Frank. "We don't want summer vacation to end!" Lola, Frank, and Roxas could feel Christine starting one of his rants and settled down to ignore him. "So why don't we all go to the beach? Why go to the beach?" he asked the air. "Because we haven't gone once this whole vacation! Think about it! Blue seas. Blue skies. Let's just get on the train and go!" Christine turned around to look at his friends. "No?"

Roxas smiled at his empty-headed friend. "Maybe you forgot, but…we don't have any money."

"Maybe you forgot, but I'm smart," Christine replied. "Come on." He walked out of the sleezy back alley.

Roxas, Frank, and Lola looked at each other.

"I think we never knew you were smart," Frank said as they all followed Christine out.

Outside in the nasty back alley (not the sleezy one, there's a difference) Roxas met up with the other three who promptly told him they were heading to Market Street and ran off without him. Roxas blinked. Which street was Market Street? He looked up at a sign, but it was all Japanese to him. He wandered off randomly down the first street he saw and it just happened to take him where he needed to go. Lola, Frank and Christine were gathered around a poster advertising something, but Roxas couldn't tell what it was. Christine looked over at him and said, "You and I have to bribe the judges so we make it to the finals! I mean, come on, with a face like yours, who wouldn't want to tap that?"

Roxas stared at him. "Wait. You are not my pimp and I am not your bitch. I belong to AxIII…I can't get into that right now."

"Right, well, we'll clean up and get the prize money! ..And maybe some new customers."

-cough- We are trying very hard to keep this PG-13. Forgive us if we slip.

"It's a promise," Roxas replied. "Except for the new customers part. I don't do that any more."

"Liar," hissed Frank, who had had him last night.

"Now let's get down to business," Christine said. "One ticket to the beach is 900 munny. That's how much for all four of us?"

"Wait, wait, I thought that you were smart?" Lola said cruelly.

"I am. I am full of smartness. Math just doesn't count."

"Riiiight. It's 3600 munny," said Frank.

Roxas just kind of stared up at the sky and ignored them.

"And 300 each to spend there. What's that come to?"

"That's 1200. Now let's do some simple math, Christine. What's 36 plus 12?"

"Um…." Christine scratched his blonde head in thought. "Uh… 42?"

"No. No, you raging idiot. It's 48. Oh my god I didn't think you were this dumb. We need 4800 munny."

"Wait, what are we spending munny on?" Roxas asked, finally returning to the land of the thinking.

"New fishnet stockin—I mean, pretzels, of course! What else is there?"

"Um, like, everything?" Lola replied.

"There's always watermelon," Roxas said.

"Roxas, shut up. You aren't allowed to talk any more," Frank said, holding her head in her hands.

"Too pricey. They're, like, a bajillion munny a piece."

Frank and Lola stared at him. "No. Shut up. You can't talk any more either, Christine," said Frank. "Just stop. Before you kill your brain."

"Pretzels it i--"

"What did I say! NO MORE TALKING FROM YOU."

"Yes ma-"

"NO. TALKING."

Roxas hung his head and nodded slowly.

"So where were we?"

"NO TALKING," growled Frank. "Anyway, we need 4800 munny. I only have 650."

"I have 800," chipped in Lola, though no one was really listening to him.

Roxas held up his hands to show that he only had 150. He was poor. Nobody liked him because he was poor. Christine opened his mouth to say something, but at a fierce glare from Frank, shut it again and held out his hands in a series of numbers that was something like 1, 6, 3, 10, 48, 73, 563, the letter G, and a pink lint fuzzy. Frank just rifled through his pockets and came up with absolutely nothing. And we thought Roxas was poor.

"So we have 1600 munny. That means," Frank said with a significant look at Christine, "we need another 3200."

"So let's actually get jobs and earn our munny the honest way," said Lola. No one was listening to him still.

Christine waved good bye and signaled that he had some business to take care of waiting over on that corner and he would get them his part of the munny soon.

"Right. Well. Let's get some jobs then. 800 munny each!" said Frank, wandering away.

Roxas looked at the board where Frank had shown him that jobs were posted before, but as he couldn't read, he couldn't tell who needed what done. He decided to wander around town and find someone who looked like they needed help. He delivered mail, beat a wagonload of trash up a hill, put up some posters around town, destroyed a couple of bee hives and got away mostly unscathed, and he also destroyed some junk. This gave him a total of 799 munny. He figured Christine couldn't count so it wouldn't matter if he was a little short. He then spent about forty-five minutes wandering around town trying to find his way to the station.

When he finally found Christine, everyone else magically appeared out of nowhere and started talking.

"Added to what we now have," said Frank, holding out her money bag, "we've got 5000 munny!"

"Wait, why did we go over?" asked Lola.

"I got some extra big tips today," said Christine proudly.

"Ah. That totally doesn't explain it, but I don't want to know anyway."

"Let's get the tickets!" Frank gave the money to Roxas and ran off into the station. Lola followed.

"We can't be together forever," said Christine suddenly in a prophetic voice. "So we need to make the time we do have good." He spun around and laughed in Roxas's face. Then he kidney-punched him for no real reason. "Just kidding!" Christine ran off.

"Ow, my ovaries," said Roxas, clutching his arm. Just as he was reaching the steps, however, he tripped. On a stick. It looked like the one he kept calling 'keyblade' but it was, in fact, not actually there. You'll see. As he slowly got to his knees, Roxas rubbed his face where it had hit the pavement. "Ow, my ulna," he said, checking to make sure all his teeth were still there.

At that point, Ri—the axe murderer we kindofnotreally met earlier hoisted him up my his arm, paused, and then promptly vanished. Roxas ran inside after his friends who had totally abandoned him.

Speaking to the ticket person, Christine held up seven fingers. "Four students, please,"

"Roxas, the money," said Lola.

"What about it?" asked Roxas. "Oh, right, we actually have to pay for our tickets." He began to feel himself up in an attempt to find the money. After about ten seconds of looking, he held out his empty hands and said, "No!"

"It's gone?" asked Lola.

Roxas flashed back to the guy picking him up. "I bet that guy took it," he said, running for the door.

"Who, you mean Ri---I mean, what guy?" asked Frank.

"When I fell. The guy that picked me up. I bet he took it!"

"Dude, there was no guy."

"Wait, but, huh? I'm reasonably sure I wasn't hallucinating again…was I?"

The all turned to watch as the train they wanted left the station without them.

Wow it sucks to be them.

Toooootally. Why would you give it to Roxas?

Because you're stupid. That's the only reason.

Because I'm stupid?

No, They're stupid. Just shut up and play the game.

But it's a cut scene! That's paused!

Don't care! Twiddle the little analog sticks then, if it will make you happy.

Fiiiine. Then you start typing the story.

Fine!

Fine!

Right then.

TYPE THE DAMN STORY.

"Way to fail us, Roxas," said Christine as he walked by.

After an unknown amount of time passed, they were all magically sitting up on top of the clock tower. We can't figure out how they got there, but whatever. They sat up on the ledge, licking their ice cream (it's a miracle they aren't all fat) and Roxas was just sitting there, letting his melt onto the heads of passersby below them.

"It's melting," said Frank.

"That's the point," replied Roxas. He was too busy flashing back to when Ri---the axe murderer had picked him up. "Can you feel Sora?" he—the axe murderer, that is—had asked. Roxas was really confused. Who was Sora? Was it a girl? Sora sounded like a girls' name. He wondered if Sora was hot.

The scene fuzzed out to a static-y screen as a voice said "Probability factor of 72:1 against and falling!"

"Hurry, Namine!" said almost-but-not-quite-sexy-voice-man's almost, but not quite, sexy voice.

The axe murderer named RiiiiANSI can't tell you yet stood in a corner tossing the munny bag he'd totally pick-pocketed from Roxas up and down in his hand. "Is it really that hard to make a beach?" he asked in a voice that was deeper than but not quite as sexy as almost-sexy-voice-man's voice.

"It would give the enemies another entry point," said almost-but-not-really-sexy-voice-man. Upon further observation, you can see his head, wrapped in red bandages. It's a ---

Yes! He's becoming red-bandage-man!

He should be the Red Bandage Bandit.

I am totally cool with that.

…Awesome.

--- daring fashion statement.

"You're such a jerk," said deeper-but-not-sexier-axe-murderer-voice-man. "But what about this?" Axe Murderer held out the munny pouch.

"We can always buy some sea-salt ice cream, aha ha ha."

Yes, The Red Bandage Bandit is an asshole.

Once more the world faded to black and Roxas was viewing that trippy color-mirage of the brown-haired kid talking to a really butch-looking woman with a fin. Something about being a key bearer and not messing in other worlds. There was also a really busty girl with red hair talking about getting somewhere someday, and a short, fat satyr (look it up on Wikipedia) dubbing the brunette boy &co junior heroes. What the hell? The duck seemed to take exception to the "junior" part.

His hallucination then skipped to a ratty looking street urchin setting some fat blue guy free. Also, there was a skeleton talking to a rag doll. What the hell. The Brunette did some fancy twirling with his giant key and slammed it into the ground. There was this giant dra—oh, wait, sorry, he was actually pretty puny. Mushu? Something like that. But then he was in this amoeba-looking place type thing facing a silver-haired kid (don't ask, we couldn't figure out what was up with the hair either) apparently named Riku who calls him Sora and teases him. Hey, he has a name now! Yay!

But then Sora is in a big wooden area with his meatshield—I mean, his buddies and a guy dressed in green spandex tights. He says something about not believing it's really not butter, but the he remembered he was in the wrong commercial for that and wanted to tell Kai—something. But yeah, that didn't work right then because the Trippy Flashback Static took over and switched him to a hot blonde guy talking about not losing sight of his light. But that didn't last long either and then Sora was standing on a hill with some talking stuffed animals. Something about finding his friends. Yeah, he fails at that too.

But then he's on a ship talking to Riku about where his meatshi---buddies Donald and Goofy are. But Riku says he should be worrying about 'her'. When he moves aside to show Sora who 'her' is, the scene skips to something reminiscent of The Ring and all you see is some red-haired chick. She looks kind of drugged.

And again, the screen was static and faded out to a familiar scene….

The dark room was lit by computers. The Red Bandage Bandit sat in front of them, egging someone on. "Come on, get in the room so I can wall you in! I don't care if you have to pee, get in the goddamn room!"

He really liked The Sims.

The world was suddenly white, and a pale blonde chick (remember her from the Opening/prologue? She's baaaaaaaaaaack) was standing in front of something that looked like a bleached artichoke. A male voice that sounded sort of like Sora only not said, "Who are you?"

She turned around as the world turned dark and said slowly, "I…am….your father."

"Wait, what?"

----

Karuke: So Naruke has spring break this week and I have the feeling we'll pump out a few chapters for you all to enjoy. I might hoard them to release slowly as the school year picks up, though. Just so you know.

Naruke: Whoooooooo! We are so going to get killed for this chapter.

Karuke: Yeah we are. By the way, everyone say hi to our guest author/helper/minion/person… Kori. Despite a girly-sounding name like that, Kori is actually a dude. And he's pretty awesome.

Naruke: And he's Karuke's minion.

Karuke: Such a faithful minion. He pleases me so.

Kori: Hey, Karuke, doesn't she look like Riku?

Karuke: GAH! –twitchtwitchspaz-

Kori: Oh man, did you hear her neck crack?

Karuke: DIE.

Kori: Shut up. You know you like those pancakes.

Karuke: -twitches spastically and falls over unconscious, foaming at the mouth-

Naruke: I think you killed her.

Kori: I'm freeeeee! –flees for his life-