Whoa, sorry I took so long, dudes! Don't know what happened, it's probably just the start of summer classes that threw me off a little. Oh well, the new chapters up, so that's all that matters! Plus it's actually a decent length! Anyway, thanks to all my reviewers, auPHE, TMX Archives, ironyofalostkeyword, Tinker16, Amaya-Chan67, Elve Saranel, RubyRoseoftheBlackBlood, NightmareFairy, yumie-darkness123, Aindel S. Druida, Bingi, jynxer120, Misz Lovely x0x, vamprincessmiyu, Twilight Emo Wind Goddess 801, -siarafaerie-101-miss, The Black Inferno Alchemist! You guys are awesome! And patient! I love you! :D
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Axel was waiting for the Strife family in the parking lot of his apartment complex. He had a wide grin on his face as he chivalrously opened up the back seat door. "Welcome to my humble abode. Well, for everyone except Leon. He already saw it when he dropped Auron off, so it's probably not so exciting for you."
Roxas took a good look around as he slid out of the car. The apartment complex looked…surprisingly normal. Axel was such a strange person that he expected something a little odd but the complex looked like any other he had seen in the city. There were small blocks of apartments, each with their own little concrete patio or balcony in front, depending if they were on the first or second floor. The paint was bright and cheery, and everything even looked fairly clean. The complex itself was even in one of the better neighborhoods, near to the college campus, which was understandable considering that Axel was just finishing up his senior year.
"Not too shabby, is it?"
Jumping, Roxas twisted around to see Axel right behind him. He immediately crossed his arms. "It's not bad, I guess. From the outside anyway."
"Oh, I see how this is going to go." Axel grinned, slinging an arm over Roxas's slim shoulders. "And I completely agree. You can't really date someone until you know what their living habits are like. Now come on, I'm up on the second floor." He led the way up the nearest flight of stairs, tapping on the apartment number plaque. "Apartment number 208. Got it memorized, Roxy?"
Roxas only rolled his eyes, nonetheless being the first to walk in as Axel threw open the door. It was a small apartment, having maybe two bedrooms tucked back in a short hallway off to the side. The rest of the apartment was an open floor plan, the kitchen merging into the living room. The thing that immediately caught Roxas's eye though was the giant screen TV nearly taking up the entire wall in his direct line of sight, the rest of the wall completely covered by shelves of DVDs and CDs. He heard Sora's exclamation of amazement before his older brother rushed past him to inspect the red-head's collection.
Beside the normal lived-in look though, the apartment was actually clean. Roxas had always imagined that Axel would be living like a hurricane had hit his house, everything thrown everywhere. Seeing the younger blond's expression of surprise, Axel smirked. "Please, have some faith in me Roxy. Is it so hard to believe I live in a decent apartment."
"A little."
"You wound me with your words." Sighing dramatically, Axel grabbed the phone, dropping down into one of the three chairs tucked around a small dining room table. "Ignoring them though, what does everyone else want on their pizza?"
After much discussion, an agreement was finally reached and they had placed their order. When their food had come and they were all eating, they gathered in the overstuffed couches in front of the TV. Leon raised an eyebrow as he caught sight of some of the DVD titles. "You certainly have a lot on ghosts. I never realized it was so important to you."
Axel chuckled, scratching the back of his head. "Ya well, I guess I have bought pretty much every movie or series I could find about the supernatural. Plus Demyx just gave me his old collection of the old black and white horror movies, so that took care of that side of the wall. We watch them all the time through, right Dem?"
Nodding, Demyx grinned. "Some of them are really funny! A lot of the documentaries and TV series on ghosts and psychics are really good and we've learned a lot from them; well, whatever Auron hasn't taught us already." He shot a grin over in Auron's direction which the older man appeared to ignore. "Plus the drama's always awesome! We've been supernatural geeks since we met in high school, we only decided to use what we know to help people out with their own problems since we started college and actually got serious about the whole thing."
Sitting next to her brother, Namine couldn't help but giggle. "If you can call yourselves serious now…"
Demyx pouted. "We all get paid. That makes it a real job, we can't help if we love it. Besides, without humor, this line of work would just be too creepy."
"Speaking of creepy," Axel scooted forward to the edge of the couch. "Did we manage to catch anything from the asylum recordings?"
The room quieted down at the question, the memory of the night's work coming back and settling over them with an almost tangible weight. Shifting a little as all eyes fell on him, Zexion finally pulled his laptop out of his messenger bag he had brought up from the car. "You need to remember that we didn't think to set up visual recordings. It doesn't really matter considering all of the activity was on the third floor and we don't even have an extension cord which would reach that far anyway, but I did manage to load up the audio recordings onto my computer on the drive here." Turning the volume up, he spun the laptop around on his lap so that it was facing the larger group. "I haven't listened to it yet, so it might be nothing but white noise. But I did click on the one Axel's group took with them up to the attic, which is our best chance of hearing anything."
Sora scooted closer to Riku as Zexion pressed play, crackling static spilling out of the speakers, the noise eerie and echoing even in the small apartment. Riku wrapped an arm around his boyfriend, squeezing his arm as Axel's voice came over the speakers followed shortly by the others who had gone up to the attic. After a few minutes, there was silence again, signaling that Axel had put the recorder up on the dresser.
The static crackling suddenly increased, and as Zexion turned up the volume in order to try to pick through it, they all heard a noise that sounded like a small intake of breath followed by a small murmur.
Axel waved his hand, "Go back and try to isolate that from the static."
Nodding, Zexion spun the laptop back around toward himself, tapping on a few keys before speaking up. "Alright. I've done as best I can to muffle some of the background static. It will be fairly loud because I've had to raise the general volume up five-hundred percent but with it that high we should be able to make out any words if they're ever going to be understandable."
After rewinding a few seconds, he pressed play again. There was the gasp again, much louder this time and much more obviously a human-like sound. Then, a small voice, quiet and child-like came through, the words only just understandable through the hissing and crackling of the recording, "…where….where is everyone…" There was a small whimper. "I'm…all alone…where are they? Where are they?"
Roxas almost jumped as Sora's voice interrupted, his brother's voice loud and clear. "I see it! I might not be able to reach it though. Hm…if I open the lower drawer I could probably get it…"
They must have just decided to head back downstairs. Roxas flushed with embarrassment as his own voice came over the recording; luckily he had been too far away to be properly understood, but they clearly heard the name "Axel" among the disgruntled mutter. At least they hadn't heard his entire insult. He hadn't really meant it after all. There was a scraping noise as Sora fumbled for the recorder, his fingertips pushing the thing around on the wooden dresser top. "I almost have it. It's just a half an inch away…"
After that, there was shuffling as the recorder was passed to different hands, finally given over to Axel. "Hey there, you don't have to be afraid, we're not going to hurt you. My name's Axel, what's yours?"
"…Rose…"
"That's Roxas. He's a nice kid and you know what? He would really like to know what happened to everyone here. Could you tell us, darling? Did something bad happen to everyone?"
"Everyone's gone…my friends…" There was a shuddering breath, a sort of sobbing gasp, "My friends are gone…Where are they? The bird lady took them, she took them all...!" The ghost girl gasped again then suddenly let out a high pitched shriek, throwing everyone back as they had all leaned forward to try and decipher the static-filled mess.
Shaking his head to try and clear his ringing ears, Axel leaned forward to stop the play back. "And that's when that raven flew into the window. Obviously it had something to do with whatever woman somehow took the rest of the ghosts away." Pursing his lips, he tapped his fingers on his knee. "What did she mean when she said that the others were taken away though. Ghosts can be exorcised, and they can be destroyed, but I haven't heard anything about them being basically stolen."
He looked over at Auron but the older man only shook his head. "Neither have I, not as far as I can remember. Certainly not an entire army of spirits anyway. It seems like Zexion and I will have our work cut out for us in research."
Sora glanced up at Riku, having felt the other's arm tighten around him during the play back. He was surprised to see a frown on the young man's face, his expression sad. Leaning closer to him, Sora tilted his head to the side. "What's wrong, Riku?"
Turning to look down at him, Riku managed a small smile. "It's nothing…I suppose I can empathize with the poor girl a little…Whatever happened to her, to the others, sounds as if it was quite traumatizing."
Sora frowned, biting his lower lip before smiling a little. "Well, I think it's going to be okay. After all, we're here to find out what happened to them, right? And that's important. Plus we can find out who took them away, who knows, maybe we can even bring them back and then everything will be okay again!"
Chuckling weakly, Riku leaned his chin on the top of Sora's hair. "Your optimism never ceases to astound me."
"Well someone has to look on the bright side of things! I learned that a long time ago from having to live with Roxas. He's a real pessimist after all!" He grinned as Roxas, who was sitting on his other side, smacked his arm.
Having listened in to their conversation, Axel chimed in. "At least we know Rose is in the asylum still. I have a feeling she'll be okay until we're able to figure out what's going on." He stood up to stretch, his shirt riding up a bit as he lifted his arms above his head. "Now I'm not sure how long you Strifes want to stay but we're probably going to be listening to this recording a few more times. Can't say that it will be too exciting, so you're free to go if you want."
Cloud frowned, thinking back to the eerie recording. "You're okay with doing the rest on your own?"
Axel waved his hand dismissively. "We'll be fine. We've done this tons of times."
"That's right!" Demyx added. "And we'll just be listening to a recording. It's not like we're going to have to deal with any ghosts bursting into the apartment or anything-" He suddenly shrieked as the door to the apartment slammed open, jumping back almost onto Zexion's lap.
"Who the hell said you could have a part without inviting me, yo?"
Rolling his eyes, Axel put his hands on his hips. "For your information, this isn't a party. We're reviewing an investigation."
"You've got more than your normal buddies and you've got pizza. It's a party. A lame one, but it's still a party. And you know the house rules, last one to have a party does all the chores." Roxas stared as another red-head flopped down onto an open space on the floor and grabbed a slice of cold pizza from the open box. He was like Axel's clone, except slightly older, his longer hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. He even had tattoos under his eyes. After swallowing a large bite, the man motioned to them, "Gonna introduce me or what?"
"This is Leon, Cloud, Sora, Roxas, and Riku. All part of the Strife family. Guys, this is my brother, Reno."
Reno stared at Cloud for a moment then grinned. "Hey, I've met you before! You're a doctor at that one hospital. I got a glimpse of you in the ER area a few weeks ago, yo."
Cloud frowned thoughtfully before his eyes brightened and a smirk flashed across his lips. "And you were the crazy red-head with the fractured ribs who wouldn't sit still for the treatment. I heard the gossip about you from the nurses. I should have known that you were related to Axel."
Rolling his eyes, Axel huffed. "He's crazier than I am. He actually works as a body guard for the top executives of the Shinra Company. Comes home busted up all the time."
"At least I'm not a ghost-obsessed pyromaniac. What are you all doing here anyway?"
"I already told you, Reno. We just came back from a haunting." Smirking, Axel's hand went to Zexion's laptop. "Wanna hear the recording? It's pretty cool, we actually caught a voice."
"Hell no." Reno sprang up, "You know I can't handle that creepy shit. I'll be in my room watching TV if you need me. Nice meeting everyone and all that."
As Reno left the room, Axel chuckled. "Works every time. Now, you guys can head out if you want. We probably won't do anything else tonight anyway. Hopefully we'll be able to find out more information in about a week and get back to you."
Leon nodded and stood up, Cloud rising a second later. "Sounds good. We should get going anyway, it's," he glanced down at his wristwatch, raising an eyebrow when he saw the time, "it is officially midnight. The kids have school and we both have work. This was certainly an interesting evening though, it'll be interesting to see what you come up with."
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Roxas sighed, leaning over the table he had just finished wiping down. It had been a week since they had last heard from Axel or anyone else from the ghost hunting team. He hoped they were working hard, because otherwise he was going to give them an earful. Meanwhile though, life had gone on and Roxas now found himself at his after-school job. Luckily it was only part-time, three days a week for a few hours each, but still, he hated that working at a café meant that he actually had to talk to customers. At least he worked inside the café now. For the first week he had been used as a messenger-boy, his boss exploiting the fact that he knew how to ride a skateboard to try and get him to deliver everything as fast as possible.
Actually, looking back, he wasn't sure if he had had it so bad. He sighed staring down at the table.
"Roxas stop humming and help me out with the customers!"
Roxas snapped out of his thoughts as Olette tapped his shoulder, not even realizing that he had been humming in the first place. He was going to become as air-headed as Sora if he didn't watch out. "Roxas? Could you take the order for table three, please? My other tables are being a real pain and I don't think I could handle any more right now."
"Sure Olette. No problem." He had only agreed to work at the café in the first place because his friend Olette already worked there and had said that it was a good job. And she hadn't really lied. It was hectic at times, but the pay was good, and the hours were pretty reasonable. Stuffing the rag he had used to wipe down the table into his back pocket, Roxas straightened up and headed toward table three. He froze though when he saw the back of a familiar spiky red head sitting at it. "No way…" Marching over, he stood over the table, hands on his hips. "Are you stalking me now?"
Axel blinked, his green eyes wide before a grin slowly grew on his face. "Roxy! What are you doing here?"
"I work here, not that you didn't know that already."
Leaning back, Axel took in Roxas's uniform, the standard black pants and dress shirt. He smirked, "And here I thought you were just a little punk but you clean up pretty well. I wholly approve. You probably have no idea how adorable you look though, do you?"
Roxas's face lit up in a blush and he quickly fumbled for his pen and paper pad, trying to get to a more comfortable situation. Not that it was really uncomfortable for Axel to compliment him, it was just…weird. Shaking his head, Roxas cleared his throat. "Just shut up and order something."
"Fine, fine. Just get me whatever the special is. And coffee."
Frowning at the lack of some snarky comeback, Roxas took another look at the college student. Axel definitely looked tired. He had dark circles under his eyes, their green color slightly dulled from lack of sleep and he was even slightly slumped forward over the table. Roxas frowned but held off his questioning until he had come back to the table with a cup of coffee, finally speaking up as he set it down. "Are you okay?"
"Aw, Roxy's worried about me."
"I'm not worried, you just look like shit."
"Ouch." Axel smirked, taking a sip of the coffee. "I suppose it's true though. Zexion's been running everyone ragged trying to figure out information. It's the worst part about working a new case. Never question Zexion's research ability, trust me, it'll only end in your pain. Dem finally managed to distract him for a few hours though so the rest of us could take a break. And it's almost time for us to go back."
Roxas tilted his head to the side then held up his hand. "Hold on a minute." Axel obeyed, and a moment later Roxas came back with Axel's meal balanced on one hand as well as a café-made sandwich for himself. Sliding into the chair across from Axel, Roxas watched as the older man dug into the plate. "Alright, I took a break. Now we can actually talk without me having to be worried about getting fired. So, did you manage to find anything out with all of this research?"
"We went to the library to look through the asylum records. We found them and it turns out that there was a girl named Rose who was sent there when she was five. Apparently she died in 1928 when she was ten from a nasty tuberculosis strain that got about twenty other people in the facility too. We did manage to do a total count of all the deaths and found that, including that episode, there were seventy-six who died. For all we know they could have all become spirits living there."
Roxas hummed, leaning his chin on his hand as he took a bite of his sandwich. "So, that's it?"
Axel pouted, "Hey, we do also have school you know. Besides, Zexion's going back to the library today. Lexaeus should be working this afternoon and together they're going to work on picking through information to find something out about that symbol." He leaned forward to rub his temple, "I've stared at that thing so many times it's pretty much engrained into my brain. Stupid raven, I'm so sick of it." He jumped as his cell phone suddenly rang out from his pocket. "Shit, I need sleep," he muttered as he flipped the phone open. "Hello?"
Watching as Axel talked, Roxas realized that he was actually enjoying spending one-on-one time with the older man. It was kind of nice, just sitting in the café. He came back to attention as Axel snapped his phone shut a moment later, a grin on his face.
"That was Zexion. He's at the library and apparently he just found something of interest, so that's my cue to leave." Pulling a twenty from his wallet, he placed it on the table with a wink. "Keep the change, Roxy. With any luck I'll see you tonight."
Flushing as Axel left through the front door, Roxas stood up, his blush nearly rising to his ears as he muttered under his breath. "Why does he always have to make everything sound so perverted?"
"Who was that Roxas? The two of you looked as if you know each other well."
Roxas growled a little at Olette's teasing tone, turning around to face the brunette. "His name's Axel."
"I don't know Roxas, he looks a little old for you."
"Olette! We're not dating, he's just a friend. A family friend. Barely even that, we only met two years ago." Seeing her sly smile, his eyes narrowed. "Don't you dare tell Hayner and Pence whatever it is you're thinking. They'd never let me hear the end of it. I already get enough at home from my parents and Sora."
"I always did wonder why you never were interested in dating, but now I know why! I wouldn't either if I had a hot 'friend' like that. The standard is probably too high for you."
"Olette!"
A few hours later and after countless amounts of playful teasing from Olette, the sun was setting and Roxas finally got off from work. Stepping out of the café, he unbuttoned the top two buttons on his dress shirt, breathing a sigh of relief as it made everything seem just a little more casual. The college campus was only about a block away, probably why Axel had visited the café in the first place, and Roxas would usually wait in the school's library until Sora and Riku's classes got out so that they could all drive home together. He was surprised then to see Cloud standing beside his motorcycle in the parking lot.
Smiling at his son's expression, Cloud tossed him a helmet. "Axel called the house and asked the family meet him at the city library. Riku and Sora are meeting us there and since I just happened to be passing by I thought I'd give you a ride."
Roxas grinned and jumped onto the motorcycle behind Cloud, wrapping his arms around his father's waist. He didn't care how old he got, he was never going to be too cool to turn down a ride on Fenrir. The ride, as expected, was terrifying and exhilarating with Cloud steering. Roxas counted about three times where there was a possibility of them dying, the only thing saving their skin was Cloud's excellent driving. Nevertheless, he could feel himself shaking a little as he dismounted even while he smiled up at Cloud. "Awesome ride as always."
Cloud grinned back, the expression wavering somewhat as he chuckled. "Good, but let's agree not to tell Leon about that red light, okay?"
"You mean the red light you completely sped through?"
"It was yellow when I got out in the intersection."
"You were going sixty miles an hour."
"Like I said, better to keep this one between the two of us."
Roxas nodded, a smile playing across his lips as he followed the other blond into the library. If he remembered right, the same woman had been sitting behind the desk two years ago when he and Sora had come in to find out some information on Riku. He rightly ignored the woman, taking the lead and heading down to the basement level, figuring that was where all the historical information was kept.
He knew he had made the right choice when he spotted Demyx and Namine bent over an open book that had been set out on one of the tables.
"Hey, glad you could make it!" Roxas twisted around to see Axel come out of a side room with Zexion and Lexaeus, the copier room if he was to guess from the stacks of photocopied papers in Axel's arms. "Where are ghost-boy and Sora?"
"Here!" Sora chirped as he bounded down the stairs, Riku following more gracefully behind him. "And Leon's right behind us, we saw him pulling into the parking lot as we came inside."
"Alright. Let's get started then." Turning to Zexion, Axel mimicked a dramatic bow. "Would you like to do the honors?"
Zexion rolled his eyes but stepped forward. "After…extensive research, we could only find a few examples of the symbol having ever been used." He began to pace in front of them as he spoke, obviously still figuring things out himself. "I was able to eliminate it from originating from all of the major religions, cults, and cultures, meaning that it's probably used by either only one small group, a family perhaps or something along those lines. Next, Lexaeus and I searched through books and online and found out this." He motioned back to the book and stack of papers, nudging Demyx to the side so that the others could examine the photograph on the open page. "You can see here that the symbol was found connected to some rather mysterious and unfortunate circumstances."
Roxas leaned forward to examine the image. It looked like a crime scene, like a picture Leon would bring home and try to not let them see. There were dead bodies on the floor in the foreground of what looked to be a residential setting, inspectors from the nineteenth century walking around and taking notes. What was immediately noticeable though was the symbol that had been gouged into the wallpaper. It was the same exact raven as the symbol from the asylum wall.
Frowning, Zexion spoke up again after a moment of silence. "This book is a record of some of the more troublesome unsolved crimes throughout the history of our local area. All seven of the children in this family were found dead when their parents returned home from an opera. What confused the authorities most was that they couldn't find a cause of death. There were no wounds, no traces of poison. It was almost as if they had simply just died a natural death. Though clearly it was anything but." Zexion sighed then looked up at Leon. "Actually, I was wondering if you would be willing to look into police files for me, to see if you can't find any more of these mysterious cases. They would probably be very similar, large numbers of people killed without any understandable causes."
Leon nodded. "I'll look into it."
"I'll look into the medical records at the hospital as well," Cloud added, "When I head back into work tomorrow. You can probably even come with me if you want, our older records aren't as safeguarded as those in the police station."
Roxas glanced over at Sora as Zexion agreed to go to Cloud's work. It seemed as if they were once again getting themselves into more trouble than they had first imagined.
