Back by popular demand! This hasn't been okayed by my editor yet, but I'm impatient. All mistakes are, as always, completely my own. Enjoy, and please let me know if there's anything you would like to see in this. I have some ideas, but this wasn't really planned out when I wrote the first chapter. Actually, I was intending a one-shot.
Zoicyte's abrupt departure was beginning to seriously annoy his buddies. It wasn't that they were in his apartment so much as the fact that they couldn't leave his apartment. After all, what type of friend leaves his buddy's place unlocked? So here they were, five hours later, waiting for him to come back.
Their revenge had already taken the form of unalphabetizing his movies and video games and leaving pizza boxes all over. How anyone that lazy could be a neat freak was beyond them, but they were prepared to make him pay for this inconvenience.
Any further plotting was interrupted by the arrival of said tardy friend.
"Zoi, where were you?"
"Seriously, I had things other than housesitting to do today…"
"Oooh, who's this cutie?"
With that last comment from Jadeite, both Nephrite and Kunzite whipped their attention from their amused friend to the shy young lady holding his hand like a lifeline. She blushed and looked down, further confusing the men. How could their rather tactless friend have met someone so sweet?
Zoicyte rescued her from embarrassment by interrupting their musing with a dry "Her name's Xena, and you've met her before."
At the mention of her name, the puppy happily bowled over a surprised Jadeite with a well placed knee shot.
"Hey! HEY! Gerroff me! Stop that! No kissies!" The sight of the blonde writhing on the floor trying to avoid getting dog slobber all over his face broke through the shyness, startling a tinkling laugh from the tiny, blue haired girl still standing in the doorway.
Zoicyte took that good humour as his sign to pick her up by the waist and twirl her into the room. "This is Ami. And we have a favour to ask you…"
*****
"So that's how things stand. Since she doesn't want to see these friends of hers until she calms down at them, I thought you could help me play interception. Mamoru said he'd take care of Usagi, but I'm afraid he doesn't have as much leverage on the other ones. So we figured the four of us could play distraction."
"He figured. This is in no way my plan. I have nothing to do with this." Ami's dry comment startled a chuckle from the normally stoic Kunzite. She obviously knew better than to be a part of any of Zoicyte's mad schemes. Such caution had taken at least a trip to a holding cell apiece for the rest of them to learn.
"That's all right. We'll still help, won't we guys?" Two pairs of confused blue eyes and a set of surprised green looked at him in shock. After all, normally Kunzite was the hardest to convince of any scheme. "C'mon, this isn't going to hurt anyone, and it'll help this sweet young lady out. We can still argue about specific avoidance techniques. I fact, I'll probably help with that, since knowing Zoi they'll be needlessly complex or illegal."
An indignant "Hey!" was drowned out by another silvery laugh from Ami. Her eyes twinkled at Kunzite mischievously while Zoicyte muttered in the background about "…not that bad…"
"Thank you, kind sir. I accept your offer on behalf of me and this indignant jailbird here. However, I reserve the right to veto suggestions. The last thing we want to do is make my friends mad. Trust me; you have no idea how bad of an idea that would be."
"Alright, it's decided then." declared Jadite. "Now it's time to get down to some serious plotting…"
Ignoring the annoyed grumbling of Zoicyte, the others all leaned conspiratorially over the table, ready to begin.