Axel didn't go back to school. Instead, he poked around a nearby convenience store, wandered by the rec centre and then went home.. His mom was still at work, and his sister was either at school or at a friend's house – he didn't bother looking at the clock on his way in, but figured it was the latter. He toyed with the ideas of dorking around on the computer or watching a movie, but eventually decided to lie around his room.
A few hours later and he was back at the lot, dressed mostly in black. And there he waited, leaning against the wall of the building Xigbar so loved to pose on. He wasn't sure how long he'd been standing there, smacking his trusty broomstick against his leg, but after what felt like another half-hour, he finally saw some movement. Unfortunately, what he saw was a pair of glowing yellow eyes staring at him from the middle of the dark, abandoned lot.
Axel blinked, wide-eyed, but didn't get to do more than grip his makeshift weapon with both hands before something bright streaked through the night air and into the dark creature. As the Heartless disappeared, another dark shape dropped down from above Axel, landing in a crouch a few feet in front of him. The figure straightened and turned around.
"'Sup?" Xigbar said, sounding like he was probably grinning again. Axel rolled his eyes and lowered his broom-handle; Xigbar apparently saw this from under his hood and snorted
"Aww, isn't that cute, you plan to beat them away with a stick!" he sang, to Axel's annoyance. He followed up with a less amused, "Y'know that's only going to be good for keeping them away, right?"
"That's the idea, isn't it?" Axel replied with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, no, hate to break it to you, but on a 'Heartless Hunt', the goal is to send them back to wherever the hell they came from," Xigbar said with a sigh, shaking his head. "Or, phrasing it in a less sugar-coated way, kill them. Kill them all. Kill 'em dead, et cetera."
Axel crossed his arms and frowned. "Alright, fine, what do you recommend, then?"
"Something metal and sharp, for starters," Xigbar offered, prompting Axel to roll his eyes again.
"Oh! Well, then let's just go down to the local House of Knives and grab a sword then!"
"Yeah, yeah, hold your venom, kid, I get the idea," Xigbar said, raising his hands. "Since our chances of getting something more... weapon-like are very low, I'd suggest a shovel or pipe or something to that effect."
"Great, have any of those on hand?" Axel asked, voice absent of curiosity.
"Sure!" Xigbar exclaimed with far too much enthusiasm, "Because I always carry around lead pipes and shovels in case I decide to go hobo-killing!"
"What?" Axel said disbelievingly, catching Xigbar's attempt at sarcasm, "So, what, did you expect someone who's never actually fought Heartless to do? Were you hoping the mystical powers I supposedly have would psychically tell me what would best kill one of those things? Or were you hoping I'd be able to magically pull weapons out of my ass like you can?"
Xigbar opened his mouth to reply, leaned forward, paused, then shrugged. "Well, actually, yeah, I was hoping for that last one to happen, but failing that, I was kinda banking on the hopes that you would have some common sense. C'mon, seriously, what's stronger: metal, or wood?"
"Fine," Axel said through his teeth, "Why don't you just lend me a gun or something?"
Xigbar was actually quiet for a few seconds, before he shrugged again, "Well, sure, if you think that'll work."
With a flash of light, the gun-thing appeared in his hand; however, the light caught the movement of something else in the darkening lot.
The light quickly faded away, but Axel and Xigbar were still staring at the large (and growing) number of yellow eyes watching from around the lot. Xigbar instantly had another gun out, while Axel braced himself with his broomstick.
"Well, that's interesting," Xigbar commented in a surprisingly casual voice.
"What? What's interesting, how quickly they're showing up, or how much they outnumber us?" Axel demanded, not taking his eyes from the unnatural shadows.
"Well, I've never actually seen them in this lot before, let alone a group this size. It's really curious."
"Oh, if that's all!" Axel said, sounding a little annoyed.
"Yeah," Xigbar started, shaking his head before continuing in a much firmer voice, "Right, let's make for that streetlight over there, I think they'll be less likely to swarm us since they're generally not fond of light."
"Mmkay, sounds like a plan," Axel said to let Xigbar know he was listening, backing up with him.
They were quiet until they were well under the light, where Axel also noticed eyes watching them from other pools of darkness in the street.
"So, Xigbar, now what?" Axel drawled, his tone suggesting a growing lack of belief in the other's competence.
"I'm thinking," said Xigbar snippily. They had a few seconds to guess at the amount of Heartless appearing as things seemed to get darker, when the light suddenly flickered.
They looked up to see several pairs of yellow eyes watching them from the top of the streetlamp.
Another Heartless appeared and squished itself in beside its brethren, and the light flickered out again. When it came back, it was dimmer than before.
"...Ah," was Xigbar's only comment.
"Y'know what? You're not really my favourite person right now," Axel noted dryly.
"Shut up and run, knucklehead."
The pair took off seconds before the light blinked out for good, closely pursued by shadows.
Axel could hear Xigbar swearing a blue streak as they ran, shortly accompanied by the sounds of him firing his guns. He found himself idly wondering how good Xigbar's aim was when he was running, but was forced to abandon this when glowing eyes faded into existence before him.
He glanced to his broomstick. Well, their main goal had shifted away from 'killing them all dead', right?
He swung and swept the Heartless aside, not quite as far as he would have liked, but hey, at least they weren't in the way. Oh, wait – one was still close enough to pounce, which it looked like it was going to do. Axel narrowed his eyes and raised his broomstick.
"Hey, kid, what's the hold-up? Keep moving or-"
Xigbar stopped as Axel brought the stick down and smashed the Heartless into dust.
"... Huh," he said after a second. Axel shot him a look over his shoulder.
"That's it? Not even a 'good job'?"
He could just see Xigbar grinning as he pressed a fist against his back and shoved, "Can it and swing, broom boy, we're not out of the woods yet."
Which was true – While Xigbar had thinned out the numbers behind them, there were still a few more pairs of eyes than Axel was comfortable with.
Axel, however, matched Xigbar's grin and raised his broomstick.
"Aww, I don't know, I think we can probably take--" he stopped suddenly as something caught his eye, "- is that – is that thing in armour?"
Xigbar swore and gave Axel another shove, "Yeah, motivated yet?"
Axel didn't argue this time, instead running and swinging the broomstick to clear the way. Xigbar wasn't firing as much now, but judging by the glow he still had both of his guns out, which was really fine by him. It took another few feet of running for Axel to realize that it was slightly lighter than before – hm, he'd also barely noticed that it had gotten dark to begin with, but with all the Heartless, he supposed it made sense –
"OW – Shit!" Xigbar swore as the broomstick smacked his shin, effectively bringing Axel back to their little chase scene.
"Quit waving that thing like a feather-duster and pick a street that isn't infested with Heartless!" Xigbar barked back angrily, and Axel imagined he was glaring at him.
"Well, I think we're almost home free anyway," Axel said more to himself as he looked at the choices in front of him. They had a few metres of street to go before the street ended ahead of them, and coming up were the last two roads that branched off from this one. So, should he go left, or should he go right--
"Anytime you wanna give us an escape route," Xigbar hinted impatiently.
"Uh, Uh..." Axel looked from one street to the other, "This one!" with that exclamation, Axel turned down the street on their right, Xigbar closely following. It seemed like it was a good choice – the street was considerably brighter, and the Heartless weren't showing up ahead of them.
Axel slowed as Xigbar picked off the last few Heartless, half-laughed, and looked over his shoulder. Alright, so that was a little weird and rather unpleasant, but –
He heard something in front of him and looked forwards, to see what he could only describe as a large ball of darkness solidifying into something easily twice his size.
Axel didn't get to see immediately what this something was going to be, as he was suddenly yanked backwards by the neck of his shirt and shoved to the side. Axel hit the ground with a choke, and over that he heard what sounded like someone running into a wall, closely followed by a cloth bag being dragged across the ground. Or, Axel thought with a sinking feeling as he pushed himself up, someone skidding across it. He looked over and sure enough, a black shape lay unmoving several feet away, illuminated slightly by still-tangible guns.
Something shuffled nearby, and Axel quickly remembered why Xigbar yanked him out of the way. Turning, he did a double take at the massive, round, and overall strong-looking Heartless standing far too close for comfort. It finished turning to face him, and pulled its fist back for something, but it simply moving was enough motivation for Axel to get to his feet and start running. There wasn't much he could do- even if he hadn't have dropped the broomstick when he was knocked to the ground, he doubted it would do much against that massive thing. So he ran, even though he wasn't so sure of his plan once he got out of range. He definitely wasn't going to just leave Xigbar there, though, so when he reached the other man he grabbed him under the shoulders and attempted to keep going.
Unfortunately, Axel found that either moving bodies wasn't as easy as it looked in movies and T.V., or Xigbar was just surprisingly heavy for someone who could hop off buildings. After a few seconds of trying and gaining only a few inches of ground, Axel gave up, let out a breath and dropped Xigbar, before staring back up at the massive Heartless. He grimaced as he bent with his hands on his knees, still attempting to catch his breath from their running before, and as he glanced down, he noticed something else. Contemplating it for only a moment, he ducked down and grabbed one of Xigbar's gun-things from out of his hand.
It was heavier than Xigbar made it look. Axel clenched his teeth and managed to lift it with two hands, and shakily aim it at the Heartless. He grinned a little, staring at the dead Heartless walking, and reached for the trigger. Except-
There didn't seem to be a trigger. Axel's grin wavered a little as he moved his fingers around, trying to find whatever Xigbar pulled or hit to make those glowing crystal-things shoot. With the Heartless advancing still and finding no success, Axel looked up from the gun, at the tiny ball he assumed served as the big thing's head, then at the thing's arms which looked to be as big around as his waist, and began to feel a bit panicky. It didn't help any when the gun suddenly disintegrated out of his hands, but he barely had time to register this when something grabbed him firmly by the shoulder and pulled him back. Axel looked up just in time to watch Xigbar fire a shining shot from his other gun and nail the Heartless right between the eyes. The Heartless stumbled back, mouth open with no sound, and Xigbar shot again and again, and the Heartless fell back and vanished through a frame of wispy darkness.
Xigbar turned his glare to Axel now, and instructed with a fair amount of force, "Don't- touch- my- guns. Got it?"
"Memorized," Axel with an unsteady voice and half a weak smirk, a little taken aback at how irritated Xigbar sounded. He quickly fell out of this uneasiness when he noticed he was missing something.
After a second Xigbar seemed to realize this too, as he let go of Axel to step away and flip his hood back up, concealing his unusually dark hair and fairly obvious scar.
"Uh, you saw nothing, kid," he said in a less irritated tone.
Axel grinned slyly, "Hey, with a mug like that, I can't blame you. So what'd you do to get that, exactly?"
Xigbar's back was to him as he refrained form answering, his other gun gone as well and freeing up his hand to clench and unclench in frustration.
"Look, it's none of your business, alright?" He said after a few seconds, glancing over his shoulder. Axel was fine with that for an answer – it was probably a little personal anyway. However, it was by no means the only thing about his appearance he could criticize.
"Alright, fine. Then can you tell me how you managed to screw up your hair like that so I may never do it myself?"
Axel could hear Xigbar sigh exasperatedly from where he was standing.
"My hair is naturally black, Axel, and what I do with it is also none of your business."
The redhead arched an eyebrow.
"Really? That's kind of weird."
Xigbar shook his head and started walking up the street.
"Yeah, sure. Want me to call you a cab or something?"
Axel shot Xigbar a confused look, "Uh, why? I can walk home from here in like, fifteen, maybe twenty minutes."
Xigbar stopped to turn and stare at Axel.
"Axel, consider your week, and then what just happened. Think about it as hard as you have to."
Axel frowned a little as he did so.
"Mmhm, so I ask again: Want me to call you a cab or something?"
"Yeah, I guess. Seems a little extreme, though," Axel admitted with a sigh.
"Yeah, well, there were way more Heartless than there should have been waiting for us," Xigbar explained as he started forward again, "I'd rather we be safe than sorry, a- Oh dammit!"
Xigbar stopped and slapped his forehead, then turned to Axel again.
"I can't believe I forgot to friggin' talk to you about what you heard at the rec centre!" he finished without prompting from Axel.
Axel blinked, then recalled as well that yes, he hadn't gotten around to talking to Xigbar about that. Whoops.
"Oh yeah. Uh. Weren't we going to do that tonight?"
"Well, yeah. I guess those plans kind of blew up," Xigbar said bitterly.
"Uh, why can't we still talk?" Axel asked, quirking an eyebrow.
"Well, a, I don't want Heartless listening in if they're still around, b, I don't know how much time we have, and c, I'm really friggin' tired, and if we're going to discuss this, I want to do it when I'll be more likely to remember what we said later."
Axel shrugged and nodded, "Okay, fair enough."
Xigbar nodded as well, "Alright, so in the meantime, how about you write down what you heard, and then hand it to me next time we go on one of these outings," he suggested, glancing down at Axel, "which, will be during the day, I promise."
"Sure," Axel agreed. Afterall, it wasn't like he usually had places to go after school. Or, sometimes, during it.
"Alright, cool," Xigbar commented, reaching into his pocket, "See you on Thursday, then, kiddo."
Axel raised an eyebrow.
"What, you're leaving already?"
Xigbar looked over his shoulder, "Yeah. I really don't want anyone else seeing me."
Axel frowned, but let it go. Neither said anything as Xigbar tossed a few pieces of munny to Axel, and walked away.
Several blocks away, another boy opened his eyes and sat up at his desk, frowning slightly. Despite his focus, that most definitely was not a repeat of the stained-glass dream from days before. However...
However, some things certainly felt familiar enough to be from the same dream...
Or at least worth noting, he concluded as he scribbled down the more important points of the dream before he could forget them. Perhaps this was supposed to be a sign, then, some way of giving him a direction to follow.
When he finished, he sighed quietly and set his head back down. Oh, well, it wasn't like he had anything else to do tonight.