Rin: Here it is! The obnoxiously long chapter that took an obnoxiously long time to come out! I'm warning you this is extremely long, I suggest using the bathroom, grabbing some food and/or finishing your homework before starting. Dear God it took long enough… But it's out just in time for the holiday season! So Happy Halloween from Rin!
Warnings: This chapter is obnoxiously long. This chapter also contains: sappiness, lots of new characters (most of which are probably so Out Of Character I'll have pine needles thrown at me), super cute Rose, and crap. This is also unbetaed. If it's filled with many mistakes, I apologize. I will be sending this to my beta after I post it. I just really wanted it up this weekend.
Disclaimer: I own Rose, Rin and the plot. Everything else belongs either to Square Enix or the lovely people who let me borrow their characters for the story.
Especial thanks to: The reviewers, the creators of the many new people you shall meet in this chapter and my iPod for making me dance while writing this.
I hope you enjoy!!
0o0
Ten Most Shocking Things I Have Ever Seen
1. That creepy loner kid at my old school whom I caught jerking off to the most popular kid in school. Oh yeah, bad nightmares.
2. Riku. He's shocking in a good way.
3. That one time I walked into Selphie and Tidus… Let's just end that here.
4. My mom's high school prom picture. She looks the same as she does now!
5. A LIGHTNING BOLT!! Haha, get it? … Oh come on! That was supposed to be funny!
6. When Bambi's mother was killed.
7. Riku in vampire form. It scared the hell out of me.
8. The one time I walked into Dad and Raven… Augh! GET OUT OF MY MIND!!
9. When my dad pointed to the creepy fat old lady in the back of the funeral home of my uncle's funeral and said, "That right there, son, is what you're going to look like when you get older." Sure, he was trying to lighten the sullen mood of the funeral, but still, to use that lady? At least he could have pointed to someone like Orlando Bloom!
10. Riku's goddamn big fancy house.
I stood there in the middle of the driveway with what was most likely the biggest, stupidest look of shock ever all over my face. Riku poked my arm. "Sora?" He followed my line of vision and sighed. "Oh come on! It's not that great of a house!"
"Not that great of a house?" I repeated in shock. "Riku, this is like the king of all houses! Its superiority makes other houses quake in its mighty power! How can you try to put down its greatness?"
The house was an old Gothic Revival of a Victorian style. It looked like the kind you would see only in England. It was made with brown, gray and gold like stones and it resembled a medieval church.
This awesome house was on the very edge of the third district, far from the houses in the second district. It was on top of a large hill, hidden behind all the tall buildings. It looked over the entire town.
"Man, oh, man. I wasn't expecting this, but know that I think about it… I can defiantly see you living here. It screams egotistic," I said, walking up the driveway to the patio. "Who else is in the house besides you?"
"Yuffie, Cloud, Leon, Axel, Sephiroth, Rose and about twenty others whom you haven't met yet."
"Twenty others?!"
"I come from a very big family," Riku explained. "Every vampire that Sephiroth has created lives with us. Sure, some of them move out but the majority of the younger ones stay. And by younger I mean in human age. It doesn't make sense for a sixty year vampire who looks like a thirteen year old to be buying a house."
"How many others are there?"
Riku paused, deep in thought. "I lost count sixty seven years back. Nearly a thousand by now."
"A THOUSAND?"
"But that's no where as near as Vincent, Sephiroth's friend." Riku said, clearly enjoying the attention. "He's a pure blood too. He started to turn humans into vampires long before Sephiroth did. His vampires are nearly two thousand years old, while I, the oldest of Sephiroth's, am three hundred. Sephiroth wasn't too fond of forcing humans to live like we do."
"How many does Vincent have?" I was terrified of the number.
"I never figured out. I'd like to say nearly four or five thousand." He grinned at my paled face. "Vincent stopped turning humans into vampires a few years back. His youngest is two hundred years old. They're like my cousins and the vampires under Sephiroth are my siblings."
"So you basically have a thousand brothers and sisters and five thousand cousins."
Riku reached for the handle of the door and nodded, "That's the basics." He pushed open the large door.
I gaped openly at the large marble foyer. It didn't match the outside's Gothic medieval style, except for its size perhaps. It had white walls, a white marble floor, and a high ceiling- plain, really, for a vampire's home.
"The inside looks… human."
Riku looked around the foyer. "Does it really? Good, that's what we were going for."
"Hmm? Why?" I asked. "You're old, aren't you? Wouldn't you like old styled things?"
Riku laughed. "All comments should wait until the end of the tour."
"Can I ask a question?"
"Depends."
"Where is everybody else?"
"Cloud and Leon are setting the party room, Yuffie is gathering the guests, Axel is… most likely shrinking from his duties and Sephiroth is giving out orders, per usual."
"Do I know any others?"
"Well, there's Tifa, you remember her, right? She's most likely moving the heavy stuff around. That girl has some serious muscles. Any others you will meet soon enough."
"Could you show me your room?" For some reason, the very thought of Riku having a room didn't seem possible. It seemed like he belonged in my room and all other rooms were borrowed for a while. I wonder what it would look like.
Riku smirked down at me. "That eager to get into my bedroom, Sora? I thought you were chaster than that."
"Eh?!" I blushed furiously, shaking my hands in front of my face. "That's not what I meant at all! I-I-I…"
Riku ruffled my hair, chuckling. "I know what you mean. Can't take a joke, Sor?"
"It wasn't very nice!"
"But it was worth it. We'll get to my room when we get there. Ground floor first." Riku pushed me into the kitchen. It was as boring as the rest. It had all new state of the art equipment but otherwise it was quite blah. It was too clean to be a kitchen, like no one has ever used it yet. "Riku? Is there really a need for a kitchen?"
Riku laughed. "You caught us. No, we rarely step foot into the kitchen. Go open the refrigerator, there's nothing there." I did as I was told and found that there was indeed nothing there, except a pitcher of water. "We don't use this part of the house. It's just here in case humans were to come in. We want to look as normal as possible."
"Why would a human come to your place?"
"Yuffie has had invited some humans over for a party a few times in the past. And sometimes Sephiroth has a work party here."
"The Vampire Master works?"
"He's a history professor at a college in Radiant Garden. With his knowledge of the past, he's very good at it."
"Is the rest of the human house like this? Untouched, clean and boring with state of the art equipment that you probably never use?"
"Pretty much."
"Then let's skip that and get to the more exciting parts." Riku nodded. He led me up the stairs (straight stairs with white carpeting that made me feel bad to walk on with dirty shoes) and into a small foyer with multiple closed doors on all sides.
Riku pointed to each one and told me whose room it belonged to but he didn't open any of the doors to show me inside. He told me that many people in this house did not like people entering their room without permission. Some just didn't want people in there, period. He said that if one of the other vampires wanted to show me their room, they will be the one to show me in.
The door with the ninja star dents was Yuffie's. The one with a chocobo poster was Cloud and Leon's (Leon did not care for the chocobo but Cloud insisted that their door have something on it and he just happened to think chocobos were cute). The door to the left of Yuffie's had black singe marks which made me guess was Axel's. I was right. Another door had a pair of black boxing gloves dangling off of a hanger with a pink ribbon around them and Riku told me it was Tifa's. Riku's room was the one with the door that was left blank.
There was this one door that didn't seem to belong to any of the vampires I knew. It was next to Riku's room and had a poster of a rainbow, bunnies and a unicorn. It screamed "Who needs scary vampires when you have fluffy bunnies?"
"Whose is that?" I asked, reaching to touch the poster. It was fuzzy.
"That would belong to my best friend."
"Eh?"
"Her name is Rose, a six year old vampire who is old enough to be your great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother. She's thirty years younger than me vampire wise. You'll like her. I think she's hanging out with Sephiroth; she likes to give out orders."
"Where are the others? You said there were twenty living in this house."
"They live in the vampire part of the house. They're not too fond of white everywhere. It hurts their eyes."
I made an 'O' shape with my mouth. "Can you show me your room?"
"It's really boring, I'm warning you now." I ignored him and pushed open his undecorated door. His room was indeed very boring. It was a pretty big room for someone who probably never uses it. The walls were light blue, the carpet was blah off white and there were two windows next to a perfectly made twin bed, closed and covered by the shades. Directly next to the bed was a small crib, where Lio lay, asleep. There was a large stereo across the room, facing the bed. A huge book shelf was seated next to the stereo with nearly three hundred books. If there was only one thing to really catch my eye it would be an old painting over a well polished desk.
I walked up to the painting to get a better look at it. The painting looked very old. The paper was becoming orange from its years. The young boy in the portrait could not be over twelve years old and wore renaissance clothing. He had sharp eyes and hair that barely reached his shoulders. He had a faint smile on. The color had disappeared into the orange paper but a stain of white was in his hair and there was a splash of purple on the shirt. There was no color in his eyes.
"That's my portrait." I jumped at the sudden sound of Riku's voice behind me. "That was done in the 1700's. Do you like it?"
"You look… young. And faded out. The colors are nearly gone."
Riku sighed and rested his chin on my shoulder, wrapping his arms around my waist. "Yes, but that's what time and constant moving does to it. We can never stay in a certain area for more than a few years, as I might have already explained to you. If we do, people will get specious as to why we never get older. The picture doesn't like to be moved."
"What was it like? Growing up in the 1700's?"
Riku pondered this for a moment. "Dark, cold, and bad hygiene. But if you can look past all of that, then it wasn't so bad. I had friends, a job, a home, a shower and food. It wasn't nearly as bad as I could have had it. I count my blessings."
"Did… you have many friends?"
"No. I had five in the castle. And when I was sent off to be trained as a bodyguard for the prince, I didn't have many then either. I tried to stay away from becoming close to people, who died quite often."
"That's sad."
"That's life."
We stood there in silence for a few moments. I stared at the portrait of Riku while the vampire breathed into my neck. Time slowly ceased to a halt and I was perfectly fine with that.
"We should get ready for the party." Riku sounded reluctant.
"I don't have a costume."
"I've got one for you." Riku pulled away and walked to his closet that was beside the door. He shuffled around for a bit before he pulled out the costume he was looking for. "Tada!"
I blinked, once twice and then shook my head. "No, no, no, no, no, no!! I am not wearing a nurse's outfit!"
Riku looked at the costume in his hand with an innocent glance. "I think it would look lovely on you, Sora. You would make a fine nurse."
I backed up, trying to put as much distance between me and the evil outfit of perverted role play. "I am NOT wearing that."
Riku pulled another costume out of his closet- turquoise scrubs. "But Sora!" He whined, out of character. "We can be matching! I got a doctor's outfit for me! And Lio… well she doesn't match us but she'll be wearing that pumpkin costume Yuffie bought her."
"I can go as the doctor; you can go as the nurse if you want us to match so badly." I crossed my arms over my chest. "There is no way that…" I gulped at the predatory glint in Riku's eye. "Uh… R-Riku?"
"Sora should listen to the doctor." Riku said in a deep arousing voice, taking huge steps toward me. "The doctor always knows what's best."
Before I knew it, I was pounced on and crashing onto the floor a pair of cold lips attached to mine. I was too shocked to kiss back; I was more concerned of hitting my head on a hard object. When I felt Riku nibbling at my bottom lip, I began to press my lips to his. He pulled me closer by my waist and deepened the kiss, plunging his tongue into my open mouth. I moaned as Riku ran his tongue over my teeth.
Twenty seconds later, he pulled back with a successful grin on his face. "I win."
"Huh?" Glancing down, I noticed my normal clothes were gone in place of a white nurses' outfit. "You bastard!"
"I expected you to notice some change but I guess I didn't count on the fact that I'm a fantastic kisser." Riku laughed, standing from his spot on my lap. I stood up as well to get a look at the incredibly sleazy outfit I had on. The uniform was that of a dress, short sleeves barely covering my shoulders and the bottom reaching not even half way down my thigh making bending over a very dangerous thing to do especially considering how much of my legs were all ready exposed. A thick red ribbon was tied around my waist that matched the red buttons running up the front, the first two unbuttoned. I even had red fishnets that reached up to my knees and wore skimpy white high heels.
"What the hell is this?" I cried. "I look like some slut straight out of a role playing porn magazine!"
"Mm…" Riku licked his lips in appreciation. "That's kind of the point."
"Do you really want people to stare at me like this?" I asked, trying to pull the bottom of the dress down. "Barely clothed?"
"That's how we are. We show off our delicious mates, knowing full well that nobody can harm them- mutual agreement."
"So I'm only here because you're entering me in some kind of contest? If I knew that, I would stay at home eating the little kid's candy!"
"It's not just that, Sor." Riku said, getting changed into his own outfit. I quickly turned around, too pissed off at him to be drooling over his body. "It's a good time to try and make peace treaties along with hanging loose, making friends and mates."
I snorted. "Maybe I'll find myself a new mate."
"Aw, come on, Sora! Don't be like that. Your costume looks gorgeous on you. Do you really think I'll allow other people to stare at you with such intentions?" A pair of strong arms snaked around my waist, pulling me against a cold body. The turquoise colored fabric on Riku's arms showed that he was done changing.
"You could have at least warned me first."
"Is that a yes, then?"
"This is the only time."
"Great! Hold on…" Riku untangled his arms and searched through his closet once more. I turned around when he found what he was looking for. Riku put something on my head and stepped back, eyeing my appearance. "Extremely sexy. It's too bad we're going to a party, if we weren't, we'd be playing doctor on that bed."
I took off what he had placed on my head to find a white nurses' cap with a bright red cross in the middle. "You better enjoy this 'cause this is the only time I will do this. Understand?"
Riku crushed his lips to mine in a mind blowing kiss. "Last time, got it."
0o0
Come ten o'clock, I was sweating bullets. Riku tried to calm me down but there were only so many things a man can do when he has a death clamp on his arm. He held the sleeping Lio, dressed in her pumpkin costume, in fear that I would accidently crush her. Cloud and Leon had attempted at calming my nerves but quickly gave up, leaving me a pat on the head and a "You'll do fine." Tifa gave me some cookies, stolen from the party room. "I remember Cloud's first Halloween party." She had laughed. "He was still a human and boy was he freaked out! He had everyone chasing him down!" Her laugh died down at my expression of pure horror. "Oh! N-not that it won't happen to you, Sora! I mean, back then a human was very rare and now we have at least five or more so…" She ended there and quickly ran off. I assumed it had something to do with my boyfriend's anger. Riku had all ready banished Axel and Yuffie from coming within a 40 foot radius of me.
"Sora, it's ten." Riku said softly, paying with his favorite strand of my hair.
"…"
"I promised Sephiroth that we would meet him at ten, two hours before the party started." I shook my head. "He's not a bad guy, Sora. He just seems scary because he's a Vampire Master. Sephiroth is an easy going guy." I shook my head faster. Riku sighed. "You'll have to meet him sooner or later."
Riku led me there by the small on my back, pushing with little to no effort despite my crazed resisting. Down the stairs, across a hallway, through a secret door through a portrait leading to a spiraling staircase heading down, and a quarter mile long dark, gothic corridor later, we reached a large, elegant, black door that reeked of a terrifying aura. I panicked when Riku knocked on the door.
"Come in," Came a deep, spooky voice from within, the kind you would hear when entering a haunted house through a door such as the one before me. Riku pushed me through the door when he opened it.
We entered a large dome area, black like everything else, with a stone floor, and candles scattered around the room, hardly lighting it up, leaving a lot of shadows. There were two objects in the room, an oversized computer on the back wall with multiple screens showing screen shots of vampires throughout the house. The other was a tall swivel chair with a back so high I couldn't see if there was someone in it. If there was a person seated there, they would be facing the computer screens.
Riku bowed at the chair (actually the person in the chair) and pulled me down into a bowing stance as well. "Master Sephiroth." He said in greeting.
"Riku," The incredibly scary voice said in response. "I must ask you to leave while I talk with Sora." Riku bowed again and left me alone without sparing me a reassuring glance. "Sora." I held in my squeak as the Vampire Master said my name. "I've wanted to meet you for a long time now. How long has it been? Three hundred? I think that's right…"
I stayed silent. I was afraid to open my mouth.
"I wonder, Sora, if you know what you're doing." Confused, I gave the chair a quizzed look as if it would magical revel what the hell this guy was starting at. "Well, do you?"
"Excuse me, sir?" I asked, thankful for not cracking.
"Ever since you've arrived, Riku has changed. He's acting more and more rebellious, he's not thinking things through, and he's disobeying every order I lay down for him. He has developed a drinking disorder. His personality has changed and, to be frank, I don't think you're a good influence on him. At this rate, he's likely to get himself killed."
I stayed silent again. Was I really this bad for Riku? No, Riku loves me. He won't fall in love with someone with a bad influence on him right? But... many people do, not realizing what a terrible relationship they are in. …What was a drinking disorder?
"What are you planning to do about it? Let him suffer; possibly get killed?" Sephiroth's angry voice rang throughout the dome, the candles shaking. "Riku would do anything to protect you and I will not sit idle on the side as you effortlessly jump in front of danger."
It was true that I've been getting myself in a lot of trouble lately, what with Riku's fan girls, werewolves and vampire hunters. All of which could be quite dangerous to Riku as well. In defense to me, these all came with the Riku package. I would have never been attacked by fan girls, werewolves or hunters without him.
Sephiroth didn't wait very patiently. "Your best bet is to let him go. He deserves better, someone who can't hurt him and will see the pain he's going through. What are you going to do about Riku's well being? Will you end it?"
"No." I said before I could stop myself. Oh god, I just defied a Vampire Master. "I won't leave him."
One could almost feel the fuming aura radiating off of the vampire. "Excuse me?"
"I will not leave Riku." I said again, feeling stronger than before. Maybe it was just because his back was towards me. "I know that Riku has changed personality wise since he met me, our friends say so. And I had a feeling that I was getting him in huge trouble in the vampire realm but it's not intentional! If Riku was so distraught over the fact that he was breaking some rules for me, he wouldn't be with me or be breaking them. Riku's smart. If I was causing him pain, he would end it.
"And… I think Riku's happy with me. He doesn't complain over anything, he smiles every time he does something that make me happy; he's constantly at my side with a content attitude. If I didn't make him happy, I would try my hardest to change that because I want him to be happy. I love him and I know that he loves me. Isn't that enough for you? Just the fact that we love each other?"
Sephiroth was quiet for a moment. Most likely contemplating on how he wishes to carry out my death.
"So… let me get this straight. You are defying a Vampire Master who is forcing you to break up with his fledging? Even though you know that this could easily cost you your life?"
"Yes." I answered immediately.
Sephiroth was quiet again. I began to feel the pressure of the situation I'm in. He doesn't care if I'm dead or not, in fact, this might help him out even more! He could just tell Riku I died of a heart attack and Riku'll forget all about me and he'll live happily ever after while I'm rotting away in Hell…
"You know what this means, don't you?" I gulped, secretly praying to God to help me. The room seemed colder and I was shaking.
'In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Dear God, I know I haven't been in Church in a good… two years and in a gay relationship with a vampire and that goes against your religion but please just hear me out. I'll go to Church; I'll convert Riku to Christianity… I'll give to charity! Please don't let me die!'
With one last snarl, Sephiroth twisted his seat around, facing me with a blood thirsty emotion before he…
"Don't!" I covered my head into my arms, awaiting my punishment in a very cowardly way.
"CONGRATULATIONS!" He cheered, grinning while throwing confetti into the air. I blinked, slowly uncovering my head. He sat there smiling at me like he just won the lottery.
"Huh?" I asked rather unintelligently.
He rose gracefully from his chair and sauntered toward me. I looked up at him; he must be nearly seven feet tall! He patted my shoulder affectionately, and I tried not to flinch away. "You passed the test! I apologize if I scared you. You see, the vampire business is a very life risking operation, for mortals especially. It's my job as Vampire Master to make sure that every human that passes by here is willing to risk their life for their vampire lover and if they can't do that, they're out of here."
"Does that mean Riku was in on this?" I asked (squeaked).
"Yes, the vampires are warned of the test their human will go through and they know that if they fail, the human's memory will be deleted." He sighed in relief. "It's a good thing you passed! Riku consented but I know he would be livid if you left here memory less."
"Riku agreed to this?" I shrieked, sending an unadulterated bunch of curses, torture methods and threats his way, knowing he's trying hard to read my thoughts.
"Don't get upset. If he didn't consent then he could never bring you over. If he never brings you over, well, then your relationship has come to a complete halt. Vampires are very close to their families as you might have guessed all ready." Sephiroth chuckled. He turned around and walked to his chair.
"Um… Mister Sephiroth, sir?"
"Sephiroth is just fine."
"Sephiroth, sir, I mean, Sephiroth, yes, thank you. But I was wondering about the stuff you said about Riku's pain, is… that true?"
Sephiroth was quiet for a moment or two. He glanced at the monitors. "Riku is getting antsy. Normally, if it takes this long, something has gone wrong. Go. I will see you later at the party, I haven't gotten ready yet."
I looked at his leather pants and formal white button down shirt, previously thinking that was his outfit. I bowed on the way out. "Thank you, sir." I put my hand on the door knob and was about to turn it when…
"Sora?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Welcome to the family."
"Yes, sir, thank you." I bowed again and left quickly.
As soon as the door was shut, Riku's arms were around me. His nose was again at the pulse in my neck and he breathed in deeply. "You passed." There was relief in his voice.
I grinned. "Yeah, of course! No Vampire Master could scare me away from you!"
I felt his lips curve into a smirk on my skin. "And that's why I felt you scared aura coming from the room?"
"Well…"
"And I could hear your heart beat faster."
" I-I-I"
"And, what was it that you told me in your mind? Oh yes, and I quote, "Riku you bastard! I don't think I've ever been so scared in my entire life! Just wait until I get my hands on you!" Unquote." He pressed a soft kiss to my artery and turned me around in his arms. "Yes, Sora, do tell me what you will do once you get your hands on me."
I flushed. "S-Shut up!" I pushed him off of me. "You're such a pervert, Riku!"
"And you love me for it." He kissed my lips. "Ready for the next part?"
"Ugh… no!"
"Come on, Sora. That was the hardest part! And you passed with flying colors. The next part will be a cake walk. You'll be meeting my brothers and sisters."
"All one thousand of them?" I squeaked.
"Oh god, no. They're spread out all over the world. Some spilt up with us, coming home every once in a while, some we have shunned from the family, it can happen you know, and some are living amongst the mortals, blending in. Some are married to mortals and the humans don't know they're vampires but my siblings that you're going to meet right now are the closest to me."
"That's an entertaining thought, not knowing you're married to an immortal vampire." I smiled. "So how many are coming tonight."
Riku paused to think. "About… six hundred."
"What?!"
"Relax Sora. You're going to meet about twenty of them right now. I can't promise who you will meet at the party but I will be there, telling you who to stay away from and who you will get along with."
I let go of a breath I didn't know I was holding. "Promise you won't leave my side."
He kissed my forehead. "I promise." He took my hand and led me down another dark corridor. "Yuffie showed up about ten minutes ago informing me that the selected few vampires you're going to meet first are all here. Remember, you're the only newbie mortal here."
"Are you serious?" I groaned.
"Quite. We have some other humans but they've been here before."
"Oh god…"
The sound of Riku's laugh made my insides mush and instantly I felt better and safe. If Riku loves these people then I can too.
0o0
I quivered slightly under the pressure of amused and wandering eyes of multiple vampires. I clung to Riku like a life-line, which was too close to reality than I liked. Their eyes held too many emotions and all were on me in my skimpy nurse's outfit. I tried to hide myself behind Riku. "What's the matter, Sora?" He laughed. "I thought you weren't afraid of vampires?"
"I'm not." I hissed angrily back at him. I kept my voice low but I knew they could hear me anyway. "There's just so many of them and they're all staring at me. You'd said there'd only be twenty! There's like fifty!"
"Why wouldn't they? You're human. Many vampires crave that. Most don't see humans everyday like the gang and I do. It's only natural that they would stare. And there are not fifty in here. Forty-nine is a better number."
"I realize that, but, must they do stare with such… intensity?" That gained a few chuckles from the vampires in the room. I shuffled even closer to Riku's cold body.
It was Sephiroth's idea. He thought that I may be a little too paranoid about being thrown into a room full of creatures that want to eat/drink/experiment on/study me. He came with the genius (cough) idea for me to be introduced to his close family of vampires first.
I, at first, thought it was a good idea and Riku agreed. Meeting a few vampires to get comfortable before the rest eased my paranoia a bit. Besides, this was Riku's family! If they're Riku's family then they're mine as well.
But that was before I remembered how big Riku said his family was.
In the large sitting room in the vampire section of the house, I suddenly felt like a gazelle in a room of hungry lions. At least twenty vampires jumped up to greet me. I clutched onto Riku's arm in a death grip.
"Sit down." Riku commanded softly. "He's scared right now but he'll warm up soon." He wrapped an arm around my waist tightly, not enough to hurt me but just enough pressure to keep me immobilized. He guided me around the room, introducing me to his kin.
The first vampire I was introduced to was one I met before. I recognized her instantly. "Kyoko, right?" I asked before Riku could open his mouth. "You were at the club with Yuffie. The one who ate a bunch of Oreo's, right?"
Kyoko smiled. "That's me!" She wore a black sleeveless shirt, black capris that looked like Gauchos with black eyeliner and lip gloss. "I like your role playing outfit."
"Thank you, but, I'm sorry, who are you dressed up as?"
Her grin expanded. "Myself! There's nothing I love more than being a vampire!"
The next vampire I met was another one from the club.
"Hello, Sora." She said.
"Gaby, right?"
"No, Bob. Yeah, that's me." Gaby wore a black t-shirt with "Make Awkward Sexual Advances Not War" written in crimson ink, black cargo pants with two red belts across her waist, one diagonal. Following the black and crimson style, she had two black ribbons on my neck and right wrist, black pearl jewelry and red and black strap sandals. On her pale face were her black rectangular glasses.
"What are you supposed to be?" I asked.
She shrugged. "Whatever my closet decided I was."
Riku next led me to two young men I didn't know. He pointed to the taller one with long black hair in a ponytail and bangs covering his dark green eyes. "This is Damian."
"Hello." I said.
He nodded at me. He had on a tight black shirt, baggy cargo pants with some chains, black combat boots and a black trench coat. He had his pale arm possessively around the man next to him.
"This is Mattie." Riku said and Mattie smiled at me.
"Hello Sora! It's so nice to meet you!" He had shaggy brown hair that grazed his ivory colored neck. He wore a black binny decorated with a smiling skull, a loose gray shirt that didn't cover one of his shoulders and loose black pants. What caught my attention were his eyes. They were dark green and his pupil was a slit instead of the oval Riku had or the circle in a human's.
"You're not a vampire."
Mattie blinked and broke out into a huge smile. 'Nope! I'm a cat demon."
"Mattie is Damian's mate, that's why he's here with the vampires." Riku explained.
I looked to the left of them to see a tall girl with long black hair pulled into a high ponytail and side sweep bangs covering her almost red right eye. She had very pale skin while somehow maintaining a slight tan. She had red lipstick on and smoky gray eye shadow that gave her an alluring look. She wore a black shirt, which reminded me of a poncho, which reached her mid-waist. She had tight, leather pants going down to her mid-calf. She wore two red straps that went from her poncho spiked covered belt and had a red stone. Her right hand had a fingerless glove that touched her elbow and her left arm was decorated with black and white bracelets. On her neck was a black chocker with the same red stone as the belt.
"Ah!" Riku grinned excitedly. "Sora, this is one of my closest friends. She's very old."
"Hey!" The girl laughed. She stuck her fingerless gloved hand out toward me. "Akiko. Riku has told me all about you, Sora. It's nice to finally meet you."
"It's nice to meet you too." I shook her hand. "Are you trying to be anything?"
Akiko looked down at her outfit. "No, not really. I got the inspiration from Paine, that chick from the video game. Does that count?"
Riku introduced me to another vampire couple next, Lucien and Jareth. Lucien looked about twenty one, he was six foot three with golden green eyes and jet black hair reaching his mid back tied in a ponytail. I noticed a left ear piercing. He wore black leather pants, a red button-up (although he left it unbuttoned) silk shirt and combat boots. With the shirt open, I saw a nipple ring on his left nipple and a small part of a tattoo on the right side of his stomach.
His date, Jareth, looked twenty five. He was five foot nine, ice blue eyes and dark brown hair that brushed his shoulders and a pierced right ear. He wore red leather pants, a black mesh shirt and knee high black leather boots, He also had a nipple ring but on his right and a pierced belly button. I noticed small part of his tattoo on his left side.
He smirked, noticing that I was trying to figure out what his tattoo was, and lifted his shirt. "It's a medieval dragon." The dragon was on his back but part of it spilt to the front. Jareth grabbed Lucien's shirt. "Lucien's got a Chinese dragon." His dragon was in similar design on how it was on his back and front.
"Don't you think you've been pulling on my shirt long enough?" Lucien asked after I got a good look at his tattoo and Jareth had yet to let go.
"No. I just wanna look at that sexy chest of yours." Jareth pursed, jumping on him.
Riku quickly led me away.
Yuffie popped up next. "Riku! Have you seen Lola? She's gone missing."
"What? Sephiroth said everone got the message, she should be here." Yuffie shrugged at him.
"I know! I know!" A girl shouted suddenly behind us.
Riku turned around to look at the girl jumping up and down, hand waving excitedly in the air. "You know where she is, Rin?"
"Yup!" The girl, Rin, had short/median brown hair and side sweep bangs to her left. Her eyes were blue and had faint lip gloss on and lots of black eyeliner on the bottom of her eyes, making it look like, if she were human, she hadn't slept in months. She wore a large plain long sleeved white sweater, a red tie, brown stylish pants and no shoes or socks. "Lola was on her way over when she saw Leon. And you know Leon, being all depressed and anal over everything, and Lola is always looking for someone to cheer up so she's with him."
Riku rolled his eyes. "I guess we'll just see her at the party then." He pointed to Rin. "This is Rin. She's hyper. End of story."
"I've met her before, at the club. What are you being?" I asked her.
Rin grinned wildly. "The love child of L and Raito!"
I decided it was best not to ask and leave it there.
A boy next to Rin smacked her upside the head. "You've got such a boring costume."
"Like you're to talk, Devin, you're not even wearing a costume. Just clothes!"
"It's not required to wear a costume." The vampire, Devin, said. He grinned at me and scratched the back of his head. "Hello Sora! My name is Devin."
Devin had dark blue eyes, wild black hair and wore a black bandanna over his forehead. He wore a simple vest and dark leather pants. He had a lot of necklaces, bracelets, earrings, rings and belts. He played with them a lot and explained that he loves jewelry and shiny things, especially shiny jewelry.
I met the rest of Riku's family. They were friendly, if not just a little weird in their own ways.
After meeting them all, we sat down and talked. Some warned me not to speak to any werewolves. Some told me that certain werewolves were tolerable, if not extremely amiable. I could recite a list of reasons not to go near fairies; I've heard it so many times. Yet again, some proclaimed they were "as cute as Tinker Bell without the attitude problem". I heard many stories of rotten vampires, most banished from the party and some were not but many think they should be. They told be specific names to let me know who exactly was a disgrace and help me deviate from them.
I think they were trying to be kind by giving me suggestions to help me relax. It didn't help much. If anything, the advice made me feel worse. If Riku wasn't a vampire, his left arm would be shattered into a million pieces.
Riku wasn't too happy with the increase of fear radiating off of me. He growled warningly every time a "rotten vampire" was brought up. Eventually, the bad side of Riku's family was dropped and a new topic had begun.
Come midnight, I grew to enjoy the company of Riku's family. They remained calm (or at least tried to) and kept their distance. Soon, I was able to let go of Riku's arm. I was not yet ready to leave his side but I was slowly progressing. They told me funny and embarrassing stories of Riku's past, stupid moves Yuffie did to piss everyone off, rare moments of emotion from Leon and some Axel's most memorable torched objects.
Riku still thought that maybe I was still being introduced to too many vampires in such a short amount of time, as he said I was acting "out of character". Sure, normally I don't have a problem meeting new vampires (such as Tifa and Axel) but I thought forty-odd vampires was a pretty decent number compared to all that would be at the party. Some vampires in the room still freaked me out just a tiny bit but that didn't mean they were bad people.
They were just really scary.
There was a knock on the door and Leon entered. This was the first time I saw him all night, as he wasn't forced to attend the meeting, and I laughed when I saw that he was wearing Cloud's clothes, black pants, a black vest and armor that covered one arm only. He looked annoyed and tired. I discovered the reason when a short girl with brown hair, smiling and chatting away, standing next to him. She had caramel colored skin and dark blue eyes. She wore a dark purple spaghetti strap shirt that was short enough to show her pierced belly button. Over that she had on a black trench coat. She had black loose fitting leather pants with a black belt and big black boots. Her fingers had fingerless gloves that matched her shirt.
Riku nudged my side. "That's Lola. She's kind, if not a little lazy. She likes to make people laugh and smile and Leon is her biggest issue. She follows him around trying to get him to crack a smile for hours at a time."
Leon spotted us and walked over. "Riku, it's just about midnight. Some guests have all ready shown up and the rest will be arriving within the next fifteen minutes. Sephiroth wants us to be ready by twelve thirty to make the "grand entrance", got it?" Riku nodded and Leon took off, taking Lola with him.
"It's starting so soon?" I asked, failing to hide the freight in my voice. "People are here? In the house?!"
Riku wrapped his arm around my waist and led me out of the room and toward the human section of his house. "Sora, please calm down. As I've told you, you've gotten past the hard part and now comes the easy part. If you just listen to what I say and stay close to me or any other vampire you know, you'll be fine. Just as they said in the room, not everyone in there is completely safe to talk to. I'll direct you to the right people. Do not panic."
I took a few big breaths in and let them out slowly. "All right, where are we going now?"
"To do a little cheating."
"Cheating? How?"
"Sephiroth set up a magically altered crib. It'll temporarily, I said temporarily, cause a malfunction within the bears."
"Lio?" I screamed. "You're going to malfunction our baby?"
"I said temporarily, Sora. It won't kill her, okay? It basically means she's going to sleep until we take her out of the crib. Wiz and Mokona will be there as well. We can't be holding them throughout the night and it'll be a bother to keep running back and forth to check up on them. It's perfectly safe."
"I don't feel comfortable with this…"
"We tested it last week. Wiz and Mokona are fine. Unless, you want to keep running out of the party to come up here to take care of Lio. I won't be able to come with you, of course, being one fifth of the host. I must stay with our guests at all times."
"Uh, well, no…"
"Or do you want to carry Lio around all night and expose her to who knows what events might occur tonight?"
"No, of course not, but…"
"Then the only other way for Lio to get all her needs while her parents are happy is if she sleeps in the crib."
I sighed. "You run a hard bargain, Riku."
He kissed my cheek. "It's all part of the smexy package, love."
Riku told me that Cloud and Rose were with Lio. They had passed him while he was waiting for my session with Sephiroth to conclude, saw his nervousness and offered to take Lio for a while. He thanked them and told them he would be there to pick her up before the party.
We reached the upstairs landing where the six decorated doors were. Riku walked to the rainbow, bunnies and unicorn door. He knocked softly and politely asked. "May I enter?"
"Come in Riku!" Cloud yelled on the opposite side.
Riku turned the knob and nodded at me before swinging the door open. My eyes were immediately blinded by all the pink. Pink walls, pink carpet, pink bed sheets, pink curtains, pink chairs, pink desk, drawers, nightstand, shelves, and even a pink doll house. Suddenly a porcelain doll came running at us. She jumped on to Riku, nearly sending him to the floor, with a loud shriek. "RIKU!!"
The porcelain doll was a short girl who looked about six. She was absolutely gorgeous with blonde hair wrapped in tight curls, deathly pale skin and dark, bright blue eyes. She wore a black silk dress resembling the Gothic Lolita style and a small hat to match. She grinned eagerly up at Riku.
"How are you, Rose?" He asked in the most polite voice I've ever heard him. He patted her head and she let go of him. "Did you take good care of my Lio?"
Rose nodded. "She is such a nice kid, Riku! She laughed when I played peck-a-boo with her!" I fell in love with her voice. It was soft yet leaning on the high pitched side and held every essence of childhood despite being three hundred something years old.
Cloud laughed, showing up from behind Rose, wearing Leon's leather pants and leather jacket with the fur collar. "Lio was wonderfully calm."
Rose ignored Cloud and blinked at me. "Is this Sora?"
I smiled at her and nodded. "Yes. It's nice to meet you, Rose."
Her face lit up. "You know my name! Riku must have told you about me! I hope he told you as much about me as he told me about you!"
"Rose…" Riku warned, politeness leaving.
"Well, that depends on how much he told you about me."
"Tons! I had to remind him to shut up once in a while! I wanted you to be surprised when I first met you but now it feels like I know everything about you!"
"Rose."
The doll giggled. "Riku is such so cute like that! He would tell me a bedtime story about you before he left for school. Sometimes, it would be about something stupid that you did, or how cute you are or that lingerie…"
"Rose!" Riku and Cloud shouted.
"Rose… that's enough." Cloud said, covering her mouth with his hand. He smiled shyly up at me. "Sorry, Sora. She's wanted to meet you for a very long time now."
Rose struggled against Cloud until he freed her. "Well, excuse me for not being able to see him every day at school like everybody else!" She huffed and ran over to me, throwing her arms around my right leg. "I wanted to meet my best friend's boyfriend!"
Something inside of me cracked. "Aw Rose!" I cried, kneeling down to give her a hug. "You're so cute!"
I heard Riku and Cloud mumbling something among the lines of, "She caught him in her trap, too."
It was then that Lio started to whine. "Da! Da!"
I released Rose and quickly grabbed my daughter, sitting in a pink baby doll crib. "Lio!"
She whined a bit before letting out a terribly loud screech. Rose quickly covered her ears, Riku sighed and Cloud smirked. "Looks like she likes me better, neh?"
"When did she go last?" I asked him, rocking Lio in my arms to try and quiet her.
"About an hour ago."
"And eat?"
Cloud paused, his eyes widening. "Whoops…"
"Cloud!"
"I'm sorry! I didn't feed her so it was whenever the last time you guys did."
"That was five hours ago! Didn't Riku tell you to feed her?"
"He did… I'm sorry, okay? I sometimes forget that she's acting a supposed human and needs to eat like one!"
"How does Mokona survive?"
"It's not like I forget all of the time! And Leon is very good at keeping track of this."
"Stop fighting." Riku interrupted. "Let's get Lio some food. The party is starting in ten minutes."
Five minutes later, I put Lio in the magical crib with Wiz and Mokona. "You're right Riku," I told him. "This crib is probably for the best."
0o0
Going to a big fancy party for the first time is usually a memory that people will remember forever. Or maybe regret forever. Most people will remember their first after party or their first prom or their first millionaire's formal (because they don't call it "parties"). I was never in a movie and I'm not old enough to attend prom yet. And despite being the "only" son of a millionaire, myself, I have never attended any formals. I've never been to any kind of party, now that I think about it.
The one kind of party that people would most defiantly remember the most, no matter how many after parties, proms and formals they've attended, is the party of the Undead. What's stuck up celebrities, frat boys and old and boring millionaires have on doing the Electric Slide with vampires, werewolves and witches? My thoughts exactly.
When I first entered the large dance hall, I was floored. The hall was huge! It was bigger than my mom's house and most likely the size of the kitchen, living room and gaming room put together at my dad's multimillion dollar estate. The coliseum was very dark but everyone else here probably had special eyesight so it didn't affect them as it did me. There were multi-colored lights flashing from the high ceiling. There was already about nine hundred people standing about either dancing to the obnoxious human music, chatting with their neighbors, eating, or standing on the sidelines watching others having fun. Most glanced over at me when I first entered, sensing my human scent, before returning to completely ignoring me. Some came up to talk with me.
A young couple came up to me, a girl and a boy. The girl introduced herself as Zoe Wolfbobcat, a Valentine vampire. She looked about sixteen with short ratty red hair, bright, light purple eyes and pale skin. She was tall and super skinny. I was afraid of snapping her in half when I hugged her. She was dressed up as an angel, with a simple white dress that reached her knees and a white sash around her waist that tied over her left hip. She wore a pair of store bought wings and halo. Zoe was very excited to meet me, so it seemed the way she threw herself at me.
"Riku's told me so much about you! Look at that super cute outfit! Daisuke, I want one! Oh! I want to introduce you to Daisuke!" She pointed to the fourteen year old boy next to her. "He's human too!"
Daisuke looked like any other teen at my school, happy, friendly and well behaved. He had spiky red hair and red eyes. He wore a stereotypical vampire costume with the fake fangs, red lips and black cape. He told me it was to amuse Zoe. I noticed that on one of his arms, engraved was "Zoe" and on the other was "Wolfbobcat". He explained that he was the human slave/lover to Zoe and that meant carvings on his arm.
They were both very nice to talk to until Zoe saw one of her friends and dragged Daisuke across the room to greet them.
Riku noticed a man casually leaning against the wall next to a short girl. He grinned suddenly and pulled me over to meet him.
"Valentine." Riku said in greeting. "Hikari."
The man, Valentine, turned over at Riku and nodded. "Riku." Valentine was as tall as Riku with long black hair, red eyes and pale skin. He wore red leather pants and a matching vest of the same material. He looked at me. "Sora. It's nice to meet you."
"Has Riku told you all about me, too?" I asked.
"No, I'm a vampire seer and I looked into the future to see your name." He responded coolly.
"Vampire seer? Like a fortune teller?"
Valentine nodded.
The girl pushed Valentine out of her way. "I'm Hikari! This load is so dull, isn't he?" She giggled, poking the composed man. Hikiari had long brown hair and bright green eyes. She wore a Gaara outfit with a huge gourd, sand ninja outfit and all.
"Are you a vampire?" I asked her.
"Yes! I'm on Master Vincent's side, the second youngest of the family! I'm 243, I just look seventeen."
"Excuse me," A voice crackled over the intercom. The music quieted down and people stopped their activities to listen. "Would Riku, Yuffie, Tifa, and Leon please come to the stage? And I mean now, Yuffie."
"That was Sephiroth, right?" I asked.
"Yes, I must go. Cloud and Rose will stand with you until I come back."
"OMG!!" Riku and I look over at Valentine. His cool, calm and collected attitude was suddenly gone and replaced with teen age drama queen. "OMG! That's you, Riku! OMG! OMG! You need to leave, like, right now! OMG! What are you doing here? Leave! OMG! This is awesome! Are you going to make a speech?"
Riku smirked at him. "You're the seer, Valentine. Tell me what I'm going to do." He turned to Hikari. "Please help him." He nodded at her before pulling me away.
"What the hell happened to him?" I asked.
"He's one of Vincent's vampires too. He renamed himself Valentine, after Vincent's last name. He's a Vincent impersonator who's constantly blowing his cover. He tries to act all cool but when something exciting reaches him, you'll hear more "OMG's" than the latest episode of "Gossip Girl"."
"That's sad."
"It is."
We saw Cloud, Tifa and Rose at the food table, drinking punch. Riku kissed my forehead before reporting to the stage with Tifa. Rose ran to me and jumped into my arms.
"Why does he have to go?" I mourned quietly, hugging Rose tightly.
Cloud laughed. "Miss him all ready? He's got you wrapped around his finger!"
"No," I pouted. "It's the other way around. But still, why does he have to go up there?"
"It's tradition. The host and a few select members of the family make an opening announcement to welcome the various races."
"Races? That makes them sound human."
Cloud smiled. "Most of us don't like to be called 'creatures'. The term race is very appropriate."
"Why aren't you up there? Aren't you part of this select members group?"
Cloud shook his head and took a sip of his punch. "Nah. I'm too young. Vampire age, that is. Axel is in the same boat. As for this little devil right here…" He grinned, patting Rose's head. "She may be the third oldest of Sephiroth's vampires but she's one of the youngest human ages. She still acts like a six year old, a highly intelligent six year old, but still a six year old."
"I resent that!" Rose said, dignified.
"May I have everyone's attention, please?" A soft, polite voice rang out from the speakers. Tifa was standing on the stage with Riku, Sephiroth, Leon and Yuffie, microphone in hand. She wore a plain, black dress with a pink bow on her waist. Her long hair was down as usual. She bit her lip in aggravation when no one listened to her announcement and kept talking. "Excuse me!"
Yuffie in her short black dress and red fishnet stockings rushed forward and grabbed the mike from her sister's hands. "YO! SHUT THE HELL UP OR FACE THE TERRIBLE WRATH OF YUFFIE THE GREATEST NINJA EVER!" She yelled, taking out a few ninja stars to prove her seriousness.
"…" Everyone clamped their mouths shut.
"Thank you." Yuffie handed the microphone back to Tifa.
"Hello, and welcome to the three hundredth and seventy second Halloween party!" The crowd cheered. "My name is Tifa and I am one of five of your hosts this evening. I am pleased to announce that we have an astounding number of three thousand guests this evening!"
"Oh dear god." I cried.
"You'll be fine, Sora." Cloud whispered, patting my shoulder in sympathy.
"I am also pleased to announce that there are ten humans here as well." Tifa said, throwing a wink my way. I tried to ignore the glances and whispered talk about me. "This year is conducted by Master Sephiroth. We hope to surpass Sir Vincent's last year's party." She bowed and handed the microphone off.
"Yo! I'm Yuffie! I'm the greatest ninja ever! But most of you know that all ready." She giggled at the crowd's rolled eyes. "Let's make this year's party the best we've had yet!"
Leon, wearing Cloud's clothes, took the microphone from Yuffie before she could continue. "I'm Leon." There was a collected squeal from a good number of girls.
I looked to Cloud, who shrugged. "I've gotten used to it." He explained.
"Please remember that this is a time of peace," Leon continued. "There will be no fights tonight, we have an agreement." He passed on the microphone.
"Good evening. I am Riku." Riku flashed his award winning smile in his doctor scrubs, causing a loud eruption of cheering. "I hope we all get along tonight and have a good time." He bowed and gave the microphone to Sephiroth.
Sephiroth took a step forward to separate himself from the group and raised his hand. Everyone dropped to one knee. I was the only one left standing. I saw Riku grinning at me from his kneed position. Cloud pulled frantically on my nurse outfit. "Get down!" I quickly dropped to the floor and imitated the position Cloud was in.
"I hope you are all well." Sephiroth said with authority. "I am Sephiroth, Master of the Vampires here in Traverse Town. Tonight is a night of remembrance of a time of confusion, discomfort and humiliation. The humans mock us for a situation they created every year on this night but we have been able to move on. We know better and hopefully they do too. I pray you; remember we have forgiven the humans. We do not harm them as they have not harmed us." He bowed his head. The others followed in pursuit, hanging their heads. "We come together tonight to celebrate those ten individuals who tried to conjure peace between enemies but only caused mortal freight." He lifted his head. "To them, we celebrate!"
The crowd cheered yet again. Sephiroth smiled and waved at them. He handed and microphone back over to Tifa. "Let the party begin!" Riku and the others jumped off the stage and disappeared into the throng of people.
"Riku won't be back for a few minutes." Cloud said, reading the question in my mind as to what he was doing. "He needs to socialize for a while. It's tradition."
"Some cruddy tradition…" I muttered, eyeing up the food table. I spotted hamburgers and the punch Cloud was drinking. It looked delicious. Licking my lips, I reached for a hamburger.
"Don't touch that!" Cloud snapped, slapping my hand away. "That's raw meat!"
Looking closely, I could see the meat was extremely bloody, too bloody for any human to eat without dying of food poisoning. It resembled a freshly killed carcass. "What the hell is this?"
"Werewolf food." I gave Cloud a disbelieving glance. "What? We have to feed our guests! Do you want them to turn their hunger on the humans here?"
"…No…" Skipping over the not so hamburgers, I reached for the punch only to have my hand blocked out of the way. "Oh for the love of…What's wrong with the punch?"
"It's not punch."
I touched the side of the punch bowl and flinched when I found it very warm. "Blood? What kind of business do you have here?"
Cloud laughed. "Not a human one. The majority of the people here don't eat your kind of food, Sora. Some do and that's why there is a human side of the food court down there." He said, pointing to a very small section of the stretched out table where bowls of human food were located. I spotted Oreo's, soda, potato chips, dips, quesadillas, cupcakes and candy corn. "It's small, I know, but there are only about ten humans here. How much can you guys eat?"
I snorted at him. "You obviously don't know me that well. I can eat a whole lot of food. You see those Oreo's and candy corn? They'll be gone very soon. I haven't eaten in hours!"
"If you eat all the Oreo's, you'll have fair amount of vampires after your ass." Cloud laughed and refilled his blood cup. "It's a pain, keeping an eye on the Oreo bowl. If it gets too low, there will be chaos."
Rose squirmed in my arms and asked to be put down. I obeyed and set her on her feet. "I want you to meet someone!" She smiled cheerfully up at me before disappearing into the crowd.
I called after her but Cloud stopped me. "She'll be fine. No one will hurt her. Remember, she's an old lady."
"In the body of a fragile six year old!"
"A vampire six year old." Cloud corrected. "She's ten times stronger than you are, don't underestimate her."
A minute later, Rose came running back pulling a red haired seven year old behind her. The girl's hair was pulled into two short pigtails, with white tips and she had big green eyes. She was short and skinny. What really caught my attention was that she had pale white and green skin. When she was closer, I noticed she had small, thin, and colorful, see through wings. She was dressed as a thief.
Rose skidded to a halt in front of me and pushed the little girl toward me. "This is Kagai!" She grinned. "She's a fairy!"
Kagai smiled at me. "Hello!"
"Aw, you are so cute!" I cooed.
"You are Riku's boyfriend, right?" She asked me.
"Yes, that's me."
Kagai squealed and it startled me. Man was she hyper. "Can you put in a good word for me? Tell him how nice I am?"
"… Um… sure…"
She hugged my middle. "Thank you! Thank you!" She let go and I could breathe again. "Stay here! Let me get the others!" She dashed off with Rose.
"She seems cute." I said to Cloud when she left.
"Kagai? Yeah, she's nice. Hyper and sadist, but nice."
"Sadist? Her?"
"Yeah. She'll do anything to be friends with Riku. She's slightly jealous of Rose for being so close with him but Kagai loves Rose dearly."
"They are close in human age." I nodded. "How old is Kagai? In immortal time?"
Cloud bit his lip, trying to think. "About two hundred, maybe…?"
My jaw dropped. "I will never get over this immortal thing." Cloud just laughed in response. Kagai and Rose came back two minutes later, bringing four others with her. I laughed when I saw that two of them were dressed up as pirates.
The female pirate, I learned, was named Holy. She was four foot six with bright green eyes, electric blue hair with neon purple highlights. She had a semi pale completion and lots of freckles. Her pirate costume consisted of a black and red vertically striped skirt, ripped fishnets, black boots and a baggy white linen shirt. She also had a red bandana, a hoop earring, eye patch over her left eye and sword (which I found out the hard that was real). She had a raven on her shoulder that was supposed to be her parrot named Wither Wings.
The male pirate's name was Argentine Realms. He had shaggy dark red hair that reached his shoulders with grey eyes. He's about five foot one and had a childish appeal to him. His pirate outfit had a worn leather tri-corner hat, a white puffy sleeved shirt, dark indigo doublet, slick black breeches, and thigh-high black boots. He had a maroon sash around his waist and a thick black belt hanging loosely on his lip and a pistol (which was luckily not real.)
"I decided to dress as a pirate first." He told me. "Stupid Holy here decided to copy me."
"I did not!" Holy complained. "I told everyone that I was doing it long before you did!"
"You know that pirates are my favorite thing."
"Guys, please stop." Came a soft but strong voice.
Holy and Argentine looked over to the smallest fairy, standing on Rose's head. "Sorry, Lucinda." They both muttered.
The small fairy, Lucinda, smiled gratefully. "Good, thank you." Lucinda reminded me a great deal of Tinker Bell from Peter Pan. She was about ten centimeters with blonde hair, purple eyes and a green sleeveless dress. Although she was small, she looked about twenty. Lucinda looked at me apologetically. "They normally don't act like this. Holy is usually fun loving and hates arguments and Argentine is quiet and calm most of the time but they can get snippy, can't they?" She laughed.
The tallest fairy of the group laughed with her. "Lucinda's the mother of the group." She explained. "She's always watching out for us. Oh! I'm Nora." She said, thrusting out her hand.
"I'm Sora." I said, taking her hand.
Nora had scarlet eyes and straight light green hair with a strawberry color ends. She wore a black dress that reached her knees and had red and black strips from her stomach to the end. She wore a dark green band around each ankle, wrist and neck and soft black dance shoes.
As Nora and Holy chatted with me about human foods, I felt a familiar pair of arms wrap around my waist. I chuckled, feeling a cold nose against my neck. "Hello, Riku."
Kagai jumped at her chance. "Riku! It's so nice to see you, again!" She exclaimed, pushing Nora and Holy out of her way, flattening any wrinkles in her pants down.
Riku moved his head to look at her. "Hello Kagai. It's been a while." He said pleasantly. "How are you doing?"
Kagai blushed and shuffled her feet. "I'm fine, thank you for asking…"
"Nee, Nee, Riku!" Holy asked, spinning around him like the earth around the sun. "If you're done with the meet and greet, then that means Yuffie is too?" She looked at him with impatient and hopeful eyes.
Riku laughed. "Yes, I believe she's by the DJ complaining about the song choice." Holy squealed and ran off, yelling thank you's over her shoulder.
"What was that about?" I asked Riku as he released my waist.
"She's got huge crush on Yuffie. She positively adores her." Riku laughed to himself, probably thinking of fond memories. "Come, my little nurse, I've got people for you to meet." I followed him away from the table, where Kagai yelled for Riku to come back, and toward the DJ. I told him about my mistake with the punch and hamburgers to which he nearly collapsed on the floor in bouts of laughter.
Down by the DJ, music was pumping and people were grinding. The music was loud even to my ears and I feared for everyone who wasn't human and had better hearing than me. They didn't seem to mind, as they were smiling and laughing as they danced with each other. I'm not even sure if you could call it dancing, more like a hundred persons orgy. Dear God just think how claustrophobic I would feel in there! Riku stopped next to the bump and grind fest and stared at the crowd as if he could actually find someone in this mass of bodies. His face lit up a few seconds later and he ordered me to stay exactly where I was as he disappeared into the crowd.
Suddenly, I felt very alone and very scared. I looked around the room and noticed people staring at me with those piercing eyes. I wanted to crawl into myself and hide. No, you're safe, I kept said to myself, Riku will be back soon. He will never leave you. Although I repeated that statement in my mind, the room seemed smaller and the amount of people grew. Breathing was rapidly becoming harder and harder to accomplish and my hands were clammy. I was tempted to run away and never return to this house again. Stay here Sora, I commanded myself. Riku will be back soon; don't embarrass yourself in front of his family and peers. But soon turned into five minutes and I was becoming very antsy. The stares were harsher and bloodthirsty and the walls were caving in.
I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder and I screamed. The hand quickly covered my mouth and I struggled in vain while shrieking for Riku inside of my head. "Where are you? RIKU! HELP! Where are you, Riku?!"
"Sora, relax. Breathe, Sora. Shh… calm down." A smooth, relaxing voice rang throughout my body, forcing me to slump into a lump of rest.
"Mfphu?" I asked.
Riku released my mouth. "Didn't mean to scare you, Sora. I was hoping you'd be okay for the ten seconds I was gone but I guess I left you too soon." He gave me a kiss on the lips. "I apologize."
There was a cough coming from behind Riku. "Man, Riku, you weren't kidding when you said your boyfriend was drop-dead sexy!" I flushed, looking over Riku's shoulder to see a tall man standing there with a flirtatious smirk on his face. He took a graceful step forward and grabbed my hand, pulling me away from Riku. His large blue eyes roamed all over my face. "Very sexy, indeed. My name is Yuweai, gorgeous."
"S-Sora." I answered.
Yuweai was a very good looking man. About six foot, he had long curly hair that reached his ankles with rainbow obsidian highlights, chin length bangs parted to his left and full red lips. He wore a black and red belly-dancer style outfit with no top. The pants were black billowy silk with moonflower designs sewn with gold threat. On his wais was a flowing red triangle scarf with gold coins dangling from it. He was wearing a heck of a lot of gold bangles on his arms and several collars around his neck.
Riku snuck around Yuweai and stole me back. "This one is mine, Yuweai. You may have the others here; God knows that they'll be willing to jump into your bed."
"I may have to take you up on that, Riku." He smirked, flicking back his bangs. He noticed my tense posture. "Sweetie, relax. It's a party." He took my hand again and massaged it. "If you have the need to totally rock out, come find me." It wasn't long until he coaxed me into complete submission. "I must be heading off now; the orgy I created is falling apart without me." He gently kissed the hand he had finished massaging. "Goodbye gorgeous." He winked at me and disappeared into the crowd again.
"Wow." I mumbled. "He's… flirty."
"He is but we've gotten used to it." Riku wrapped his arms around my waist, possessively.
"Used to it?" I smirked at him, turning around in his arms. I gave him a flick to the nose. "You looked ready to tear his arm off, Riku." He pouted. "Don't deny it. You possessive bastard."
"There are a lot of people here who I have a right to be possessive over you with. People who overstep boundaries and don't listen to me…" He mumbled, releasing my waist, looking for the next victim.
INTERMISSION!! LALALALA!! INTERMISSION!! This isn't required but it might be nice to rest your eyes. Tee-Hee! INTERMISSION!! LALALALA!! INTERMISSION!!
Next Riku grabbed a girl out of the throbbing mass of orgy-Hell. She looked about seventeen, with green hair and golden eyes. She was short, five foot two and really skinny. She laughed when she caught me gaping at the green scales on her pale skin. "I'm a dragon-kin." The girl explained.
"You've got a tail!" I gasped, pointing rudely at the green scaled tail pointing out of a hole in her black leather pants. "Can… Can I touch it?"
The girl laughed. "Sure!" She turned to the side and I hesitantly reached out a hand and placed it on her tail.
"It feels like a lizard… You also have claws!" I raved, looking at the long claws on her fingers. "I'm not going to touch them…"
"I like you, Sora. Riku said I would like you but I wasn't too sure at first. Oh! How rude of me, my name is Katie. And my familiar is somewhere around here, he's a small purple fairy dragon. His name is Silkwing. If you see him, tell him I'm looking for him." She skipped off to join the 'massive sex with clothes on' group again.
"A dragon-kin is certainly interesting." I said. "Not your standard vampire, werewolf, witch, zombie and mummy kind of usual Halloween creature.
"The next person I'm going to introduce you to isn't going to be a normal "Halloween monster" either. I've got a few more "weird" people for you then I'll take you to a witches and werewolves."
"You'll let me meet the werewolves?" I joked.
"Some of them are decent, yes. Some I wish they were never invited. I won't introduce you to them. You'll like the next girl; she's basically Soya, Selphie and Kairi thrown into a blender."
"… … … Oh dear Lord, let me survive tonight." Riku chuckled, shaking his head. He looked through the chaos of ecstasy and quickly spotted the girl he was looking for. "How can you find them so fast? It looks like they're all one person!"
He tapped my temple. "No vampire powers." He touched his own temple. "Vampire powers. Get it?" I scold at him for the lame excuse. "Dancing is always fun at these parties, you never know what will happen. It won't take too long to get Wonnykins out of here; she's all ways up for some yaoi. But just to be sure…" Riku paused in his talk and a second later Leon in all of his emo glory was next to me. He nodded at Leon and placed a hand on my shoulder. "I'll be right back. But just to be sure, Leon will be here to watch you, okay Sora?"
I nodded. "Thank you." Riku smiled gently and kissed me before taking off into the orgy pit of no return.
"Riku said you freaked the last time he left you." Leon said offhandedly, staring at the DJ stand where Cloud, Lucien, Jareth and Nora were arguing about song choice with the disc jockey.
"Yeah. There were so many people staring at me and I got nervous. The walls were closing in and there seemed to be more people than I originally thought and…" I paused, thinking what a mess I must sound like compared to cool, calm and collected Leon. "I'm sorry… I must sound like a complete loser."
Leon glanced at me and put a comforting hand on my head, ruffling my spikes up and knocking my nurse headset askew. "You don't sound like a loser. Cloud was the same way his first party."
My fixed my cap when he realized my head. "Really? Cloud? But he's so much stronger than I am."
"He might seem that way but he's a real mess most of the time. He doesn't have a very good past being thrown into the street at such an early age and being attacked by a murderer and nearly died. When I found him, I thought he was going to die within the hour. Sephiroth forbade me from turning him into a vampire though. I was never sure why but I think he knew Cloud was going to be okay and didn't want this kind of curse on him. When Cloud was fully healed physically, he was still unstable mentally and didn't trust anyone but Sephiroth, Riku and myself. He was so young at the time and he had such bad memories, it was understandable.
"Soon he began to trust us more. He knew we were vampires and dealt with it. Cloud considered us his family; it was something we didn't want at first but we grew to find him irreplaceable. When he was sixteen, a few years after we adopted him, we brought him to the Halloween party. Cloud was still a human and very fragile compared to everyone else here. Memories that were pushed into a corner suddenly broke loose and Cloud lost it. If I wasn't next to him at all times, he would be paralyzed and would start to cry. It didn't matter if Riku or Yuffie or Rose was next to him, Cloud was stuck in that time warp and anyone who was staring or came too close, would scare him."
"How did he break out of it?"
"When I turned him into a vampire, all of his memories seemed nothing in comparison to the pain and joy he felt at that moment." My eyes widened and I grasped my neck. "It's painful, yes, but Cloud knew that the memories he would make after would be better than his old life." Leon said, seeing my reaction. "Cloud still has panic attacks once in a while but he's better than before."
I stared at Leon for a while. He had returned his glance to Cloud dancing and chatting with Jareth, Lucien and Nora, laughing when Jareth would grope Lucien and the latter would turn a deep scarlet color. Leon faintly chuckled under his breath as Nora tripped Cloud causing him to fall into the DJ stand. I smiled at Leon.
Leon caught me staring and raised an eyebrow. "You know…" I said, smiling still. "I've never heard you talk so much before. You must really like to talk about Cloud, ne?" I could swear I saw a hint of pink sprinkled on his cheeks. "You must also really love him, don't you?"
Leon scolded at me, rolling his eyes. I noticed that when he looked back at Cloud, his features softened and a small smile rested on his lips.
We stood there in silence for a good minute before we both looked at each other with the same thought on our mind. "Where is Riku?"
Two seconds later, Riku came stumbling out of the HornyRUs super group. He looked as if he went through hell and back. He pulled a giggling girl after him.
"It's a good thing I brought Leon over." Riku sighed. "This stupid girl kept running away, thinking it was all a game."
"Naw! Riku! You're no fun!" The girl said, giggling again. "So where's the boy toy?" She spotted me and squealed. "Aww! You're so cute!" She jumped on me, sending me flying to the floor.
"Wonnykins, get off of him." Riku sighed again and lifted the girl easily off of me. He offered his hand to me and pulled me up as well. "Sora this is Wonnykins, Wonnykins, Sora."
Wonnykins looked about sixteen at five foot four, yellow eyes, red shoulder length hair pulled into a ponytail, whiskers, black-cat ears and tail and long purple nails. She wore a black skinny suit with a red collar and bell around her neck. On her head was Ash Ketchum's Pokémon hat.
"You've got cat ears and a tail!" I shrieked, pointing her impolitely, feeling a sense of déjà vu. "Can I touch them?"
"Yeah go ahead!" I gently touched her tail and cooed about how soft it was.
"What are you, if you don't mind me asking?"
"I'm a black cat!" Wonnykins said.
"Black cat?"
"We're not what you're probably thinking. We're witches who have been killed but revived by Satan as cat-like people and wander around Earth until the end of time! I still have my witch powers too! I'll show you one later tonight! Trust me; you'll know it's me!" She laughed, throwing a playful wink at me. She adjusted her cap. "I'm going to go party again, I saw these two really hot vampires grinding each other. But I won't leave until I get a kiss from you two." She giggled into her hands. "Come on!"
"Uh… I really don't…"
"Fine."
"Wha--" Riku cut me off, slamming his lips onto mine and nearly sending me to the floor. "?!" His arm was around my back, the only support I had to keep me standing up. The kiss was short but powerful. Riku pulled back with a new fever in his usually dead eyes. "You are dismissed Wonny."
"What?" The black cat cried. "That was a two second kiss! An extremely sexy two second kiss but that's not enough!"
"Smexy." Riku and I said simultaneously. "It's not sexy, but smexy."
"Smexy?" Wonnykins repeated, blinking. She beamed. "I like it! It's so… smexy!" Riku rolled his eyes at her. "Do I get one last kiss?"
"You'll get something better than that." Riku said with a naughty smirk on his lips. Oh shit…
"I will?!"
"She will??"
"I think it's about time that Sora and I danced for a while…" Riku turned that evilly naughty smirk to me. I could practically see the perverted thoughts running through his head. He grabbed my wrist and effortlessly dragged me to the Corruption of Young Children Headquarters.
I squirmed in vain. "No, Riku! I can't dance! I'm going to get killed in that massive orgy! Do you not see the evil aura radiating from it?"
"It's not evil, Sora." Riku rolled his eyes.
"Yes it is! I'm claustrophobic! I'm going to get groped, molested, eaten, killed, raped, beaten up, thrown, kidnapped, destroyed, and turned into a frog!"
Wonnykins huffed at me. "Witches don't turn people into frogs. They never did!"
"She's right, Sora. That's just a myth. And besides, I'll be there to protect you, nothing will go wrong."
"I'm still claustrophobic!"
Riku had that smirk again. "Once we get in there, you won't be afraid of closed spaces. In fact, you'll want to get closer…"
"Riku!" I yelled, face turning twenty degrees higher. "I still cannot dance! Have you ever seen a fish out of water-flapping on the ground so helplessly and awkwardly pitiful? Well, people would rather watch the slowly dying fish than me dancing."
"What an interesting analogy. It really makes me wonder…"
My face lit up in hope. "You mean you won't make me go in there?"
"No. It just makes me wonder if you can really be that terrible of a dancer. I've seen fish out of water before and they sure are disturbing." Riku gave an extra dug on my wrist, nearly snapping it in half. He apologized and gently pulled me closer as we reached the Halloween Costume Store Gone Wild ™.
Riku, being the evil egotistic vampire that he is, dragged me to the center of the crowd, the worse part. He spun me around so our chests were pressed up against each other. He lowered his head to my ear and as he whispered his cold breath made me shiver. "Just follow my lead. Don't think about it, just listen to the music and feel my body. Ignore the rest."
The music was pumping loudly in my ears and Riku's cold body was swaying against mine. His arms ran up and down my sides, moving me along with him and the melody. He moved his mouth from my ear to my neck where he started to nib and suck on my artery. I moaned and it was lost in the loud music. I slowly started to move, little rocks to the left and right. Riku chuckled against my neck and I stopped moving, worried I did something wrong.
"Stop thinking so much." His voice rang in my head. I draped my arms around his neck and squeezed.
"Stop reading my mind." I said back, starting to dance again.
"You need to loosen up, no one is watching you. Just me." Riku pushed his hips into mine and I stumbled off beat by shock. My brain, which had lost its pride when it went into shock, quickly came up with a revenge plan to embarrass that stupid vampire.
"Loosen up? I can loosen up, no problem." I untangled myself from Riku, smirking evilly at him. I could feel him prodding through my mind trying to find my revenge plan. I didn't try to hide it from him; I wanted to see his reaction. He soon found it and his eyes narrowed dangerously.
"You wouldn't."
"I would."
"You're going to make a fool out of yourself."
"No, I won't. I'll be making a fool out of "Master Sephiroth's Favorite" who stupidly brought along the human."
"You're going to get someone or yourself injured. Sora, don't do this."
"Riku said he wanted to dance with me, I'm dancing."
"Not that way!"
"I'm doing it."
"No, you're not." I raised my left arm in warning. Riku quickly caught it and pulled it back to my side. I yanked out of his grip, with a small sneer. "Sora…"
"Riku…"
"I'm warning you."
"No, I'm warning you. I want out of this good Christian mother's nightmare. You promised me some werewolves."
"We have all night Sora… it's only two, the party ends at six."
"I don't feel comfortable with dancing, Riku. Take me out and I won't do anything to embarrass you."
"That's an empty threat! You would never do that!" Riku's voice was starting to panic although his face looked calm and in control.
I raised my left arm again. "Empty threat?" I asked, viciously, before screaming, "SPRINKLER!!" Throwing my right arm to my head, I jumped around to the music, doing the sprinkler- moving my right arm and left arm together while twisting my upper body nearly whacking everyone within a three foot radius.
Riku quickly jumped on me, pinning my arms to my side and my head against his collarbone. He laughed nervously, seeing all the wide-eyed stares. "Nothing to see here! He got into the blood bowl. You know how it gets spiked easily!" He made a run for it, dragging me along with him.
When we were finally free and out into the open, Riku glared at me. "What the hell was that?!"
"I gave you a warning." I said trying to sound dignified even though on the inside I was absolutely terrified of my boyfriend.
"Sora…" He growled. Riku paused and then closed his eyes as if he was trying to calm himself down. He opened his mouth and then closed it again. It was times like these where I wished I had Riku's power of reading minds. When Riku opened his eyes again, a moment later, he looked more relaxed than before. "Come on," He said peacefully with a small smile, "There are a few more people before the werewolves." Riku gently took my hand in his and we walked, side by side, away from the fiery pits of sex hell.
I blinked at Riku, staring at him with complete shock. Where did hell did his anger go? I narrowed my eyes suspiciously at him. There's something I'm missing but I won't let it be like that for long.
Riku must have wanted me to forget about the obnoxious crowd because the next two people I was introduced to were quiet, calm and incredibly nice. They were chatting in the back, away from the music, at a table, eating. When we approached the table girl invited us to sit down. I sat down next to the girl and Riku took the seat next to me. She smiled at me. "My name is Vera Regen. You're Sora, correct?" I nodded, taking a look at her appearance. She looked gothic and about seventeen with red hair and eyes and tons of freckles on her face and neck. I stared in amazement at two horns above her pointy ears. She had armor looking material on her shoulders are wrists that she pointed out were not armor but actually part of her body.
"Are you… a devil?" I asked.
"Demon. There is a difference."
"I didn't mean any offense!"
Vera laughed. "It's cool. I have a cousin who is a devil."
The boy, who sat on the other side of Vera, looked like a more mature version of me. He had brown hair and blue eyes. He leaned across the table and shook my hand along with Riku's. "I'm Kiryo, an elf." He said, brushing past his hair to revel pointy ears.
"Sora… human."
Riku and I spent a good twenty minutes talking with Kiryo and Vera about books. Actually, I was talking with Kiryo and Vera about books while Riku listened and threw in a comment when asked. I think Riku intentionally choose these two to talk to after the fiasco I caused because he had to finish calming himself down. They were soft spoken and very relaxed. I often found myself too loud whilst talking with them, being a thousand times more energetic than Kiryo and Vera put together.
Kiryo was into classic books such as the Count of the Monte Cristo, Crime and Punishment and the Call of the Wild while Vera liked romantic books like the Scarlet Letter, Pride and Prejudice, and Gone with the Wind. They gave me some good book recommendations before Riku decided to move on.
I'm guessing, from the next person I was introduced to, Riku wasn't at his usual level of calmness. She was a souless demon named Midna Aoyagi. I freaked out by her last name. "Aoyagi? Like… Ritsuka Aoyagi from Loveless? That's an awesome manga!!" Midna's apathetic look didn't change.
Minda looked about 22, and five foot seven with long straight black, almost purple, hair and arousing red eyes. She wore a knee length black kimono with long sleeves with a red lining that matches her eyes.
She looked over at Riku and gave him an once-over. "You have some pretty negative emotions."
"You can sense them better than anyone else can." Riku said, with a grim smile. "It's your forte, after all."
Minda gave a Riku a small smile, so perfect it had to be fake. Riku didn't catch it though.
"So, you're a souless demon?" I asked trying to get her to be more talkative. "What traits do you have?"
She shrugged. "I'm a soul collector with no soul, no heartbeat, and I cannot feel positive emotions, only sorrow and pain."
"Aw, well, that's… sad." I put rather lamely.
She gave me one of those perfectly fake smiles. "That's the point."
It didn't take for those fake smiles and dour emotions to get to me. Riku heard my thoughts and politely excused us. I think she knew the real reason why we were leaving.
"Are we going to meet any more low energy folks?" I asked, once we were out of ear shot (at least I hope we were- I often forget I'm not with humans).
"No, the next girl you can say is a combination of the both of us. She's calm and fun."
I laughed. "Wow, the two of us combined together. What a weird thought."
"I hope that's not a bad thing." He said, send me a half smirk. Riku looked up and instantly froze. Covering my eyes, he led me in the opposite direction in which we were heading.
"Riku?" I panicked, voice cracking. "What's wrong?"
"A friend of Yuffie's." Riku said simply as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"So?"
"She's a succubus- a female demon who seduces men."
I failed to keep a smile off my face. "So big ol' Riku is afraid that I'll fall under her trap? In case you failed to notice… I'm gay!"
"I've seen gay humans fall for her. Vampires are immune so Leon, thinking he'll be immune as well, didn't think to shield Cloud during his first Halloween party. He followed her everywhere and kicked and screamed when we dragged him away from her."
"What? I don't wanna be seduced! Don't worry, Riku, I won't look at her."
"You'll be fine to look at her from a distance; it's more of an 'if she turns her interest at you, then you'll fall under a spell' kind of thing. She's a nice girl- mysterious and slightly evil but nice." Riku released my eyes and he pointed the girl out.
Even from a distance she was very beautiful. She had long dark purple hair and lilac eyes. She looked eighteen and had an unearthly beauty to her. She wore a rather skimpy medieval dress, a low cut dark red sleeveless dress with black and white arm covers from the middle of her upper arm to her wrist. Around her was a group of men, drool cascading from their mouths onto the floor. She expertly ignored them while talking with Yuffie and Lola.
"What's her name?" I asked as I followed Riku toward the food court.
"Melantha Nixe." Riku answered. We stopped in front of the human table and I quickly found my chance to steal some food while Riku searched for the girl. When he found her, he dragged me away from the candy corn.
"I wasn't done yet!" I complained with a mouthful of Oreos and gummy worms and a handful of cupcakes.
Riku ignored me as he smiled at the teenager pouring herself a glass of pumpkin juice. "Hello Souri."
The girl, Souri, looked up in surprise. "Oh, Riku. How are you? I haven't seen you all night; I figured you had a lot of guests to visit."
"I'm introducing Sora to everyone. I told you about him, right?" Riku half shoved me in front of her, my face covered in Oreo crumbs and an orange cupcake in my mouth.
I looked at her wide-eyed, completely embarrassed over my disheveled state. I simply waved at Souri because I didn't want to spray cupcake all over her.
Souri looked sixteen with semi-wavy sea foam green hair, pulled into a high ponytail that reached her knees and light ocean blue eyes. She wore a halter blue dress with a diamond pin in the middle of the V cut.
She chuckled and shook my hand. "Yes, Riku, I think everyone knows about Sora by how much you talk about him. My name is Sourita Kaiyou, but you may call me Souri, Sora."
I swallowed the cupcake and quickly wiped my face off. "It's nice to meet you. What are you, if you don't mind me asking?"
"You don't have sound so offended asking us that!" She laughed. "We don't mind telling you what race we are. I'm a sorceress."
"Whoa! Fancy, fancy! Can you do magic?"
"Of course. Oh, Riku, have you seen Zoe and Daisuke anywhere? The two ran off a while ago to talk with Mattie and Damian and I'm afraid I lost them."
"We haven't seen them for a while either but you're friends with Kyoko and Gaby, right? They're by the back entrance."
"Oh, great, thank you Riku. It was very nice to meet you, Sora. I hope we meet again soon." She smiled at the both of us before disappearing in the direction of the back entrance.
"Want to meet a real witch?" Riku asked.
"Ch'yeah!"
Back toward the live porn party, was where we found a teenager girl giggling happily over the image of two guys kissing in front of her. Next to her was an adult wolf, rolling his eyes at his owner. She had brown hair pulled into a high ponytail and the end still touched her waist, with matching brown eyes and pale skin. She wore a black and green thief costume with a mask that resembled Kakashi's, covering her entire face from the nose down.
"Good evening Miru." Riku greeted her.
"Riku is here!" The witched cheered. "And he brought his boy toy as promised!"
"Boy toy?" I asked.
Miru shook my hand, grinning. "Hello there Sora. My name is Miru the witch. And my wolf's name is Shojo. We would love a free show, wouldn't we Shojo?"
The wolf barked.
"Later." Riku answered.
"Boo." She pouted, tapping her foot in annoyance. "There's another couple I'm stalking anyway. Jareth and Lucien give me more action anyway." She winked at me before disappearing into the throng.
"I didn't get to ask her if she can do magic." I pouted.
There was a tap at my shoulder. I found two girls of equal height standing there. One had long blonde hair and blue eyes wearing a light blue dress and white wings. Next to her was a girl who looks exactly like her only with black hair and red eyes. She wore a dark red dress of the same design and had black wings.
"Hello Sora." They said in union.
"That's creepy." I said, staring at the almost identical girls.
The blonde with the white wings pointed to herself. "I'm Kiya."
The raven haired with the black wings pointed to herself. "I'm Kya."
"We're twins." They said together. "You're Sora. Riku's mate."
"Um… yes."
Riku waved at the two girls. "Good evening, ladies. How are dear ol' mom and dad?"
"Mother is doing well in Heaven." Kiya said.
"Father is doing well in Hell." Kya said.
"How do they do that?" I asked.
Kiya pointed to her sister. "Kya's a devil."
Kya pointed to her sister. "Kiya's an angel."
"Yaoi?" They asked in unison, as if begging.
"You guys are like circus clowns or something; going around doing awesome routines like this and then requesting money afterwards."
"Is that a no?" They asked.
There was a loud tapping sound echoing over the intercom followed by a "Whoops!" Looking over toward the stage, I saw a girl about Yuffie's height with light cinnamon colored hair with curls at the bottom and light grey eyes. She wore a red silk dress that reached her knees and black stockings covered by red boots, a silver tiara that matched the silver belt on her waist and her small bag she had flung over her shoulder. The girl waved at the crowd of people watching her. "Good morning Detroit!! My name is Crystal and I shall be singing for your pleasure this evening! Any requests?"
"Do you know her?" I nudged Riku. "She seems like the kind of person you would know."
"That's Crystal. She likes to sing and dance so you'll usually find her on the stage or in the middle of the dance floor. She's a witch."
"Oh! Oh! Really? Can I meet her?"
Riku nodded. "After her song." He pointed to the stage. "See that cat next to her?" I didn't notice it before but sitting next to the microphone stand she was speaking into was a small blood red cat. It looked up at Crystal meowed. "That's her pet she carries around all the time. Her name is Rose, just like my Rose and those two love each other to death. No pun intended."
Crystal hummed into the microphone. "I heard someone say 'Simple and Clean' so I'll sing that! HIT IT DJ!!" The DJ nodded, and switched to a soft melody and Crystal started to sing.
"When you walk away, you don't hear me say, please, oh baby, don't go. Simple and Clean is the way that you're making me tonight. It's hard to let it go."
Riku faced me with a smile, bowing slightly and holding his hand out for me. "Would you care to dance?"
"B-but… I can't!" I stammered, ignoring the twin's hopeful stares.
"We won't go anywhere near the mosh pit, I promise, it's just a slow dance. Even you can do that, right?"
"I guess." I nodded, taking his hand and allowed him to pull me to his body. I wrapped my arms around his neck and his arms were in the familiar spot on my waist. We rocked back and forth to the music.
"You're giving me, too many things lately, you're all I need (only one), you smile at me and said, "Don't get me wrong I love you but does that mean I have to meet your father? When we are older you'll understand what I meant when I said 'no'. Sometimes, some things aren't that simple."
"See?" Riku breathed into my ear. "It's not that bad." I nodded and rested my head against his shoulder, the toll of the night getting to me. Riku tightened his grip on me as if to promise he'll be here when I wake up. I smiled and closed my eyes, letting my vampire boyfriend to take control.
"Hold me, whatever lies beyond this morning, is a little later on. Regardless of warnings, the future doesn't scare me at all. Nothing's like before."
Riku's arms were comforting and slightly cold but it felt good against my flushed skin. The outside world such as the shuffling feet of the other couples dancing, the occasional fluttering of bat wings and the low chatter of the singles who decided not to dance all faded into emptiness as bliss took over my being and I grew aware how tall Riku was, his soft, silky hair brushing against my cheek, and the fact that I could not feel his heartbeat.
"Wish I could prove I love you but does that mean I have to walk on water? When we are older you'll understand it's enough when I say so, and, maybe, some things are the simple."
"I love you, Sora." I felt him whisper against my ear. I kissed his neck in response.
"Hold me, whatever lies beyond this morning, is a little later on. Regardless of warnings, the future doesn't scare me at all. Nothing's like before."
As the song finished, the last remaining notes straining, I leaned up and kissed Riku on the lips. "I don't feel like a fish out of water anymore." Laughing, Riku reclaimed my lips.
Crystal beamed at her cheering audience. "Thank you all, you were lovely!" Riku waved at her and as soon as soon as she saw him, the witch jumped down and ran over to us, her cat following.
"Riku! Did you like my song? I was hoping that somewhere you and your boy would be listening to it. Is this him?" She asked, seeing me next to him. "Oh look at that great outfit! You two are matching! Hm… I think I saw that outfit in a magazine once… what was it called…? Oh yeah! It was- MMPH!"
Riku quickly covered her mouth from saying anything else. When he noticed my glare, he laughed sheepishly. "Er… I can explain?"
"Where the hell did you get this, Riku? A porno magazine?"
"It was Playuke- the Playboy magazine for Ukes. It was in the lingerie section." Crystal said, using Riku's distraction to her advantage. Riku quickly covered her mouth up.
"It was Roxas'!" Riku said in self-defense.
"You know that Roxas wouldn't have one of those! He still thinks he's straight!"
"Then what does he make of Axel?"
"How would I know what goes through that kid's mind? He probably pictures Axel in a dress during wet dreams or something. Speaking of which, I haven't seen Axel all night. Where is he?"
Riku paused, thinking. Crystal removed the hand of her mouth. "I saw him with Larxene, Demyx and Zexion about an hour ago. They're still probably together. They're awfully close for three werewolves and a vampire."
"Knowing those three together, they're hiding somewhere until the end of the night." Riku sighed before releasing the girl completely. "We'll meet up with the later, I suppose."
"Riku! Hey, hey Riku!" Turning around, we found Akiko running at us. Coming to a halt, she pointed toward a gathering crowd. "Azreal and Cloud ran into each other and Leon is nowhere to be found. We need you to break them up."
Riku's eyes widened as he cursed under his breath. "Goddamnit. Akiko, I need you to stay here with Sora. Crystal can you try and find Leon for me?" Both girls nodded. "I'll be right back, stay with Akiko." He told me before running off at top speed into the mass.
"What happened?" I asked the girl next to me.
Akiko bit her bottom lip. "There's this icari, a fallen angel vampire if you will, named Azreal Verrier. He's… bitchy. And extremely snarky. I've never seen a guy like him before. He's only nice to one person- Tifa. He likes her fiery personality and tough girl spirit. Unfortunately, he hates Cloud with a passion. Every time they see each other, they fight. They forget about the code of mutual agreement and battle it out. Normally Leon and Cloud are inseparable and Leon scares the crap out of Azreal so Cloud isn't bothered. But if Leon would ever leave his side, Azreal comes after Cloud."
"What happens to Cloud? He isn't hurt is he?"
Akiko let out a bitter snort. "Cloud? Never. Azreal is all talk and no game. Cloud can take him on anytime."
There was this loud crash coming from the fight's general direction. My insides ran cold in fear of Riku getting hurt in the process. Without thinking, I rushed forward and into the throng of races.
"Wait! Sora!" Akiko shouted after me but my human ears couldn't hear it through all the loud yells and obnoxious music.
I weaved my way through the crowd, not feeling in the least claustrophobic or worried over some random creature taking me hostage. I made my way to the front of the crowd easily to see Riku standing in the middle of Cloud and, what I'm guessing is, Azreal.
Azreal was practically twice the size of Cloud! Standing at about six foot four, with three huge charcoal wings sprouted from his back, he had long black hair to his shoulders, grey eyes with cat-slit pupils and very tanned skin. The irony of it all was his outfit. He wore a pristine white toga with a gold pipe-cleaner halo and in his hand was a shabby old book with "Holy Bible" written on the cover.
"There is a mutual agreement, Azreal." Riku growled sounding as threatening as he did the day he rescued me from the werewolf. "End this now and you won't be kicked out."
Azreal grunted, which I suppose was meant to be a laugh. "You can't kick me out."
"Yes I can. I am part host of this party and I will not sit idle as you terrorize my brother." Riku commanded as he tried to push Cloud out of the fight but the blonde vampire would not listen.
"Let me at him! I can totally handle this."
"Handle this? You couldn't fight your way out of a paper bag!" Azreal grunted again and reeled back his fist. I screamed as his fist connected with Riku's face.
"Riku! What the hell? Get out of the way!" Cloud yelled. "Fight back if you have to but don't just stand there!"
Azreal looked stunned when he found out he punched the wrong guy but covered it up with a smirk. "Looks like little Cloud needs protecting. And big ol' Riku is too scared to fight back." He let out a loud bark of a laugh.
"Riku, fight back!" Cloud cried.
"No. I am standing to the mutual agreement as we all must." Riku said firmly, glaring into Azreal's eyes.
Azreal shrugged. "Have it your way." He pulled his fist back once more.
I screamed again and raced to protect Riku. "Get away from him!" I yelled, dashing in front of Riku's body just in time for the fist to uppercut my stomach. I gasped at the sudden impact and struggled to stand as the overwhelming pain spread throughout my body.
"Sora?!" Riku cried in shock.
Azreal looked just as shocked that he actually attacked a human. I managed to stay on my feet, clutching my stomach, and glared at the icari in front of me. "Stay away from Riku and Cloud, you bastard. The mutual agreement is here for a reason." My body couldn't withstand the pain anymore and I collapsed, falling back onto Riku.
The room spun and the lights were suddenly killed.
0o0 (Normal P.O.V.)
Axel laid stretched out over a black leather couch in a small living room. He absent mindedly gnawed on a brownie with bat and pumpkin sprinkles, watching the pair next to him making lovey dovey eyes at each other.
The only female in the group rolled her eyes. "As much as I hate to break up this "romantic situation" it's getting boring in here. When are we going to the actual party?"
Axel yawned and took a swing of his root beer. "Aw, don't be like that Larxene! I thought you liked hanging out with us!"
"I would like to meet other people too."
"But we only get to see each other once a year!"
"There are some other people who I only see once a year as well."
Axel pouted. "Zexion and Demyx appreciate my presence, right guys?" Looking over at the couple, they were too busy with each other to spare Axel a glance. "Pfft. Way to back me up." He mumbled throwing the soda can over his shoulder.
Larxene sighed, and stood up. "Axel, you're trying too hard to live in the old days. We're different species now. You look like the undead."
"And you smell like a dog." Axel retorted, wrinkling his nose.
"Exactly. We shouldn't even be in here." Larxene ignored the snort of "You never listen to the rules" coming from Axel. "There's probably some huge fight going on right now and I'm missing it!"
As if on cue, the doors burst open to revel a panting Crystal. "Have… you… guys… seen Leon?" The four of them shook their heads. "Oh, damn. Well, there was a fight-" ("Goddamn you Axel!") "- and I just received message that Sora was injured!"
Something inside Axel shut down as he stood there stunned.
"Sora…?"
0o0 (Sora's P.O.V.)
I awoke to a major headache and the obnoxious chatter around me wasn't helping it. I heard screams.
"Let me in! Let me in! I must see him!"
"Calm down!"
I opened my eyes to find myself in a bright white room. Even though the light was hurting my eyes, I strained to keep them open to adjust faster. My vision was bleary and I could only make out a few colors. I was able to see the silver flash of Riku's hair, the fiery red of Axel's, and a blonde, Cloud maybe?
I groaned, trying to sit up, my head ready to split apart. That alerted my presence to everyone in the room. The light I was complaining about suddenly left as about six people stood over me, watching my every move.
"Are you okay, Sora?" I heard Yuffie ask.
"Yeah, just a headache." I said.
"Here," I felt a glass of water tap my hand. I drank it quickly and asked for another.
"Anyone got Aspirin?" Another glass of water was offered to me, along with a small blue pill. Looking up, I could see long silver hair but it wasn't Riku. "Master Sephiroth?"
"Hmm. I apologize for the headache. The medicine I gave you for your stomach has a terrible aftermath on humans in the form of headaches."
I took the pill and immediately I could see better and the throbbing pain dulled down to a mild annoyance. Around my bed was Sephiroth, Cloud, Leon, Yuffie, Axel, and Riku all but the latter having a worried expression over their faces.
Riku was downright pissed off.
"Now that you are feeling better, I'm afraid I must leave. I left all the host responsibilities on Tifa." Sephiroth shot me a Mona Lisa smile and disappeared through the door along with Yuffie. We all sat in an awkward silence until Axel spoke up.
"Isn't that ironic?" He joked, thankfully feeling the need to destroy the tense atmosphere. "The nurse is the one who is in need of medical attention."
Everyone shot him a "Now-is-not-the-time-STFU n00b." look.
"Now that Axel has decided to ruin the mood, maybe now is the best time to intervene." A blonde girl said, moving up to the front, pushing past Axel and Leon. She had blonde hair, the majority slicked back with two strands that resembled antennas sticking up and aqua eyes. She was also quite short. She wore a simple black dress with a brown bow. She had a smug look to her. She looked at me with a look of distaste. "So this is the infamous Sora Harada I've heard so much about." She crossed her arms over her chest as if trying to figure out what was so special about me. "You smell."
"And you look like a bug." I retorted, glaring at her.
"Excuse me! I'd watch your mouth, boy, or I'll rip it off! I'm a werewolf!"
"So you're one of the werewolves I've been told to stay away from then, no?"
"You ignorant little…" Larxene growled.
Axel put his hand on her shoulder to stop her. "Whoa, whoa! Calm down there! I don't want any disasters in here! If you two can't play nice, I'm going to send you into the corner."
"But-!" Larxene pouted but Axel ignored her and smiled apologetically at me.
"I got two more werewolves to introduce to you! Riku mentioned you were looking forward to them and he made a promise. I'm sorry Larxene is a bitch."
"Hey!"
Axel pulled two boys into my view. One had a brown mohawk, lime green eyes and was humming a song. The other short blue hair but with long bangs that nearly covered his whole face, blue eyes, a shade brighter than his hair and had a book in his pocket. They both were wearing black tuxes and black ties, making them look like the hopped out of a Men in Black movie, without the alien guts, that is.
"Demyx!" The mohawk guy said, waving energetically.
"Zexion." The wanna-be rock star said unenergetically.
"These three are my best friends." Axel explained. "They're totally awesome even if they are werewolves and smell like dog."
Larxene looked as if she wanted to kill something. "All right, that's it. I'm leaving! Insults from vampires and humans, I don't need this shit." She stormed out.
Zexion rolled his eyes. "We're going to go with her." He grabbed Demyx and pulled him out. As soon as they were out, the room suddenly tense again.
"I think I'll leave too." Axel said, rubbing the back of his head. "Er… I'm glad you're okay Sora." He sped out of the door and slammed it shut.
That left a distraught Cloud, a somewhat moody Leon and a very, very livid Riku with me. There was a loud chorus of "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING!"
"… impulse?" I weakly offered.
"What you did was very irresponsible, Sora!" Riku yelled. "What were you thinking? Running into a battle like that! You're lucky you didn't get anything worse than a bruise on your stomach. You could have died!"
"What about you, huh?" I shouted back, trying to hide my embarrassment for not thinking this through. "You just took it as that guy punched you!"
"I don't feel anything when he punches me." Riku said. "He's not strong enough to…"
"That is a lie, Riku. I saw your expression when he hit you. It hurt."
"That doesn't mean anything. You, a weak human, jumped in front of the fist of an incari. One of the dumbest things I've ever seen!"
"I am not weak!"
"You are compared to us. We can take a hit but you're lucky he didn't kill you."
"I'm sorry." Cloud whispered from behind Riku, clutching onto Leon's hand. "This is all my fault. If I hadn't picked a fight with Azreal, Riku wouldn't have gotten punched and Sora wouldn't be injured. I'm so sorry."
"It's not your fault, Cloud." I said softly, slowly moving from the bed to the blonde's side, grabbing his other hand. "I don't think before I do things, you know that. I should have chucked a buffalo at him or something…" I gave him a huge grin. "So smile, okay?"
Cloud didn't look like he believed me but nodded and smiled. "Okay. Thank you." He quickly glanced at Riku. "We'll leave you two to yourselves then." He gave me another small smile and left with Leon.
That left me and Riku.
Riku stood there, looking at the floor in deep thought. I watched him until I could no longer stand the silence. "Riku…" Before I had time to react, I was thrown into a tight embrace.
Riku was shaking.
"I was so scared…" He whispered against my head. "I thought I was going to lose you."
"I'm fine, Riku, really…"
"But I didn't know that! How was I supposed to know that you would awaken a half an hour later when you collapsed onto the floor? Do you not think that the last thirty minutes was spent in absolute torture?"
"I can believe it. I'm didn't mean to scare you like that it's just… when that guy was disrespecting you and punched you, I reacted badly. I was afraid you'd get hurt, I forgot you aren't human and could take a punch better than I can and that throwing myself to protect you will only be making matters worse. But… that guy, Azreal, you didn't throw him out did you?"
"Not yet, he disappeared. Why?"
"Don't kick him out. I have a feeling he'll be calmer after we leave him alone for a while. Don't force him to leave."
I felt Riku smile. "You're too kind, Sora."
"And you love me for it."
0o0
I was dissatisfied with the three werewolves I met in the infirmary- bitch, emo and crazy- and demanded to meet others. Smiling slightly, Riku conceded and said there was bound to be one at the food court.
There was, sure enough. A tall fifteen year old with floppy brown hair and neon green tips. He had grey-brown eyes and black nail polish. He wore a black hoody over a black and red striped shirt, baggy and ripped up jeans with a studded belt, mismatching converse (one olive green, the other denim), fingerless gloves and a necklace with a bell. Next to him was a huge dog, a Newfoundland. He was greedily devouring the raw meat burgers.
"Hello Emerson." Riku greeted. He patted the dogs' head. "Hey Spike."
The werewolf, Emerson, turned around and swallowed the food in his mouth. "What's up, Riku? Kill any humans lately?"
Riku rolled his eyes at the bad joke. "Very funny. I want you to meet, Sora. My mate."
"Ah, this Sora." Emerson grinned, shaking my hand. "The subject of all of Riku's stories. Feels like I'm meeting a superstar."
"I'm really not that special."
"But to be considered so highly by a vampire, you must be! Riku and I never have the chance to see each other, as being mortal enemies and all, but we're still good friends. Once in a while, in between full and new moons, we'll hang out for the night. I know him very well. Things don't affect him as much as they do with other vampires, werewolves, humans etc. But you do which makes you very interesting. We should get together for a hang out… the three of us."
I smiled at him, imagining the hilarious sight of two mortal enemies and an innocent teenager hanging out. "I would like that."
"We could go roller skating!" Emerson said. "That reminds me. Have you seen Holy anywhere?"
"The fairy?" I asked.
Emerson blushed. "You know her. Yeah, well, she's super cute and she has this awesome pirate costume and…"
"She's by the DJ, I believe." Riku said, pointing in the general direction of the DJ and the never ending orgy.
"Sweet! We can dance and I'll show her my impressive skills of withstanding the mosh pit." He waved at us before dashing toward the crowd, Spike bounding after him.
"Does he know Holy's crazy for Yuffie?" I asked him, feeling bad for the poor wolf.
"Yeah but he's too crazy over her to accept it." Riku said, solemnly. "Well, on to the next wolf? She's not a werewolf but a timber wolf demon.
"There's difference?"
"Yes, and she can get picky about it."
Leaning on the wall, watching the people dance and chat contently, was a teenager girl with long black hair and dark brown eyes. She wore a half angel, half devil outfit that reminded me of the twins. She noticed us walking over and met us halfway. "Riku, it's nice to see you again. Feels like forever since last year's party."
"Not to me." Riku grinned. "More like last week."
"To the guy who lived three hundred and will continue to live, it would."
Riku gave me a nudge. "Er, ah, I'm Sora." I said rather lamely.
"Nice to meet you, Sora, my name is Sara. I'm a timber wolf demon."
"I'm human." I said. "Nothing fancy at all."
"Oh, don't say that. Humans are very nice. They have a fine way of living despite their ability handicap they have over the rest of the people in this room."
I decided that right then and there that I was going to adopt her so I could hear those words again and again.
Next, Riku led me toward a small group of people on the opposite side of the hall, said that he had another werewolf for me to meet. I recognized a few of them and was very proud of it. There was Kiryo, Vera, Souri, Argentine, Katie, Wonnykins and Kagai who, upon seeing Riku's arrival, raced up to him, beaming.
"Hello Riku, it's been a while since I saw you last."
I noticed that there were no vampires in this group of people. I figured that had something to do with the werewolf we were about to meet.
Inside the circle was an older girl, about twenty-eight, with an athletic build, auburn/brown hair and golden brown eyes, looking worried over Wonnykins' loud behavior. She had a light sprinkle of freckles over her face and arms. She wore a brown casual dress that purposely didn't reveal too much skin.
She glanced over at Riku and a flicker of worry covered her face before she smiled. "Riku, it's nice to see you again. I take it you've all ready met Emerson?"
Riku nodded. "He's looking for Holy."
"Again?" The girl sighed. "I really wish he'd get over her. It's terrible." She spotted me standing behind Riku and gave me a kind, motherly smile. "Hello. I'm Asuna. I'm afraid I don't know who you are…"
"Oh! I'm Sora. Riku's er… mate."
Asuna's eyes widened. "Are you the Sora that got hurt from Azreal?" I nodded and the wolf went through a frantic questionnaire. "Are you okay? You weren't injured were you? Of course you were- you were knocked out. Are you feeling better though?"
I laughed at her kindness, thinking how much of a better mother she is than my own. "I'm fine now, thank you."
Asuna frowned and sent a distrusting glance at Riku. "If you say so… but if you feel worse, tell me, okay?"
I smiled at her. "I will, don't worry about me. Thank you."
I heard Riku's voice pop into my head. "She doesn't trust vampires. I'm not too sure of the whole background but she had bad experiences with us in the past."
That made sense, with no vampires in the group and the glances she sent Riku so I nodded at him to let him know I understand.
The lights flickered slowly. Riku glanced up at them. "Why are they…?"
There was a loud scream as the lights went out permanently. Immediately, I felt Riku grasp my hand. "What's going on?" I asked him, hoping his powers of being able to see in the dark would help me. It was completely dark in there; I don't think I've ever been in a room so dark before. Even if it there was light outside and there were windows in the room, we were underground.
"I don't know." Riku answered truthfully. "Everyone is just standing around, there seems to be nothing out of ordinary. Where is Sephiroth?"
A burst of blue light emitted from the center of the doom roof. Thinking the lights were working again, I sighed in relief. "Thank God…"
It wasn't the lights turning on. The blue light exploded, flying in every direction setting tables, chairs and the DJ stand on fire. Nearly everyone was screaming, racing to the exits, some of the braver stayed, glaring at the light trying to discover the origin. Before Riku or I had time to react, a loud cackle rang out in the room.
The center of the doom was incased with darkness, moving and growing every second. The cackling was becoming increasingly louder. "Come out, come out wherever you are!" An evil voice taunted, sending shivers up my spine.
At the sound of the voice, Riku's hold on my hand turned into a bone shattering grip. A second later there were six vampires surrounding us, forming a protective circle. Cloud and Leon were on the left of us, Tifa to the right, Axel behind, and Sephiroth standing in front. Yuffie was to my immediate left, clutching my other hand just as hard as Riku. Leon was shaking.
"Yuffie!" Riku yelled at her, absolute terror and anger in his voice. "Remember the drill, take Sora and run!"
A man descended from the core of the darkness, hovering in midair. He had long silver hair, spiked bangs and glowing orange eyes.
"Now Yuffie!" Riku yelled as Leon raced toward the mysterious man.
"Stay calm, Sora, while I'm transporting us." I heard Yuffie trying not to panic in my ear. Her grip on my hand increased as Riku finally realized my other. It felt as if a black blanket was thrown over my head as I was thrust throw a pipe two sizes too small as Yuffie transported us to another location.
The last thing I saw was revenge within Riku's eyes.
0o0
Please excuse the crapiness of this chapter. I know it was full of it. But that ending was pretty cool, huh? Super sexy (not really) evil guy with a mysterious background and everything! It's probably easy but who can guess who this is? (I mean seriously easy)
I also apologize to the owners of the characters I used. They were probably out of character and/or didn't get enough screen time. I hope to reuse most of them in the future but if I made a personality problem, please correct me. Also, I am a very absent minded person (as it took me ten months to write this and 16,000 out of 21,000 words were written in this month alone) and it wouldn't be a shock if I lost one or two characters when I received them. If I forgot anyone, I would like to know that as well. Thank you!
My goal: To get chapter ten out before I go to Spain. Yes, you heard correct! ¡Voy a la España! I am leaving for Spain in March so I hope I can write in the five months I have. (maybe two chapters?!)
Once again, thank you for reading this and sorry for the wait. Let's meet again soon!
Happy Halloween! Nothing better than an e-mail box full of reviews!! –hint-
