So hey look at that! Another chapter done! didn't expect to have this done so soon!
So this is Roxas' trip to London. A LOT of research was put into this and the only thing I ignored was how Roxas traveled to each place. I wasn't going to into details about it because its not interesting.
Anyway I don't really like this chapter up until halfway through. But I hope you guys enjoy!
Follow Me Down
Chapter 9: This Tourist Can Kick Your Ass
Every trip starts with travel. Roxas had hoped that since he was 18 AND had paid for this trip by himself, he would be left alone by his parents. Roxas was never that lucky. When Roxas and Axel reached Roxas' home they saw that his parents were home and Roxas got Axel to leave pretty quickly. Roxas did want him to meet his parents but not leave him alone with them for a week while he was gone.
He was changing in his room listening to his parents talk about how proud they were but that quickly changed to them talking about what he was going to do after college, how he doesn't need to travel the world for a living, how they had several "special" people they wanted to meet. Roxas knew this all too well and he knew there was only one thing that was going to stop them from trying to plan out his life; at least for that day.
Roxas walked out of his room with his bag and carryon and just like every other time when his parents saw him they froze. Roxas was wearing black trip pants with several chains, a skin tight black shirt, black eyeliner, black nail polish, and scream blasting as loud as possible through his headphones. His parents immediately stated their disapproval, going on and on about how this wasn't how a mature human being acted; how it was embarrassing for them to be seen out in public with him, etc. His original plan was to take a shuttle to the airport, but his parents had called and canceled it. That meant he got to spend the whole ride there smiling at his parents.
That ride was torture for everyone involved but two hours before the flight landed in London. Roxas quickly left his parents in their car and went to check in. he didn't have to worry about them though because they followed him to the checkout, to the security checkpoint, and even to the gate. Luckily they had just called to board the plane just as Roxas got there. He very quickly said goodbye to his parents. They looked like they had plenty more to say but Roxas was already long gone.
Roxas didn't let out a sigh of relief until the plane took off and the wear seatbelt sign came off. He took his carryon and went straight to the bathroom. He used makeup and nail polish remover to take off the eyeliner and nail polish. He also changed into a regular set of clothes he stashed in the bag. When he went back to his seat the other passengers gave him a confused look but he just brushed them off and went to sleep.
The flight lasted about 8 ½ hours and Roxas only slept about 3 hours of it. Not that it was really a bad thing, it was about 9pm when he left and it was 4 in the morning when they touched down. Needless to say Roxas was exhausted. He quickly got his bag called a taxi and headed right for the hotel he booked himself. It was far from fancy but he had plans to spend his money elsewhere.
He sent his friends each a text letting him know he got there safe but when he got to Axel he stopped. He had plenty to say to him but not over the phone. He decided to say the most important thing: I love you.
After a few minutes of tense but patient waiting his phone buzzed: I love you too. Stay safe.
Roxas rolled his eyes but his heart was pounding out of his chest. This was all new to him, but welcome. He held Axel's light closely to him. No one would dare try to take that from him. He'd die before he gave that up.
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Roxas had pretty much thrown his sleep schedule out the window. Waking up at 3pm was weird put unavoidable. Roxas showered changed grabbed a quick breakfast and headed out to explore.
The first place on Roxas' list was the Ripley Believe It or Not museum. He was super excited for the exhibits there. He got tons of pictures of stuff like the yarn Ferrari, a giant shark jaw, and of course the real life Optimus Prime. Roxas wasn't a giant fan of Transformers but even he had a fan-boy moment. He didn't stick around too long at the world's tallest man. He didn't want another reason to feel short. But after all of that his favorite thing was laser race.
The goal of the laser race was to race down a couple hallways filled with lasers and the point was to get to the end as fast as possible without touching any lasers. As the buzzer went off for Roxas to start, he smirked. Piece of cake; lasers are light right? Roxas expertly maneuvered around the lasers. Any lasers he tripped stopped them from registering that they went off. They couldn't register if the laser didn't bounce back. His powers were growing every week. He finished in near record time; couldn't raise a red flag and make people think that he cheated, right?
After that adventure was over he decided to stop at a little café to get something to eat. The café was near the Big Ben so he was able to admire the architecture of the building without having to pay to get inside. As he was sipping some coffee he noticed the sounds around him started to dim a little bit. He looked around to try to understand what was going on but couldn't figure anything out. Eventually there was no sound except for a quiet crinkling sound, like someone crushing candy wrappers and tinfoil together. He was trying not to panic but this had never happened to him before. Then he saw the eyes. They were bright yellow, coming from a dark alleyway. Roxas looked around to see if anyone else saw them but no, nothing. He threw some money on the table and chased after the eyes.
As he ran into the alleyway the crinkling noise grew louder. He looked franticly for the source of the noise or the eyes he saw but there was nothing. Eventually the sounds of traffic flooded back into Roxas' ears making him jump. I guess it's gone now. Roxas decided to call it a day at that. As he flagged down a cab and got in he realized that he had gotten out Axel's lighter without realizing it.
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The next day Roxas went down to see The Mousetrap. It was another one of Agatha Christie's murder mysteries and while Roxas wasn't extremely interested in them, the show had been going on for years so he wanted to see what was so special about it.
With the smooth acting and the creepy undertones of the play, Roxas found himself easily sucked in to the story; well for the most part. His mind kept drifting to the alleyway yesterday but he snapped back to reality whenever he thought he heard a hint to the killer. In the end he enjoyed the twist and the play itself, but he still felt a little chilled from the alleyway. He decided to take a nice swim in the pool at his hotel. Can't say no to a free swim.
As the sun set, Roxas quickly made his way over to the London Eye. It was going to be weird for Roxas to go on a Ferris wheel by himself but it looked amazing either way. The whole wheel was lit up brilliant colors. Roxas' turn eventually came and he was extremely excited.
As he reached the top he looked over the city. It was an amazing view! And as nice as it was Roxas wished Axel was there to see it with him. Instead Roxas quickly took out his phone and Axel's lighter. He lit the lighter near his face to light him up and sent a picture of it to Axel with a message thinking of you.
As he started to reach the bottom he felt his phone go off. So this is how you do romance? I like it. I want to see more of this side of you when you get back.
Roxas rolled his eyes but he could tell his face was red. He kept up the pleasant conversation until he fell asleep in the hotel later that night.
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On the third day, Roxas had planned to explore as many scary spots as possible. He wasn't the type to be easily scared so he cherished the moments he was. Unfortunately most of the places he visited that day weren't even the least scary. He visited the Grenadier, which was supposed to be a haunted hotel thing but it held nothing for Roxas. He went to go visit The London Dungeon but turns out that was funnier than anything else. It made him feel like he was in a B-rated horror movie so he quickly left. He visited 4 different haunted tube stations but nothing again. At that point Roxas had a permanent scowl on his face. He decided to try one more place before he gave up for the day.
His last stop of the day was the Highgate Cemetery. There wasn't anything exclusively haunted about it but a cemetery is still scary at night. Plus Roxas was able to admire all the tombstones and crypts. Roxas was slowly becoming really interested in architecture and he didn't even know it.
As he was walking through the cemetery taking pictures of this and that he heard the crinkling noise again. He looked around to see the source but instead of finding it he found out he was completely alone. The moon was out but it only offered a little light, not enough to investigate the sound. He flicked open Axel's Zippo and used the light from the fire to turn his hand into a giant light. He saw literally nothing but tombstones. Needless to say Roxas was scared, and not in a good way. He quickly made his way towards the exit but got lost and was soon face to face with several pairs of yellow eyes.
Roxas freaked. He quickly threw his ball of light into the eyes and booked it in the opposite direction. He was trying his best not to trip over any tombstones and was doing a pretty good job. Unfortunately he looked behind him and saw that not only were the eyes following him, there were more of them. Fuck they're multiplying! Roxas had no idea what to do and he had a limited amount of light coming from the lighter. He just kept throwing balls of light at the eyes but he was wearing down and he was running out of energy. Suddenly he heard a loud whistle. He looked over to see Axel standing with two weird circles with spikes around them. "It's not nice to beat up tourists. They're just trying to enjoy the sights."
Normally Roxas would roll his eyes at Axel's comment but he was so relieved to see him that he didn't care; he just rushed over to his side and faced the eyes again. "I've never been so happy to see your outrageous hair before."
Axel smirked, playing off the obvious danger. "Oh but my hair just adds to my gorgeous looks that I know you love."
"Axel what do we do?" Axel, seeing that they couldn't keep ignoring the wall of darkness closing in on them, decided that it was time to act. "Here, this will help you fight back." Suddenly Axel's weapons (Roxas wanted to call them circles of death to tease Axel but once again not the time) caught on fire lighting up the area. Roxas was finally able to get a good look at the attacking creatures.
There were probably 50 of them. All of them small and dark. They had twitchy movements, like they were having seizures. There was no face on any of them, just the eyes that seemed to devour Roxas the longer he looked into them. Axel's voice snapped Roxas back to reality. "Ready? Here's your first field test."
Roxas nodded and quickly absorbed as much light from Axel's flames as possible. "I have an idea, cover me. When I say move, move." Axel nodded and jumped into the fray, slicing one "shadow" after another. Roxas slowly started to build up energy in his hands. It felt like he had a storm in his palms. When he felt like he had enough energy he screamed, "MOVE!"
Axel didn't need to be told twice. Just as he jumped out of the way he felt white hot energy fly past him. He saw the bright light hit one set of eyes and it quickly bounced to another and another and another until every single one was struck. The light looked like a lightning bolt and eventually all of the shadows dissipated at the same time. Axel was once again shocked. He looked over at Roxas who looked like he could barely stand up. Axel willed away his Chakrams and caught Roxas just as he was about to fall over. The last thing Roxas heard before he passed out was. "I'll explain everything when you wake up. Everything."
There! Roxas being a badass, like he should be!
This wasn't supposed to take a scary turn. From the beginning I was going to create a theme park that was based off of Alice In Wonderland (I hinted at it in the first chapter) but that was going to be a lot of work. Plus I was watching this scary movie called Untraceable (awesome movie watch it!) and then I started to look up scary places and the alleyway idea popped into my head! Oh and special shoutout to whoever can guess where the crinkling noise is from! hint its a game! maybe i'll write a short story for whoever can guess it!
Anyway next chapter the Organization will FINALLY be introduced! Jeez that took forever.
Ps. the song of this chapter was Waiting by Breathe Carolina. Once again no connection to the story but still an awesome song and an amazing band.
