"So, uh, where are we going again?" Roxas asked, hurrying to catch up and dodging a pile of smelly garbage. Why did people on Earth tend to leave trash all over the place? The alley behind McDonald's was the worst, with all the overflowing dumpsters and hungry rats that glared at him from the gutters, but soon they were out of the nasty place and into the bright sunlight. They were now surrounded by people going every direction, rows of shops on both sides. Luckily, it didn't appear to be a road with those hideous monsters known as 'cars' on it.
"The beach," Riku replied, nodding his head towards a long, crowded street. "I can smell saltwater in that direction."
"Just like the vacation day we always wanted," Axel said. "But with more singing. And we have Riku instead of Xion. And we actually have a mission. So not much like that at all." He'd taken Roxas and Xion to the beach before, soon after the three of them were reunited, but they could use another beach day.
"It doesn't look like a beach." Roxas frowned. It looked like a difficult place to stay inconspicuous in; way too many people.
"The beach should be down at the far end of the street." Riku didn't like the idea of fighting through the mass of shoppers and tourists and possible fangirls – their hair would stick out like three sore thumbs even in the crowd– but that was the fastest way to the beach without donning their coats again to use corridors, and that would attract more attention than a neon sign saying "Hey, fangirls! We're right here!"
All three still had their 'do-not-make-contact-with-people-of-other-worlds' instincts screaming at them.
"Smell any better routes with that super-sniffer of yours?" Axel asked.
Riku frowned. "The whole coast for as far as I can smell is covered in streets like this."
Axel shrugged. "Worth a shot." He led the way this time, trying to look as casual as possible while carefully avoiding bumping into any tourists. Roxas followed in his footsteps, and Riku didn't see any point in taking a more difficult path.
Axel suddenly hissed in pain and doubled over, tangling his hands in his hair as he clutched his head. Riku and Roxas dragged him next to the lee of a lamp post on the side of the street.
"I sense that my catchphrase has been mercilessly abused," the redhead moaned, standing as Roxas stared at him, worried. "I'll be fine. Y'know, this feels really ironic. You're usually the one getting headaches and passing out."
"Fangirls might be near," Riku said. Who else would spam Axel's catchphrase into the ground? "Let's get moving again." Axel seemed okay now, so they trekked on.
Roxas was distracted by a shop with souvenir seashells in the window and nearly got smacked in the face by a passing lady's hot pink purse. He ducked just in time for it to hit Riku, who didn't flinch but stared at the lady with such an icy glare that even Vexen might've been frozen. She gasped and rushed away, not bothering to apologize.
"We're trying to avoid being noticed, not scare anyone to death. Got it memorized?" Axel called over his shoulder.
Roxas tapped him on the arm, pointing to their right. "It might be too late for that."
"OMC IT'S AXEL!" A girl on the other side of the street wearing a black Kingdom Hearts II shirt fangirl squealed. Everyone who has read the previous chapter knows that her name is Latia, so the authoress feels no need to keep repeating this.
"Why do you have to be so tall?" Riku complained as they tried to run, getting in the way of tourists' cameras and regular shoppers. "She can still see you!"
"There's only one right now; we might survive if we can get out of this crowd fast," Axel said. They were so close to where the pavement trailed off into sand, but Axel's bright-red spikes sticking out over most of the crowd's heads made them an easy target in the meantime.
"Why can't we open a dark corridor?" Roxas asked.
"A civilian might fall in. Besides, we don't have our coats right now." Axel side-stepped a mother and her crying child, still running.
"If we still had our normal clothes we could pass as cosplayers," Riku mused.
Axel mentally facepalmed. Why didn't I think of that? But it would be strange cosplaying outside a convention; the fangirls might not believe it anyway. "Too late for that. Faster!"
It was less a problem of speed than dodging ability. Which they had plenty of, but their side of the street was more crowded than the fangirl's, and her determination was bringing her closer to being right across from them. The crowd was thinning out though; maybe they'd make it…
"There's another one! Do they appear like Heartless?" Roxas saw a fangirl with a Heartless symbol necklace (Nicole/Neko) along with the first charging after them, but still on the opposite side of the road.
"We're doomed." With that pessimistic statement, Riku bolted into one of the shops.
"Fine, sacrifice your party members, I see how it is." Axel glanced behind him to the right, where there were now five additional fangirls. "On second thought, let's split." He took off for a different store.
"Axel!" Roxas panicked. The fangirl mob was crossing the street. Shoppers parted like the red sea, probably not wanting to be trampled and/or catch some disease. "Flexible thinking now?" He wasn't so good at that, but he managed to dive into a restaurant.
The fangirls (there were around twenty that followed him now, with more teleporting in every minute), had obviously seen him. They were squealing about Roxas's adorable hair and various pairings as they flooded into the restaurant. A few stayed outside, searching for Axel and Riku.
Roxas nimbly skipped around waiters, customers, and tables, fleeing for his life and sanity. He was proud that he'd only knocked over one plate of food, some sort of fish in cream sauce. The lady who it had spilled on hadn't been too pleased, but she'd get over it. He hoped. He already had enough people chasing him down. The fangirls were now rabidly chanting his name in between squeals.
He crawled under a table, leapt over a couple's linked hands, dodged between two waiters carrying platters. He had no clue where to go, his casual clothes stuck out like an Organization coat in Agrabah around all the fancy diners, and he and the fangirls were causing mass destruction. Mostly the fangirls. Anyway, he was bound to be hurled out of there soon.
A door! He had no clue where it led (having not stopped long enough to read the sign), but he shoved it open. Forward was the only option.
His tennis shoes clomped against the tile floor, and he caught a glimpse of his reflection as he threw himself into a stall, cowering on top of a toilet.
Even fangirls wouldn't try to come into a guys' bathroom, would they? He paled, realizing something. Wait, is this even…
Giggling girls, right outside his stall.
I am so dead.
XXX
Axel never thought he'd hate being tall. Then again, he'd never thought about lots of things that had happened today.
Like hiding in a souvenir t-shirt rack. He ducked down as low as possible, fabric brushing against him on every side, and wished he had a hood to hide his overly-conspicuous hair. Ninety-degree weather or not, I should've bought a jacket. Of course, the tattoos on his face were also dead giveaways to his identity. He just hoped the shirts with pictures of sunny beaches on them would hide him from view until the fangirls passed.
Twelve of them came running and squealing around a shelf of snow globes, led by Latia and Cael, who both seemed to be laughing more than fangirling. Cael held up a hand for them to stop and they obeyed her without question as Latia sniffed around.
Don't tell me she has a Zexion nose too! Axel didn't move an inch, didn't even breathe, praying and promising anything, even that he'd dye his hair purple, if only the fangirls would leave. He recalled the horrors of the last fangirl attack and had no intention of living through them again if he could help it.
But unfortunately, he couldn't help it. The fangirls' tracking instincts were strong, causing Latia's head to whip towards the clothing rack.
Some noise between a squeal and a scream burst out of the other fangirls' mouths, and they launched themselves at the clothing rack, knocking it on its side with a loud clang and clatters as shirts and hangers flew everywhere.
Then the fangirls mobbed Axel in a deadly dogpile.
"Can't- breathe!" Axel choked, buried in the force of ten simultaneous glomps. His face was pressed against the gritty tile floor. Painful, but much better than being in a position where he was vulnerable to being kissed. Gross.
Other than that his lungs were being crushed, the only thought he registered was that he hoped Roxas wasn't sharing a similar fate. He didn't have time to worry about his friend, though, he was too busy focusing on shielding his face with his arms as he was brutally flipped over. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Latia and Cael actually looking at him with expressions of- was that shame? Confusing, but not causing him any more pain. At least they're not yaoi fangirls like last time- his brain shut down at the horrific memory.
The shop wasn't very large, and the employees had taken notice of the situation almost immediately. The problem was, dealing with rabid fangirls on rampage wasn't in their job descriptions, and it had taken them a while to figure out what to do. Or at least decide to do something. A lady in a Hawaiian print shirt was punching 911 into a phone while two buff guys tried to pry the fangirls off of Axel. Even Latia and Cael were now trying to break up the writhing pile, but they seemed to have lost their magical mind-link control powers.
Axel took a risk and spiked his body temperature, hoping it wouldn't catch his clothes on fire. He'd rather impale himself with his own chakrams than have that happen while covered in fangirls. At least the heat came to him slowly, probably because of the low magic levels on this world.
They squealed louder, but didn't get off of him. Shoppers left the building in a mass exodus, keeping a wide berth around the overturned clothing rack.
This would be so much easier if I could just kill them! He wouldn't dare, though; legends told of the terrors that could then be unleashed. He lashed out with his legs, sending two fangirls crashing into a shelf of seashells. They were drawn back to him like a magnet immediately.
"Gerroff me!" Axel growled, now heating up involuntarily.
"Eek!" A fangirl whose face had been pressed against his arm shrieked, jerking up and whacking another fangirl on the nose. But then she resumed her earlier position as if it had only startled her, not caused real pain.
Do they have any self-preservation instincts at all? Or do they know more about their own abilities than we've suspected? Axel kept thrashing, body temperature rising steadily, and accidentally punched the ankle of one of the men trying to remove the fangirls. He didn't bother to apologize even when the man toppled over.
"Do something! They're driving away the tourists!" A crabby woman snapped, her hands on her hips. The men didn't listen to her, backing away from the pile of living madness.
Then Axel's shirtsleeves caught fire.
"Oh Kingdom Hearts!" Axel tried to focus enough to cool down, the lack of latent magic not helping much, to his annoyance, but now the fangirls were squealing louder. What I wouldn't give for my fire-resistant Organization coat right now… I hope those psychos are in pain, at least.
For a moment the fangirls' grip loosened, and Axel leapt up, flames still flickering at the edges of his sleeves. Employees were gasping in horror, police sirens blaring in response to the earlier phone call. Latia and Cael facepalmed and fled the building, deciding things had gotten a bit too dangerous for their liking.
"Well that ruins Plan A." Before the fangirls could stand up Axel opened a corridor, and his coat fell out of it. He threw it on without bothering to zip it up and opened a corridor, running through. Even if the fangirls followed him, the darkness would cause them enough pain to knock them out when they arrived on the other side.
XXX
Roxas's wits weren't as quick as Axel's. He remembered he couldn't go through a corridor without his coat, but in his panic he'd forgotten where he left it.
I could really use some armor like Riku right now!
The fangirls began to crawl under the stall. Thinking they were like Heartless, Roxas summoned his keyblades and slammed the butt of Oathkeeper into one of their stomachs. She fell on her face but failed to disappear.
"What, you want to throw down?" The girl, who happened to be Neko, yelled, standing back up and attempting to rip Oblivion out of his hand. She managed to yank the keychain and make Roxas accidentally swing at another fangirl.
"Leave me alone!" Roxas yelled, whipping Oathkeeper in a circle than scraped the stall walls and ended by connecting with Neko's ribcage. "Disappear!"
"Only if you want to die a horrible death, got it memorized? I've got a mission, and I intend to accomplish it!" She lunged at him, but Roxas couldn't tell if it was an attempt at a glomp or a strangle.
Right! Axel said we can't kill them. But did he mean can't or shouldn't? And what does she mean by 'mission?' No time to think about that now. Roxas vanished his keyblades and vaulted off of the toilet seat, leaping over the stall door and summersaulting mid-air before he hit the ground running.
"Nice moves! But you can't get away that easily!"
Back through the restaurant, out the door, fangirls still on his tail, Neko shouting threats at his heels. Roxas wasn't used to being chased; normally he would kill anything before it had the chance. And he still didn't know what would happen if they caught up. That was probably the scariest thing, that and the fact that even Axel was terrified of them.
The pyro would probably kill him for using magic in public later, but Roxas was desperate. He jumped over a teenager carting a surfboard and glided the rest of the way to the beach.
XXX
"Do you think they're okay?" Naminé asked, trailing her finger anxiously through the sand, waves lapping at her heeled sandals. She knew Xion wanted to win her bet, but maybe she should've told her not to send fangirls after the boys.
Xion took a bite of her orange ice cream bar. Riku had somehow managed to buy them all ice cream, and she'd chosen the one that most resembled sea-salt in shape. The flavor was fruity, though, with a vanilla center. It was good, but she still preferred her usual flavor.
"They'll be fine," Xion said, examining a chipped sea-shell. "They've both been through worse." Of course, like Roxas, she hadn't been in the Organization during the fangirl attack, so she didn't know of their dangerous powers. She'd been surprised when Riku told her that there were more than four fangirls chasing after them, but she still figured they could handle the situation.
Riku snorted, pacing. "You didn't see those fangirls." He was more annoyed that the mission was being held up than he was about Axel and Roxas's safety. But when it came to fangirls… he shuddered. Nobody wanted to see a fellow character go through that. He tried to put uncomfortable thoughts out of his head and comfort himself with the fact that Kairi, Xion, and Naminé had already searched the area and found a condominium overflowing with lesser Nobodies. As soon as they met up with Axel and Roxas, they could hunt down Demyx and rescue Sora. Then Riku could go home and maybe fit in a nice long nap before some other disaster occurred.
"They're just girls, right?" Kairi said, wading up to her knees in the foamy saltwater. "Weird girls, but they still can't be that bad."
"You would think that," Riku replied cryptically, sniffing the air. The scent reminded him of home, except for the terrible cigarette smell that irritated his nose and throat. Under the other smells was something that smelled fluffy and pink and vicious, like killer cotton candy. Fangirls.
Xion tilted her head to focus on a high-pitched squeal that was steadily growing louder. "Is that noise...?"
"Get down!" Riku ran straight into the ocean, diving under once he was up to his waist. The others didn't react in time and were nearly barreled over by a flying Roxas, who spun around in midair.
"Run! They're after me! Fangirls!" His eyes were wide with fear as the screeching increased in pitch. Xion would've found the fact that he was afraid of teenage girls hilarious, except for that the whole situation was her fault. I didn't know they could mob like that! They didn't' seem nearly that scary around us!
A dark corridor opened, dumping a disheveled Axel onto the ground.
He spat out sand as he stood, rubbing his head. "They're still coming, aren't they?" He glanced behind them at the incoming hoard. "Do they have tracking devices on us or something?"
"They're a very interesting breed," Naminé commented with surprising calm.
"And they're heading right for us," Riku stuck his head out of the water long enough to deadpan.
Xion took Axel's hand and jumped, and they both levitated next to Roxas.
"Thank goodness we all magically got Glide panels after flying in Neverland, huh?" Axel said.
Nobody had time to reply – the fangirl mob was almost to them. Kairi and Riku slapped their ever-present armor pieces and threw their keyblades, jumping on when their gliders came back around.
But that still left Naminé on the ground, and by this time the fangirls were in such a frenzy they would glomp any character, male or female, to death on sight. They rallied around Neko, who was now holding a cosplay Kingdom Key that appeared to be made out of cardboard. The expression on her face told the characters she still meant serious business.
"Get ready to throw down!" She called, holding out the key to direct the fangirl army to charge.
"Roxas!" Naminé called, mentally cursing her uselessness. She'd finally gotten resurrected only to be a liability.
"Naminé!" Roxas yelled back, swooping down to stand in front of her like a shield.
Axel facepalmed as a wave of fangirls hit the two grounded ex-Nobodies. This is why chivalry is dead: it kills people. But he couldn't just let one of his best friends get mauled by fangirls.
He let go of Xion's hand and dived into the living wave, grabbing a fangirl and dropping her into the ocean. Not anywhere too far off to where she couldn't swim back, but far enough for it to take a while, unless she couldn't swim at all. He became a flying whirlwind, repeating the process with several more fangirls, but more had joined the hoard.
"Water clone alert!" Xion called from above as the fangirl Axel was carrying licked his arm. He dropped her instantly, recoiling.
"Now that is plain disgusting." Axel would've thrown up if there was anything in his stomach, but he hadn't eaten anything today. I don't get paid enough for these kinds of jobs. He wiped saliva on his pants, vowing revenge on every fangirl he could get his hands on. Torture isn't the same as killing, right?
Kairi and Riku charged and shot down the water clones with lasers attached to their gliders, their armor protecting them. Xion summoned her keyblade and tried to shoot Thundaga at the ones who weren't too close the fangirls. She barely got a spark.
"This must look like a movie scene to the locals. Or apocalypse," Axel muttered, flying beside Xion and throwing his deadly-accurate chakrams.
"This is making me miss the Heartless," Xion said. "At least you can kill them." She scrunched her eyes closed and directed the spark at a water clone, making it disappear. But that still left over a hundred to go.
Roxas had his keyblades out, making an X to block the flood of fangirls. It strangely resembled a sign to ward off demons, but a clearly ineffective one. The fangirls were throwing themselves at him and Naminé from all sides, and it was all he could do to bat them away before they were glomped.
"Do you have a plan?" Naminé asked.
"Uh, this is my plan," Roxas replied, stumbling over a fangirl's foot. His defenses broken, the fangirls charged as one, killing his brain cells by shouting an onslaught of yaoi pairings. Roxas and Naminé disappeared under the wave.
"Axel, over there!" Xion called, pointing to the chaotic mass.
Axel caught his chakrams as they flew back to him. He nearly smacked himself for his stupidity but figured it wouldn't feel nice to have a giant chakram spike impaled through his skull. "Freeze them! Then I'll fly them away."
"Problem: Magic's not working so well here." Xion tried another Thundaga to demonstrate.
Axel muttered something violent to himself. This is by far the stupidest world in the universe. What world doesn't even have enough magic for a single Thundaga, but still lets me catch on fire? Granted, I was pretty furious… "Then we'll have to keep improvising."
"We've been improvising!" Xion exclaimed, dropping to the ground long enough to slash through a few water clones, panicking at the reappearance of the timer. "Time's running out! We'll black out soon!"
Even worse, the water clones seemed to have no effect on the fangirls. They were now so mixed together that Kairi and Riku couldn't charge them without risking killing a fangirl and raining down inescapable doom upon them. They still shot at them with laser bullets, though taking much more time and care to aim.
"I've got it!" Axel yelled, hovering next to Xion. "We'll have to let ourselves get touched by the water clones. That's the only way we can stop the timer."
"But what happens if the fangirls attack us while we're dancing?" Xion asked.
"It's that or let them attack us while we're unconscious. Which sounds worse?" Axel glided to the ground, holding chakrams out to protect from fangirls. This better work…
Xion sighed, but she knew that was their best bet. Calling out the plan to their friends, she landed next to Axel.
Water clones surrounded them, poking them with their slimy arms, then backed away. The same thing happened for Roxas, and Naminé, giving them room to sing and dance. Only Riku and Kairi kept their distance, staying high above in their gliders and shooting down clones as fast as they could as Still Alive started up.
"This was a failure," all the characters sang together, though they hadn't yet started dancing.
Axel was oddly calm as he sang, "I'd just like to tell you: We're all doomed."
"I'm sorry that they followed me to here," Roxas apologized.
"Psychotic fangirls," Xion began, but Axel took over.
"We'll do what we must if we can. For the good of all of us, we can't go and kill them dead."
The other characters joined in with unexpected optimism, probably some side effect of singing. "But there's no sense crying over every mistake, when all this is over we'll go and get some cake!"
"If we survive that is," Naminé sang.
"We've been through worse than this, and we'll come out again still alive."
The fangirls parted to allow Roxas and Axel to reach each other and duet. "I'm still really angry, I'd rather be somewhere else right now. They glomped me so hard I thought that they would kill me."
Xion took Roxas's place guarding Naminé, in case the fangirls stopped staring in awe and decided to attack again. "But you're still in one piece-"
"Because I escaped by using fire. As I burned I hope it hurt those violent fangirls."
Said fangirls joined in the song, even though as far as the characters knew, the water clones hadn't forced them. "We don't want to hurt you so don't be so mean, we'll just fangirl for you while we wait for KH3!"
"Well I'm glad I got burned, look at the pretty scar I earned," sang one fangirl wearing a 'AXEL 3 ROXAS 4EVAR' shirt. Axel shuddered and stepped back behind Xion and Naminé.
"Just be thankful that you're still alive."
The fangirls reorganized themselves into a square formation and began to do the Caramelldansen to the music, which looked rather awkward but was good news for the Kingdom Hearts characters. "Go ahead and leave us. We'll all go back to our homes and cry."
"No, don't give up we need to take them alive," Neko commanded her troops in song, Caramelldansen-ing at the front of the ranks.
"We'll keep on singing," Roxas and Axel sang more loudly as they were forced to do some sort of Irish folk dance. Not that either of them really knew what Irish was.
"You two usually whine when this happens," Xion pointed out as she cartwheeled past them.
"Anyway this time it's great, the fangirls are dancing too."
The characters joined in together, "Look at us still singing when there's Demyx to find,"
"But it's kind of fun, so I don't really mind." Xion and Naminé twirled with each other.
"We've got to do recon, there's a battle to be won," Riku sang.
"So we can go home and be still alive."
The characters lined up in front of the fangirl army, like they were about to have an epic face-off. "And believe us we'll be still alive."
Roxas, Naminé, and Xion sang in turn,
"I hate recon but I am still alive."
"I'm resurrected and I'm still alive."
"I won't die again I'll stay still alive."
Axel pointed at the fangirls, glaring darkly. "And when you're dead I will be still alive."
Everyone, fangirls included, finished off the song:
"Still alive,
Still alive."
The music ended, but the fangirls were still dancing. The water clones then started up a new tune that only seemed to affect them, leading them entranced away from the characters. Only Neko remained, rubbing her head, the cardboard keyblade slung limply over her shoulder. One fangirl on her own didn't seem so scary.
Roxas blinked in surprise. "That was… I don't know what that was."
"I think we owe Demyx a favor," Axel said incredulously. "I'm surprised he's still stuck to the Anti-Fangirl Alliance Pact."
"I'm surprised the shippings the fangirls yelled at me didn't kill me instantly." Roxas winced, trying to think happy thoughts. Thoughts of Naminé chased away the disturbing shippings remarkably well, and he relaxed.
"I feel your pain," Axel said, paling as well. Unfortunately, being the oldest of the group, there were no girls for him to use as anti-yaoi shields. Unless he wanted to make Kairi or Xion really uncomfortable, but he'd already teased Xion enough today, and he still wasn't on the best of terms with Kairi.
Riku and Kairi landed their gliders and let their armor disappear. The locals were staring at them from everywhere.
"That's a wrap!" Latia called, pressing a button on her video camera and walking towards them from the ice cream shop, followed by Cael and Rubicon. "Perfect, we'll have some excellent footage for the movie. Go home and get some rest, we wouldn't want to tire out our actors, right?"
The girls exchanged a knowing glance, and the characters took the hint.
"Right," Axel said, covering Roxas and Xion's mouths to keep them from blowing their new cover. "The new holo technology sure looks realistic, doesn't it?" He added loudly. Does this world even have holo technology?
"Directors are getting younger. And shorter," an old man commented somewhere down the beach. "And all this blasted 'technology' needs to get out of our peaceful beaches!"
"Yep," Neko said in response to Axel's statement, completely ignoring the old man and walking over like she hadn't just been acting psycho moments before.
Latia glared at her, ripping the keyblade out of her hands. "You get none of my next batch of sea-salt ice cream," she hissed just loud enough for her to hear. "And if you ever steal my cosplay again, I will hunt you down with my other two keyblades and we will throw down!"
"That's my catchphrase!" Neko complained.
"So I'm not the only one who's been stolen from today," Axel mused.
"We'd better get going," Cael said, dragging Latia, who was still glaring daggers at Neko, by the arm away from the site of the battle.
"Can I smell your hair now?" Nicole asked hopefully.
"No." Naminé didn't hesitate. Roxas stared at both of them awkwardly. "Don't ask," she said to him.
"We're leaving," Cael called over her shoulder, and Neko pulled Rubicon away. "Good luck and all that."
"Sorry for probably scarring you for life." Neko waved cheerfully.
"So how do you know them?" Axel asked, taking his hand away from Roxas and Xion's mouths.
"Er, it's a long story…" Xion mumbled. Axel gestured for her to go on. "I asked them to slow you down so I wouldn't lose our bet. I promise I didn't know they would summon more."
Axel facepalmed and muttered some unpleasant things to himself.
"Next chance we get to sit down, I'll have to tell you and Roxas about the last fangirl attack. Gotta educate you so this doesn't happen again." He ruffled her hair with a laugh. "Let's stay far, far away from them from now on. Deal?"
"Deal." Xion nodded, glad Axel wasn't too mad at her. She grinned. "But we found out where Demyx's hideout is. You and Roxas owe me ice cream."
A/N: Still Alive is another awesome Portal song that was fairly easy to parody. Very morale-boosting.