Chapter 11: Like Riding a Bike
Heart raised an eyebrow when Love and Passion approached her the second she completed her patrol of the outer limits of town. The pair looked excited about something, which rarely boded well for her.
"You are coming with us!" Passion happily announced, putting her hands on her hips;. "We got permission from Sora to take you out for a night on the town! A couple of the other Soldiers and Knights are going to join us as well."
"Including a certain Wutaian princess," Love sang.
Heart rolled her eyes. "Sorry. Not interested."
"Too bad," Passion replied. "You don't have a choice. When we told Sora it would be an excellent team bonding experience, he made it mandatory for all six of us. We already sent Strength and Wisdom to tell Peace."
Heart frowned at them, unsure of what to do. While it was true she was the leader and had the power to decide for herself what so-called "bonding activities" she would take place in, the fact was that Sora outranked her. If she did make a big deal of it, he would get the other Guardians involved and she would lose the respect she'd earned over the years.
So even though the last thing she wanted to do after hours of running and jumping across rooftops and stopping petty crime was to go out and socialize, the consequences would be far worse if she didn't. As long as she didn't make a complete and utter fool of herself, like she suspected her comrades would be doing, she would be okay.
"Fine," Heart said with a barely concealed sigh. "But I'm not staying long."
Love and Passion high-fived their victory.
Vibrant was one of the newest bars in town; one which quickly became the nightly hangout for the more social Soldiers and Knights. From what Kairi understood, it'd been discovered by Wild Thief and Wandering Dawn, who were forever on the lookout for adventure and fun, and they quickly informed everyone else. Within a few days, everyone knew about it.
Kairi felt exposed as she stepped into the bar, flanked by an overly excited Selphie and a disguised Prince Ienzo. Even off-duty and forced into heels and a short, chiffon dress, the first thing she did was take notice of her surroundings. In a matter of seconds, she memorized the various exits and where would be the best place to bunker down in case of an attack. She then took a moment to get a look at the people inhabiting the bar, even knowing most of them were her comrades.
"Pretty cool, right?" Selphie asked, slightly raising her voice to be heard over the music. It wasn't so loud that it caused the entire building to pulse, but speaking at a normal volume would be difficult.
Kairi shrugged. How was she to know what made a bar cool or uncool? All she knew was that it was different than what she'd expected. Whenever the others mentioned going drinking, she envisioned a dimly lit room filled with wooden furniture and floors and maybe a scruffy-looking bartender.
Vibrant wasn't like that.
Aside from the stage, which was wood, the floor was tiled with perfectly level stone in shades of blue and green. About a third of the way up on the walls was something similar to window planters, except it was continuous across three walls, except where the front door and the emergency exit were. Brightly colored flowers and leafy greens filled the beds, illuminated by soft lights hidden behind them. Beneath the planters, the wall was oak paneling, but the top two-thirds was simply painted a cream color. Pictures of various locations around Radiant Garden were hung throughout the room. A total of four ceiling fans spun lazily from the ceiling, providing just enough of a breeze to keep things comfortable.
Prince Ienzo leaned close to her so he wouldn't have to speak loudly. "Emyd and your brother are over there. I'm going to go join them."
Kairi followed his gaze to the side of the room, where a redhead with a short ponytail and a blond man were sitting. The blond was gesturing wildly and she could only guess that he was using his powers over water to keep his drink from splashing all over the table. "Don't go anywhere without me," she murmured.
Prince Ienzo nodded and then left her alone with Selphie.
"Naminé's at the bar," the brunette said, nudging Kairi towards their fellow Soldier. "I'm gonna go let Olette know we're here and then I'll join you.
Kairi watched her skip away and then reluctantly made her way towards Naminé. Before she got very far, two guys swooped in and took her by both arms, gently steering her away. One was a blond with a ponytail and the other was a short-haired brunet. Kairi glared at the blond one.
"Oh, lighten up," he said, rolling his eyes. "We just want you to come talk to our friend and then you can go sulk in the corner if that's what you really wanna do."
"Though I don't know why you'd want to," said the brunet. "Why would you come here if you're just going to sit and not talk to anyone? What's the point in that?"
"Sora made it mandatory," Kairi grumbled. "Let go of me. Both of you."
"Mandatory?" repeated the brunet, sounding amazed. "Hey, Zidane, you think we could trick Squall into making every night mandatory bar night?"
Zidane laughed. "Not a chance! Though it could be fun to try. I bet we could get Seifer to help us."
The brunet winced. "Um, that might not work very well. I kind of accidentally pissed him off."
"Bartz...!" Zidane groaned.
As the two bickered, Kairi could only sigh and let herself be shuffled towards a table where a slender girl with short black hair was sitting. She was sure that having one of the Knights annoyed with another would come back to bite her in the ass later, but it really wasn't her problem to solve. Her issue was rising from her seat, a hopeful expression on her face.
Kairi steeled herself for a long night of keeping her partner at arms length.
Naturally, Sora decided that immediately after school was the perfect time to head out to their island and do a little training. Tidus had lucked out with his Monday evening practice, but Naminé and Kairi were shepherded along with no regards to how they felt about it. Thankfully, they had Olette and Roxas around to keep Sora from having them do anything too crazy.
"Sora, it's ninety degrees out here," Roxas said, rolling his eyes. "We are not making them run an obstacle course. We talked about this last night, remember? The objective today is to help them summon their personal weapons."
"But I had it all planned out!" Sora complained. "Can we at least do it tomorrow?"
"You can if you want, but I think Olette might have something to say about me skipping study group," Roxas said. While his twin grumbled about the unfairness of it all, he walked over to the three girls to let them know what they'd been doing.
One-by-one they transformed.
Kairi's school uniform shimmered away in a dazzling pink light, replaced by her pink zippered dress and pink sneakers. Her hair twisted itself up into two buns and her mask settled on her face. Black gloves replaced the bracelets on her wrists.
A frost-like substance quickly crystallized over Naminé, starting from her fingertips and toes, and transformed her clothing into a familiar white dress. Instead of wrapping into any sort of hairstyle, her hair shortened until the longest pieces could just reach her jaw. It was a slower process than Heart expected and she wondered just how much time they lost when they had to shift into their Soldier forms.
She got her answer a moment later when a dazzling golden light blazed to life around Olette only to clear a second later. Heart rapidly blinked her eyes to try and clear the spots dancing across her vision. As they began to fade, she finally got a better look at Love Soldier.
Her curly brown hair was pulled up to one side and held in place by an orange ribbon, which matched the shade of her mask and dress. Her dress was a bright orange which laced up in the front loosely enough to reveal the tan slip she wore beneath it. Her long tan gloves covered only the back of her hand with one loop around her middle finger to keep it from sliding. Her knee-high combat boots were the same color, though the laces were orange.
"It gets easier," Love promised them, reading the expressions on their face perfectly. "Soon you'll be transforming just as fast as me!"
"Using your abilities will also get easier with practice," Roxas said. "Right now you'll only be able to use the basic forms of your powers. Normally, this means we wouldn't push you to summon your weapons, but our situation here is a little more unique. Peace, you will be working with myself and Love, since you remember your weapon. Heart, you will spend time meditating with Sora until you recall yours."
Relief flooded Heart's body as she walked over to Sora, who looked more cheered at the fact that they would be working together. Once she reached him, he led her away from the others to a more shaded area where they could sit in quiet.
"So, how are you feeling about all of this?" He asked.
"Still confused," Heart admitted, settling down in the cool sand. "Sora, what if I never remember everything? What if I spend the rest of my life viewing my life through my dreams? Just... fragments of memory?"
Sora sat down across from her. "Then we'll figure out how to deal with it. But you know, I think you'll be a great Soldier even without them." He smiled softly, reaching over to take her gloved hands. "You're so strong, Kai. It's a different strength than before, and that's not a bad thing. I always used to wonder how different things would have been if we gave you the chance to grow up without your destiny hanging over your head and, well, now we know. And you're better for it."
Tension Heart hadn't realized she'd been carrying melted away at his words. "So that's why..."
Sora smiled bitterly and let go of her hands. "We were warned back then, that the consequences of waking your powers too early could have dire effects on you. And he was right. You were one of my best friends back then, but there was always this... distance to you. It always killed me that no one could get through it. So, that's why when I remembered in this life, I made everyone promise not to force the Awakening." He paused, turning his head to watch as Love demonstrated her arrows of light. "You can see the effects on Naminé too. You two worked together a lot in the past, so I'm sure she's prevalent in your dreams."
Heart nodded. "She seems... happier, I think."
"We found her not long after we started your training. We thought putting the two of you together would be our best course of action. At least then you'd have someone your own age to spend your free time with. But, uh, it turned out not to be the best balance," Sora said, scratching the back of his neck. "We talked about this yesterday, remember? About Knights being the balance for Soldiers? I mean, it goes both ways, of course, but that's primarily what happens. Sometimes another Soldier can serve as a placeholder of sorts, until an appropriate Knight is found. We took too long though..."
"My past self wasn't very friendly," Heart said bluntly.
Sora looked startled.
"It's okay. You can say it," Heart said with a quiet sigh. "You should stop blaming yourself. I'm sure you were just doing what you thought needed to be done." She paused a moment. "I do have one question."
Sora sat up straight. "Okay. Lets hear it!"
Heart looked him in the eyes. "You never aged back then. Why?"
Sora stared at her with wide eyes, his mouth forming a tiny 'o' shape until he got over his shock. "Oh. Right. I forgot you wouldn't remember that..." He sighed, tilting his head back to stare at the bits of sky he could see through the leaves of the palms. "It's such a long story... but the gist of it is, back then the four of us were sort of... stuck outside of time. We stopped aging. We never really knew why, so we decided to make the best of it. Since we've got our own special powers, it sort of made sense to help train all of the people the planets were choosing as their champions. Along the way, they named us Guardians and that's what we've called ourselves ever since. Of course, now we actually age normally," Sora said with a laugh. "I'm kind of glad about that, because it would raise some awkward questions nowadays. Plus, we never would've gotten to be friends!
"But enough about the past. It's time to focus on the now," he said. "Me and you have some meditating to do! So take my hands and close your eyes..."
Sora found it impossible to sit still when he met up with Cloud, Riku, Yuffie, and Tifa at Seventh Heaven later that evening. He strummed his fingers on top of the bar for a while, only to cease when Cloud gave him an annoyed look. Then he moved on to jiggling his foot, but had to stop when he accidentally kicked Yuffie. After a few seconds pause, he returned to tapping a rhythm on the bar.
"You look like you did after you found out I have an espresso machine in the back," Tifa said, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. "You haven't been drinking my coffee again, have you?"
"Nah, Riku wouldn't let me," Sora replied with a grin. "Some good stuff happened during training today! I helped Kairi figure out her energy ribbon! Oh! And Naminé managed to summon her ice chain! It shattered before she could use it, but it's a great start!"
Cloud sighed. "We're supposed to wait for Roxas before you tell us about it."
"Don't care. Roxas was there. He knows all of this," Sora said, ignoring his older brother's eye roll and mutter of: "That's not the point."
Yuffie perked up at the mention of Kairi. "So she remembers now? Does this mean I can start fighting alongside of them? I'm so tired of recon!"
"Not yet," Cloud told her.
Yuffie pouted and slumped in her stool. "No fair. Sora gets to have all the fun."
Cloud sighed. He wasn't sure which of them was worse: Sora or Yuffie. "If you promise me you will not count every attack as an emergency, then you can join them when they could use the extra help. Three Berserkers do not count as an emergency."
"Four Berserkers?" Yuffie tried. She wavered under Cloud's hard gaze. "Fine. Six of them. Or Three Assassins, a Berserker, and two Sorcerers. Or-"
Riku interjected before she could get too carried away. "If it looks like they won't make it out of the fight without help, then you go in. It's as simple as that."
With a loud, exaggerated sigh, Yuffie agreed to the terms. She cheered up seconds later when her cell phone chimed and she pulled it out to see the message. A big smile split across her face and she jumped down from the stool. "Time for me to run and pick up Tifa's new house guest at the docks! I'll see you all later!"
Tifa waited until she was out the door before turning around to go to the back room. "I better go put away the espresso machine."
"You are way too fucking worried about this," Axel criticized as he sat down on the couch next to a moping Demyx. "Okay, so you couldn't talk to the kid today. Big deal."
"But I love him!"
Axel rolled his eyes and smacked Demyx in the head with one of the couch pillows. "Don't be so melodramatic, dumbass. This isn't one of those lifetime movies you think I don't know you love to watch." For good measure, he bopped his friend a second time.
Demyx tried to wrestle the pillow from the redhead, but quickly gave up to dramatically flop over the arm of the couch. "I'm a failure! I'll never love again!" He wailed, hiding his grin with his arm.
"Yeah, yeah," Axel muttered.
"I'm not like you. I can't just snap my fingers and have him fall into my arms!" Demyx continued, hamming it up as much as he could.
"Right. Let me just snap my fingers right now and watch Roxas fall into my lap and profess his undying love for me," Axel said sarcastically. Then he snapped his fingers.
Flames sparked to life from his fingertips and he yelped loudly, violently shaking his hands in an attempt to kill the fire.
Demyx lifted his head up and shrieked, practically climbing over the back of the couch in his haste to get away before his best friend could catch him on fire as well. He windmilled his arms as he toppled over backwards.
A small wave of water crashed over Axel, soaking him and the couch. It also effectively put out the flame.
As Demyx hesitantly peered over the arm with wide eyes, Reno stood frozen in the doorway, watching the scene unfold.
End Chapter
Next chapter: Passion Enters the Fray
