Usagi: the plot is slowly moving forward and another chapter is ready… more or less…
Midnight is the perfect hour to upload Fanfiction!
Zakura: Actually its one hour passed midnight.
Usagi: oh? Guess I'm late then:3 Last part of this chapter was a little interesting to write as it's seen mostly trhough the eyes of Sora, who in case you had forgotten, is still a heartless, which is why he's still a little mentally challenged (more so than usual). Yet he still manages to discover something rather important (also JAKX-SPOILER! But I've already warned you it'll be plenty of those in this fic), too bad he can't seem to tell anyone.
Chapter 21
It Sucks To Be Sora
"You know, except for a small rash in the nether regions, I feel fine. Maybe Krew was bluffing with the whole poison-stuff" Daxter said, as the crew were back at Krew's office building.
"I had the bottle analyzed. There were traces of black shade at the bottom, a rare and deadly plant found in the wasteland" Ashelin said. "We were poisoned alright."
"Father never cut corners. Trust me, it's the real deal" Rayn said.
"Never fear! When the going gets though…Jak will get us out of it" Daxter said.
"Well. We just have to win the whole thing" Cornelius said and shrugged.
"Against those lunatic racers out there? What are the odds?" Daxter said.
"You don't want to know" Torn said saddened.
"Geez, guys. Where's your sense of adventure?" Tetra teased.
"Easy for you to ask that, your life's not on the line" Daxter complained. "Someone better win this race, or I'll be very pissed".
"And very dead" Axel commented.
"Nice one, guess not all ottsels are complete morons" Tetra said.
"Okay that's it! You're going down" Daxter said and attacked Tetra, or would have hadn't Jak grabbed his tail.
"Knock it of. Are you even going to attack girls now?" he asked.
"Tetra's not a girl; she's an evil half-demon, half-rabbit, and half-chinchilla thing. She's probably related to Usagi's psychotic rabbit as well" Daxter said.
"Who's psychotic what? Get down from there" Jak said, pulling Daxter into the couch.
"Guys, stop fighting it doesn't help at all" Kate said.
"She started" Daxter growled.
"That's only because you're so teasable" Tetra said.
"That goes for you too Tetra" Kate said.
It was time for another race, and everyone not racing was watching it on TV in the bar.
"Oh my god this is awful. Is that really legal?" Kairi asked as one of the cars exploded and flew of the course.
"Hey. This sport's called Combat Racing for a reason" Axel said, he was watching the screen with great interest. "Why, if still had my old body I would have blown those guys to smithereens! I wouldn't need a weapon, other than my chakrams perhaps."
"It's a cruel world, better get used to it" Kate said, the tone of her voice revealed she didn't like it much either.
"Well I'm not going to watch this, coming guys? Kairi asked. "Guys?" she said again as she wasn't getting any replies.
"Not now Kairi, this is exiting" Riku said.
"Boys!" Kairi growled, and went outside.
Seeing as it was the middle of a race, the streets were slightly safer to walk in than usual, even little kids came out from the safety of their houses and started playing.
"It appears this town has its good sides after all" Kairi said to herself and smiled.
Suddenly, without warning a small creature ran out of an alleyway right in front of Kairi, who jumped in surprise, until she noticed was it was.
"Oh… just a rat" she said, as the rodent ran of in the direction she had come from.
As she looked for the rat, she heard high-pitched squeaking behind her, and suddenly dozens of rats ran out of the alley and ran straight past her. Kairi wasn't usually scared of rodents but frankly…who'd want twenty wild rats running straight at you? (Usagi: I DO! Zakura: YOU'RE NUTS!)
She screamed.
The rats ignored her, all but one who suddenly stopped and looked at her with an almost curious look.
Kairi looked back at the rat. It had a peculiar colour, almost blonde, and it looked somewhat familiar.
"Do…I know you?" she asked, she could hardly believe she was talking to a rat, but then again…didn't the team she was travelling consist of a giant mouse, a dog, a duck, an ottsel, a beaver and a cat?
The rat however didn't answer; it just looked at her, and then ran away again, following the other rats.
Must be just a normal rat after all, Kairi thought, and got up.
Suddenly she heard engines roaring and a few racing cars drove past her.
One car drove up right next to her and actually bumped into the wall only 5 feet away from her, Daxter jumped down from his spot on top of the car.
"Hey Kairi! Did you see us? We won!" the ottsel said enthusiastically.
"Oh that's wonderful Daxter, sorry. I was out here all the time. Combat racing just isn't my thing" Kairi apologized.
"Must be a girl-thing" Jak muttered.
"What are you talking about? Tess and Keira loves it" Daxter said.
"But those two aren't just normal girls. Tess loves gun and Keira is a mechanic. Want a ride back to the garage?" Jak asked Kairi.
"Er… no thanks. I'd rather walk if you don't mind" Kairi said.
"Suit yourself then" Daxter said and took on his goggles before crawling back up to the top of the car. "STEP ON IT JAK!" he yelled as Jak backed away from the wall and followed his friends back to the garage.
Kairi walked back to the garage as well, on the way she saw the blonde rat again sitting on a trash-can grooming itself, like any other rat.
Once it noticed her however it jumped of the trashcan and went into hiding.
"Guess I must have imagined it" Kairi said to herself and kept walking.
Back at the garage everyone were celebrating Jak's win.
"Congratulations Jak, you've now qualified our team for the Deathdome" Rayn said.
"That sounds nasty" Daxter said.
"It is" said a voice behind them, and in came no other than G.T. Blitz, the host of G.T Blitz-show which covered the combat races.
"You guys will finally see what I have been talking about all along. Complete speed, and complete danger!" he added with a dramatic pose. "Many racers have died on these lanes, chasing a sad dream."
"Why don't they just change the rules on these races so that no one has to die?" Kairi asked.
"Where's the entertainment value in that?" Blitz asked sounding confused. "Well good luck Jak, you'll need it. More than I need ratings".
Blitz walked away laughing as Daxter slapped Jak in the head.
"Hey! Say some hero stuff!" the orange ottsel said.
"I got to go fix some thing, you guys party on without me" Rayn said as she got up.
"Need any help?" Roxas asked.
"No, there's no need" Rayn said and left.
"Why did you get so helpful all of a sudden?" Riku asked.
"I don't know… there's just something suspicious about her" Roxas said.
Sora nodded in agreement, before going back to eating whatever eatable (and non-eatable) he found on the table.
"Rayn might be the daughter of Krew, but I assure you she's on our side in this" Keira said. "Krew tricked her too."
"You mean he poisoned his own daughter?" Kairi asked, and Keira nodded. "I don't believe it."
"He was a real bastard that's for sure" Keira said. "But er… where did that heartless of yours go?"
Roxas looked at the table which was noticeably empty (no food either, even the candles were gone). "Strange, he was here a minute ago. I'm sure he'll show up sooner or later" he said.
The shadow in question had in fact left the room, and was now looking for Rayn.
He followed her scent into another room, and heard an unknown voice.
"So just remember Rayn, pour in your drink first, and it should be harmless, the others will get the full dose" the voice said.
Sora used his nifty ability to make himself as flat as the floor, and crept under the door. Okay, so maybe there WERE advantages to being a shadow after all.
He could only smell one heart in the room, yet there were two people, one was transparent though, as if he wasn't even there. And he was HUGE. He almost looked like a big body heartless, 'cept he was obviously not a heartless. Sora would have noticed.
"I wished I could give you a hug" the transparent man said.
Sora, being too busy looking at the big man (heartless have a very short attention span) didn't see where he was going and crashed into a vase.
Rayn quickly pressed a button on a small disk and the transparent man disappeared, before she turned around and looked at Sora with a confused look.
So the transparent man came from the disk.
"Oh, it's just the human's little pet" Rayn said.
Sora's antennas perched at the word "pet", he remembered having heard it before, Zexion had been called Annie's "pet" earlier hadn't he? And judging by his reaction it wasn't a good thing.
Sora hissed.
"Shouldn't you be at the party? Shush, go away" Rayn said.
Sora didn't move an inch. He had no obligations to listen to this woman. He could obey Riku, for the small bits of dark powers he still possessed, and Roxas, as he was Sora's other half after all, and then there was Kairi… hello, she was Kairi. Did he really need a reason to listen to her?
Rayn frowned. She really didn't want to resort to picking up the heartless and carry it out of the room. It was creepy.
She really didn't understand why anyone would want to travel with such a thing.
Perhaps she should just ignore it and go back to the party.
She turned around and went to pick up the disk, but that's when Sora reacted.
Swift as a…well…shadow-heartless… he snatched the disk and headed for the door.
If he showed this to his friends, they'd definitely see what kind of person this Rayn-woman was.
"Hey! Stop thief!" Rayn said and ran after him.
Sora ignored her; all he cared about right now was to get back to his friends.
However he didn't get that far, he crashed into someone on the way and as he fell backwards, the little he had left of reasonable thought was currently thinking: Note to self: look where you're going! Oh screw it, it's not like I'm gonna remember that later.
"Sora, what are you doing?"
It was Kairi.
Rayn quickly caught up to the two.
"Oh, thank precursors you're here. Your little pet just stole a video-disk from me" she said.
Kairi gave Sora a mean look, Sora shuddered. He really didn't want to be around Kairi the very few times she was angry, especially if she was angry at him.
"Come on Sora, give it to me" she said.
Sora put the video disk in her hand, just hoping she would look at it before giving it back, she didn't.
"Here you go Rayn. I'm terribly sorry, I don't know what's wrong with him today" Kairi said and gave the disk back to Rayn.
"Well it doesn't seem broken luckily" Rayn said. "Perhaps you better keep that thing on a leash or anything."
"Maybe we should" Kairi said and glared at Sora again.
Sora shook his head rapidly and pointed at Rayn.
"Enough already" Kairi said and picked up the shadow. "Let's just go back okay?"
Sora tried to wriggle loose from Kairi's grip but it was no use, behind her he saw Rayn went back to her room.
Sora: Do you enjoy torturing me?
Usagi: yup.
Sora: …no comment.
Usagi: so we figured out some interesting stuff in this chapter. Rayn isn't exactly honest, and there are rats in Kras City…big deal. There's nothing special about those.
Xigbar: as if!
Usagi: well, that we'll see. Later (evil laugh). Please review.