Max Makes a Bold Move

The blinding flash faded and the four teenagers stuck behind the magic barrier uncovered their eyes. They checked themselves and each other first and foremost to make sure everyone was fine. They couldn't see around the corner from where they stood but the steam wasn't gaining in volume anymore.

"Do you think it's okay to check?" Stacey asked.

"Dunno," P.J. replied, "but we won't be able to do anything with this barrier in the way anyways."

He put his hand where he thought the barrier was and leaned… and he fell over.

"The barrier's down!" Roxanne gasped. She took off running to get around the corner and into the square. Stacey and Bobby were right behind her.

"Hey! Wait for me guys!" P.J. exclaimed, getting up and running as fast as he could to catch up.

Max's ears perked up at the sound of his name being called by a sweet, familiar voice. He looked up quickly and butterflies fluttered inside his stomach when he saw his crush running straight towards him. "Roxanne…" he replied weakly.

"Oh, Max, I'm so glad you're okay," Roxanne said with a sigh of relief, coming to a stop beside a barely conscious Kairi. "Who's this? Is she okay?"

"This is Kairi," Max answered, "but I don't know if she's alright." He leaned over her and took her chin between two fingers, tilting her head to look directly at him. "Kairi? Can you hear me?"

"M… Max…" Kairi answered weakly.

"Whew! I'm glad you're okay. What happened to you?"

"I… I don't…" Kairi muttered. She tried to push herself up but her arms wobbled and she dropped back to the ground. Max put an arm around her back and helped her sit up. "I only remember going out of town to skate and then… oh, yeah, the white witch!"

"The one who uses ice magic?" Max clarified.

"Yeah, her. She came along and did something… I think she tried to turn me into a Heartless. I fought back but I only remember blurs and this really, really strong feeling like… like anger."

"It wasn't a Heartless that she got you with, it was an Unversed… whatever that is," Max told her. She stared at him in shock. "Darn. I knew I should have tried to stop them from getting away."

"Max, what's going on?" Roxanne asked. "What happened here?"

"Er… I think I can explain everything," Max said tentatively, "but I think we should take Kairi back to the castle. She's pretty weak. Maybe I'll be able to explain on the way."

He hoisted Kairi onto his back with Bobby's help and adjusted her comfortably. He led the way back through the town. P.J., Stacey and Bobby asked excited questions, wanting to be the first to be in on what happened behind the barrier before anybody else figured it out. Roxanne, however, just listened intently, watching Kairi's heavy-eyed expression as she seemed to doze off every now and again.

"Poor girl," she thought. "Going through all of that must have sapped her of everything. She and Max seem pretty close though. I wonder if they're…"

The Snow Queen clenched her fists and summoned a snowman in front of her, only to smash it with a kick. She folded her leg halfway back and then repeated the move while leaning back so that her foot went as high as a grand battement. Her legs came down to sous-sus, leaving her back arched. She slowly pulled her body back up and then lifted her arms aggressively, using that small momentum to propel a single half turn. She put her weight on the leg she stepped onto and dropped into a plié, letting the other leg flick up and her arms dropped. They were promptly raised again as she hopped onto pointe and drew her working leg into a triple pirouette. She kept her spotting on the object of her current frustration. There at the end of the throne room Zexion was sitting in her throne with his legs crossed casually and holding his book in his lap, muttering to it. She finished her twirl and swept her back leg to the front to do a skip, beating one leg against the other, followed by a grand jeté. She bouréed the rest of the way and then pranced up the steps to stand right in front of the Nobody. He ignored her. She clamped a hand down on his shoulder.

"Why did you try to save her?" she hissed. "With her magic that drained she might have just died on her own. Her usefulness to us has already been expended."

Zexion paused in his note-taking and rolled his eyes upwards to look at her but didn't lift his head. "Her usefulness to you, perhaps. I believe that the extent of her powers is well worth researching. No academic that I am aware of has endeavoured to research a Princess of Heart in detail."

Giselle squeezed harder, deliberately digging her nails into his flesh but he seemed unfazed by that. "She'll only be a nuisance in the future. She'll steal your heart before you gain it."

"I would put her well past that. She may be a potentially powerful proponent of the light but at the moment she's wishy-washy. I don't see that changing anytime soon."

Giselle harrumphed and tore her hand away, turning her back on Zexion and folding her arms. As much as she knew Zexion was probably right, she still held a grudge against Kairi. "She could still take him away… after he's taken his heart he might have no reason to stay; he'll just use me."

She turned around and snapped Zexion's book shut. He looked up at her. "Tomorrow," she snapped. "Tomorrow I'll secure the final piece and give you your heart back."

Max carried Kairi all the way to her room with his friends in tow, equally worried even though they knew her less well. P.J. opened the door to the pink room so that Max could carry her in. They walked in on Tabitha making her daily cleaning rounds. She caught sight of the state Kairi was in and dropped the feather duster and dust rag she was holding, as well as her jaw.

"Goodness gracious!" she exclaimed. "What's happened? You'd better bring her over to the bed right now."

The cat maid hurried over to the bed to pull the covers back. Max put her down on the edge of the bed but she was too tired to sit up and fell back onto the pillows. The rest of the company barged in and crowded around her, expressing their concern until Tabitha shooed them out.

"She'll need her rest now," she scolded, waving a finger at the teenagers. "It's best not to crowd her. Now the Valentine's Day Festival has already begun, why don't you youngsters do something productive outside?"

"Hey, Tabitha," Max interrupted, seeing the bored looks on his friends faces as the maid patronised them, "maybe it's a good idea to get Kairi some water or something. I think an ether or elixir would help too."

"Oh! Yes, that would help."

The maid hurried off to fetch some water. Kairi giggled and Max turned to her. "Are you feeling okay?" he asked.

"I'll be fine. You were pretty awesome today, thank-you."

"Aw, gee, no need to thank me. I wasn't really there to look out for you in the first place," Max admitted. He glanced at the door. His friends weren't game enough to venture back in so he continued in a low voice, "truth is, I probably wouldn't have done it if I didn't think that it would look good in front of Roxanne. I was only being selfish and trying to show off. Your Unversed was wicked strong too. I could have been defeated and then who knows what might have happened."

Kairi smiled wryly. "Actually, I'm a little embarrassed that I turned into one of them. I overestimated my own ability just because I'm a Princess of Heart. I guess I was also a little blinded by rage."

"Why? Who would wanna make a girl like you angry?"

"I don't think he intended to but if he did, he's a jerk."

"Z?" Max guessed.

Kairi was about to correct him but clamped her mouth shut. Would knowing Zexion's real name mean anything to him? And if it did, what then? Why did she get the feeling that she didn't want Zexion to be destroyed like any other Nobody? She didn't like them. They deliberately caused her pain and caused her friends pain. She was happy when Xemnas was destroyed and The World That Never Was crumbled out of existence. She'd thought that it represented her friends' complete freedom from the tyranny of the darkness but the Organisation was still alive if this one member managed to make it. Her stomach felt like it was being filled with concrete as she nodded to answer Max's question.

"Tell me what he looks like and I'll make sure to punch him in the face if I ever see him."

Kairi genuinely laughed at that. "That wouldn't prove anything but it's nice to know that you care so much about me." She glanced towards the door. She caught a glimpse of auburn hair through the gap as it disappeared behind the door. "That girl – Roxanne – I guess you like her, right?"

Max blushed. "Wh-what makes you say that?"

"You said yourself that you were only trying to show off in front of her."

"W-well, yeah. But I mean, I haven't really got a chance with her anyway. Y'know, she's easily one of the prettiest girls at my school – probably the prettiest – and I'm just some trainee soldier at the castle."

"That's pretty special," Kairi voiced her thoughts. "Why don't you ask her out? To the ball, I mean."

Max spluttered. "The Valentine's Day Ball? I can't do that on the first date! That's a huge step. And besides, I haven't got enough pocket munny to get a ticket for the both of us."

"Don't worry about it, I won two tickets at a shop the other day. I'll let you have them so that you can take Roxanne to the ball."

"R-really, you'd do that?"

"Sure. Just remind me to find them for you once I've rested up."

"Gee, thanks Kai."

At that moment Tabitha returned with tray carrying a jug of cold water and a mega-ether. She demanded that Max also leave the room and he did so, hoping Kairi got enough rest. His friends were still loitering in the corridor when he closed the door behind him.

"You know, you guys didn't have to just stay out here just because Tabitha threw you out," he told them.

"We thought you wanted to talk to Kairi, dude," Bobby replied with a shrug. "Man, I just remembered that I left my backpack at the skate park and I'm craving some serious cheesing right now."

"Oh yeah," Max remembered. "I think I dropped my skateboard in the newsagency. I hope it didn't get smashed by anything."

"Let's go back and get our stuff," P.J. suggested, "and see what's happened to the square. Maybe the police have already set up a blockade! That'd be cool. Do you girls wanna come?"

"Sure, why not?" Stacey agreed. "We were just going to the library because they were going to do a classic romance novel event for the festival but I think it's safe to say that it's cancelled."

"Awesome, let's go."

The group left together, mostly excited to see what had transpired in the square after they'd left. Roxanne tapped Max on the arm, silently asking him to hang back from the main group.

"Are you going to the ball this year?" she asked.

He gulped. Taking a deep breath he turned away and rubbed the back of his neck, hoping she couldn't see him blush. "Um, well, not really, I guess… I mean, I could- I mean, I want to…"

"Are you going with Kairi? You're pretty lucky, she seems like a really nice person."

"Huh? Kairi? No!" Max denied. "We just became good friends because her best friend knows my dad through something or other…"

"Oh? But I heard you discussing it with her; about taking someone to the ball on the first date. I think that's pretty huge too, it's probably not a good idea."

"What? Oh…" Max deflated a bit. He'd had just a little bit more hope after Kairi had given him her offer but if Roxanne thought it was a stupid idea then he wouldn't get far. "Actually, we were only talking about it because Kairi won these tickets to the ball. But I don't think she has anyone to take so she gave them to me."

"Really? Do you have someone in mind?"

"Well, honestly… I wanted to ask you to come to the ball with me, Roxanne," Max said, pressing his index fingers together. He didn't look at her, he was quite afraid to. He chewed on his bottom lip through the silence between them that felt like it would last forever. Just as he steeled his heart for rejection the short, sweet answer came:

"Sure."

My exams are over. I HAVE ALL THE FREEDOM! And you have a new chapter. Although that probably doesn't mean much because, as you saw, I'm terrible at deliberately keeping a hiatus going.

Also - have to mention this because it was so ironic - someone in the reviews mentioned that we hadn't seen Sora and co. lately and I was planning to write them into the next chapter. It made me laugh because that was just too coincidental... wait, does that mean my story is being followed by a psychic? jks.