Disclaimer: Don't own Shadow Hearts, do own Isaiah and Anne and Locke.
**
Yuri frowned as he looked at the supplies. "Alice?" he called upstairs.
"Yes?" She turned down the hallway and poked her head in Anne's room, making the girl jump. "Almost ready Anne?"
"Almost," Anne said. Alice sensed that her daughter was nervous and asked,
"Is everything alright?"
Anne quickly nodded. "I'm just excited. We're going to get to see Locke again!"
"I'm sorry about last month. I wasn't expecting to get a job then." Alice always felt guilty when they couldn't go to Bistritz, which the children always enjoyed. Last month, it had been because an exorcist was needed.
"It's okay," Anne said, grinning. "We're going to have lots of fun this weekend."
"Really?" Anne's enthusiasm was infectious. "Well, I have to go check on your father now."
"Alice?"
Both mother and daughter laughed at Yuri's frustrated call.
"I'm coming!"
Downstairs in the store, Yuri was looking at the containers in puzzlement. "We're missing some of the roots."
"Again? Last month it was the leaves. Are you sure you didn't miss any?"
Yuri shrugged. "I've counted three times. And I looked around the store." He shook his head. "Watch, they'll pop up again and I'll look like an idiot."
"Probably." He looked at Alice with an expression of disbelief and she laughed. "Don't worry. It's only a few, right?"
"Yeah, just a handful." He filled the containers back with their original contents. "Everyone ready?"
Isaiah came down the stairs, yawning, with Anne storming after him. "We're ready!"
"Are you sure you have everything?" Alice asked.
Anne nodded. "We checked and double-checked." Both of them held large bags that were packed full.
"Then get in the car," Yuri instructed. The children opened the door, sending chimes to jingling loudly, and ran out. "Tom's coming?" he asked his wife.
"Yes, he'll come at ten to run the shop."
"Alright. He'll probably find the roots. Let's just go."
**
As they neared the castle, a bat shot into the car went to the back. Alice turned around and looked at it suspiciously, but with a blinding flash, Locke fell out of the air and onto Isaiah and Anne.
"OW!"
"Watch it, Locke! There's no room!"
Yuri chuckled from behind the steering wheel as the children pushed and elbowed each other to get more comfortable. "Did Leon teach you that?"
"No. Father taught me."
"Really?" Yuri was surprised, he knew Keith earlier had wanted Locke to wait until he was at least a teenager before teaching him anything. He slowed and parked the car in front of the steps. They all marched up, into the castle.
Margarete and Keith were standing in front of the gates. Margarete started when she saw Locke with Alice's family. "How'd you get out here Locke? I didn't see you leave…Oh," seeing his mischevious expression, she continued, "I know how." She was grinning herself.
To the surprise of both Alice and Yuri, Keith seemed rather pleased as well. "I see you're learning very quickly."
"Of course!" Locke turned to Isaiah then, "Come on, let's get your stuff in my room. Come with us Anne!" He took Isaiah's bag from him, and they ran inside.
"They've got a lot of energy, don't they?" Margarete said drily.
Yuri shrugged and then looked at the vampire. "You caved in?"
"I did not 'cave in'. I just realized that Leon would teach Locke anyway, and that it would be best to teach him myself and make sure he learned to have a sense of responsibility as well."
"You caved in."
"He caved in," Margarete confirmed. Keith looked annoyed about being undermined by his wife.
"I did not," he repeated a bit stubbornly.
"Yes you did." The spy turned to her husband to argue with him, but then discovered he was gone. She looked around and asked Alice, "Did he turn invisibe? Where is he?"
Alice just smiled. As Margarete faced the couple, she too began to smile--and then her expression became blank. A few more seconds and Yuri noticed that her shirt seemed to be getting rumpled; her lips twitched, but she maintained the poker face. Suddenly she snorted, lost all control, and burst out laughing.
"Keith! Stop it, that's not--hahahaha--stop! Stop!" Her shirt was getting more violently rumpled as the vampire went faster. "Dammit Keith, stop tickling--ahahahaha--no…no…hehehe…that's it, you're sleeping in the coffin tonight!"
"Ooh," Yuri commented. "Harsh."
Alice laughed and said, "Let's let them sort it out. We still have to put away our things."
**
Once in Locke's room, the children set their bags down and began unpacking.
Isaiah opened his bag and pulled out a book, three Thera roots and a Pure root. Anne brought out a dagger, two Mana roots and two Pure roots. At this, Locke's face fell.
"Anne, I want to fight with a sword."
"But a sword's too big for you," Anne pointed out logically. "It'll be easier for you to handle a dagger."
Locke looked at his small dagger and at the bible Isaiah had. "So what's yours?"
"She has gloves," Isaiah said softly.
His sister nodded, bringing out the black leather gloves. "I've been getting really good at fighting. This'll be a great way to test it out."
"We shouldn't do this," Isaiah said. "Dad said you weren't s'posed to fight monsters until you're older."
"I am older!" Anne insisted. "I'm almost eight."
"But-"
"Come on Isaiah," Locke said. "Don't you want to see a monster?"
"Well…" He did, but he still knew it wasn't right. But he said nothing, and the other two took this as a sign of agreement.
**
Author's Note: I'm sorry; this chapter was supposed to be a lot longer. But I've been getting the dreaded Writer's Block here, so I've decided to just divide it up into two chapters. Or three. -.-
Anyways…the next chapter is probably going to be very predictable. But it's central to the whole plot, so I can't really change it. . Which is starting to make me think that maybe the whole plot is too predictable.
…Well, I guess I'll just see when I get there.
**
Reviewers:
Araschid: Actually, I was not yet free of school then. I still had a last day of exams on Monday, but I blew off studying to write fanfiction. Wasn't that smart of me?
My little brother is cute…sometimes. Now that there's a new little baby, he's not so cute. He's downright jealous.
o.o I would feel relief that Zhuzhen is not a baby factory. But then again, all little babies look like chibi old men. Really, they do.
Leels the famous necrophiliac: o.o Cannibal corpse lyrics…
I have a question: What are you talking about with grade 4's and 1's in English?
And I've never heard of traionspotting.
Gutterfiend: All little kids in my family went down the stairs that way. I remember doing that. Although I also remember sliding down the stairs on a pillow…. which did not end well.
Nights Mistress: So we're lacking temper tantrums…but the most that could happen right now is Leon summoning a bunch of bats on people. Neither of the Hyuga kids are Harmonixers. Yet. . (berates herself for sheer predictability)
Hmm. Well, Halley is now….lessee…25. Still interested?
Greyfriars: I'm attempting to give the children a few more negative traits…which should become more apparent in the next few chapters… Like right now, Isaiah is very shy. He barely talked in this chapter. -.-;;
Actually, it might not be that Margarete is older than Yuri (they seem about the same age to me) but that Yuri just looks young. In the first movie, I thought he was a teenager. He looks like he could be seventeen or eighteen. Then again, I thought Sharon and Joshua were seven or eight (although I still think they could be. They're a lot more mature than other seven-year-olds I know).
Your plotbunnies bit me. ::glares at the plotbunnies:: And apparently someone thought up the term 'plotbunny' as opposed to 'creativity demon'. Honest. I've seen an article on the care and maintenance of creativity demons.
