Fire Wolf, Water Guardian
By UltimatePalmTree
Chapter II
The Journey Begins
"Pack on my back, I wander! Over mountains across the seas! My yearning soul keeps roaming, in the endless search for peace!"
Axel inwardly groaned. After hearing Demyx strum that stupid sitar of his and sing that song for three days straight, you'd think his vocal chords would get worn out! Apparently, Demyx was the poster child for Energizer batteries… Much to Axel's dismay, the musician wouldn't give up. He just kept going and going and going.
And he was supposed to spend who-knew-how long with him until they found the Organization XIII members who had left them behind. Whatever happened to staying loyal to the pack? Axel thought bitterly. Then he realized what he said, Omigod, I really am a wolf…
Demyx paused for a second in strumming, singing and walking. "Hm… I really wish we had a map now…"
"You didn't grab one back at home!" Axel yelled, whipping around to face him. He was only a few inches shorter than Demyx, so he could easily look Demyx pretty dang close in the eyes if he wanted to. You didn't want to be staring down Axel's snout, especially when said former-Organization-member-turned-wolf was very ticked off at you.
Demyx scratched the back of his head and said, "Well… I didn't think about it… I was kind of busy figuring out where all my gigs this week are…"
Axel's lupine lips pulled apart even more, revealing his wet pink gums. "Gigs?" he repeated.
Demyx nodded happily and then pulled out a piece of paper, unfolding it single-handedly. Literally. "Yeah. Gigs. I have a lot of them this week, which is the other reason I decided to help you in this whole mess. But I'd say you picked the wrong guy for the job. Everyone seems to pick me for missions like this… Odd, isn't it?"
"Shut your mouth or I'll throw your ass in the trash!" Axel barked.
Demyx stared at the wolf in confusion before shrugging in a 'whatever' sort of way and folded up the piece of paper, replacing it in his pocket. "Alright. First things first,"
"You're going to get me back to my normal self?" Axel asked.
"Not yet. My first gig is in a place called…" Demyx took it out again and squinted to read his own writing. I wasn't even aware he could read. This week is just full of freaking surprises… Axel thought caustically. He sat down in the middle of the dusty path, staring up at the sky. Did it look like it was about to rain? Dang. Another fun surprise to count on!
"Oh, here we go!" Demyx yelled. "My first gig is in Traverse Town! Now all we need to do is find a path that leads there…"
Axel sighed and lowered himself down all the way and rested his head on his paws. This is gonna take forever, isn't it? He thought. Conveniently, there was a sign post stuck in the exact, dead center of the crossroads. Whether Demyx was smart enough to go and take a look at it, Axel had no clue.
So, the pyrokinetic wolf decided to take matters into his own hands—er, wait… paws. He got up once more and trotted over to the sign, looking at the four different arrows aimed towards each pathway. The one pointing to the World That Never Was was conveniently blank. The others had some sort of writing on them that Axel couldn't distinguish. What the heck? He could read just fine as a human! So why not as a wolf?
If this whole 'being illiterate' thing was part of the potion, Axel was going to make Zexion turn him back into a Nobody, and then strangle him with his bare hands. He gloomily trotted back to Demyx's side and huffed at him. "Are you keeping track of who's on my blackmail list?" he asked.
But Demyx wasn't listening. Instead, he was reading the signs, walking slowly around until he got to the place in which he had started. "It's not even on here…" he remarked. "Maybe we're too far south…? Or is it north we're headed? Axel, which way's north from here?"
Axel sighed. This, he decided, was going to take a while.
When Demyx had finally managed to figure out which way was north, they began heading down the eastern path. The sign pointing that way had said, 'Twilight Town', so that looked promising to Demyx. Plus, they might be able to get some help from the people there. Currently, they were walking along the dirt path, the sun seeming to set farther and farther below the horizon with each step they took. Well, at least the town lived up to its name…
Finally, they came across a massive wooded area, with a sign at the very border of it, proclaiming 'Twilight Town' to be right through the woods. So, they continued, and within a few minutes (if you count about two hours trying to get Demyx out of the only briar patch in the entire woods to be a few minutes) they were at a hole in a cream-colored wall. "Well, you go first, Oh-So-Smart-One," Axel said astringently, bowing as well as a wolf could bow. In short, it looked like he was stretching while sticking his butt way up in the air.
Demyx rolled his eyes, yanked out yet another thorn from his exposed hand and started through the hole. It led to a massive pavilion, colored orange and red in the setting sun's rays. A red trolley rolled past, but no one looked as if they were especially riding it. In fact, everyone seemed content to just laze around and stand there. "This is weird…" Demyx commented to his… companion, so to speak.
"Not any weirder than seeing you dance around practically every night with your shirt off and your sitar on," Axel growled. "Let's just find a map and get the heck out of here. We didn't come for sight-seeing,"
Demyx nodded resolutely. "Right,"
Axel knew, just knew, that Demyx would be ogling over something new in no time flat. But, for the time being, it was good to know he was at least trying.
Demyx was looking at the piece of paper again. "You know, I'm not supposed to be here until the twenty-first of…"
"I DON'T CARE WHERE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE AND WHEN! I WANT OUT OF THIS BODY!" Axel yelled. It was definitely not a normal occasion when a massive red wolf yelled at you in perfectly good English in the middle of Twilight Town, because many stared.
Just at that instant, three girls walked by, flip-flops smacking against the soles of their feet and the ground. One of the girls—a blonde one—whispered to the other two and they approached Demyx and Axel. "Is that your dog?" the blonde asked.
Demyx paused for a second before saying, "Yup! Sure is!"
"Can we pet him?" the brunette asked.
"Sure!" Demyx said.
Axel gaped at him and, while he was pulled into an embrace by the brunette, said, "I am going to personally murder you, Demyx. You will suddenly spontaneously combust in the middle of the night if I have anything to do with it,"
"Omigod! He's soooo cute!" the raven-haired girl squealed. She pet Axel behind his ears. "How'd you get his fur to stick up like that? It's sooo adorable!"
"Is he a purebred wolf?" the blonde asked as she was trying to get Axel to shake paws with her. "If so, that's hot,"
"Purebred! One hundred percent!"
"I am going to kill you and Zexion personally…" Guess who said this.
"I love dogs!" the brunette continued. "He's too adorable,"
Then they stepped away from Axel, waving to Demyx in a non-committal way. "See ya 'round!"
Before they left, however, all three girls planted a kiss on Axel's nose. They giggled and left Demyx and Axel to their own devices.
"I retract that previous statement," Axel said after a long pause, "I love you,"
Axel didn't know why the heck he was even doing this. It had to be the most undignified thing that just about anyone could do. But he was tired of hanging around with Demyx and he was desperate. If that wasn't a valid enough reason for what he was doing, he didn't know what was.
Axel was sitting up on his hind legs, tail wrapped around his legs and forepaws up in the air. He was looking hopefully up at three gullible-looking teenagers sitting on a wall and each eating a light blue Popsicle. He was trying to look as innocent as an anorexic, six-foot-something long wolf could look. With his irresistible green eyes, Axel knew it'd be easy to look innocent.
"Can't I just give him a little bit of my ice cream?" the fat kid in the middle asked.
"He's a dog," the lean male said. "Dogs can't have ice cream!"
"He can have mine," the girl said. Axel's ears perked up as she placed it in front of Axel's nose, and the fiery red wolf leaned forwards to get a lick of it.
"Axel! Where are you?"
Stupid Demyx.
Axel looked reproachfully at the direction of the voice, then looked at the Popsicle (which was dripping slowly onto the ground) before dropping back down on his forelegs and trotting away. He found the musician not too long after leaving the three ice cream-wielding teens and growled at him. "You owe me big time,"
"What for now?"
Axel jerked his head in the three teens' direction and said, "Ice cream,"
Demyx looked puzzled before saying, "I don't think wolves can have ice cream... Anyway! I found a solution to our problem!"
Axel perked up. "You found Zexion?"
"No... But we can get to Traverse Town from here! There's a train that runs tomorrow morning. Only problem is, we don't have any munny,"
"So, what do you intend to do?"
"Well, I was thinking I could get a temporary job here..."
Axel snorted in disbelief before starting to laugh. Any day when Demyx did an honest day's work was definitely the start of the apocalypse. And any day when Demyx actually finished said job was the apocalypse coming upon them as they spoke. "Some guy needs a street performer, so I was thinking..."
"That's what you were doing while I was begging for food? Looking at some more places you can get gigs at?"
"And there's an added bonus," Demyx pointed out. "I said I had a pet wolf and—"
"I am," Axel said, drawing himself up to his full quadruped height and puffing out his chest indignantly, "in no way, shape or form your pet,"
"And the guy instantly hired us. Five hundred munnies for five or six good performances. Each. All tonight,"
Axel sighed. He removed Zexion from the top of his blackmail list and instead put Demyx up. As if being a four-legged dog wasn't enough...
"Dreaming of screaming! Someone kick me out of my mind, I hate these thoughts I can't deny!"
Axel rolled his eyes. That was all he was dreaming about now. He was dressed in some gaudy type of costume, with lots of jewelry around his legs and neck and lots of crusty pastel paint on his body and face. Furthermore, they weren't even done with the twelfth performance ("Only five or six good performances", my ass, was Axel's comment), and Axel was starting to feel tired of repeatedly going up on his hind legs and jumping around like he was a maniac. The jewelry also played a part in his exhaustion; all of it was wearing him down.
All in all, Axel guessed he wore about sixty pieces of jewelry. That wasn't even an exaggeration. Gold and silver collars encircled his neck; newly added earrings weighed down his ears, bracelets—literally one after another—were on his thin legs up to his shoulders. A brace of some sort fit snugly on his stomach, and (for added mysticism, he guessed) there were authentic, one hundred percent real gemstones glued onto his fur.
Once again, he was gonna kill Demyx.
"You will take the body parts and put 'em up on the wall, and bring the dark disaster!" Demyx (thank any god you believe in) finished the song. Finally. Axel dropped down on all fours as someone tossed a small yellow orb of munny at his feet. Demyx was clearly enjoying himself as he took out the leather satchel from his pocket and started gathering munny orbs. "Thank you! Thank you! You've all been wonderful tonight!" he was saying.
Axel thought, If they weren't giving him munny, he would be singing quite a different song, wouldn't he now?
"That was my last performance tonight. No more encores, but you can come to the sandlot on the twenty-first of October and see me then! Night, everybody!" Demyx flashed a grin and, once he picked up every single bit of munny he could fit in that sack (which was a lot), twirled around on his heel and marched off towards the shop where the man who had hired them was watching.
"We're done here, right?" Axel asked. "No more surprise performances like last time?"
Demyx nodded. "We should have enough money right here," he said as he pointed to the sack in his hand. "We just need to get the jewelry back to the guy and we can relax for the rest of the night!"
"Good. I want every single one of these vile things off me. Now,"
Demyx and the man had a few words before starting to take off the collars, then the bracelets. "And the paint should come off, right?" he asked.
"It ought to. It did before..."
Axel shot Demyx a glare that said, If you can't get this off me, I will shove a rod up your sorry rear. Demyx, however, seemed oblivious to this glare as he slipped a pair of Axel's earrings into his pocket. Everything else—including, thank God, that awful brace that constricted his middle—went to the guy. It was then Demyx and Axel decided to check out the train schedule.
"Right here, see?" Demyx said, pointing at a handwritten slot that said, 'Traverse Town' and traced his finger to a time chart. In the fourth slot was, in the same print as before, '7h45'.
"Good luck getting me up at that time," Axel said, starting to walk away. He trotted to the ledge that overlooked the ocean and said, "Speaking of which, where are we staying tonight?"
Silence. "Staying?"
Author's Notes:
Ho. Lee. Crap.
Ten almost instantaneous responses from you guys. Wow. That's the most I've ever gotten on one chapter for a story. I cannot convey how much glee is built up inside me. First, I'd like to thank my beta, KuroNekoNya! I know I've already thanked you fifty four and a half million times, but I can't thank you enough! Second off, I'd like to thank my two muses: Inspiration and Donovan. Inspiration bit me and made me write this, and Donovan kind of made me write it all down. Third off, I'd like to thank all the people who reviewed. They are all listed here so I can thank each and everyone individually.
KuroNekoNya: I'm glad you like it! I really wasn't sure what people would think, so I kind of took a risk… But thanks again for betaing me! (hugs)
critical-blow: It does seem like something you'd write… XD I've always seen Axel as a wolfy… I love the wolfy Axel…
SakuraXRiku: Thanks! I'll try and be quicker in my updates… I've got a massive writer's block, what with Inspiration and Donovan not wanting to remove themselves from the couch…
Hikari: I think Larxene would totally write that on a post-it note…
Sahxyel: Yah, the Post-it notes are the most ignored paper in the world… They are so unappreciated XD.
Earthpaw: I was hoping someone would like it… I'm pleased with the reaction it's getting!
ChibiBlueAngel: Trust me, this is gonna continue for a long time…
Erin Elric: Well, someone shares my opinion on red wolf Axel!
Neassa: Woot! I like making people happy! I love wolves and Axel and Demyx. All them in one crack-filled fic, that's just too much to bear…
Kingdom Alchemist: Cool name! I think an Axel wolf costs one hundred and twenty-five munnies, but I think I'd be willing to pay to have Axel in my home as my guard wolf. XD
So, yeah. It's… um… chapter two… Yah… Pretty much all I can really say right now. Except thanks for all your support and reviews. Man, I was surprised. One after another, they kept coming! Woot! (hugs all) Free cookies for all y'all!
Also, I don't own Kingdom Hearts in any shape/form, and I don't own Soul of a Vagabond by Stratovarius (the first song Demy sang) and I don't own Dreaming by System of a Down. Yes, that really is a song. Currently my favorite one, too… What? Don't look at me like that… You're freaking me out… But can anyone else see Demyx singing that? It seems like a Demyx-type song… XD