Chapter Two: First Contact - Arch

I rushed downstairs to meet the others. Today was our first full day here in the city, and I didn't want to waste a single second of it. When I arrived in the lobby, no one was there.

"Huh?" I said out loud, confused.

Then Dai appeared from the front door in a track suit. Of course. He went running. I heard dragging footsteps behind me and I turned. There was a drowsy-eyed Setsuko rubbing her eyes with the sleeve of one of Ace's sweatshirt. Gross. The two had been dating ever since Ace turned 15, and the act was getting old.

"Good morning~.." Snow yawned and smiled kindly to me and Dai.

"Oh, yo! Didn't see you two there," Dai replied.

I sighed and leaned against the railing. Here we were at 9:30 AM and we hadn't even had breakfast yet. I followed Snow down the rest of the stairs and sat in a sofa. Dai went up to take a shower and came back down in street clothes. A few minutes passed before Tsubasa came down.

"Hey, guys!" She raised her hand to wave at us and grinned.

'What the hell am I doing with my life…,' I thought to himself as my eyes trailed to Tsubasa when she ran down the steps carelessly.

"Tsubi!" Snow yelled as she ran into Tsubasa's arms.

Dai nodded at Tsubasa and continued to chat with Ace nonchalantly as he folded his arms. I couldn't just stay silent, I had to say something.

"G-G-G," I stuttered.

"Hm?" Tsubasa said. She leaned in toward me. "What's wrong Arch? Cat got your tongue? Did you have a dirty dream? Perv," she looked on at me teasingly with her tongue stuck out and pulling down her eyelid as I looked away.

"Good morni-" I was cut off by a series of loud thuds. Ace was suddenly at the bottom of the stairs, sleeping. Dai facepalmed and retired to the restaurant.

"C'mon, after we eat we're going to pick my sword and tour downtown."

After the meal and getting the sword, Dai left us for a few minutes, but during those minutes, I spent the time to rehearse with Ace.

"Wow! Today's our first day here!" Ace said.

"Yeah, but we got off on a late start," I replied. Doing our routines always cheered me up.

"Aw, c'mon, it can't be as bad as that one time you broke all of the pickle jars in that store! You had to work off your debt!" Ace seemed a bit more fired up today.

"Yeah that was a real problem," thinking back, the old lady was actually really nice, and treated me like a grandson.

"You were in a real conundrum there," Ace said. We paused.

"Y'know, you could've said-" I said to him.

"Pickle! I was right there!" I patted him on the head just as Dai walked back in the lobby.

Snow, who had been having a nice and quiet conversation with Tsubasa, said, "Where were you?"

"Having someone repay a debt. Its right outside, c'mon," Dai said as he went back out, his sword sheathed and slung over his shoulder in a bag. The four of us went outside and there were some men bringing out 5 .motorcycles.

"Awwwww, yeah." I muttered. I instantly went for the black one. Dai clotheslined me and I fell on my butt.

"Let's thank these guys first," Dai said with a smile, but we all knew that he was angered at me intently as I nodded without hesitation.

"Thank you," Dai said as he bowed. The others followed suit as I got up, "Thank you," I replied with the similar tone.

"My, my, such mature kids. Sure does remind me of Sensei," one of the men said to Dai. I heard Snow whisper to Ace.

"Ace? Who are these guys?"

"I think they're some of Dai's master's friends. They look that old," Ace bluntly said. The men heard the remark and put on a very intimidating face.

"You wanna rumble, youngster!?", "I once beat a ranked seater in my age!" Were the kind of things that Ace received. I cringed a bit from the sounds of them.

"Oh, I think we met one yesterday, a girl?" Dai asked.

"Well, they used to be celebrities, but recently they've been hiding in their shadows. No one knows why. If you've seen a Seater, it's probably the last time you're gonna see one," the old man in the truck grinned and snapped his wrinkled fingers, "Well, we best be going now. I hope you young'uns are getting taught properly!" I cringed again.

Everyone else was home schooled with some old textbooks, but I rarely studied. We sent them off and chose our bikes. Tsubasa and Snow both got a red colored bike, Ace and I got the blue. Dai ended up with the black one, despite that being my first pick.

"Alright guys, let's head downtown and shop a bit, then we'll grab something to eat, ok?" Dai breathed out a heavy sigh. I sometimes hated it when he laid out the schedule. He was really paranoid. Regardless, I had been taught my lessons many times, and crossing him was something I did not want to do. We all muttered a "yes," through our helmets and started the engines. I was the first one to screech off and swerved through cars. For some reason, Ace probably, I thought Dai was facepalming.

It was now 7 o'clock in the afternoon, and I was beat. We had shopped a bit, seen the founders' of this city's government statutes, ate at a 5-star restaurant, and took a walk from the northern district into the southern district. What separated the two was a park where Ace and I horsed around a bit, consequently, Dai gave both of us a blow to the head. We hung around there and whenever Ace broke off from me to speak with Dai or Snow, I just went to Tsubasa. I often took a look at her arm and although it was the next day, not even a scab remained. "That's what my power does!" She told me everytime I would have spoke about any of what happened during the events she either gotten cut of harmed. I was still concerned about her healing processes, wouldn't it shorten her life span? A life that I wanted to be apart of? I questioned myself this when I took a look at it for a third time, checking to see if there was any remnants of a wound. When she pulled away, I broke away from my haze.

"Do you guys know where the nearest bathroom is?" Tsubasa scratched her cheek and laughed awkwardly. Come to think of it, I had to go too. Dai pulled out his map.

"There's one near a visitor's center over there. Its a pretty dangerous area so let's all go." Typical Dai, paranoid as usual. I'm sure that Tsubasa would be able to take care of herself. Contrary to what I thought, I nodded and said,

"Alright! Let's go!"

"To the bathmobile!" Ace proclaimed. I was shocked.

"Ace… no, Aero!" I grabbed both of his shoulders. "That was a terrific one-liner! I don't know if you know this, but its a perfect reference to B-tman! Not only is he a hero, he's our hero!" I proceeded to yell and scream the B-tman theme song as we walked to the visitor center. In the middle of singing, I thought I felt something watching me, and I turned around. Dai noticed, he too turned around and just as quickly turned back.

"Ignore it, there's bound to be some suspicious characters here Arch. Also, I doubt they could take us." I felt assured by his remark, but he didn't. He seemed to be on an edge, as if he had seen something. I didn't let it bother me. Dai would be Dai.

"Found it!" Ace yelled as he turned a corner. As soon as he yelled it loudly, I sprinted ahead and into the little boy's room. As I relieved myself, I heard some creaking from the ceiling. I quickly washed my hands and went outside where the others were. They were also staring upwards. Was it a threat? Tsubasa wasn't here yet, but if it was only one, we could take 'em. Dai was the perfect tactician and strategist, he wouldn't let us down. These thoughts raced by my head as I looked up to see the enemy. Standing there was a masked man and woman. The woman had a light-blue mask which looked like it was made of ice. The man had bandages wrapped from the nose down, probably for show. But it did the trick, I was terrified as I looked at his blood-red eyes. I doubt they were bloodshot from tiredness or being high, or even contacts, they were definitely his actual iris color.

"This world is corrupt, and I will be the one to cleanse it," he said.

I, being an idiot, responded bluntly to the man, "Eh? What's that supposed to mean? And the world seems fine! Just a few kinks is all!"

I could feel Dai stabbing knives into my back, either out of terror or anger, I still don't know. The man, or should I say teen, looked at me with eyes of rage. I had to take a step back. Everyone took a fighting stance, even the kind-hearted Snow. That's how menacing these people were.

Dai took his sword out of the bag, and said to Ace, "Ace, launch me."

How could this be happening?! Dai hadn't even taken a full second to properly think and he was rushing in ahead! Ace also looked confused, but did as he was told. His eyes turned orange and Dai flew through the air. He drew his sword, a japanese katana, forged with iron created by a locket. As he fell, he brought the sword down with one hand and held the scabbard in another and used that to strike the girl. Ice instantly shielded the girl and the teen had blocked with his sword, scanning his eyes directly at her as if observing from such a close range.

"So my suspicion was right…" The teen said, "That sword was made from the Shadow iron of 'Shadow Steel' Gajeel. I knew you were affiliated with a gang," Dai flipped backwards and landed in front of me.

I understood now, he had risked his own safety to get us the information that the teen was a catalyst and the girl was a locket, "It no longer matters, if there was government here I would let them have you, but since there is not... I'll kill you myself," he glared down at us with an apathetic look that shown no interest.

For the first time, the girl spoke in admiration, "Ahhh, Blood-sama, so cool!"

I groaned and rolled my eye sockets as a sarcastic way of showing the two of them their close pairings, even this creepy dude was in a relationship. Who has a name like 'Blood?'; that's just asking to be a loner.

"Frost, focus," she clung to him even more. It was getting weirder by the second. "Hikari." He said with a stern voice. Now, Hikari was a name I could live with. Guess "Frost," was her codename or something.

"Fineeee," she pouted and suddenly, we were in the air.

R&R please