A/N: I'll bet you guys hate me, but I have a good explanation! Of all things, I was grounded from Microsoft Word. Yes. Word. Nothing else. Anyways, that doesn't mean I stopped writing. I'm on my way to 80 pages on paper as it is.

Kairiku Aura: If you love triangles, you'll love what's going to happen way into the story. Wee, can't wait!

Angelicxox: lol…I'm sorry for the wait! But there's a lot of stuff coming. And Laura soooo goes off on them…

Asian Anime Goddess: Thanks! I appreciate it. And will do. I'll write tons of stuff to make up for the wait.

SimpleNClean92: Whoops, sorry. I'll try my best to get this out faster.

Teddy-the-Bear: lmao! Wow, that was good. Oh well, Brandon the kickass gunslinger, took care of it for her.

Padfoot: Wow, your name's long…Yep, Laura is Aeris. And thanks!

Li the Twilight Knight: ….NPC? Um, sure, let's go with whatever that is. And I know it's unrealistic…that's why I based this off FF7 and KH! Oh, and Vincent's living by himself, but he gets frequent visits from that bitch, Tiffany…did I say that out loud?

Chapter Four:

With a sigh, Brandon closed his artificially glowing eyes and took out his phone. Finally, he opened them and nodded. "Call the police."

"Right!" Yuffie brushed some blood from her chin and walked far away from him before flipping open her own phone. As Yuffie often said, she was out of Brandon's "lightning bolt range". Laura would probably get super mad at him before she allowed him to explain things.

"Hello, police? Yeah, this is Yuffie again. Hello, Clarice. Yeah. Uh-huh, near the theatre. Right. No, I don't think anyone's dead, but you know Cloud. Okay. See ya."

Yuffie hung up and glanced over to see Brandon hold the phone away from his ear. She decided to leave that to him.

A few minutes later, the police arrived. To Yuffie's delight, Tom Cooker, her favorite cop, climbed out of the driver's seat. Come to think of it, he was the only cop she'd met so far that she didn't hate. Cops were crooked in their town.

"Man, you two," Cooker said, "I though you were about done with this stuff. It's dangerous, you know…"

"Yeah, yeah," Yuffie grumbled.

"Do you need medical attention?" Cooker asked, eyeing the blood covering the left side of her face.

Brandon looked surprised at this and stared at her. It was obvious that he'd been too distracted to notice.

"Nah, I'm fine. I don't want some crackpot doctor stitching up my face. I'd rather have Laura look at it. She's been studying how to be a doctor, you know," Yuffie said conversationally.

"So, who were these guys anyways?" Cooker asked.

"Friends of Steven's," Brandon answered. He'd already taken the guns and Kevlar and hidden them in the jeep. As Cooker had hinted before, if they were left at a crime scene, anyone of AVALANCHE could take anything they wanted as long as the cops didn't see them take it.

"Need a ride home?" Cooker looked pointedly at their wreck of a jeep.

"Laura's coming to get us."

Cooker gave them a sympathetic look before getting in his car. By that time, his partner had the unconscious man in the back. Brandon heard the sirens of an ambulance and knew that they were coming for the two bound, injured men. Yuffie was left some gauze to bind her head.

Seconds after, Laura screeched to a halt near them. Sora leapt out and fell dizzily to the ground.

Deciding to take that chance, Yuffie said, "Hey, Laura…let me drive!" She was back to her chipper, if a bit cranky, self.

"No!" everyone immediately said. Sighing, she got in.

(elsewhere)

"They stopped your soldiers," a deep voice said from the shadows. "I am not pleased with you, Squall."

"I'll send some more after them separately tomorrow," Leon said simply.

"Very well. Do not fail me."

Leon bowed at the waist, his eyes drifting out the window and resting on some recently dug up earth. "I know what you do to failures."

(Brand's house)

"SeeD," Brandon's eyes scanned the screen of his laptop. He was sitting on the uncomfortable couch in his living room for the sole purpose of keeping himself awake so late. With training on computer hacking, as provided by Wedge, Jessie, and Biggs, he found the information he needed and was currently reading up on the specialized military force. He didn't like what he saw.

Hours after he normally would have been asleep, Brandon turned off his laptop, stacked up his notes, and began the walk upstairs to his room. His vision was a bit blurry, and he kept rubbing his luminous eyes.

When he opened his door, a thin figure was sitting on his bed, her back turned to him. She seemed to soak up the darkness in the room.

"Laura?" Brandon asked, unsure. He rubbed his eyes and reached for the light switch, cautious for some reason.

The figure turned, and the light illuminated her, reflecting off something metal in her hand. He realized too late that it wasn't Laura. The gun barely made a sound when she pulled the trigger.

(tomorrow morning)

Yuffie went through the algebra test with the speed and ease of someone who hadn't studied a single moment. She was the first to turn it in. Every answer was marked C. She grinned at her teacher's exasperated expression and skipped the whole way back to her seat.

"Mr. Browne, please come to the office."

The announcement from the office chilled everyone. Yuffie stared hard at her teacher, wide-eyed. He ran to the door and closed it just as a bullet shattered the door's window. Everyone screamed.

"Get to the back of the room!" the teacher bellowed. Yuffie was quick to obey. Everyone ducked under the desks lined at the back of the room, grateful that the doors immediately locked when they closed.

Even so, it wouldn't last long. There were three people, and they seemed determined to get the door open; they were all kicking and shooting the door.

Yuffie grabbed a lamp off a table and snuck out from under her desk surreptitiously before anyone could stop her. She was positive that they were after her. The first person to get through the door was hit right in the face with it. Her teacher, Mr. Sholland, punched the next right in his face before they could realize they were being resisted. He fell on his comrade.

The last, however, pointed his gun at Yuffie. Mr. Sholland immediately froze.

Several more gunshots could be heard down the hall.

(meanwhile…)

When she heard of Brandon's disappearance, Laura got permission from her father to go visit his parents. She hated leaving Sora home while he was sick, but she needed to console and be consoled.

As she passed the old mansion, tears began to fall. She sniffed and wiped her eyes. "Laura," she recalled Barbara, Brandon's mother, saying. "They found blood on the—"

Laura shook her head, banishing those thoughts. They'd just make her cry more, and she needed to focus.

She sped down the road crazier than usual, going so fast that, by the time she saw the spikes get thrown before her tired, it was too late. She swerved and then everything went black.

Kairi hid under a desk, teas streaming down her face. She just knew people were getting killed, and there was nothing she could do about it. The thought made her stomach clench and her eyes snap closed.

They flew open when someone started to bang on the classroom door. A young, familiar voice was shouting, "Let me in! I'm a student!"

Ms. Aple opened the door and a young man stumbled into the room and then straightened with a confident air that said he'd done that on purpose.

"Riku?" Kairi half-crawled out from under her desk.

"Hey, he said, cool and calm despite the situation. There was a cocky smirk on his face, but it faded when he saw her tears. "Kai—?"

"How bad is it out there?" the teacher asked.

"I'm the only one who made it out of the gym," Riku said. "There was nothing we could do. No one would let us in, and they picked us off."

Several kids looked panicked. The sirens and gunshots inside and out the school only served to scare them further.

"We're gonna die," some kid wailed.

Riku glared at him. "You're just gonna give up? I say we fight back and teach them not to mess with us!"

"What, with pencils?"

"I wanna go home!"

"I want my mom!"

"Are these guys in high school or kindergarten?" Riku muttered.

"Come out, come out, brats!" someone said outside the room. His accent was strange and foreign, and he laughed gleefully at their screams.

"Riku, it sounds like there's only one," some guy named Peter said. "I think we can take him."

"Right." He smiled at Kairi and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Wait here. I'll bust us out of this place."

She nodded firmly and watched as they crept over to the door, whispering. Peter jumped out into view of the man and stuck out his tongue.

"Why, you—!" The man kicked the door and banged his chin on it when they swung it open. Riku was immediately on him, punching his lights out. When he was sufficiently unconscious, he stole his gun. (To those who are like, 'wtf?', that was ol' Hook.)

"Nice working with you," Riku said, smirking again. "Wanna come with us and teach these guys a lesson?"

"Sure. But I'm only helping until I find Wendy," Peter said.

"Riku!" Kairi walked over to them. "You guys did it!"

"Was there ever any doubt?" Riku asked smugly.

"Apparently," Kairi mumbled. "The others won't come out until the police come for them."

"Who needs em'. Let's just go."

Peter and Kairi nodded and followed him down the hall.

A/N: That's all for now. I'll get some out to you guys ASAP, okay? So please review and tell me what you think.