Well, chapter four was really fun to write! Sorry for the long update wait, but I got caught up in a lot of stuff… Please enjoy!
Title: If We Were Different
Rating: T
# of Words: 1,515
Chapter 4: Zero Tamers
Fear laced through out his body as Yoji stood his ground, facing in the direction of the noise as if showing nothing would get by him. He knew his situation was pretty bleak, as he was not the fighter of the pair and could be hurt more easily, but still stood his ground. The footsteps from somewhere on the second level of the house was getting closer, making Yoji involuntarily shiver with fear. No, he couldn't be scared. Natsuo had faced things a million times more scary than this, right? He could do this. Whatever it took, he had to protect Natsuo.
Finally getting the courage to do something, Yoji opened his mouth, and screamed, "Where ever you are, I'm not afraid of you. Come down and please help me! My friend is in need of help!" His voice quavered, hanging in the air before he heard something drop on the ground behind him. Whirling around, his eyes went wild, a frantic look plastered on his face.
"llew, tahw od ew evah ereh? Elpuoc fo s'oreZ ti smees (1)," announced a loud voice, belonging to a teenage girl. Yoji looked her right in the eyes, trying to mask the fact that he was terrified out of his mind.
One thought ran through Yoji's mind at that point; how the heck is she going to help us if I can't understand a thing she says?!?!
"Would you mind explaining who you are to me, after you help us?" Yoji looked down worriedly at Natsuo, who had seemed to turn two shades bluer. He wouldn't last much longer even though they were in a warmer climate…
The girl just smiled and carefully lifted Natsuo's body from Yoji's hands without any difficulty, heading toward the couches. Yoji followed her like a shadow as they walked over to the larger of the couches, placing Natsuo down onto its surface. The girl murmured something in her strange language softly, and then, as if magic, the room became much warmer. With a few more words, a blanket was soon wrapped around and tucked under Natsuo's body. All the while, Yoji stared at the girl in shock. How the heck did she know magic? And at that, MAGIC REALLY EXISTS?!?!
"Good grief, what have I gotten myself into," thought Yoji as he began to analyze the girl better. She appeared to be a few inches taller than Yoji himself, and had a muscular frame. She had straight black hair that waved a little around the middle and ends, and wore a simple aqua-green pullover with a hood and a length that reached the ground. Once she noticed Yoji staring at her, her brown almond shaped eyes flickered at him, thus educing them into a stare down. Once she as satisfied with Natsuo's condition, she turned to face Yoji and, much to Yoji's astonishment, pulled him down to another one of the couches.
The shock on Yoji's face was priceless; eyes wide with surprise and mouth agape. The girl laughed, before folding her hands on her lap and began talking to Yoji. The problem was, Yoji couldn't understand anything the girl was saying; she spoke some kind of gibberish! When the girl looked at Yoji inquiringly, Yoji just grimaced and tried to tell her he couldn't understand a single word she said using various motions and not getting very far with them. The girl just laughed at him, pointing and gawking at Yoji's poor attempt to speak with her.
"God damn it! Why the hell can she not understand me," cried Yoji, letting out an exasperated sigh.
"It's because you don't have a translator on you, and because we speak a different dialect," said a voice from behind him. Nearly jumping out of his seat, he turned to face a man in his late thirties standing alongside a woman of the same age range. Yoji definitely knew there was something strange about this house; closing doors, moving pieces of furniture, crazy girls that speak in different languages, MAGIC? Ho much more crazy could tings get?
"Okay, so who are you, and where exactly am I?" Yoji shot them a questioning glance, hoping they could answer some things so he could at least feel safe in this place.
"Well, most people call me JT. The person beside me here is Claire, and the girl you were trying to speak to, her name is Sage. We're what you could Zero Tamers, and you have stumbled onto our house," said JT, smiling.
"Could you give me a little more background please," asked Yoji, still trying to figure everything out.
"We should first give you a tracker," said Claire, looking Yoji up and down as if to see what potential he had.
"What's you're name?" Both JT and Claire stared at Yoji, waiting for an answer.
"Should I trust these people," thought Yoji. "They did help Natsuo, so I guess that I could trust them…"
"Okay, my name is Yoji. Does that help with anything?" The two conversed with each other, before turning back to Yoji.
"Yes, it helps us greatly. Now, if you'll just hold still for a minute…" Claire stepped forward, a paintbrush of some kind in her hand. Telling himself to stay calm, Yoji stood completely still and relaxed, closing his eyes. He could feel the brush strokes push against his face, and then stinging pain against his skin. Whimpering slightly, he remained complacent, waiting for Claire to finish her careful work. Once she stepped back, Yoji opened his eyes.
"Would you like to see it?" asked JT, a mirror appearing in his hands. Yoji took the mirror gently from his hands, and held it up to his face. In pale blue ink, three wavy lines representing ocean lay on his face, as well as the English roman numeral of 2 crossing through the ocean. Interesting. They took apart his name and drew in on his face (2).
"With that, you'll be able to understand us all better," said JT. "You could only understand us without the marking before because we created a weak mind link so we could communicate with you for a short time. Young Sage isn't old enough to have mastered the technique, so she called for us to come down and talk with you. Also, because she doesn't have her marking, she can't fully communicate with you. She didn't want to get her marking because of personal matters, so I suggest you don't touch upon this subject with her (3)."
Upon further examination, Yoji noticed that both JT and Claire had pictures on their foreheads too, but they looked very different from his. JT's was a picture in a fiery red color, showing only his initials, the J cutting through the middle of the T at a forty-five degree angle, slanting to the right side. Claire's translator marking was done in a rich green, showing a bowl with money inside it.
"Well thank you for being so kind to me and my partner," said Yoji at last, breaking the comfortable silence that had settled over the group. Sage got up from her position on the couch and went to where JT and Claire stood, saying something in their dialect, which he could actually somewhat understand. He caught bits of words that sounded like 'tired' and 'sleep' thinking that she wanted to go rest somewhere. They both nodded, and Sage poofed to somewhere else in the bizarre house.
"Now that all this technical stuff is figured out, we should probably take a further analysis of your partner," stated Claire, walking toward where Natsuo lay. JT and Yoji followed closely behind her as she touched Natsuo's forehead gently. After holding it there for a while, she spoke.
"It seems as though you're partner is recovering. Slowly, but surely. He'll be up and about in maybe two or three days, but he'll be extremely weak at that time. I suggest you stay with us until you friend is fit for fighting, for traveling around these parts with a weakened fighter is quite dangerous," suggest Claire, glancing at the sacrifice.
"Thank you for your hospitality. I am happy we stumbled upon people with such caring hearts," said Yoji, looking back down at Natsuo. Seeing Yoji wanted to be alone with Natsuo, the pair left, leaving a small tray of food - which happened to appear out of nowhere once again - on the table.
"Hey Natsuo, guess what? You're going to be okay, and then we can continue on our journey away from her. You'll see, everything's going to be alright. These people we're staying with are really nice, and I think we can trust them. They seem to know a lot about our kind, and I believe we will become good allies with these people. Just get better soon, because we need to get on a move on it. If she catches us here, I don't know what's going to happen…" With that, Yoji jumped onto the couch, curling up next to his partner and stole a kiss before falling into peaceful oblivion.
(1) I'm being mean! I want you guys to try and figure out what the message was! If you still can't, then just PM me and I'll tell you/give you a hint.
(2) I looked on a couple of sites to try and analyze the name Yoji and found out the first part (Yo) could mean ocean or sunshine, and that the second part (ji) could mean second, next, rule, or govern and decided that it would be easier to draw oceans and the number two than the other choices. Also, this name meaning will come up later in the future chapters.
(3) Some of the Zero Tamer's history will come up in future chapters, and Sage's past is quite important to the story so be on the look out for it!
Okay, so how was that chapter? I felt I got into creativity in this chapter, and packed in a lot of information so people may have to read it again and again to get the really important concepts. So PM me if there's anything people wish to say to me! And review too!!!