Disclaimer: I suppose I should slip one of these in here huh? Well then, seeing as I don't currently possess the rights to Kingdom Hearts or anything else that might pop up in future writing, I think it can be safely concluded that I own nothing.
"Riku! Sora! Are you two alright? I saw Seifer walking away…I thought I told you to stay by the playground!" Demyx chided as he jogged up with Roxas and Axel following behind at a slower pace on account of the towering ice cream cones they were balancing.
While Sora, distracted by the sight of the sweets, ran up to Roxas to try to wheedle a bit from the blond, Riku started retelling Demyx what had happened in his absence. "It's not my fault! I mean, I was probably the reason Sora wandered away in the first place, but after that I properly stood up for him! Against Seifer, no less." Demyx 'ooh-ed' appropriately. "But…yeah, Seifer was probably on the verge of beating us up anyway." Riku hung his head. "But then this lady came and rescued us!" he exclaimed, brightening and throwing his hands up in the air.
"A lady?" Demyx questioned.
Riku nodded earnestly. "She was insane. I thought she would suffocate from talking so fast but I guess not because she seemed fine."
"An insane lady…?" Demyx felt the beginnings of foreboding stirring in his stomach. "And what did this lady look like?"
Riku considered his answer carefully because Demyx literally looked like his future mental well being depended on this. Sadly, he still chose the wrong thing to say. "She had some really weird hair. The ends were all flippy, like this!" And he demonstrated by holding the ends of his own hair up in the same way that the woman's had.
"Her." Demyx muttered as visions of an endless progression of clothes and that godforsaken mall paraded before his eyes.
"Yes?" Zexion flipped his phone open and answered without taking his eyes off the book in his hands for a second. From the ring tone, it was apparently Demyx calling. Probably with some sort of dire emergency that would require Zexion's damage control. And that was if he was being optimistic.
"Zexion? It's Roxas. Where are you?" Zexion frowned as he tried to come up with a reason why Roxas would be using Demyx's cell. "At the bookstore. Cloud and Leon are somewhere in the children's section I think. Roxas, why are you calling? Did something happen to Demyx?" he asked with a faint amount of worry in his voice, which was unusual but went unnoticed.
"You see, that's why I'm calling. Riku was telling Demyx about this lady that helped him and Sora out against Seifer and all of a sudden he just started mumbling about credit cards and clothes sizes before fainting. We think he's traumatized so I thought it'd be a good idea to call and let you know."
Zexion sighed in what could either be relief or exasperation; it's up to debate. "Thank you. I knew there was a reason I deemed you the most intelligent of your group. I assume the others are gathered around Demyx drawing on his face?" He received an affirmative. "Well, don't worry. I'll go pick you up right now. Expect us in fifteen minutes. And have Demyx's wallet out. He'll be paying our taxi fare."
"Kay. See you."
Somewhere on the other side of the bookstore, Cloud and Leon were just about at their limit. Most people wouldn't mind a little weekend excursion to the bookstore. In fact, some people even went out of their way to make it a weekly routine for themselves. And all because they assumed that any bookstore had to promise a little peace and quiet entertainment whenever you went there. Obviously these people have never visited the toddler area of any large scale outlet.
Little kids ran rampant and even some parents too, chasing after them. The worker in charge of reading to the little monsters had long despaired of ever getting all of them to be quiet and sit down so instead just let the ones who would run do what they would while the slightly older, better behaved kids picked stories to listen to. The only thing was that the blond and the brunette were the sole two willing to listen.
Because of this, they were currently getting the hell annoyed out of them by the worker trying to involve them in the story like she was getting paid to read to them. It was only after twenty consecutive minutes of two deadpanned stares and some apathetic head movements that the overly cheerful girl gave up and started flipping through a magazine instead.
Finally, Zexion came to their rescue, dragging them away, out of the store, and into a cab all the while explaining how Demyx was in a disturbed mental state and so it looked like the group would be spending the day together after all.
At the thought of an entire day in the park (a place where children were actually meant to run around like headless chickens) with Axel and Sora, along with some other little brats, Cloud almost wished that they could go back to the bookstore. To Leon, hell was the same whether it was filled with books and minimum wage workers or swings and skinned knees.
Demyx's face had gained a lovely mustache, a scar on his cheek, and a monocle by the time Zexion, Cloud, and Leon's taxi pulled up. As promised, Roxas ran up with Demyx's wallet to let Zexion pay for their ride before leading all three of the newcomers over to where Axel was trying very hard to listen and behave like Roxas told him to. Sora and Riku were assisting by listing all the fun (and illegal in some places) things Axel could be doing.
"Stop that." Zexion snapped as he came up and knelt next to Demyx. "Hey." he called, shaking the unconscious teen. "Wake up. Demyx!" Pinching the bridge of his nose, Zexion exhaled before adopting a tone similar to Vexen being interrupted in the middle of one of his researching binges. "Demyx you'll get up right now or I'll tell your parents that you're currently failing history and I won't tutor you any more. Or maybe I should track down that woman you're currently in agony over and ask her to be your new teacher?"
Demyx's eyes shot open faster than the smaller six could blink. "Zexy you wouldn't!" Demyx cried, shooting his most pitiful look yet at his friend. "There's no way that anyone could be that cruel, could there?"
Zexion only raised an eyebrow and shrugged, turning away. "You needed to wake up somehow." he offered by way of explanation.
"You're mean." Demyx pouted.
Before Zexion could retort with some scathing insult, he was interrupted by Sora. "Hey Demyx, you're phone has a new voicemail. Did you see it?" Obviously, as he'd been unconscious for the past half an hour, Demyx hadn't.
"Huh. I don't recognize the number." he said after checking.
Glancing over, Zexion said, "It might have been Professor Vexen calling. You should call back and see." Demyx nodded as the others gathered round to listen in.
All of a sudden, Vexen's voice snapped from the speaker, "Look if this is about that damned talking cat research, I'm not finished yet-!"
Emitting a very (not) manly squeak, Demyx tossed the phone to Zexion who hadn't been fazed at all by the sudden yelling. "Professor Vexen? It's Zexion. Did you call Demyx's cell earlier?"
"Hm? Oh, yeah I did." Vexen sounded tired and distracted.
"Well?" Zexion prompted.
"Well what?"
"Why did you call?"
"Oh. Umm…yeah, I've been researching like I was supposed to…"
Zexion absently noted that Vexen sounded like a kid assuring his parents that they were doing their homework even on vacation. "And?"
"I think I've found something so if you want to bring those that got shrunk over, I might be able to give them a remedy that should return them to their usual bodies." Vexen stated.
"I see. Alright then, we'll bring them right over."
Hanging up, Zexion turned to look at the others, staring back and waiting for whatever news Vexen had shared. He smirked. "Come on. I can finally be rid of you demons!" Zexion walked away. Demyx followed, calling for more of an explanation.
The kids turned to each other, silent for a bit before they really registered what Zexion must have heard. They were getting their bodies back! The two older teens could barely keep up once the kids (even Cloud and Leon) started running.
AN: Seems like it's coming to an end huh? I'd guess there are maybe two more chapters before this is complete. But that just means I'll be free to start something new! You know, as soon as I think of it...until then though, thanks for reading! As always, reviews are the greatest and thank you for the ones I've gotten up to now. Favs and alerts too!