Apology: I'm sorry for not updating but I will try to have regular updates from now on.
Disclaimer: If it's canon, I don't own it. If it's real, it's a place or someone from whom I gained permission to insert into the fanfiction. If it's an OC, it's mine or the person it does belong to please say so in a review. Enjoy!
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Part 2
Apollo groaned as he packed clothing and other such traveling necessities into his suitcase. It was always him being dragged along by Katrina but unlike some certain anime characters she often mentioned, she thinks about the stuff she does beforehand so it doesn't end up getting completely wrecked. As Apollo was thinking about this his mother entered his room with freshly ironed t-shirts and handed them to him. She wasn't his real mother, of course, but she was the closest thing he ever really had to one. He'd found this out 2 years ago when he was twelve.
Usually he would have gone to his friends' house to study and then play, but that evening his parents were waiting at their front door for him as he walked past. They called out to him so he said he'd catch his friends later and ran inside the house. That night, not only had they told him that he was orphaned and adopted but that they were getting divorced as well, but before they told him they gave him a strange bracelet with images of what seemed like eyes going in a pattern around it. The second he put it on it gave him a weird suspicious feeling about it. As if it held some kind of power, but that was absurd. After all, how could a bracelet hold any power whatsoever? It's just a bracelet. All that aside, that night seemed like it was going to be his ruin but, in a way, it probably saved him as well. Apollo always thought about that night whenever he looked at his bracelet and every time he did he weeped a little inside.
He took his shirts and placed them on the bed beside his suitcase. "Thanks, 'Mom'." He raised his fingers to signify inverted commas as he said this. She faced down with a sorry look in her eye. "You're welcome, son." she whispered as she walked from the room. Apollo knew he was acting like a jerk but he couldn't help it. He could never forget what had happened to him. All the pain and broken bones he'd suffered because of it. The bullying he'd been subjected to. He winced at the thought of it and turned back to his packing. Katrina should be there in an hour and then, they leave for England.
"So much for leaving for England so soon." Apollo muttered as they went through customs.
"Now you know how I felt when I came into this country." Katrina replied in a similarly muffled tone.
Apollo had never gone on holiday abroad. In fact, he'd never even been on a plane before. His family never earned enough for them to do stuff like that, but this trip was being paid for by both schools together. Katrina, however, had been flying since she was eight and was very accustomed to airplanes and all that happens with the in-flight processes.
When they got on the plane Apollo looked quite nervous and anxious. He was clenching the arms of the seat. Katrina opened the packet of Minstrels™ she'd brought at the duty-free. Customs and security had taken one and a half hours and it was three o'clock by the time they'd gotten to the waiting/duty-free area and four by the time they got on the plane. The engine powered up and the plane started to turn just as the cabin crew had finished demonstrating the safety procedures. Apollo sank into the back of his seat and Katrina put a Minstrel™ in her mouth as the plane began to speed up. She offered one to Apollo saying, "If you suck something while the plane takes off, your ears won't pop as much."
He took one and shoved it in his mouth. He felt the rest of the flight would be hell.
After landing, Apollo and Katrina once again went through customs but considering they were arriving in the country, a majority of the time spent was spent waiting for their luggage. During which Katrina kept muttering "Please don't let them have got lost." over and over again to herself, forever staring at the leather strips hanging over the conveyer belt. Once all of their bags had been retrieved from the baggage-handlers'-luggage-conveyer-belt-of-doom, they went outside to find a taxi with who seemed to be the driver leaning against it holding up a sign with Katrina's name printed on it in large letters. They got into the taxi and Katrina reeled off their destination without fault. She would have said the post code and phone number too if Apollo hadn't stopped her mid-sentence by clasping his hand over her mouth.
It was a long drive to Rhiannon's house in Bromsgrove, it wasn't that late but Katrina was getting drowsy. After about twenty minutes of battling her eyelids to stay open she finally gave in, closed them and fell asleep. She fell to her right and her head hit Apollo's shoulder. He'd previously been staring out of the window at the seemingly endless English countryside running alongside the motorway but this made him turn and look at her expressionless features nuzzling into his shoulder. He smiled a soft smile and blushed. He leant his head on hers and stared out of the front windscreen, but even though he was probably as tired as Katrina was, he didn't fall asleep.
They pulled up outside Rhiannon's house about an hour later and Apollo shook Katrina awake. This took a little while as she refused to wake up but she finally did when the motion-sensored light outside Rhiannon's garage came on. They got out of the taxi, got their bags out of the boot and dragged said bags to Rhiannon's front door. Katrina rang the doorbell and waited for a reply. It was only nine o'clock so she expected a reply. The door was opened by a mid-height, long-haired brunette in rectangular thick-rimmed glasses. She was dressed in a black t-shirt and combat trousers and her hair was tied back in a pony-tail. She smiled at Katrina and said, "'Bout time! We've been expecting you for ages!" Katrina smirked and walked in, hoisting her bag over the high threshold. The other girl turned to Apollo and said, "Well, are you coming in or not, Spikes?" Apollo replied with a blank stare. This made her laugh as she showed him into the living room. The girl's mum was sitting on the sofa watching a random advert for DFS sofas flash around on the screen. Her head tilted up a bit as she called out, "Rhiannon! Who is it?" The girl, who was apparently Rhiannon, tapped her mum on the shoulder. She turned around and Rhiannon gave a little wave in front of her face.
After Rhiannon received a stern telling off from her mum for being rude, she showed the two upstairs. There were six rooms upstairs including the bathroom, the play room and four bedrooms: Rhiannon's, her triplet sisters', Kari and Mei's, and their mum's. Their parents were divorced but that's a different story. "Kat, you'll be staying in Kari's room next to mine. Spikes, you'll be in Mei's room across the landing." Rhiannon said to them.
"Thanks, Rhi." Katrina replied smiling. She took her bag into her designated room and shut the door.
"I have a name y'know." Apollo replied to Rhiannon, sending another blank stare her way. She smiled an evil smile and said, "Do I look like I give a damn?" And with that she went into her own room and slammed the door in his face. His stare faded as he turned around and looked at the door to Mei's room. There was a sign on the door saying:
WARNING
All ye who enter here with out my
permission will be hanged, drawn and
quartered and their heads shall be placed on
spikes outside this room as an example to others.
You have been warned...
Apollo seemed freaked out by the sign and for a few seconds contemplating whether it was actually safe to enter. He decided it was best so he braced himself, closed his eyes grabbed the handle, pushed the door open and fell over the step in to the room, hitting the cream carpeted floor with a thud. Said room had three black painted walls and the remaining wall was blood red. Yet the ceiling and carpet was creamy colours, softening on the eyes. Pictures of Daniel Craig were up on every wall, one of him with his wife with multiple torturing implements aimed at her. She seems to be a tad hostile and probably violent. Apollo mused as picked himself and his suitcase off the floor.
He heard a door across the landing open and Katrina poked her head around the side. "Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. For this we're swapping with Rhi's sisters. So they've gone to our school for the week. Okay?" she said. Apollo nodded and she withdrew back into the room. He started to feel sorry for his friends, Anita and Tom, back in America. They were twins. They didn't really cope well with violent characters, like this Mei seemed to be, as Apollo had found out with personal experience. Painful personal experience. He winced at the thought. He picked up his suitcase, put it down on the bed and began to unpack his things. He heard another door open behind him and Rhiannon's voice call out to both he and Katrina, "Guys! I've arranged a meeting with some friends from school tomorrow! Be sure not to be too affected by jetlag!"
Apollo gulped but gave it some thought. I wouldn't be too bad to meet up with some of the kids he'd be working with for the next week. It'd be fun, right?
