To Falconreach we go
Sorry it took me so long guys, I had some writer's block issues and other stories I needed to finish. Anyway, here's the next chapter.
Disclaimer – I own Rayne, Lizzie, Trip, Blaze, and partially Felix. Xenolord owns Maria, Natalya, and Serras. Flame-Tiger the rest of Felix, and she also owns Faust, Shiro, and Armour. Hazelstar owns Arcana; Blade100 owns Alex, and all the rest we do not own.
It was night. The stars in the sky shone weakly, illuminating the world from above. Down below however, in a certain part of Lore on a certain road it was nearly pitch black. There were no street lights brightening the way, and the only lights came from the headlights of the two rented vans that drove quite close to one another and the car that drove not quite as close behind them.
We'll get back to that third car soon though. For now, let's take a look at what's happening in the vans, shall we?
Inside both vans, it was dead quiet. It was the middle of the night after all, and so all of the people in both vans were asleep, save for the drivers themselves.
In one of the cans however (the one that Maria Despair currently held the wheel of) it was somewhat louder than the other van. As mentioned above, all were sleeping except for the driver, but there was someone else awake other than Maria. It was this person that was making the majority of the noise. From them, there seemed to be a constant stream of high-pitched chinks, and other sounds like an alarm bell, slamming sounds, and slapping effects.
Because Maria was focused on the country road before her, she didn't hear it immediately. The others, being asleep, didn't hear it either. But the person making the noise didn't notice at all. She was too busy. Soon, she began to mutter quietly to herself. She was saying a single word, but after she became more and more frustrated, she repeated the word over and over, louder each time. Soon they reached their highest point, until they screamed at the top of their lungs-
"OBJECTION!"
With her arm outstretched, finger pointed accusingly at nothing in particular, she smiled as they finally saw what she wanted. That triumphant grin stayed on their face... until they were hit very, very hard in the head.
"OW!" She screeched, clutching at her skull with one hand in pain. Through watering eyes, she glared at their attacker.
"RAYNE!" WHAT WAS THAT FOR?"
"You woke me up Felix!" Rayne snarled, squinting at her friend, her eyes still blurred with sleep.
She had been resting with Lizzie curled up against her side. She had been sleeping quite soundly until someone smacked her across the face, their outstretched finger almost jabbing her in the eye.
"What the heck are you doing, anyways?" The recently awoken girl mumbled, rubbing at her eyes vigorously to try and wake herself even further.
"I was playing on your DS!" Felix explained, holding up the currently closed portable console in one hand.
"...How did you get that out of my pocket?"
"Do you really want to know?"
There was something in Felix's voice that worried Rayne about what the answer would be, so she avoided it, clearing her throat and instead asking what game she had been playing.
"Phoenix Wright!" Felix chirped, opening the DS and showing Rayne the dual screens, where the sprite of the blue-suited, spiky haired lawyer stood with his arm outstretched in a very similar position to the one the cat demon had been in but moments ago.
Rayne's eyes flicked between the DS and the smiling girl, whose face was illuminated eerily by the light of the screens.
"Felix," she deadpanned, "What have I told you about playing Phoenix Wright without asking?"
"...I don't know?"
"Felix. I tell you this every single time you look at my DS, never mind play it. What have I told you?"
"Don't play any Ace Attorney games without asking." Felix grumbled, closing the DS and crossing her arms as she pouted.
"Exactly." The raven-haired girl nodded. "Now pass me that- I want to see what damage you've done to my case."
Still mumbling, Felix reluctantly handed the girl back her DS. Taking it from the cat-demon's hands, Rayne paused, eyeing her friend carefully as the onyx coloured platform touched her hand.
"What's wrong?" Felix asked.
"Did you put anything in my DS?"
The shorter-haired girl shook her head.
"Nope. I only played Phoenix Wright, no Advance games."
"You sure?" Rayne cocked an eyebrow. "It feels like there's something in the bottom slot."
"Huh." Felix blinked. Suddenly, a grin spread across her face.
"Pass me that thing in the slot?"
Giving her friend a questioning and slightly suspicious look, Rayne nevertheless handed over whatever was in the second port of her DS over to Felix. Normally, Rayne wouldn't trust Felix with anything, whether it was hers or even Felix's own possessions, but the lack of sleep and the fact it was so late at night might have affected her normally good judgement.
"What are you going to do with that?"
Felix just smiled brightly.
"THIS!" She cried, rolling down the window and tossing whatever it was.
Rayne screamed like a little girl in horror.
"OH MY G-"
"-od damn it!"
DA was awoken by the sound of Xenolord's swearing.
"Whassamatter?" She grumbled, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes to stare at her just sprung from jail friend.
"They took it out!" He growled the once blipping monitor now silent.
"Took what out?" Felix yawned, sitting up from where she had been slouched over in the back seat.
"The tracker!" The man exclaimed. "They took out the tracker!"
"Well, you hid it in Rayne's pants." Flame pointed out. "They were bound to find it sooner or later."
"OBJECTION!" Xenolord cried, pointing a finger at the fellow teacher. "I put it in her DS! Not her pants!"
"Have you been playing Phoenix Wright too, Xeno?" DA asked, oddly serene as she watched her two friends fight.
"Well, I did play one case when I snatched Rayne's DS earlier..."
"Never mind Phoenix!" Flame yelled. "Now that the tracker is gone, what do we do?"
"We're just going to have to do this the old fashioned way." Xeno replied, turning around and looking at Flame. "We're going to have to watch them at all times and follow where they go by relying solely on our eyes. Every turn they take, we take. Every stop they stop at, we stop at too. Every-"
"Swerve." DA interrupted.
"Well, I was going to say curve, but that makes sense too."
"No, I mean SWERVE! RIGHT NOW!" DA screamed, her voice rising to an ear-splitting shriek.
Xeno turned to look, and yelped as he saw the tracker careening toward the windshield of the car.
He swerved to avoid it, and in the process he ran off the road and into the forest that the road was by.
All of them screamed their faces off like little girls as they moved deeper and deeper into the woods.
"OH MY G-"
"-oing next?" Blaze asked, yawning and stretching out his muscles while looking into Natalya's eyes through the rear-view mirror. He and nearly everyone else in the car had been awoken by a faint sound, something that could have been screaming, but was probably from the radio.
Natalya, the driver of the second van, gazed at the blonde boy's reflection.
"We're going to Falconreach, of course."
"No we're not!" Alex yelled, bolting upwards so he sat up straight, waking up from his deep sleep the moment the elder Despair sister said the name of his hometown.
"Dragonark, you can make up any excuses you want, but it won't matter because we're going anyways." The driver told Alex sternly.
"Don't I get any say in this?" He whimpered, shying away from her intense glare.
"All the say you have on any matter was used up a looong time ago," Arcana drawled, her eyes radiating an evil sort of radiance in the back seat where she sat.
"This is abuse." Alex sighed.
"So is being in the same van as you." Serras shot back, turning around in her seat in the front to glare at the boy.
"What is this?" He whined. "National gang up on Alex day?"
"Actually, yes." Faust replied calmly, pulling out her personal planner (she was a teenage business woman after all) and pointing to the words underneath the current day, proclaiming 'National Gang Up on Alex Day' in small but bold letters.
"...Damn." Was all he could say, sitting back in his chair with a loud fwump.
"Hey, cheer up buddy." Shiro spoke up. "There is one good thing."
"And that is?" The Falconreach native asked, looking over his shoulder to the other boy in the back seat.
"At least they aren't ragging on us instead!" The boy grinned, motioning to him and Armour.
"...Is that supposed to cheer me up?"
"Yes?"
"That was a rhetorical question." The normally mellow boy snapped.
"You actually know what that means?" Natalya goggled.
A muscle under Alex's eye twitched.
"...Natalya." He said, after a very deep breath. "You... are a very cruel person."
"But, I must say that you're even lovelier when you're cruel."
Catching her eye in the mirror, Alex slipped a rose out of his pocket, twirling it between his fingers as he winked at her.
Too busy flirting with the older girl Alex didn't see Serras suddenly fumbling with her seat belt. Finally getting it to unlatch, she flung it off herself and twisted in her seat.
"Hell no!" She growled, lunging at Alex who, in turn, screamed (just like the others in all the other cars) like a little girl.
"OH MY G-"
"-rrrrrreat! We're here!"
After many hours, many stops for medical attention, and many little-girl like screams later, they all finally made it to the city of Falconreach, albeit being bandaged and bruised.
"That was a good Tony the Tiger impression." Aria said, impressed.
"Thank you. I am a tiger cat demon after all." Felix grinned.
"So, what do we do first?" Blaze asked, rubbing his hands together in glee and excitement.
"Nothing, we get out of here immediately." Alex said quickly, eyeing the town around him nervously.
"I say we go and find out what's making that wanna-be Casanova over here nervous." Arcana suggested the familiar evil gleam in her eyes.
Rayne shook her head, and when Arcana asked why, the sarcastic brunette replied with a single comment.
"It's always good to save the best for last."
"So!" Maria piped up, "I say we have Alex here give us a tour of Falconreach."
"And what if I don't?" Alex tried defiantly.
Maria just smiled sweetly. Grabbing him by the scruff of his neck, Alex (for once) resisted making a lewd comment. Instead, he just whimpered and nodded as the woman said in a sickeningly sweet voice,
"Then I'll castrate you with a rusty meat grinder."
Dropping him back on the ground, Alex dusted himself off, double checking his never ending supply of roses as he did so. Breathing deeply again, he started his tour, leading the group of fifteen around.
Falconreach was a bit similar to Battleon; same typed of stores, layout and in the distance a museum was looming over the town, clearly in the shape of a Guardian Tower that looked awfully like Battleon's but with a different structure. Just like Battleon, that Tower was a museum, built in the same shape of the town's Guardian Tower back in the Golden Age.
However, some parts were different, as to be expected. Store owners were different, their wares as well. The Main Street ran horizontally across the town, unlike Battleon's where the main street led to the Guardian Tower Museum. Most importantly, the people were different.
Some people however, were exactly the same.
"Welcome to the Falconreach Inn!" The woman working there sing-songed. "Will you be staying the night?"
Squinting at the girl, Rayne's eyes widened as she recognized who it was. Before she could speak, Alex beat her to it.
"It depends," He said smoothly, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively as he offered her a rose. "If I stay the night, can I be in the same room as you?"
The blonde looked at Alex. Instead of slapping him or blushing (which was usually the two expected reactions) she just rolled her eyes.
"I see you're back in town, Alex." She said. "If that's a good thing or a bad thing though, I'm not sure."
"Ouch, Serenity." The black and blue clad boy clutched his heart. "That hurt."
"I thought it was you!" Aria smiled, snapping her fingers together as she voiced Rayne's thoughts.
Serenity peered closely at them and her eyes glinted with recognition. A toothy grin spread over her face.
"I remember you guys!" She cried. "From the Battle of the Bands competition last year before Christmas!"
"You've got that right!" Trip nodded. "Anyways, what are you doing here?"
"My family has owned this inn for generations." She shrugged. "So I have a job here. Did you know that most of the stores in this area are just like this; family owned for generations?"
"I think my own family has a business here." Aria peered out the window to the pet shop down the street. "My cousin and grandma run it, the last I remember."
"Hey, do you remember Reens as well?" Serenity asked them.
Alex's eyes lit up and he smiled and nodded slowly, stopping as Natalya leaned over and slapped him upside the head. Lizzie instead nodded for them.
"She has a job too, just down the street from here." Serenity told them. "Like me, it's her family's business."
"What about Nythera and Maya?" Blaze asked, missing the involuntary shudder that Natalya and Maria gave at the sound of the two names. Although it was not too noticeable, they inched away from each other.
Serenity, oblivious to the happening of the island trip the year before (for she, like almost all of them, had chosen to remain ignorant) shook her head.
"Nah," She said. "But I do know that Maya has a summer job working in the school library, reorganizing the books and whatnot. Nythera has a job too, working for that magic and science teacher at your school, but she and he are at odds right now so I bet you she's with Maya at the moment."
"That's great!" Lizzie cheered. "We can check in now, and then go and visit them."
"I think I'll pass." Aria said, "I want to go and see the pet shop."
"I want to finish the tour." Arcana interjected.
Maria turned to her. "I thought you've already been here before?"
"I have." The Darkovian student said. She smiled menacingly. "I just want to torture Alex."
"Why can't we just stop by my place, get my things, and high-tail it out of here?" The male asked.
"Because we're going to find out what you're not telling us, Dragonark." Armour grunted.
Serenity blinked at this, and realization dawned in her eyes.
"You haven't told them?" She said incredulously. "You haven't told them about-"
Alex would have clamped her mouth shut, but Serenity herself paused. Her gaze, which had been amused and playful, turned somewhat cooler.
"Actually, you know what?" She said instead. "Let them find out. And let you know who find out too."
"The plot thickens." Shiro whispered, Armour letting out a booming "Dun Dun DAH!" as they all watched Serenity smile warmly at the group (excluding Alex) before stalking off.
After dropping off their bags in their rooms, ("No, Alex." Arcana snarled at him, "You can't room with one of the girls.") they split into three groups. One, consisting of Aria, Shiro, Armour, Faust and Trip, went to go visit Aria's family's pet shop, while another made up of Rayne, Lizzie, Maria, and Safiria went to go see Nythera and Maya at the Falconreach High Library.
The biggest and final group's objective was to finish the tour of the town. Other than Blaze (who went to actually see the city) the rest of them went to bother Alex.
Later on, they would all meet again, this time at Alex's home. There, the womanizer would pick up clothes and necessities before heading to the hotel, where they would all spend the night and the majority of the next day before setting off for their next stop.
The day went as semi-planned. The first group visited the pet shop, looking at the different animals up for sale (there were some creatures that the Battleon Store, which Aria's family also owned, did not have). While conversing with Aria's grandmother and cousins, they had a run in with Aria's pet giant spider, Thomas, who Aria scolded severely when the giant arachnid tried to bite Trip. After taking to make sure no major harm had been done, the redhead apologized for Thomas' behaviour, claiming that she wasn't usually so temperamental, making the others wonder about what kind of childhood she had had to gender-confuse names on a giant spider.
The third group had not as much trouble as the first. Alex showed them the main street in more detail, the Guardian Tower Museum and the nature all around, all while being teased, plagues and harassed by his group (excluding Blaze)
It wasn't until the second group (who had stopped by a local cafe to get a drink) got to the school did anything of extreme interest occur.
"Hello?" Rayne called out, entering the library.
Lizzie slapped her shoulder.
"Rayne!" She scolded, "You're supposed to be quiet in a library!"
"Liz, no one's here but us." Maria pointed out.
"No offense, but who would be in a school library during the summer break anyways but the workers?"
Suddenly, Maya appeared from behind a bookshelf.
"Welcome to the Falconreach high school library!" the brunette said breathlessly. "We're currently closed right now, so please come back during September..."
"We just came to visit you." Lizzie grinned. Maya blinked, and squealed in surprise.
"I remember you now!" She cried, coming closer to the four. "You're from the Battle of the Bands competition!"
"That's us!" Maria grinned broadly. "Speaking of Battle of the Bands, where's your little lover-girl?"
A red flush crept up from the librarian's collar, staining her neck and face red.
"W-what makes you think that N-Nythera's here?" She stammered.
"Well..." The sea-foam green haired woman leaned over, eyes twinkling devilishly as she stopped moving, her face but a foot away from the book keeper's.
"I know a hickey when I see one, Maya." She leered. "Not to mention your glasses are crooked, and that shallow breathing and messy outfit tells it all."
Maya flushed even further. Smoothing down her rumpled clothing and even more disheveled corkscrew pigtails down, she fixed her glasses and pressed her collar down against her neck so the mark was hidden. "You can come out now." She sighed.
A moment later, Nythera strutted out in all her gothic glory. Even in the hot weather, her boots, make up, and dark clothing were still on, full length, and nearly immaculate.
"Nice to see you again, Despair." She sneered. Maria stared icily back at her. Safiria, Rayne, and Lizzie (as said earlier, choosing to remain in the dark from the events of the fateful trip) just smiled awkwardly as they watched the two powerful women fight through eye contact alone.
"Anyways," Maya coughed, "What brings you here?"
"We just wanted to drop in to say hi." Lizzie explained. "Plus, we're going on a Lore-wide road trip and one of the people going with us lives here in Falconreach."
"Really." Nythera responded boredly, never breaking her glaring contest with Maria.
"What's your friend's name?" Maya asked.
"Alex." Safiria said. "Alex Dragonark. Do you know of him?"
Finally looking away from Maria, both Falconreach students met each other's eyes.
"That pervert?" Nythera snorted. "Geez, Despair. I thought you would choose your friends a little more carefully."
As Maria and Nythera restarted their glowering contest, all the other girls ignored them.
"He is a bit of a lecher." Rayne nodded, smirking. "It's no wonder he can't get a girl."
Maya looked oddly at them.
"Huh? What do you mean?" She asked, puzzled.
Lizzie's brow furrowed.
"Alex can't get a girlfriend anywhere. He told us he had no luck in Falconreach, and so far, we've witnessed his failure first hand in Battleon."
Maya's jaw dropped.
"That little...!"
"What?" Maria stopped and turned to Maya. "What is it?"
"There's something you should know about Alex..." Nythera, who had been half-listening to the conversation said as she walked over to beside Maya.
"The thing is..."
"Hi, Ben." Alex smiled at his legal guardian, who smiled back and let them all into the apartment.
"I'll make some drinks." Ben said, tallying up the numbers of the group in total before disappearing off into the kitchen area.
"I'm going to go pack." Alex said, winking at the girls and throwing a rose into the midst of them before her left. "Don't miss me too much ladies!"
When he had left the room, Rayne leaned in close, motioning for everyone to lean in as well.
"Guys, there's something you should all know about Alex." She muttered.
"He won't be coming with us?" Arcana looked delighted for a moment, but as Rayne glared at her, she sank back, muttering "joking" under her breath.
"What's wrong, Rayne?" Blaze asked.
"Well, you see, Alex-"
Rayne was cut off again as the doorbell rand, just as Alex re-entered the room.
"Sorry guys," he apologized. "I just left something and I-"
His eyes widened as he saw who Ben had let in. "Oh creator." He gasped, trying to run back to his room.
Alex didn't make it one step before two things tackled him to the ground- two blurs, one blue, one pink.
The blue one hovered overhead, flying in excited circles, while the pink one lay on top of the wanna-be player, peppering kisses all over his face.
"I missed you so much!' The pink creature cried between kisses.
"Jojo... will you just... hold on for a minute!" Alex yelped trying to cover his face.
'Jojo' did as she was asked, sitting up straight on Alex's belly as the boy tried to regain some sense of his surroundings.
It was then that Jojo caught sight of the group. Her eyes narrowed as she saw that the majority of them were women.
"Alex," She said, her voice dangerously quiet, "Who are these people? Why are they sitting in your living room? Why are most of them girls?"
"Um, Alex..." Rayne gaped, "Who is she?"
Glaring at Rayne hard, Jojo snorted and got off of him, revealing that she was, in fact, a tiny pink moglin.
"I'm his girlfriend!" Jojo huffed.
There was a pregnant pause.
"GIRLFRIEND!?"
