Woo! Chapter…uh…I'm gonna say 21. Just as a guess. But I'm making a third part to this, so it can be a trilogy. How totally awesome is that? Not very. Anyhoo…just read.
READ! I COMMAND YOU!!
Nerts! Chris
i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i
A streak of light cut through the forest, blinding all the fighters engaged in combat on the ground. Well, almost all the fighters. It struck Yuffie, and she screamed, the sound cutting through the forest as easily as the light had. The thunderbolt stayed for a few seconds before finally dissipating. Yuffie staggered, sitting on the ground heavily, groaning painfully. Everyone else, human and wolf alike, didn't pay her much attention, trying to get both the buzzing from their ears and the spots from their eyes, as both would impede their ability to fight greatly.
Sora was the one who recovered first, and hurried over to Yuffie as fast as he could, still trying to blink away the last of the multi-colored spats in front of his eyes.
"Yuffie! Yuffie, are you okay?" he asked.
She coughed once, shaking her own head rapidly. "Yeah…" suddenly, she leaped to her feet, making Sora jump back with a yelp, as she yelled. "Yes, I'm fine, dammit! What the hell was that?" Sparks crackled over her skin, making her hair stand up to give off a wild, almost rabid look to her. Sora could almost feel the sparks leaping off of her, the static making his own hair rise (well, rise a bit more than it already was, let's put it like that).
Before he could say anything else, a wolf (surprise among surprises) dropped from the trees. It was tiny, almost dainty, and almost too yellow to be called blonde. Bright blue eyes lingered over Yuffie, with something almost like irritation that her attack had not caused more pain than it had. The sadistic gleam had not left those eyes since Sora had seen them last, back in Castle Oblivion. It was remarkable how alike the two forms looked—both small and thin compared to the rest, with two odd growths of hair beginning above its eyes and arching elegantly over its back. Electricity crackled around it, and Sora felt the breath catch in his throat.
"Larxene?" he breathed, barely able to register what he was seeing.
i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i
Leon and Xigbar had still not done anything significant, and not even a scratch showed on the two of them but the one on the black wolf's side that had been put there previously. And that was definitely not hindering him in any way. He kept disappearing and reappearing in a new location at a frightening rate, but time and time again he was foiled at a hit by Leon's blade, which blocked every hit that had been thrown at him so far. By this time, both of them were getting highly annoyed by this lack of progress, their moves getting more and more risky to catch their opponent off-guard. So far, nothing had worked, and their movements just kept getting more complex.
Finally, Xigbar disappeared, and Leon tensed his eyes sliding to the left and right to prepare for the inevitable attack. Unfortunately, Xigbar had simply decided to continue the frontal attack, reappearing in the same location that he'd previously abandoned.
It was a good move, but not good enough. Leon barely had time, but he brought his elbow down, relinquishing his double-handed grip on his sword for a second, cracking down on the wolf's head not half a foot before the gleaming fangs would have come into contact with his flesh.
The improvised move, however, had an unfortunate drawback to it. Though it prevented any serious injury, the black-and-white wolf's body continued its path forward, slamming into the brunette and sending them both tumbling towards the forest floor below. Leon's unsteady grip on his blade was torn free, and it was sent clattering off into the darkness. Swearing to himself, he tried maneuvering in midair to land on his feet, but in this black oblivion, he could barely tell which way was up.
They smashed into the ground heavily, both lying there, stunned. Leon was the first to stir, but as he raised himself up, a low, feral growl turned his attention downwards. A sightless, staring orb glared right back at him, and even though Xigbar couldn't see him, he knew where Leon was—it probably had something to do with the fact that the brunette had landed on him.
Xigbar strained to get up, but the brunette's weight and his slightly stunned state kept him down. Leon, however, knew it was only a matter of time before the wolf would have regained enough strength to get to his feet, and then it would be much harder for Leon to defend himself without his Gunblade. He cast about for it quickly, but the darkness was blanketing everything, making it indistinguishable. It had to be close, but in what direction, he wasn't sure.
Making a swift decision, he twisted around, driving his elbow down onto the wolf's head, trying to stun him more than he already was before leaping neatly to his feet. A flash of silver caught his eye, and he looked up to see Riku jogging towards them, his furious gaze on the fallen Nobody.
AS Xigbar struggled to his feet, slightly out of it due to the blow to his head that he'd only just received, a set of teeth sank into his back, making him snarl in pain and whirl upon Riku, the pain washing away some of the mist. The two swirled around each other, but Riku had almost no trouble taking down the other wolf piece by piece, breaking him down, exhausted as he was from his fight with Leon. It had taken most of his strength, and now Riku was taking advantage of that. Soon, Xigbar was struggling, blood pouring from new wounds, one of his front legs shattered completely. Finally, the black-and-silver wolf collapsed, his entire frame shuddering pathetically in a pool of blood. Riku backed off, unsure of what to do now. He looked over at the brunette plaintively, but Leon just stared back with a gaze that was equally blank.
"Don't look at me," he said. "I'm not going to kill him for you."
They looked at the fallen wolf, then back at each other, then at the blonde as he caught up with them. Cloud was staring at the sniper, a look of satisfaction on his face. "Good, you two got him." He looked at them expectantly, and Leon shrugged. "If you want to kill him, be my guest."
"What? You won't?"
"Not particularly inclined, no."
The blonde sighed, and then turned his back on the scene. "Let's just go. It's getting lighter out, and I don't want to be here when the sun comes up, thank you anyways."
Behind his back, the other two looked at each other once again, and then followed reluctantly. Only the silverhair paused to take a quick glance backwards at their fallen foe.
i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i
Larxene was much harder to hit than Loz, who they were also fighting at the same time. She had a nasty habit of drawing you in closer, making you think that you had a small chance of getting a hit in, before she would take off in a sudden burst of speed, almost seeming to disappear before she came at you from behind. It was getting highly irritating, but so far they had managed to elude her, even though they hadn't actually managed to hit her yet.
Yuffie, for one, was getting very, very annoyed by this.
"Just…stay…still…you quirky…bitch!" she ground out between clenched teeth, swinging her shuriken wildly, nearly clipping off one of the long strands of hair that came from the blonde head.
None of the others, Larxene included, responded to that comment, to engrossed in trying to kill one another to even try.
Things were looking bad for the three humans involved in the fight. Whoever had decided that these two should go together were obviously thinking right, because they made a deadly combination of appalling strength and dizzying speed. They kept changing around, too, so you had to keep on your feet to change swiftly between the varying methods of fighting. It was hard, and all of them had, although managing to avoid getting bitten, were thoroughly scratched and bruised. By all rights, they should have been bitten by now, but it seemed that the two didn't think that any other wolves would be a good thing right now, at least for their team. Right now, Tifa, Yuffie, and Sora didn't think that having another wolf was a bad idea at all.
Sora felt teeth grinding against the metal of his Keyblade, and was forced back as Loz lunged forwards. Sparks flew, but neither one of the fighters was paying attention to that at all, even as both of them were left with small dots of light in the corners of their vision. Then the pressure was gone as Tifa came to his rescue, her foot hitting Loz's neck with a force that would have broken the spine of most of her opponents. This one, however, was sent tumbling a few feet before scrambling back in retaliation.
"I…hate…you!" came Yuffie's voice from somewhere to the left, and suddenly Larxene was there, claws raking parallel grooves in his side. He yelled, lurching backwards, trying to get the blade around fast enough to strike her, but she was already gone, and he heard Tifa yell in surprise as well. Whether she had been hurt or not, he couldn't tell. Suddenly, Loz was back, his body slamming into Sora's, seemingly in revenge for the past injury. Sora was propelled forward, his thin body crashing into something dark and evilly hard (most likely a tree, but it felt like a wall, really), and he staggered, sinking to his knees, expecting to feel a killing blow at any moment…but nothing happened.
Slowly, he clambered back onto his feet, using his blade to steady himself. Looking around, trying to ignore the agony ricocheting through his head, he looked over at the other two accompanying him. Both had puzzled expressions on their faces, and there was absolutely no trace of the werewolves anywhere.
"They just…disappeared," Yuffie said, not even attempting to hide the irritation in her voice. "The damn things just disappeared." Growling to herself, she threw her shuriken into the ground so that it stuck up, sitting beside it huffily. "This sucks," she grumbled.
Neither Tifa nor Sora paid her much attention, too used to her constant whining already. Instead, they turned to each other.
"What was that all about?" Tifa asked, wiping blood away from a cut on her forehead that was threatening to get into her eye. "Did they just get tired, because from what I could see, they were winning."
Sora shook his head. "I have no idea, but right now I really want to get out of here before they decide that maybe we would have been better off dead."
Tifa nodded, and the two of them headed off, with Yuffie scurrying after them once she had realized they were leaving, yelling at them for leaving her and getting a faceful of wet leaves from Sora to shut her up as they walked.
i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i
By the time that they got back to the airship, Cloud, Riku, and Leon were already there. All three of them looked far better off than Sora's group, even Riku, who by this time had gone back to his regular human self and half of his injuries he'd obtained were already completely gone, with a fewer remaining ones that ran deeper than just a scratch.
"How did you guys do?" the silverhair asked as they came in, a slightly smug smile on his face, and Sora glared at him.
"Fine, thanks," he replied haughtily.
Tifa snorted. "You're kidding, right? We came across two wolves, we didn't do so very well."
Cloud frowned. "That's definitely not good. They know all of us, now, and I don't think we've even managed to see their full numbers yet."
"Where are Pyro and Blondie?" Yuffie chirped suddenly, and they all looked at her. She blinked. "What? Am I really the only person to have wondered about them?"
"It's dawn, Yuffie. They'll probably be along later," Leon said quietly. "We're all pretty early."
"They're probably out having sex, or something," Yuffie muttered to herself, and Sora saw Riku flinch slightly. He'd been trying not to think about it, but the ninja's comments weren't helping at all.
"Shut up, Yuffie," Cloud said shortly, and for the most part, she did, only grumbling to herself under her breath. They waited, something they had been getting increasingly better at over these past few months, but no one else came in.
An hour later, Roxas emerged from the trees, one arm kept tight at his side, the other clamped over his shoulder. Sora and Riku leaped up, going to meet him and help him into the ship.
"Sorry," Roxas said quietly, breath rasping in his throat. "Ran into some trouble, I guess you could say. Is everyone else—"
"Wasn't Axel with you?" Sora interrupted.
"We had to split up because we were being followed…" Roxas said slowly, concern edging into his voice. "Isn't…isn't he back yet?"
i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i
A.N. I know, I know, short chapter again, but it reaches more than 4 pages on my Microsoft document, so maybe next time I'll make it, like 5 pages. Maybe a really large chapter as a birthday gift to
me (my B-Day's June 1). Yeah…maybe I'll do that…I dunno. Anyhoo, no one seems to have an opinion on the yaoi pairings except for maybe three TOTALLY AWESOME people…so I'll probably just have to let my story run wild again.
TTFN
BlackFalcon002, aka Chris