A/N: So it's been a little while, but that just means I spent more time on this chapter. Well, that's what it should mean, but alas…
You'll have to forgive me and monitor me in regards to the FF characters in this story. All I really know about them comes from what Kingdom Hearts gives me and the vague recollections I have from playing the game (FFVII) when I was about six years old. I've gathered bits and pieces through fan fiction and youtube cosplayers, but I'm still more or less in the dark. Have no fear, though. I'm still working on my research-watching walkthroughs of the game (we lost the first disk! T_T), (eye raping ) reading wikipedia, reading more fan fiction, etc. so please just bear with me and let me know if I write someone wrong.
Fun Fact: Last Legend is a joke version of Final Fantasy that I made up. Enjoy.
The bell for lunch came after what felt like days, though it had only been a few hours. The entire student body rushed from their respective classrooms like a flood and surged towards the cafeteria, stopping often to soak the lockers. Soon the throng thinned to puddles of friends here and there. Sora waited diligently in one of those puddles, scanning the hall for more of his friends.
Riku's body of water, in the meantime, had joined forces with Kairi's, forming some sort of super puddle as they flowed down the hall. The group was relatively quiet as they hurried down the hall. Introductions could happen at anytime, but the cafeteria had only so much of the decent, non-cardboard textured pizza, and it went fast. Olette lead her own group and seamlessly merged with the ever growing crowd on their way. Finally, the double doors were in sight as the hungry teens rounded a corner. Sora, who'd been waiting by the doors, hurried to his friends, dragging his puddle with him.
They continued, shoving themselves through the line and obtaining their precious pizza. Zexion, last of their line, took the last piece and consequently thoroughly enraged a short blonde girl who'd joined the line right after their group. Once Demyx had successfully sweet talked her out of murdering Zexion in cold blood, the group moved on to a grassy area outside in the sun. It was far too nice of a day to eat in a stuffy cafeteria full of murderous midgets, after all.
"So?" Kairi asked as she sat on her knees, delicately munching her pizza beside Larxene.
"So what?" Riku asked, taking a much more dedicated bite.
"Aren't you going to introduce your friends?" she said in a what's-wrong-with-you-this-was-an-obvious-'so?' tone.
"I'm sure they can do it themselves," Riku said uncaringly with a shrug. Sora was too engrossed in his food to bother saying anything on the matter. Kairi rolled her eyes and tsked before turning to the blonde on her left.
"This is Namine, and that's Axel," she instigated, pointing to the redhead who sat across from her in their lopsided semi-circle. He was speaking with Roxas in hushed tones, his face turned away from the rest of them as he conversed with the blond, oblivious of all other conversations.
"Cool, I'm Sora!" the brunet on Axel's other side declared, having finished most of his pizza. Riku noted the boy's childish habit of leaving the crust untouched. "And this is Hayner, but some of you know that, but some don't," he continued talking while gesturing to his friend. Hayner was sitting between Olette and Pence, who was on the other side of Roxas. The two best friends were only half listening as they cracked jokes, Olette grinning but trying to tell them off for being rude at the same time.
"Hey, what about me?" Demyx called indignantly from next to Riku. Even though he was acting upset, it was obvious he was entertained nonetheless. Sora grinned sheepishly. "Sorry. Yeah, that's Demyx, the guy with the mullet-hawk," he chuckled.
"Mullet-hawk," Demyx tried the name, running his hands up in the mess of hair. He grinned. "I like it!" Beside him, Zexion rolled his eyes and buried his nose deeper in his book.
"The grumpy emo over there is Zexion," Larxene said, successfully capturing the slate haired boy's attention. He narrowed his eyes at her and calculated a way to throw his book at her without hitting Kairi. Deeming it too risky, he simply scowled at her.
"The brunette girl is Olette," Kairi told the exchange students in a feeble attempt to distract them from their staring contest of doom, "and the boy on Hayner's right is Pence." Olette looked up in acknowledgment, but Hayner and Pence were still nearly as oblivious as Axel and Roxas.
"This is Roxas," Olette said softly, pointing at the tuff of blonde hair visible on the other side of Axel.
"Who's the pink haired kid?" Sora asked curiously, rudely pointing at the tall boy on the other side of Larxene.
"That's Marluxia," Riku informed him as he inconspicuously stole the uneaten crust of Sora's pizza.
"How do you spell that?" Sora wondered aloud, his face screwed up in distaste of the complicated thought process his brain had initiated in a pointless attempt to answer his own question. Riku wondered why his best friend thought so much about so little.
"T-H-A-T," a sarcastic yet cheerful voice answered the brunet. Selphie came bouncing into view as she skipped over to Kairi and sat down behind her.
"Since when do you sit with us?" Riku asked with a smirk. Selphie, who was used to him giving her a hard time, stuck her tongue out at him.
"Since forever," she stated mater-of-fact-ly.
"How was your first day?" Kairi asked in a much more welcoming tone. Selphie opened her mouth to answer, but was cut off by a shout from behind them. The group turned to see Reno and one of the blond boys from his science class standing and glaring at one another. The blond had his leather bag in his hand.
"It was in here this morning, Reno," he argued.
"And it's probably still there, Cloud," Reno returned. Riku noticed he wore his sunglasses the same way he wore his science goggles.
"'Probably still in here?' You look," Cloud demanded, throwing the bag at the redhead. "Is it in there, Reno?" Cloud asked, arms crossed. Reno frowned as he dug through the bag.
"Where the hell is it?" the pony tailed redhead asked, going so far as to turn the entire thing upside down and let all of Cloud's things tumble to the ground. This seemed to irritate the blond even further.
"That's what I've been asking. Look, if you wanted to borrow the game you could have asked when I showed it to you this morning, but you're the only one who even knew I had Last Legend VII with me today. I promised Tifa I'd show it to her, but I didn't say when."
"Are you saying I stole it?" Reno demanded, sharply turning his head to stare incredulously at Cloud.
"Am I saying you didn't?" Cloud challenged. Reno threw the bag and leapt at Cloud, who was ready with a punch. Suddenly, arms wrapped themselves around Reno's waist and yanked him backward while a hand caught Cloud's punch, pushing him backwards before a fight could really start.
A brunet teen stood between Cloud and the struggling Reno.
"Let go of me, Rufus," Reno complained.
"No," the boy in white answered simply, not releasing his grip. Reno seemed to give up.
"What are you even fighting over?" the brunet asked, arms crossed.
"He thinks I'm a thief," Reno answered instantly.
"My Last Legend game is missing," Cloud explained much more calmly.
"You mean this?" a new voice called as a teen with black hair appeared behind Cloud. The blond looked up to see a game case being waggled in his face. He snatched it and shot a questioning look at the face above him.
"Found it on the floor," the boy said with a shrug.
"See? I'm innocent! Zack had it the whole time," Reno muttered as Rufus finally let him go.
"Fine," Cloud said curtly, turning away from the redhead to clean up his books.
"Well that was entertaining," Selphie said, bringing everyone's attention back to her. Riku finished off Sora's abandoned pizza and stretched out in the grass, enjoying the warmth of the sun.
"So, who are all these new faces?" Selphie asked, looking from face to face as though they were on display in a museum.
"Oh, right, sorry," Kairi said, hurrying to introduce everyone. "This is Marluxia, Larxene, Namine, Zexion, Demyx, and Axel and Roxas are that two headed cluster beside Sora," she giggled. "Everyone, this is Selphie."
"Hi!" Demyx greeted cheerfully with an enthusiastic wave.
"Hi!" Selphie returned with a grin before turning back to Kairi. "So, you're up for this weekend, right?"
"Of course. It's my turn, after all," the redhead responded.
"Good, I thought you might forget."
"You're the only one who ever forgets, Selphie," Olette giggled. Selphie stuck out her tongue good naturedly before turning her attention back to the exchange students.
"So where are you guys from, anyway?" she asked, stealing one of Kairi's fries.
"Hollow Bastion," Zexion answered curtly, still reading his boring-looking book. Demyx peered over his shoulder at the pages and started snickering. Riku realized he was the only one who saw this, and he was also the only one who noticed Zexion's blush and glare at the mullet-hawk teen. Besides Demyx that was. Demyx definitely noticed.
"Where's that?" Selphie continued to pester them, oblivious to what had just transpired.
"Far away," Larxene answered. "We're not sure exactly where this island is, so we can't really draw you a map to our home. It's somewhere north of here."
"Why'd you come here?"
"To meet new people and experience more of the world," Namine answered softly. "We also have to do a group project of some kind involving all of us and the friends we make here."
"Oh cool! What are you doing?" Selphie pressed on, as bubbly as ever.
"A movie," Marluxia said, pulling a notebook out of his bag. "We had this big camping trip together right before school to plan out what we'd do. We decided a student film would suffice and formed a group of sorts."
"A group?" Kairi asked this time, giving the brunette girl a break from her interrogation.
"Organization X I I I," Demyx proclaimed proudly.
"'X I I I'?" Riku repeated, raising an eyebrow.
"He means thirteen. It's roman numerals, Dem," Zexion explained, shutting his book and pointing to notebook Marluxia had pulled out. While everyone else examined the interesting handwriting on the book's cover, ("It was Namine who designed the letters for us,") Riku was once again the sole witness to something between Demyx and Zexion.
"Did you just call me Dem?" Demyx asked softly with an amused smile and a raised eyebrow.
"…shut up," Zexion muttered, rolling his eyes as his pale face gained a pink tint. Riku saw a bit of a tiny smile underneath the messy bangs that hid the pale boy's face.
"Speaking of the movie, we need to plan it out and decide what it'll be about and everything, but the first thing we need is actors," Larxene said after she'd finished showing off her sister's artistic abilities.
"Wanna be in it?" Demyx offered, acting as though nothing had transpired between himself and Zexion.
"Yeah!" Sora cheered. "That would be awesome! Wouldn't it be awesome, Kairi?"
"Yeah, it would," Kairi smiled at the hyper brunet. Riku nodded to the boy beside him.
"Yay!" Demyx cheered childishly, grinning.
"So why's it named Organization 13?" Riku asked. "There are only seven of you."
"Because it's Roxas's favorite number," Namine said.
"Roxas's?" Sora repeated for seemingly no reason.
"Yes, and we all agreed that it made for an interesting title," Marluxia responded.
"As an interesting turn of events, it would seem that once you factor in the six of you joining with the seven of us, our number equates to thirteen," Zexion added in.
"Wait, what?" Sora asked, looking as though his brain would implode at any second.
"Oo, I'm good at dumbing down Zexy's smart talk," Demyx proclaimed, bouncing up and down. Riku was beginning to wonder if the others were blind to the things that went on between Zexion and Demyx as Zexion raised his eyebrow questioningly at the shortening of his name. Demyx just grinned and kept talking.
"He said it's funny that we named it Organization XIII because there are seven of us and six of you, not counting that Selphie girl, and seven plus six makes thirteen."
"Oh, I get it. Yeah, that is weird," Sora laughed. Zexion shook his head at the lack of intelligence.
"So what's the movie about anyway?" Selphie asked in a bored tone, having lost interest some time ago. That was probably why Zexion hadn't counted her.
"We have yet to decide," Marluxia answered her simply.
"It should be cool, and full of action, and explosions!" Sora cheered.
"And love, don't forget the romance!" Larxene put in.
"Speaking of romance," Selphie said softly to Kairi, "have you decided who you like yet?"
Kairi blushed lightly. "I'll tell you at our annual sleepover, ok?"
"Fine," Selphie moaned, as thought it were physically hurting her to not know. "But don't forget it's at your house this year."
"You told me that already," Kairi laughed. Just then, the bell to end lunch rang.
"I gotta go now, bye!" Selphie called as she quickly dashed off.
"Bye!" Kairi called, waving to her. Olette waved as well.
It seemed not even the bell ringing was enough to snap Axel and Roxas out of their conversation, so Demyx gave Axel a good kick to the side and took off running. Axel leapt up and chased after him, a stream of curses flying from his lips faster than his feet flew over the ground. Kairi noted that she'd been right to judge him a good runner. Demyx didn't stand a chance.
Larxene yelled a motherly warning after them before turning to offer Marluxia a hand. As she helped him up, she noticed the spot where Reno had splashed chemicals onto his shirt.
"Marluxia! What did you do to yourself?" she demanded. Riku laughed as Sora nearly leapt out of his skin when she suddenly yelled.
"I'm not injured. Some chemicals spilled in our science lab," Marluxia explained.
"Zexion!" Larxene scolded as she helped Roxas up. Riku thought the frail blond looked ready to fall over and die.
"It wasn't my fault, Reno did it!" Zexion's argument fell on deaf ears as the motherly blonde had already turned her attention to the half dead freshman. Riku, Sora, and Kairi grouped up together in their usual line and headed off to class, chuckling lightly at the sounds of Zexion arguing with more or less nobody.
A/N II: Also, I need a sport for Riku to play. Suggestions would be very much appreciated, thanks.