A/N: *deletes rants/apologies/etc.*

You know what, I'll let you guess whose POV this is. xP

Saïx is weird. He keeps the floor in his car really clean. I guess it's okay that he's a neat freak though 'cause it would stink to hide on the floor of a gross car like the Rainsmell.

Saïx also has really good ears, so even though I'm an awesome ninja I half-expect him to catch me. He must like the tan girl with all the hair a lot if she can distract him so good.

Saïx isn't supposed to like girls. He's supposed to stay and watch Power Rangers with me while Xion and Aqua do girly stuff like go on dates. But I guess girls have to have guys to go with them, so does that make dates not girly? I don't get it.

I can't really blame Saïx, though. The girl smells like flowers and she's almost as pretty as Aqua. She talks a lot, but Saïx doesn't. Sometimes she sings with the radio, and she sounds even prettier than him.

But eventually I get bored. It's annoying lying down here. Every bump in the road makes me hit my head on the floor, and I can't complain or yell or anything 'cause Saïx would hear me. I let Flood out of my pocket so he can crawl around, but he doesn't like it. He trips every time we hit a bump. It's funny but I can't laugh or Saïx'll hear me.

I cup Flood in my hands and set him gently on my chest, stroking him with my fingers. He's the coolest hamster ever, even though he glares at me and nibbles on my fingers sometimes. Uncle Xehanort made him magic so he won't die even though Saïx said he should be dead already. I bet that's why he's still blue, too.

Flood curls up on my chest and falls asleep, and I'm bored again. Saïx and the pretty girl don't talk about anything interesting, or at least not anything I can understand. It would probably be boring if I could understand it, anyway. Something about Signs and Sea-Can'ts and Angels and Trig-Nom-Tree. And numbers. I hate math.

It's better when the pretty girl starts singing again and it's –

"When you walk away, you don't hear me say…"

WAIT I KNOW THIS SONG.

"Please, oh baby, don't go…"

It's Simple and Clean! Aqua loves this song, even though she likes the Japanese version better. She used to sing it to me as a lullaby.

"…You smiled at me, and said, don't get me wrong I love you, but does that mean I have to meet your father? When we are older you'll understand…"

…The pretty girl sings it better. It's not fair; Aqua's supposed to be the best at everything. I don't like the pretty girl anymore.

"My sister's still better than you," I mutter, forgetting to be silent like a ninja. I can practically hear Saïx stiffen, but I press close to the back of his seat. When he glances back he doesn't see me.

"That was a close one, Flood," I tell him with my mind.

"Shut up, I'm sleeping," he mind-says back. That's another cool thing he can do 'cause he's magic.

I frown. "Don't tell me to shut up, I'm your Master."

"Then don't interrupt my nap."

"We're on a special undercover mission. Nap later."

Flood clicks his teeth like he always does when he's mad, but he stays awake and paces in circles on my chest.

"Get on my hand and I'll hold you so you can see them," I tell him. I can only see half of the back of the pretty girl's head from my spot behind Saïx's seat.

"Siiiigh," he complains. "You can hear them, can't you?"

Flood's really cool, but his attitude can get annoying. "They stopped talking. I want to know what they're doing now."

"X-Face is driving. Ooh, so interesting."

"Be a good minion and shut up," I order, grabbing him and holding him up just high enough to see the pretty girl. Saïx probably isn't doing anything interesting, but she might be.

Soon Flood's blurry, black-and-white vision flickers behind my eyes. I tried to get glasses for him before, but nobody makes glasses so small. Or even contacts. Flood looks at me for a second, and it's weird seeing myself through his broken eyes. I look like an old glitchy TV character. So does the pretty girl, when I make Flood look back at her.

Her smile is the first thing he sees, a brighter spot in the middle of the muddy greys. I have to pull him farther back to see the rest of her, including her arms and hands – which are –

I almost drop Flood. "He's letting her play with his hair!?"

"Looks like it," he replies, sounding bored. How can he be bored? This is the most interesting thing that's happened to Saïx since Xion gave him a makeover while he was sleeping.

"Why's he letting her do that?" I wonder. I sit up as far as I can so I can see them in full color with my own eyes. She's braiding a few strands so they look girly. Saïx hates looking girly.

"Don't ask me; I'm not telepathic with everyone."

"Well, what are we going to do about it?"

"We could just take a nap and let them do whatever they want."

"You're no fun." But I can't do anything, really, 'cause Saïx would see me and I'd get in so much trouble he'd snap my Power Rangers movies for real this time. Stupid Saïx.

"Stop squeezing me," Flood complains. Whoops. I relax my grip and he nips at my finger, so I hiss at him. Yeah, the pretty girl must be keeping him really distracted, or else he's focusing hard on the road. But he slams on his brakes instead of being all careful when we have to stop, so I bet it's the first one.

"You could be a little more graceful," the pretty girl teases.

"If you would stop touching my hair-" Saïx finally snaps.

"Go Saï! Tell her she can't treat you like one of Xion's ponies!" I mentally cheer.

I can't read the pretty girl's facial expression through Flood's distorted vision, and I still can't see her face from my angle. "So I'm bothering you?"

"Yes. No." Saïx is all stiff and straight like he's frustrated. I'd help him if I wouldn't get in trouble for it. He sighs and says, "…It doesn't feel bad. It simply makes it more… difficult to concentrate," he ends in a mumble. I guess he's just trying not to make her feel bad, 'cause there's no way he could actually like her touching his hair. But he normally doesn't care about feelings, either.

"Well we can't have that, now can we." The pretty girl sounds like she's smiling. She leaves Saïx's hair alone. I lower Flood back onto my stomach.

"Do I get an extra treat for that?" He asks.

Well he was good, and he was quiet, and he didn't get distracted by anything shiny. "Sure, one of those yogurt ones."

"Two?" He twitches his nose hopefully.

"Fine, two. But that's it." Can't have my minion thinking he can boss me around.

"Yay." Flood curls back up and goes to sleep, and I stroke his back. Saïx and the pretty girl are being boring again, and I kind of want to sleep too, but then we finally stop and Saïx turns off the car.

I shake Flood to wake him up. "Quick! They're getting out!"

There isn't really a rush – we have to stay perfectly still until they get all the way out and lock the doors, then we have to unlock the door and sneak out. I almost forget to lock the door back, but Flood reminds me, and we get out without Saïx and the pretty girl seeing us. They're already halfway across the parking lot, holding hands. No fair.

I slip Flood into my coat pocket and tail them like a ninja, sneaking behind parked cars and tip-toe running whenever I have to cross open pavement. They're talking, but I'm too far away to hear. Well, it's mostly just the pretty girl talking; Saïx keeps glancing around like maybe he knows I'm here, but no, he doesn't; I'm a ninja and he can't find me.

I crouch behind a trash can until they walk through the big doors, but there are so many people going in too; how do I keep track of Saïx and the pretty girl? At least the crowd's so big I can blend in and nobody notices. I step to the side once I get through the doors… So many people… big people… I'm not scared of them, I'm not gonna get lost, I'm not…

There! Blue hair, over by the place where a girl gives you ice skates. I shove my way through people's legs – being small can be useful sometimes – and almost catch up to them –

"Hold it, mister." A hand grabs the hood of my jacket, which chokes me when I try to keep running. "Where do you think you're going?"

Busted. By the ice-skate girl. Her fingernails are long and pointy and too close to my neck.

"…Skating," I say boldly as I can.

"Not without a pass, skates, and a guardian you're not." She puts her hands on her hips, so she's not choking me anymore, but she has a stare like Aqua's. Except hers is mean and cold and not even a little bit forgiving. I gulp.

"I do have all that stuff," I lie smoothly, relaxing my face. "My brother's already in there with it."

"Yeah?" She smirks, not falling for it. "Tell me his name and I'll go get him for you."

Doesn't she have butter stuff to do than torment me? There's a line of impatient people wanting their skates, but unfortunately a guy with a Mohawk the color of barf takes her spot behind the counter and starts asking for their shoe sizes.

I can't tell the girl about Saïx or she'll get him and I'll get in trouble. I look down at my feet and mutter something nasty. The girl's glare gets meaner.

"Where are your parents, kid? Do you need an escort out?"

"I'm not a kid!" I yell before kicking her shin and sprinting back the way I came, stepping on people's feet. She yelps a word that Father would've soaped her mouth for, but it doesn't help her catch me. She's too big and not ninja enough to disappear like I can. Still, I don't stop to catch my breath until I'm back at the entrance where all the arcade games are.

"What was that all about?" Flood asks from my pocket.

"Grown-ups being stupid," I answer out loud.

I look around the arcade; there are mostly big kids like Saïx and Xion. For a second I think I see her, but it's another girl with black hair frustratedly failing at a new shooting game while a brown-haired guy with a scar like half of Saïx's rolls his eyes at her. Her shorts are way shorter than Xion would ever wear, anyway.

I wish Xion and Aqua were here, but they're ice skating with their boyfriends, like Saïx and the pretty girl. It's not fair. Why do they love other people more than me?

Too bad I don't have any money to play the shooting game, or I'd take out my anger on that. Sugar Rush has an extra credit flashing on the screen, though, so I guess somebody accidentally used two quarters and didn't notice. It's a girly racing game, but it's not much different from Rumble Racing, and nobody's going to see me.

I pick King Candy (the only guy option) and blow past the girly karts on the screen, feeling somewhat appeased when I shoot an ice cream cone at Taffyta Muttonfudge and she skids off the track into a pool of chocolate. I'm passing the karts in third, second, first place—

Something lands in my lap, and I yelp and let go of the steering wheel, my kart plunging off a candy cane-striped ramp and into a giant marshmallow.

"What the – a bunny?" It hops down on the other side and scampers off, tripping over its feet. Stupid rabbit, now I'm in last place! "You're gonna pay for that!"

Forgetting about the game, I jump out of the chair and chase down the white bunny, shoving bigger kids out of the way.

"Hey, watch it!" The black-haired girl yells, but I'm busy trying not to trip as I sprint up the stairs the rabbit is jumping up.

At the top of the steps, it finally gets winded and flops itself on the edge of one of the stairs.

"Gotcha!" I tackle it, wrapping it tightly in my arms so it can't escape even though it's wriggling all over the place. Flood sticks his head out of my pocket to see the commotion and gets kicked in the face.

"Stop moving, you ugly rodent-wannabe!" Flood yells, chattering furiously. He and the rabbit are making so much noise I don't notice the little girl coming up the stairs until she's right behind me.

"Oh! You found him!"

I nearly drop the rabbit in surprise, but the girl does me the favor of taking the thing away. It doesn't stay still for her, either; its tiny claws are scratching at her blue dress. Why is she wearing a dress? It's not Sunday.

"Behave, Whitey," she chides it, stroking its ears. Flood takes the risk of crawling out of my pocket, and I let him sit on my hand.

"Whitey? What kind of name is that?" I scoff.

"He's white," the girl says, like that's a good enough excuse.

"I'd name him something cool. Something like…" I look at the rabbit's sharp teeth. "Razor."

"Razor?" She squints weirdly and scrunches up her nose like something smells bad. I bet it's the rabbit. "That's a curious name."

"No, Whitey's a… curious name. I always come up with awesome names," I say, taking Flood out of my pocket and scratching behind his tiny ears. "This guy's name is Flood 'cause he's strong as a ton of water." I never forget how strong water is. That's why Aqua's named for it.

"…He's blue." The girl stares at him.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Flood deadpans.

"Yeah, and your dress is blue too. So?"

"Hamsters can't be blue." Who does she think she is, a hamster expert? I bet she's never talked to a hamster in her whole life.

"They can, 'cause he is." I smirk and cross my arms, putting Flood on top of them.

"You're very curious," she decides, holding her violent rabbit in a crushing grip and taking a step back. "Do you know a man with a large hat?"

"Uh, it's winter. Tons of people wear big hats."

"No, not a winter hat, a fancy hat. A top hat."

Pfft, this girl really is crazy. "Hey, what's your name?" I ask, realizing I'm tired of keeping track of three people I've just dubbed as 'girl's. First Pretty Girl, then the ice skate-girl, and now this… curious girl.

"Alice. May I know yours?"

"Vanitas." Then I add, "Not Van, not Vani, Vanitas." Might as well clear that up now.

"Vanitas." Her mouth puckers when she says it. "You even have a curious name."

"You must really like that word," I grumble. She probably likes using big words to sound smart, like Saïx.

"It's a very—"

I don't know what she's about to say, because Razor (I refuse to call him "Whitey") finally kicks and scratches his way out of Alice's grip.

"Oh!" She gasps girlishly. "Whitey! Come back!"

"He's not gonna listen to you," I tell her, petting Flood's back to smooth his ruffled fur. "Hey, calm down. I won't let that ugly rabbit get you."

"Stupid, evil creature…" Flood shudders. I slip him safely into my pocket.

"Will you help me find him?" Alice asks me.

"Pfft, no way." I glance down the empty hall in the direction Razor went, towards the balcony where you can look over the ice rink. I might be able to see Saïx and Aqua and Xion from there, but I don't want to run into that rabbit again.

"Well you're rude." Alice sniffs. "Fine, I'll find him on my own." She walks off, calling for Whitey. I wish I'd asked her why she's chasing that rabbit anyway, but I'm already back down the stairs before I think about it.

I wasn't gone long, but there's already a new mix of people in the arcade. The black-haired girl and the scarred guy are gone, and so are a lot of other kids. That makes a smaller group to hide in if the skate-girl comes back, but there's also less people taking up the games.

I check out the shooting game – Hero's Duty – which looks really epic but it takes a ton of quarters. Like, eight. I'd have to clean my room for a month to make that much. Where are all the cheap games?

There's one shoved up against the wall in a row with some other old games, but this one looks older than everything except Pac Man and maybe Donkey Kong. It's definitely the dustiest game in the arcade. I blow off a layer, and the girl playing the Pac Man machine next to me coughs loudly and glares before pulling out her inhaler. I stick my tongue out at her and she rolls her eyes.

Ignoring her, I turn back to the ancient arcade game. The words Fix-It-Felix Jr. flash on the title screen along with two pixelated guys, a giant one and a tiny one. The huge one's pounding a building to dust while the little one hammers stuff back together. I guess that's Fix-it-Felix Jr., but if he's the junior I wonder how old the game with Fix-it-Felix Senior is.

The game looks ridiculously boring if I have to play as that Felix guy. The other guy looks pretty cool, kinda like Donkey Kong. Wonder what his name is. Probably Break-it-Bob or something dumb like that.

"Let me out of here, I'm bored," Flood complains from my pocket. I pull him out and cup him in my hands.

"Help me find some quarters," I think at him. People drop quarters behind the machines all the time. My super-awesome-buff arms are too big to fit between (most of) the games, but Flood can get back there easy.

"Whatever you say, Boss." I can't tell if he's being sarcastic in his mind-voice.

"Master," I correct him because it sounds cooler, and I set him down under the Whack-a-Mole. "See anything?"

"Give me a minute; I'm practically blind," he snaps back. His fuzzy static-vision is actually better in the dark, but that's not saying much. I can't see anything until he gets really close. He has to rely on his senses of touch and smell. Can he smell quarters?

"Yes. They smell gross," Flood answers, nudging one of said coins with his tiny paw.

"Bring it back anyway," I order, grinning happily. That's a whole race on Sugar Rush, or one-eighth of a Hero's Duty credit.

"Hey weirdo!"

"What the-" I look up and see a little girl swinging her legs off one of Sugar Rush's bright pink seats. "Beat it, I'm busy." I don't want another crazy girl wasting my time.

"Why are you down there on the floor?" Her voice is annoying.

"None of your business," I reply, trying to reach far enough under the Whack-a-Mole to take the quarter from Flood. He gets tired if he has to push it for too long.

"Drop something?"

"No," I snap, "I'm not a klutz."

"What's with your hair?" She hops down and tugs one of my black spikes before I can shove her away.

"Don't touch me!" I style my hair back into place and stretch my arm back under the machine, groping for Flood without looking. I keep my eyes on the little girl – seriously, why do I keep meeting so many girls today? I wonder if this girl with the dirty black hair and green hoodie will be even more annoying than the first three.

"Can't help it," she shrugged, "it's calling to me, like 'touch me, Vanellope! I'm pointy and black and silky!' like a cat's tail or something."

And I thought Alice was weird. Maybe I should've helped her find that rabbit.

"Don't you have someone else to annoy?" I growl. "Dad, brother, sisters, anyone?"

Vanellope – I'll admit she does have a cool name – puts her hands in her pockets. "Eh, Ralph's off doing Big Kid stuff in the roller rink. What about you? Why's a spiky-haired Cootie Catcher digging for dust bunnies?"

"Girls have cooties," I inform her. "And I'm not looking for dust bunnies, I'm looking for a quarter."

Flood finally climbs into my palm, and I can get out of my uncomfortable position. When I stand up, I tower over Vanellope by about four inches. Which apparently isn't intimidating enough to keep her from saying, "Hey, you said you didn't drop anything."

"I didn't." I climb into one of the Sugar Rush seats. I'm not in the mood to look for seven more quarters, and from Flood's sneezing, neither does he.

"Evil bunnies… White bunnies, dust bunnies…"

"Well I dropped something." Vanellope hops up and snatches both the quarter and Flood from my hand.

"Hey!" I shout and lunge at her, but she skips back quickly. I'm the fastest; she won't get away from me!

"Ack! Help me, Boss! Master! Supreme evil overlord guy who feeds me!"

"Huh?" Vanellope opens her midget hand, which Flood is somehow small enough to fit in.

"Give him back!" I demand. "Keep the stupid quarter or whatever, but give him back. Now."

Ugh, my super-death-glare doesn't work if she won't look at it.

"Aww, he's cute." She pets his back. "And blue."

"I hate you, dirty-hair girl," Flood growls, following it with a stream of curses that Vanellope should be glad she can't hear.

"He hates you," I tell her. "I hate you too."

"How do you know?" Either she's ignoring my last comment, or she doubts my ability to understand my own feelings. Either way she's dumb.

"He told me, duh."

She crinkles one eyebrow and raises the other. "Whatever, Captain Cheesebreath."

Flood continues cursing as I snap, "My breath doesn't smell like cheese," and snatch him back.

"You're right. More like Captain… huh. I can't quite get my nose on it, something like vomit and moldy carpet and…" She takes a few deep sniffs, her tiny nostrils flaring. I wish I had two pencils to shove up them. "Wild rabbit. Definitely wild rabbit, probably with rabies. What kind of moron are you, eating stuff with rabies? Does your blue pet have rabies too?"

She jumps back up into the Sugar Rush seat like she's scared of me and Flood, but she's grinning. Teasing us.

"You want me to teach her a lesson, Boss?"

I sigh and roll my eyes. "You were squealing for help earlier. You wanna try that again?"

"Uhhh…"

"Ugh, useless minion…"

Vanellope stares. Are her eyes always that big? Or is she just trying to look cute so I underestimate her, like some of the little girls Aqua trains at the dojo?

"What're you looking at?" I challenge.

"You talking to the voices in your head?"

I'm done with this girl – done with girls in general, actually. Which reminds me, I should be finding a way to sneak into the ice rink to spy on my sisters and Saïx's pretty girl. The girl who kicked me out probably forgot about me by now.

I gently place Flood in my coat pocket, not wanting to put him through any more stress right now. He may be annoying sometimes, but he's the only minion I've got. For now, anyway.

"I'm outta here," I tell Vanellope, already walking away. Maybe if I crouch and press myself right against the counter the girl won't see me…

"Hey, wait up!"

Like I needed to. Vanellope practically teleports in front of me.

"Don't follow me." The last thing I need is some girl getting in the way of my Stealth-Ninja Operations.

"Where are you going?"

"None of your business, loser."

"It's not like I'm going to tell any-"

She stops, just like that, like somebody pressed pause. Then it's like she's in fast-forward, spazzing worse than Flood when I feed him candy.

"Cut it out," I order her. Her eyes are wide, her mouth open like she's trying to scream. "I said cut it out!"

What's wrong with her? She's starting to freak me out…

"Vanellope!" I yell, squeezing her spazzing shoulders.

I hadn't noticed the stares fixing on us from around the arcade, but most are useless teenagers who go right back to playing their games. I wish Aqua was here. Or even Saïx or Xion. They'd know what to do.

But my luck makes things even worse – here comes the ice-skate girl, her vicious glare pinning me in place like this is my fault.

"Come on!" I yell at Vanellope. She's still immobilized by her spaz-thing. Fear makes my adrenaline kick in, and I pick her up with both my arms and awkwardly run towards the balcony stairs. "We can make it…"

We can't make it. I may be strong and fast and awesome, but Vanellope's slowing me down.

Suddenly her eyes close, and the breath is shoved out of leaves my lungs like someone bear-hugged me. We're at the top of the stairs. Alone. How…?

I drop her on the floor. She's stopped spazzing, but now she's gasping for breath, curled up like a cocoon.

"That… wasn't s'posed to happen," she gasps.

"No duh." I breathing heavy too, still coming off my adrenaline rush. "What happened?"

"…Not your beeswax." She glares. I sit down and cross my arms.

"I saved you from the ice-skate girl. You owe me."

"I saved you, General Gassypants."

She must be fine, if she's insulting me again. Not that I was worried in the first place. "Look, my name's Vani—wait, what do you mean you saved me?"

"How d'you think we got up here?" She smirks, but it fades to a grimace of pain.

"You mean you… you made us teleport?"

"Comes with the seizures. Sometimes." She shrugs. "All part of the joys of being me."

She sprawls out on the white tiled ground like she's about to start making snow angels. Only people usually look happy when they're making snow angels.

"Sounds pretty cool to me. Like a superpower," I say.

She laughs, but not in a funny way. More like a 'life-is-a-sick-joke' way. "Yeah, but superpowers aren't supposed to hurt."

I stand up. "Walk it off. That girl's still gonna come for us. We gotta get out of here."

Vanellope glares. "Now you want me to come with you?"

"No," I retort. "But you might be useful."

"Hmph. Forget it."

She looks weak and useless, lying like that. Suddenly I wish she was being annoying again.

Siiigh. Why won't girls just do what I want when I want them to? I guess there's probably just one way to get her to help me… "Forget what I said. I do want you to come with me, and not just so you can spaz out again."

She frowns. "Why?"

" 'Cause you want to spy on your brother, right?"

I pull her to her feet, and she raises her eyebrows.

"How do you know that?"

"Great minds think alike." I shrug. "I'm gonna find a way to break into the rink. Wanna be my sidekick?"

She frowns. "Not sidekick. We can be partners."

"Sidekicks, partners, whatever," I huff. Long as I'm in charge I don't care. "You in?"

A smile sweeps away her frown. "Sure, why not?"

Flood feels the need to interject at that moment, "As long as she doesn't touch me."

"If everything works out, nobody will be touching anybody," I reply.

The pretty girl won't be touching Saïx, and Axel won't be touching Xion, and Terra especially won't be touching Aqua.

A/N: Notes, notes, notes.

Flood just decided he wanted to be sentient. Most of his and Vani's characters just wrote themselves. I also had no idea they snuck along in Saïx's car until I wrote this, but I see no reason why they couldn't have. This will impact the plot in several ways that will be fun to write.

Vanellope/Fix-it-Felix/Sugar Rush/Hero's Duty are all from the movie Wreck-it-Ralph if that wasn't obvious enough. If I forgot to mention it earlier, the ice-skate girl is a random OC, but I might sketch her sometime.

There are several fantasy elements worked into this universe that haven't made an appearance; Flood/Vanitas's telepathy and Vanellope's teleportation-ish-thing are only bits of what I have planned. However, most of that will be dealt with in the spin-off series and not affect this story too much.

Yuffie and Leon were the two teenagers hanging around/playing Hero's Duty when Vanitas first sees it.

There's a bit of a pun with Vanitas's name for Alice's rabbit, but I'm not sure how obvious it is.

Eraqus doesn't believe in allowance, but paying Vanitas is basically the only way to get him to do things since negative reinforcement stopped working so long ago. *sweatdrop* He doesn't get paid much at all, though.

I was not implying any romantic pairings with Vanitas in this chapter, unless you count his strange sister-crush on Aqua. *sweatdrop*

Sorry if this was a long detour, and a long wait, but I hope it was still enjoyable. Hopefully I'll be able to actually work some AkuShi/otherpairings in the next chapter, but my muse isn't wanting to be romantic. Which is probably why it's chunking Vanitas at me. ^^;;;