Author's note: I am afraid I may have written myself into a corner, but we'll just have to see if this solution I have worked up is good enough to get by.


Chapter 9: Anticipation

Larry sat up with a scream. His shoulder was on fire and he thrashed around on his bed. The pain jolted through his body for another second, and then began to fade quickly. Larry opened his eyes, and he knew that he was home. The back porch was beginning to fell warm, and he noticed that the sun was a little higher in the sky.

Looking down at the DreamLand device, he knew that his body had taken a serious blow thanks to the read out on his current status. That SeeD had used the weapon with such speed and grace…

With great sluggishness, Larry stood up from his chair. A breeze made him feel the sweat that had formed on his brow and on his back from the chair pressing into it. He played through all of those memories that had just occurred in the past five or so hours, and he knew for the first time that he had just tried to kill men.

I am no murderer, thought Larry, it's not real anyway.

Going into the house, he began to make himself lunch, when the doorbell rang. Going to see who it was, he opened the door to see his friend Delaine standing in the door.

Delaine was a girl that came up to Larry's shoulder with dark skin and an athletic build. Her hair was always changing from day to day though, and today it was held across her head in a clip making it seem like one singular unbroken plain. Her attitude suggested a person who knew much, and did not waste time with fools. Some how that sense of maturity from an eighteen year old seemed to make up for her lack in stature, giving her a silent commanding gaze.

Larry was sick of women with command gazes at the moment. He smiled though, because the two had been friends for just over a year, after Larry moved to this small college town and had a class with her.

"You ready?" She asked.

"Ready for what?" Larry said, squinting into the bright light that slashed it's way into his apartment's gloom.

"You forgot already?"

"No!… Yes."

"Well then I'm not going to tell you." With that she pushed her way into his apartment and said, "Get some shoes on and grab a jacket, we're going somewhere."


Ownage stood over the carnage that reflected on the field that the SeeDs had just vacated. He heard rotors roar loudly off of the canyon walls and he looked up to see a pair of UH-60s fly down into the box canyon. They set down about ten yards from where he was standing, and Ownage had to put a hand up in front of his face to block dust and wind from going into his face.

To his surprise and delight, more CH members began to deposit themselves on the ground and some of the survivors began to help lift the disconnected and wounded into the Blackhawks before they took off. Biffy, Tex, and FOX all came over with several others Ownage did not recognize. They looked around and seemed sad that they had missed the fight, though some had the decency to look away from the bodies of the dead.

The Doc was still shouting instructions to the Clan's medics when the Blackhawks took off with respect to the wounded patients they carried, "And for the love of GOD be careful with them!" He shouted at the departing choppers, "I just put them back together!"

"We got lucky," Ownage said a few minutes later, "It was mostly because of Harrod the Jedi that we managed to survive, he protected us and managed to create a distraction. He's gone though and the SeeDs will probably be back with their same number if not more in a couple hours. In that time I would like to get the Index and return with it to CH HQ on the other side of the ring and make them come in after us to get it!" His voice began to rise on the last part of the sentence, and several people shouted agreement.

Waving his hands for silence, Ownage explained to the newcomers about the Heartless, and all good feeling in the valley faded with the light as twilight began to overtake the valley.


Larry followed Delaine into her car, wracking his brains to come up with an idea as to where they were going. Catching sight of the clock, he saw that it was three PM, and much later in the day then he had expected. His stomach growled loudly, reminding him that Delaine had hustled him out before he could have grabbed anything to eat.

"You're not going to tell me, huh?" He said skeptically as he glanced over to the drivers seat where she was busy shifting gears and working the clutch.

"Nope," she said.

"Typical," he muttered.

"What was that?" she asked looking at him sharply.

"Nothing!" he said innocently.

The car drove on into the afternoon sun.


Ownage crept carefully down into the hole at the end of the canyon where Recon's men had been besieged, and tensed when he saw several people with guns pointed at him.

Raising his hands to show he was unarmed he said, "Recon! Are you there?"

A man dressed in a trench coat with a cowboy hat stepped over the make shift barricade of fallen rubble that his group had made and said, "Goddamnit it's good to see you," He went over and embraced the bigger man.

"This isn't Brokeback Mountain, Lt. Commander, the correct thing to do would be to salute," Ownage whispered.

Hastily recoiling, Recon snapped to attention and did just that and there was a clatter as the others in Recon's group did the same thing. The rest of CH filed in behind the Admiral and were greeting the people who were in Recons group, happy to be reunited.

"Congratulations Recon on your performance against holding out the enemy, but we do need to move on toward the objective: the Index."

Recon looked up sharply, "So it is here," he said briskly, "Nikita didn't tell us what we were supposed to do and there wasn't time."

The Tank rumbled at the entrance to the structure, but it was too small to go through. A very tall Clan Hunter moved around the door frame and attached several large packages of C4 explosive around the entrance, "Everyone move away now!" He shouted, waving the detonator. The tank rumbled away from the door and everyone stepped behind the makeshift barricades that Recon's group had setup.

"Be careful with that Beyond!" Someone shouted, "Remember what happened last time?'

The tall man seemed to be muttering under his breath when he pushed the button, and an explosion rocked the floor, making it seem as though the floor itself moved like it was a wave, throwing everyone off of their feet except for Ownage, Recon, Assim, and Beyond. The hole that resulted was large enough to drive the tank through and then some.

"You were a little overzealous with the C4, Beyond." Said Commander Fate as he rolled through the opening created by the blast with the remaining tank, which happened to be the newer A-1 Abram.

"Better too much then too little," the man said, putting the detonator back into his pants pocket.

"Right, everyone lets get moving!" Ownage called.


Larry was puzzled to see the people on the mat shifting in a uniform fashion. "What is this?" he asked Delaine.

"This is my Ninjutsu class; you said you wanted to come some time. My instructor agreed to give you some lessons."

"Really? How'd you convince him to do that?" Larry asked, surprised.

She frowned at him, "Does it matter? I asked nicely if you must know."

He frowned back.

"He's just a nice guy like that, and everyone should learn how to use this sometime."

The instructor was a short Japanese man in a black robe with a lot of various decorations around his belt. He was giving off crisp instructions to the other black-garbed people. Catching sight of Larry and Delaine, the instructor came over and bowed to Delaine. Saying something in Japanese to her, Delaine bowed back and turned to Larry.

"This is Larry," She said, "I told you about him. Larry, this is Genji Taka-no-hemi."

With obvious scrutinity, the older man looked Larry over frowning slightly at the slack stance and the lack of any serious muscle development, but stopped on Larry's eyes.

Genji Take-no-hemi muttered something under his breath, and then said in perfect English, "Hello, Larry-san. I am welcome to have you at my Dojo on this day. If you will come with me I will find you a gi to fit you."


Ownage moved into the line of Heartless as they came at him, not just the dark shapes he had encountered before, but some that had cloaks like wizards which hurled fireballs and lightening bolts at the Clan Hunters members. They were not extremely strong blasts, but they could take down a Clan Hunter member with determined effort. Turkey's spells were stronger and doing a better job of knocking those ones down.

There were also some larger Heartless that were causing more problems though. The last remaining Tank was having trouble keeping those ones back. These had a large round shape, so large they would put any sumo wrestler to shame and they were armored besides. They did have a weakness though: When they got close they would lunge forward with their huge mass with surprising agility, and plow through a person's body. It was a simple measure to dodge or sidestep the monster and attack it from its unprotected behind.

With a heave, Tex lunged at Ownage and pushed him out of the way of one of the lunging Sumo Heartless. With a start, he realized he hadn't been paying attention to the raging battle around him.

Bringing his sword over his head, he smashed it down onto a wizard who was trying to freeze Rouge where he was standing. The thing died upon impact. Hearing a rumble behind him, he spun with his axe raised and sidestepped, avoiding another charge from the same Sumo Heartless. Since his axe was already in the proper stance, all he had to do was swing it horizontally and throw the blade into the unprotected back of the sumo.

A bullet whizzed by Ownage's ear and he looked over his shoulder to see a Shadow Heartless fade into nothing. He nodded his thanks to FOX who was grinning at him, and pushed forward.

An explosion rocked the floor as a blast from one of Beyond's bombs threw the last big sumo Heartless across the room.

A fireball caught the CH member named Epic on the chest, and he fell with shouts of pain. Doc D was on him in an instant, white light springing to cover the fallen CH member's chest.

The Heartless disappeared then in the same unnerving fashion. After a few minutes of checking the wounded, Ownage formed up everyone and motioned forward down the hall again.


Larry stepped out of the changing room, tucking his robe. He stopped, and stood in darkness. A voice came out from the darkness, "Half of the art of the ninja is developing an ability to sense danger even when you cannot see it. If you make it to the other end of the room, you will be able to move on to the next level of your training."

The voice vanished, and Larry began to move forward, and immediately felt a blow in the stomach. Stepping backward, the voice returned, "Try again."

Larry stopped and thought to himself about what he had learned and DreamLand, and he began to empty all his thoughts and emotions from himself, to create the void and base his decisions on soul instinct.

With his first step, he began to feel a sense of danger and ducked as another blow whizzed over where his head should have been. Taking his next step, he sensed a leg lunging out to trip him up, and he jumped the leg to throw himself forward as another blow as directed at his ribs.

So he continued across the floor dodging each blow at him with frantic and quick steps, rolls, and dodges. His face hit the wall with a loud smack, and Larry tumbled to the floor, panting.

"Good, but an ox could have made less noise then you! We have much to work on," Genji- Taka-no-hemi said, and he strode to the other end of the dojo.


Hey guys, sorry for the delay. It's sort of filler at the moment…

Allied.