Chapter 5

Lucien woke up in the Nemos' living room and immediately made his way into the kitchen, where he started grabbing up as many metal implements as possible. Knives, forks, sporks, even a pasta strainer. He didn't realize the racket he was making until he turned around and realized he was sharing the room with Axel, Tim, Rocky, and Xion, all of whom were looking at him oddly. Putting the pasta strainer down, Lucien said, "What if we need to defend ourselves when we go back over to the house? It's not like we got a medieval armory in the basement, y'know what I mean?" He unconsciously waved at the floor as he said this, but nobody paid attention to the superfluous gesture.

Rocky and Axel exchanged glances. Xion chewed her lips. Tim, however, stepped forward and pulled a long kabob skewer from the drawer, followed by a cookie sheet and leather straps to stick it over his shoulders with.

Axel laughed. "The skewer? Really? We're not going after one of your stupid Buffy vampires here."

"Damn right those Buffy vampires are stupid," Xion said, out of nowhere. "There's a reason why she got to kill scads of 'em after a while." Now everyone stared at Xion due to the blatant bizarreness of her non-sequitur. "What? I'm trying to stay sane here!"

Axel frowned, but then entered the kitchen and rifled through the drawer until he found something that took his fancy - a metal rod with an egg-shaped round stone attached to one end. "I dunno what this thing does," he says, "but this looks like it'd make an awesome weapon."

"Odd implements are always the best weapons," Tim said sagely.

The three oldest boys left the kitchen and made their way to the front door, but Rocky and Xion made no move. "Aren't you gonna get weapons?" Tim asked.

"We got our keyblades, remember?" Rocky pointed out.

"Good point," said Lucien, "but who knows what Dad's like at the moment? For all we know a keyblade will only make him madder."

Xion frowned. "What about you guys taking things from this place? Won't your mom be mad?"

Lucien laughed sharply. "Yeah, Mrs. Nemo is such a scary beast. What's she gonna do, stare at us until we turn to ice? She's no killer. Not like Berserker Dad out there. Now are you gonna come with or not?"

They came with, slowly edging their way up the sidewalk towards the fourth and final row house. Xion carefully swiped her keyblade against the door to open it, and Tim led the way in with his skewer pointed straight forward. Lucien followed, then Axel, then the two keyblade bearers.

But there was nothing to be seen, except Saix lying on the couch, eyes closed, asleep. He certainly didn't look like a crazy man at the moment.

"Where's the graffiti?" Tim whispered.

Lucien pointed to the wall, only to see that it was now blank. "Huh. Guess Mom musta cleaned it already."

"With what?" Axel asked. "Industrial-strength bleach?"

"Sorta," Lucien said, nodding. "Dad always brings some home with him from work, he's gotta use it to take shit off the walls in the bathroom."

Saix started muttering in his sleep, shocking the kids briefly. Silently, they filed out the door and returned to the Nemos' house.

Linda came down the stairs, having just heard the door open, and she started looking around the living room. Nobody but her husband, and he was asleep. So who had gotten in here? At least they wouldn't be able to see anything damning. Then she'd have to eliminate them, and she definitely didn't relish that at all.