"I will Not. Let. You. Insult. My. Friends!"
"Wow, I can't believe that worked."
Protector of Silence
Chapter Thirty-Four - Battle in the between
Imagine a day where everything is completely serene. No yelling, no fighting, no anger. No flames of war nor shouts of rebellion. No roaring aeroplanes, no cars honking, no trains whooshing past at a trillion miles an hour and making enough noise to wake up the neighbouring district. Just a quiet, peaceful day where you can relax and rejuvenate. Or, as peaceful as it could get in the Betwixt and Between. Which is pretty peaceful, considering the only thing that disrupted the layer of calm white fog was the occasional messenger or legendary passing through. A place where everything was at peace...
Yeah. It was nothing like that.
Two portals ripped through the space with noise akin to a crashing freight train. Two very different people stepped out of said portals, however they both shared the same emotion.
J leant a little to the left to dodge an icicle that had been aimed for the centre of her forehead. "Nice to see you too. How's your day going?"
"Cut the crap!" Lunick hissed, throwing another icicle that J just ducked to avoid "Do not try me! I am not in the mood for this right now."
"Aren't you always?" J sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. She didn't want to deal with Lunick when he was in this mood - nobody did. "How did that girlfriend of yours cope with you, seriously?" Another icicle. "How original."
Lunick tightened his hand into a fist, not wanting to waste any more energy on icicles. He felt the urge to hit her. J was the only female he'd ever had the urge to hit before...unless Freddie counted as a girl. If that was the case, he'd felt the urge to hit a girl many times before.
"You know what I came to confront you about" he said through gritted teeth. J raised an eyebrow ever so slightly.
"To be honest, no" she snipped back "The hero girl or the worthless mute?"
As J smirked, Lunick found his eyes narrowing and flickering. His fists clenched as he tried to hold the fire back, but not before several flames escaped his palms, starting a small fireworks show. J's smirk faded ever so slightly, looking apprehensive. Drawing the flames back into his body, Lunick took several deep breaths to calm himself.
"Touch my brother again and I'll burn you" he warned.
"Burn me eh?" J raised an eyebrow "That's a new one. Is Lunie still trying to protect his precious Kelly behind the backs of the council? You, the hero girl, Princess Perfect and the useless replacement. What a joke."
"ENOUGH!" Lunick finally snapped. Fire flared from his fists like sparklers until both his arms and shoulders were encased in fire. He leapt forwards, aiming to strick J from the air. Seeing she had taken things too far, J jumped out the way before Lunick could strike her and instead his fist hit the ground. The glass surface briefly scorched where the former ranger's burning knuckles had hit it, but a new layer of fog rolled over and it was quickly hidden from view.
Not letting it faze him, Lunick jumped back again, fully intent on taking J on head-on. J though had already load her gauntlet and launched it. Immediately, Lunick raised his palms and flames erupted from them in the same way a Fire Blast attack might. The flames acted as a shield and immediately incinerated the gauntlet's attack. Not slowing for even a second, Lunick sprung forward again and lashed out at the hunter, but she quickly jumped out of the way.
"Backtalk me all you like, I don't care" Lunick seethed, lashing out again and again "But I will Not. Let. You. Insult. My. Friends!" With each word, he lashed out at the one person he hated the most. But each time, J was able to jump back out the way. She was surprised Lunick had kept his powers going for one spell this long, but anger seemed to be fuelling his will to fight. To throw him off, she blasted a long strip of the ground with her gauntlet, crystallising it. Caught off guard by this, Lunick jumped back, allowing J to get her breath back. She didn't give him a chance to do so though. The second she saw he had his footing, she fired at him. Lunick raised his palms again, ready to block the oncoming attack...
"STOP IT!"
A harsh bitter-cold wind blew through the space, ripping the fire from Lunick's arms and shattering the gauntlet's shot into a thousand tiny gold and white particles.
Both heads snapped towards the right. There was a small flash of gold light and a third figure was visible walking towards them. His dark-blue eyes were narrowed dangerously and his hair seemed even spikier than normal as if it was reacting to the tension in the air. He did not look happy.
"Owa-"
"I don't want to hear it!" Owari threw his hand out in an almost dismissive motion. Both Lunick and J were blow backwards; the latter landed on her rear whilst Lunick managed to somersault and land on his feet.
"How dare you fight in the betwixt and between!" Owari was practically spitting with anger "This is my domain! GET OUT!" He opened a portal beneath the two. J fell through and out of sight, but Lunick managed to spring to safety. Well, most of him anyway.
"Oh peanuts, my shoe" he grumbled, looking at his shoeless foot. Owari sighed and snapped his fingers. A small portal opened above Lunick's head and his missing shoe dropped down.
"Ow!" Lunick rubbed his head and then put his shoe back on "Was that really necessary?"
"You want me to send you where she went?" Owari threatened.
"Nah, I'm good."
"No, you're cocky."
"Well...you're a brat!"
Owari raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? Hajime's given me way worse than that. Hwita too. I'm not Lark - I won't crack with that."
Lunick ground his teeth together. Owari could be as annoying as J if he wanted to be.
"Where is she?" he asked, anger and frustration laced in his voice.
"Hmmm" Owari rested his chin between his forefinger and thumb, his elbow on the knuckle of his other hand in the classic 'thinking' pose. "She's where she's always been. Not here, not there. Not in Giratina's realm, but balancing on the edge of it."
"Stop being so damn cryptic!" Lunick shouted back. Owari tut-tutted and shook his head.
"You need to wash your mouth, Lunick" he stated "Do you have soap, or would you like to borrow mine?" Lunick let out a roar of frustration and accidentally blasted a lightning bolt across the foggy space.
"Forget it! You're not worth it!" he seethed, ripping open a portal "If anything happens to Kellyn, I'm blaming you! And I promise you, when I track you down, it won't be pretty!" Owari's smirk following this didn't help matters.
As Lunick hastily left, Owari turned to leave. But as he did, he saw a silver orb slowly form in the space not far from where he stood.
"Oh minstrels, not you!" he mumbled. As he tried to leave, the orb grew into a ripple of silver light. When it faded, a second person stood within the betwixt and between. She was a girl of about fifteen, with long silver hair that partially fell over her pale-blue eyes. She wore cream sleeveless jacket with a black shirt with white sleeves under it, as well as a pair of jeans, grey trainers and a dark-blue ring with a celtic design on it on the little finger of her right hand. She was very tall and, with her arms folded and eyes narrowed, very intimidating.
"You've got two choices Owari" she began with an accent that strangely failed to pronounce any of the Ts in her words, but that didn't stop her from sounding scary "Either you come with me voluntarily, or I'll time-stop you and drag you to the Realm of Time by your collar!"
"Yeah right" Owari snorted, casually stuffing his hands in his pockets to cover up his urge to run for his dear life "Time doesn't touch me, just like it doesn't affect you, Hwin." The girl's eyes narrowed so much they looked almost closed.
"Stop callin' me that!" she hissed "My name is Hwita! Pronounced 'h-way-a'!"
"Alright alright, whatever you say Hwin" Owari rolled his eyes. Hwita did not look happy.
"I will time-stop ya" she warned. Owari just grinned smugly back.
"You realise when you say 'time', it actually comes out as just 'ime'." And once again Owari had the upper hand. But then he saw the glare Hwita was giving him and decided to find something to talk about, rather hurriedly.
"So...what were you doing before you came here?" he tried. Small-talk seemed the easiest way to go.
"Putting Reo back in his place" Hwita answered, rather stiffly "You'll be glad to know he and Deoxys won't destroy Neptune with their fighting." Owari blinked, wondering what Palkia's messenger had done now. On the other hand, this was Reo; it was sometimes easier to just leave certain messed-up brains alone - Reo was one of them.
"So you're not the only one incapable of doing your job correctly it seems" Owari smirked. Hold up a penny between your forefinger and thumb. Then remove the penny and keep your fingers that far apart. That's how close Hwita was to loosing it with Owari.
"Listen here, midget" she ground out "You are coming with me, or I will take you back to London, September 1666 and leave you there! This time I'm serious and I— don't even think of stepping into that portal, mister!"
Owari cursed under his breath as Hwita noticed the portal he'd opened several metres behind him in order to make a hasty exit.
"So who put you in charge?" he counted "Last time I checked, Arceus was top of the food chain."
"Well, that doesn't mean you are" Hwita countered. Owari tried his best to find some way out of this sticky situation. He bit his lip. He'd didn't want to do this, and Hwita and Azrael would bring about his second death afterwards, but it was the only thing he could think of. He didn't have time to be lectured by Dialga - in about two weeks he would have a minefield of imbalances to fix, so he had some catching up to do before then. And this was the only way he was going to accomplish that.
"You know, I was speaking to Azrael the other day" he lied. Hwita immediately perked up, looking like a big sister who had asked their little brother to spy on their crush for them and they were now reporting back. Actually, this was pretty similar to what was going on.
"What did he say?" she asked, rather hurriedly.
"Heh, you know" Owari shrugged, folding his arms behind his back and absentmindedly brushing the sole of his (brand spanking new!) trainer along the floor.
"No, I don't know!" Hwita was almost panicking now. Owari rolled his eyes.
'I can't believe this' he thought, unable to comprehend what Hwita saw in Giratina's messenger. Then he sighed: "He said he thought your eyes were pretty."
The squeal Hwita let off was so ear-piercing it almost broke the glass floor and Owari actually covered his ears.
"Really?!" she squealed.
"Really" Owari nodded, albeit with less optimism than he would've liked. "Actually he's standing right behind you right now."
Hwita yelped and jumped at least a metre onto the air, whirling around to look behind.
Owari blinked in amazement. 'Wow, I can't believe that worked.'
He quickly made a break for the portal, hoping Hwita wouldn't follow him. He wanted to bet she would though. He began making of a list of places he knew Hwita wouldn't follow him.
'I know she doesn't like Hollow Bastion' he thought 'And it's been a while since I last saw Leon, Yuffie and the gang. But that would mean transcending the star barrier and navigating the multiverse.' He inwardly grimaced. 'Not worth it. Especially if I run into Ventus and that lot. I'm not breaking my neck trying to escape stupid Hwita...speaking of Hwita, why don't I hear her following me?' He didn't dwell on this thought too long though as he mentally ordered the portal to take him to the nearest accessible world.
"Dialga wants to see you." Hwita's words made Owari ground to a halt. He turned around and found she was just over a metre way from him, looking as if she hadn't moved. Stupid time travel!
"Yes, so does Genghis Khan, Mary Seacole, King Charles II, Franics Drake and Gordon Ramsey, all for different reasons, and I don't plan of visiting any of them" Owari informed her "Good day to you. Now go bother Azrael with your fangirl-ness or something." He hurried through the gold portal and it closed after him.
"Moron" Hwita sighed, shaking her head "Where'd he go anyway?" She pressed her forefingers to her temples and tried to track Owari through time to pin-point his location. It wasn't as easy as if hewas tracking her, since she only had durostiction over time, but eventually she found him.
"Anchorage?" she blinked "What's he?...well I hope he packed a warm coat." As she search for a date, she smirked. "1964? Ah. Well I hope he likes earthquakes."
With that smirk still on her face, she opened her own silver portal out of the Betwixt and Between. Let Owari suffer on his own. She'd get him some other time. Being Diagla's messenger, she had plenty of said resource at her disposal to do so.
Now everything was serene and peaceful.
Elsewhere, Kate sighed and leaned over the sofa arm, wrenching another tissue from the box. She handed the Kleenex to Kellyn, who was being stared at a bit strangely by everyone else in the common room.
"Seriously, why are you sneezing so much today?" Keith blinked, tearing his gaze away from the latest Beyblade episode on TV. Kellyn shrugged and rubbed his nose with the tissue.
I just have a feeling I'm being talked about a lot