Happy Place [Open][Crack]

[Castle]

One minute, he was watching Emi run off toward that guy who had suddenly started shooting (another cloaked person like Zexion and Axel. Huh.) and hoping that she'd clobber him before anyone got shot. The next, he was underwater, and realizing quite abruptly that he could not swim.

The most he could do was flail, completely submerged. He hadn't had time to take a breath before he hit the water, and thus he was quickly thrown into panic mode. Was he seriously going to drown under such weird circumstances? It was so... lame. But lameness was the least of his worries.

Suddenly, the water around him felt colder. Ice? Ice! His hand whacked against ice! Castle didn't like the cold, but in this instance, ice was the most wonderful thing in the worlds. He managed to get some sort of a grip on it and pull his head and shoulders out of the water.

It was a slippery process, and involved much scrambling and many losses of grip, but he finally pulled himself up onto the ice next to the woman who was already sitting on it. After coughing up some water and gasping to get the air back in his lungs, he sat up and looked at her.

"Hey," he said casually, as though he hadn't been drowning less than a minute earlier, "What's your name?"

He noticed the screaming a moment later and looked over to where Emi struggled violently in the water. Apparently, that girl did not like to get wet.

[Slash]

Oh boy. Company.

Furiae turned her head slowly to look at the person who had climbed up on the ice. He wasn't interesting in the slightest. If things got too crowded, he'd be the first one she'd knock off the ice. It was her platform of ice, after all. She could choose who was allowed to get on. And, looking around, she decided that any of the black-cloaked men took absolute preference, with the lizard-looking guy and the bird-looking guy in second. Anyone else could deal with it.

"My name is Furiae." That done, she turned back to watch the cloaked men. She didn't bother asking what his name was. She really could care less.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

Panic, sheer panic.
--

Some kind soul pulled Emi up. She clung to Soren, dug her fingers into his scalp and shoulder trying to get herself as much out of the water as possible. She was still shrieking, which was completely out of character for her. It sounded so girly! In between screams, she was gasping for breath. There was sheer panic in her eyes, hidden behind her hair. Speaking of hair, hers was so long that she kept getting her arms tangled up in it. That was going to be a pain to comb out, if they ever made it out of this hell.

Now both Emi and Soren were in danger of drowning between the added weight and the girl's wild thrashing.

"We're gonna die, we're all gonna die, gonna drown![/color]" Emi kept screaming. Over and over again. As if it was some prayer that was going to save her.

There was a reason the girl didn't even like taking baths.

Buttons likes it here.
--

Loru floated on her back lazily around the pool. Nothing seemed to bother her, she was totally blissed out and occupied with watching the hallucinations against a completely white background. A girl could get used to this.

"Weeee,[/color]" she said.

[Lagunamov]

The metal cap is only useful if you can hold your breath forever.

While being ready to dodge just about anything, Elrick certainly didn’t expect to lose his footing in such a manner. The man with the ponytail didn’t even spend more than two seconds shooting when the entire ground below them disappeared, causing everyone to free-fall once more. It had probably come in handy mostly to the shooter, for right before that he seemed to be about to get tackled by one of the girls.

“Oh, no, anything but that!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, realizing that this time, instead of a hard floor, they were going to land on a large body of water that covered the entirety of the room. Not quite sure as to how to avoid that, Elrick decided to tightly grab his beret so it wouldn’t get lost, and cover his nose with his free hand. The impact against the body of water ensued quickly after that, and it was strong enough for him to flinch and release his beret. Of course, the other factor into the flinching was him realizing the body of water was deeper than expected, and with the extra weight from his sword, gauntlets and metallic implements in his uniform, he could barely stay afloat.

Frantically splashing around the pool, trying to keep his head above the water as much as possible, Elrick paddled to the closest wall to him as fast as he could, reaching out to the little ledge. He took hold of that ledge, no more than three centimeters wide before it ended, and pulled himself closer to the wall, his head not stable above water. He turned his head around, and saw his beret floating right in the middle of the pool, drifting away. “Bugger.”

Seriously, nobody pull. I don't wanna go bald.

“Oh, there comes the daughter of the whore to hit me, how original” were the thoughts running through Xigbar’s mind when he saw Emi running towards him after he started shooting. He thought she’d suffice, but he was seriously disappointed neither of the two nobodies were taking a shot at him. Of course, that turned into a moot point instant later, with the ground dissolving before their eyes.

Once again, that feeling of having no weight took over Xigbar as he, and everyone else, fell further down into the room. He was now wondering if the place consisted of tiers, each one different than the last. Maybe causing some mayhem was what allowed them to proceed even further down the vertical tunnel. Either way, for now he could just wait and see when the bottom of this new area showed up.

“Water huh?” he thought to himself, not really wishing to get himself wet. There was, of course a quick way around that. When he got close to the body of water, about a couple meters before impact, he simply used his ability to suspend himself in the air, now floating above the pool while everybody else had already fallen into it, and some were even struggling against drowning. The entire thing was amusing to him.

“Aw, did little Ienzo skip gym class?” Xigbar mocked Zexion while hanging from the air, his body reversed so his feet were up while his head was down. His ponytail was flailing behind him as he moved his body around to inspect the area. It was a good thing he was high enough no one could reach him, or his ponytail, otherwise someone might try to pull from it, resulting in either him falling into the water, or losing a large amount of hair.

[Slash]

Help? What was that, exactly?

Furiae watched one of the black-cloaked men taunt the one who had done her the favor of helping her train. Well, that wouldn't do. No, that wouldn't do at all.

She didn't think of what she was doing as helping. No. The concept of help was completely alien to her, and if she was called upon to help someone she probably would be at a loss for what to do. No, what she was doing was merely repaying a debt. That was something she understood well.

She used Iceheart as an oar, moving slowly and ponderously through the water. The platform drifted over to the edge- Furiae stopped it a bit from there, next to the man who had done her a favor.

"I owe you a debt, cloaked one. Do you wish to get on?" she asked, extending a hand. It wasn't a friendly gesture in the least. She just assumed that it would be difficult for someone who couldn't swim to get on such a slippery platform, and wished to speed up the process.

[Aerith]

Oh, Water! Fun~

Before Cloud even had a chance to put away his sword, the floor suddenly vanished beneath their feet. They were falling again, but this time, they landed in a giant pool of water, rather than a hard, cold floor. The shock of hitting water only lasted for a few seconds, however. Once Aerith surfaced, she was already laughing. She, for one, was having fun, even if many others appeared not to enjoy this new-found amusement.

The cloaked man she had been talking to earlier was obviously struggling to stay above the surface, but luckily, he was able to grab onto the edge. Apparently, his book had vanished to somewhere less wet. To her delight, he actually did tell her his name. Zexion. She would make sure to remember that.

Suddenly, a large chunk of ice floated over to them, the frigid woman sitting on top of it. She asked Zexion if he wanted to get on the ice, though any offers for Aerith or Cloud to climb on were noticeably absent. That didn't bother her too much, though. She wasn't minding getting a little wet for the moment. She was not, however, going to pass up an opportunity to meet new people. Giving the icy woman a friendly smile, she said, "Hello, there. My name is Aerith. It's nice to meet you."

[Fate]

Only Being Thoughtful

He supposed that if he had a heart, Zexion would be insulted by Xigbar's comment. He could not say that he was particularly fond of being called his former name either. Though, of course the two of them were Nobodies. "Well of course Braig; I skipped them with you. It is rather obvious that you cannot swim either," he replied, his comment covered in sarcasm as he used Xigbar's former name. Only Vexen would understand the two's exchange, though he was not sure how well the scientist could hear at the present moment.

This Aerith person was... odd to say the least. She was one of the only ones, other than Xigbar, who had enjoyed the fall. She also seemed to be trying to make friends with just about everyone here, even the woman on the ice that had come over to them; this was not even mentioning her almost intoxicating scent of flowers, which had a hint of something else in them. Zexion could not name what it was, though he had a feeling he was going to go slightly loopy from being around the scent too long.

He had met this woman briefly before in Radiant Garden when he had run into Sephiroth, though he had no inkling as to what debt she owed him. He had merely summoned Nobodies for her and the other fighter present. While not being sure how that was considered a good thing, he supposed he should not deny her offer; a certain Freeshooter needed some company in the air. He took the woman's hand, a bit surprised at her strength when she pulled him up onto the slippery ice surface. He stood still, not moving a centimeter so he would not fall back in again.

"Thank you," he told her, not saying anything else. She did not seem to be the type to want to have long, drawn-out conversations and he was not about to give one. Instead, he summoned his Lexicon once again, looking straight up at Xigbar. With a grin, he had the Lexicon flip to a certain page, the book glowing. In an instant, Xigbar's little anti-gravity trick was mimicked, the Schemer ending up in front of the other Nobody right-side up.

"I believe you should join those below," he commented, going slightly upward until he reached the Freeshooter's feet. Without any sort of hesitation, he brought the Lexicon down harshly on them; hopefully the force would be enough to knock Xigbar out of the air and into the water. After this act was completed, he went slightly higher than that and put his legs in a criss-cross position, opening his Lexicon to read again.

[/size]

[Slash]

All sorts of new people...this sucks.

Furiae looked down at...Aerith, was it? Hm.

Nice to meet her? No one had ever said that before. Was she just being polite? Must be, since no one was ever happy to see her. Or was she just saying that it was nice for someone to talk to? But there were other people to talk to. People who talked more than she did. So, maybe all these people were familiar and she was the only new one? Or maybe she just wanted to get on the ice, or perhaps...

Nice, social people really threw her off her stride. Their actions were near-incomprehensible to her. She gave a nod of acknowledgment and replied. "I'm..." Now what did she say? Was she supposed to say it was nice to meet Aerith? But it wasn't, really. But she didn't have to mean it, right? Maybe it was expected of her. Would Aerith yell at her if she didn't? Or maybe she would just try to talk more, to get her to say it.

ARGH. FINE. SHE'D SAY IT.

"MynameisFuriaeandit'snicetomeetyoutooAerith," Furiae said in one breath. Man, that felt weird to say. Furiae made up her mind not to say it again. Also, she decided that she would never interact with anyone nice ever again. It was too confusing.

The black-cloaked man was much more agreeable. He talked very little to her. He accepted her offer, but apparently it was hardly necessary since he was able to float. He tried to bring the other guy down from the air- if he fell, he'd probably hit the ice on the way down.

This would be interesting.

_______________________________________________

Okay, this hurts.

Soren's wings started flapping quickly out of panic. This chick was going to drown him, and he couldn't even fly to safety. Saying horrible, horrible things that would have offended everyone around him if they happened to speak Aysurian, he grabbed her by the hair and shirt, pulled her away from him, then threw her onto the platform of ice that some white-haired chick had made.

"There. You're welcome. Man, I always meet the crazy ones, don't I? Pulled out my hair..." His scalp hurt.

[Lagunamov]

Sunday swimming school for the mentally challenged.

Xigbar watched silently as Zexion tried to give him his just desserts, trying to send him down into the pool to get soaking wet like the others. Of course, a simply hit to his feet wasn’t going to make him fall just like that. He controlled space after all; he was pretty much tightly secured to that spot, even if he was floating in the air. Sighing after the pointless attack, he looked upwards and stared at the schemer. “As if. You know me. You should know better than to think that would work on me.”

Without giving any warning this time, he reached to the nobody’s feet, grabbing him by the ankles, his grip tighter than ever. Smirking at him, Xigbar started to turn him around midair, almost as if Zexion were just a random pole, to the point the young organization member was now with his body in the same direction than him; in other words, upside down. With the main difference that, since Xigbar was still holding him by the ankles, Zexion was only a few inches away from the water.

“I’ll teach you to swim the hard way now. First step: scare you silly of drowning. That’s a bulletproof method!” cracking up as he said this, Xigbar lowered Zexion’s body, his upper half falling inside the body of water. Looking down at it, he could see a stream of bubbles frantically pop into the surface. Keeping the kid submerged for ten seconds, Xigbar brought him up again for a little bit. Then he repeated the process, catching Zexion of guard, his arms flailing around mostly out of shock. His body was the brought out again for him to catch a breath, only to then repeat the process once more.

“It’s all part of the process my young friend,” Xigbar mocked in an overly self righteous tone, even matching it with the appropriate facial expression. “It’s all in your best interest, you’ll thank me some day,” he added, though he spoke all this words while the person addressed was underwater. He wasn’t planning on him hearing them, he just said them for extra impact on the scene for outsiders.

[Oathkeeper Emi]

Too scared to thank you...
--

On the platform with Furiae, Emi scrambled up and as far away from the edge as possible. In doing this, she completely violated Furiae's personal space. Emi was still whimpering and shaking, partly from the ice and partly from the amount of adrenaline that had just been dumped into her bloodstream. She pushed her hair out of her face, calming down a bit now that she was out of the water. Her hair just flopped right back down into her line of vision and she growled. "Uh, thanks to whoever saved me![/color]" she screamed, not sure who it was. Panic attacks can make things kind of fuzzy.

She looked up. "What kind of place is this anyway? ...oh. Hi Zexy. What are you doing up there?[/color]"

Of course he was here. Why wouldn't he be? Everyone else seemed to be, including several she had never met before. Like this girl on the ice with her. Emi turned and gave her a glance, looking her over once or twice while she tried to form an opinion about her.

"What's with the face, lady? Something wrong?[/color]" Emi asked. Of course, she had yet to find out that she had just met her match on terms of rage and general anti-social behavior.

This would not end well.

But before she could reply, Xigbar started dunking Zexion headfirst into the pool. Emi stumbled up to her feet and started screaming at him. "Stop it, you jerk! He's gonna drown to death and I am not jumping in to save him when he dies, okay!?[/color]"

[Matt]

Fighting Fire With Fire... Or Ice.

Rolling his eyes, Vexen chose to ignore Xigbar's childish little comment that he had directed at him. The idea that this was the all his doing was more completely ridiculous, though not quite comical, if that had been what the Freeshooter was going for. No, even ignoring the fact that he did not possess the power to pull something off like that, it wasn't exactly the sort of thing he would be able to come up with either. If Number Two was really that starved for something to do, it may have been likely that he would choose to harass someone for little to no good reason. But his brand of harassment didn't typically consist of some sort of peculiar kidnapping. He would probably just shoot at said victim.

And as if he had read his him, Xigbar suddenly began shooting wildly at those around him. Much more disturbing than the fact that he was shooting (so long as the bullets weren't coming at Vexen, he didn't really care) was that he had managed to predict what the fellow Organization member would do before he did it. Not that that was entirely surprising, mind you; the Academic was quite good at predicting things. Making an "educated guess", as he would say. Of course, the little wild attack didn't last for very long, as the floor suddenly disappeared, sending a surprised room of people falling straight towards a large pool of water.

Submerging into the water, Vexen then came bursting up, taking a deep breath. His long, blond hair, now soaked, fell all in his face, making it difficult to see anything. Swimming had never been something he had done much of, but he at least knew enough to be able to stay afloat with minor difficulty. Unlike many of the others in the room, he was smart enough to not totally loose his mind and freak out. Unlike Zexion... Because of his abilities, Xigbar had not gone into the water at all, and was suspended upside-down in the air. As for Axel... Well he didn't currently see the red-head anywhere. Hopefully he had drowned...

Unfortunately, Vexen's hopes were terribly crushed when he heard a very obnoxious cough come from directly behind him, followed by an even more annoying voice. He began to open his mouth to reply sharply to the Flurry's sarcastic words, when he suddenly felt himself being shoved back underwater. Going down several feet, he glared up through the water at the black figure that was obviously Axel. Evidently, someone wasn't being too intelligent. Messing with a person who already had good reason for revenge against you wasn't a good idea. But if he was trying to start a fight was he? Well, Vexen would hate to have to disappoint him.

His hand beginning to glow a pale blue, as he rose it up towards the black boots above him. Practically instantaneously, the Nobody was encased thickly in solid ice. Pleased with his handiwork, Vexen turned his attention to getting himself out of the water, as it occurred to him that his lungs were in need of oxygen. Not bothering to glance down, he froze a tall column of ice, a little over two feet wide, from the bottom of the pool. It came up underneath him, bringing his feet about twelve inches above the water's surface. Looking around, he began wondering what he had come up to. Xigbar appeared to be repetitively dunking Zexion into the water, for whatever absurd reason. But the Schemer's problems were his own. Vexen had his own "problem" to worry about. This problem being a person, who would likely be trying to get the Academic if and when he managed to get out of the ice he was stuck in.

[Axel]

Didn't Your Mother Ever Tell You Never to Play With Fire?

Vexen didn't come up for air for a few long moments. A few bubbles drifted lazily to the surface, but those stringy, bleached locks weren't following them. Axel arched an eyebrow. He waited just a few more moments, making sure this wasn't some sort of elaborate trick the scientist was trying to pull. One. Two. Three. That was long enough to confirm it. Vexen was dead. Again. And Axel had killed him. Again.

He smirked. “The only thing that could have made this better was if he had screamed again. Like a turkey.”

Or not. A hand was suddenly on his foot, and the temperature rapidly dropped. Damn. It's never that easy, is it? He found himself encased completely in ice, which, as it turned out, actually worked in his favor. For a scientist, Vexen wasn't too bright sometimes. Every drop of liquid on his body had frozen into ice—meaning, beneath all that frigid solidarity, he was perfectly dry. If Axel could have moved, he would have grinned.

The first sign that should have tipped Vexen off to something going wrong was the slight hint of a glow in the center of the ice block. The glow grew more intense by the second, until finally, the entire top half of the block exploded in a burst of fire. Axel was still surrounded by ice around his bottom half, but he was content to stay that way for now. He was floating in the water, no longer drenched from head to toe. His hair was back to its normal spikiness.

“Aw, Vexen. Is that how you greet an old friend? Well, if that's how you want to be...” Fire spun beneath his hands, signaling the summoning of Eternal Flames. “I'm more than happy to return the sentiment.” With that, both of his chakrams ignited, and he launched them toward Vexen, intentionally missing him. He really only wanted to intimidate, after all. What would be the fun in killing him too quickly? The resulting force pushed him away from Vexen, and he floated contentedly toward other prospective encounters. When his chakrams circled back around to him, he caught them and then vanished them once again.

The Flame looked around the room once more looking for someone else to hurt to see what exactly had happened while he had been busy. Xigbar and Zexion caught his eye. The Freeshooter had Zexion by the ankles and was plunging him head-first into the water over and over again, despite the Schemer's obvious protests against the action.

Now, Axel had a dilemma. He could choose to help the Schemer escape his current predicament, but that would draw the attention of Xigbar and could quite possibly alert Number Two to the business relationship between Axel and Zexion. Plus, on one level, he was enjoying the torture Xigbar was inflicting upon the Schemer. On the other hand, if he helped out Zexion, that would give him further reason to trust the Flame.

Still in his boat of ice, courtesy of Vexen, he floated casually closer to the two, raised a hand to wave at Xigbar, and grinned. “Yo, Xiggy! Have you picked up a habit of molesting small children since I've been dead?”

[Lagunamov]

I'd rather someone else deal with the nasty details. Just because you were down for that with Blondie doesn't mean I am.

“I’ll buy you a new boyfriend with a crappy haircut if this one dies, ok?” Xigbar yelled back at the screaming girl on the ice platform, or whatever that was. He didn’t really pay attention to that, just barely enough to know he was being addressed by the same girl that had tried to hit him minutes ago, and god knew how long ago had approached him at the bar for some nonsense. Then again, he enjoyed messing with the lovely couple, so it all worked in his favor one way or another.

After about the dunking number twenty, Xigbar just started to feel his arms get a little tired. Mind you, he wasn’t about to just stop, opportunities to torture the schemer in such a way were so few and far between that he was going to savor this one for as long as possible. The fun would have to come to an end at some point, naturally, but Zexion’s acts of vengeance rarely held their own against him. The events at the club only helped prove it. Zexion tries to destroy a building with a meteor strike, Xigbar uses that to stage a Hollywood-style exit.

“Careful with your choice of words Flamesilocks,” he turned his head around to look at Axel, but keeping the procedure he was conducting as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Zexion was currently above water when Xigbar continued his retort. “Molesting would involve me doing something with the stuff in his pants. I don’t go down there,” he dunked the nobody again, raising him from the water just so he could hear the last part. “That's the turf of the girl over there,” he smirked, tilting his head in Emi’s direction before continuing with his water torture.

[Fate]

If I Could Hate You, I Would
But I can't, so I'll just plan some sort of revenge on you later or something

Yes... he had forgotten that small detail hadn't he? He had forgotten that Xigbar could stay in midair no matter how many times one whacked him. Zexion, being the one he was, should have remembered this fact and not tried anything on the Freeshooter. As soon as he felt the firm grip on his ankles, he knew that he truly should have remembered that Xigbar would retaliate somehow. Though, it seemed that he was turning him a bit, which the Schemer decided to go along with for now. At the end, he was only hanging upside down; aside from the blood rushing to his head, it was not a bad position to read in. However, the fact that his hair fell into the water was not a good sign. This could only mean one thing...

Zexion would have been perfectly fine if Xigbar had simply dunked him under the water once and that was all. He was surprised the first time and had to quickly try and hold his breath after initially letting out a few bubbles; the Lexicon was out of his grip the entire time, now in the water. Xigbar brought him back up for air after ten long seconds, letting Zexion gasp for breath. Unfortunately, that did not last long; Number Two seemed to think that dunking him repeatedly was a good idea. His arms flailed in an attempt to make this stop, but that of course did nothing.

He couldn't get a word in edgewise during this whole thing, though he found out that Xigbar and Axel had exchanged words while Zexion's lungs were filling up with water. He coughed several times to try and get said water out, though it did not help when Xigbar merely dunked him again... and again... Once Xigbar surfaced him one last time, he got to hear more of the exchange, causing his eyes to widen with the remnant of fear, shock, and humiliation. He couldn't keep this look on since he was dunked once more, though he decided to attempt to speak next time he was brought up for air again.

"You've made your point Xigbar," he managed to say, though the words came out in between coughs, "Enough is enough. He didn't have enough time to deal with the other comments, nor the breath, resulting in one last phrase in between coughs. "Now unhand me." He figured it would be much better to drown at this point, or at least until he summoned up a surface similar to Furiae's. In fact, he had better do that now. Before Xigbar could dunk him again, he mimicked the small ice pillar directly under him so he wouldn't be dunked into the water... again. One would think that thirty times was enough.

[/size]

[Oathkeeper Emi]

I'm...speechless...
--

Emi silently fumed, glaring at Xigbar. What was with this guy? "For the last time, he isn't my boyfriend. Oh god, what happened at that club?[/color]"

Those memories were still a little fuzzy. However, she didn't remember anything about molesting Zexion. Maybe an innocent kiss, but nothing below the belt... she thought. She sat on the ice, cheeks burning hot enough to probably melt right through it had she decided to try. She was embarrassed because now everyone was probably staring at her, making assumptions about things she didn't really remember.

This white room was her own personal hell. Yes. That is what had happened. She had died and now she was paying for her sins. Getting thrown in water and embarrassed. Perfect.