Fan Fiction ❯ Black Orchid ❯ Cold Goddess and Fighting to Fight ( Chapter 24 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Man...: Word's not working... so i'm reduced to wordpad... sigh... anyways, I finally updated again! and, I'd like to thank our newest reader, Demon Surfer! yeah! DS has a really cool story too, Crystal Hearts! yeah! other good stories are the ones that i've mentioned earlier in this fic, and Legend of Kingdom Hearts, which is a KH Zelda crossover, that pulls it off quite smoothly. It's good! and everybody, read Katie's fic Nakineiri Itami, though her Fanfic name is Nekodoshi. She doesn't update often, though she posts alot when she does, so the easiest way to get to her story is by going to my profile and going to fave stories. Yeah, that's all the advertising for today! Now, R&R, yeah!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Hey, old man!" shouted Arc, pushing aside the moth-eaten curtain as he stepped inside. Orchid and Montblanc came into the wizard's house soon after.
"What do you want, you little hooligan?" answered Merlin crankily. It seemed to Orchid that Arc and him would always be on different sides of every fence you could imagine, and that nothing short of a local apocalypse might make them jump it.
"We're just here to visit and ask for advice, kupo," replied Montblanc, trying to smooth over their rough entrance.
"Fine, fine. Please, take a seat," said Merlin, gesturing to the chairs around the table. As they sat down, he asked, "So what do you need to know?"
"I want to know about the keyblade," asked Orchid. "I mean, it keeps changing, and now my two key chains don't work."
"Hmm" muttered Merlin. "Could you tell me exactly the order of what forms you had, and when they occurred, relative to each other?"
Arc and Orchid stared blankly at the mage, so Montblanc took the initiative to explain. "First was Bramblebite, with no chain, kupo. Then, she got the Vorpal Blade, which was a keychain that worked on it. Then, we took the keychain off, and it later became Vineguard. KupopoI think that if we had tried, the Vorpal Blade chain wouldn't have worked on it. Well, then we got Spellweaver, which incorporated the scroll for the Vorpal Blade, so I guess it could be considered the same chain, kupo. Then we switched it to Poison Ivy, a new chain. Then the keyblade brew into Nearbloom, and the two key chains, kupo, Poison Ivy and Spellweaver don't work."
"I see" murmured Merlin as he scribbled on a piece of paper. When he finished, he held it up for them. There were three lines, each with circles on it at different levels. "Here, look. I think this is how it works. You have the three branches, the normal with no chain, the spell chain, and the attack chain. Then, there are the different levels. Bramblebite and the Vorpal Blade are one level, Vineguard, Spellweaver, and Poison Ivy are on another, and Nearbloom is on the third level. Basically, you can only use key chains that are on the same level as the basic keyblade, without the chain."
"What a long winded load of nonsense," grumbled Arc, clearly bored out of his mind.
"I think I got it," said Orchid. "So I need to get better versions of Spellweaver and Poison Ivy before I can use them again?"
"That's exactly it," answered Merlin.
"And until then, you can't use the spells connected with them, kupo," added Montblanc. "No Demi from Spellweaver and no Poison from Poison Ivy."
"Huh. Oh, well," sighed Orchid. Then she suddenly perked up and started rooting through her pockets. "I just remembered something where is it? Um ah, here it is!"
She held out the blue ice-like crystal that radiated cold, the one she had taken from the Cave of Wonders. She placed it on the table, where it gently pulsed with a frozen light.
"Is that a summon gem, kupo?" asked Montblanc, his antenna pompom bouncing with curiosity.
"Like the one Ifrit was in?" asked Arc. He had checked earlier that day to find that, much to his relief, Ifrit was still with him, though he wasn't quite ready for action yet.
"Mmm, yes," replied Merlin, adjusting his spectacles and holding the gem up to the light, turning it this way and that. "You should give it to the Fairy Godmother to release."
The trio turned in their seats and got up, walking down the stairs of the raised platform while the toy carriage went up in cloud of smokes and sparks, clearing to reveal the Fairy Godmother. Orchid walked up to her and handed her the gem.
"Oh, another one? Maybe this one will be a little more polite," said the lady quietly as she set the crystal to hovering in front of her, where she stared intently at it. "Hmm? Oh, you're welcome. Yes, I'm sure she'll appreciate you."
With a flick of her wand, the crystal broke apart into glittering shards, breaking smaller and smaller until they were mere sparkles in the air. Then it happened. Cold wind stirred up, scattering the sparks around, until the room was filled with howling wind, laced with glittering, snowy particles. Arc and Montblanc both shielded their faces from this frigid onslaught, but Orchid stood transfixed, staring into the miniature blizzard that had come up.
Thank you for releasing me. How may I serve you, young master?
Orchid could feel the presence of the icy being. It felt of many things; it was cold, graceful, majestic, feminine, and above all, powerful. "What is your name?"
I am Shiva, the Spirit Goddess of Ice.
"My name's Orchid. Pleased to meetcha," replied Orchid politely. "Well, there's nothing for you here now, so you can go now."
The icy wind began to focus around her, swirling around, getting smaller and smaller, until it was a spindly funnel of cold, which siphoned into her front, then disappeared, a goddess only waiting to be summoned.
"Well, I don't have anything important to talk with the old man about, how 'bout you?" asked Arc, brushing some frost off of the front of his black shirt and white trench coat.
"No, I'm done," replied Orchid.
"Same, kupo," added Montblanc.
"Well, good luck then," said the Fairy Godmother. "Take good care of her, and make sure to come to me if you find any other summon gems."
"Be seeing you," waved Merlin as they walked out.



"And why should I give it to you?"
"Because we want to enter and you don't!"
"Zelly, you aren't being vewy nice"
"Just give it to them, Zell," sighed Sora, poking at his dinner with a fork. By now, the raviolis were chock full of holes.
"Hey, it's my entry form, and I'm not giving it away for free!" growled Zell, his hand set firmly on the sheet in front of him. "I won it fair and square, so I'm not giving it away."
"But what's the point if you're not going to use it?" asked Yuffie around a mouthful of spaghetti.
"She's got a point there," said Sora, wishing they would quit arguing already.
"Yeah, she does!" pouted Rikku.
"What's up?" asked Arc as he, Montblanc and Orchid walked up.
"This jerk won't hand over that sheet!" shouted Yuffie, pointing at the paper Zell was holding down.
"What is it?" asked Orchid, looking curiously.
"A registration form," said Zell shortly, taking a bite of his hotdog. Trust Zell to get a hot dog even if you take him to semi-nice restaurant like the Café.
"Registration for what, kupo?" asked Montblanc.
"The new tournament at the Olympus Coliseum," replied Sora. "It's time for this year's Pegasus Cup."
"We shouldn't need a registration sheet, right?" Orchid asked Montblanc. "We're certified Junior Heroes."
"Doesn't matter," corrected Sora. "Phil's got a real crowd this year, and to thin it, he only had ten registration sheets handed out in different contests. If you don't have a sheet, you can't get in."
"And Zell got one?" asked Arc, watching as the man in question smacked away Yuffie's hand from the sheet.
"Yeah," replied Zell. "I won it in a martial arts tournament they had here. Along with some munny."
"Hey, can we have it?" asked Orchid hopefully.
"We asked first!" cried Rikku and Yuffie in unison. Suddenly, Zell brightened up and smirked.
"I have an idea," he said with a grin.
"Wow, now isn't that just amazing?" groaned Arc dryly.
"Hey!" snapped Zell. He took another bite out of his hot dog and everyone else stared at him while he chewed.
"Well?" they all shouted impatiently at him.
"Well," he started, swallowing quickly, "I suggest that you guys fight for it."
"What?" said Orchid incredulously.
"Sound's good to me," replied Arc.
"Okees!" agreed Rikku.
"You're going down, Arc!" grinned Yuffie, standing up. "No one beats the Great Ninja Yuffie!"
"I wish I could fight" mumbled Sora, dejectedly continuing to mangle his pasta.
"Then it's settled!" said Zell. Rikku and Yuffie quickly finished their dinners and stood up. As they walked around the table and out to the open square of First District, where the trio was already standing, Zell announced his rules. "No time limit, no killing of course, no boundaries, and you win when the other side gives up, is unconscious, unable to fight, or has all members down for a count of 10."
"They got more people than us, Yuff," complained Rikku as she strapped on her claws and Yuffie pulled out her oversized shuriken.
"Not my fault," brushed off Arc as he stretched, swinging his right arm around to limber it up. "A lot of the teams at the coliseum will have more than two people."
"And, go!" shouted Zell.
Arc ran forwards at them, only to be forced to stop short and block as Yuffie's shuriken flew at him. It struck his stone gauntlet, and whizzed away, and came flying back to Yuffie's hand. Arc leapt into the air for an attack from above and came smashing down, only to find Yuffie had taken to the air also. She landed lithely on top of a street light, only to be almost shaken off as Arc smashed his fist into it.
Orchid and Montblanc were having a similarly difficult time with Rikku. Between her ability to outrun Orchid and dodge most of Montblanc's spells, they weren't getting much done. The only time she stopped running was to turn and throw a grenade at them, which just gave her more time to get away while they ran away from the blast radius. Montblanc decided to move to his most accurate spell then.
"Thunder!" he shouted, raising his rod aloft. A bolt of lighting came crashing down in front of Rikku as she stopped just short of being struck. But instead of continuing her running away, she just fell down, and sat on her behind, trembling all over.
"Rikku?" asked Orchid, edging towards her cautiously. The older girl was now huddled in a ball, hugging her knees and whimpering. "Rikku, what's wrong?"
Meanwhile, Arc had managed to dislodge Yuffie from the lamppost, but now had to deal with the constant attacks of her shuriken.
"Give it up, Arc!" she yelled as she threw it once more.
"Not in this lifetime!" shouted Arc back. As he did, the fingers of his stone hand clamped down on the thrown shuriken, stopping it. Yuffie stared open mouth as he threw the weapon to the ground, then charged at her.
"Can't we talk this over?" she cried as she ducked under a punch. She slid past Arc, then turned and kicked him square in the back. Taking advantage of this, she dashed off to retrieve her shuriken. What she underestimated was Arc's reach.
"Get back here!" he raged as his arm swung behind him, slamming into the ninja's side. Yuffie let out a grunt of pain as she went skidding across the stonework.
"Ow, that really-" she stopped as she got up, only to come face to face with Arc, who had dashed over to where she had landed. "Oh, hey..."
"So when you were little, you were hit by lightning?" asked Orchid with concern, leaning over the curled up girl. Rikku nodded.
"Yeah. My brother tried to hit a water monster, but he missed and hit me instead!" she cried, still shaking.
"Well, it makes sense to hit water with lightning, kupo," commented Montblanc as he walked over.
"That's not helping," said Orchid as she tried to comfort the somewhat traumatized older girl.
"Hey, guys! I got this one? How 'bout you?" asked Arc. He was sitting on Yuffie's back, pinning down both of her arms as she struggled and flailed her arms around.
"Uh... Rikku's kind of out of it..." shouted back Orchid, looking down at the trembling mass.
"Not fair! Not fair!" yelled the captive Yuffie. "You can't use her childhood fear against her!"
"How were we supposed to know?" groaned Arc.
"Yeah, Yuffie, it's not their fault," said Zell, walking over. "I'm giving it to them. Besides, you were beaten fair and square. If he really wanted to, Arc could have knocked you out and helped them with Rikku if she hadn't curled up."
"Fine," huffed the ninja as Arc finally got off her and let her up. She brushed herself off and walked over to Orchid as she helped Rikku stand up.
"Sorry about that," Rikku said to Yuffie, smiling weakly.
"Aw, it's okay," smiled back Yuffie. "We'll just have to train harder. Oh, and, Orchid!"
Orchid turned to face the ninja, who had extended a hand. In it, was a glowing, light blue orb of energy.
"Is that...?" she asked, trailing off as she looked at it. Yuffie nodded, and dropped it into Orchid's extended hand. It felt cold. Orchid took a deep breath, then pulled the sphere of magic close into her chest, where it was absorbed. A shock of stunning cold ran through her body for a moment, then was gone. She turned and extended a hand towards an unoffending garbage can, concentrating on the spell. "Blizzara!"
A raging torrent of cold flooded from her palm, spraying ice and snow all over everything in front of her. When it finished, there was a thin layer of ice covering all of the ground in between her and the garbage can, which was frozen over.
"Cool," said Orchid, grinning broadly.
"Very," added Arc dryly.
"Well, as much as I enjoy the magic show, you guys should get going," interrupted Zell. "You might not have noticed, but you have to be registered by tomorrow."
"What!?" asked Arc, Orchid, and Montblanc at the same time.
"Yeah," confirmed Zell.
"But it takes almost a full day to get to the Coliseum!" worried Orchid.
"We better get going, kupo!" exclaimed Montblanc.
"Outta my way, outta my way!" shouted Arc as he headed for the gates.
"Well, at least someone has something to worry about," grinned Sora as he bit into another ravioli.