Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction / Fan Fiction ❯ Akirame Norwen ❯ Laguna Loire ( Chapter 22 )

Disclaimer: Hey everyone, I got my humor back! Hehe...^__^ Anyhow, everyone else in the world had the Highwind airship in their story... I want it in my story too! I mean, come on. Did you think I was gonna use the airship from FFX? Wait... that's a great idea! Hehe... it needs a name... I'll call it.... the Horus Goddess!!! Hahahha! Take that, Tora!

Chapter 22: Laguna Loire

The morning was signaled by a sudden symphony of various alarm clocks and beeping watches. Groans, murmurs and cries of frustration could be heard as the teens reluctantly left their cozy beds and began to get ready for the day. The mob of messy-haired disasters all cluttered together in the hall, eyeing the door to the bathroom. Without warning the entire group leapt at once for the door knob and a fierce battle to scramble in the opening door suddenly ended when Riku gave a triumphant, "Ha!" and slammed the door in his comrade's faces.

Riku turned after briefly listening to the complaints of his friends and quickly got the water to the shower running while he stripped off his grimy-feeling clothes. After finally stripping his socks off, he placed a hand under the streaming water to feel the temperature. Perfect. He finally stepped in and drew the sliding glass door shut while placing his toiletries on the ceramic floor. The hot water felt unbelievably soothing on his skin, rinsing all of his stress away for the moment. He tried to gather his thoughts while soaking briefly, just enjoying the feel of the hot water trickling down his back and spine. Not wanting to waste all the hot water, however, he made a quick job of shampooing and conditioning his hair *duh, how else did you think he got it so luxurious?*, and used a wash-rag to somehow scrub all of the stains out of his skin. Finally done, he shut off the water and stepped out, shivering as the colder air embraced his bare skin and caused goosebumps to cover half his body. He made a hasty job of drying his skin off and used his hand to clear the fog from the mirror while quickly pulling on his clean boxers and jeans. Gathering his stuff back up, he slowly turned the doorknob and peeked out. He couldn't see anyone waiting to crush him on their way in... shrugging, he started to swing the door open when it was violently pushed against him, pinning him to the wall as several people tried to cram into the small bathroom at once.

Finally the brief struggle ended and the door was quickly slammed shut as the victor's rivals made a few last-minute attempts to enter. Riku slumped along the wall and slid to the floor, trying to catch his breath, as was Akirame, who leaned against the door clutching a small bundle of necessities. "Bare-Barely made it." She gasped out, placing her stuff on the closed toilet lid.

"Erm, Akira? Could you wait to do that until I leave?" Riku politely asked, making the girl jump and whirl to see him trying to stand up.

"Riku? Oy, I thought the bathroom was empty." Akirame said, somewhat awkwardly glancing aside from her friend's shirtless condition.

"No, you just nearly killed me with the door is all. I think I better get out before you try to strangle me with a towel." He joked before swimming out the door through the crowd waiting outside.

Downstairs, Dr. Kadowaki and Kira could hear the angry mob while fixing breakfast. "Hmm.... maybe I should tell them about the downstairs bathrooms too?" Kira suggested while reaching into the fridge to pull out a gallon of milk.

"Downstairs bathroom?" a voice from upstairs suddenly asked, which was followed by the noise of a stampede racing down the stairs.

Kira turned to see the desperate-looking Kairi standing in front of Jerdania, Sora and Irvine. "Where is it?!" the cow-licked Sora demanded, angrily waving a bar of soap.

"...Hehe... um... here, follow me." Kira offered, placing the milk on a counter before walking out of the kitchen and down a hallway.

Before she could even reach the doorknob to turn the handle, the guests quickly shot their hands out first and managed to all but rip the knob out of the door while scrambling to get in the doorway. Sora managed to use his hips to knock Irvine and Kairi out of his way and squeezed in, giving a trademark grin before slamming the door shut again. "Aww.." the last three protested, just before the sound of another door slamming caught their attention.

"I'm done." Akirame announced from upstairs.

The last three teens' eyes widened and stampeded back upstairs again. After the dust had cleared, Kira opened her eyes and saw that she was staring into the carpet. As she pushed herself back up, she could hear Irvine growling over Jerdania and Kairi. "Ladies first!" Kairi haughtily said, just before giving the cowboy and his girl the slip and stealing the much-sought bathroom for herself.

Irvine and Jerdania looked at each other and sighed. "Great, now what?" Jerdania asked while gathering her stuff back up.

"Save water and time by showering together." The mussed auburn-haired boy suggested, earning a tackle from the spunky girl, her crimson braid swishing in the air.

"Excuse me lovers." Riku dispassionately said as he used his hands to part the two, clearing a path for him to the stairs. If there was one thing that got on his nerves quickly, it was excessive flirting.... especially in the morning.

"So, where's Erik?" Akirame asked her friend as he sat down at the table next to her.

"I haven't the foggiest idea where he got to. Jeez, with all the pandemonium this morning, there's no telling." Riku answered, his stomach cringing in hunger from the scent of pancakes and sausage.

"Who you lookin for, Erik? I thought he looked brave and stupid enough to attempt to feed the cats without getting killed." Dr. Kadowaki responded, drawing back curtains to let light in through a glass-paned door leading to a large patio. Erik stood outside with an immense bag of dry cat food, and was trying to open it. Finally, with a slight grunt, he managed to use his good hand to rip a corner off. He then maneuvered the economy-sized bag of Friskies around and began to poor the food into what looked like a feeding trough. It didn't take long until the first cat of what looked like a bizarre miniature plague of all sorts of cats started to appear from somewhere, all dashing madly around to get to the food. Erik tried to wade through the tide of felines, somehow managing to slide the glass door open and shut it without letting any of the noisy fur-balls leak in. "I see you got a few more cats, Dr. Kadowaki." Erik commented, slumping down at the quickly filling table.

"Hehe, yeah. I guess we kept just a few too many strays. That's the third generation you're seeing out there." The woman chuckled, placing a huge tray of pancakes in the center of the table.

Once the rest of the guests had gathered, Kira placed a few bottles of maple syrup and butter down before pulling her own chair up between Erik and her mother. Breakfast was, for the most part, silent, as people were too busy inhaling the quickly replenishing hotcakes and sausages. After a while, mild conversation started as people went back upstairs and began to finish cleaning themselves up. Erik was the only one who didn't have to fuss over his hair, but just let the short blonde curls fix themselves. Kira helped clean up the mess left behind, taking only a second to quickly shove something into one of Erik's back pockets.

Erik quickly stopped and gave his friend a quizzed look while reaching back to pull out whatever she had shoved into his pocket. Kira shook her head, and whispered to him to wait until he was alone to mess w/ the mystery gift. Erik raised an eyebrow and shrugged, placing himself on the couch and waiting for his friends to finish primping. He silently watched the clock tick and found his patience running a little thin. "Come on guys, it can't possibly take you that long to make a ponytail and spike your hair!" he shouted up the stairs.

"I'm doing my eyeliner and helping Irvine with his lipstick!" Sora shouted back.

"Ah! So *that's* what happened to my eyeliner!" Jerdania called out, suddenly emerging in her athletic beauty.

The others soon followed, and with only minimal hassle, the group assembled in the living room. "So... we're supposed to meet Laguna and give him that package from Cloud now, right?" Sora asked, shifting in his red t-shirt and baggy blue jeans.

"Yeah, pretty much. I have no idea where we're headed off to after that, though." Riku said, somehow able to hide the stress that was ripping him apart under a facade of steely calm. Of course, he had only spent half his whole life masquerading his feelings...

"Let's go then. He should be back by now." Kira said, breaking Riku's wandering chain of thought.

The group followed Kira out the front door, singing a choir of thank-you's to the kind doctor for taking them in. Once outside, the dragon Red joined them, involuntarily being loaded with the party's luggage. "I'm not a pack mule!" he protested as Sora slid a duffel bag around the dragon's neck.

"Hey, you seemed to enjoy showing off last night." Erik commented, patting his friend's head.

Red rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath in some ancient tongue.

They soon approached the jailhouse, and quickly noticed the jeep parked practically in the middle of the street. A man w/ long, black braided hair and dark skin was walking around outside, carrying boxes and giving instructions to a tall, big man who wore a beanie and overalls. "Wade, those boxes go in the back office." The dark man said, lifting a large cardboard box.

Wade merely nodded and went about carrying the boxes inside. Suddenly a hyper-active ninja exploded out of the back of the jeep and ran towards the approaching group of teens. "Heya!" She shouted, finally stopping in front of them.

"Hi...Yuffie." Riku responded, remembering her name. "So, Laguna's here now?"

"Yep! He's in there right now!" the short ninja responded, bouncing happily.

"Don't she remind you of someone?" Irvine asked, elbowing Erik, who smiled and nodded.

"Come on in! I'll let him know you're coming!" and with that, Yuffie ran inside the builing, barely dodging Wade in the process.

Riku looked at the others, shrugged, and walked around the mess of boxes in front of the building. The hall inside was lined with even more boxes, making the already small building feel even smaller. A tall man with long, black hair suddenly stepped out of a doorway, holding several papers in his hands. He barely noticed the teens standing there. "Yeah, uh-huh... let's see, are you guys done unloading already?" he asked, putting on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses to see the small print better.

"Um.. the boxes? I don't know... I think they're done now." Riku answered, looking back over his shoulder.

"That's good, let's see now... Yuffie said something about some visitors that came by recently. Where are they? Geez, this is ridiculous. There is no way they can possibly expect me to file all of this paperwork...."

"Um..... sir? Er...Mr. Loire? These are the visitors I told you about." Yuffie said, suddenly appearing behind the rambling man.

"Oh...Oh! I see, okay." The man finally looked up and saw the group standing in front of him. "I'm sorry. Yeah, hi there! You can call me Laguna. What's your name, kid? You gotta be what? 17? 18? You've met Yuffie here, right? Are you the kids that caught those bandits by yourselves?"

Riku blinked at the onslaught of questions and shook the man's offered hand. "Uh.... I'm Riku...yeah, I'm 17, we met Yuffie yesterday and yes, we're the ones."

Laguna nodded and put his hands on his hips. "Well, there's a good number of you, no? Well, tell me, what brings you kids here?"

Jerdania suddenly remembered something and dug through her jacket for a moment, and produced a manila envelope. "Uh, Cloud Strife, from Transverse Town, he told us to give you this." She said, handing over the packet.

Laguna nodded and quickly tore open the package, and pulled out...even more papers. He quickly scanned over the first page and his eyes widened. "No kidding?! That guy is back?! What the heck..... so that's what Spikey wants, eh? Well...we'll have to see about that."

The group looked at each other, wondering what in the world Laguna could be talking about. "So...what does Cloud want?" Kairi asked, walking over to read over the man's arm.

"Ack, Cloud wants me to get hold of Cid Highwind. *The one from FF7...gonna be confusing* Apparently, he wants to send you kids over to the Kashkabald continent, and the fastest way to get you there would be on the Al-Bhed `Horus' airship." *yes, the airship from FFX!!!*

Sora's eyes went wide. "An airship?! Alright! We're going on a real airship!"

Riku sighed at his friend's enthusiasm. For whatever reason, Sora always had an avid love for things that went fast. "That's cool. So... anything else in there we need to know?"

"Not really... just this map and some directions for you... and a bunch of passes and whatnot... and an urgent request that you guys majorly stock up on sunscreen."

Irvine shook his head. "Man, this is gonna suck. Please don't tell me we're going through the desert!"

Laguna sighed. "Sorry kids. I have no idea as to what Cloud wants you to do. Supposedly he wants me to stay out of this for the most part. Something to do with a certain reckless incident concerning a certain person named Adel. But we won't need to be going there, now will we?"

"So.... cough up the info so we can be getting on our way." Sora said, getting impatient, and also getting a sharp nudge from Riku.

"Right, just take your time." Riku rolled his eyes as Sora folded his arms and pouted.

"Well, it shouldn't take me too long either way. So, come on into my office and have a seat, while I'm getting hold of Cid you can tell me all about yourselves."

Laguna opened the door and walked in, followed by almost all the teens, minus Erik and Red. Well, Red hadn't been able to come in the first place, having been burdened with all the luggage. "Hey, aren't you gonna come in? This Laguna guy ain't too bad." Irvine asked, looking at his weary friend.

Erik shrugged, and followed the cowboy in. He just didn't want to run into any more familiar faces.

Once everyone had crammed into the rather... small office and had found a chair of some sort, mostly boxes, Laguna sat down behind his small desk and picked up a phone, and started to dial a rather long and complex phone number. "So...where you all from?" He asked, tapping his fingers while he waited for the phone to connect.

"Destiny Islands."

"Balamb Garden."

"Absolutely no idea." Riku turned and hit Sora upside the back of his head. "Ow!"

"Balamb Garden? Would you happen to know Squall Leonhart?"

Irvine and Erik rolled their eyes. "Duh. Everyone knows the infamous Squall."

"Oh, sorry. Man, am I excited though, he's getting married!"

Irvine's eyes grew large. "Lemme guess, it's that Vanchessca girl, right?"

"Absolutely! Those two have been-" Laguna was cut off when a voice rang over the phone.

"Yeah, I heard ya... Cid Highwind here." A gruff voice stated over the intercom phone.

"Hey, Cid! This is Laguna Loire here. I'm responding to a request made by Cloud Strife."

"Spikey? Man, anything from Spikey has got to be serious. What do you need?"

"Cloud has a request that you give some friends of his a lift over to the Kashkabald area. Apparently it's extremely important that you get them as close to Cosmo Canyon as possible."

".....Well, I'll see what I can do. I gotta drop off some cargo over in Luca first, but I'll be over there in about.... 3 hours or so. Enough time for whoever it is I'm picking up to load up on sunscreen and whatnot. Where are they at?"

"Winhill."

"Good, I'll land in the Bluffs area. I'll fly over the town so you can get a good idea where I'll be at." With loud click, the conversation ended.

"Well kids, looks like you're headed to Kashkabald." Laguna cheerfully said, placing the papers back in the manila envelope and returning it to Riku. "In there Cloud has enclosed pretty much everything you'll need in means of directions. There's a map, passes to get into Cosmo Canyon's dig site... and about 17,000 gil to get you well stocked in supplies."

The group's eyes bulged. "17,000?! Woohoo! We're going shopping!" Kairi shouted, jumping up and punching the air with her first.

Laguna smiled at the show of energy. "You remind me of someone..." He started, rubbing his chin with his hand. "That's it! Zell Dincht. One of Squall's friends."

Irvine and Erik looked at each other and smiled. All personalities seemed to come in triplets. Laguna suddenly made eye contact with Erik. "Hey...wait a minute. Don't I know you?"

"Uh... I don't think so."

"Hmm... what's your name?"

"....Erik...Sandavol."

"Erik....Erik... my memory's not that great. I coulda sworn I knew you from somewhere. Who's your parents?"

Erik looked away at the floor. "Don't got any."

Laguna sighed and nodded. "I'm sorry to hear that."

Erik shrugged. "I was little, so I never got to know them. I'm pretty much over it now."

"Ah... that's good. So... I guess you guys got three hours to stock up on supplies. So..." Laguna rose out of his chair and began opened the door. "Get out off here! Leave! Scram! All of you!" he shouted, pushing the kids out of the door.

"Thanks Laguna!" one of them shouted before being sent out into the hall.

"Oy, kids! Man... if they're the world's future, then we're doomed. Turn the lights out people, it's all over." Laguna muttered to himself as he tried to clean off his desk.