Young Writers Society

Takeo

The flat was rather messy but that was mostly due to the fight with those nasty bad guys so she couldn't blame it on him, right? Right. But she still seemed to be looking around the room rather critically so Taki decided he ought to clean up. He used his gift to sweep the sofa clear of glass and made a gesture that suggested she could sit there. Cleaning was one of those things his gift was really good for, even if he couldn't do the delicate stuff.

The table was still up-turned over by the broken window so Taki righted that, again with the help of his gift, and then proceeded to move all the glass he could find to one corner of the room.

"You make cleaning look easy," Lena commented as she gave the sofa a once over before opting to stay standing. Taki noticed this and decided she must think there might be glass under the cushions or something. He should probably have thought of that before.

"Allow me," Taki said with a grin and turning toward her, he lifted the cushions first and gave them a good turning over in the air which was, admittedly, accompanied by the slight tinkle of glass. Taki could feel the sweat beading on his forehead as he gestured with his hand to sweep the glass to the corner. He didn't technically need the gesture but it made him feel more comfortable with tasks that were a strain. A strain? Man, he was really feeling the lack of the orb now.

Takeo dropped the cushions back to the sofa and Lena at last sat down. "Thanks. Uh... I guess you'll have to get that fixed."

"Yeah I'll ask my landlord about it tomorrow. Um... do you want some food? I don't actually know if I have any in which I should have thought about before and I'm not really much of a cook but-" Ah man. Takeo was going to have to work on getting all that confidence back.

Ren

Ren stayed with Cait for a few more hours when his cell phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and saw Toma's name. He answered it. "Toma, any luck?"

"I've set up a meeting in an alley on the edge of town," his friend told him. "You and Jordan are to go there alone to make the exchange tonight at eight."

Ren looked up at the clock which read six o'clock, meaning there was only two hours until he had to go. "All right, thanks for your help, Toma."

"Be careful out there."

"I will." With that he shut off his phone and turned to Cait. "The meeting will be in two hours."

"Maybe you should call Jordan to let him know," Cait suggested.

"Good idea." Ren turned his phone back on and dialed Jordan's number.
_______________________

Jordan

Jordan's phone started ringing in his pocket. He growled a little in frustration as he reached into his pocket to retrieve it. He looked on the screen to see what the caller ID told him. It was that kid, Ren. He opened his phone and said, "Yeah, what is it?"

"I'm calling to let you know that the meeting is tonight at eight at the edge of the city. You're going to be there, right?"

Jordan looked down at Anzhela who was smiling at him. "Tell him you'll be there, and don't show up," she told him.

(I'm not sure when Ayumi is going to be back, but in the meantime can you two try to keep posting, Kitty and Undertaker? I just want the storybook to have some activity so that it doesn't keep drifting back to the second page.)

Jordan

He glanced at Anzhela. "Of course."

"Great. See you there." The boy sounded a little chipper...

"Hey, wait, how's Cait?"

The boy sighed on the phone, a relaxed, grateful sound. "She's fine. She's gonna be okay. Do you want to talk to her?" In the background, he could hear Cait whispering a negative. Ren argued with her for a second, and she finally took the phone. "Hey, Jordan?"

He swallowed. "Hey..." This was certainly not what he wanted, to talk to a meddlesome, idiotic, preppy little girl...

She didn't sound too comfortable either. "[i]...Thanks.[i]"

His heart sank for a moment, in slight guilt. He forced a smile in his voice. "You're welcome." The line clicked off, and he closed the phone.

Anzhela crooned, watching him admiringly. "Do not worry so much, Jordackho. You don't have to worry about them anymore. They are history."

He huffed, only half answering. "I know."

I'll post tomorrow. ^^

Lena

She just simply watched as Taki rummaged through the cabinets of his kitchen looking for something to eat. After sitting down for a second she decided to go and help him look. Striding over to the fridge, she opened the door and looked inside. She had to say, she didn't find much, just some grape jelly and small things like that. Closing that door she then opened the freezer door.

As soon as she opened the freezer door, she saw a bag of chicken fried rice just sitting there. Reaching in and grabbing it, turned it around and looked at the expiration date. Still good, she thought silently to herself.

"Hey Taki," She said peeking out from the freezer, "I found something to eat."

"Really? Awesome, what did you find?" He questioned.

"Some chicken fired rice." She stated with a smile, "Oh. And I'll help you cook."

After dinner was done, Lena set the table while Taki prepared the rest of the food. When it was ready, they both sat down and started to dish the rice on their plates. A conversion started in a matter of minutes and she actually found herself laughing and having a great time.

(For the sake of brevity, why don't we just leave Ayaka out of the story from now on? I think we have enough characters as it is to move the story along nicely, and I honestly have nothing I can use Ayaka for.)

Jordan

Jordan shook his head and put his phone back in his pocket. He turned to Anzhela and said, "How long is it going to take me to learn how to use the spells in this book?" he asked, motioning to the spell book Anzhela gave him earlier.

"If you study diligently, you may be able to learn most of the basic ones in a few days," she told him. "But before we can get started on your...lessons, I have one more job for you."

"Of course," Jordan said, his voice thick with spite.

"Now now Jordackho, now that you are under my wing I will need you to do some things for me from time to time. The task I am about to give you is a simple one, if done correctly I am sure you can finish it in one night."

"What is it?" he asked. Anzhela was the only one who could teach him how to use his powers, so he really didn't have a choice in the matter anyway. But he'd might as well get it over with as soon as possible so he can start learning his magic.

"There is a boy in this city that goes by the name of Accelerator. Until recently he was the strongest Level 5 in all of Academy City, but due to some complications he was shot in the head and now his esper abilities are extremely limited. Given the situation, I'm sure he would jump at the opportunity to regain his lost power and become number one again. We are going to use this to our advantage."

Jordan had heard the name Accelerator before, but had never met the kid in person. But from all the horror stories he's heard about that kid he was more than glad to have never had the opportunity. At least until now, that is. "What would we have to offer that will make him work for us?" he asked.

"Why, a Zodiac Stone, of course."

Jordan frowned at the woman. "So you made me go through all that work to get you that stone just so you could give it away to some other kid?"

"Jordackho, you have it all wrong," Anzhela told him. "Now that I have Aries it is never going to leave my sight. I am speaking of a second stone somewhere in Academy City."

"A second one?" Jordan asked, a little surprised. "Well, if there's another stone here then why not just send me to retrieve it?" He really didn't feel like going on another scavanger hunt, but Jordan was still curious.

"Because if I know of the orb's presence, then certainly our enemies do as well. I doubt you would be able to fight against those magicians and your former friends all by yourself."

Jordan was starting to see where Anzhela was going with this plan. "So instead we send this Accelerator guy to go find it."

Anzhela smiled. "Da."

"But didn't you say his powers were limitted and that he's no longer as strong as he was before?"

"This boy's power is like a tsunami against a city of ants. With the loss of some of his ability he has become little more than a tidal wave, but such a wave will still easily wipe out said ants."

"But what makes you so sure he will jump at this opportunity?" Jordan asked.

"Those with power will always seek more power," Anzhela explained. "During his prime this child was the greatest this city had to offer, yet for him that was not enough. He wanted to become even stronger, to become Academy City's first Level 6. Now his power has been stripped from him, such a loss would send a lesser man into madness. Accelerator has felt what it is like to be the best, surely he will do whatever it takes to get that back. We will tempt him with that power, and when he finds the orb for us we will take it from him."

(Ayumi, I'll send you a PM showing you what this Accelerator guy looks and acts like so you'll know how to portray him when Jordan finds him.)

Ren

Ren took his phone from Cait and tucked it back into his pocket. "I should go get ready for the meeting," he said. "I'll come back when it's over to tell you how it went."

"Just promise me you'll be careful," Cait said as he made his way to the door.

"I will, don't worry." With that he left.
___________________________

Ren was at the meeting spot a little before eight. The alley was dark and smelled a bit rank, but at least there was nobody around to walk in on them during the meeting. Even so, Ren was still on edge. There was only a few minutes left before the meeting started and Jordan was still nowhere to be found. Ren tried calling him a few times but Jordan must have turned off his cell because he went straight to voice mail every time.

"Where are you, Jordan?" Ren whispered.

He turned around when he heard footsteps. Stiyl and Kaori came around the corner a few moments later. "Looks like you showed up after all," Stiyl said. "I was half expecting no one to show up at all." He held out his hand and said, "Let's get this over with. Give us the orb and we promise not to bother you or your friends ever again."

Ren could feel his palms starting to sweat up. "About that... my friend has it and he hasn't shown up yet."

Kaori frowned and started reaching for her sword. "So, you intend to make fools out of us yet again?"

Ren started to panic. "Wait! He's probably just running late. If we wait a little longer he should show up."

Kaori started to relax a little and ease away from her sword, but her frown didn't go away. "You have ten minutes. If he doesn't show up by then, you'll see what we do to people who try to con Necessarius." She moved to lean against the wall while Stiyl sat on top of a nearby dumpster.

Ren immediatly whipped his phone back out. He dialed Takeo's number so he could ask if he knew where Jordan was.

(Your turn, Kitty. )

I'm actually not going to be around very much for the next few months. I have two weeks of essays and exams right now and not long after that I start a 48hr week (some weeks with an extra 12hr shift) summer job. So I'm not sure what you want to do but I'll be pretty much work and sleep.

(For the moment I'd like you to have Takeo answer his phone and start getting concerned when Ren tells him that Jordan hasn't arrived at the meeting yet. Even a short post will do, something for me to continue off of. Just post what you can. Good luck with your essays and exams.)

Righty-oh

Takeo

Lena was pretty but the weird thing was that Taki's thoughts never lingered on her appearance long. They were too busy drowning in her smiles and her laughter. She thought he was funny. And maybe it was wrong to be falling in love with a girl because of how it reflected on him, but that fit Taki's selfishness to a key. And he liked her. Admired her even. Which was weird because he hadn't thought she had any of the traits he admired. He liked people who were strong, powerful and determined. While she was quiet. She was brave, considerate and easy going. And he liked that.

"Oh you might think it's funny! But at the time I was scared enough to pee my pants. Seriously, this isn't something you should be laughing at!" Taki was only pretending to be annoyed. He knew full well that he'd told the story in a funny way and he was glad she thought so too.

"I'm sorry. It's just... you were making the rocks orbit you? Like planets?" Lena snickered and Takeo gave her a sheepish grin. Of all the parts of his re-telling of that first encounter with fiery dude and she remembered his ego boosting? Greeeat. And then his phone rang. What now? Taki was having too much of a fun time to answer it but he checked the ID caller in case it was someone important. Ren. Oh, wait. Ren. Now he remembered, Jordan and Ren were going to take the orb-

"Uh, sorry Lena. Ren's calling." Taki gave an apologetic shrug and then stood and moved away from the table, flipping his phone open as he did.

"Yeah?"

"Hey, hi. Look, do you know where Jordan is, did he happen to say he'd be running late or-"

Takeo felt his whole body go cold and clammy. Jordan had the orb. Jordan had the orb and hadn't turned up.

"That good for nothing- he hasn't turned up has he? Damni it! Why didn't I trust my instincts-" Oh yeah, because they weren't being marred by the orb or anything. "-That loser! He's obviously not going to turn up and-"

"And I'm going to get my arse kicked."

"Oh shit, they already turned up? Look, man. I could come down there or uh... I dunno. What do you want me to do?" He'd tell Lena he was going to the shops or something. No sense in getting the poor girl dragged into this again. She'd only get hurt. Hell, he was going to get hurt and that was bad enough already.

Ren

"No, you stay where you are. Even with the orb it took all six of us to beat these two. If things get messy I doubt just the two of us would be able to handle these guys," Ren told him.

"Then what the heck are we going to do?" Takeo asked. Panic was already starting to show in his voice.

"You're wth Lena, right? Just stay with her and keep yourselves safe. I'll see if I can talk my way out of this." Ren paused for a moment, before adding, "If you don't hear from my by tomorrow morning, I want you to make sure Cait is safe." Ren hang up his phone before Takeo could say anything else.

Ren took a deep breath before approaching the two magicians. Stiyl, the red-haired guy, lit a cigarette before saying, "Your friend better show up soon."

"About that..." Both Stiyl and Kaori seemed to realize what Ren was about to say simply by the tone of his voice, because they were both glaring at him now. "It looks like we ran into some bad luck. My friend who was supposed to bring the orb ran off with it. Now none of us have it."

Stiyl and Kaori looked at each other for a moment, then back at Ren. Stiyl hopped off the dumpster and created a ball of fire in his hand while Kaori pushed herself off of the wall and took out her sword. "You've tried our patience for the last time, kid," Stiyl told him.

Ren braced himself for a fight. He knew it was pointless since the fire guy could control any flames Ren whipped up. Even so, he wasn't going to go down without a fight.

"Don't you two have better things to do than pick fights with kids?" a voice from around the corner asked. Stiyl and Kaori glanced over their shoulders to see a boy around Ren's age walk into sight. He had a bright Hawaiian shirt, spiky blond hair, and wore sunglasses despite it being night. Ren recognised the guy almost imediately, a shirt like that would stick in anybody's memory. The guy was one of Toma's school friends. He was a cocky sort of dude, kind of like Taki except more laid-back. Although for the life of him Ren couldn't remember his name.

But it seemed the kid remembered him. He smiled and waved at him. "Yo, Ren. How's it going?"

Ren nerviously waved back. "Uh, hey... you."

The guy began to act hurt. "What? Don't you remember my name? Dude, I'm hurt."

Stiyl frowned and said, "What are you doing here, Motoharu? We're in the middle of something here."

"I can see that. But do you really want to kill an inocent bystandard?"

"This kid signed his own grave," Kaori said. "We gave him a chance to hand over the orb tonight and he failed to deliver."

Motoharu shook his head and sighed. "Can't you two see that he was conned? His friend was obviously one of our enemies' spies."

Stiyl and Kaori eased up a little. "What do you mean?" Stiyl asked.

Motoharu walked into the alley and stood between Ren and the two magicians. "I just got word from some of our people in Russia. Annihilatus sent Anzhela to Academy City about a week ago to retrieve the orb they just lost. You know how she gets things done, she must have employeed this guy's friend to infiltrate their group and take the orb when they least expected it."

Stiyl let his flame fizzle out while Kaori sheathed her sword. "I thought it was strange that they hadn't sent anyone to reclaim the orb. Anzhela never works in the open."

Kaori frowned. "But that still doesn't change the fact that this kid and his friends refused to hand over the orb every time we confronted them."

"Can you blame them?" Motoharu asked. "The way you two kept attacking them they obviously thought you were the bad guys. Why would they want to hand over the orb to someone who would use it for evil?"

"You know that's not the case," Kaori argued. "Our orders were to bring it back to our superiors so they could keep it safe. The last thing we would do is use the Zodiac Stone's powers for personal gain."

"Yes, I know that." Motoharu looked over his shoulder at Ren. "But they didn't know that."

"It doesn't matter," Stiyl said. "Because of this kid and his friends we lost the orb."

"How about this? Why don't we have these kids work for us?"

(I still have some more to post, but I don't want to cram it all down your throats by doing it all at once. I'll end this post here and continue it after someone else posts.)

Lena

Even after we were done eating, Taki and I sat at the table and talked to each other. Right in the middle of our conversation, Taki's phone started to ring. He excused himself from the table and walked away to answer his phone. While he was doing that I decided that I could at least clear off the table for him.

While was I was doing the dishes, I glanced at Taki talking on the phone. Several faces were made in a matter of seconds. I laughed softly to myself, but right as I was about to turn away, one look crossed his face that made concern flood threw my body and my heart skip a beat. Something was wrong, I could tell that much. Taki got off the phone a few seconds later. As, he turned to look at me head on, the smile appeared on his face. It would have been a convincing smile, if not for the worried look that clouded over his eyes.

"Taki," I said seriously while putting the last dish away, "What's wrong?"

Takeo

Protect Lena. Yes, that was a constructive thing he could do. A useful thing he could do while a guy who shouldn't have ever got pulled into this mess got killed because Takeo hadn't been able to trust his instrincts. What other choice was there though? He didn't want to die and he probably couldn't have even made it there in time. No. Besides, Ren was smart, maybe he'd be able to talk his way out, maybe he'd... maybe he'd be found tossed in an alley in the morning. And Taki would have to break the news to Cait. They clearly had a thing going on. Oh man.

But Lena. Right. And protecting her meant smiling as he tucked the phone away and turned around. Damn. She didn't look too convinced.

"Taki," Lena said in that quiet, no nonsense tone of hers. She slotted a final clean dish into the cupboard and then turned to face him directly. "What's wrong?"

"Just a small hiccup," Taki said, trying to make his voice sound casual. "Jordan's gone dark side on us, but don't worry! Ren has it all under control. He just... he just called to fill us in and ask me to take care of the little swine if he comes anywhere near here."

Ren

Stiyl and Kaori looked at each other, a look of bewilderment on their faces. Even Ren was a little confused about what was going on. When Stiyl looked back at Motoharu he asked, "What kind of use would we have for this twerp and his friends?"

Motoharu smiled. "They've got eyes and ears in places that we don't, and we'll need all the help we can get to find the second Zodiac Stone that has popped up here in Academy City."

"There's another one?" Kaori asked. "Which one is it?"

"We don't know which sign it is, and there hasn't been any word of anymore Zodiac Stones going missing. That means this stone is a new, undiscovered one." He crossed his arms as he smiled at the two magicians. His smile was the kind of smile a chess player would have when he knows he's going to win on his next turn. "No doubt Anzhela knows about it, too. If we find it first we'll be able to lure her out of hiding and take back the one she stole. I'm sure the higher-ups would be extatic if you brought home two stones instead of just one."

After a moment of silence, Stiyl looked at Ren and said, "It's your lucky day, kid. We'll let you and your friends live if you help us find this new orb. When we have both stones in our possession we will leave all of you alone for the rest of your lives."

Kaori stepped in and added. "But until then you all have to do whatever we tell you. And if any of you try anything funny, it'll be the last thing you'll ever do." With that the two magicians left the alley. Now it was just Ren and Motoharu.

"Thanks, you really saved my skin," Ren said after letting out a breath he had forgotten he was holding.

Motoharu smiled at him. "No problem. I'll walk you home, you'll need a lot of rest before you start looking for this orb."

"Actually, can we go to the hospital?" Ren asked. "I have a friend there I need to see."

(Next time you post for Cait, Ayumi, I'd like you to have Ren and Motoharu show up in her room.)