COMPLETE: RoseIII—Changing Hands—A Little Game of Life (PG-13ish) [Book Five]

[Kurai]

[color=0099ff]I'm a busy little Beedrill, arren' I? ;B

Anyway, this is a great place to pick up again if you haven't read the first four books, because, everything has to be re-explained in the exposition of Game anyway. However, the target audience of this comment probably will never read it, so I'll just shut up now and post. ;B~

And, as always, book order:
The Right Hand of the Dragon:
I: The Story of the Roses (1-17)
II: The Antics of the Roses (18-34)
III: Tokyo (35-48)
IV: Ecruteak (49-80)

Changing Hands:
V: A Little Game of Life (1-10)

The Left Hand of the Dragon:
VI: 2436 (1)
VII: The Cimmerian
VIII: The Bamboo Dragon
IX: Fade to Black
X: Epilogue (Rose-X)

==============================================[/color]

Chapter One: Razor Leaves or Knives?

"Rr, take that! And that! Haha!" The barrage flew at the fiendish Kangaskan and it fell over after three hits. "Haha!"

I laughed to myself, getting up to set my Pokémon toys back up and pick up the Razor Leaves from my toy Oddish. Target practice is fun, especially when you compete with your friends during recess. I may not have the greatest success in knocking my targets down, but I can still hit them nine times out of ten.

"Whatcha doing?" Matt called in through the cracked door. He saw the melée and chuckled, inviting himself in. "You're having another competition during recess this Friday, aren't you?"

"Maybe..." I mumbled. He was going to try to talk me out of it again, I knew it.

"You're not betting anything this time, are you?"

"Just my next evolution kit for my Oddish...."

He flopped down on the bed and his blond hair fell from his shoulders to hang freely to the sides of his face. He looked at me, his bright green eyes smiling at me. "You know very well that wagers like that always get you mixed up in trouble, T.K.," he chided.

He mussed my brown hair and I squealed, wriggling away from him. "It's my allowance, and it's my game. Why should it be business of yours?" I pouted.

"You're my little bro," he replied. "It's my job to look out for ya."

"Could you not do your job so well?" I whined.

He laughed. "Just make sure you weigh your chances before you wager anything as important to you as that. Don't make yourself regret it later."

I sighed. "You always take the fun out of it, you know that?"

"It's my job," he chuckled, standing up again.

"But you said that looking out for me was your job," I complained, putting my Oddish and other Pokémon toys up.

"So I have more than one job. Sue me." He mussed my hair again and I pushed his hand off my head, grumbling with a frown. "It's almost dinnertime. Go get washed up."

"What're we having?"

"Fish."

"Ooh," I smiled, running to the bathroom sink to wash my hands.

~*~*~

Matt and I came downstairs, our noses following the awesome smell of dinner.

"Don't just stand there," Mom muttered, tending to mashed potatoes. "Set the table, you two." She paused. "Your father won't be eating with us, though, so it'll be the three of us tonight."

"Why not?" I chirped, digging out the utensils from the drawer.

"He... doesn't feel well..." she replied, slightly upset.

"Will he be okay?" I continued.

From the uneasiness I sensed that my questions only made it worse.

"He'll be fine, T.K.," Matt explained solemnly, pulling plates out of the cabinet.

I didn't ask anything else, knowing that I could just ask them when we sat down.

~*~*~

"Pass the salad, please," I asked, then received. "Thanks." Getting a few forksful, I topped it with a cherry tomato and set the bowl to the side of me, then covered it in Ranch dressing, smiling contentedly.

Matt and Mom both were quiet and tended only to their plates. Though they seemed only to be picking at their meal, their mouths sure seemed too full of something.

"How was your day at school, Matt?" Mom began, knowing that their silence was making me as uneasy as the two of them were.

"It made me wonder just how much Uncle Toshi hates me," he replied, stabbing the tomato in his salad. It squirted his potatoes and he mumbled. "The first thing he said to me today was 'Paper. Friday.'"

"What did you do?" she began, complaintive.

"All I did was catch him by surprise. He was so happy to see me today that he accidentally spilled his coffee on him. Hehe...." He laughed nervously.

"What have I told you about not sneaking up on your uncle?" she whined. "He's got enough problems as it is dealing with all those kids at Tech." She sighed, looking to me. "How was your day, Takeru?"

"Well..." I began, piddling with my fish, "me an' the guys have been playing with our figurines a lot lately...."

She made a face. "Don't tell me you boys have been betting again."

"Mom, it's part of playing! You're supposed to wager money on a Pokémon battle; why not get into the tradition before I'm given my Pokémon?"

"Just because betting on the outcome of battles is customary doesn't mean that I'm going to let my eight-year-old son bet all his allowance on some silly games."

"Aw Mom, they're not silly!"

"You know that I disprove of any toys that teach children to want to battle Pokémon."

I pouted. "They're battling creatures by nature, Mom! You can't deny that fact!"

"The concept of battling Pokémon in such manners is a human concept, not the Pokémon's. Most Pokémon don't even battle unless they're testosterone-driven males trying to show off or prove themselves." She snorted. "Pokémon trainers exist for the same reasons—kids love to brag that their Pokémon are the best in the world."

"If it's one thing you've got going for you, Mom, it's your ability to win debates," Matt smiled, knowing he'd gotten his job done.

A silence passed that ate me alive. "I want to know what's wrong with Daddy," I began, giving them a serious look.

They ignored me.

"Tell me why he's not eating with us!" I continued, leaning on the table.

"He isn't himself tonight, Takeru," Mom stated quietly. "Please calm down."

"What's that supposed to mean?!" I squeaked.

"He isn't physically ill, T.K.," Matt replied, sighing solemnly. "He has problems that he can't deal with sometimes. He's just... sorting through them right now."

"I should have known that he'd be like this," Mom remarked. "It's been too long since his last breakdown."

"So you're telling me that Daddy's just upset over something, and that he can't seem to quit being upset over it?"

"That's one way of putting it," Matt uttered.

"Can't we do something to cheer him up...?"

"No, sweetie," Mom replied. "He needs to be alone when he gets like this. Bothering him endangers both himself and us."

She squirmed at the confession she'd just made to her young son and nervously tried to change the subject. "Your ninth birthday's coming up, Takeru.... Have you thought what you want?"

I ignored her question for a moment, finishing the meal set out on my plate. Pushing it away, trying to contain my anger, I stood quietly, not looking to either of them. "Yes."

"What might that be?"

".... The truth." With that, I left the dining room table in silence and went upstairs to my room, laid down, and slept.

~*~*~

I woke up later that night at the sound of the door creaking open slightly. The room was completely dark except the moonlight from the window, so I figured it had to be around midnight; Matt was asleep above me on the top bunk of the bed, so it wasn't him, and nothing was stirring downstairs, so I figured Mom had gone to bed, too. Thinking upon these things, I wondered if Dad was still awake and watched the crack in the door to see if someone were there, or if it had just been the air conditioning.

After staring into the hall for a moment, the door opened just a bit wider, and a shuffle of clothing was heard. I saw a pair of golden, glowing eyes in the hall and took in a scared breath, pulling myself away from the bedroom door as possible. Whatever was there had heard I was awake and freaked. Not a moment later it was gone. I didn't hear any footsteps leading away from the door, nor did I hear any foosteps trailing down the staircase.

I thought the situation over for a time before considering that it might have just been my imagination. Then I shook the notion and badgered myself for trying to deny what I'd seen, getting out of bed quietly as not to wake Matt up. I slowly creeped out into the upstairs hall, then slunk silently down the stairs and turned the corner to the left to find that Dad's studio door was indeed closed; however, upon trying to open the door, it was unlocked; I saw a light from beneath the door. It had never been unlocked before, at least to my knowledge.

I heard quiet mumbling from inside; the voice was dark and deep, and its owner seemed to have something on his mind. "Kirei," he whispered. "Atashi o aishiteiru.... Atashi no bondo o kitsuku.... Mata... atashi no kao o kiru.... Nn, hai...." He sighed contentedly.

I opened the door slowly to discover a dark figure looming over a doll on the desk, a single lamp illuminating his work. The pale female porcelain doll, proudly in the shape of a woman, wore straight black hair, though roughly half of it, in patches, had been ripped out in distress. The doll's eyes had one been pulled out, the other glued shut, the sockets of which had been crushed in. It didn't wear much aside from an outfit made of leather straps, and had been thus strapped down to the desk by her own clothing. The artist wielded in his left hand a paintbrush, his right, a knife. With one he inflicted deep cuts upon the poor doll, while, with the other, he added, with shocking realism, the look of blood flowing from the wounds.

He saw me watching him and whirled to face me, dropping the brush in an instant and stabbing the doll through the chest with great vehemence, shattering her torso. His shining glare matched what I'd seen from my bed minutes earlier.

A silence passed in my fright. This man looked as though he were one of the living dead, his complexion paler than any I'd ever seen. His long black hair was scraggly and thinned, streaked with a mad silver that mirrored his body movements; he wore a sleeveless black gown and binding leather straps similar to his victim's; as he stood, I saw his hands wielded sharp clawlike fingernails, and, as he opened his mouth to speak, I knew he must have been a vampire from his long fangs.

In the instant before he spoke, I felt a sense of impending doom wash over me, seeing that he had pierced ears and a pierced right eyebrow like my father's.

My father... was a monster....

 

[Karate]

After reading the end of Ecruteak, I must say this: I HATE YOU AND YOU ARE AN IDIOT AND I WANT YOU TO DIE. >_>

But um. o_o This is a good fic, I must say.

I especially like how you jumped ahead in time. n___n Keep me informed on when you put out chapters, since I'm trying my darndest to follow this, but I keep forgetting to check to see if it's been updated or not. o_o!

 

[Kurai]

[color=0099ff]Gasp. I had to kill her off. Er, I mean—Keiji had to. ^^;; She was the only true threat to his authority (despite the ironic absence of power she held over him), and thus he had to get her out of the picture. Also, killing her off fixed several plotholes, be they already existant or potential. So yeah. I had more reason in doing it than "Ooh, Tacky-sama got mad!" =/

As for stuff about Game. Sixteen years have passed since the last scene of Ecruteak. Yes, Yamato is the egg from the Ecruteak arc. And yes, you read properly; however, this is Takeru the Second. He doesn't know yet that he was named after anybody, though. XP (Sure is about to find out abruptly, though, isn't he?)

—Kurai the Evil One HAHAHA! :evil:

Philo: Chapter 77 had me in stitches. I don't think it's normal to laugh at stuff like that.
Nick: Double-Scythe had Keiji in stitches, too. :embarass:[/color]

 

[Fig]

Hmmm. Not bad at all. I like how you've developed the whole thing with Keiji - he's certainly an...interesting...character. And of course one can't help but agree just a weeeeee bit with Yamato and Takeru's mother on pokemon battling - she has, after all, very in depth knowledge on the subject matter .

 

[Kinglerlord2]

Hey, now this is a very intriguing story.

I'm guessing though that to fully understand it I'm going to need to read the first four books?

 

[Kurai]

[color=0099ff]Either read the first four books or wait for the events to tell Takeru what's going on. ^^;;

And if you choose to read the fist 80 chapters, I'm sure you'll be more than happy to know you'll be one of the elite few. ^^;;

—Kurai the Proliff

[Edit: On second thought, completely recanting the exposition would weigh it down.... But the read isn't a hard one, Kingler. It may consist of 80 chapters, but it most certainly isn't as descript and long as the typical classic gothic authors from whom I so dearly attempt to stencil my opus. XP][/color]

 

[Kurai]

[color=0099ff]Is it just me, or does this chapter feel like nothing more than foreshadow-fluff? ; It wasn't intentional, but I couldn't figure out a way to ease into telling T.K. in any other way than beating around the bush.... Stupid fluff. Gonna eat you. -_-;

.... Ugh. It's been so long since I've actually written any scenes with a normal Keiji that I don't know whether I'll avoid the next chapter like the plague or not.... o_o;

Anyway....[/color]

Chapter Two: Sliced Wide Open

The instant before the monster spoke, a cold hand was placed upon my shoulder; I whirled around to find Matt standing there, half-asleep and worried sick. However, he looked to the monster, not me.

"I apologise, Takeru," Matt whispered. "I should have caught him before he came downstairs."

Eyes wide, I looked to the monster, mouthing the name 'Takeru' in bewilderment.

"It's not your fault he's wondered;" he replied, "it's mine." Though his voice was extremely low and rich, I could tell by the tone of his voice that this creature was indeed my father. His gaze fell upon me and I stepped back from him, practically hyperventilating. "I'm sorry you had to find me in this condition," he continued, grieving that he'd frightened his son so.

"Wh—what condition would this be...?" I gagged, petrified.

He sighed. "I suppose that there's no better way of explaining it than to tell you the roots of the family."

'Are you sure he should be told so young?' Matt uttered in another language, grief in his eyes. I practically fainted when I realised that I'd understood him.

'You were his age when you found out,' 'Takeru' spat.

'You forget that I found out because you had to explain to me why my little brother had come out of an egg instead of normal means of birth.'

I could take no more and choked, "Wh—" I then wailed quietly, collapsing to my knees in complete confusion.

When I'd wanted the truth, this most certainly wasn't what I'd meant....

~*~*~

To make it easier on me, we moved into the living room to sit, turning on the corner lamp by the staircase.

"Why don't you change back?" Matt muttered.

"It's not as easy as that, and you know it, Yamato," he growled, digging his fingernails into the arm of the couch. I yelped, seeing just how sharp they were when he dragged his hand along the arm and his nails shredded the fabric to pieces.

Matt chuckled nervously, also on edge from the demonstration. "Mom would be so angry at you for taking your anger out on the furniture...."

"It's not like it can't be mended," he snapped. "I think it's better that she's not awake."

"She shouldn't know you told him?"

"You act like she wun' know in the morning," he mumbled, grimacing.

The two of them looked to me and I smiled anxiously. "H—hi...?"

"How to begin...." His golden gaze fell disdainfully upon the floor as he thought.

"Maybe with how I apparently came from an egg?" I ground, upset.

The two of them choked up.

"Y—you understood us...?" Matt uttered. "Took me weeks to get used to Eevish...."

"E—Eevish...?"

"Yes, we were speaking in a Pokémon tongue," Dad explained.

"H—how...?"

He sighed, looking out the window. "Well...." While his face stretched out to take on the shape of a dog muzzle, his ears stretched away from his face, tapering into foxlike black ears, his pale complexion quickly becoming pitch black with fur. His gold eyes gained a completely demonic red fire lit behind them. He readjusted himself in the chair at finding himself sitting on his tail. In that final moment of the transformation, golden rings patterned in his fur glowed faintly. He moaned softly, crinkling his nose and gritting his teeth as he shut his eyes in enjoyment of the sensation of the alter form.

He looked to me and sighed in awe that I hadn't run, holding his left hand out in my direction lovingly. In unison with the movements of his hand, I felt some invisible force caress my face. As the moments passed, he picked his right hand up, and, in unison with his right hand, I felt the force push me towards him. I fell to my knees in front of him, staring straight up at him in total fright. He was eyeing me as though I were some prey. His left hand twisted to the side and I felt the force on my face move from my cheek to my neck; I squealed.

"Dad...?" Matt uttered, worried.

He ignored the invocation.

"Keiji, snap out of it!" Mom growled. My exclamation had woken her up.

Lucky me.

He looked as though a part of his train of thought fell out of him and he jerked involuntarily; in that instantaneous motion he lost the Umbreon features he'd gained not moments ago. He stared at me then, grief in his eyes. In that moment the monstrosity he'd recently become vanished, and again he was the father I new.

"Why cann' I stop myself from acting like this?" he wailed, hugging me fiercely.

"Because you insist upon keeping the Umbreon strand," Mom retorted, terse. She fiddled frustratedly with the ties of her robe, then stamped her foot, fed up.

"I guess none of us are going to be getting much sleep tonight," Matt observed, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

"Have you told him yet?" she asked, biting her lip angrily.

Dad shook his head. "Havvun had the chance to tell him outright."

"Tell me what...?" I began to worry.

Mom sat down and patted her lap, to which I sat with her. "Sweetie, you know the stories you hear at school about a group of people that have the abilities of Pokémon?" she began.

The question burned in my mind, connecting it quickly to the metamorphosis Dad had just taken on moments before. "They're called Roses, right?"

She nodded. "They aren't myth, sweetie." She took on a similar transformation, this time becoming half-Espeon.

I practically leapt from her lap in scrambling away from her.

As I stared up at her, she explained, "In fact, they're quite real."

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

I find the Frankenstein quote in your sig quite fitting.

But forgive me if a part of me cannot get past the names Yamato and Takeru.

 

[Kurai]

[color=0099ff]*chuckles* Yes, no matter how much I try, I can't seem to break the names from the original characters. The names just fit the two so perfectly.... XP

And thanks. I appreciate people who see the immense levels of allusion and symbolism in my stuff. I try. u_u[/color]

 

[Kurai]

[color=0099ff]*cries happily, connecting her current state of mind to Keiji's at the end of this chapter* It's been so long since I've been able to keep up a pace like this.... At first my pace was erratic, ranging from a month (or three) between chapters to once a week, an now I just turned out two chapters in one night. So many cherished memories returning.... So many....

.... Maybe if I keep up this pace for long enough, the chapters won't be short and primarily consisting of dialogue. XP[/color]

Chapter Three: Emerald Green

::Keiji::

Takeru wailed, feeling as though he were surrounded by a bunch of freaks. His frightened glare shifted rapidly from one of us to the next, wary.

"Sweetie, calm down," Eve cooed, leaning to get up and go to him. This only made him feel more cornered, and he squirmed back in the chair as far as he could. "Aw...."

"Quit acting like we're not family," Matt sneered, upset by his reaction to us.

"S—how am I supposed to react?!"

We suppressed our inital urge to complain.

Matt was the one to continue. "You shouldn't be upset by your heritage, Tacky. It's the most amazing gift you could possibly be given."

"You think that not being human is awesome?" Tak uttered, taking a huge breath.

"It has its pros and cons, just like everything else," I muttered. "Though you have all the power in the world in your reach, it does you no good when it comes to social acceptance." I sighed uneasily, feeling my stomach churn. "Humans really dun *like* Roses...." My body was still trying to realign to the Permutation, and the conversation was doing me little to no good in surpressing the severe urge to rip the couch to pieces. I felt faint and laid back on the couch.

"You okay?" Matt asked.

I stared up at the ceiling. "The topic of isolation's just getting to me. Dun mind me...."

He sighed, then explained, "You shouldn't be worried that you'll lose your friends, though, T.K. If you don't tell them, they won't know."

".... I just... don't get it..." he mumbled, hanging his head and slumping down in the chair, suddenly depressed. "I don't see how you guys could possibly keep it a secret...."

"It may be hard once you grow accustomed to using your abilities to restrain yourself in the company of humans," he replied, "but you have us to help you with that."

"I guess it's a good thing, then," he remarked, "that you finally told me... who I am...." He grimaced distantly. "I've always felt like I didn't belong. Now I know why."

Matt made a face. "Just because you're different from the rest doesn't mean you don't belong, silly."

"Well, it does when it will probably be the only thing I'll be able to think about for a long time," he pouted.

"Quit acting like you just got sentenced to bearing the worst burden in the world," I griped. My stomach tied itself in knots with unease when I realised that my voice had fallen back. I couldn't take it anymore and cried out, letting the Umbreon strand permutate my body again, becoming the beast my family had come to know as the Bamboo Dragon. "Sixteen years of dealing with this accursed permutation...." I cursed under my breath.

"Why won't you just get rid of it?!" Eve shrieked, Teleporting into the kitchen at seeing I'd reverted again.

"It wonn' let me," I snivelled, digging my claws into the couch cushion and ripping four large gouges in it, stuffing flying with the vehemence which I'd put into the act. I glared at my wife. "You of all people should know the binding pact of a Penumbreon, Eve."

Takeru made a face in confusion. "I thought your name was Dante, Mom...."

She laughed nervously, now feeling as cornered as he had. "It's a legality, sweetie.... I don't really have a name...."

"Eight years old and already introduced to bestiality," Matt muttered. "What an exemplary little kid you are, T.K....."

I shot a hateful glare at Matt, and he abruptly dropped the bemused façade. "Never talk about your mother and I like that. Never."

He freaked and shed his human shell in favour of his Espeon-type side. "I—I didn't mean it—"

Takeru whimpered, feeling it was his fault that everyone was angry with each other. "Matt and I aren't going to end up like you, are we, Daddy?"

I twitched, struck deep by the comment. ".... Matt's already shown signs of feeding off fear," I replied, not having taken my eyes off the Espeon once. He squirmed as I used my Kinesis to play with a lock of his shoulder-length blond hair; I ripped it out and he screamed, holding his head and whimpering. "That condition is not so easily remedied, however. It takes fear to cancel out fear." I snorted. "'Swhy I cann' seem to find a way to cure myself of it—I'm not afraid of anything when I'm like this."

Silence befell the conversation.

"Daddy?"

"Hn."

"Why did Matt call you 'Takeru' earlier?"

"So naïve you are, chiisai...." I smiled bittersweetly. "Takeru has always been the name I've given my alter ego, been that way since I was your age. It's a Japanese name meaning 'Bamboo Dragon.'"

"Then why did you call me 'Takeru?'"

Silence as I thought upon how to tell him. "You were born half-Ditto, unlike your brother, who was born half-Eevee. I've always put the abilities I gained from my Ditto strand at fault for how I ended up."

".... Does that mean you didn't want me?" He had tears in his eyes.

"No... nono...." The look he gave me melted the malicious side of me and I sighed. "It was a reference to your Ditto side, not the feelings I associate with mine."

"It's why I call you T.K.," Matt offered, having gotten over the loss of the patch of hair. "I knew the train of thought that had been put into the name...."

"Sesh used to call me T.K.," I remarked, reminiscing. "Tacky, even." Memories of a kinder, happier time brought a cheerful smile crossed my dark countenance for the first time in sixteen years.

It shocked Eve at first, but she then saw that my condition was authentic and teleported to my side, hugging me tight.

"I've missed that smile so much," she cried.

I hugged back, embracing the silence instead of breaking it. Why couldn't it have just stayed so simple as it was in Sunny...? I uttered solemnly, staring off into the darkness of the house.

 

[Kurai]

*stick stick stick...*

[color=0099ff]Wow. Three chapters in one night, and I got a humour piece out in the mix. Raburii~

Mine passion hast returneth....[/color]

Chapter Four: Take-ryuu; or The Gentle Boy

::T.K.::

It had been two years since I'd discovered my heritage and my family's expectations of me. I'd grown accustomed to the burdens of being the son of a Rose, and even derived an ease of depression from it from time to time. I had indeed inherited my father's passion for fear; however, instead of being downtrodden by it as a reluctant vampire, it seemed to be one of the few things that then guaranteed a pick-me-up.

I had asked my parents to change my name from Takeru to Take-ryuu, so that it didn't reflect my father's condition. They complied and I was contented by my existance, and no longer really sought to battle Pokémon, but merely coincide with them and learn from them. Such sage wisdom granted to so young a boy was unheard of, let alone to a boy with such... unique circumstances.

The school year had recently picked up, and, since I was the only ten-year-old boy that didn't immediately leap upon the opportunity to travel the world on a trainer journey, I was skipped ahead to be a freshman in high school so that I could take actual courses as opposed to didactic battling classes. However, I was still given a starter Pokémon, as a training license and at least one Pokémon were required for enrollment at any Technical University.

And you'd never guess that Uncle Toshi had gone out of his way just to make sure that I got the perfect partner—a Ditto.

~*~*~

I walked into Uncle Toshi's classroom the morning of the first day of school with a reserved smile upon my face. The eerie calm about me, combined with my youth and my appearance, set many of the students in the class on edge. It only made Uncle happier to see me.

I'd grown my tawny brown hair out over the summer; it now fell in waves to tickle the bottom of my ears. The halcyon, muted tones in my hazel eyes, were my secondary creep-out factour. I wasn't tan in the slightest, the result of not being fond of social recreation in general. Though I was only ten years old, I was already 4'8", a sign that I was sure to be a tall one. However, despite the calmness about me, the primary source of anxiety from others was the brooch with which I affixed my ascot.

Tech uniform consisted of a white blazer and slacks, an ashen black button-down, and a white ascot. Most used the brooch for their ascot to ostentate their individuality, or to show that they were of a well-to-do ancient family with more numbers in its tree than a tax form. As for mine, I'd inherited it from my father, true, but it was much more than that.

It was the true Bamboo Dragon.

A filigree gold dragon had been encaptured in this solid palm-sized piece of emerald. Granted that the jewel was heavy, its weight didn't detract from my wearing it. The Take-ryuu was the penultimate symbol of who I was, and I wore it with more pride and duty than Hester Prynne her letter.

"Good morning, Take-ryuu," Uncle Toshi greeted, shuffling through some papers as I walked by his desk. He seemed to be rather scattered.

"Morning," I returned. "Do you need any help?"

"I seem to have misplaced my glasses." He made a face, then put his hand on his head to find the spectacles affixed atop his head. "Apparently first days have and always will get to me," he jested, smiling.

"Heh." I sat on the stool by his desk and watched him setting out his materials for class, fiddling with a paper-clip.

"What's that squirt doing in here?" I heard one of the students whisper to another, practically laughing at me. "Shouldn't he be at home or something?"

"I think he's the prof's nephew," another told the two guys.

I got off the stool and walked over to them. "That I am. Have a problem with my being in your class?"

"Y—you're in Behavioural Studies...?" the first uttered. "You can't be more than ten years old...."

"I am ten," I replied. "I forwent the formalities of a trainer journey in order to get an actual education."

"Is this kid for real?" the third whispered. "Nobody doesn't want to train for at least a year.... It's a freebie year out of school!"

I chuckled. "Unlike most people," I remarked, taking my seat in the front, "I'm all for education. Without an understanding of the world around you, there's no point in even trying to convince a Pokémon you know what you're talking about."

"If you're so smart, what species is your starter?" the second sneered. "I've got a Hitmonlee. We've been with each other since he was a Tyrogue," he grinned.

"Really?" I echoed, partially mocking him. "Interesting that it favoured attack over defence in its life path...."

It floored them that I knew something as arcane as an evolution path for a rare Pokémon.

"Y—you still didn't say what your starter is," he stammered, intimidated.

"It's unimportant what mine is; my strength lies in what you use."

"Quit speaking in riddles, kid, and tell us!" the third muttered, rubbing his head in confusion.

"Ah, but riddles are mind's best friend," I grinned, highly amused both by the stupidity of my fellow classmates and the terrible pun I'd made.

The bell rang for class to begin and Uncle Toshi stood. One last student rushed in; Uncle motioned at her and she closed the door.

You'll have them eating out of your hand by the end of the first week, Take, he told me telepathically, laughing happily at how I'd handled the misfits.

You're welcome.

 

[Kurai]

[color=0099ff]Longer chapter this time. Yippee. :B~

Oh, and read Hawthorne's "The Gentle Boy." Seriously. You'll understand just exactly why Take-ryuu gets so freaked out in relating himself to Ilbrahim. XP[/color]

Chapter Five: Chalk

"'I thank thee, friend, but though I be hungry and shivering with cold, thou wilt not give me food nor lodging....My father was of the people whom men hate. They have laid him under this heap of earth, and here is my home.... I ate of bread and water with my father in the prison... but they brought him none neither yesterday nor to-day, saying that he had eaten enough to bear him to his journey's end. Trouble not thyself for my hunger, kind friend, for I have lacked food many times ere now.'"

I sighed in awe at the shocking parallelism between my existance and that of Ilbrahim's, closing the book in shaken silence. It did and always would creep me out how often Hawthorne's works reflect upon the darkened reality of humanity.

Shaking my head of the line of thoughts associated with "The Gentle Boy," I rose from the bed and stood, deciding to draw respite from elsewhere, as I felt confined indoors all of a sudden. As I was about to walk downstairs, I noticed Matt was in the upstairs studio and poked my head in to see what he was doing. He was hunched over a mirror, intent upon something.

I craned my head over his shoulder to look into the mirror and he noticed my presence, instantly returning his face to the way it was intended. Then he saw mine and yelped, falling backwards out of the chair.

"I do so enjoy mocking you," I mused, putting my face back as well after having helped him up.

"Gawd, you're so much like Dad it's creepy," he shuddered, squinting his eyes shut in disgust. "He *always* used to freak people out by turning into them...."

I chuckled. "Whatcha doing?" I smiled.

"N—nothing...."

"You can't tell me you're doing nothing when it's a week now before Halloween," I sang.

"Okay okay, I'm working on a face," he admitted, somehow ashamed by having been caught by his little brother in the act of the genesis of a façade.

"What're you going for?"

"Well," he mumbled, his face and lightened tone of voice showing how proud he was of thinking of it, "I don't see why we should have to dress up for Halloween, T.K."

I stumbled upon the revelation, grinning. "That's so brilliant it just might work," I laughed. I let out an uplifted sigh and smiled again. "I'll let you return to your machinations, then, onii-san."

As I walked off, I heard him shudder again and chuckled lightly to myself.

~*~*~

It was three months into my first year high school, and still I hadn't adjusted myself to pulling pranks on the school staff and the students. The entire scene had changed, as had my perspective on the matter of alleviating my boredom and depression at the expenses of unsuspecting humans.

The prey had become bigger, bumbling, and would most likely be a far greater derivative of fear.

But I would have to plan well to get the most out of it. For now, I'd just have to scope out the school.

"Where you off to, Take?" Mom began, not looking up from her sewing.

It set me at an immensely awkward unease to know that an Eevee had taught herself, of all things, how to sew.

"I'm just going for a short walk," I replied nonchalantly, slipping my shoes on as I stood at the door.

"Be back before dinner," she advised, "and don't get yourself into any trouble."

"'Kay...."

~*~*~

I strolled happily down the street, my mind drawn up from its dolour at being outside. I don't know what it was about being cooped up indoors, but whatever it was, it practically made me take ill if I were confined for too long.

The frail chill of autumn caressed my face and I smiled, looking up to find a flock of migrating Pidgey heading South to the Mikan Islands. Something deep within me burned in pleasure of seeing such a thing; I stood there in awe of the beautiful sight for quite a time. I was snapped out of my daze by one of the guys from my Behaviour class.

"Enthralled by a flock of Pidgey," the brown-haired Meirou muttered from behind me. "You will never cease to confuse me, Take-kun."

I turned to look at him temporarily before returning to marvell in the sight abovehead. "Imagine how it must be like to be up there-the first in the 'V'. The wind you bear carries the entire flock, all of them dependent upon your ability to fly." I chuckled, "And, of course, your ability to navigate."

He laughed nervously with me, not understanding how I understood so much about existance. "Uh, yeah, hehe, I don't know that I'd be able to be that first Pidgey...." He coughed. "Why're you out here all by yourself? It's almost five." His change of subject brought me back to earth.

"I'm just taking a walk," I replied, smiling. "It's too nice a day to pass up, no matter how late in the day it is."

"Just be careful, Take-kun..." he began. "Something could happen to you."

"Oh, I doubt that," I mumbled under my breath.

"Hm?"

"Oh, nothing." I began to leave. "See you tomorrow, I suppose."

"I guess...."

I paused, but didn't turn around. "Say, have you made plans for this Halloween?"

"Everyone's planning to go to Katie Kaymia's party," he told me. "You didn't know about that?"

"Katie?" I echoed, blushing.

"Yeah. She always has parties like that. Why?"

"Just wondering how many high school students still Trick-or-Treat."

"Hehe, can't pass up free candy, dude. All the freshman class still goes." He paused. "This year, though, it'll be a lot later 'cause of the party...."

"Ah, lovely." A late party. Heh....

"Hm?"

"Oh, nothing..." I remarked again, walking off with a sliver of an impish smirk upon my face.

~*~*~

I walked up the stairs to the school building and waltzed down the halls; no one seemed to be left but a few teachers. Taking no caution due to the lack of audience, I phased into invisibility and poked my head around the corner to see that Uncle Toshi was working diligently, his head bowed in concentration. Still at school at five o'clock.

I picked a piece of chalk up and began to scrawl on the board, refraining from snickering. He jerked at hearing the sound of chalk grating upon the coarse surface and whirled around in wonder.

From the look upon his face, I could tell his ears rang with the severest annoyance. "'Boo,'" he read, unamused. "Not funny."

I snickered.

"What do you want?" he grumbled.

Becoming visible again, I put the chalk down and smiled. "I just wanted to see what you were up to...."

He seemed shocked by the fact that it had been me. "Oh, it's you, Take...." He grew a bit uneasy all of a sudden and removed himself from talking, resuming the flurry of typing on his laptop.

"What'd I do now?" I frowned, coming up to his desk.

"It's nothing..." he replied, pausing to speak. "I'm just fearful of how much more you resemble your father day by day."

"It worries me, too, that I might have similar problems. I did, afterall, inherit all his strands, so the hormonal imbalances might as well follow suit...."

He sighed, stopping his work again. "Your brother still has yet to show any real signs of a permutation.... The only thing that shows any chance of causing it is your and Matt's passion for scaring the daylights out of people."

"It's no consolation that the evidence against me is circumstantial," I mulled, sitting on the corner of his desk.

"You shouldn't have to worry about anything, Take. You have a few years to go before you hit puberty."

"Ah, but that's what worries me—what will become of me when I enter my teenage years?"

"I'm not sure," he replied. "None of us can be. We haven't had such a circumstance before in dealing with a permutation...." He looked to me solemnly. "You came up here because you sought counsel."

"It was not my original intention when I took my walk today, but yes." I sighed. "I became entranced by the mere sight of a flock of migrating Pidgey earlier.... I don't understand why it snared my attentions, but it gave me some sort of twisted longing."

His pale eyes shot wide in shock and he coughed loudly, now highly anxious. "Erhm, I don't feel comfortable explaining that fascination to you. It's more your father's place...."

I arched an eyebrow. "If it's a topic that causes that much unease, maybe I shouldn't ask him...."

"You should ask him," he insisted, twitching slightly, bringing his multitude of earrings to jingle from beneath his thick, long reddish-blond hair. ".... It's probably just my imagination, but his other side had similar delight in Pidgeys."

"Okay, enough of that," I worried, uneasy myself. "Are you letting Karui come to Katie Kaymia's party?"

"Only if your brother's not going. He wreaks so much havoc on her nerves...." He growled lightly. "I'm sure it's just that you two inherited your father's impish personality, but if my gut feelings are right, you two both...." He muttered something inaudible under his breath, then sighed.

"It'll be okay, Uncle," I reassured. "Even if Matt and I are forced to deal with a permutation, we'll get through it." I smiled, walking out. "Thanks for making me feel better about my situation," I told him.

I'm not so much worried that you'll survive it, but that we will....

[Edit: Unintentionally used the ancient name for Karui. =X]

 

[Fig]

There's still little to say, other than that it's still quite good - but one thing I can't help but note is that this story doesn't seem to "draw in" as efficiently as others. This is your "start again" point, it should start strong, somehow, and it just doesn'T really do that, given that the only strong hook in the first chapter is explained right away in the second one.

Your mileage may varry.

 

[Kurai]

[color=0099ff]You'll see, my friend, that each book of RoseIII has at least three tinyplots within the main point of its plot. (Trying to be as vague as possible without losing the edge in this, but....)

Story is the only one I can't really think of having tinyplots rather than multiple layers of plot, unless, of course, you consider each addition to the clan a tinyplot in and of itself.

Antics: the aftermath of the understanding of their pedaishi (necklaces), the battles with each of the Yamis, the pruning of the Roses (heehee), and the hook that leads into the next book.

Tokyo: getting Tane well, adjusting to Tokyo life, the threat to Keiji's life due to his body's need to have his Eevee strand evolve, understanding the aftermath of killing off the Yamis, the wedding proposal, and the hook that leads into the next book.

Ecruteak: readjusting to life on Gaea, contemplating returning home, returning home seeking acceptance, convincing families and friends that the Pandora Gate Incident was not intentional, Eve, and the Umbreon permutation, which breaks into four levels—the Kuraitenshi strand, Keiji's assertation of his love for Eve, Keiji's sadomasochism, and Keiji's removal of the single threat to his authority.

Game: Take-ryuu's discovery of his heritage, and his and Matt's various pranks on humans. I won't tell where I'm going with this, but you should know if you read the second draft of this book (back when it was told by Matt, not Take). However, I will say that I do intend to incorporate some past ideas.... :evil:

And yes, I suppose you're right, Damian. This is a new arc, and should be treated as such; however, there's another arc after this. The main justification I can give for the lack of explanation and exposition is that this is a buffer between Right Hand of the Dragon and Left Hand of the Dragon. Changing Hands begins with the resolvement of the Right Hand arc, and aspires to conclude itself, leaving the beginning to Left Hand open to pure exposition. And yes, I already have the first chapter of 2436 written up (though some things need to be fixed from all the stuff that's changed since I wrote it), so I can safely say that Left Hand will start off with a complete re-explanation exposition. Of course, it will have a different twist or two in how it's told, seeing as it's been about a century between Game and 2436....

.... *cough* >>;;

—"What are you talking about?!?!!" Kurai[/color]

 

[Kurai]

[color=0099ff]And now that I think about it, I should have held off until October to begin this, as I intend to finish it in a month's time. =X[/color]

 

[Kurai]

[color=0099ff]Okay, just so you know, the symbolism in this chapter really is not quite as obvious as I've alluded to here. I'll get more in-depth with the doll stuff later. :B~

Also, you get boucoups bonus points if you caught before now that Katie Michiru is the daughter of Sarah Michiru, the Mew Rose. Of course, I now realise that I should have used Kaymia, seeing as Sarah married Rei.... x__x; Oh well.... Leo's not important anyway. XP!

You also get boucoups bonus points if you can catch the reference I made in this chapter title. =D[/color]

Chapter Six: Shadow, Reflection, Illusion

::Toshi::

I returned home shortly after my talk with Take to find Kit and Karui fighting.

"But why can't I go to Katie's party?!" the fiery red-head wailed.

"It's not safe." Kit's always been assertive, and this was no exception.

"How could it possibly NOT be safe? Both of Katie's parents will be chaperoning, and they and Katie's brother Kesseki will be leading the groups of Trick-or-Treating!"

"Carly, sweetie, it's not the lack of chaperones I'm worried about." She sighed. "Since it's going to be a full moon, I'm more worried that the Roses will want to come out and wreak some havoc...."

Like she'd believe in her wildest dreams how truthful that statement is, I muttered to her. She snorted, realising I was there. Take and Matt are already planning ahead.

Joy.

"I agree with your mother on this one, Karui."

"You're superstitious freaks, the both of you!" Karui screeched, balling up her fists in frustration. "Roses aren't real, and neither is anything associated with a full moon!" She growled angrily and stamped off.

"How wrong she is," I began again, both melancholy at how we'd falsified her perspective of reality and amused thoroughly at her lack of ability to see the truth around her.

"Don't start again, Toshi," she muttered. "It was a joint decision to keep it from her; don't back out on me now and leave me standing alone."

"It's just that I have a feeling that no matter whether or not we want her to go to that party, she's going to go.... And Matt and Take are going. They're sure to make all matters worse."

"Do you have any insight as to what they're scheming?"

I shook my head, setting my folio down by the living room chair closest to the door. "I just know that we need to keep an eye on Take. He's faltering."

She sighed, worried, biting her lip and looking to me with widened eyes. "I suppose that the permutation really is an inheritable trait," she uttered.

"I worry that he got it from Dad...."

"What happened to your dad...?"

I sat on the back of the chair and sighed, remembering the day I'd heard the news. "Shortly after the Enhancement, he'd heard of the kidnapping of the Ecruteak Fifteen. He thought that his boys had been murdered and went off the deep end.... The doctors in the asylum don't think that he'll ever recover...."

"Why not?" she inquired, confused. "The two of you could somehow show him that you're alive, right?"

"If it were that simple, then sure...." This only confused her further. "Dad's always been imbalanced. It was just a matter of time that it caught up with him...."

"Did the condition run in his side of the family?"

"No, not that I know of. Again, if it could only be so simple as saying that it can be left up to human fault, but I'm sure that it's more than just that. Tch, it's got to be that way...."

"If only we could isolate one thing in common with the three of them..." Kit wondered, her mind wandering.

The fact that we couldn't just talk with Mom about it made me highly uneasy and jumped to quit the subject. "We should be more worried with what he's going to do, not why. I'm sure there's nothing in common. Besides," I remarked, lying through my teeth, "if he does happen to act up, it won't be anything that the Kaymias can't handle."

"I suppose you're right...."

~*~*~*~*~*~

::Keiji::

Eve came into the studio and nosed around a bit; I paid attention only to my current work of art—my seventy-seventh porcelain doll (though by no means is this figure accurate, considering the mass casualties caused by my permutations)—and she made a sound of hurt, then began to rub at my shoulders. I arched my back, enjoying it, and put my carving knife down, turning to her and hugging her with a grin.

She giggled. "Dinner's ready."

"It smells wonderful. What is it?"

"Roast chicken." She smiled.

I twitched. "Chicken—?" I uttered. "Sweetie, you know how bird meat gets to me...."

She frowned. "I'm sorry.... I forgot...."

"It's fine," I smiled, solemn. "I'm hungry no matter the dish served. I just feel that I'd... have difficulty controlling my delight of your good cooking."

"You don't have to flatter me in order to evade the memory of the Pidgey," she chided flatly. "You know as well as I do that it wouldn't be the cook but the cooked that'd get you going."

"You diddun have to bite my head off for it..." I mumbled, slinking away from her.

She made a face. "I'll bring some to you so you don't have to stop working on your doll to sit with us," she offered.

"If you would," I replied. "I'd rather not disturb your and the boys' dinner with a sudden exit from the table."

"I'm sure we'll appreciate it," she accepted, kissing me. She looked upon my latest creation. "Have you given her a name yet?"

"I've decided to call her Prudence," I explained, picking it up and laying it in my lap. "Her demeanor is to be demure and reserved, and her search for intellect will be the driving allure to her. Afterall," I grinned, holding Eve voluptuously, "not everyone has good looks to make them beautiful."

She giggled nervously, blushing as she pushed me away. "I'll leave you to your Prudence, Keiji, and I'll bring you your dinner after I've got the boys sat down." I nodded and she left, closing the door behind her.

"Prudence," I smiled, setting her back on the desk. "Pleased to make your acquaintance. My name is Keiji. Soon you shall meet all your sisters, be they the result of my handiwork or my other's."

~*~*~*~*~*~

::Take-ryuu::

I sat down at the dining room table to find that we were having roasted chicken for dinner. Though I was hungry, it was the mere sight of the well-cooked bird's corpse that brought me to salivate. I realised my train of thought and caught myself, appalled with myself.

"Is there anything the matter, Take?" Mom began, looking to me with slight worry. "You sort of dazed out...."

"N—no, Mom," I lied. "I'm just... hungry...." I reached to get my share of the chicken and gulped, squinting my eyes shut as I pulled the leg off. The sound of the flesh and joint ripping brought upon that delectable sensation, the same as I'd felt before in seeing the Pidgey overhead, to well up from deep within me. I grew squeamish at seeing that I was beginning to enjoy the thought of devouring flesh.

Then I saw that Dad wasn't at the table and went pale, remembering that Uncle Toshi had said something earlier about being uneasy himself in the topic of my father and Pidgeys. No.... It couldn't possibly be.... I soon absolved my fear with denial of the facts and sighed, contentedly settling myself down in my chair and feasted happily upon the leg I'd torn off.

"Real good, Mom," I plauded, mouth full. "Great cooking."

~*~*~*~*~*~

::Takeru::

Once the family had, after dinner, split again for the evening, I ventured from the studio, leaving the cadaver of my unfinished Prudence laying in bitter shards on the desk. Eve had returned to our bedroom to sleep for the night, but I heard distant snickering from upstairs. Upon nosing around a bit, I found that Matt and Take had convened in the upstairs studio. I eavesdropped on their conversation through the just barely ajar door.

"Please, dear brother, do tell me of your plans," Take grinned, leaning on the back of the chair in which he'd chosen to sit backwards.

"As I said before, T.K.," he returned, "I don't think that we should *have* to dress up for Halloween. We should just... show our true selves...." He laughed, grinning.

"What exactly do you mean by that?" Take made a face, his eyes following his pacing brother.

"Well, when I told you the time before, I'd intended to have the two of us traipse around as 'kids dressed as Roses,' but that leaves little or no room for any fun," he fake-pouted.

"Then what have you come up with now?"

"I personally think that scaring Roses would be far more enjoyable than the same lame old humans," he mused, stroking his chin evilly.

This perked both the attentions of Take and myself.

Take took the words straight from my thoughts. "How do you propose to scare them? There's no way that you intend to scare Daddy, so you can rule that out.... And scaring Uncle Toshi's gotten sort of dry...."

Yes, you cann' scare me, especially now that I know you're scheming.

"Oh, I'm not entirely sure of that..." he chuckled. "Think about it. Katie's party is going to be overrun with Roses. Aunt Mei and Uncle Toshi are gonna be there just to keep an eye on Karui, and then you have Kesseki, Katie, and her parents," he explained, "not to mention... us...." He cackled.

Take sighed in awe at his brother's proposed genius. "What the heck would scare all of them? None of the Roses are alike in their fears."

"Rethink what you're saying and come up with a single event that would break all of them at once."

He tried to think but could not; however, I knew exactly where he was going with his string of ideas, and, suffice it to say, was both pleased and appalled by his level of sheer audacity.

"Naaaaa, quit playing mind games and tell me!!" Take tugged at his sandy blond hair in frustration.

"Two words: Umbreon Permutation."

Take practically fainted when his brother uttered those words. "To even speak of it happening is unheard of; taking it as lightly as such is much more than a breach of sanctity. You know it," he sneered, disgusted and infinitely intrigued at the same time.

"I know it's risky, but hey, I'm eighteen. I need a ritual or something to prove that I am now a man. That I am the son of Takeru leads this ritual to involve fear."

"Please tell me you don't intend to involve me in your little games," Take worried.

"Ah, but you're the main attraction," he denied. "You've been kept under wraps for so long that the grown-ups don't have the slightest clue what's going on beneath all the smothering protection." He grinned, kneeling down to his little brother's level, then mussed his hair, smiling. "You'll be fine. The Permutation may be a threat to us, but it most certainly couldn't be invoked by our actions. If it ever happens, it will happen on its own, Take."

"If you say so...."

 

[Karate]

Ooh, the party will be interesting to see. o_o Especially since I read this through on the second (I think) rewrite, and am waiting to see if things turn out the same...

Honestly, I'd like to see them succeed. :B But I'm a dork like that, so whatever.

OKAY YOU ARE NOW ALL HAPPY INSIDE.

 

[Goth Keiji]

[color=aa3300]::; does a little jig ;::

Instead of writing a chapter tonight, Kurai did an essay on the symbolism in RoseIII. Hope you enjoy. XP

~ ICONOCLAST!!!!!!!1 *throws Dante at, uh, Eve!* o_o[/color]

 

[Kurai]

[color=0099ff]Fun time! =o

Fun in the form of incessant ambiguity, that is!

*loves to torture her readers* "Wait... what the heck actually happened in this chapter...?" >X3~~![/color]

Chapter Seven: The Shadow of a Reflection's Illusion

::Take::

It was now early Halloween evening. The week had flown by so quickly that I'd scarcely even noticed.

"So explain this to me again," I began, Matt and I in front of the bathroom mirror. I rested my elbows on the counter and slumped my chin into my hands, looking at myself in dumb bemusement.

He watched himself as he started working his face over. "We're going to the party as goths," he replied. "It's sure to arouse some attention." He paused to measure his moment's work, having sharpened the look of his face and altered the irises of his emerald eyes, one ruby red, the other whited out, thin etchings of shadows glittering in the otherwise lack of colour.

"Don't you think that people'll wonder about your eyes?" I continued, still in dire need of convincement.

"Contacts, T.K.," he mumbled, now leaning over the counter to become more finite in his detail. He didn't get so close that I couldn't see what he was doing

"Mom and Dad know we're going, right? So we don't have to tell them when we leave?"

He made a positive response in the form of a muffled "yes," not stopping working this time. I watched in silence as I observed my elder brother undergo the drastic metamorphosis from life to death. His complexion fell to morbid pallor, his skin seeming so transparent when shone upon by light; by running his fingers through his previously shoulder-length blond hair, he lifted in thin locks as though a thousand spiders' legs, black, highlighted red; his fingers appeared to be more tapered, as he had extended the length of his fingernails by about an inch on his left hand and three on his right. Though he still wore his usual cobalt blue shirt and worn jeans, barefoot, he hardly seemed my brother any longer.

"Hm," he mumbled, stopping again to look himself over. "The base is perfect; all it needs is accessorization." He turned to me and I stared up at him in awe of his skill in faces. "We'll put off adding the finishing touches until we're done with you, too," he grinned.

"Okay...." I sighed, stepping up to the mirror and gazing hollowly at my reflection, barely breathing.

After a moment of watching me stand there with a look of solemnity upon my face, he grew impatient. "Go on," he pushed. Even from the reflection I witnessed of his expression I could perceive the possessed, angry fire in his eyes, and I tensed up, sighing. "What's wrong?"

"What gave you the idea that something's wrong?" I muttered, almost silently. I wasn't sure that Matt could visibly tell I doubted and feared faking an Umbreon Permutation, but still I continued.

Touching my face gently with the tips of my fingers, I instigated a metamorphosis of my own, holding my fingers over my closed eyelids; upon opening them again, I peered into my now animalistic hazel eyes, which now held an intense gold highlight to them that hadn't been there prior. I shook my hair around to loosen how it had fallen as I'd stood there, then fiddled with it, bringing it to look tarnished and brassen. By the time I'd forced my skin complexion to renounce its lovely tone-granting blood, that dark, ancient sensation began to dissipate throughout my body again, and I began to feel as though this had a completely different connotation.

I stepped back to check myself out, popping my neck. I turned then to Matt for his opinion. I found I'd lost control of myself in the form of a growth spurt that had granted me almost a full foot's addition to my height; however, the alteration hadn't fleshed my frame out in the slightest, and, thus, I seemed all the more a waif.

"Y—you meant to do that, right?" he choked out.

"Of course," I lied, smiling eerily. The dark sensation then had substantial control of my choice of words—not to mention my actions. I realised that, in addition to the growth spurt, my voice had fallen several octaves; I swallowed hard. Even still I didn't lose my resolve to follow through with the plans for tonight.

"You really don't like the idea of wearing makeup, do you?" he continued, standing behind me and leaning on my shoulders as he observed the two of us in the mirror. Not understanding what he'd meant at first, I then saw that my eyes were bruised and black, and were set deeper into my face; my lips were of a nauseating overtanned fleshtone, and appropriately felt overtanned, like the rest of me—parched and dead.

"No, I suppose not...."

"The humans there will wonder about the sudden growth spurt and change of voice," he admonished.

"Like I care what humans think," I muttered acridly.

This ate him alive. "Y—Take, if you blow our cover here, where are we going to go?"

"You don't think that what we're doing isn't a breach of our secrecy?" I snapped.

He was silent for a moment, then became animate again. "Well, you'll have to excuse me while I go 'borrow' Aunt Mei's makeup...." He coughed uneasily, then teleported across the street to obtain his artistic medium.

"You start to worry when your brother will wear more makeup than your own mother..." I remarked aside, walking out into the bedroom to peer out the front window. Night had just recently fallen, and already the Trick-or-Treaters were out, giggling and screaming, running to and fro, from house to house, away from ours.... Then I saw the most auspicious guest of all and grinned, pleased. "So rare it is for October's full moon to fall on Halloween. How lucky we are to witness such a gala event...."

~*~*~*~*~*~

::Yamato::

I came back with Aunt Meilin's bag of makeup; luckily for me, she was a dark individual and had all sorts of goth goodies for me to "borrow." Looking through said bag of makeup, I stood in the bathroom for a time before I realised that Take was in the bedroom, looking out the window, observing the little kids scurrying about below.

"I'm back," I informed, breaking out the contents and starting the finishing touches on my facial features. I blackened my eyes and coloured my lips a luscious blood red. Ringing my eyes with thick, black eyeliner made me look all the more a wide-eyed Caligula; to add further to my eye effects, I used the eyeliner to add jagged lines to make it look as though I had cracks in my flesh. I switched my simple stud earrings out for something a bit more audacious—I synthesised a pair of silver hoop earrings rimmed with spikes to look like miniature bulldog collars, then I slipped them into my earlobes. Also, I added a few fake hoops to the tops of my ears so that they looked like cartilege piercings.

Having completed the task of making my face up, I went into the bedroom to find Take was still at the window.

"Snap out of it. You need to get dressed," I began, pacing in thought then opening the closet door.

"Hn?"

"Get dressed. You are *so* not wearing a T-shirt and pants." Seeing how dazed he was, I watched him to make sure he followed through in getting dressed.

"Hn...." He turned slowly from his viewpoint, then solemnly shuffled over to the bed, whereupon he sat down on the bottom bunk and held his arms out, synthesising in them a loose-shouldered white silk high-collar button-down, a pair of black slacks, and a sleeveless black double-breasted trenchcoat. After he'd put them on, he added a lacy white ascot around his neck and pinned it with his emerald brooch.

He slipped on a pair of high-heeled boots that would actually fit him, then turned to look at himself in the full-length closet mirror on the door. He giggled darkly at the feel of the skirt of his trenchcoat at his ankles as he twirled to observe himself in the mirror.

"I *so* have to outdo you," I mumbled, jealous at how great he looked. Authenticity most certainly was not my aim; foiling him would further the dramatic edge we would have as it was.

I went for the newer "psychotic goth" look to further foil his classic elegant aristocratic style, synthing fishnet bodyarmour, a patent leather tube top similar to a bodice with the lace-up front, and a velvet full-length skirt. I added fishnet stockings, black patent leather heels, and a wicked black clown collar with red fringe. Finishing touches on the outfit were several silver-buckled black leather straps to enhance the theme of bondage and make it look as though I should probably be in a straitjacket.

"Outdo me?" Take mocked as I modeled myself before the mirror. "You look positively silly."

"Quiet, you."

I looked to the clock on the wall to see that it was almost seven-thirty. "We need to get going," I began, grabbing hold of his black-gloved hand and teleporting the two of us down to the top of the stone fence in the front. Walking agilely along the top, the two of us seemed rather out of place among the other demons of the night.

Of course, it was because the others really weren't demons.

One of the younger groups was the first to catch sight of us.

A little girl dressed up as a Pikachu screeched and clutched the leg of the female chaperone of the group. "MOMMY!! THERE'S BOOGYMEN OVER THERE!!"

We took our cue and phased into invisibility before the mother saw us.

"Sweetie, it's okay," she consoled, patting the Pikachu on the head. "Look, there's nothing there but a shrubbery."

The Pikachu looked, but it only made her even more afraid.

Poor little mentally scarred girl, Take play-frowned telepathically.

Gonna have some delicious nightmares come tonight, I chuckled. C'me on.

Hn.

 

[Kurai]

[color=0099ff]Gah. Stupid Labour Day weekend screwing with my writing time.... x__X;[/color]

Chapter Eight: Scythe to the Heart-strings

"Wonder if Dad's out tonight."

The two of us had long since shed our invisibility and continued onward.

"What a silly question," I retorted. "Of course he is. You don't hear that?"

He seemed to strain his ears to hear what I could hear clear as a bell. Granted I'd grown accustomed to hearing such a sound, but he had the ears of a Zubat when it came to such things.

"A violin?" he inquired.

"Viola," I corrected.

"What's a viola got to do with anything?" he whined.

Connecting his voice to my brother's face messed with my head, but I shook it after a minute. "Dad plays the viola," I replied. "Didn't know that, did you?"

He shook his head. "Why play tonight, then? And where?"

"He likes the eerie air of people seeing his silhouette playing," I mumbled. "Wonder where he is. I can tell the music's getting nearer, but I can't tell in which direction...."

"Aren't those heels getting to you?" he wondered, amused at how I'd suddenly picked up pace.

"Har har," I fake-laughed, glaring over my shoulder at him. "I've long since been used to walking around on the balls of my feet; it's natural, coming from an Espeonmorph."

"Hn." He didn't seem to like the fact that I'd snuffed his joke at my expense.

"There he is," I remarked at last, stopping at the corner of the block and pointing up at the roof of a house across the street. He was perched atop the chimney. With the full moon as a backdrop, his form made the perfect shadow to look up to and wonder who the hell he was and why the hell he was up there.

The bad part of this was that he was on Katie Kaymia's chimney.

Take, quiet, I admonished, choking up completely.

Great, he muttered. He decided to follow us to the party. Wonder whether he wants to watch or join in....

Probably a bit of both, I continued. He most likely overheard us plotting and wanted to keep an eye on us....

He didn't say a word to us all week... he began, jumping down.

He was in his studio 'all week,' I reminded, annoyed, following suit, and you know his tendencies to sneak around silently when he's like that.

The two of us wandered across the street and up to the front door, which was open. The party had started not ten minutes prior, and already it was alive with almost fifty people.

A girl my age, dressed as a Meowth, stood at the front door, greeting people at the door, smiling warmly at the group of guys who'd just come in dressed as the Eevee Brothers of Celadon. She then saw the two of us and backed up against the frame of the door, unable to contain herself.

"Call me Tim Curry and perish," I warned, grinning at her.

"M—Matt...?" she uttered, trying to figure out whether it really was me or not.

I nodded, my grin widening.

"Wh—why did you dress like that...? You know how my parents are about 'questionable' boys...." She left her elder brother Kesseki with the job of greeting guests; he had decided that, instead of wearing a cheap costume like many of the others there, he would allow a more realistic Houndoomish side of himself show tonight. She walked in with the two of us, ignoring Take, absorbed in talking to me.

"It just... felt... appropos," I replied, stumbling slightly with my heel having caught on a small ridge in the carpet. Take snickered. Ah shaddap.

"Why didn't your little brother come with you?" she asked. "I invited the both of you...."

The goth spoke up quietly from behind me with a small cough; she looked to him and choked up even more than she had when she'd seen me.

"T—Take-ryu...?"

"Hi," he smiled, calm and reserved. Wondered when she'd notice me... he complained to me.

Katie could do little more than stare at him in utter shock, stammering.

"I think we need to have a little talk," I heard an authoritative voice reprimand, a hand placed upon my shoulder.

I yelped, looking to find Uncle Toshi glaring down upon us.

"Yarr, yessir," I mocked, following the pirate to a nether corner of the main room. Take stayed behind, left to his own devices.

~*~*~

"Would you mind explaining to me exactly what you're trying to pull?" he growled.

"What do you mean?" I faked.

"Don't," he snapped. "You look so totally fake. It's not amusing in the slightest."

"What am I trying to fake?"

His hair stood on end and I saw that classic fire of rage in his eyes; I grinned, having gotten a reaction out of him. Beginning to crackle with electricity in his anger, he sighed vehemently, trying to calm down.

"Faking your permutation is practically heresy," he muttered, unable now to even so much as look at me. "Where's your brother?"

"Oh, you didn't see him?" I fooled. "He was right behind me when you pulled me away from the party...."

Toshi began to scan the people in the room to locate him; he practically fainted when he did.

"Y—this was your idea, wasn't it?" he uttered.

"Sorry, music's too loud, can't hear ya," I lied, walking off to rejoin Katie with a beat in my step. He was too freaked out to react to me and merely stood there, letting me get away.

~*~*~*~*~*~

::Take::

"Hi." I smiled at Katie, blushing slightly.

"Y—you're not human, are you?" she began quietly.

"Heh. What gave you that idea?"

"You're not the Take-ryuu I knew twenty-four hours ago," she rationalised, slowly freaking out more and more. "Either you're not human, or you're not Take."

"Would it please you or annerve you for me to tell you that I'm equally neither and both?" I mused, sitting with her on the couch. Personally, I know you have secrets of your own, I remarked telepathically, finding the mode of speech apropos for such a topic.

She glared at me, beginning to freak out more and more by the minute. Y—you're some Rose's son, she deduced, pale.

But whose, but whose? I chuckled.

A long silence passed with her having gotten a somewhat positive response to her inquiries.

I could tell she was having difficulty recognising it and decided to give her some hints. Well, look at what you know of my family tree.... Both my father and my uncle are Roses.... Heh.

She understood instantly, and quickly became unamused. Not only do you love riddles like your father, but you're just as affectionate about the perfection of your façades, she muttered.

I bowed. Why thank you, m'dear.

She shuddered. D—don't call me that... she worried.

I chuckled aloud, then furthered the conversation vocally. "Why did you dress up when you have the chance not to have to? I mean, this is the one night you don't have to wear some cheesy costume...."

"Cheesy?" she echoed. "I *love* this costume! I've had it since I was ten!"

"I didn't mean that this costume is cheesy. I find it rather... cute."

Her face went blank, then she suddenly held a gloved 'paw' up to her face and "Mew"-ed, smiling.

"Wait, from what you said, did you mean that this is how you really look?" she uttered, again staring at me.

"I suppose that's one way to put it," I replied quietly, not quite sure how to come to terms with the feelings I'd felt when I'd concocted this façade.

Power in the house suddenly failed and everyone freaked, myself in particular, falling silent. I didn't hear my father playing outside anymore.

"Take?" I heard Matt call quietly, trying to find me. Uncle Toshi had finished talking to him and come back.

"Hnn," I heard a deep, rich voice bemuse. I yelped when I saw a pair of glowing golden eyes hovering over his shoulder.

The power came back on to reveal that my father, armed with a scythe, had invited himself in, and now held the blade to my brother's neck.

Humans screamed and scrambled away from the psychotic man decked out in delightfully resplent gothic fashion, some of them whispering utterances along the lines of 'please don't kill me' or 'NO.' He seemed to be aiming for the exact opposite of the symbolism of a priest's attire—he wore beneath the white trenchcoat a black high-collared buttondown shirt, white slacks, and black boots; the overlacy cuffs spilled out of the coat's sleeves. However, it was the black lace ascot that contradicted the clergy, and not merely what he wore beneath. Instead of ostenting an ideal that he was a sinner bound by the hand of a pure entity, he showed the entire party that he was a pure entity bound by his sins.

He grinned, easing Matt's neck closer to his eager lips with his scythe, running his tongue hungrily over his fangs.

"DITZ!!" Mr. Kaymia exclaimed, unable to handle seeing what he was.

His head jerked up temporarily, turning over in his mind whether to attack the interference, but merely decided to give the guy a cold, hungry glare. Mr. Kaymia leapt back and shed his human façade, his Houndoom features shooting out of him like a sneeze. Takeru snarled at him, baring his fangs, and Mr. Kaymia vanished in an instant; he then returned to his prey.

"Wh—what the hell are you doing...!?" Matt uttered, scared out of his wits.

"You're going to learn not to interfere with something as sacred as a permutation," he hissed, pulling Matt's neck closer to him again, the blade this time drawing blood. Just as he was about to sink his teeth into my brother's neck, he saw that I was right in front of him and looked down to me, stricken dumb. He let Matt go and pulled me up from my seat by running the edge of the blade behind my neck.

"Tell me, Bouya, how does it feel?" he mused, glares locked in the middle of some fifty people.

"Wh—how does what feel...?" I whispered in shock.

"Hnnn, you're like me now."

I went wide-eyed, swallowing hard.

"Dun fear it," he led. He arched his back a moment later, then shoved his shoulders back forcefully, splaying a pair of glistening leathery black wings. The room screeched at such a sight; I myself scrambled back away from him in fear. I looked to Matt to see that he was in equal dismay.

After a long silence, he held my chin up with the end of the scythe and looked deep into my eyes. "Let it come naturally, Bouya," he continued warmly with a wide, fangy grin.

I instantly felt overcome by that dark burning sensation from deep within me and instinctively tapped into its power, feeling my body futher fall from life to death; I could no longer feel my heart's beating in my chest; a pair of fangs forged themselves from within my mouth. The only sensation then that I could feel was that of a dull ache that quickly sharpened from within my rib cage; my back began to bulge and tears formed in my animalistic eyes from the pain of how tight my clothing was around me; I then involuntarily splayed a pair of wings similar to my father's, screaming in sheer pain and collapsing to my knees, staring up at him in fright and grief.

'Please tell me that you're doing this to me,' I mouthed silently. 'Please tell me that this isn't me....'

He stared back, displeased with my reactions. "You consigned yourself to the permutation this evening by allowing your brother to tell you what to do." He quickly shot a glare at Matt, then returned his gaze to me.

"But—" I was suddenly ripped in two and acted upon instinct, rising up with ferocity. I realised that, through the second tier of permutation, I now stood a startling six feet tall, and played upon the size difference, grappling my father's neck with a single hand.

He chuckled, enjoying the farce immensely. "Yes... strangle your father, Take-ryuu..." he uttered, trying to cackle with a surpressed voicebox. "Never get the answers you want...."

I recoiled in disgust of him, throwing him to the floor. "I think it was more your lies that surpressed me than it was Yamato," I snarled, splaying at him. "In fact... I demand that you explain yourself this instant."

He laughed glaring up at me. "Demanding explanations.... What a thing to demand of your father...." He saw I didn't back down and sighed, staring off at the baseboards behind me. "You really want to know your father's deep dark secrets, do you?"

The intensity of my glare did not falter.

"I murdered my mother in cold blood, Take-ryuu...."