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"Alrighty, Riku-chan--"
"Chan!?"
"--here's the deal~! You see, you may think that you will only make it worse, that you can't, because by gosh darkness is an evil mesh of nothingness that only takes and devours. Yes?"
"Hey! WHAT was all that!?" Ed called from inside the room where both he and Al were stuck.
"But darkness is simply what you find when the lights are turned off~!"
The lights in the hallway all simultaneously blinked out just then, and everyone jumped.
"And you even heard Lucifer, darkness and evil are different! That's D-I-Double F-E-Rent for ya! Got me?"
Riku sighed, exasperated.
"Besides, they're already bad off as it is. How can trying to help them be THAT bad?"
He looked her in the eye, even in the darkness of the hallway. "You're very persistant, you know that?"
"Hey, I'm trying to help out Ed and Al and Nekozawa here--"
"I'm good!" Nekozawa's gleeful hiss came.
"What about your sister?" PheonixFox asked PheonixFoxhe room innocently.
"Hum? Hrmm..."
PheonixFox chirped, "It'd be good to get them out quickly, you know?" she asked Riku. "If we leave them long enough, they'll miss a whole day or more from their lifespan. And Edward will be that much shorter for that much longer~!"
They heard an eruption of curses and shouting from the darkness, all melded together in an extremely angry babble.
"You could help too, Hiei," Kurama said, turning to his companion, but Hiei had turned away, ignoring everyone.
Some of them wondered why he'd bothered coming at all.
Finally, Riku combed his gloves fingers through his hair, and PheonixFox had a bishi-lover fangirl moment. "Fine, I'll try. But that's it. I'll TRY."
PheonixFox nodded enthusiastically.
He stepped forward and approached the door, and as they watched a bat-wing-like blade materialized in his hand. He closed his eyes, and black static ran down the length of the blade.
Everything was more or less quiet as the energy gathered. Fai looked on curiously from behind Lucifer.
All at once Riku ordered, "Everyone stand back!" and threw his hand forward. A hole began to bore in the darkness that was the room.
PheonixFox cheered. Hao rolled his eyes in response. "You have such a cynical aura..." Kayashima noted of him.
Hao glared at him.
The intensity of the power boring through the darkness intensified gradually as Riku got more confident, but he was cautious enough to not go to strong. The progression sped up slightly.
Hiei, however, had never been one to be patient. Here he finally turned around and stomped up next to Riku. "Scoot over! I'll help..!"
Surprised, Riku stepped back and sideways a bit, and Hiei's hand was soon engulfed in black and red. He grinned, and shot it at the darkness in the room. "Something this simple can't do anything against ME."
"Oh? Let me help too then." Smiling pleasantly, Fai stepped forward, and placed one hand on a shoulder of each of the boys.
The power emitting from their hands stengthened noticeably.
PheonixFox cheered again.
The darkness in the room was washing away, and as they all watched it turned to smoke, pouring out in vapors from the door and down the hall, towards the exit's direction.
Finally, it completely receded, and there, in a plain room with a tile floor and plain, white walls, void of furniture, stood Ed, Al, and a slightly disappointed Nekozawa.
"Yay~!" PheonixFox ran up to hug Hiei, but her shoved her off, and so she wrapped an arm each about Riku and Fai's necks. "That was fantastic!"
Edward tugged her off of them though and held her by the collar. "Fantastic!? What WAS that?"
She cheerfully flicked his nose. "Darkness! Didn't you hear me the first time?"
"Then what the heck is this stuff DOING here!?"
"I don't know."
"Isn't this your house!?"
"Yes?"
"What's with the question mark!?"
"Young master, please do not hastle the mistress," Lucifer said, coming forward and peeling Ed's fingers from her shirt.
"Why not!? She's the one who dragged us all here! She even said we could go anywhere we want! What was with that room then!?"
"Dark. Ness. See?" PheonixFox said. As she said the last word the lights came back on, and everyone yelped and hid their faces against the light, PheonixFox being no exception.
Ed growled as he shielded his eyes, "Why don't you explain to us why we're all REALLY here, eh!?"
"I already have~!"
"Explain more CLEARLY."
"Eh? Well, adventures are where you have a purpose, no? You're out to explore, or vanquish something, or save someone. Maybe it's finding treasure, or climbing a mountain, or meeting someone extraordinary! So if that's what an adventure is, what we'll be doing from here on out is no short of an adventure~! Lucifer and I aren't gathering you all here all willy nilly just because we feel like it, you know."
"You could have fooled me," Ed muttered.
Nekozawa, still in the room out of the light of the hallway, raised the hand his cat wasn't on. "I'm not into adventure, actually."
"I'm going to have to agree with him," Hao said.
"Well it's much safer here than it was out there~!" PheonixFox chirped.
Hei kicked her in the head, and she went flying like a torpedoe to the end of the hallway. He shouted down after her, "You kidnapped us using duct-tape you idiot!! D:<"
Thankfully, however, Lucifer caught PheonixFox before she could hit the wall and set her on her feet. "Thank you, Lucifer!"
She turned to face the others down the hallway and waved. "Toodles! ^_^" And with that she disappeared down to the right.
Higuchi nudged Hiei and whispered, "That was in the direction of THERE, wasn't it..?"
Hiei shuddered. He was determined not to think about it.