diatu | Well Bully For You

Who: Xion and Axel (And maybe Isa later?)
What: The bullies have a new target
Where: The base of the clocktower
When: May 16th, just before sunset....
Warnings: bullying.

Xion had been hiding from the bullies as best she could still, even though they seemed to have forgotten about her. She didn't forget about them. Who could? But even with avoiding them, there were two main things she still always did. Met Axel for the icing on the cake at sunset, and snuck out at night to collect shells for Roxas. One for each night since Axel arrived that he still wasn't here. The bed was getting crowded.

She had been heading to meet Axel for sunset and had come a little early, a ton of questions in her head that she was hoping he could answer about this whole... dance thing. But all thoughts of that stopped when she saw the bullies just outside the entrance she used for the stairs. Without dark corridors, she had to use stairs. Somehow they had known that? An ambush? She started to melt back, to wait for Axel since he had to use stairs too, here. Except then she saw... they had some other kid with them and they were attacking the other kid.

She hesitated again. Then the kid cried out in pain. She closed her eyes and reached her hand to one side. But.. No Keyblade. Right. Was she really going to do this? Apparently.

She looked around desperately and spotted two things. A forked branch that reminded her of Roxas when he loaned her his Keyblade. And... a rock. She took a deep breath as she grabbed both. She squared her shoulders and then threw the rock at the back of the leader's head. It was a rock and a stick. No one could prove it was her who fought them? Right? Right?

Then it was too late for second thoughts as they charged at her....

"Axel, Roxas," she whispered, giving herself strength from imagining they were there with her, and she swung her stick to deflect a blow aiming for the side of her head.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Xion hadn't shown up for ice cream when she usually did, and that worried Lea. The delay was longer than could be accounted for by most mundane obstacles, and even then, Xion was usually as prompt as possible for their little ritual. He was just about to get up and go looking for her when he chanced to look directly down at the base of the clocktower and saw her squaring off against the same group of bullies from before. The heck...?! He thought those creeps had finally gotten the hint.

Apparently not though. Lea got up and hurried down the clocktower steps to try and intervene. This had gone on long enough.

The bullies forgot all about the other kid, letting him go when they saw who had thrown the stone. The leader was especially ticked.

"If you think that red freak is going to save you this time... you are ours now for that stone..." he growled as she used the stick to block fists as best she could. But she wasn't using her magic, and they... had no such concerns anymore. Not now that she'd fought back, and not now that they knew they had to hurry since someone showed up more often than not these days.

Of course, Axel knew how Xion fights. This wasn't even a little bit her giving it her all. Every move was defensive after that first thrown rock. It was still being more active that just fleeing or taking the blows, and she was keeping herself from getting too badly hurt this time... but... that was about it.

Especially since one of them had a neat little ice spell that kept making the patch of ground right under her heel slick.

Xion knew that if she fought all out, even without the Keyblade, she probably could have won. But they would be injured too badly for it to go unnoticed. People noticed Somebodies. And then she'd be in trouble. She'd be turned into a Dusk or worse. So she couldn't fight back, not really. But she needed to get them to stop coming here, and she needed to get them to leave, somehow, before Axel started to worry....

If Xion had been trying to have Lea not worry, unfortunately, that ship had already sailed, if only because Lea had seen the whole thing occurring. He was down the clocktower stairs in record time and out the door, heading for the spot where Xion was squaring off against the bullies. At least she was defending herself, to a point. But she wasn't really fighting back like Lea wished she would, maybe then they would get the message.

But rather than burst in with a shout for them to stop this time, Lea pulled out his wand as he approached the bullies from behind, making a particular gesture with his wand that ended with it pointing at one of their backs. "Force-binding!", he called out as he launched his spell, announcing himself with the same breath. Though if the bullies hadn't noticed him by now, it was likely too late for them to dodge. And if the spell struck home, the bully it hit would find himself bound as if by invisible ropes and unable to move much. Definitely not enough to fight or run.

It hit all but the one closest to Xion who was still trying to hit her, unaware what happened to his buddies.

Xion, hearing and seeing Axel hesitated, then drove the end of the stick closer to her hand into the last bully's gut, doubling him over, as much from pain as from shock that she had landed the blow. She stepped away from him, careful of the ice and winced as she looked up at her friend. "This one was my fault," she told Axel softly. "I started it." She wasn't going to let him get in trouble with her. Not if she could help it. She could explain, later. If he would let her.

Once Xion had stepped clear, Lea cast the binding spell again to make sure that the bully she had hit stayed down before turning his attention to his friend. "And would you mind telling me why?", he said. "You know as well as I do what happened with these guys last time, and I can tell you're still not really putting much effort into it when you're defending yourself, so why start a fight if you don't plan on finishing it?"

She looked down at her hands. "They... were going after a Somebody," she said softly. "I thought I could deal with it... before you missed me. So you wouldn't get hurt or in trouble."

"Well if you didn't want me to know about it, it's probably not a good idea to do it right below where we normally sit for ice cream," Lea said with a sigh. "But at least you had a good reason."

"And speaking of reasons..." Lea turned to the bullies. "Alright look. I don't know why you guys seem to get such a kick out of picking on people smaller than you, and frankly, I don't care. But since you seem to have a excess of desire to hurt things, if I or any of my friends catch you guys picking on anyone again, I'm gonna hit you with this spell again, dump you on Captain Lominia's doorstep, and tell her she's got four new recruits for the bala-inlota team. A few rounds of that game will either cure you of wanting to beat people up or at least let you get it out of your system against people who more or less volunteered for the job. We clear?"

"This is where they were," she muttered. "What was I supposed to do?"

They all mumbled assent under their breaths. Lea was insane and they wanted nothing to do with him or his threats.

"Good," Lea said to the bullies. He shifted them to a somewhat more comfortable position, all seated back to back. "That spell should wear off in about an hour, then you can go do what you want. Just keep in mind what I said."

With them taken care of, Lea then turned back to Xion, sighing a bit. "I know, I know...", he said. "I just wish you are as filling to stand up for yourself as you are for other. I don't want yougetting hurt when you can avoid it, you know?"

She walked over to him, brushing off her coat. She wanted to point out that she stood up for those with value, but wisely decided to keep those words to herself.

"Ice cream?" she asked, to remind him that the sunset wouldn't wait for them.

Yes, probably a good idea to leave that particular statement unsaid.

Lea nodded. "Yeah," he said. "We should still have time to pick some up before sunset." Since it had been Xion's turn to buy, and she'd been understandably interrupted.

"Alright," she said softly. She had already bought it, but it had been destroyed in the whole kerfuffle. So she headed back to buy more, grabbing the edge of his sleeve to make sure he came with her.

Well Bully For You - Locked

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'wish you were as willing' Wow typos. X3 Also good place to wrap?

Sure. TY for the thread.