Romeo and Cinderella

Chapter 9
A World at War

My glazed eyes opened up to another gray sky, the atmosphere feeling hot and humid. It was strange. I could have sworn that yesterday had been winter. I tried to sit up but failed as my arms collapsed under me. I know I had been hurt, but I didn't remember it being this bad.

Being mostly immobile I tried my best to look around. I was on some sort of hot, gray street. All kinds of dust and rubble were cast sporadically about. This did not look like the countryside of Germany. I attempted sitting up for a second time and, with some effort, was successful. Taking in a sigh, I tasted the foul air around me. It made me cough.

My brain started processing my surroundings. The buildings were crammed tightly together on the sides of the street and were all very tall. Much taller than any building I had ever seen. They were all composed of some sort of shining, yet, tarnished metal. The faces stuck out in rectangles and there were many windows as the buildings reached higher in the sky. It was like industrialization gone wild.

I managed to stand then looked down. I was surprised to see that I was clothed. I was sure that I had not been before. But the garments I was wearing were… strange to say the least. It was a sort of shiny, tight leather along with a gun of some sort slung around my waist. It didn't look like any pistol I had seen before and I decided it was best if I didn't mess with. The body I was in was bizarre as well. It wasn't me; it was much too young for that. That and my hair was long and was a weird shade of… pink.

I then understood two things:

First, I was dreaming abnormally vividly.

Second, I was Luka.

I took a step forward and my legs turned to jelly. I fell straight back to the ground and a rock dug into my knee. The pain made me yelp. I turned onto my back and examined the damage. Dusty red oozed out of a large scrape. Fighting back the urge to cry, I stood back up and stumbled forward, looking for someone to go to, someone I knew, someone that knew me.

I don't know how long I had been walking before I came across two people; a boy and a girl from what it looked like, standing about fifteen meters away. I moved as quickly and quietly as I could and hid behind a low wall of debris that was just out of the way enough so that I could easily see them but they could not easily see me.

The girl appeared to be in her late teens or early twenties and had had long, blond hair and very blue eyes. The boy appeared younger than her, maybe sixteen or seventeen. His back was to me, but I could see his flaxen hair pulled back and his wiry physique through the black leather.

The air around was so still. I could hear their conversation from where I hid far back behind them. Likewise, I feared if I breathed too heavily, they would hear me, too.

The boy was talking: "Aw, come on, baby. You know you want to." I could hear the smile in his voice. And he was speaking English. Why was he speaking English? Where the heck was I?

The guy was pinning the girl to a wall, leaning in rather closely.

The girl replied to him. "No. Len, I can't. I'm on… I mean I don't think you'd want a bloody d*ck." Len? That was strange. What would Len be doing in this weird world as well. Eh. I guess anything can happen in dreams.

"You think I care about that shit?" What they were talking about suddenly clicked in my mind and I immediately shot down as far as I could go. I could still hear them.

"Len," the girl moaned, "you're so pushy."

There was a bit of silence for a moment, then whispering.

"Listen here, bitch," Len growled. It was hard to understand what they were saying considering their speech was very low and not in my native language. "I know that… a spy from Germany… assigned to kill… violation of United States law… Any last words?" I heard a click.

The girl hissed through her teeth, "You damned little bastard."

Len let out a low chuckle. "That's what they call me." Then, there was a click followed by a loud bang.

What… the hell.

I sat frozen in place. The silence was amazingly eerie. Eventually I came up with the courage to look back at where the two people once were. I saw the girl lying unconscious, her body twisted in an odd way. There was a blood splatter on the wall where her head had once rested. She was obviously dead. The normal human reaction of fear coursed through my veins. I looked around wildly for the best route to run. Next thing I knew, I was staring down the barrel of a gun.

I looked, horrified, into the uncharacteristically dark eyes of Len. His face was covered in tiny scratches, scars, and a burn running from his eye to his jaw. I didn't know this face.

"Listening in on my conversations, bitch?" he accused. Correctly… but still.

I defended myself: "No! I would never!" I was so glad that didn't come out in German.

"Huh," Len huffed. He moved the gun down to my shoulder and, without a second thought, pulled the trigger. My hand immediately moved up to cover the wound as I let out a blood-curdling scream. "Mind your own business."

I didn't really know where he went and for the record I didn't exactly care. I was practically blind from pain. I curled up into a ball, rocking back and forth, not really knowing how much time had passed.

Thank God someone found me.

"Luka!" they screamed. An unfamiliar woman ran up to me. I could barely see her face through my bleary eyes. I squinted at her. It didn't help much, but I could see that she had bright red eyes and hair. I closed my eyes and gave up as the woman picked me up and ran me somewhere that hopefully had a hospital. I began feeling somewhat feverish as I curled up in the woman's arms. Though I didn't know who she was, I felt an odd sort of connection with her. It somewhat reminded me of my connection with Len—the real Len that didn't just shoot me. I curled in tighter.

Some unknown amount of time passed. I figured I had passed out due to fatigue sometime in the run. I was beginning to wake up. My body was resting on a bed. For a moment I thought it to be my own. My eyes shot open in hopes that the dream was finally over. But the scenery around me was as unfamiliar as before, and when I looked down I saw the same young body, except wrapped in material to cover the wound. Sighing, I settled once again and listened to my surroundings.

People were yelling. "YOU SCAR-FACED BASTARD!" It sounded like the person who had saved me. "Why the hell would you go out and shoot my sister! You're a f*cking assassin! Nobody paid you to hurt her!"

"I can't have some little bitch listen in on my work!" Len was yelling back. "Hell, I didn't even know she was your freaking sister." Freaking? What's a freaking? Was he relating me to a freak of some sort?

"You didn't know! How could you not know my sister! She's been here before!"

"…" The silence sounded more dull than guilty.

"Just say you're sorry," the girl insisted.

"…" Now it sounded like a staring contest.

"Whatever. I'm taking her home." Pause… SLAP! "Don't touch me, Len."

"Damn you slap hard," I heard Len mutter under his breath.

The girl returned to where I was quietly laying. "It's okay," she chimed sweetly. "Len says he's sorry and he won't do it again."

I made an "Mm" sound in reply.

"Come on. Let's get you home." She picked me up and started away from the bed. I assumed she was headed toward the exit. "Mom and Dad will be worried." My heart skipped a beat. Mom and Dad…

.

The girl (after a closer look I realized she was younger than I first thought her to be) set me down on a sofa inside one of the metal buildings. I assumed now that she was my sister.

"Mom!" she called, "Dad! I found her!" Two adults came out from another room. The woman, who came much faster than the man, immediately grabbed me into a tight hug, careful not to touch my wound. A strange warmth that I had never felt before spread through my body at the woman's touch. I guessed she was my mother here. Was this what it was supposed to feel like to embrace your mother?

My assumed father, much less enthusiastic, merely gave me a meek smile. I only stared at him. Some sort of burning feeling swept through my chest at looking at his face. It was quite unpleasant.

"I was so worried!" my mother squealed. "When you didn't come home yesterday I had Miki out looking for you everywhere." Miki… was that my sister?

"I'm glad I found her," my sister Miki sighed. "If I hadn't heard the gunshots she would have been dead." Funny how something as terrible as being shot could save your life.

You know, I found a lot of things rather funny. For instance, isn't it funny how the water is always totally calm right before a storm? Isn't it just humorous how the bad things tend to just sneak up on you from behind right when life is going good? Isn't it just funny when a family is reunited after worry then gets erased one by one? I thought it was hilarious.

The loud pound at the opposite side of the room made my heart stop. It was some sort of… explosion. The thick concrete burst to rubble and filled the space with chalky dust. I immediately jumped down from the raised bed and hid behind it. The powdery air made me wheeze and cough.

"Nobody move!" a man's voice called. "Or you all get shot." I had no idea what was going on. Why in the world was my family being ambushed?

I tried to back away slowly, when Miki put a hand on my uninjured shoulder. "Do you want to get yourself killed?" she asked in a low, serious voice. I got her message and stayed put.

Meanwhile the man at the opposite side of the room had been talking: "… have been confirmed as foreign spies. The penalty for invading the U.S. is death." What was the Youess? Perhaps it was the country I was in. That sounded like a stupid name for a country.

The man didn't say anything more. I heard more people enter the room. I timidly peered over the top of the bed I'd hidden behind. There were five men aiming very large rifle-like firearms (except much more advanced looking) at my parents. They wore all black and had glassy masks over their faces that were tinted so that their identities could not be recognized. The man in the middle held up a hand signal. Three, two, one…

.

My eyes snapped open and I shot up. I felt my heart racing. I looked around wildly. How did I get here? I was in my own bed in my own room. Everything had just been a dream. I let out a huge sigh. The people were gone and I was safe.

Well… mostly.

"Stargazing my ass," was the first thing Luka said to me. She was sitting in the corner of my room, looking at a book. "How stupid do you think I am?" she accused.

I sighed again, this time in a sort of discontent. "I was hoping you were stupid enough to pretend to believe me and go on with your life," I admitted.

Luka looked at me for a few moments with a sort of dull expression. Then she sighed. "Just promise me you won't get yourself killed," she said.

I was a bit surprised, confused, and relieved all at the same time. "I won't," I swore. I actually felt pretty guilty. Luka had so much trust in me even though she knew I would break the rules. I suppose she saw the look on my face.

She replied to it: "If I can't fight you, I may as well be on your side." She smiled. "So you don't have to be afraid to talk to me anymore, okay?"

.

Author's Note: I thought that chapter 9 had been lost for good. I then remembered that a little while back, I had sent a friend a message containing the chapter. I managed to recover that message and SHAZZAM! CHAPTER 9 IS ALIVE!

This is my absolute favorite chapter so far. It's so… different. Like a technological relief. Plus I wanted a more action chapter with all of the hard core drama and romance in the previous chapters.

I guess this seems like a somewhat useless chapter at first, but it's not. It ties into things that come… like at the end of the story. So I want to hear what you think this means. FORESHADOW! Like in English class. Except this story is actually interesting. :DD PLUS if you have some really awesome ideas I might incorporate them into future chapters~ So review please!

So I guess you want a preview of chapter 10, right? Guess what. I have one. And I'll share it with you. Right now.

I followed Miku down the main hallway in between the two giant curved staircases. The hallway was wide and dark. In the faint light I could see several empty golden candle holders high up the walls. There was a dim glow at the end of the hall; that would be where the Lounge was. The doors were closed, which was why the light was so faint. Inside the Lounge sat two people, a man and a woman, bathed in the light of at least fifty candles and a fireplace. Many servants, both sitting and standing, surrounded them. I assumed they were there to serve the wine. A large glass door in the back of the lounge was open so that the heat of the candles and all of the people would not be too overwhelming.

"Mother, father," Miku called while bowing forward. "We have company."

So hopefully that whet your appetite enough to claw my eyes out if I don't update soon. The fact is, chapter 10 is not yet written and I have no idea how long it will take with my recently busy schedule. (Anyone going to HAMA-con out there? If you are I hope you see me~) I'll do my best. Aiming for 2 weeks or so. Maybe two and a half? I really don't know. But it'll be up asap.

I did so good about updating this time. So you should, liek, review and stuff. You guys are the Palkia to my Dialga. The Mew to my Mewtwo. The Rin to my Len. The tofu to my miso soup. If it wasn't for you, there would be no me.