Kingdom Hearts Fan Fiction ❯ Crooked Ascension ❯ Crooked Ascension ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Zanna sighed miserably as she trudged into her new school. She was tired of moving around all the time. Her mother blamed her every time they’d had to move, telling her that it was because she was always being so depressed. Zanna never believed her though, and some schools she’d been glad to leave. Like the prep school, bad memories there. Her mother had freaked when she cut her hair short, like boy short, except for her bangs, which she kept in front of her face. She’d been grounded for two months when she’d dyed it purple the first time. Now, she’d dyed it purple so many times that she could swear it was natural now.

Pulling on one of the many straps of her Tripp brand pants, she slid uncaringly late into the only empty seat in her new homeroom. The whole class immediately stilled and silenced, staring at her in amazement. Zanna sighed irritably and rolled her eyes.

“What?” she demanded. Half of the class turned away and started whispering about her, which she ignored. The other half were all giving her evil looks. One of them, a guy with bright red hair and green eyes leaned over to her.

“You better enjoy that seat today. You won’t have it tomorrow. You’re damn lucky that Isaac isn’t here.” He hissed at her venomously. Zanna just rolled her eyes and returned to her drawings. Some whispers started behind her, but she ignored them. There was some laughing behind her, and she was poked in the back with a pencil. Glaring out of the corner of her eye, she noted that the perpetrator was a guy with pink hair. She laughed to herself at this, because it made him look like he liked guys. ‘I wonder what the deal is with these guys is’ she thought to herself.

After homeroom, a chubby freshman ran up to her.

“I can’t believe you did that. Are you new or something? No one sits in the seats of those guys.” He told her.

“A seat is a seat. If they can’t handle that, they’d better get some kind of sense knocked into them.” She said with a sneer. The boy stopped still with a look of shock on his face.

“You’ll see, don’t come crying to us when it happens to you.” He called after her before running off. Zanna just rolled her cerulean eyes at him and continued on to creative writing. There was markedly less of the group of obnoxious people in this class; just the one with the dreadlocks and the one with spiky light brown hair. She found a seat well away from them though, because the class wasn’t very full. One of them still shot spitballs at her though. She suspected the younger one, with the light brown hair.

Ditching classes, Kenneth and Thane were discussing Zanna’s audacity.

“Isaac is not going to let her do that again. Have you called him?” Kenneth asked.

“Yeah, he just about yelled his head off that some random girl thought it would be ok to sit in his seat. You should’ve heard it Reno. It was kind of funny.” Thane laughed. Kenneth laughed in response.

“I can imagine. Hey, it might actually get his ass out of that library once in a while to have this happen.”

“Yeah, right. He’s never shown any interest in anything besides those books. I don’t even know if he’s straight or gay.”

“Ah man, don’t talk about him like that. I don’t care if Isaac is gay, but I sure as hell don’t wanna think about it. Ew.” Kenneth shuddered.

“Yeah, there’s really only room for one of those in the group, right Reno?” Thane laughed. Kenneth shoved him.

“Shut up about it. I sure as hell don’t need it broadcast every fucking where. I’d have stupid little noobs trying to get protection from us by trying to hook up with me.”

“Like you don’t get that from girls anyways?” Thane laughed.

“It’s easier to be an ass to them.” He shrugged. “But we were talking about this new bitch.”

“Right, change of subject, like usual. So what should we do to her? I mean, I already know that Dylan is torturing her with those ‘spitwads’ he makes.”

“What’s her next class?”

“Damned if I know, you know that’s Isaac’s specialty.”

“Fuck. Well, at least get the word out to Rupert, Ember, and Bastien. They’re the only ones that don’t have the same homeroom as us.”

“Good thing I have decent drawing skills so that they’ll know what she looks like.” Thane said, scribbling out a small drawing on a notepad.

“Decent. Yeah right. You know you’re damn good.” A long pause. “So should we wait until Isaac is here for the serious payback?”

“Definitely. As outraged as he was, you know he’s scheming as we speak.”

Isaac sat in his room, rapidly writing down notes in his large journal, which he carried everywhere. It never held class notes, but mostly plots and schemes, and important information for the group. He considered once playing with the girl’s heart, but discarded that idea. He had no idea what kind of person she would be interested in to begin with, and even though he was good at playing people like, well, like Bastien played cards, he hated hurting girls. He’d liked a few, but they were always too scared of him. He supposed it was because of the group. They did have Ember in the group, but she was dating Thane and not his type anyways. Part of him wasn’t happy that he had to plot against this girl, but he ignored it. He always ignored those feelings, which he had every time he plotted against someone, because it wasn’t helpful for the group to have a weakness. Sighing, he sat back from the tome.

“Why do we keep doing this anyways? I mean, I know we’re different, but it’s not like we’re the Organization from years ago. That was lifetimes ago, practically.” He said to the empty room. “And if we were” he laughed shortly “I’d tell that Xemnas guy where he could stick it. Freakin’ loony, I swear.” Laughing once again, he returned to his schemes and plots.

When the bell rang, Zanna gladly slipped out of class to the restroom. She was completely damp from that idiot’s spitballs. Looking in the mirror, she didn’t see any paper though. ‘How the hell?’ she thought, as she wiped herself down irritably with paper towels.

“This sort of shit is why I hate having to switch schools every time mom decides I’ve been too depressed for her tastes, or whatever it is that makes her move.” She grumbled to herself as she walked to algebra class. She hated algebra; it made no sense to her.

Sliding into a seat, she noticed with some annoyance that guy with the dreadlocks was in this class too. He was sitting next to a guy with long black hair in a ponytail, with some white streaks in it. As soon as she sat down, they started whispering to each other. Figuring the new guy to be part of the group that everyone feared, she ignored the two and tried to make sense of the gibberish.

Over in the science lab, Thane was telling Rupert and Ember about the new girl, and what she’d done. Rupert wanted to slip one of his experimental elixirs in her drink, and Ember wanted to just zap her and have done with it. Thane nixed both of those ideas as too extreme, because it was Isaac that she wronged, and he should have first crack at anything serious.

“Who else hasn’t run into her yet? Or she hasn’t noticed yet?” Rupert asked.

“Bastien, but I don’t know if he’ll have any classes with her. Our researcher is out for the day, which is why she was able to pull this shit off.” Thane grumbled.

“Ok, listen to this idea. Something to feed more ideas to Isaac. Have Bastien act like he’s going to be her friend, get some information out of her. Maybe if she’s in the same history class that you have with him, Ember, you could mess with her in that Greek stuff you’re taking and he could fake saving her.” The trio laughed at the brilliance of the plan. Thane texted Bastien, telling him to meet between periods outside of the band room.

Zanna just wanted out of class as it was, and those jerks somehow kept blowing her papers and hair around, distracting her. ‘Gods, all this just for sitting in someone’s seat? What the hell are these guys, the mob or something?’ she thought to herself. Jotting down a quick note, she sat it on the edge of the desk, with the label “the guys breaking wind” pointed towards the two dark haired jerks. A gentler gust picked up the note and took it to them, which she planned on.

Devin opened the note and scowled before passing it to Mordechai. The note read ‘I don’t care what you idiots think you’re doing to me, I refuse to apologize for sitting at a desk. You get that Isaac kid to say something to me, and maybe I’ll consider it, but you guys ain’t getting shit out of me.’ Mordechai growled softly and muttered “insolent wench” under his breath. Just as they were about to get up and confront her, the bell rang, and she slipped out of the room.

Zanna spent lunch in the library amongst the stacks. She rarely ate anyway, and figured the group of jerks wouldn’t be into books. She did once hear the redhead talking to one of them, asking if they thought she’d be the book type, which was rapidly negated, saying “that wench probably isn’t literate enough to spend all day amongst the stacks.” Relieved, she took her journal out of her backpack. She wrote a short entry in it describing a few of the members of what she called ‘the jerk squad’ and left it open for more to be added, since the day wasn’t over yet.

The group was sitting in their unofficial meeting place in front of the band room, brainstorming ways to torment the new girl some more. They had just finished up the finishing touches on the ‘Bastien riding to the rescue’ plan, when Dimitri spoke up. He rarely did this, so everyone stopped and listened.

“I think, to throw her off, we should give it a rest until Isaac comes back. We are all aware of what he’s capable of, so we could have her on her toes until he comes back.” The group considered this for a while, before slowly agreeing that it would work best. Devin smirked.

“Calm before the storm. You’re a genius, Dimitri. Hell, I ain’t afraid to admit that Isaac scares me. Dude can make you do anything he wants you to. I bet if she knew, she’d be running for the hills.” The dreadlocked teen said. Dylan smiled and pulled out his guitar. Strumming a few random chords, he threw together a short song.

“Crazy bitch don’t wanna try, Crazy bitch gonna cry. Ike’s gonna show her a thing or two, Ike’s gonna rip her head straight through.” Everyone laughed at his song.

“Don’t let Isaac hear you call him that though, you know he’d make you think you’re a six year old girl for the rest of your life if he heard it.” Bastien told the musician. Everyone nodded like it was sage advice from a guru, then broke into laughter again.

Donal glared annoyedly at his teacher. He knew this stuff well enough already, and much more. He wished they’d just move him up into high school already, since he knew that his minions would be older than he. It always seemed to work that way, he’d get stuck trying to construct his plans for control of the realm on his own until everyone else caught up to speed, or he found them. Of course, being the last to die this last lifetime really put a damper in his plans. He just wished he’d had the chance to destroy the Lexicon and that damned cricket’s journal first. He had no idea what Zexion had written in that book, but he had no doubts there were some things in there that he would not like. The young nobody had never shared the tome with anyone, not even his closest . . . they weren’t friends, but, allies maybe? Either way, no one had known what was in there aside from he who wrote it. He had to find the book and destroy it. The cricket’s journal was already part of school texts, so that was a loss. A voice broke into his thoughts.

“Donal? Could you pay attention to us for once?” Leon asked him. Sighing huffily, he stared indignantly at the man. He could finish his thoughts later, while he plotted to follow the path of that book. He knew that Ais had a younger sister, one that could have married and had a child. That would be where he’d start his search for the Lexicon.

Zanna sat in the back row of the history class, ignoring the smirks and sly smiles from the blonde girl off to her right. She sat by a blonde guy with a few different piercings in his ear, but he did nothing like the girl was. She figured he must be just a normal student, so she did to him as he was doing to her, ignored him. She was often bored in history classes, so she started doodling random pictures on a scrap piece of paper. One of her doodles became a surly guy with hair in his eyes. Analyzing it, she deemed the drawing cute, and titled it ‘Josh’. Just before she slid it into her notebook, she noticed the blonde guy staring at it in amazement, and confusion. He glanced at her once, noting that she’d seen him staring, and turned away. Sighing and writing the guy off as weird, she tucked it into her notebook and headed off to physical education.

Bastien grabbed Ember after history and pulled her off to a side corridor.

“What is your problem?” she hissed. She didn’t want to be late for home economics, one of her few classes with Thane.

“That girl, she was doodling in class-“ he started when she interrupted.

“So? Not everyone has an all encompassing thrill of the boring dead.”

“The drawing looked like Isaac!” he growled at her. Ember’s head jerked back in surprise. She blinked a few times in bewilderment.

“Are you sure? Maybe it was just some random guy with that emo hair that Isaac seems to like.”

“It had his exact features. It even had his book!” Ember’s eyebrows shot upwards at this.

“I’ll be sure to tell Thane. You pass word on to Jericho. This chick is getting annoying.” She said, heading off to her next class.

In physical education, Zanna kept trying to tell the teacher that she could not play basketball, but he wouldn’t listen.

“But Coach Clayton . . .” Zanna started

“But nothing. You will go out there and play, and because of your impertinence, you can guard Dimitri!.” He yelled at her, pointing towards an outrageously tall and muscular brunette. Zanna hung her head and walked over to the guy. Looking up, her eyes hit just above his waistline. Her eyes grew bigger as she slowly looked further and further up. Her jaw was hanging when she finally found his face.

“Boo.” Dimitri said softly. Zanna whirled around, only to have Coach Clayton point at the giant again. She wilted visibly and tried to keep up halfheartedly. She knew she had no chance against the bear of a guy, so she figured she could only try enough to convince the coach. Once the period was over, she fled to the showers quickly, avoiding the coach, and the guy she’d been forced to guard. One girl came up to her in the locker room.

“Now you know not to argue with the coach . . . he always uses Dimitri as punishment. Just be glad that you didn’t have to play Kenneth. He does . . . things to people. We can’t prove it, but we know it’s him. He’s got something against girls, I swear.” She shook her head in resignment, as though she was attracted to the fool.

“Oh trust me, I’d take a failing grade before I play against that ridiculous redhead. He’s a fucking ass . . . threatened me for sitting in his friend’s seat or some such nonsense.” Zanna waved off. The girl’s eyes widened to an astounding level.

“You’re the girl that sat in Isaac’s seat?” she asked as though it was completely taboo.

“Yeah . . . why? What’s the big deal? It’s just a seat.” The girl just shook her head and slowly backed away from her, then fled. Exasperated now, Zanna just got her stuff together and left the locker room, stopping to put some books into her locker before leaving the school. Having taken so long to get her things together, and having a locker at the wrong end of the school, she was nearly the last to leave the campus. The group of jerks were off to the side of the school entrance, talking amongst themselves. She could swear she saw a short burst of flame, but when she looked, it was only the redhead smoking. Turning away from them to walk home, she felt eyes on her back. Looking out of the corner of her eye at the group, she didn’t see any of them looking at her. Then the feeling came from her left side. She whipped her head around, to only find the other side of the street empty.

“Get a grip girl, those idiots are getting to you.” She muttered to herself.

“Are you sure?” a quiet voice whispered in her ear. Zanna jumped, spinning around to see who it was, only to see nobody there. The jerks were not paying attention to her, but found something hilarious. They seemed to be circled around a person she hadn’t seen before, but she couldn’t get a clear view of the person. They had silvery blue hair though, and was relatively short, like she was. Sighing and ignoring any other weird occurrences, she stormed her way home.

Throwing her book bag on the floor, Zanna flopped onto her bed, annoyed and irritated that this school seemed to have some sort of gang, and that they hated her.

“Get off that bed and help me unpack, miss oh-so-sorry for yourself.” Her mother called from the living room. Zanna sighed and heaved herself up.

“Be right there, I’m just putting my stuff away.” She returned. She hated how hindered she was, but she put up with it for fear of being kicked out. It had happened once before, and she was left scared and alone outside for a night at age eleven. Shortly after that, she’d sheared her hair short and dyed it purple. She was grounded for a long time for doing that. It took a few more months after that for her mother to stop caring about the color or length of her hair. She knew she shouldn’t think of the woman as her mother, since she made no secret of Zanna being adopted, but she was the only mother she’d ever known. She’d been told that her birth mother had died giving birth to her, and her father had died a few months before. She often wondered who she was, really. Her name was the only thing she had left of her birth family. It was the last thing her mother had said, before dying with her last big push. The healers had tried everything, but the woman was gone. Storing away the memories of being told of her family’s fate, she headed down to the living room to unpack her caretaker’s knickknacks.

Donal howled in frustration as he learned that Ais’ sister had died in childbirth, and there was no record of where the child had gone. Punching the large heart pillow that his parents had given him when his first word had been hearts, he plotted on how he’d figure out which child had blood ties to Ais. He simply had to get that Lexicon. Even if it was written in some sort of code, he was smart enough to figure it out, having known Zexion for so long, and even before that, Ienzo. He laughed when he heard that the cricket’s journal had labeled his minion as ‘depressed’ or some other such description. Ienzo, and also his nobody Zexion were far from that. They may have both had their faces constantly planted in books, but they were not depressed. Zexion didn’t feel anything, being heartless, but Ienzo was talkative, humorous, and always curious. It sometimes irked him, but he could use that to his advantage now. Laughing evilly, he started plotting to lure the current incarnation of Ienzo, because they weren’t heartless now that they were reincarnated, to him. He doubted that he would have the Lexicon, but if he did . . . things would get interesting.

“Wait, repeat that again, Bastien?” Isaac asked as they all sat together in a coffee shop. They had gone to it after Isaac’s little trick with Zanna had her storming off in a huff.

“I’m serious, she drew you as accurately as if you’d sat for Thane. She stuck you in some baggy pants and a large black shirt, but even still, I’d recognize my own friend.” Bastien explained again.

“What was the pose, and what kind of baggy pants?” Thane asked, pulling out his sketchbook and a pencil. Bastien briefly described the picture and Thane set to drawing.

“That makes no sense. I’ve never seen that girl before in my life. Although I’m sure the odds are not in favor of coincidence.” Isaac looked at Devin for confirmation.

“About three hundred fourteen thousand, eight hundred and ninety two to one, roughly.” Devin replied. Bastien shrugged, not sure how to explain the phenomenon. Thane shoved his sketchbook across the table to him, and he nodded.

“That’s exactly what she drew, Thane. You amaze me with how accurate you always are.” Bastien told the pink-haired artist, as he turned the book to show Isaac. A range of expressions crossed Isaac’s face as he looked at the sketch; first puzzlement, then mild recognition, going through confusion back to the usual nonplussed look.

“There’s something about this girl that we need to keep an eye on. She knows something, even if she doesn’t realize she knows it. We must keep an eye on her at all times. Luckily, at least one of us is in each of her classes, aside from her free period.” He jotted down her class schedule and who was in each class. “Zanna, which is the girl’s name, is an orphan. She was adopted shortly after her mother died in childbirth.” A pause and he pierced each of them with a look, stopping slightly longer on Jericho. “She’s related to one of the Organization members of decades ago.”

“Oh those moldy oldies, who cares about them?” Ember smirked and attempted to wave the subject away.

“You have an unhealthy interest in Xemnas, that’s who, Ember.” Thane reminded her. The girl slumped down and glared sideways at her boyfriend. Isaac looked at her.

“Please tell me you wouldn’t join that kook.”

“No, no.” she sighed, then muttered “well maybe” under her breath. Isaac glanced at her again before continuing.

“Anyways, I’ll be back in school tomorrow, so you don’t have to worry about sitting by the icky girl anymore, Reno.” Kenneth glared at his friend. “I’ll see what sort of punishment is merited, and if I even need to do anything more to her. Until I decide otherwise, leave everything to me. You’ll still need to keep your eyes open to anything she does, and ears to anything she says. Especially if it seems out of place, or is something related to the Organization of the past.”

“It still amazes me that we’re led by a junior . . . “ Rupert muttered under his breath. Isaac shot him a look, and he quieted instantly.

“Isaac . . .” Mordechai started “you don’t need to intimidate us, we are your friends.” With a sigh, Isaac relaxed.

“I know Mordy . . . it’s just this girl has me on edge for some reason.” Dimitri silently got up and started kneading the stress out of his small friend’s shoulders. “Thank you Dimitri . . . I don’t know what’s gotten into me lately. It feels like I’m . . . picking up on something about to happen. Something bad.” The group nodded, there was a tenseness in the air lately. They couldn’t tell what, not even Bastien, but there was definitely something happening.