Untitled

Roommate Hell
Valgaav's Arrival     After the long and boring plane ride from Gaav's lair to the University, Val stretched gratefully in the airport. Val couldn't teleport as far as Gaav-sama could, hence why he was living on campus in the first place; he had gone by airline to avoid being conspicuous and easy to pick off. Baggage check was simply a matter of waiting for him, as hundreds of packages that weren't his tumbled out on to the conveyor until he began to wonder if his luggage had been rerouted to Abu Dahbi. Finally, the one duffel bag of necessities flopped onto the conveyor, and the long case for Ragul Mazehdis slid out onto the oversize luggage platform. As he turned to leave, he walked straight into a rather attractive redhead in green, nearly his height; she wore a nametag that read "Jean Grey".
    "Valgaav?"
    Val paused, startled. "Ah, yes."
    "I'm Jean Grey, one of the Residence Assistants from the University. Miss Noin and I are here to pick up students from the airport. Do you have a ride there?"
    "Not in particular, why?" He was rather bewildered, but polite.
    "Fine, you can ride with us. There's only a few other students on the flights around this time; the others are with Lucrezia out front, in the bus shelter near the parking lot. I'll be waiting here until the last of the students arrives, you can go on ahead and meet with her."
    "I'll do that, thank you." As Val left, Jean returned to her waiting place in the center of the room, seemingly staring off into space. Outside, the bus shelter was easy enough to spot. Through the clear walls, he could see the gaggle of students inside. There was a short, slim redhead pacing back and forth; a teenager with chaotic brown hair who shared a bench with an odd, small yellow dinosaur; a blonde in a short, pleated white skirt, her hair partially up but hanging in two long streaks down her back; a young man with his brown hair braided down his back, dressed entirely in black that bore an uncanny resemblance to a priest's uniform; a young woman in a dark green uniform with short, black hair, holding a clipboard; and an wierd lady with spiky silver-blue hair wearing odd, low-cut clothing who was levitating in the middle of the shelter. When Val entered, he glanced around, quickly spotting the nametag on the girl in dark green - Lucrezia Noin. As the pushed the door open, Lucrezia skimmed the paper on her clipboard.
    "You're Valgaav, correct? I'm Lucrezia Noin-good to have you here. I think everyone else here knows the drill by know with introductions." She nodded to the other students.
    "Ryoko." The silver-haired one, still levitating.
    "Duo Maxwell, nice to see you!" The boy in black shook hands quickly, a big grin on his face. Val was still somewhat bewildered; he wasn't used to being around this many people when they weren't trying to kill him.
    "I'm Usagi, how are you?" Val curtly replied, "Fine." The blond.
    "Lina Inverse, Sorcery genius - you any relation to the Demon Dragon King?"
    "Ahhh sort-of..." Val moved on quickly, away from the redhead.
     "I'm Tai, and this is Agumon!" The dinosaur waved a claw and said, "Hi!" Val was struck suddenly by the strangeness of his fellow students. Val noticed the other bench in the bus shelter was empty, and sat down quickly, trying to avoid talking too much to the other students. Lina hung close to him, acting rather suspicious; she tried to act like she wasn't watching him, but wasn't succeeding very well. Ryoko had struck up a bit of general small talk with Duo, which oddly included piracy, espionage, and military tactics. Usagi was acting on nervous energy, asking Tai many questions about Agumon.
    Maybe five minutes later, two more students joined the gang in the bus shelter - a slender, short-haired blonde dressed in red, with a pair of white-feathered wings and a rather severe expression; Val got the feeling her flight hadn't been pleasant. He could understand why - it couldn't have been comfortable on an airline with those wings. Behind her was a young man in white and blue, with short blue hair, that gave Valgaav the oddest sense of deja-vu. They went through the same set of introductions, Val leaving it at his name as Ryoko did; the girl was Nina, from Wyndia, and the boy introduced himself as Ryu. Ryu seemed almost as nervous about crowds as Val was, although he had less of a hunted air than Valgaav himself. Lucrezia commented that it only left two more students arriving. Valgaav was thankful for that; the more people there were in the shelter, the more nervous he felt. He realized that he hated cramped, crowded spaces.
    A full fifteen minutes after his arrival, Jean returned with the final pair of students in tow - one was a dark-haired girl dressed entirely in black who seemed to have her own personal cloud of foreboding, the other was a young man wearing green with his brown hair tied back, who was scanning the airport curiously, introduced as Rose and Albert.
    As they left the shelter, an odd, mechanical white dragon "ridden" by a dark-haired young man buzzed the shelter, giving Val the complete creeps inexplicably; it was closely followed by a red mecha that dashed across the parking lot with no regard for bystanders. While the students stared after the pair incredulously, Noin pulled out a cellphone; Jean left to retrieve the vehicle.
    "Hello, campus police? Yes, Dilandau's trying to kill Van again, they're at the airport with their guymalefs. Would you send someone out here to get them? Thanks."
    Lina turned her attention from the flame-spewing red mech to Lucrezia. "Is that...normal?"
    Lucrezia shrugged, slightly exasperated. "I'm afraid so. We've sent plenty of notices to the Headmistress about Dilandau; he's far too chaotic for an RA, and he truly hates poor Van. Unfortunately, we never get a reply, although we know they're recieved."
    "Who is the headmistress, anyway?"
    "Nobody knows."
    A wierd, smallish aircraft hovered to a landing next to them, opening a walkway as it came. Lucrezia waved the students in. Valgaav discovered that the interior was every bit as cramped as it looked from the outside. He crept to the back bank of seats and settled into a corner, hoping to be left alone. Unfortunately, Ryoko and Duo joined him in the same bank of seats.
    As the craft took off, Ryoko turned to him. "So, Valgaav, where are you from, anyway?"
    "I'd really rather not say."
    "Fugitive, hmm? Who's out to get you?"
    "None of your business."
    "Boy, are you secretive. Alright, be that way." She turned back to Duo. Val got the feeling that those two would be causing a great deal of chaos on campus.
    Lina, in front of him, turned somewhat in her seat so she could see Val. "You said you were 'sorta' related to Gaav - what did you mean by that? I know the names of Gaav's general and priest, and you're not one of them, so what are you to Gaav?"
    "You...ask *far* too many questions." Lina gave him one last suspicious look and turned back.
    After almost an hour of listening to Usagi talk to Tai about their various travels, and-even closer-listening to Ryoko and Duo discussing espionage and piracy, as well as Albert and Lina discussing cosmology and metaphysical theory, the aircraft finally came in for a landing over a spread-out cluster of buildings on a forested hillside. Off in the woods, different ruins and odd abandoned buildings could be seen. An abandoned castle on the crest of the hill had one of its spires topped by a chaotic mass of strange red cloth; when Lina asked what it was, Noin shrugged and commented, "Nobody's really sure. Who or whatever it is, it doesn't bother anyone normally, so we just try to leave it alone. We had some students vanish in that castle over the years, so we try and make it clear to stay away from there; it doesn't seem to like visitors."   That only seemed to make Lina more curious, and she watched the shape even closer as the aircraft landed in the parking lot of a tall building lined with windows. There was a balcony out front with two staircases going down to the parking lot. The balcony was occupied by a strange lady in black clothing with a red-lined black cloak, wide-brimmed black hat, and a nametag that simply said "Cyber 6". She jumped down from the balcony to assist with luggage, easily carrying Usagi's two large trunks. Val realized that each trunk alone was almost as long as the RA, and probably heavier, but 6 didn't seem to have any problem with them.
    When they came to the door, 6 in the lead, a creature even more bizarre than Agumon got the door for Cyber 6 - it seemed to be a yellow saurian with a horn and blue and red markings on its belly, but it was wearing a blue wolf-skin that covered most of it, the wolf's head forming a mask over its face. Agumon and Tai instantly recognized their old friend, Agumon racing to get the next door while asking Gabumon how things had been going. Val slipped in behind Cyber 6 and quickly ducked into the crowd, snatching a student handbook off of the stack on the table.
    He managed to creep and sidle through the crowd to the table where room keys were being handed out; a red-head in a black jacket was being swamped by students shouting out names and room numbers. Val waited quietly at first, then joined the rest of the crowd in fighting for Chisato's attention. As soon as he caught her eye, she stuffed a bunch of forms in his hand and started asking questions about him, his family, where he was from...and got a lot of "None of your business" and "Why are you asking?" responses as he filled out the forms as quickly as possible. Chisato finally realized that she wasn't about to get any answers from Valgaav, so she passed the forms to her partner at the table, who dug out a room key labelled "401" from a cabinet. "Oh, by the way, your roommate is already there."
    Val didn't even react, just stalked through the open doors to the elevator; noting that was busy, he decided to just take the stairs this time. Four flights of nasty concrete steps later, he found the fourth floor in a small state of chaos as people were moving in, draging boxes and various luggage past; Duo breezed past him out of the elevator, headed for a different part of the floor. One of the RA's was actually there, as one of the doors near the elevator was open, but Val didn't even bother seeing who it was, simply continued on to his room on the corner of the building.
    The door was open; since it opened inward, Val couldn't see the tarot-card name tags on the door. He stopped at the doorway and looked in. A familiar purple-haired figure was stretched out on one of the beds, his back to the entrance. Xelloss cocked his head back to watch Valgaav out of the corner of his eye.
    "Ah, you fnally arrived, Val-san! Good to see you!"
    Valgaav blinked slowly, turned on one heel, marched back down the stairs, past the tables and chaos to the RD's office, and shoved the door open with two words: "ROOM CHANGE!"
    Terry, the RD, adjusted her glasses and calmly looked up from the folder she had been reviewing. "I'm sorry, but there are no room changes allowed for two weeks."
    "There is no way in Hell I am sharing a room with that freak for two weeks."
    "I take it you've met your roommate?"
    "A long time ago. Trust me, if you force both of us to stay in that fishbowl of a room, there will be bloodshed."
    "If he tries to attack you, just get out of there and contact the campus police; they can handle pretty much any of the students here. I wish I could tell you I could help head this off, but it was made quite clear by the assistant headmaster that there were to be no room changes for two weeks. We'll be getting a lot of people coming in late, and we need to go over a potential room change with all parties involved; since we don't know who will be here, we can't really tell how things are going to work out for at least two weeks."
    Val leaned forward, his hands on the desk. He noticed a beta - a Siamese fighting fish - in a small tank on the desk. "I don't think you understand the situation here. What you are trying to is to take two of these" - he tapped the side of the tank gently with one finger - "and put them in a very small goldfish bowl. You know what happens when you do that, correct?"
    "Aaaww, Val-san, trying to get rid of me already?" Xelloss had appeared out of nowhere right behind Valgaav.
    "Would *you* want to be stuck with him in a small room?", Val said, waving back at Xelloss, who was smiling innocently. Terry leaned back.
    "You two truly don't get along, do you?"
    "Do two roosters dropped in a pit get along?"
    "Now, now, Val-san, you're usually the one who strikes the first blow."
    "With extenuating circumstances every time - any court would rule it justified homicide."
    "All I can say is to go talk to the Assistant Headmaster. I'll be sure to talk to him on your behalf about this." She added Valgaav's name to a short but growing list titled "Roommate Problems", with a star next to it.
    "What about the Headmistress? Can't I talk to her?"
    "I'm afraid not. She's never really seen, and noone even knows her name - she works through the Assistant Headmaster, and that's the only way to reach her."
    "Thanks anyway..." Valgaav turned, walking past Xelloss as if he weren't even there. Xelloss waved at Terry cheerfully with a "Bye!", before he vanished. Terry glanced down at the list, and pulled out Xelloss and Valgaav's folders from her drawer.
    Soon after, Valgaav had made it to the top of the office complex where the Assistant Headmaster and the counselors had their offices. A large sign read, "See Counselors for Referral To Asst. Headmaster". Val sighed, adjusted Ragul Mazedhis's case, and pushed open the counselors' door. A white cat with a gold moon-symbol was curled up on an otherwise unoccupied desk, next to a computer. Val rang the bell on the counter.
    "Can I help you?" It was the cat. Val stopped, confused.
    "You're?"
    "Artemis. Counselor. I work here. Can I help you?"
    "Aaaahh...yes...I'd like to talk to the Assistant Headmaster about an early room change." It occured to Val that Artemis was normally a female name, but the cat sounded anything but.
    "What's the problem?"
    "My roommate."
    "Meaning...?"
    "Meaning if I am forced to stay in a cramped room with that sneaky fruitcake for two weeks, there will be bloodshed."
    "Oh, you're the one who got stuck with Xelloss. Alright, go on to the Assitant Headmaster's office, I'll ring ahead."
    As Valgaav pushed the door open and headed down the hall, he heard Artemis putting a call through to an "Assistant Headmaster Magnus", although unluckily the name didn't trigger any memories.
    Valgaav opened the Assistant Headmaster's office door, but didn't enter. There was a large, imposing wooden desk in a room that was strangely dark considering the large window behind the desk. An obsidian nameplate on the desk read "Lei Magnus", and a tall, dark figure was seated at the desk - black hair, black clothing, red eyes, with a strange staff leaning on the wall behind him and an aura of menace...Lei Magnus, aka Shabranigdu. As recognition seeped in, Valgaav realized one fact about his situation: He was screwed.
    "Is there a problem, Valgaav?"
    "None at all." He turned quickly, and shut the door. Xelloss was already in the hallway, looking extremely smug.
    "How did the meeting go?"
    "Just leave me alone, you treacherous little son-of-a-bitch..." Val kept walking right past Xelloss.
    "Are you referring to Zelas-sama in wolf form, or human?" Val shut the door to the stairs behind him, preferring to walk down ten flights of stairs than stay there and wait for an elevator. It was going to be a long two weeks...