NOTICE: Due to getting published, chapters 27 onwards of A New Era have been removed from Wattpad. This is because of copyright reasons as well as Amazon guidelines.
"The Red Dragon?" Akira yelled above the noise, her voice questioning.
"Yup! It's as good as any place where they offering rooming for the night gets," Dominique yelled in reply as Akira peered cautiously into the interior, not sure what exactly she was seeing. "Ladies first," Dominique shouted over the noise as he waved his hand to the door. A grin appeared on his face at Akira's bewildered expression.
When she didn't react he placed a hand on the small of her back and pushed her forward, sending her stumbling into the room as she clutched her bundle of clothes to her chest as though it was her lifeline. Akira dimly noticed Dominique follow, closing the door behind him. She was too busy to gawking at the scene before her to do anything other than just stand there.
"Wait here. I'll go get a key to a room!" Akira dimly heard Dominique say behind her. It sounded like he had whispered and yet Akira was sure that he had shouted it. It wasn't that Akira would have been able to move anyway if she had wanted to, she was too mesmerized by the view before her.
Dominique has pushed her into what looked like a good sized room. Lights flashed, lighting it up in a different color every second and then suddenly all the colors would flash at once before it went back to just being individual ones. Akira's mind buzzed, not able to grasp how the changing colors were happening, when she raised her eyes to see the swinging objects that seemed to be each emitting a different color, she could only gawk.
She let her gaze sweep over the rest of the room, taking in the comfortable looking chairs that were placed to either side around tables, which were occupied but what looked like mainly teenagers or young adults. All of them were chatting or laughing, their voices colliding and causing a loud buzz, as they sipped on drinks that people with trays seemed to be handing out. Yet they were not the main source of the noise.
Akira's eye drifted to the back of the room where in the middle there was what looked like a large wooden table upon which five people stood. One of the people, a teen aged girl, wearing a shockingly revealing dress which Akira wouldn't be caught dead in, stood in the middle, holding something in her hand while her eyes were closed. The other four, all teenaged boys, were playing different instruments. Akira recognized a wooden music pipe and drums, that looked something different from the ones she was used to, yet the other instruments were foreign to her, and she was sure that by what they looked like they weren't all made of wood.
It was from this group that the most noise was coming from. They were playing their instruments as loud as possible, blasting, what sounded more like senseless noise to Akira, through the room, the drums adding a beat that seemed to control Akira's heartbeat. In the middle of the floor stood a crowd of people, all seeming to be moving senselessly about, making Akira wonder for a moment if they were mad. It was only after a moment of observing them that Akira realized they were moving to the beat, dancing to the rhythm of the music.
And then the girl on stage stepped forward and raised of the object in her hand to her mouth before she began to sing. Akira furrowed her eyebrows as the girl changed so fast from one note to the next that Akira's head began to ring. She could not even understand the words of the girl's song, finding that she was going too fast, and she wondered why the girl was singing in the tone that she was, in a voice that sounded fake, when Akira was sure that she had a lovely sweet voice.
Feeling a pounding headache come on she pressed the palm of her hand against her forehead, yet her eyes did not leave the scene before her, too mesmerized to do so. Dimly she heard the door behind her open.
"Excuse me," someone pushed past her. Akira didn't move, her eyes following the teenaged girl that walked a couple of paces, and then paused before her face suddenly lit up and she waved at a group sitting at one of the tables. She slid into an empty seat and her chatter joined in with the noise. Akira stared after her, her eyes on the pink stripes in the girl's blond hair.
Someone grabbed her arm and Akira blinked, turning to find Dominique holding her. His mouth opened as he seemed to say something, yet Akira only saw his mouth move. She stared blankly at him, wondering what he was saying. Dominique just shook his head and jabbed his finger to the right and Akira followed its direction to see a staircase. No sooner had she caught sight of it than Dominique put his hand in hers and pulled her along. Akira let him, letting him guide her through a crowd of people. She bumped into most of them ones she passed, apologizing each time although something told her that due to the noise they couldn't hear her.
Upon reaching the staircase Dominique lead her up it. Once at the top there was another door and as Dominique paused to open it Akira turned her head to see that she had an overview of the entire room below, and from here she could see just how crowded it was. Yet before she could speculate any further she was once again pulled along by Dominique.
He practically dragged her through the door before he let go of her hand and closed it again. No sooner was it so than the noise seemed to almost disappear altogether and Akira blinked, the sudden silence filled up by the buzzing in her ears.
"Is it always this loud?" Akira asked in a loud voice, she clapped her hand over her mouth as she realized that she had said that a lot louder than intended, the noise from before having made her judgment, of how loud she needed to speak for Dominique to hear her, lapse.
Dominique chuckled, shaking his head in amusement before he replied, "Only at night, usually it calms down some time before dawn."
Akira's mouth dropped. Back at the academy everyone went to bed before midnight if possible, they had so much work and training to do, especially with Haiden's forces still about. Sleep was a time no one wanted to miss, going to bed early so that one could get up earlier was routine, it was the way of life, why would anyone want to stay up most of the night if they didn't have the duty of night watch.
Realizing that Dominique seemed to have disappeared Akira whirled around to find that she was standing in a corridor. She spotted Dominique standing some way down the corridor before a door and slipping a flat metal card into a slot in the wall. The door before him swung open and Dominique turned to look at Akira.
"You coming?" he asked her.
Tightening her grip on the bundle she still held Akira padded down the hallway. When she had almost reached Dominique he disappeared through the open door. Not slowing down her pace Akira kept it up until she reached the door that stood open. She peered in before following Dominique.
Akira blinked as she found herself in a dimly lit room. It was not large, no larger than five paces one way and seven the other, and yet it was more spacey that the room she or any of the others had at the academy. Her eyes wondered around to find two hammocks, one on each end of the room, suspended from a wooden bulk that formed part of the ceiling. In each hammock was a blanket and what looked like a pillow. Akira had seen a hammock before. Though at the academy they had beds they took hammocks along for occasional trips, when they could afford the space in their packs for such a luxury.
As her eyes roamed to the space between the two hammocks Akira's breath caught. There stood a plain wooden chest with no more than four drawers, two on either side. It was not the actual chest but what it reminded her of that had Akira stare at it the way she did. Slowly she walked over to it, running her hands along the top as she remembered the small chest that a village had made for her not long after she had defeated Haiden, as a way of expressing their thanks. It was a chest, about the same size as the one she was currently staring at, yet her own chest had skillful carvings all over it, carvings of a dragon, a sword and a woman, the pictures repeated over and over again in the wood.
Akira let out a sigh as she realized that she was missing it. She smiled as she thought of what Redemption would say if he knew that she was currently missing a chest. He would probably go on about how insulting it was that his rider cared more about a chest than him. Her heart ached at the thought of her dragon. If only he were here now......
"Want to go down?" Dominique asked.
Akira turned to find that he had placed his bundle on top of his hammock as was now standing beside the still open door, his back leaning against the wall as his green eyes watched her from beneath a strand of his hair.
"Why do you want to go down?" Akira asked, wondering why on earth Dominique wanted to go back to that noise filled place.
"Because," Dominique smiled a crocked smile, "The party is down there," he jabbed his finger downwards, "And I," he jabbed the finger at himself, "Have not had a good party in ages."
"You call that a party?" Akira asked, remembering the noise below, the loud music and the seemingly senseless way people were moving.
"Food, people, drinks, music, dancing," Dominique counted them off on his fingers, "Flashing lights. Yup, I'd say they're all present downstairs, so, it's a party!" he grinned.
"You call that music?" Akira asked her forehead wrinkled.
"Yeah," Dominique nodded, "Why?
"Sounds more like senseless shouting."
"Ha!" Dominique replied. "That's some of the best music down there, trust me. Once you get used to it you'll love it."
Akira let out a snort.
"Come on," Dominique encouraged.
Akira gave him a skeptic look.
"Just for a bit, if you don't like it after a while you can come back up," Dominique told her. Akira shot a reluctant look down at the bundle in her hands, wondering if she could just leave her sword here in this room.
"It'll be safe," Dominique assured her waving the metal card in the air. "There are no second keys and the windows are too small to break into. Come on Akira."
Akira opened her mouth to protest.
"Wait!" Dominique held up a finger to stop her, his eyes twinkling, "We haven't had supper yet," his face lit up at the thought of food.
"Not all of us have big stomachs like you do," Akira replied dryly. Just then her stomach growled loudly and Dominique grinned at her. Akira glared down at her stomach that had just betrayed her, in response it growled again.
"Oh what the flip," Akira muttered dumping her bundle onto the free hammock before walking towards the door. She shot Dominique a glare as she walked past him, "If I go deaf because of the noise down there they'll be hell to pay," she growled.
"I'll take that as a thank you for providing the lodging," Dominique grinned.
"You're beginning to sound like Redemption," Akira muttered.
Dominique followed her from the room, locking it with the metal disk, before he lead the way and walked enthusiastically back down the hallway. Akira followed, her steps showing signs of reluctance. Her ears were still ringing from before and she would rather just stay up here in the silence and sleep, yet her growling stomach told her otherwise.
As they reached the end of the hallway and Dominique reached for the door, Akira braced herself for what she knew was coming next. As soon as the door opened the noise hit her ears. Cringing Akira follower Dominique, who had not bothered to hesitate. He walked right through the door before he paused at the top of the stairs.
Akira watched him to see that he seemed to be scanning the area below for something. Whether he found whatever it was or not Akira wasn't sure, but Dominique started walking again, going down the stairs to the bottom, which seemed even more crowded than before. Akira hurried to follow, pushing past people who stood on the staircase, leaning on the edge and looking over at the people below while bobbing their heads to the current song, a loud, fast, jerky song that was threatening to give Akira another headache.
She saw Dominique disappear into the crowd below and hurried to follow. Yet when she reached the place that Dominique had been she found that she had lost sight of him. Akira looked around, trying to find him, yet the flashing lights and her turning were making her dizzy. She pushed herself into the crowd, only to find that it was so crowded that she was getting pushed into a direction and could do nothing about it. The next moment she found herself in the middle of a group of dancing teens that were wildly swinging their bodies to the rhythm of the song that was playing full blast.
Akira saw only people around her, nothing else, and she began to panic, the crowded space, the loud music, the flashing lights, it all suddenly made her feel claustrophobic. Akira stood ridged, feeling as though there was suddenly a lack of air. She drew in shallow gasps of air, the panic increasing. The room spun, dots danced in front of her eyes, and then someone grabbed her hand, holding it firmly as they pulled her out of the mass, pushing past people until Akira suddenly found herself free of the cluster and able to breathe again.
Grateful Akira turned to look at her rescuer only to meet the blue eyes of a tall guy with dirty blond hair. Something told Akira that she had seen him before, she knew him from somewhere.....
"Not used to large crowds, are you?" the guy asked in a deep voice.
Akira nodded mutely, somewhat surprised that she had heard him over the noise even though he had talked in his normal voice without shouting.
"Right," the guy went on, "Then a piece of advice. Next time you want to dance, stick to the edge, the middle is where it gets crowded."
"I wasn't danc...." Began to protest but she was cut off when someone called her name and suddenly Dominique appeared behind the guy who had rescued her from the crowd.
"There you are!" Dominique sounded relived, "For a moment there I thought I'd lost you."
"I..." yet before she could explain Akira was interrupted once again.
"Dominique what are you doing here?" her rescuer spoke.
"Quilus!" Dominique turned to face him a smile on his face, "Hah, and to think I didn't notice it was you! I didn't think you hung out at the Red Dragon."
"Dominique?" Quilus said prompting for an answer to his earlier question.
"I'm showing Akira the city life," Dominique smoothly said as he rested all his weight on his right foot. Quilus raised a hand to his ear to indicate that he hadn't heard him above the noise. Dominique nodded at an empty table nearby and Quilus nodded. They walked over to it, but not before Dominique grabbed Akira's hand and pulled her along. Once there they quickly slipped into the seats before someone else could.
"I said," Dominique spoke, leaning across the table slightly so that Quilus could hear, "That I'm showing Akira the city life."
Quilus cocked his head and raised an eyebrow, "From what I heard you already did that a good week ago."
Dominique shrugged, not bothered in the least and Akira had the feeling that he was used to thinking up answers on the spot. He proved her right when he spoke seconds later, "Yeah, but we only came for a day, had just enough time to check out the market areas. Besides, there's more to the city than just the streets."
"Huh," was Quilus' reply as he gave Dominique a look over, as though trying to figure out if he was telling the truth. "I just can't believe that Ray would let you come out here again, especially after all the arrests going on and the increased effort in finding....." he trailed off, seeming to realize that mentioning the Resistance in a public place wasn't a good idea. "Us," he finished off instead.
"Well, he trusts me," Dominique shrugged.
"He doesn't know, does he?" Quilus asked, though his voice already suggested that he knew the answer.
"Nope," Dominique sighed, at the same time he reached out a hand and snatched a drink from a tray that a woman was balancing on one hand as she walked by.
"When you go back he's going to be......" Quilus began.
"Furious," Dominique finished off. He took a gulp of the drink.
Quilus smiled, shaking his head. "Well, I won't say anything, I wouldn't want to be the messenger that gets killed," he joked.
"Thanks dude," Dominique said as he shook Quilus' hand in a way Akira had never seen before. "I owe you," he continued.
"Big time," Quilus agreed with a smile. "So, why are you staying the night?" he suddenly asked.
"We moved to the next hideout," Dominique shrugged. "So to make it worth it we might stay an extra day or two here and just.....chill," he shot Akira a grin.
"The third hideout, huh?" Quilus murmured. "Any idea how long we're there for this time?"
Dominique shrugged, "The last two times we moved pretty much after a week, but somehow I have a feeling that Ray wants to stay a bit longer this time. Maybe two weeks, three weeks tops."
"Huh, I see," Quilus said. Akira felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise in warning and a shiver went down her spine. Shaking her head she brushed it off, she guessed that the flashing lights and the noise were getting to her. "Well, enjoy your time," Quilus told them, sounding sincere. "I've got to be on my way," he turned his gaze onto Akira as Dominique took another sip of his drink, "I'd advise you to not let Dominique drag you into every one of his crazy schemes."
Dominique choked on his drink and began to cough wildly while laughing in between. Akira turned to look at him to see that his face was red, but whether it was from the coughing or laughing Akira wasn't sure.
"Don't worry," Dominique gasped, "We're not here because of some crazy scheme of mine, which by the way, are nonexistent!"
"If you say so," Quilus shrugged as he got up. "See you around," he turned and walked, disappearing into the crowd.
Akira turned her head to glare at Dominique who seemed to have recovered from his cough but was still laughing.
"What is so funny?" she asked.
"I'm just wondering what he would say if he knew that it was ME getting dragged into YOUR scheme!" Dominique chuckled.
Akira raised an eyebrow as her eyes drifted to the mug Dominique was holding. "What are you drinking?" she asked suspiciously.
"I don't know," Dominique admitted as his eyes drifted to the mug and he lifted in somewhat and took a sniff. "Grape juice or something," he shrugged. As another lady with a tray walked past he reached out and grabbed her arm. "Um, excuse me," he shouted over the noise when he had gotten her attention, "Could you get me and my friend whatever is the special on the menu?"
The lady gave a curt nod before she continued on her way, heading to a door Akira had not noticed before. Through it men and woman with trays would constantly disappear with their trays either empty or full of dirt dishes, when they would come back out their tray would be full one again and as Akira caught sight of some food her stomach growled.
"Oh great," hearing Dominique Akira turned to see that he was trying to hide his face by propping up his head with a hand to the side of his face and his elbow on the table. Akira followed the direction in which his eyes darted to see a group of five teenagers seated around a table, three guys and two girls, one of which was waving crazily at Dominique.
Akira took in the blond strands in her hair and her mind flashed back to the girl that had come in the door behind her when they had arrived. She wasn't sure if it was the same girl or if there were more about with pink in their hair, either way, she wondered why Dominique was hiding his face as though trying to not attract attention to himself when the group had clearly already spotted him.
"Who are they?" Akira asked turning a questioning look at Dominique.
"No one," Dominique muttered, although Akira didn't hear him above the noise she easily read his lips as he said it.
Akira looked back to see that the girl with pink streaks said something to the others before she get up and began to make her way over towards them.
"It looks like she knows you," Akira said.
"Dominique!" the girl shouted as she approached the table.
Akira raised an eyebrow at Dominique.
Dominique just shot her a glare that told her not to say a thing. "Hey," he told the girl with the pink streaks as she came to stand at the table. "Savannah! Didn't see you there," he told her innocently.
The girl named Savannah gave him a doubting look before her dull brown eyes landed on Akira. "And who is this?" she asked, shouting a bit louder than she needed to be heard above the noise.
"Akira," Dominique spoke before Akira could answer, "Her name is Akira."
Akira raised her eyebrows at Dominique but didn't comment. She wondered if giving real names was a good idea, especially since they were with the Resistance.
"Dominique's girlfriend?" Savannah asked Akira.
Akira shook her head.
"Oh," Savannah shrugged, "And here I thought Dominique had finally settled for someone," she shook her head regretfully. Dominique glared at her but Savannah seemed not to notice. "Do you want to come sit with us?" she asked, nodding back to where the guys and the other girl sat.
Dominique squirmed somewhat as he glanced over at the guys, as if uncomfortable with something, "No thanks, I think..." he began, yet he never got to finish.
"Oh come on. It's been ages since you guys had that......disagreement," Savannah protested. "I'm sure every-things okay again."
Akira watched Dominique shoot another look over at the guys, she followed his gave to see that one of the guys was giving him a cold stare back while the others seemed to engrossed in a conversation to notice. The second girl in the mean time looked bored out of her mind, staring blankly at the dancers.
"Thanks, maybe some other time," Akira spoke, seeing that Dominique looked far from happy about going over there.
Savannah looked somewhat regretful. "Okay then. But I'm staying here a couple of days, so if you want to hang out," she smiled at Akira, "Just look around and I'm sure you'll find me."
"Thanks," Akira replied, a smile on her own lips. She felt a liking towards Savannah already and couldn't help but wonder who exactly she was.
"See you around," Savannah said before she turned and walked back to the table with the guys.
"Disagreement?" Akira looked at Dominique questioningly.
"Let's just say that we don't see eye to eye on some things and leave it at that," Dominique replied just as the lady with the tray re-appeared and put a plate full of meat and vegetables down in front of both Akira and Dominique. As the mouth watering smell hit her Akira's stomach growled once more, yet curiosity about the topic she had been discussing with Dominique won over.
"What things?" she asked.
"Let's just eat and then go to sleep," Dominique told her. "We have some planning to do tomorrow after all."
Seeing that she wasn't going to get out anything from him Akira left it at that and concentrated on eating. Besides, Dominique was right, they had some serious planning to do.