Incandescence

by Made_Of_Love

Summary:

After the events of Kingdom Hearts the worlds have returned.

Except yours....

For nineteen years you lived on an artificial world. But darkness has forced you from your home. Now you must go on an adventure to get your home back and learn the dark secrets behind its disappearance while trying to avoid appearing on the Organization's radar. And that's easier said than done when you keep finding yourself getting involved with a certain red-haired assassin.

Notes:

Okay first KH fic ever! I hope you enjoy. Bear with me now because the prologue is a little lengthy, but I promise it's all worth it for the story after!

 

WARNING: Mentions of death, child endangerment, child death, blood, and paranoia for this and the next part!

Chapter 1: Prologue Part 1 of 2

Notes:

First Kingdom Hearts fic EVER! Constructive criticism is welcome! Notes in the bottom for any references you may or may not understand! I hope this isn't too out there, but I'm gonna take a few risks! Check the notes at the ends of chapters for character and location references!

Twenty years ago, a world called Kelewenya fell to darkness.

~

Genki had a bit of spring in his step as he marched ahead of you. He was excited. But he’d always been excitable for as long as you’d known him. You were markedly less so. This task your mother had given you was nothing new. Deliver some baked goods from her bakery.

“Why are you so excited anyway?” you asked. It wasn’t like he’d never seen your uncle’s lab before. He smiled up at you with a row of perfectly straight, white teeth, his ocean blue eyes gleaming with mirth even as some of his pale blonde hair fell into them. Sometimes you forgot how beautiful your best friend was even with the long, jagged scar running from the end of his eyebrow across his face to his chin.

“I rarely get to go see your uncle’s lab! I wanna see what he’s made! Or is gonna make!” You rolled your eyes. The novelty of having an inventor for an uncle wore off at about age ten. It was still neat, but you weren’t nearly as excited as Genki.

As the two of you walked you passed a large bronze statue of Ansem the Wise. It shone brightly, reflecting the glow of the bright blue screens you called the sky.

“What do you think he was like?” Genki asked as he eyed the statue. It stood regally with a bronze cape appearing to billow behind him. He looked akin to a superhero – nothing less than what he was revered as. Savior of the people of Kelewenya. You’d never met him. Only his assistant – a short, yet brilliant scientist you’d had the honor of calling, Pops.

“I’m not sure,” you mused, “If he’s anything like Pops, he’s scatter-brained and unorganized.” Genki wrinkled his nose, skeptical.

“What’s that look for?” you laughed, “I can’t see anyone working with Pops without those behaviors. He’d drive them crazy otherwise.”

“The guy designed and built a planet for the entire population of Kelewenya to live on when it imploded. I’m not sure he’s as unorganized as you make him out to be.” You just shrugged. How anyone functioned with your scientist of a pseudo-uncle was beyond you, but to have helped in the creation of an artificial planet must mean that he couldn’t have been all that jumbled in the head.

You put the thought from your mind. He was the last stop of the day on your list of deliveries, and then you were free to enjoy the rest of your afternoon as you pleased. You had yet to plan out your summer vacation with Genki, and with all the stress from the last of your final exams from the previous day, you were ready to fall into the ease of stupid college age fun without the college.

The streets and sidewalks were a bit crowded that day. It wouldn’t be strange to run into anyone as you walked. And when it did happen, like any normal person, you (or they) would just say, “Excuse me,” and move on. You probably would have barely noticed if when you ran into someone they said nothing or didn’t acknowledge your apology. It was crowded after all. But this time it was different. This person had been covered head to toe in a black robe. Their very presence mildly gave you the willies, and when they bumped into you rather roughly, you turned to tell them, “Watch it!” But they were gone. Just as quickly as they’d come. Genki just told you to get over it. And, yeah, that made sense. But still… They could have at least said, “Excuse me.”

You approached the lab minutes later, the strange encounter far away in your mind, entering a medium sized home and walking down the stairs into the expansive basement which led to white pristine walls that were reminiscent of a hospital. Further down the walls turned to brick and piping where it led to more industrial sized means of operation. You didn’t know the specifics of the works other than that it eventually led down to an industrial core where Spaceship Earth’s inner workings lay – water flow and irrigation, air filtration, and the mechanical works of the train and monorail systems that allowed the many cities to function in daily life. You passed numerous doors until you arrived at the one you had been searching for. Twelve doors down to the left across from the forensics lab.

                You gave three steady knocks on the heavy wooden door adorned with a gold-plated plaque that read, “Professor Ludwig von Drake,” and listened to the shuffle of papers and the calls of “One moment, one moment!” as a pair of webbed feet steadily padded over to the door. The door swung open to reveal a duck in a lab coat and sweater vest, spectacles in one hand and handkerchief rubbing idly at one of the lenses in the other. The gray hair atop his balding head was pointed in every direction and he blinked up at you annoyedly until he realized who you were.

“_________! You must be here to bring me my dinner. I wouldn’t be expecting you otherwise since you never visit.” You smiled brightly and a little guiltily, always happy to see your uncle and knowing full well you should visit more often than you do and held out the box of sweets to him.

“Mom says muffins aren’t an actual meal and to come over for dinner later,” you stated as you moved past him into his workspace, “And you can visit me at my next ballet recital since you miss me so much.”

“You know I don’t leave here,” he grumbled. You just rolled your eyes. He never left his home, and you assumed it had something to do with his appearance – like something out of television made real.

You leaned on the large mahogany desk that was covered in papers and blueprints, formulas and even a small model of a building and vehicle prototype he was working on. Pinned on a corkboard was the blueprint of your city. Well all the cities technically, being that they’d all been designed using the exact same blueprint. In large white lettering above the drawing, it read Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Next to it sat a blueprint for the World Showcase which housed the remains of cultures of a planet 20 years dead. Hanging off the end of the board, pinned by a large thumbtack was the blueprint of the whole of Spaceship Earth – a geodesic dome adorned with indestructible boron nitrate panels. You could recite this by heart as it was a random high school fact equivalent of the mitochondria being the powerhouse of the cell. Though what it boiled down to in your head was, “It looks like a giant golf ball.”

Genki excitedly eyed the different pinned up blueprints, models, and stacks upon stacks of math and equations all written over each other in a chaotic language – that your uncle swore up and down was English – only the truly gifted could understand before he spied a picture of Ansem the Wise standing next to Ludwig and a rather jolly looking man with a bushy beard holding a little purple dragon. They stood side by side, Ludwig holding a champagne bottle and Ansem holding a shovel. All three were smiling broadly, heads adorned with construction helmets.

“Who’s that?” Genki questioned.

“Oh, that’s an old family friend and a brilliant scientist,” Ludwig supplied, “He was one of Ansem’s assistants alongside myself who helped with the creation of Spaceship Earth.”

“Another one?”

“Yes, unfortunately, went missing some odd years ago, shortly after Ansem left.”

“And the dragon?”

“That’s a creation of his. The literal embodiment of the creative mind that serves as a bridge between the human psyche and reality. He’s also my lab assistant, and a lazy one at that. I asked him 20 minutes ago to find my wallet for when you arrived. ‘No more skipping out on my niece’s tips,’ I said but he’s taking his sweet time finding it. So, I’m sorry I won’t be able to tip you this time, but I just can’t find my wallet.”

As if on cue, his wallet fell out of his lab coat sleeve.

“Well now how did that get there?” he chuckled out nervously. You gave him a dry look – although you supposed you ought to be used to his antics by now. “Figment? Figment! Did you put my wallet in my sleeve again? You just can’t find good help these days,” he said as he took a few bills out of his wallet and handed them to you.

Figment then decided to pop into view in a small cloud of purple smoke from wherever he’d been before, standing no higher than your knee and wearing pajamas. He blinked blearily at Ludwig. He’d obviously been sleeping and enjoying his time far more dreaming than teleporting into the room for all of Ludwig’s loud and unnecessary demands. He perks up at the sight of you, and you give him a happy wave. Genki has a look of wonderment on his face, but, oddly enough, it’s directed at you and not either of the cartoons in the room.

“What?”

“You just take all of this in stride. Is there really nothing about this you find odd?” Genki asked lowly while Ludwig busied himself with clearing off his desk. Figment stood nearby sipping a cup of coffee.

You thought for a moment, then shrugged.

“I’ve known them all my life. It was more mind-blowing to find out what ducks from Kelewenya actually looked like or that dragons were supposed to resemble ferocious beasts. But by then, this was normal for me.”

“Sorry. I was just led to believe that cartoon characters didn’t exist.”

“Maybe they’re experiments. I never really asked about it. I mean, I know Figment was created, but Pops… he just kind of exists as far as I know.” You turned your attention back to your uncle who had put some sort of contraption on the desk, aiming a light over an opening to see the tiny mechanisms inside before he called Figment over to act as a screwdriver. In another little cloud Figment transformed into a screwdriver. Genki gave you another questioning look as if to say, ‘You’re really not gonna question that?’ You just smiled and shrugged.

“So, he shapeshifts. That’s his thing.” Turning attention back to the scientist delicately fiddling with his creation you asked, “So, what’s new?”

“I think I’ve discovered a way make the monorails a bit more efficient using technology that will allow it to hover rather using a rail system.” You smiled broadly.

“That’s amazing!”

“Yes, I know I am, but unfortunately it’s a prototype. And that’s all it’ll ever be,” he grumbles, tossing it into a pile of several other prototypes.

“Why’s that?”

“The crew hired to handle these specific tasks are all gone. None of them made it to Spaceship Earth. Since both of my partners are gone, I’ve just thrown myself into my work for the past twenty years developing new technologies. Creating some, putting off others. Maybe one day I’ll see my work completed, but until then I’m content to do as I have been, managing and maintaining the upkeep of Spaceship Earth from behind the scenes.”

 Pops’ chest puffed out in obvious pride. He took pride in all his works, praise or no praise, but you felt he desperately craved it now more than ever. After all, Spaceship Earth and its many EPCOT cities had been his creation, but most of the credit had gone to Ansem. When you asked why he didn’t just come out and say that, he’d brush it off saying he didn’t need the credit or that it’s already quite a feat to think a man made a world, so imagine if everyone knew a duck had done it. You respected his wishes enough to let it go, but still….

“So, I’ll tell mom you’ll be seeing us at…?”

“The usual time,” he supplied. Which was at 8 o’ clock when the screens darkened from their evening blue to a night black. You texted your mother on your gummi phone – a gift from Pops that he said was more advanced than most other phones. And it was true. It took really good pictures. Though you had never needed it for more than just texting or calling.

“We should get going,” you said to Genki. He nodded. “I texted mom about when you’re gonna show up so don’t be late, Pops,” you called over your shoulder as you stepped out of the door.

“Yes, yes, I’ll be there. You just worry about visiting your poor, lonely uncle every now and again.”

“I will! I promise!”

You and Genki emerged just as the artificial sky was shifting through its blue gradients from a soft pastel to a darker midnight blue, so you knew it was about 6:30. By 8 ‘o clock it would be black.

“Well that sucks,” Genki muttered, “I was hoping we’d get a little fencing practice in….”

You wrinkled your nose at him. Not the first thing you wanted to do with your free time.

“Fencing? Really, Genki?”

“What? I don’t know how you don’t want to fence all the time. You literally have a magical sword you can summon whenever you want!” The two of you stopped walking. You shuffled from foot to foot, restless.

“I mean, we can do a quick patrol. Those things seem to be popping up more lately.” Genki nodded. You weren’t sure what the things were exactly – little creatures that moved unnaturally with sharp claws and beady yellow eyes that seemed intent on causing harm. You’d first encountered them when you were fifteen. That was four years ago. And that’s also when you got your sword, a blade in the shape of a key which had changed form once when you were sixteen into a blade you named Pathfinder. Since then you had been discretely vigilante-ing about town wherever they appeared. Genki fought alongside you, but he couldn’t permanently get rid of the beasts as you could. That didn’t stop your dynamic duo from kicking ass together for the last four years.

Mom didn’t know about your little secret. In fact, Genki was the only person you confided just about everything to when it came to your sword. It had been him who taught you how to fence and encouraged you take up the fight against monsters which had come from all but nowhere. It was strange because nothing could get into Spaceship Earth let alone one of the many EPCOTs without setting off some sort of notification that Ludwig would see. It had been you who figured out it had something to do with your sword. But what? You weren’t sure.

Genki brightened. He liked patrolling with you as much as he liked fencing with you.

It was on patrol, walking past some of the farmland that you spotted the hooded figure from before. He stood in the middle of a field still and silent. Unmoving. Unnerving. You stopped to watch him. Genki almost ran into you at your abrupt stop, and he turned his head to look at what you saw.

“Well that’s creepy,” he muttered lowly. It was quiet and felt quite loud to you who was next to him. You didn’t want to draw any attention to yourself. The figure didn’t seem to notice.

Then his head snapped in your direction. You heard Genki gasp, and you knew that you too had held your breath at the sudden movement.

The hairs on the back of your neck were standing up you just knew. This guy was trouble. You knew that even if you’d had no reason to. Genki gripped your arm tightly. You didn’t need to look at him to know he felt you should both be leaving.

That was when more of those monsters appeared between the figure and yourself. No less than fifteen or so. Your blade materialized in your hand immediately out of habit. You could feel the hidden eyes of the immobile figure trained on you, and you felt almost frozen when they didn’t leave. Then the creatures were upon you and you had no more time to focus on him as you had to get rid of the monsters surrounding you.

You hacked and slashed your way through them, feeling your breath come to you more slowly, your heart beating harder than normal. You’d never had to face so many at once. When the last one had been cut down you whirled around to face the figure whose gaze you swore you could still feel on you.

But there was no one. Nothing. Naught but you and your friend.

“We should go home,” you breathed, still winded from the fight.

Your walk home was quiet and felt longer than normal. You didn’t know what had just happened. You didn’t know who that was. You didn’t know why you still felt watched. You didn’t like this.

“Something doesn’t feel right,” Genki said finally, once the two of you were back in the city, a few blocks from your home. He was right. Something felt off. People were talking animatedly and moved restlessly. There were fewer children and cars out as if the world were turning in early. And the city seemed quieter. There was still the steady sound of traffic and shouting and music. But it felt muted like there was some other noise being played over it that pushed it into the background. And through it all you still felt watched.

You didn’t respond to Genki’s statement, only walked faster as if that were going to make it better. You knew it wouldn’t, but the thought of home and your mother were comforting to say the least. Genki matched your stride, not acknowledging your lack of response. Perhaps he was talking to himself. You weren’t sure. But you felt off. More than the city, something in the core of your mind – maybe your soul – felt unsettled and had steadily grown over the course of your walk since spotting the hooded figure in the field.

As your home came into view, you nearly broke into a sprint, flying through the door with Genki at your heels. Your home made you feel better. It was familiar. It was safe. You were safe. Your breath calmed, and Genki appeared to visibly relax. You almost laughed. You felt ridiculous even when you knew that whatever danger you had faced near the farms had been real. But now it seemed so far away.

You walked into the kitchen where your mom was humming and stirring a pot of what looked like a pasta sauce. You leaned on the kitchen island and Genki took a seat in one of the barstools.

“There you two are,” she said with a warm smile on her face, “How long does it take to make a delivery? I expected you back ages ago.”

“We stopped to talk for a while then went on a little walk around town.” You left out the part about your little encounter in the fields, and you honestly didn’t want to think about it anymore. You suppressed a shudder that tried to run up your spine, and Genki shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“Hmm well I’m sure Ludwig enjoyed your visit. You said he’d over by eight?”

“Yes, he’ll be here soon enough.”

“Genki, dear, what’ve you got planned for the summer?”

“Well, _______, and I haven’t planned anything out long term yet. But there’s a party across town later we’re gonna hit up.” His voice was a little breathy and tired from the run the two of you just had, but he maintained what appeared to be normalcy in front of your mother. No need to let her know of the strange encounter or that you or Genki felt like something in the world just didn’t quite fit.

“Well that sounds fun,” she chirped, completely unaware of the unease the two of you felt, “Home by midnight, ________.” You rolled your eyes, feeling some more normalcy creep back into the atmosphere. You began to shake off the negative feelings.

“I know, mom, I know.” You smiled despite yourself. This was nice. Hooded figures be damned, you were going to enjoy the rest of your evening and kick his ass tomorrow.

Then the ground shook. It started as a deep rumbling, a vibration so low you wouldn’t have heard it over most noises and wouldn’t have noticed it were it not for the sway of the hanging lights in the kitchen ceiling. But the rumble grew into a tremor, the low vibration turning into something more of a pained groan and creaking, grinding metal. The tremor turned into a quake that shook your home and made pictures fall from the walls.

Then it stilled with a sudden and jarring stop.

“That felt like an earthquake,” your mom breathed, “But… that wouldn’t make sense. The world is artificial. There are no tectonic plates to cause earthquakes.”

What followed was a long and eerie silence where it felt as if the whole of the world had ceased to move and was holding its breath. Waiting.

Then you heard the screams and the sirens. You all ran outside. Multiple people were rushing out of their homes or were already outside. You looked around, trying to gauge the situation when you noticed the upturned gazes of your neighbors, eyes wide and mouths agape. You looked up.

The screens were messed up. The sky had flipped back to day in some places and night in the others. Some parts of the screens of the skybox showed static and others had error messages popping up. Then the tremors started again. A low sound, almost like a growl that grew into sharp loud snaps that ripped through the air as you watched deep veins of black stretch across the screens where cracks had formed. It was a terrifying sight to behold, but it was not nearly as awful as when you watched large panes of glass begin to fall. The first hit the ground a good distance from your neighborhood, but you still felt the resulting shake of the ground and heard it shattering into millions of deadly shards that no doubt flew about like shrapnel, hitting those it did not crush.

Your hands went to your mouth as if trying to hold back your scream, but it came out just the same, muffled and shrill. You looked to Genki and your mother. His eyes locked with yours in a panicked stare. Your mother’s eyes were still locked on the falling sky.

Notes:

I hope you enjoyed this first part of the prologue! Don't worry though! It ain't over yet! We got lots more horror to cover!

Obscure-ish References:

Ludwig Von Drake - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Von_Drake
Figment- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figment_(Disney)
Spaceship Earth- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceship_Earth_(Epcot)
Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow (Concept)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPCOT_(concept)

Chapter 2: Prologue Part 2 of 2

Summary:

You must escape your planet before it's completely destroyed.

Notes:

Part two of the prologue! Enjoy!

WARNING: mentions of death, blood, child endangerment, child death, and paranoia!

“_________! ________!” You could hardly hear your name being called over the screams of the people as they scrambled to find shelter, some running back into their homes and others jumping in their cars and speeding off towards a city that seemed bathed in an odd glow. Fire, you realized, had sprouted up in spots in the distance, thin tendrils of billowing smoke clotting the sky.

The voice that had been calling you was that of Ludwig von Drake. He was running towards you at a frantic speed with Figment hot on his trail.

“We need to go! We need to go right now!” he yelled at you.

“Huh?” was all you managed.

“Look!” a woman screeched. Your eyes turned upward again as in the large black holes left by fallen screens appeared hundreds of thousands of millions of tiny lights. You would’ve been confused were it not for the fact that you recognized them. Millions of tiny little eyes on little pitch-black bodies that writhed out of the cracks in the sky and fell upon the people below.

A sharp yank on your arm recaptured your attention. Your eyes landed on your mother’s who was mouthing at you that you needed to go. No. She was shouting. Had to be. But everything was more muffled than before. Everything so muted and moving in slow motion. Your breathing was shallow, and you thought for a moment that you might pass out.

Genki’s voice cut through the haze.

“Move!” He gave you a rough shove, and you and your mother, Ludwig, Figment, and Genki broke out into a sprint to your mother’s car. Next thing you knew, you were all speeding away from…. From what? The sky?

“We need to get back to my lab,” Ludwig instructed as your mother swerved around pedestrians who ran frantically in the street, only narrowly missing them.

“My family,” Genki all but whispered.

“I’m not sure-,” your mother began cautiously, eyeing Genki via the rearview mirror. Even before she could finish that sentence, you knew how she was going to end it. Genki knew it too. You knew she might be right in thinking that you wouldn’t be able to find them and still make it to Pops’ lab. But he couldn’t leave them behind. He jumped from the car, tucking himself into a tight ball to take minimal damage. Your mom slammed on the breaks and you slammed on the seat in front of you, hearing her roughly hit the steering wheel. Both Ludwig and Figment crashed into the windshield and, were it not for the fact that they were cartoons, you’d have been more worried for their wellbeing. But all you could focus on was Genki’s unmoving form. You jumped out of the car yourself despite your head pounding from the hit when you took when your mom braked. You ran as best you could towards him, hearing your mother call after you. You let out a frantic, hysterical, breathy laugh when he began to move as you approached him.

“Genki! I’m coming!” you called. He managed to get up to his feet, but he was holding his arm and one of his eyes was closed. He had big, nasty scrapes over both. Frankly, he was lucky he hadn’t died in the chaos. A car could have just as easily run over him. Or he could have been trampled by the stampeding hordes of people or crushed beneath the falling glass.

“I have to find them,” Genki called to you, limping off in the opposite direction.

The tremors beneath your feet had not stopped since you ran outside but they were steadily growing now. Running became a hassle as the ground recoiled and rocked beneath you. Your sense of gravity and balance were lost, and you stumbled to your knees more than once. And he was almost within reaching distance.

Then he was sinking. Rapidly. No falling.

You didn’t think. Didn’t have time. You jumped after him, grabbing on to his arm with both of your hands in a death grip, tumbling into the blackened abyss below with him, his terrified, tear-filled gaze looking up at your own. Then your foot caught something. No, someone caught you.

“_______!” your mother’s voice called, strained as the ground dug into her middle almost enough to break the skin and tear at her clothes as half of her body dangled over the abyss with you. She had jumped after you and had barely managed to catch you. Ludwig and Figment had her legs in their grasp, struggling to pull her up. But you couldn’t focus on her. Genki’s hand was slipping from yours. You were crying and sobbing desperately as you clung to his hand, his nails digging into your wrists, dragging cuts down them as he slipped.

“No! No! No! Please no!” you cried, feeling him slip through your fingers. You watched him tumble into the darkness below, the look of horror on his face firmly etched into your mind. You felt your mom’s grip tighten on your leg as, with a primal yell, she yanked you and herself back over the ledge and onto solid ground. Your body felt heavy as you thumped onto the hard concrete and asphalt, moving felt like trying to push against a thick molasses that slowed your movements to a crawl. But you had no time to fumble through exhaustion and shock. Your mother was pulling you along, already on her feet, and shoving you back into the car and speeding down the road again and into the city where fire seemed to swallow up most every building. Corpses littered the ground along with shattered glass. There was so much blood. All you could hear were screams.

A mother screaming and clinging to a child that hung limply in her arms, its eyes blank and empty. The bloody, pulpy remains of a face crushed between glass and asphalt. A woman gurgling out blood between her lips, reaching limply towards anyone for help with twitching, broken fingers. A man shrouded in a black aura warping into one of the many creatures you’d faced over the years. Were… Were they who you’d been fighting all this time?

“What’s happening?” you finally asked, desperate to hear something, anything, even your own voice, anything but the sounds of screaming and your world collapsing around you.

“The darkness,” Ludwig murmured, “It’s happening again.”

“Darkness?” your mother questioned. “The same darkness that took Kelewenya when it fell?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Why? Why is it happening?”

“I don’t know,” Ludwig answered honestly, though it looked like it pained him to not have some sort of solution.

“Where will we go?”

“I have a ship. One I used in order to come here all those years ago. We can use it to escape.”

“What about everyone else?” you asked. It was a stupid question. You knew the answer to it as well as everyone else did. Just as well, neither of them answered it. Silence fell over the car except for the sound of the tires swerving to miss people lying in the street and other cars mangled into heaps of metal where they had collided, only distinguishable by color where one car ended and the other began. A few times your mother drove on the sidewalks to avoid colliding with them. She drove over bodies. Most dead, some dying.

A gasp left your lips before a cry of warning.

“Look out!” Your mother slammed on her breaks again as large chunk of concrete and steel landed just in front of the car with a damn near deafening crash, blocking your path but leaving enough space for your bodies to be able to squeeze by. You were flung against the seat again, but, thankfully, you had braced yourself this time. It appeared that everyone else had too.

You’d have to continue this journey on foot. You all scrambled out of the car and started running towards the lab, keeping your heads low, shirts pulled up over your mouths and noses to avoid inhaling too much smoke and debris, eyes squinting against the clouds of dust and plumes of thick, black smoke that seemed to choke the light out of the air. Though most of the light came from the flames now as the electricity struggled to continue and most of the sky had either fallen or turned off into a black pane that reflected the chaos below.

As the four of you approached the lab, more of the monsters that had continued to fall from the sky blocked your path, at least seven or eight. You had been lucky up to this point. It seemed that their main point of entry had been where you saw the first pane of glass fall. It meant that they were few everywhere else, but it seemed that they had gained some ground since then. Your mother took a step back, standing in front of you to shield you.

You summoned your weapon, dashing in front of your mother to cut your enemies down. You took a few hits, your balance consistently leaving you as the ground continued to rock back and forth, jutting up and all but disappearing beneath your feet. But you dispatched them.

“Let’s go!” you ordered as your mother looked at you in confusion and mild fear. Ludwig looked shocked to say the least as the four of you continued to run, the lab just a few blocks away now. The blocks seemed to stretch on before you. You felt like you wouldn’t reach the lab in time. Something was going to happen. You or your mother or your uncle or Figment would be crushed by falling glass or blown away by exploding cars or buildings or burn to death in the flames that raced across the terrain or fall into the belly of the planet when the ground gave way beneath you as it had with Genki. Yet despite all your fears and that most of your concentration lay on staying alive, you had this tiny nagging feeling that set itself at the forefront of your mind.

You were being watched.

You whipped your head this way and that to see who could possibly focus on you and you alone in the myriad of bodies that surrounded you running or otherwise when it was so hard for you to even focus on running to keep yourself alive. But there was no one. No one that you could see.

You finally made it after what felt like an eternity when pushing through the remains of your world all the while feeling like some unknown presence was bearing down on you. It was dark inside. You could barely see anything except for what had a faint glow cast on it from the light of the fires outside. Figment, thinking quickly, shapeshifted into a flashlight and Ludwig grabbed it with trembling hands, leading you down to the basement where all was quiet except for the sounds of crashing and explosions on the surface.

Your breathing was shaky as you descended the steps into the hallways below. You were briefly reminded of a memory of when you were six and your mother had taken you down here to visit Pops. You thought the quiet, empty halls were creepy then when all you could hear were footsteps echoing in the space around you and your own breathing. You kept glancing over your shoulder, sure that the echoes of your own feet were some unknown presence like a boogeyman that was coming up behind you to take you away and… And what? You didn’t know. And not knowing was much scarier.

You felt that way now. Only now, shrouded in darkness, it was much worse. And you knew someone just might be there, but you couldn’t see them. You were shaking as you tried to tell yourself that it was just your mind playing tricks on you. But you weren’t so sure.

The hallway seemed to stretch endlessly as you all had to slow your speed from a run to a brisk walk. As you reached where the hallway turned to brick and piping it became more hazardous as some pipes hung lower than others, and none of you would have much hope of escape if you were unconscious from running headfirst into a steel pipe. But the hallway did eventually end, and it gave way to a metal hallway. Ludwig pulled a switch and a few dim emergency lights switched on and a generator putted to life somewhere.

“This way,” he instructed as he continued to lead you down the ever twisting and turning halls with their phantom footsteps ever echoing behind you. After a few minutes of walking, the lights flickered, and the generator went out and the lights with it. No doubt the world above was as dark and haunting as it was here. No wait. They had fires to light their way. Well that was morbid.

“I think I’m going to lose my mind,” you though hopelessly.

“________,” your mother began, her voice causing you to jump, “What was that? You fought those monsters. Where did you learn that? Where did you get that sword?”

“That was no ordinary sword,” Ludwig said before you could answer. He looked over his shoulder at you, his eyes as grave as his voice, not that you could see it very well in what little lighting Figment was able to provide. “That was a keyblade.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll be able to explain better when we’re on the ship.”

“Where are we going to go?” you asked helplessly. Space exploration was not a large venture on Spaceship Earth, and from what you learned in your history classes, it was not the primary focus of science on Kelewenya either.

“Another world. Far from here. We need to speak to Ansem. Or the King, if we can’t find Ansem.”

“Ansem? You know where he is?” you inquired. It seemed so surreal that he was alive when he had not even been on this world anymore as far as you knew. You thought he was on some sort of space station or something exploring the cosmos never to be seen again.

“No. I know where he might be.”

You passed through a room that opened into a large hangar. At the end of the walkway sat the ship. It was sleek and smooth, white in color, covered in dust and cobwebs. The material was something you didn’t recognize as it seemed out of place in this world. Not as much as Ludwig or Figment, but “not from here” was the best phrase for it. In fact… the material looked not unlike that of what your gummi phone was made of.

You all stopped at the side door which Ludwig was punching in the code to open. Was it weird to feel, not relaxed, but sluggish now? Like your body knew it could collapse soon and was preparing you to do it as efficiently as possible. Then you heard the echo of footsteps again and every hair on your body stood on end. You whipped around to face more darkness. Your body was shaking again, and you willed yourself to stop. The footsteps were gone as soon as you managed to calm your body enough to a weak shiver. Though your heart continued to beat loudly in your ears, thumping against your chest at a speed you were sure might kill you if it got any faster.

You couldn’t get into the ship fast enough. Ludwig turned on the lights and you each picked a seat and buckled up. Figment sat in your lap.

Ludwig started the ship’s engine and turned on the headlights.

Standing in front of the ship was a tall figure wearing a black robe. His hood was down this time. He stared at you with heated amber eyes that contrasted sharply against the icy blue hair that framed his face. In the center of his face was a scar in the shape of an x, and you were briefly reminded of Genki.

“Who’s that?” Ludwig asked. But you were freaking out. Never mind that his face wasn’t some grotesque monster or faceless being beneath that hood. You were scared, and you didn’t like the way he was looking at you.

Just you.

“Go! Go! Go!” You all but screamed. Ludwig floored it. The ship shot forward but not before the figure disappeared in a haze of black that was anything but natural. You were pressed back against the back of your seat by the force of going at such a speed. Figment held tightly to your middle and you held back.

The next few minutes were a haze that gave you horrible motion sickness and dizziness as Ludwig maneuvered the ship through the sky, shaking off any of the little shadow monsters that managed to hit the wings and avoiding any falling glass. It’s over quick though. The ship shot through a crack in the sky and then you were surrounded by space. Endless black night and stars blurred past you. You couldn’t look back. You didn’t want to know what it looked like. You didn’t want to watch your world collapse.

It was silent for a moment. Then you heard the whimpers of your mother as she held back her sobs, a hand covering her mouth to muffle the sound.

You take a deep, shuddering breath and realize that you’re crying too.

Notes:

So I guess we DO know the mysterious hooded figure.

You'll see another member of the Organization next chap! And you get to watch a natural phenomena totally new to you!

Chapter 3: Somewhere Far Away

Summary:

You meet the Hollow Bastion gang, but it's the mysterious red head that really captures your attention.

Notes:

Here's the next chapter! Things have calmed down for you so to speak. But things are still hectic.

                You were shaking. And sniffling. And you couldn’t see anything because you couldn’t stop crying. Why can’t you stop crying? You cried loudly, all but wailing. Your mother had stopped crying about ten minutes ago, but you were inconsolable. No one tried to console you. What could they possible say to you? What could they do? Figment just continued to sit in your lap, blinking up at you sadly. No one said anything, and eventually your wails quieted to sobs which weakened to whimpers which subsided into weak sniffles. Then there was a horrible deafening silence.

                “We need to go to Radiant Garden,” your uncle said finally after what felt like ages of silence. No one responded. “We might find some help there. Maybe some answers. Like how the heartless got to Spaceship Earth.”

                “Heartless?” you asked quietly, voice barely above a whisper.

                “Maybe Ansem has something in his journals about this. Something that will tell me what’s going on.” Ludwig either didn’t hear you or didn’t care to. He was frantic, hands trembling as he worked the controls for the ship.

                “Journals?”

                “I thought it was over. Spaceship Earth shouldn’t have been able to fall. Maybe we’d have had more time if there were signs.”

Signs?

                “You knew?!” This time your voice was not a whisper. This time you would not be ignored. “You knew this could happen?”

                “Not like this!” he snapped back. He was angry and frustrated. “This can happen to any world at any time, but there are signs! Warnings! Heartless!”

                “What are heartless?”

                “Those little monsters that look like shadows! But I can’t focus on that now! We need to find Ansem. Find out what happened to Kelewenya.”

                “We know what happened to Kelewenya,” your mother said slowly, but, like you, knew there was more to what Ludwig had said.

                “No. There’s more to the story now than just that….” He sighed defeatedly, slumped forward in his seat. “There were multiple worlds that fell to darkness. More than I could possibly count. Some with friends I’d made throughout the years. Some where there was family. But, for reasons I can’t explain, they came back. It was miraculous, and I immediately sent out a probe to scout for the location of Kelewenya. But there was nothing. It didn’t come back, and I didn’t know why. I tried to contact Ansem but could not get a hold of him.”

                “Why would Ansem know about why it didn’t come back? Why shouldn’t Spaceship Earth have been able to fall? And where exactly is Radiant Garden?” you asked rapidly, growing only more frustrated with every question that popped into your mind.

                “Radiant Garden is another world.”

                “Like another planet? Like there’s life on other planets type shit?”

                “________!” your mother snapped, oddly enough appalled by your language.

                “What?!” you snapped back. She blinked back at you in surprise. She had never known you for your level-headedness but rather your restless energy, but for you to snap at her for anything was a rare occurrence. “Where the fuck are we going? What the fuck is going on anymore? A-am I just supposed to take all this in stride? My home is gone! This is bullshit! And now Pops is telling me there’s another planet somewhere in the great beyond with a man who all but abandoned us and who just happens to have all the answers?”

                “________,” Ludwig chided in a voice that was too calm for your liking even when you knew he was only trying not to piss you off further, “I’ll tell you everything I can, but I need you to understand that there’s a lot you don’t know about the way the world works.” You hated the way he spoke to you. Like a child. Though it wasn’t like you weren’t throwing your emotions around like one.

“You asked me what the other world was. Now while there may be life on other planets, that isn’t what I’m referring to. What I’m talking about is the existence of multiple universes. Radiant Garden is one such town that exists on one of these alternate worlds. And that, hopefully, is where we’ll find Ansem.”

                “So… Ansem’s not even from our universe?!”

                “That’s correct. He is not, and neither am I.”

                “And what about heartless? I know you said it wasn’t important, but I’ve been fighting them for years. And I want to know more about them.”

                “You what?” your mother all but hissed at you. She was angrier than you could ever possibly right now. And despite your previous boldness towards her, you squirmed nervously under her gaze. “You’ve been deliberately putting yourself in danger for what was apparently years fighting those- those things?”

                “I… yes,” you were looking down to where Figment sat in your lap still. Even he looked at you like that was a stupid thing to do. You looked to Ludwig, but his gaze, while not as harsh, was not happy with you either. You huffed. “I was helping people.”

                It was a weak defense, you knew, but what could they say to that?

                “Why didn’t you tell me?” your mother worried. “You could’ve gotten yourself hurt or worse! ________, didn’t you see what they were doing to people?! They killed them! Turned them into more of them!”

                “That’s even more reason to fight them! I could’ve just let them do that to people and maybe we’d have been in this situation sooner rather than later! If I had told you, you would have made me stop.”

                “You’re damn right I would have stopped you! You’re my daughter, and it’s my job to keep you safe and out of danger! But that’s not the point!” she shouted.

                “Actually, she may have a point,” Ludwig interjected, but he quickly shrank back when your mom sent him a glare.

                “My daughter isn’t a superhero! She’s a nineteen-year-old girl who is in way over her head!” She directed that last part at you, and you flinched.

                “Well, regardless of her stupid decision to keep it hidden, we now know she has a keyblade,” Ludwig continued, reaching for his glasses and cleaning them absent-mindedly.

                “What’s a keyblade?” you asked quickly staring intently around the ship and desperately wishing your mother would stop giving you her angry-mom look.

                “Well from what little I know about them,” Ludwig started, “They’re the only efficient way to combat heartless. When they’re attacked by any other means, they just regenerate elsewhere.”

                “That’s all you know?” you asked somewhat desperately.

                “Unfortunately, yes. But perhaps we can find more answers where we’re going.”

                “I have more questions. Like what’s going to happen to us now?” The ship was silent. No one knew. Your home was gone, and if what Pops said was true, there was a good chance that it was never going to come back.

                “I don’t know. But we’ll figure something out. I’m sure of it.” Your uncle meant to reassure everyone, but no one felt reassured in the slightest. It felt like some empty hope to have – and a foolish one at that.

The conversation ended after that and a feeling of sluggish exhaustion overcame you. You slumped back and felt your lids grow heavy. You blearily looked about the ship, noting that that towards the back were three bed compartments – two stacked over each other and one opposite them with storage compartments over it. Just past that was a door marked “lavatory.”

You set Figment in your seat and made your way to the bathroom. It was small, almost cramped with just enough room for a sink, toilet, and shower and only enough room to turn around in a little circle. You gazed in the mirror. You looked awful, hair disheveled and the area around your eyes was swollen from crying. More tears slipped from them. As you turned on the sink to splash water in your face, your wrists burned lightly. You looked down at them, wrists red, raw, and cut up from where Genki’s nails had dug into them as he slid from your grasp. Futilely clinging to you for dear life….

You bit back a sob before turning off the water and deciding to just jump in the shower, already peeling off your tank top and shorts. You shook them out a bit, there was dust and debris clinging to your clothes, and you realized you would not be able to get rid of the grime without a proper cleaning in a washing machine. You set them down on the tiny counter and turned to the shower, turning the knob to the hottest setting.

The hot water felt nice, a small comfort you couldn’t even enjoy. Your wrists seemed to burn even more now, and you were heavy with the weight of your guilt. Every time you closed your eyes, his face was there, looking at you with the knowledge that he was going to die. He screamed on the way down, you remembered, and just beyond the blackness that had swallowed him up, you heard it abruptly stop. You couldn’t see him, but you still had an image of his body broken and mangled and coughing up blood lying there waiting to die alone. Or already dead, a puddle of blood steadily growing beneath him.

Was he one of those monsters now too?

Genki, I’m so sorry.

Sorry wasn’t good enough. Sorry would never be good enough.

You dried off quickly, jumping back into your clothes, which you wished weren’t so dirty and hopped into your bed with a huff. The bed was soft and warm at least.

When you looked across the way at your mother who had chosen the single bunk below the storage compartments, she was already sleeping. Figment had a small bed he’d conjured up for himself that was just large enough for him. He was sound asleep too. The only noises you could hear were the low hum of the ship’s engines and your own steady breathing. You weren’t sure how you could sleep with all that had happened, but you did. You fell under almost immediately.

~

White.

Everything is white. The walls. The furniture. How tacky.

The only spots of color were of drawings on the wall.

Hey… that one looked like you…...

~

You arrived in Radiant Garden roughly two days later according to von Drake. He must’ve had a clock or calendar installed in the ship since night and day were the same when one was in deep space.

It was roughly midday by the time the ship touched ground. You landed in large square of pavement in front of what looked to be a dilapidated castle. Was this Ansem guy royalty or something? Was he even here anymore? The castle looked like it had seen better days.

Your legs were stiff and when you stood from your seat to stretch you heard a few of your joints pop. You looked at your mom who was staring very hard at something. You followed her gaze to the window where you noticed Figment and Ludwig were also staring very intently.

There, outside the window, stood two people. A tall man with brown hair and a scar across his face. Next to him was a girl with short black hair. But that wasn’t why everyone was so tense. They were armed. One held a large blade and the other a large shuriken.

“Maybe we should leave,” your mother whispered.

“We can’t,” Ludwig reminded her. A beat of silence passed between all of you. “I’ll speak to them,” Ludwig said finally. You followed him to the door before feeling your mother nearly slam her hand down on your shoulder to keep you from following him. She was giving you a look. One that asked if you were crazy.

“We can’t just let him go out there alone,” you whispered. Ludwig opened the door, your muscles tensed, wanting to move forward and barely being held in place by your mother.

“Hello there!” Ludwig called in as friendly voice as he could manage, stepping from the ship. Your mother, Figment, and you held your breath. You yanked your shoulder from your mother’s grasp walking outside briskly as you saw both the man and girl relax in their posture. Though a look of caution passed over their features when they saw you.

But you couldn’t focus on that. You felt dizzy. The air was so different here. It was almost overwhelming. And it was so bright out here. But despite that, a pleasant warmth surrounded you.

“Is she gonna be okay?” the girl asked, as she watched you stumble around blearily.

“What?” von Drake asked, looking back over his shoulder at you as you leaned on the side of the ship to catch your breath and adjust to it, blinking in the sunlight.

“Oh, ha, yes, yes, she’s fine,” he laughed, “Her lungs are just used to ‘von Drake brand air’ it’s 20% more efficient than natural air.”

“More efficient how?” you breathed.

“Hey! Whoa! Look at you asking all these question like some sort of scientist,” Ludwig laughed, blatantly ignoring your question. You stood upright, taking in slow, deep breaths. The air smelled a bit sweeter here than it had on Spaceship Earth. And why wouldn’t it? You were on an entirely new planet – one you doubted had its air consistently filtered as it was back home. It was just strange.

“What can we do ya for?” the girl asked, her wary eyes trained on you but a smile on her lips, nevertheless.

“I,” Ludwig began a hand on his chest, “am the great Professor Ludwig von Drake. And this is my niece.” The man and girl gave each other a look of confusion. You forgot for a moment why that sort of relationship would be weird.

“Adoptive,” you clarified.

“Yes, well, we are looking for a man by the name of Ansem. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. It’s a most pressing matter. A matter of life and death!”

The two looked at each other. You didn’t like the look that passed between them.

“Ansem the Wise,” the man spoke slowly, “Has been missing for a long time now.”

A moment of quiet passed between the four of you when you noticed their eyes flick behind you. Your mother or Figment must have exited the ship.

“What did they say?” your mother’s voice called. You were still frozen in your spot. A feeling of hopelessness passed over you, and you could feel it radiate from von Drake too. Your body felt heavy like lead.

“They say it’s hopeless,” you finally answered, your voice breaking. You didn’t look behind her. Didn’t want to see her face and the, no doubt, look of sorrow that inevitably passed over it. You hugged your arms close to your body like that would keep you from breaking apart. Tears were already clouding your vision. What was this the 50^th time you must’ve cried in the past three days?

“I see,” Ludwig answered them. “His lab still exists though, yes? P-perhaps I can find something there to help us. Some closure maybe.”

“You all look like you’ve seen a lot,” the man answered as his eyes darted from one despondent face to the next, “Come with us. We have a place you can rest, and tomorrow we can go to his lab.”

“Thank you,” Ludwig answered bleakly. You knew he was just desperately looking for answers that may just be leading him on a wild goose chase. But you hoped too. Despite yourself, you hoped.

“This way,” the man instructed. You mustered the ability to move, eyes remaining glued to the ground moving below you. “I’m Leon, by the way, and this is Yuffie.” Yuffie tossed you a small wave and a smile which you did your damnedest to return.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Yuffie began, “What was the emergency?”

“Yuffie,” Leon reprimanded, nodding his head in the direction of you and your mother. You must’ve looked a sight for him to take this as a cue to not talk about it.

“Uh! Never mind,” Yuffie back tracked. “So, um, Ludwig was it?” Yuffie began again, “You know about Ansem. Were the two of you friends… or… something?”

“We were friends, as a matter of fact, and coworkers. I was his assistant here in Radiant Garden.”

“Hollow Bastion.”

“Excuse me?”

“This town is Hollow Bastion,” Leon corrected.

“It wasn’t called that when I lived here, but I suppose times have changed. As I was saying, it was here when I first developed prototypes for many of my later inventions and experiments, including the monorail and the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow!”

“That’s quite a far cry from Ansem’s experiments,” Leon mentioned. You didn’t miss the suspicious glance he sent Ludwig. Something was up.

Ludwig’s brow furrowed, a small amount of sweat collecting at his temples.

“Yes, well, I made it a point to not become too involved in any of his personal projects. I had my own passion projects after all what with the creation of Spaceship Earth.”

“Spaceship Earth? I didn’t see any of that in his journals.”

“You’ve read his journals? How much did you learn?” Ludwig asked. You were avidly paying attention as well.

“Enough.” It was a harsh, clipped answer.

“Are any of my old journals still lying around?” Ludwig asked, either not caring about or missing entirely the tone of voice Leon had used to answer him.

“I wouldn’t know. I hadn’t seen any of them.”

“Hmm. There may be answers here yet.” He looked optimistic. And you felt that tiny well of hope that had sprung in you earlier grow just a bit.

~

You entered their home, somber, still holding yourself.

“Leon!” a girl with long, brown hair, said, surprise lacing her voice, “You brought company?”

“Refugees, actually. Their world is gone, and they were looking for Ansem.” She looked at all of you with a look of sadness and pity.

“Well I hope you’ll feel welcome here. I’m Aerith. The man over there at the computer is Cid,” she pointed to a blond man hunched over a computer who tossed you and your group a wave and a smile, “And that’s Merlin.” She pointed to a man standing behind a desk dressed all in blue with a pointy wizard hat sitting atop his head. Floating books surrounded him. He looked otherworldly but in a way that was familiar to you. Perhaps he was from where Pops was from?

He gave you all a friendly smile and a wave. Your mother and Ludwig greeted them warmly, thanking them for their hospitality, but you had all but managed a small, “hello.” There was a moment of quiet you hardly noticed as everyone’s eyes briefly lingered on you.

“You must be tired,” Aerith said quickly, “I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping.” She gently grabbed one of your hands to lead you upstairs.

“Your daughter is, um, very quiet,” Cid mentioned once you were out of earshot.

“Understand that she doesn’t mean to be rude,” your mother explained in a soft tone of voice, “She’s been through quite a lot. We all have, but she’s never lost more than a pet fish before. She’s not accustomed to grief, let alone on such a grand scale. You see our planet fell just a few days ago.”

Cid seemed to rethink his words. It was almost comical to see such a sorry expression on such a gruff face, but laughter was hard to find lately. Your mother looked down into the tea Merlin had given her. It made her feel the slightest bit better as he said it was a special blend meant to ease frazzled nerves and soothe tension. She wasn’t sure about the specifics – something about magic and roots not found on this world. He was a wizard apparently.

“Of course, we understand,” Merlin interjected, “Ignore him.” Cid huffed, but didn’t argue.

“If I may,” Leon started, “Can we ask what you hope to find in Ansem’s castle?”

“I don’t know if you know this but a while ago, roughly a year ago, world’s that had previously fallen to darkness returned. We were hoping to understand why.”

“We know why,” Leon said, leaning against a wall, “A keyblade wielder named Sora brought them back.”

Ludwig and your mother stared back at Leon with looks of shock. He looked between the two of them, trying to gauge why they would react in such a way.

“You said a keyblade?” your mother almost whispered.

“You know about them?”

“My daughter has one. She said she’d had it for years…. Just what are those? Why do they exist, and why did they pick her?”

“Keyblades just pick their owners,” Yuffie answered with a shrug, “They either pick you or don’t.”

“I think it’s a bit more than that,” Leon responded with a shake of his head. “But this is good. If your world fell to darkness, you have someone who can bring it back. How though…. I can’t say I know. But what is it you hope to find on an artificial world in Ansem’s lab?”

“That’s not the planet I want research on. I want to know more about the experiments done on the heart of Kelewenya.”

~

Merlin’s home was modest. Two floors. Holes in the roof, “patched” – if you could really call it patching – by floating umbrellas. Yeah, that’s not weird at all.

You met Cid, Merlin, and Aerith. Though you didn’t really care all that much. It wasn’t that they weren’t nice people and certainly accommodating considering the circumstances, but you were tired. And sad. And you didn’t really want to be around people. Never mind that you had just met a literal wizard. You just couldn’t bring yourself to feel good about this. Any of this.

You had a room on the second floor with a bed and nightstand and a small wardrobe. You had changed into a new set of shorts and shirt offered to you by Aerith while she washed your other clothes. You felt a little crummy you couldn’t be happier with how kind these people had been, but nothing really mattered to you right now.

You lay in your bed for the rest of the afternoon, listening to the vague sounds of conversation that carried on below you while staring up at the ceiling for hours at a time. You skipped dinner. You didn’t want to deal with anyone else right now. Even after the sun sank below the horizon you continued to lay there. Sometimes crying. Sometimes not. Just thinking.

Screaming.

Blood.

Genki.

Death.

Home.

Then, suddenly, a feeling of restlessness overcame you. The room seemed too small. Your thoughts too loud. You needed to go. Somewhere. Anywhere. You didn’t want to be around people anymore. You didn’t want to be in this cramped room. You needed space.

You climbed down the lattice on the side of the wall outside your window. You jumped from it once you were close enough to the ground and you walked. You ambled through the town, many of houses’ white paint seeming to glisten in the night, the grass covered in a light dew from the evening’s temperature change that sparkled like tiny diamonds. You found your way to a square decorated with several miniature gardens in the center of town. The flowers were beautiful. You kneeled next to one full of pink flowers labeled, “peonies.” You’d never seen flowers like these where you were from, and they smelled so nice. You felt better.

You plopped your body all the way on the ground, sitting on your back on your feet, content for a moment to just sit and focus on nothing but beautiful, fragrant flowers and air that made your head whirl yet smelled so sweet. It was calm and peaceful and quiet. And the air felt warm but not uncomfortably so. You felt relaxed. Really truly relaxed for the first time in what felt like an eternity.

.

.

.

.

.

“Not the plant most people use to get a buzz, but to each his own I guess.”

You jumped, not expecting anyone to be here, let alone behind you. You turned around to see a young man standing not far from you. He was tall and had bright red hair that hung in spikes to his shoulders and stunning green eyes that caught you off guard. He looked down at you with an amused glint in his eye and a small smirk on his face waiting for you to say something, but you just blinked back silently at him. Had you been that deep in the smell of flowers to not have heard him approach?

He quirked an eyebrow at you.

“They don’t have these where I’m from,” you explained quietly, “I thought they smelled nice.”

You looked back at the plant with a soft smile forming on your features before you turned back to the admittedly, now that you were really looking at him, handsome stranger. He couldn’t have been that much older than you. Maybe three or four years?

“Where are you from?”

“Somewhere far away.”

“Another world?” You froze, looking back up at the handsome stranger who had ambled over closer to you. You were tense. He could see that. He halted his movements for now, taking on a relaxed posture so as not to alarm you. You stood up.

“Not anymore,” you answered.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He sounded sincere. You must’ve looked sad for him to have said that. You tried to set your face at least neutrally. You’d cried enough.

You briefly wondered how he’d guessed you weren’t from around here so quickly. Maybe people from other worlds were common here? Leon and Yuffie seemed to take your arrival in stride once they realized that you were no threat to themselves or anyone else. And Merlin certainly didn’t fit the bill as far as looks went on this world. You’d spent enough time around Figment and von Drake to recognize a toon when you saw one. How many other people were like you if what Pops said was true and so many worlds vanished one day? How many had escaped just as you did?

“Are you a botanist?” he asked. You were confused as to why he would ask that. Then giggled when you realized that you must have looked ridiculous with your head almost shoved into a planter.

“No. Most of the flowers on my home were blossoms on fruit trees. There were recreational flowers, of course, but not as many.” He looked at you as if he was trying to decipher your words.

“You say that like every plant in your home was handpicked to be there.”

“Well kind of. My world was artificial.” A moment of silence passed between the two of you again as he absorbed what you had said. He clearly had not been expecting that as an answer. You almost laughed at the look of surprise on his face.

“So, your world was man-made?”

“Essentially, yes,” you said, absentmindedly beginning to walk. He followed. “Everything had to be planned out. Animal and people and plant populations. How to regulate it all to create functioning ecosystems. All nature was made by man if that makes sense.”

“Not really.”

You chuckled.

“Yeah, I guess not.” He continued to look at you with inquisitive eyes, brows furrowed. There was no way you could have been making this up. It was too stupid to be made up.

“What did it look like?”

“Well… kind of like a golf ball actually.” He chuckled a bit at that. “Well the outside looked like that anyway. Inside the sky screens were blue and grew brighter and darker depending on the time of day. And the cities, neighborhoods, and farmland were all plotted out through a blueprint that every district followed.” Your eyes briefly sparkled when reminiscing about your home.

“So the sun and the sky and all that were fake?” You wrinkled your nose at the word fake but continued regardless.

“Well the sky was, yes, but we didn’t have a sun.” You were walking past illuminated fountains that cast a gentle blue glow on everything.

“What about the moon?”

“Nope. No moon.” You stopped on a sidewalk that overlooked the town.

“So this is the first time you’ve seen the moon?”

“Seen the….” You’d completely forgotten to look at the moon. You turned your gaze upwards, taking in a slow rush of air at the beauty of it. It was beautiful. You’d seen pictures of moons, of course, but there was something about seeing it in person that damn near took your breath away.

You sat down on the sidewalk, eyes never leaving the moon as you did.

He pitied you. He really did. How does one grow up having never experienced the basic points of life and nature? He sat down and looked up at the moon with you.

“I have a friend who loved the moon once,” he spoke lowly. You turned to him prepared to ask plenty of follow up questions when you heard a voice calling for you from behind you.

You turned to look in the direction of the voice and recognized it as your mother. You faced him again to tell him you had to go, but he was gone already. Vanished without a trace.

“_______, what are you doing out here? I was worried,” she said, her brow furrowed in concern as you stood and brushed yourself off.

“I was looking at the moon,” you answered half honestly as she led you away back to Merlin’s home.

Notes:

Hmmm... watching the moon with Axel.... Nice.

Chapter 4: All My Fault

Summary:

You discover a jarring truth about yourself, and your mother discovers a jarring truth about Ansem. That cute red head from the night before shows up again....

Notes:

Hubby and I are on a roll with these chapters!

You skipped dinner yesterday evening, but as your stomach growled loudly you knew that was not an option this morning. No one had questioned you last night when your mother brought you home, and you were thankful for that. None of them quite blamed you either. Needing a little air or space was normal when experiencing heavy grief.

“Sounds like someone’s hungry,” Aerith said with a soft smile as Your stomach rumbled again. She placed a plate of pancakes in front of you. They smelled so good. And they had warm syrup all over them!

“Thank you,” you said softly with a smile, mouth already watering. Ludwig, Figment, and your mother were already eating, Ludwig and Figment practically wolfing theirs down, while your mother was a bit more reserved. Manners be damned, you were going to enjoy this. You didn’t even hesitate to dig in. They were really good, and honestly a home cooked meal felt really nice right now.

“Did you sleep well?” Merlin inquired. You nodded. You really did sleep well. It was a dreamless sleep, but you preferred that to potential nightmares. “Good, good. We know you’ve had a rough time of it as of late.”

“And today’s the big day where we get some answers to long awaited questions, so you’ll need all the energy you can get,” Yuffie said as she strode into the room with a big smile on her face.

“I actually have a few questions about the owner of the lab,” you said around a mouthful of pancakes. “Like who is, or was, he?”

“Ansem was the ruler of Hollow Bastion once. He was a beloved ruler and an avid student of the sciences involving the heart. He built a lab below his castle where he conducted experiments on subjects, testing the strength of the hearts of people and some of his apprentices.”

“You say that like something bad happened,” you said, noting a dark look that briefly passed over his face before settling into a hard mask of tranquil fury.

“I’m not sure all of his experiments had willing test subjects,” Leon admitted in a clipped tone of voice. You looked on with wide eyes. Your gaze slid over to Ludwig who had stopped eating. He was sweating a bit, staring at his plate far too intensely.

“Pops,” you began weakly, “Did you… know?”

“I had my suspicions. But… I never investigated them. I was too busy focusing on my own research.” It was a weak excuse, but you didn’t want to focus on it. You looked down at your own plate of almost finished pancakes. You had lost your appetite. So much for enjoying it.

“Perhaps that topic is a little heavy to have during breakfast, Leon,” Aerith interjected as a heavy quiet settled over the room. Figment and your mother also looked about uncomfortably.

“Yesterday you mentioned something about someone bringing back the worlds,” your mother mentioned. Your head snapped in her direction so quickly it almost made you dizzy. “Maybe we can find this person and get him to help us?”

“Wait, wait, wait, what?!” you asked, practically shouting. But it was a happy shout, full of so much hope it almost made everyone smile just at the drastic change in your demeanor. “Please tell me you’re serious.”

“Calm down, ________,” Leon instructed carefully, “We know that he’s done it before but not why yours didn’t come back. We don’t have all the answers we need.” You heard him, but you were too hopeful. You were practically bouncing in your seat.

“So who it this guy anyway?” you asked, pressing for more answers. You had already made up your mind to find whoever it was and drag them back to wherever to get your planet back.

“I said hold on. Your world was artificial, so the home you knew is gone,” Leon said, and you felt yourself bursting with anticipation, knowing he had more to say, “But the people who lived there are tied to their original home which can mean that bringing back your first world may restore everyone. But this is just a theory.”

“That’s another question I have,” you interrupted again, “Why was Spaceship Earth able to fall?”

“That’s a bit tricky. Every world has a heart, and to this heart the people are tied. Every heart is a mix of light and dark, and good people have hearts that are primarily light and bad people, primarily dark. When a world falls by natural means, it typically means that the darkness has over taken the light. These are rare cases. However, if an outside source of darkness is introduced, the process can be sped up and darkness can consume the world much more quickly.” You were practically on the edge of your seat at his words.

“So how does that guy you were talking about fit into all this?”

“His name is Sora,” Leon spoke, and you nodded, hanging on his every word. “He’s a keyblade wielder. Like you.

You froze, swallowing thickly. You felt like you should say something, but you didn’t know what.

At least I’m not alone in this.

“He was the one who brought the worlds back once they were destroyed. And we were thinking that maybe he could help you out too. You see his world had also fallen to darkness, though I don’t know the specifics of it. I can guess it happened the same way yours fell. The heartless might have been drawn to your keyblade.”

The world seemed to stop at those words. Or at least your world did. Your head felt heavy. You felt your stomach churn. You stood on shaky legs.

“What?” Your voice was little more than a whimper and your lips felt numb. You felt dizzy again, but not because of the air this time. Blood was pounding in your ears.

Your fault.

All your fault.

“Are you going to be okay?” Leon looked alarmed. You looked queasy. Your breath was coming quickly and shallowly. You stumbled through the door and leaned on the wall outside.

“I did this,” you choked out.

MY fault.

All MY fault.

ALL MY FAULT.

“________, you couldn’t have known!” Yuffie tried to reason with you. Aerith stood by you, reaching out to set a hand on your shoulder, and you jerked back from her touch as if she were trying to stab you and not comfort you. Meanwhile in your head you kept hearing the words, “All your fault,” in the accusing voices of the friends and family you had lost – Genki’s the loudest of all.

And you ran.

You ran from your family. The voices. Everything until you couldn’t run anymore until the only sound was that of your heart beating too fast and your breath getting jagged and begging you to stop. You took in your surroundings for a short moment, finding yourself back in the gardens from the night before.

Then you threw up in one of the planters, collapsing to your knees. You kept thinking about it, but with nothing left in your stomach, you just dry heaved. You rested your head on the cool stone on the ground. It felt nice on your skin which seemed to be burning up.

“Uh, are you…okay?”

The voice startled you, and you jolted upright, keyblade at the ready. When you saw that it was just the handsome stranger from the night before, you relaxed. Your eyes landed on your keyblade, and you groaned. Your stomach churned again, and you threw the stupid sword off to the side.

“Bad food?” he asked. You let out a dry, humorless chuckle. If only that were all it was.

“No,” you rasped out, “I just learned that I’ve basically killed my entire planet. All that darkness was drawn to my keyblade, and maybe, just maybe if I’d have said something to someone about it. Maybe we could have stopped it.”

“Hmm, I doubt it. Planets touched by darkness tend to fall sooner or later.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

He just shrugged.

“It’s the truth, but hey since you’re a keyblade wielder, there’s hope.”

“Hope?”

“Yeah, I mean, keyblade wielders can save worlds as well as draw darkness to them.”

You stood up at that, marveling at the words he’d just said. You hadn’t even considered that. Everyone had talked about how Sora brought back worlds with the power of his keyblade, and maybe he could bring yours back. Or maybe you could. You paced back and forth a bit, tossing the idea around in your head. You didn’t even know where to begin.

The stranger’s eyes lingered on you, watching you pace back and forth with a fierce look of determination and ferocity in your eyes that seemed all but dead when he first met you.

When you tired of pacing in the same area and began to wander, he followed you. You were quiet and contemplative, almost seeming to be unaware of his presence. He briefly wondered if you really had forgotten he was there.

Then you abruptly stopped and whirled around to face him, surprising him mildly. You looked at him with bright, intense eyes that showed all the fight you had in you.

“Do you think I can really do that? Can I undo all the harm I’ve caused?”

He shrugged.

“Maybe.”

“That’s good enough for me!” you said brightly as you began to jog back to your temporary home. Then you stopped and turned to look at him. He hadn’t moved from where you left him. He was watching you closely.

“What’s your name?” you asked him, a soft smile gracing your features. He offered his own smile, though it was closer to a smirk.

“Axel,” he supplied, tapping his temple, “Got it memorized?”

You smiled more broadly.

“_______,” you said hastily before taking off in the direction of your family again.

A moment later, just when you had turned out of sight of him, a corridor of darkness appeared. Axel turned his eyes from the direction you disappeared into to look to see who was coming through. Icy blue hair and cold amber eyes. A crease between his brow as he frowned at Axel that pointed down to the x shaped scar in the center of his face.

“Saix,” Axel greeted.

“She’s still alive.” It was a statement, not a question. Axel hummed in acknowledgement of his little announcement, feeling Saix’s amber eyes bore into the side of his face. “Why?”

“I felt kinda bad for her.” And he really did.

“You’re an assassin. Get over it.”

“Did you know that yesterday was the first time she saw the moon?” he said, eyes still trained in the direction of where you had taken off. He could sense some of the gears turning in Saix’s head. Saix was far less forgiving and empathetic than he – at least he was nowadays. But even he could forgive Axel’s hesitance. Just this once.

Axel finally settle his gaze on Saix who was still looking at him with an expression of irritation. He was displeased, Axel could tell that much. A moment of silence passed between them as they silently regarded each other before Saix relented.

“Don’t get careless, Axel. You’re still on thin ice.”

~

“It’s not fair!” You sounded just like a child. And you were being treated like one. Regarding your panic attack earlier, your mother deemed it best if you were left out of the investigation of Ansem’s castle. They didn’t know what they may find in the journals that lay within, and your mother didn’t want to send you into another blind panic. And you were livid.

It was as much your home as hers! You had a right to know. But they’d been adamant. To add insult to injury, they stuck you with a babysitter!

“Figment, keep an eye on her, and make sure she doesn’t get into trouble,” they had said.

You were furiously pacing your room, trying to find a solution to your problem.

“I don’t get it, Figment,” you ranted, “I finally have the will to do something. Realize that I can do something, and I’m not even allowed to get involved!”

Figment rolled his eyes. He would be no help, of that you were sure. You flopped onto your bed to hatch a plan.

Meanwhile deep in Ansem’s castle, past the twisting, turning halls, in the study were your mother, von Drake, and Leon searching through journals upon journals of information. Ansem was nowhere to be found as Leon had stated the day before, but he’d left a plethora of information behind on his experiments.

“This is it!” your mother exclaimed, holding an old dilapidated journal in her hands, the spine worn from use. Ludwig and Leon crowded nearby to read the information within. She flipped to the most recent entry.

A discovery was made about the hearts of worlds. They hold everything and everyone together. Just as people can connect their hearts to each other, so are the hearts of the people connected to the world. It has led me to believe that all sentient life bears a connection to its planet of origin. This means that should my world fall to darkness, if the heart of the world could be restored, so could the people I’ve sworn protect.

Experiments were conducted on a world not too far from my own in another realm. The planet is called Kelewenya. I, as well as my apprentice Xehanort, studied it at a distance at first, but any attempt to tamper with the heart proved to be too dangerous to the inhabitants as the heart of the world directly affects the physical aspects of it such as weather, tectonic plate movement, fertility of the soil, etc. Due to the unpredictability of the world, I’ve decided to abandon research on it until a safer means of experimentation can be conducted.

Your mother turned the page where the writing continued.

I’ve a theory that a world’s heart contains a will like that of a person. If such is true, then it is possible for it to linger even after its destruction. This may be the key to retrieving worlds fallen to darkness or opening possibilities for new ones.

“That can’t be all,” your mother despaired. But as she continued to turn page after page in the book nothing came up. It was just blank and empty.

“Don’t worry. We’re not down and out yet, my dear,” von Drake said as he gave her hand a light pat. “There is one more person who may have answers. He may not know too much about the hearts of worlds and so on, but he was close to Ansem the Wise when I was here. He may know where to find him.”

“Who?” your mother asked as she set the book down on the table.

“The king of the world I hail from.”

~

You skipped dinner that night, throwing yourself into your bed to sleep so you could wake up early. You were going to that castle. Oh, yes. They could try to keep you out, but you were going with or without their knowledge.

You dreamed that night. You dreamed of fish with opalescent tails and birds with rainbow feathers. The day was bright, and the air was warm. The night was bathed in purple light from the pink and green moons in the sky. You heard light piano music tinkling through the night, and you danced through the stars. You danced to the applause of many and you were on the stage during a recital you remembered from 8^th grade. You stepped off the stage accepting flowers from everyone. Someone tapped you on your shoulder. You turned. It was a girl, roughly your age. She had the bluest eyes you had ever seen. She was speaking, but you couldn’t hear her.

When you awoke the room was dark. You quickly blinked the sleep out of your eyes. You picked up a small satchel lying near the wardrobe. You’d bring it back. You’d be back before anyone could notice hopefully. Figment, who had been sleeping nearby in his own little bed, blinked open an eye and saw you busying yourself with getting dressed then closed it again.

You froze as you heard a soft knock on the window. Your breath hitched. It was far too early for any reasonable person to be up. You looked over to the window, heart pounding.

It was Axel. But… why?

You briskly walked over to the window and opened it, leaning out to look at him. You narrowed your eyes suspiciously at him.

“Are you following me?” You’d had no problem with him before, but you’d never told him where you were staying, and seeing him here now had several alarms going off in your head.

He just smirked and against your will, you felt some of those alarms quiet. Something about the way he was looking at you made you want to go along with whatever he was planning, some weird mischievous part of you was screaming for adventure. But you still waited for an answer to your question.

“Wanna go watch the sunrise?”

Your eyes widened, not expecting him to say that of all things. You bit your lip to keep down a big, excited grin that was trying to take over your face. You tried to say no, to force the word passed your lips and be smart about this – to not run off with someone you’d just met only two days ago who was now suggesting you leave in the middle of the night with him.

You nodded vigorously. You so desperately wanted to see the sun rise!

His smile broadened, and he climbed down from the window with you following close behind him. Figment reopened his eyes in time to see you climbing out of the window. Alarms went off for Figment then too – but much more literally in his case. He tried to chase you out the window, but you closed it before he could. He rammed into the glass head first and passed out on the floor, stars circling overhead.

Notes:

Oooh~ You gonna watch the sunrise with Axel? Look at you~

Chapter 5: How Do You Know You Can Trust Me?

Summary:

Sunrise with Axel. Looks to be the start of a very good day for you. Finding some answers. And the day just keeps getting better and better.

Notes:

So... how bout that sunrise?

This. This was the most beautiful moment of your life. You wanted to cry, but happily this time. The town below was bathed in a warm, orange glow as the sunlight slowly creeped over it. The sky was splashed with orange and red and pale blue that swam and swirled in the sky as the sun moved higher. It felt alive. Warmth crept over your form as the shadows and darkness were pushed back from you. This felt nice. This felt like stepping into a new world, and it made a warmth rise inside you that bubbled passed your lips in a giggle of giddy excitement.

Axel glanced at you from the corner of his eye. You were like a child, over excited over something so mundane that he’d seen time and again. Your eyes were wide, face aglow with sunlight. You were biting the corner of your lip. He shook his head at your reaction.

You turned to look at him with your doe-like eyes, a broad smile on your face. If you’d had suspicions about him before, you’d all but forgotten about them now.

“Thanks,” you said softly as if you didn’t want to wake the town that sat so far below where the two of you were, “for this, I mean. It’s beautiful.” Axel just shrugged in response, a small smile on his face that he wasn’t even aware of. He turned back to the sunrise. The orange glow made his red hair seem impossibly redder and contrasted softly against the seafoam green of his eyes.

The two of you continued to watch the sun rise until it was a decent way above the horizon line and the sky was bluer than it had been but still decently balanced with a wash of warm colors mixed in.

“What were you doing up so early anyway?” he asked, breaking the comfortable silence that had settled over the two of you.

“I’m going to go get some answers. My mom was worried about what answers they’d find in the castle and wouldn’t let me go. I’m going to go find those answers anyway.” Axel quietly regarded you for a moment as you fiddled with the strap of the satchel that was slung over your shoulder, debating his next move.

“You really think the castle has what you’re looking for, huh?” he asked, eyes studying your face intently. You fought the urge to fidget under his gaze, steadying your breath you gazed back before responding.

“Yup,” you said, nodding, “I can feel it in my gut.” And you did. The surety of your decision sat heavily in your mind and you doubted anyone would be able to convince you otherwise at this point. But you’d always been so stubborn.

He considered this further then stood up, stretching, a few joints in his shoulders, popping as he did so. He rolled his shoulders and neck and you sat watching him. He was really tall.

“Alright. Let’s go,” he said starting to walk to the castle. You scrambled to stand up and caught up with him.

“What? You’re coming to?”

“Yeah, I used to sneak in there all the time.” Your eyes widened. Sneak into the castle? For what?

“Why?”

“S’ not important.” That was all he had to say on the matter, and you let it go. He obviously didn’t want to talk about it. You walked quietly together for a while.

“Hey, Axel,” you began, he looked down at you, “How… do you know so much about keyblades?”

“I used to know someone who had one once upon a time.”

“Was it Sora?” You’d heard so much about this Sora kid lately, you just assumed it was.

“No.”

Hmm. Short answers again. That’s another no-no topic, you guessed. You thought about another topic of conversation, trying to keep the silence from being awkward because you kept venturing into forbidden conversation when he spoke instead.

“Tell me something, ________,” he began, “Do you have any idea what you might be getting into?” Your brow furrowed in confusion. “You have to at least imagine that restoring an entire planet and its people won’t be easy.”

You actually hadn’t considered it.

“I hadn’t actually,” you mumbled, “But it hardly matters. What kind of person would I be if I knew I could do something and didn’t?” Axel observed you for a moment. That look of determination from the day before when he first said you could bring your planet back was in your eyes again.

“If that’s how you feel about it,” he concluded, “then you do what you gotta do.”

~

Figment blinked his eyes open. His head was killing him, and he was seeing swirling stars. What happened? Then he remembered. You! Climbing out of a window! He couldn’t remember what prompted you to do so, only that you were sneaking out and he was supposed to be watching you. He got up and flew to your mother’s room to wake her then to von Drake to alert him as well.

~

“Stay close,” Axel instructed as the two of you entered the castle. It was big. Your eyes were upon the tall ceilings. Columns carved out of marble and marble tile and hard wood flooring. Stone walls where the occasional tapestry hung between large ornate windows.

“I’ve never been inside a castle before,” you said as you trailed behind Axel down a set of stairs that led to what had to be the basement.

“Did you know Ansem when he lived here?” you asked, looking at the sharp contrast of the basement walls in comparison to those on the first floor. These walls were a beige-y brown with metal supports all through out.

“I knew of him and briefly knew him for a while, but not for very long. The castle was abandoned not long after….” Hmmm.

“One of my friends said he was doing things in his lab. Uh… sketchy things…. Do you know anything about that?”

“Things like what?”

“Um… I don’t really know,” you mumbled.

“Now that you mention it, what do you know? You’re here in an abandoned castle you don’t know the layout of in the dark with someone you can’t even say you barely know, and you’re looking for answers to questions you don’t know you should be asking?” He stopped walking and you stopped just a step in front of him.

“I guess I don’t know anything,” you looked up at him defiantly, “What I do know is that the carpet’s been ripped out from underneath me, and I’m learning things that I never would have believed existed. Like other worlds or magical swords. I don’t know what questions to ask. I don’t know what answers to seek, but I won’t learn anything if I don’t try. And right now this castle and your guidance are my best bet.”

“How do you know you can trust me?”

A beat of silence passed between you.

“I don’t know. But you’re all I’ve got.”

The two of you continued walking after a bit, you actively reconsidering trusting Axel but not too much. If he were going to hurt you, he’d have done by now, yes? He’s had you alone and away from everyone more than enough times. You were lost in thought for a while, slowly trailing further and further behind Axel the deeper in your thoughts you sunk. It was then that you’d seen something out of the corner of your eye. And without rhyme or reason went after it, turning through halls this way and that, always just shy of what was rounding corners. You’d no idea what it was, but what if it was a person? Someone with answers? You slowed. Or a threat…. You looked around. Axel was no where in sight. You were on your own now. You tried to back track. Which way was it again?

There were plenty of hallways branching off from the one the two of you had been in. It would be easy to get lost in the labyrinthian maze.

So it was really annoying, and let me stress really annoying when Axel heard your footsteps echoing off in some random direction he was not currently in. He stopped and turned the nearest corner he thought you might have gone down, but you were not there – probably having sprinted literally anywhere for any fucking reason he could not fathom.

Unless…. You saw something or someone?

“Shit,” he muttered, doubling his efforts to find you before anyone else could.

Meanwhile you had stumbled upon a door at the end of a hall way that was just a bit more ornately decorated than the others. You grabbed the handle, twisting it slowly and pushing open the door. You’d no idea what awaited you on the other side.

Thankfully, the room was devoid of life. There was only a large circular room with a crescent desk in the center. Lining the walls were several short bookshelves full of what you could only assume were the journals your mother, Pops, and Leon had come to investigate. You approached several large… you could only really describe them as cannisters or displays. Inside were several floating purple hearts. They were beautiful. But… were these the hearts they spoke of? Should you be horrified right now? Or are these different from what you had recently learned of. Up until now, you hadn’t assumed what the heart of a person might look like unless they were talking about a heart in the medical sense. This was an entirely new concept to you. Your fingers brushed over the cool glass as you looked at the hearts inside that glimmered like jewels. You then turned your attention to books. There were so many. How would you find the ones you needed? Then you spied an open book on the desk.

You approached the desk, eyeing the journal warily. What would you find in these?

You’re looking for answers to questions you don’t know you should be asking.

You shook your head and pushed Axel’s words to the back of your mind. You took the book and began to quickly flip through it, reading some pages, scanning most. You went through it rather quickly. You noticed the empty slot in the bookcase where it came from and began to work backwards through the journals, finding more than you were prepared to handle. But you bit back any possible horror and pushed through.

~

Axel rounded another corner that you were still not around before he saw three corridors of darkness appear in front of him. He let out a groan and rolled his eyes.

Out of the corridors stepped Saix, and two blondes – a tall one with platinum blonde hair twirling a playing card between his fingers and a shorter one with honey blonde hair and a cocky swagger to his walk.

“Axel,” Saix said in a tone that was none too pleased with him, “What are you doing? She’s going to find out far more than any keyblade wielder should.”

“Relax,” Axel said with a small “calm down” gesture, “I was trying to keep her from finding out too much. But then she got away from me. You know this place is like a maze.”

None of them looked too pleased with his answer, except for Demyx who looked far too amused for his own good.

“Do you think this is a game? That you can play with a target like a cat with a mouse? This should have been the simplest task. So why is she still breathing?”

“The situation isn’t exactly out of hand,” Axel started before Saix cut him off.

“Yes. It is. I’m ending this,” he said, summoning dusks with a wave of his hand. They appeared before them, sleek, silvery bodies writhing as they awaited orders. “Find the keyblade wielder. Kill her.” And with that the dusks flew off in flash of contracting and extending, distorted limbs to search the castle for you.

“And what am I going to do?” Axel asked casually, “Or is there any particular reason you brought Luxord and Demyx?” He gestured to the taller and shorter blondes respectively.

“Nothing. We’re only here to keep an eye on you. I’m afraid letting you continue this job is a gamble we can’t risk. Not after the Namine and Roxas business,” Luxord stated with a smirk. Axel glared at him.

“Whatever,” he snarked.

~

As you were sifting through a journal, you heard a shout.

It was more like screaming actually. It started low but then it kept getting louder. You stood abruptly and ran to the door to see what was approaching you, keyblade drawn and at the ready. You saw Figment flying at you at full speed with Ludwig latched onto his tail, hanging on for dear life and screaming. You backed out of the way just in time to avoid being bowled over by the two of them, almost falling on your ass as you did. Figment stopped abruptly, flinging Ludwig face first into the wall.

You wished you could say you were happy to see them, but you felt angry more than anything. You picked up the journal you were reading along with several others and started to hurl them at Ludwig. He had just barely recovered from pulling his head out of the wall, just in time to dodge the books you were throwing.

“AAH! Why with the books and the throwing and the hurting of poor Ludwig!?” he shouted, hitting the floor to avoid more of the books. That was about when your mother came damn near sprinting into the room.

“_________  __________  ___________!” Oh you knew you were in trouble when she used your full name, “I can’t believe you would go against me and come here without anyone with you. It could be dangerous. You don’t know what’s down here!” Leon jogged in after that.

“You’re yelling at me?! If Pops had even an inkling of what was going on in this place, all your anger for the rest of your life should be directed at him!” You whirled around to face him. He was standing there fidgeting guiltily while simultaneously wondering if you were going to start throwing things again. You did, picking up more journals and chucking them at him. “You knew, didn’t you?! All those experiments! All those people! The hearts of so many worlds! The heart of my world!”

Before Ludwig had a chance to explain himself, writhing bodies rapidly slither into the room. You scream. They did not look natural. They did not move natural. And, honestly, they were freaking you out. Regardless, you fought them. Granted, your hesitation cost you a few hits and caused you to take a few, but you managed. Leon, of course, helped as well seeing as how he was the more experienced fighter. It did not take too much to fight the creatures off, but more arrived shortly after.

“We need to get out of here!” Leon ordered.

And that’s what you all did. You followed Leon, who knew his way around the castle far better than you did, stopping occasionally to fight the monsters off when there grew to be too many following you. It would be bad to be cornered, outnumbered, and outmatched.

The maze seemed to go on forever, as did the battles. You were exhausted by the time you made your way to the ground floor, bursting through the doors and into fresh air.

“Go! Find the king!” Leon instructed as he turned to face your attackers, blade at the ready.

You ran towards the ship, still in its spot from when you first arrived, while Leon held off the remaining dusks that had followed you to the surface. Then a sudden thought stopped you.

Axel.

“Wait! My friend is inside!”

“What friend?” your mother asked, stopping as abruptly as you did.

“I’ll find them. Just go!” Leon instructed. You were worried. Very worried. You hadn’t seen Axel on your way out, and you weren’t sure just how many of these things were running around the castle. But then you felt a sharp yank on your arm as your mom all but dragged you into the ship.

“Are we really leaving? Just like that?” you asked as you stumbled into the ship on tired, shaky legs and buckled up. Ludwig started the ship.

“We have to. If we go anywhere else, they’ll just follow us there. We have to leave before we cause any trouble for the town,” Ludwig explained as the ship was rising.

You looked below as Leon took out a wave of dusks. You hoped both he and Axel would be okay.

~

“She’s escaping. Again,” Saix said, leveling a harsh glare at Axel who responded with a smirk.

“Well if you hadn’t acted rashly, I could’ve taken her out once I found her,” Axel replied smoothly as he watched the ship take off, “But you just had to intervene.”

Luxord chuckled then left in haze of black.

“Axel has a point,” Demyx laughed, obnoxiously playing a riff on his sitar. Saix, not having any of it, grabbed the sitar and broke it before giving it back to him and leaving through his own corridor.

Axel watched as the ship flew out of sight until it was just a speck.

“You know,” Demyx began casually, a little too casually, “She was pretty cute. I know I wouldn’t want to be the one to kill her.” With that, Demyx went through his own corridor and left Axel there contemplating his next move.

Notes:

Hey, Reader, you ever think you're in way over your head?

Chapter 6: Another Roxas Situation

Summary:

You learn about someone new. Axel decides to do things his own way. Also more dreams from your life before mixed in with a place you've never been and a girl you've only met in your dreams.

Notes:

Thank you all so much for your words of encouragement! These comments give me life! And shoutouts to those of you who caught the Disney World references! Dropping a few more (subtley-ish) in this chapter just 'cause! Thanks again! Enjoy!

“I cannot believe you would be so reckless! You could have died down there, ________! Then what am I supposed to do? If Figment hadn’t warned us, who knows what might have happened to you!”

“Well I wouldn’t have been down there if you’d trusted me enough to see what was down there. I know I didn’t have the best reaction before, but you’d be pretty messed up too if you found out that you’re the sole cause for the deaths of billions of people. You can’t keep sheltering me! I want to help!”

“Ugh, Ludwig, back me up here. Tell her it wasn’t safe down there and that she could’ve died!”

“Well that’s an interesting thing,” Ludwig began, taking his glasses off to clean them, “One thing I noticed after we were attacked was that there were only two people who were not totally helpless. And we were not either one of them. ________ was definitely in danger and probably wouldn’t have made it were it not for Leon. But that raises the point where it’s already been stated that monsters will find her just for having a keyblade. It’s probably best that we get someone to train her to use it. But for now, it’s probably best that we find the king and get some answers before focusing on her battle readiness.”

“Speaking of Ansem,” you begin, narrowing your eyes at von Drake, “Why didn’t you do anything to stop those experiments from happening?”

“I-I-I told you. I was doing my own work at the time!”

“That’s not good enough! You didn’t do anything! How many died because of this?!”

“It wasn’t that simple! I was threatened! Not by Ansem but his apprentices. They needed me to keep quiet when I found out they were continuing the experiments. Ansem had stopped, but that didn’t stop his apprentices. His closest, a young fellow by the name of Xehanort, was heading the experiments. I knew I probably should have done something, but I didn’t know what. When I checked the heart of Kelewenya, which was one of the planets they kept tampering with, it was close to the final stage of a heart’s collapse.”

“The weather,” you mother whispered, “It’d been getting worse. The world was in a state of panic. Scientists couldn’t figure out what was going on.”

“I lied and told Ansem that it had been growing steadily unstable since the beginning – before he called off his experiments. He gave me the green light for the building of Spaceship Earth. He thought he was atoning for his actions, but we were both just trying to atone for my silence.”

A moment of silence passed between all of you.

“The journals mentioned something about a man named Xehanort. Who was he exactly?” your mother asked after a minute of uncomfortable silence. You don’t think she knew how to feel. You didn’t.

“I can’t really say. Not much was known about him when he was found. He’d lost all of his memory, and Ansem tried to tap into it – simultaneously trying to unlock the secrets of the heart and mind, but he found it unsafe and abandoned the project.”

You let out a frustrated sigh. It seemed every lead was a dead end for you right now.

“Well… Do you have a theory of what happened to Kelewenya at least?” you asked.

“All we know is that the heart of the world was tampered with, and Xehanort had something to do with it.”

“We need to find a way to bring it back,” you said determinedly.

“That’s assuming it can be brought back at all,” von Drake cautioned. There was no need to get your hopes up. But they were already up, and you would search to the ends of the multiverse to restore your world.

“It can be,” you said with confidence. “Those journals said new worlds were possible when old ones fell, that worlds could be restored. They said that the will of its heart lingers even when it’s gone. I’m going to bring it back, and if not me, then I’ll find someone who will.”

Your mother stilled. For a moment, you were someone else. You were a woman she did not recognize. That’s not to say it was in a bad way. She just, for the smallest instant, did not recognize you. For a moment, you weren’t her daughter. You were a keyblade wielder – a protector of worlds, as Leon had told her the night you first snuck out. She shook the thought from her mind, and when she looked at you, you were her daughter once more.

You all went about your business for the next few hours, however little business there was to go about. Your thoughts almost consistently drifted to Axel and Leon and if they were okay. But you managed distraction. Leon was a capable fighter. He’d be alright. Maybe you could visit at some point to make sure. You’d ask Pops after your visit to the next world.

You and your mother each tried to read some of the books von Drake kept around, but they were wordy and boring. And honestly, you both had no interest in The Universe of Energy, World of Motion, or Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.

Then you noticed a book that was a bit different from the others. It was a burgundy book with gold plating along the edges of the spine. It didn’t have a title on the side. You pulled it out, flipping to a random page in the middle where you saw that it was a journal.

…

You probably shouldn’t read it, but… You glanced over to your mother, Ludwig, and Figment. They were all occupied for now.

You turned your attention back to the book, walking as casually as possible to your bed to lay down and read.

~

Nothing. That was all Axel could think of every time he found himself sitting in this room. It was white and empty except for the symbol of the Organization in center of the floor and thirteen thrones that once held each member of the Organization. A few of them were empty now.

He had a hand in that.

Now what was left were gathered here, sitting in their respectively ranked chairs – awaiting orders. Or in his case a speech on how he was incompetent. He sat there leaning on the armrest, one of his legs propped up in the seat. He looked bored. Nothing was really happening.

Although, there were two familiar faces that he wasn’t expecting to see so soon.

“I don’t think I need to start out by stating the obvious. Marluxia and Larxene have rejoined our ranks. Though now they’ll be under heavy watch after circumstances have shown that too much trust in them can prove counterproductive,” Xemnas began.

Axel let out a snort. Xigbar and Demyx openly laughed.

“Now for the main concern of this meeting,” Xemnas stated, and Axel could feel more than one pair of eyes land on him. Though he continued not making eye contact, looking as if he had better things to do.

“The young keyblade wielder yet lives. Too inexperienced to be of any assistance obtaining hearts and close enough to our actual target to be a nuisance. Would you care to explain yourself?”

“I was going to take care of her in the castle. It would’ve been a good place to look like she had a little accident as opposed to an open murder in the town. But she got away. Then someone else interfered,” he said smoothly, eyes sliding over to Saix who narrowed his eyes at him, “That pretty much assured I wouldn’t get her.”

“Saix, care to clarify your decision?”

“It didn’t appear that Axel was going to kill her. I made a judgment call and erred in my decision. I have trouble trusting Axel to be able to do his job.”

Axel rolled his eyes. Though he knew why he may not be trusted to carry out his job in light of more recent events.

“How did your little assassinating job go on Spaceship Earth, Saix?” Axel said in a lighthearted tone. “If I’m not mistaken, your target and mine were in the same room together. You could’ve done that, and you wouldn’t have to trust me to do this job.”

“I’m confused about that actually,” Demyx spoke up, “Why can’t we just use her like we did Roxas? She’s a keyblade wielder, but not acting against us like Sora. That’s good right?”

“True,” Xemnas answered, “She may be of use to us but since we no longer have Namine as a means of controlling memories, she’ll remember exactly how she became a nobody.” Then he looked to Axel who minutely stiffened under his gaze. Xemnas was honestly the only person who could make him feel uncomfortable here anymore. But that was for good reason.

“If we can make her death appear to be an accident, we may be able to convince her to join our cause so she can be recompleted.”

He knew his orders. He was still trusted to kill her, but to be discrete about it.

“Axel,” Saix called, “Don’t let this be another Roxas situation. I think we all remember how that turned out for you.” A few of the other members of the Organization chuckled.

“Fuck you,” Axel spat, leveling a harsh glare at a smirking Saix.

The meeting essentially over, they each left, leaving only Axel and Demyx behind.

“That was harsh.” He could assume that he was referring to what Saix said, but he wasn’t having any of it right now – comfort or not.

“Piss off. I’m not in the mood.”

A beat of silence passed.

“Are you gonna kill her?”

“Yeah. But on my terms and in my own time.”

~

03/05/83

I’ve created life! Or, rather, something like it…. It’s sentient either way! A loveable fellow that is as keen on the capabilities of the mind as I! A small dragon-like creature with two tiny wings, eyes (big and yellow), horns of a steer, and covered head to toe in royal purple pigment. I’ve decided to name him Figment. He’s truly a wonder! He can change shape and size – though he grows no higher than about two feet tall. And he doesn’t speak! But those are just his physical attributes. He can travel into the mind of any living being at will! And talks! But only once inside the mind! In fact, once inside the mind it seems his limitations on size and conjuring ability (where he could only conjure up things for his size alone) have all but vanished!

I think I’ll knit him a sweater!

~Dreamfinder

This must be the man who was holding Figment in that photo in Pops’ lab! You thought about the man with the bushy beard holding Figment. You skipped ahead to the last entry.

11/05/97

Something’s happened. A tragedy I could not have foreseen. As it turns out, the scientists thought to merely be studying Kelewenya, have been steadily killing it. A plan was made by my friend Professor von Drake to circumvent the casualties of such a catastrophic event, but I fear the worst has yet to come.

On top of that, it came to our attention that several engineers had gone missing without a trace. Von Drake refuses to investigate it. But I was approached by another engineer, an old friend of mine who has stumbled upon a dark discovery indeed. However, he was the only witness to the admission of the dark goings on behind the slow destruction of Kelewenya.

Tonight I shall retrieve his memories using my dreamcatcher. Using my own technology to convert those memories into physical data, we can reveal the plot of those behind the destruction of this planet and put a stop to the experimentation on the hearts of worlds.

I won’t tell anyone. If word should spread then the lives of all who know this terrible secret will be at stake, and I would not wish to add more casualties to those who have already fallen or may fall when the inevitable end of the world is upon us.

~Dreamfinder

You closed the book with shaking hands. Dreamfinder was Figment’s creator. He disappeared. You remembered what von Drake had said. You feared the worst. He’d probably been caught as no one on Spaceship Earth knew the dark history of why it existed. And von Drake had not even known what happened to his friend or the engineers. You could guess what had happened to at least some of them.

You sat up with the book in your lap, gasping when you saw that Ludwig was standing nearby. You glanced at your mother who sat in her chair, flipping through another wordy book with a vacant expression in her eyes. Figment was reading his own book in your chair. Your eyes met Ludwig’s once more.

“It’s all I have left of him. I don’t know what happened to him… But I can assume.”

“Does Figment know?” you asked as you sent another glance his way.

“No, I just haven’t had the heart to tell him.” You nodded slowly. You didn’t need to be told to keep your mouth shut about this. You wouldn’t have known how to tell him anyway.

“I’m sorry,” you said. You put the book back on the shelf before deciding it was maybe time for bed. You snuggled under your blankets, seeing that your mother was doing the same and wishing her good night and sweet dreams.

Your mother went to sleep almost immediately, but you were a bit more fidgety – despite being tired as you were. You looked over to Figment in his little him-sized bed. He had a small reading light on and was flipping through a thick book.

“Whatcha readin’?” He looked up at you over his tiny reading glasses. He shows you the cover. The Stand.

“Huh,” you muse, “Hey, Figment?”

He looked at you patiently as you gathered your thoughts together. You so desperately wanted to ask about Dreamfinder, but found you had trouble even really thinking about it. All those horrible experiments. Was Dreamfinder one of the victims?

“I, um…” You fumble through your mind for a new topic before one hit you, “Thank you for looking out for me today! I mean I think I can take care of myself but thank you for being there anyway!”

He nods his acknowledgement. But now you had a request to ask now that you thought about it.

“Can I ask a favor though?” He squints at you suspiciously. “I’m not totally helpless or stupid. I know no one else will, so can I ask that when you’re looking out for me, you trust my judgment.”

He gives you a skeptical look.

“I know today wasn’t the best example, but you know I’m not an idiot. I can do this. I know I can. I just need someone to have a little faith in me.”

He continues to look at you skeptically but eventually nods his agreement. You smile widely at him before flopping onto your back. You yawn and begin to drift away, the drowsiness that had previously been pulling on your eyelids now slipping them closed entirely.

~

The girl. You’d dreamed about her before… She had the impossibly blue eyes. She was dressed all in white, her pale blonde hair cascading over her shoulder. She’s speaking but no sound is coming out. You read her lips and just barely catch the last words out of her mouth.

“The Old Mansion.”

You’re in front of it. You know this is the place. You place a hand on the doorknob, and something seems to resonate deep within you. Something is here.

You push the door open, but when you take a step through, you just find yourself back home.

You’re in a park on Spaceship Earth, balancing on the lip of a fountain while Genki smiles up to you. Only… he doesn’t have a scar on his face. And he’s younger. Quite a few years younger now. Looked at your reflection in the water, you realize you are too.

This night feels familiar. Something is going to happen.

“Why did you stop dancing?” You look back to him. You’re going to answer, but you notice shadows writhing out of the corner of your eye. They close in quickly before a brilliant, white light surrounds you, and the next thing you know, the familiar weight of your keyblade was in your hand. But it was different. It was just a key now, and it wouldn’t change shape yet. It wouldn’t become what you had named Pathfinder for at least a year.

When Genki gets his scar.

Notes:

I hope you all enjoyed! I know it isn't the most exciting chapter but it sets up for a really crazy new world later like eight chapters from now! I'll try to have the next chapter up by Tuesday evening! Not gonna give away much, but I hope you're not too opposed to spending almost the whole chapter with Axel the next time I update.

Obscure-ish References:

Dreamfinder- https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Dreamfinder

Shout Outs:
Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moments_with_Mr._Lincoln
Universe of Energy- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe_of_Energy
World of Motion- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Motion

Chapter 7: Getting It Memorized

Summary:

You run into Axel in Disney Town where cartoon shenanigans ensue! Oh but he does make a wonderful tour guide! Meanwhile your mother and Ludwig try to learn the whereabouts of the king from Queen Minnie. Your mother reveals the tragic fate that befell your father.

Notes:

Updating sooner than planned, but I hope you enjoy anyway.

“________,” your mom shook you gently, “Sweetie, wake up. We’re about to land.”

You wake up disoriented. This… wasn’t your room. She was not waking you up for one of your classes.

“Where am I?” you mumble as it all comes rushing back to you. Oh yeah. This isn’t a dream.

“Are you alright?” your mother asked when a look of sadness passed over your features.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. Are we there yet?”

“Yes, we’re about to land.”

You got up quickly and went to your seat just as the ship descended through the clouds. The moon was high in the sky. Hey… Those didn’t look like regular clouds. They looked drawn – like with outlines and everything. Below the buildings resembled painted backgrounds until you got close enough to see their outlines as well. But all the scenery quickly vanished as you descended into a ship hangar which seemed void of any ships. Or at least the area where you were was, as it seemed to stretch quite far.

“Home sweet home!” von Drake announced. He seemed giddy as he hopped from his seat with more energy than he normally had, a little bounce to his step. So this was where he was from….

Figment also flapped around giddily, eager to see what was, no doubt, his home as well.

Ludwig opened the door almost immediately while your mother and you were still unbuckling your seats.

“Professor von Drake!” you heard two rather high pitch voices announce. So he was known around the castle? Did he used to work here? “What a surprise! We certainly weren’t expecting you back, well, ever!”

“Yes, yes! I know! It’s not every day I can grace the masses with the presence of my superior intellect!”

“Ok, wow, never mind.”

“And it’s good to be home!” Ludwig continued as if he hadn’t just ruined his own welcome.

“And look! It’s Figment! Have you heard from Dreamfinder?”

You froze at the door.

“Uh, no. Unfortunately. We still haven’t, uh, heard anything from him. I can assume you haven’t either?”

“No.” They sounded somber. You took this moment to exit the ship. You were greeted with the sight two of the most adorable little chipmunks you had ever seen! The “aww” was out of your mouth before you could stop yourself.

“Who’s that?” the one with the little red nose asked.

“Oh that’s my niece,” he clarified. They gave you a look.

“Yeah, I see the resemblance.” You… weren’t sure how to take that.

“Anyway, what can we do ya for?” the chipmunk with the little black nose asked.

“We’re here on official business! And we’ll need to speak to the proper authorities immediately.” He began to march off in a random direction. You assumed if he knew people here, he might know his way around the castle. Your mother stepped off the ship and marched ahead of you.

“________,” your mother turned to face you. “Ludwig and I had a chat.” Her face was stern. What did you do now? Did he tell her you’d read someone’s private journal? Was that a punishable offense now?

“I… We don’t think you should come see the king with us.”

“What?!”

“After that last stunt you pulled, I’m not even sure how deep you should be in this whole thing.”

“B-but this is exactly what happened last time! I only went to the castle because I wasn’t allowed to go! You can’t keep doing this!”

Your mother considered this for a moment. She looked like she was warring with herself.

“You’re right,” she admitted. You almost celebrated but deemed it inappropriate for the time. “BUT I don’t want you to go in there with us. Maybe go explore the town? Ludwig said it was safe and protected from darkness, and there would be plenty of things to do to keep you occupied. And I’ll cut a deal with you.”

You squinted suspiciously.

“If you can promise you’ll stay out of trouble and don’t do anything reckless or irresponsible from now on, I’ll tell you any information I think you should hear.”

You weren’t too keen on the deal. That could honestly mean that she could tell you any number of things – and not necessarily anything you needed to know. You also knew she was making this deal more out of worry rather than respect for your own personal wishes. But you didn’t have many options.

“Deal,” you said with a pout, folding your arms over your chest. She smiled regardless of your childish behavior.

You spun around on your heel to walk out of the hangar, heading towards a door with a flashing exit sign above it. You were going to go take a better peek at that moon, and if it were late/early enough maybe see another sunrise.

Then you thought about Axel again, and another wave of worry hit you for his and Leon’s wellbeing. You shook your head of the thought. You couldn’t do anything about it. You were sure they were fine. Or, at least, you tried to convince yourself as much.

Your mother watched you exit the hangar before motioning for Figment, who’d been patiently waiting on her, to come over. He flapped over.

“I have a favor to ask,” she began, “I want to trust my daughter. I really do, but she’s always been a bit of hassle when it came to following rules. I know she’s not a bad kid, but could you keep an eye on her? Discretely.”

Figment blinked. Babysitting again? Well, at least he’d get to see the town as opposed to just sitting in the castle for the remainder of their visit. He nodded.

“Thank you, Figment. I owe you one.”

~

You stood outside the castle walls looking at the moon.

As it turned out, it was also a toon. Not just drawn but a sentient being. It looked tired and wore an old-timey sleeping cap. Then it looked at you.

“You know it’s not polite to stare.” Your eyes widened before you looked away quickly.

“S-sorry!” you said quickly. You hadn’t expected it to look at or talk to you – though you guessed that was reasonable seeing as how it was a person.

That’s when you heard a strange beeping. You looked back at the moon who had pulled out a watch with its arm??? He looked at it.

“Well my shift’s over.” He then reached up and pulled down a cord. When he let go the night sky snapped up and out of sight like a pull curtain to reveal a bright and sunny morning sky with a sun who looked as tired as the moon and had a five o’ clock shadow. He was casually sipping a cup of coffee.

“Mondays am I right?” he sighed.

“Huh,” you mused. What a strange world. You still thought the sunrise was amazing but also thoroughly confusing.

“So how ‘bout that sunrise?” said a voice that was very close to you.

You yelped, backing up so fast you tripped over your feet and fell on your butt. You were simultaneously hit with a wave of relief, confusion, and annoyance. Axel laughed lightly at your reaction as he leaned casually on the wall where you just were.

He’s okay! But why is he here? And is he laughing at me right now?

You wanted to be more annoyed that he was laughing at you, but… you had to, grudgingly, admit that it was actually a really nice laugh.

Then little alarms went off in your head. You stood up, drew your keyblade and pointed it at him. He looked bored, not threatened. Which he should very much be right now!

“Why are you following me?” you asked, all business.

“You know,” he began, looking up at the sky, “no two sunrises are alike in each world. You just saw more than most people ever will in their lifetime.”

Your keyblade lowered minutely when you thought about this. It was honestly a really cool thought that you had seen much more than the trillions of quadrillions of people that existed in the many known and unknown universes ever would.

“That’s true,” you marveled out loud. You shook your head to clear your thoughts. That was unimportant right now, “You still didn’t tell me what you’re doing here!”

“I just hop from world to world. Like you,” he pointed out, casual demeanor never leaving him. He said it like he was talking about the weather rather than answering someone who was currently threatening him.

“Well I’m still 99% sure you’re stalking me, so I’m gonna have to ask that you stay a minimum of this length,” you motioned to the length of your keyblade and outstretched arm, “away from me.”

“That’s fair,” he said with a shrug. You sighed with a bit of relief before walking off to see the town. Axel kept his word and remained a good distance from you.

Figment watched the exchange at a distance, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at Axel. He very obviously didn’t belong there, and non-toons were an oddity in this world. He watched the two of you walking as you both turned a corner. He followed you silently, trying to get close enough to hear what you were talking about when he felt a pull on his tail.

He was greeted by the sight of a green parrot with a cigar and a rooster wearing a sombrero. He looked between the two nervously.

“Hey José,” the rooster spoke, “Whaddya make of this?” he asked, holding Figment up to the parrot by the tail.

“I don’t know, Panchito. Maybe he wants to help us out,” he suggested. What?!

“Hey, buddy,” the rooster spoke again, “You wanna make some quick cash?”

This could go one of two ways, and Figment was nervous to find out what way they intended. Figment began to sweat nervously.

“Of course, you do!” he said taking him away, still holding him by the tail. Apparently, his answer didn’t matter.

~

You walked with Axel for a while, occasionally glancing his way to make sure he was making good on his word and was not getting any closer, when you heard really pretty piano music drifting from an open window. It was light and tinkling and you could visualize the smooth black and white keys, and you began to think about your home back in the dance studio when you’d play the same kind of music as you twirled about.

It was when you stopped to listen that you noticed Axel getting closer. You were about to protest when he reached for your wrist and yanked over to him, pressing your face into his chest, his hand on the small of your back.

“H-hey w-we had an agreement!” you stuttered, trying to blatantly ignore the nervous flutter in your chest at how close he was holding you. Then you heard an abrupt, loud crash behind you. You turned your head to see the piano you had just heard smashed to pieces on the ground where it landed. Right where you had been only seconds ago before Axel pulled you out of the way.

Axel dropped his hands from your back and your wrist, moving passed you to continue walking. You momentarily gaped. What had just happened? You looked up to where the piano had to have come from, seeing a pig leaning out of the window.

“Sorry,” he apologized, “I thought you were somebody else!”

“Uh, no problem?” How does one respond to almost manslaughter? Never mind the fact that dropping pianos on someone was not a reasonable means to handle most disputes.

You turned to catch up with Axel, breaking your own rule of distance to walk alongside him. He glanced down at you.

“You’re too close,” he said casually with a small smirk on his face. You ignored him.

“Um, you kinda just saved my life, so you know, thank you?” You sounded more unsure of yourself than you intended, but either Axel didn’t notice or didn’t care.

“Yeah, well, you should watch out for yourself because I’m not going to do that every five minutes.”

“Every five…?” Another piano landed behind you, and you jumped with a squeak leaving your mouth.

“Sorry,” the pig called again, “Thought I saw a spider.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked, stopping to turn and look at you. You almost ran into him, stopping just in front of him and looking up at his expression, bored overall but his eyes were searching. His eyes were always so observant you noticed.

“What do you mean?”

“You obviously have no idea how most if not all worlds work. Every world you visit has different rules of logic and reason. You stick out like a sore thumb here, so what are you doing here?”

This guy had a lot of nerve!

“Well, I mean, it’s not like you don’t stick out! I mean look at you! You look… you know… You’re…!” You gestured up and down at him.

“Sexy?” he said with a smirk and a quirk of his eyebrow. You ignored that cute fucking expression on his face. He’d just love it if you said he was conventionally more attractive than most of the citizens in town you’d seen thus far, and you weren’t having it.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve!” you said defensively. He chuckled at your flustered state. You felt both vulnerable and annoyed. And anger. There was a little anger mixed in there. “And you still haven’t answered my question! You don’t belong here so why are you hopping worlds?”

Axel thought of a quick lie to tell you.

“My world fell to darkness a while back, so now I just drift around.”

You seemed to visibly deflate at that, all anger and annoyance gone from your face. In its place was a look of sadness. You grabbed his hand, something he wasn’t expecting, and gave it a light, comforting squeeze.

“I’m so sorry,” you said in a tone laced with sympathy, your eyes looking up at him with all the understanding in the world. It was too much for even him to handle. He turned away from you, taking his hand out of your grasp, so you wouldn’t see the mild blush that began to creep across his face.

“It’s nothing. I’ve come to terms with it,” he said beginning to walk again. The two of you walked in silence for a moment, you taking in the scenery, him alternating between watching your childlike wonder and taking in the scenery for himself.

He only really interacts with you when you’re about to cross the street. That is if you can call holding the edge of your shirt interaction. You weren’t sure why he was stopping you initially, but as soon as your foot hovered over the crosswalk a large rush of cars zipped by you.

He’d saved your life again.

“Thanks,” you mumbled. He just hummed in acknowledgment, watching you closely.

You tried again once the sign on the crosswalk said, “walk.” But as soon as your foot was out there, it switched back immediately to “don’t walk,” and a mess of cars zipped by you again.

You furrowed your brow, thinking of Saturday morning cartoons where this very gag would happen to any poor soul trying to cross the street. Then you looked up at Axel who raised an eyebrow at you.

“Is this one of those different world rules of logic and reason?”

He smirked.

“Now you’re getting it memorized,” he said tapping his forehead. He pulled some munny out of his robe and offered it to the crosswalk sign, and it just grew a fucking arm and took the munny. It nudges him for more munny, and with a roll of his eyes, Axel complies.

The sign abruptly switches to “walk,” and the rush of cars halts, causing a massive pile up. The drivers are shouting and cursing out Axel. You’re nervous, but he puts a hand on the small of your back and guides you across the street. You tried to ignore the warmth coming off of him. You were pretty sure no one should feel that warm, but you’d be lying if you said it didn’t feel nice. You also notice he’s got a cocky kind of swagger to his walk. He’s very confident in himself. That pissed you off. But it suited him. It was a very Axel thing to do.

“Okay,” you began, leaning on a building once you were both on the other side of the street, “I really have no idea what I’m doing. I mean, this place is a fucking cartoon.” He chuckled at that.

“Well I’ve got nothing better to do,” he said, moving to stand in front of you, “Maybe I give you a quick lesson in the laws of different worlds?”

He offered you his hand with that expression on his face again. The stupid cute one. You bit your lip before nodding and taking his hand.

“If you’re gonna be a keyblade wielder, you should probably know the basics of world travel. Laws of physics? Accessibility to outsiders, or rather, lack thereof? Or what other worlds even are?”

“Laws of…?”

“Right. Come on. I’ll buy you some lunch, and we can have a quick lesson.”

Notes:

Stay toon-ed (GET IT?!) for more time with Axel~ See ya real soon!

Obscure-ish References:

Panchito https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchito_Pistoles
Jose- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Carioca

Chapter 8: Perfectly Safe

Summary:

In which you're a hero to a weasley bank owner, your mother shares the tragic fate that befell your father, and Axel saves your ass... again.

Also Figment joins a band.

Notes:

Please enjoy this bank robbery!

Queen Minnie was busying herself in the library of her castle when she heard a ruckus outside the heavy, wooden doors. It sounded like shouting and she briefly wondered if there were approaching danger.

“Sir you can’t just barge in here!”

“Nonsense! The king and I are close personal friends!”

That was when Professor Ludwig von Drake burst into the room, Chip and Dale each riding on one of his shoulders.

“Professor!” Minnie greeted excitedly. She rushed over to greet him, dismissing the guards who had followed him there. A moment later a woman walked in after him, apologizing to the guards as she passed them for Ludwig’s behavior. “Oh, who’s this?”

“We’ll get to that in a moment. It’s not important,” he said, brushing your mother off, “I’ve so much to ask you – too much to catch up on! How are my nephews? How’s my brother-in-law?”

Minnie cast a glance at your mother who didn’t seem bothered by Ludwig’s dismissal of her, giving her a kind smile and motioning that it was ok.

“Well Huey, Dewey, and Louie are running an item shop in Hollow Bastion.”

“I was just there! I wish I’d known I’d have paid them a visit!”

“Scrooge is there as well starting an ice cream franchise!”

“I can’t believe it. My family was right there, and I missed them!” He looked distraught. Your mother placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. It can’t be easy to not see your family for twenty years then miss out on the opportunity to visit them.

“Maybe we can go back after this,” your mother suggested, “If we have the time.”

“Yes, I’ll see to it that we do see them. After all, it’s important that you meet your extended family.” Your mother let out a soft chuckle. “And Donald? How is he?”

“He’s off with Goofy and a young keyblade wielder named Sora.”

“Goofy abandoned his son to go off on some dangerous mission?”

“Well a while back the king asked him and Donald to go off and find Sora. They’re off doing important work right now.”

“Did you say Sora?” your mother asked. Minnie looked surprised.

“Why, yes. Are you looking for him?”

“Ah, no, your highness,” your mother spoke, “I’m afraid our story is a bit more complicated than that.”

The queen’s brow furrowed with worry.

“Come join me in the study. We’ll have tea, and you can tell me your story.”

~

“Got it memorized?” Axel asked you having given you the basic run down of worlds and the order in which this one worked.

“You say that a lot,” you commented, “But, yeah, I got it. Keyblades can unlock any door. They’re also the only means of entering the barriers between worlds. Unless you have other ways to get there, like ships.”

You’d been having a relatively pleasant chat while eating at a little outdoor café. It was a nice day. It was warm, sunny, and the air smelled sweeter here than it had on Hollow Bastion and it seemed there was music around every turn the two of you took on your way to the restaurant. And honestly, were it not for the apparently constant threat of death by cartoon gag, you’d love it here.

There was light jazz music playing right now and the soft sound of chirping birds. It was peaceful, and you let out a little happy sigh at how relaxed you felt.

You hummed and smiled, eyes looking over towards Axel who was looking out at the town.

“I used to do this all the time with my friend Genki back at home. We used to go to this little bistro that had the world’s best lemonade everyday after class. You ever do anything like that with your friends?”

Axel quietly regarded you for a moment, debating on whether or not he wanted to answer. You waited patiently, looking at him inquisitively – always curious…. Kind of like….

“Roxas,” he said finally, “I used to go get ice cream everyday with him.”

“Why’d you stop?” you asked leaning forward on your elbows, chin resting in your hands. He was silent for a moment more.

“I lost a friend too,” he said lowly. And then you were looking at him with that stupid, fucking sympathetic look again that was really starting to piss him off. Though he wasn’t sure why it pissed him off. It just did.

The two of you just looked at each other for a moment before a penguin in a bowtie came by with the bill. Axel left some munny on the table, and you both stood up to leave.

You walked through the park for a while, enjoying the quiet afternoon.

Then you heard an explosion. It was loud and jarring, tearing through whatever peace you had previously felt. You could see smoke in the distance – not very far, maybe two or three blocks away – and an alarm was sounding. You immediately started to walk towards it. Then you felt Axel grab your wrist.

“Where are you going?” He looked legitimately confused by your decision to head towards the explosion.

“There was an explosion.”

“Yeah, and?”

“What if someone’s hurt?” He blinked at you, letting go of your wrist.

“But it’s none of your business. The authorities will take care of it.”

“But someone might be hurt. I’m a keyblade wielder. It’s my job to help people, right?” you insisted, giving him a stern, almost scolding, look that almost had him laughing. But instead he huffed and rolled his eyes.

“Fine. Let’s go.” You smiled brightly, taking off in a run towards the explosion. He followed close behind.

You skidded to a halt in front of the large hole made in the front of a bank. Inside were three dogs – one short, one tall and skinny, and one big and muscular – holding a large safe trying to figure out how to maneuver it through the hole in the wall which was just short enough to not let the safe through. Nearby a weasel in a fancy suit, probably the bank owner, was frantically calling the police. You relaxed a little. Axel had been right. The authorities would handle it.

It was about then you heard sirens. Wow the cops here worked fast.

They pulled up to the curb.

“You three!” they shouted at the dogs still holding the safe. The three of them froze. “Have any of you seen any bank robbers around here?”

Are you kidding me?

“Uh, yeah, they went that way,” one of them said, pointing in a random direction.

“Thanks! Stay in school!” And just like that, they drove away. You looked at Axel who just shrugged. He looked like he kind of expected it but didn’t really care either way. You huffed. Well he wasn’t going to be any help. And the bank owner was crying by this point since his last source of help had just been bamboozled.

You drew your keyblade. Axel leaned on a nearby wall to watch, ready to step in if need be. This ought to be interesting if nothing else. He had to admit that keeping you alive temporarily purely out of spite was proving to be more entertaining than annoying as he’d originally thought.

“Hey, you!” you said, getting their attention, “Stop what you’re doing!”

They looked at you, looking you up and down.

“You think you can stop the Beagle Boys, little girl? Ha! I’ve eaten more frightening things for breakfast!”

“I said drop the safe,” you tried again, readying yourself for a fight as best you could, feeling a loose floorboard beneath your foot and weakening your stance as it wobbled. The shortest of the three glanced down at the floor then back up at you with a smirk.

“You heard the lady, boys, drop the safe,” he said with every confidence in the world. The other two looked at each other before shrugging and dropping it on the other end of the loose floorboard you were standing on. You were catapulted into the air as if it were nothing. You were, honestly, too surprised to scream, but it didn’t matter. You noticed you were going to land on the largest of the Beagle Boys and you made sure you put all your weight behind it. The two of you skidded a few feet away into a corner of the bank and you noted that he was out cold. You got up and whirled around to face the other two.

“A wise guy, huh?” the short one said as if that little stunt had been your plan all along. “Take her out,” he said turning to the tall one. He closed in on you before reaching into his pocket.

Oh this ought to be good.

Then he whipped out a cannon.

Are you fucking kidding me?!

You weren’t sure what to do. You were quite literally backed into a corner with a cannon pointed at you. How does one handle a situation like this? Axel ambled over casually as the Beagle Boy lit the fuse, laughing evilly.

Then he flipped it. Axel just fucking flipped the cannon’s barrel, so it was pointed in the other direction at the Beagle Boy.

The Beagle Boy let out a high-pitched girlish scream before being blown into the opposite wall, knocked out cold with little birds chirping and circling his head, cannonball firmly lodged in his mouth.

It was such a ridiculous situation and outcome that you couldn’t help it. You let out a loud snort, then a laugh – which sounded like something between the sound of a barking dog and a donkey’s bray. It was truly a laugh only a mother could love.

Yet Axel found that he wasn’t as put off by the sound of your laughter as most other people would be. He might even deign to say that he liked it. It was certainly different from the modest giggles you had let out before.

“Oh you think that’s funny do you? Well you’ve yet to face me!” the last of the Beagle Boys said, drawing a sword. You smirked. This was a fighting style you were at least familiar with.

And it showed. Even Axel was mildly impressed watching you trade blows with the Beagle Boy as you matched him hit for hit, moving just as graceful as you pleased – almost appearing to dance.

Then you did something that surprised both the Beagle Boy and Axel. You managed to disarm him, sending his sword flying until it embedded itself into the ceiling of the bank.

“So you’ve bested me once more! Well I have one more trick up my sleeve!” He prepared to make a move, and you readied your keyblade once more, prepared for whatever he had to throw at you. But then he just took off running, leaving a him-sized and shaped hole in the wall next to where they had already blown a hole in the wall.

You blinked in surprise. You had to go after him. But…. You looked between the other two Beagle Boys and the one who had just gotten away, trying to decide if you should leave them alone or chase down the last one.

“Go on ahead. I’ll take care of it from here,” Axel said, picking up the skinny one and slinging him over his shoulder. You smiled broadly at him.

“Thanks! I owe you one!” you called as you ran out of the larger of the two holes in the wall.

~

Queen Minnie set her tea down.

“That is… truly horrible. I am so sorry. I cannot possibly imagine everything you must be going through right now,” she said to your mother who sat somberly sipping her own tea. “Was everybody able to escape to safety?” It was honestly just wishful thinking on her part.

“No,” your mother answered sadly, “There were many people who did not. The engineers and mechanics of Spaceship Earth stayed behind to ensure as many people made off the planet as possible. My husband…” Your mother was tearing up. “My husband was one of them.”

“Oh you poor dear,” Minnie consoled, “You don’t have to continue.”

“Thank you, your grace, but that’s why we need to find the king,” your mother said, setting down her own tea.

“I’m sorry,” Queen Minnie began, “But he hasn’t been here in a while. The last any of us have heard, he was headed to Twilight Town to meet up with Goody, Donald, and Sora. No wait, Sora, Donald, and Goofy. Yeah, that sounds better. And you just missed Sora by a day.”

“Well maybe this will work to our benefit,” Ludwig pondered, “Perhaps Sora can help my niece as she learns to wield her keyblade while we continue our search for the king.”

“Speaking of,” Minnie interjected, “We’ve spoken a lot about her, but where is the new keyblade wielder?”

“Oh you know kids,” von Drake said with a wave of his hand, “Out and about on the town, probably at some wild party or something.”

Minnie blinked at him.

“Is something wrong, your Highness?” your mother asked, not liking the look she was giving von Drake. Liking it less when it morphed to a look of worry.

“I know this is a stretch, but by any chance, is your daughter a toon?” Minnie asked, though she was certain she knew the answer.

“No…,” your mother answered slowly.

“Professor! How could you let out on the town on her own?!”

“What?! Why?! What’s wrong?!” Your mother was already in a panic. “I thought you said the town was safe?!” She directed her anger at Ludwig who dove behind the chair he was sitting in.

“It’s perfectly safe!” Ludwig countered.

“For cartoons!” Minnie argued. “Go find your daughter! I’ll try to contact Sora, Donald, and Goofy via their gummy ship to see if I can get a hold of them.”

Your mother and Ludwig rushed out of the castle and into the streets.

“It’ll take too long to find her in this city,” your mother despaired.

“No worries,” Ludwig said confidently, “I know someone who can get us around quickly.” Ludwig stuck his thumb out, and up zoomed a taxi with headlights for eyes and a bumper for a mouth.

“Benny the Cab at your service!” he said with a little mock bow and heavy New Yorker’s accent. “Von Drake is that you? I haven’t seen your mug around here in ages!”

“Yes, yes, we’ll catch up later! Right now we gotta find my niece!”

“Sure, what does she look like?”

“She looks like a younger, hotter version of her,” Ludwig said, pointing his thumb back at your mother, who promptly slapped him.

“No problem, we’ll find her before you can say Brooklyn Dodgers!”

Your mother hardly paid attention to Benny’s talk with Ludwig, too focused on wondering where you’d wandered off to if this place was so dangerous. She wrung the edge of her shirt in her hands as she looked at the blurring colors around her as Benny zipped down streets this way and that. Then she saw a sight that caught her eye and also infuriated her.

“Stop!” she shouted. Benny slammed on his breaks, and von Drake flew up and out of the car to who knows where screaming into the distance.

“Figment!” your mother shouted. A sign had been what caught her attention. It said “The Three Caballeros! Starring Jose, Panchito, and Donald Duck!” However, Donald’s name was crossed out and in its place was written, “Lizard Eddie.” Standing on a stage with a rooster and a parrot was Figment, now wearing a sombrero and doing the samba and not watching you like he was supposed to be. He froze at the sight of your mother glaring daggers at him. “Get in the car. Now.”

“But Donald’s been AWOL for a while now, and we need a third member for our band!” the rooster called.

Figment ignored them and didn’t hesitate to get in the cab. He sadly waved goodbye to his career as a musician, hoping you were alright so your mother wouldn’t kill him.

“You were supposed to be watching her,” your mother scolded as Benny took off down the streets again, “I swear if anything happens to her, you and that duck are gonna be mounted over a fireplace.”

Figment gulped.

~

You finally cornered him in an alley, keyblade at the ready. He turned around slowly to face you.

“So it all comes down to this,” he said, glaring at you as you blocked his only exit.

“Looks that way,” you said.

Then you heard a screaming. And it was getting louder. You turned around just in time to miss Ludwig flying past your head and embedding himself into the wall behind the Beagle Boy.

“Pops?!” Your eyes briefly glanced at the Beagle Boy when you noticed something glinting in his hand. It was a gun. You thought of a phrase about bringing a knife to a gun fight and briefly wondered if that applied to swords too…. Or keyblades in your case.

“End of the line, little girl,” he said with a grin. Then you heard piano music. Sweet, sweet piano music. You looked up then back down at him with a smile.

“Looks that way,” you said again. Then a piano landed on him.

“Thank you!” you called up to the pig.

“That was the guy! He owed me money!” You let out a snort of laughter. You were about to break out into full blown laughter when a dreaded sound hit your ears.

“________ _________ ________!”

You froze on the spot. It was your mother. And she was pissed.

“Hey, mom,” you said weakly.

“Don’t ‘hey, mom’ me! I don’t even know what’s going on, but it hardly looks like nothing. Your keyblade is out, and there’s an unconscious man covered in piano!”

“I swear I wasn’t doing anything reckless!” you said, hands up defensively.

“You there!” A new voice was thrown into the mix. You both turned to see the bank owner running up to you with a large bag of money in his hands. “I cannot thank you enough for defeating three heavily armed and very dangerous robbers! You could have totally died! Because they sure were gonna kill you. With their weapons! That they had. The dangerous, blood thirsty, heavily armed robbers.”

Your mother turned back to look at you. You were in so much trouble.

“Okay, I know it sounds bad, but I swear I wasn’t in any danger!” Okay that was a lie. And a really bad one. She didn’t even look like she believed you. You wouldn’t.

“And I’d like to reward you with this bag of some guy’s savings!”

“Wait that belong to someone?!” you asked. Von Drake peeled himself out of the wall, quickly approaching the bank owner and taking the money.

“Ignore her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Okay let’s go everyone!” You followed Ludwig, your mother, and Figment back to the cab. You sighed. You were not looking forward to the lecture you were going to have back on the ship.

You all squeeze into the cab, and it’s a relatively silent ride back, outside of the cab talking ad-nauseum about his unfiltered opinions of the Brooklyn Dodgers. You pass by a little jailhouse, and outside you can see the other two Beagle boys tied up with a little sign around their necks that read, “Lock us up. We’ve been naughty boys.”

You slapped a hand over your mouth to keep from laughing.

Why did he write that?!

Once back at the castle you were sent to the ship while Ludwig and your mother bid the queen farewell. You were a little upset. You didn’t get to say goodbye to Axel, but you guessed it hardly mattered now. The queen had given you food and supplies for the trip. And a little extra munny – you guessed Ludwig had neglected to tell her about your little award from earlier.

You looked out the window as the ship was taking off when you noticed something out of the corner of your eye. It was Axel, sitting on the roof of the castle. He gave you a little mock salute.

Aww, he came to see me off. That’s sweet.

A little smile found its way on to your face.

Figment looked between you and Axel, narrowing his eyes… again. He didn’t trust Axel.

Notes:

Join me next time to see Saix and Xemnas have a lil chat, how Genki got his scar, and Axel calls you cute! He don't mean it though.

Obscure-ish References:

Beagle Boys- https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Beagle_Boys
Benny the Cab- https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Benny_the_Cab
The Three Caballeros - http://www.cornel1801.com/disney/Three-Caballeros/04.jpg

Chapter 9: He Called Me Cute

Summary:

Namine asks for a favor from Axel, and you get a new perspective on your being a keyblade wielder.

Notes:

You guys have been great! I love all your comments and support! You're so sweet! Anyway enjoy this chapter!

“You really have a knack, no a talent, for finding trouble and placing yourself in the middle of it!”

Your mom was madder than you’d ever really seen her before.

“Mom, I’m not looking for trouble! Someone was in trouble! What else was I supposed to do?!”

“I know, but I’ve told you before that you aren’t responsible for the world’s problems! You’re not a superhero that you see in movies! When you get hurt, there isn’t some dramatic come back! You just get hurt! Or killed!”

“Well why do I have this if not to help people?” you asked, drawing out your keyblade.

“I understand that! But you’re my daughter first and a protector second!” Your mother looked on the verge of tears.

“Please understand,” she pleaded, “That you, Ludwig, and Figment are all I have left of a dead world. And, you, ________, are all that’s left of your father. I can’t lose you too. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if anything happened to you.”

Little tears had sprung up in your eyes.

“I know…,” you said, voice wavering slightly, “I don’t want to hurt you or anyone else. But if I don’t do anything, then who will?”

Your mother let out a shaky, defeated sigh.

“Ludwig, will please talk some sense into your niece? Please?”

Ludwig watched the two of you before speaking.

“You’re both right. _________, you’re brave and daring. But you’re also impulsive and reckless. You don’t think most of your actions through, if you stop to think at all. And it is my professional opinion that you’ll be dead sooner rather than later.” Oof. Harsh.

“Thank –,” your mother began before being cut off.

“But! You’ve been chosen to do something extraordinary and we can’t ignore that, try as we might. And just based on my knowledge of the mathematics behind probability, ignoring it will also get her killed,” he leveled his gaze at your mother who looked shocked to say the least, “She will face her destiny when it comes to her and not a moment later. Wouldn’t you rather she be prepared?”

Your mother stood there gaping. She opened and closed her mouth repeatedly, trying to think of words to say, tears beginning to spill over.

“I think I need to lie down,” she said finally. She brushed passed you silently, and you huffed in your seat, angry and sad. You were bitter to say the least.

“You know, I never asked for this,” you grumbled.

“I imagine you’re talking about that fancy-schmancy little sword you got. Well you’re stuck with it.”

Your frown deepened.

“So, knowing that, what are you prepared to do with it?”

“What?”

“There is a chance that what happened to Spaceship Earth may have happened regardless of you having a keyblade. The planet had no heart, and the darkness of the people living there would have eventually caused it to fall because there was no heart to balance the good and evil in people. But our one saving grace, the only thing that stands between its permanent destruction and new hope for the people who once lived there, is you. Because you’re a keyblade wielder. You may function as a beacon for darkness, but remember that beacons are the guiding light in the dark. Without you the world would fall to darkness, and that’s where it would stay.”

You began to pout again but this time at the realization that what you had said was incredibly selfish for someone who was supposed to abandon their own selfish desires to protect others. You sighed and slumped in your seat, tired from the day’s activities. Maybe you would lie down too.

You trudged back to your bunk and flopped beneath the covers. You felt dirty in your clothes, but since you only had the ones you escaped in and the ones Aerith had given you, you couldn’t really do much to rectify the situation. You swore, the next place you visited, you would buy yourself some new clothes. Wherever that place was.

~

“You know, personally, I don’t care what you do. But you know Xemnas doesn’t like to play around, so now I have a burning curiosity to know why it is you’re playing with fire – so to speak – just to push Saix’s buttons when you know that you’re subsequently pushing Xemnas’.”

Axel turned to see Xigbar leaning on a wall, his black and gray pony tail slung over his shoulder, a smile playing across his face.

“You aren’t pulling that stunt Marluxia and Larxene pulled, are you? Where you start acting more in your own interest?”

“Nope. Just doing my job when I feel like it.”

“When you feel like it,” he repeated with a chuckle, “I feel like you’ve only been doing what you feel like lately. Be careful. Xemnas won’t wait around for you to do your job forever, and he certainly won’t let it go unpunished.” Xigbar pushed himself off of the wall and turned to walk in the opposite direction then halted.

“Why are you taking so long anyway? Is it really just spite?”

Axel tried to think of another reason. Saix interfering with his job. Saix’s comment about Roxas.  Saix openly insulting his capabilities.

“Yep.”

Xigbar turned his head to study Axel’s expression.

“Hmm,” he hummed before continuing on his way.

~

“Why did you…?” you were bewildered more than anything. You knew Genki had a thing for you, but you also thought the two of you had a mutual understanding that it just wasn’t meant to be. He laughed at your expression then shrugged.

“I don’t know. I guess I just really wanted to do it at least once,” he laughed with a blush. You shook your head. Then you both turned back to the sky. There was something surreal about staring up into a dark blue background. It felt like any moment you were going to fall into the sky, and a sense of weightlessness would overcome you.

“I’m sorry.” You said after a moment.

“Don’t be. You’re my best friend. And I love being friends with you.”

A warm feeling overcame your body. You truly did not deserve the love and support of this beautiful boy beside you. He was the one source of “not drama” in your life, and at fifteen everything felt like drama.

The two of you heard a rustle in the bushes. You both sat up quickly, eyes darting this way and that. Your blade appeared in your hand and you had barely managed to block one of the shadow creatures that had lunged at you, stumbling backwards.

Another attacked you from the back, knocking you forward, the sword sliding across the ground. Your vision swam and your head throbbed. You could see Genki rush to pick up your sword. He stood at the ready in front of you as another one of those creatures lunged at him. But the strangest thing happened. It vanished from his hands in a flash of light.

You couldn’t forget the sound of his shout when the creature carved a bloody red line across his face. You called to him as he held his face in pain, blood running down his arms. You scrambled to stand up, your sword appearing in your hand automatically.

You dispatched the creatures quickly with more aggression than you had ever felt before. You turned to your friend who was still clutching his face. You took him to a hospital.

You were still angry. You should have been stronger. You should have protected him. Why had the sword disappeared? Why had it vanished from him when he needed it? Was it only meant for you?

Genki had to get stitches across his face. The scar would never fade.

You wished you could have changed things at the end of that night. Everything had been nice up until that point. The peace. The feeling of floating. Your best friend. Your first kiss.

“Don’t beat yourself up over it. It wasn’t your fault.”

You whirled around to see a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes smiling gently at you.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Namine,” she said in a soft voice.

~

Axel walked through a corridor and into a white pristine room. Standing at the window, looking into the forest was Namine.

She’d been searching for someone as of late. She’d been reaching them through their dreams.

“Still searching for your mystery hero?” Axel asked. She looked at him with a surprised expression. Then she smiled kindly. She always had kind smiles for him, something he’d grown to appreciate over time though he’d been neutral initially. Your face flashed in his mind briefly. Your smiles weren’t kind so much as they were welcoming.

“She’ll be here soon. I know it.”

“She?”

Namine nodded eagerly. Each time she had talked to the person, she could never quite see what they looked like. She could only hope they could hear her messages to them. Though it had been quite a few days, and Axel wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to break through to them.

“I saw her for the first time the other night. She was having a nightmare. She asked who I was, so I’m worried if she was able to see or hear me in the other dreams. But I’m confident in her ability. She’ll find me.”

“So what does this mystery girl look like?” Namine thought for a moment while Axel leaned on the wall. Then she began to describe her, and Axel’s calm demeanor began to slip. He didn’t show it on the outside, but he was swearing on the inside. Of course, it had to be you. You who he was done toying with and was ready to get rid of and never have to see again so he could move on with his life.

“Bad news about that,” Axel said, scratching the back of his head and looking away. Namine watched him with wary, uncertain eyes. “The Organization knows about her. They want her gone.”

Namine’s eyes widened slightly.

“I was afraid you were going to say that. I knew she was a keyblade wielder. I didn’t know they would learn about her so quickly.”

“Saix was there when her planet fell. That’s most likely the only reason they know anyway. It’s funny how these coincidences work.”

“Can I ask a favor?” she said, turning completely to face him. He frowned.

“No.”

“It’s important.”

“No.”

“Just for a while. I need her help.” She was looking at him pleadingly, and he found it harder to say no this time around.

“I’ll think about it,” he said reluctantly with a roll of his eyes. She gave a soft smile.

“You need food?” She nodded. He just nodded back, pushed himself off the wall, and turned to leave. It was then that he noticed a crude drawing hanging by the door. It was you.

“I hadn’t known it was them until yesterday evening,” she admitted, “It was just the face of someone I’d made up until then. It’s funny how these coincidences work.” She turned back to the window, smiling.

~

An alarm woke you up. Funny you don’t remember your alarm clock sounding like that. Or being that loud.

You blinked your eyes open to see your mom also waking up disoriented then looking around in a panic. You realized your sense of balance was off. That was because the ship was tilted forward making a beeline for the ground as you zipped through the atmosphere of another planet.

Ludwig was leaning on the steering wheel of the ship, snoring while Figment desperately tried to wake him. You hopped out your bunk, sliding forward to the front of the ship where you grabbed von Drake by his shirt and slapped him hard across the face.

“What? What? Oh it’s you! I was having the most wonderful dream!”

“Pops, we’re crashing!”

“No, no I said it was a good dream!”

You turned his head to look out the window to see the rapidly approaching ground.

“Why didn’t you say we were crashing?! This is no time to be asking me about my dreams!” You’d slap him if you didn’t need him to pull the ship out of its nosedive.

He yanked back on the steering wheel, pulling the ship out of its descent in time to just barely graze the tops of the tree line of the forest you were flying over.

“And would you look at that! We’re here!”

“Pops, you should stay on the ship. You haven’t slept in like two days.” He looked at you, his eyes were clearly still disoriented. Each eye was looking in a different direction and bloodshot. Even his blinking was out of synch.

“I agree,” your mother said as she walked to the front of the ship, “We’ll look for Sora and the King. You get some rest.”

You went back to your bunk and grabbed the satchel you had meant to give back to Merlin and some munny from the bag the bank owner had given you. You were more than eager to put anything else on. You opened the door to the ship, eager to explore another world when you felt a firm tug on the collar of your shirt. You looked at your mother who was leveling a stern look at you.

“Figment is going with you. You’re both going to act like you have some damn sense and stay out of trouble. You will meet me back here in about five hours, or I will punish you both. Am I making myself clear?”

Both you and Figment audibly gulped and nodded.

“Good.” She let got of your shirt. Figment shrank a bit in size to sit on your shoulder and held on as you took off running towards the town in the distance. Then you slowed to take in the nature around you. There were trees everywhere and grass and flowers. Only they weren’t arranged. You’d only seen parks on Spaceship Earth. Nothing had ever been unplanned and sporadic as it was now. It had a chaotic beauty about it that you vastly appreciated.

Once you arrived at the town, you squeezed through a hole in a wall that supported a set of train tracks. Traditional entrances be damned.

You went into the first clothing store you could find, picking out a pair of short shorts. Legs for days bitch! Then you browsed through a few cute t-shirts. You picked one with a little dragon on it that fit you rather snugly. Oh, yes, you were super cute.

“Look now we’re all match-y,” you said to Figment who gave you a dry look. “I imagine having to babysit me all the time isn’t that fun. How about we do something you want to do?”

He just shrugged. He didn’t know about anything around here to do any more than you did.

“Well then let’s just walk around for a while.” He nodded, and the two of you exited the shop. You elected to wear your purchase out, stuffing your old, dirty clothes into your satchel.

You walked through town, purchasing an orange and sharing it with Figment, seeing what was called a “Struggle Match,” and just browsing shops in general. It was a nice town, and the people were friendly. Then you saw him, sticking out like a sore thumb as he ambled through town, a bag of something he probably bought swinging next to him as walked. Figment spotted him too and narrowed his eyes.

You were already walking over to him. Figment began to pull on your shirt, but you ignored him. Then he flew in front of your face, holding up a stop sign.

“What?” you asked annoyedly. He bonked you on the head with the sign, pointing at Axel and shaking his head. You huffed. “I thought you said you’d trust my judgment.”

He crossed his arms.

“He saved my life you know. Because, you know, I almost died like three times in the last world we were in. Plus I just wanna say hi. That’s it.”

Figment debated this in his head. He did not trust Axel. But if what you said was true, then he couldn’t guarantee that Axel was all bad. That didn’t exactly make him good either.

Figment rolled his eyes and sighed, uncrossing his arms. You beamed at him.

“Thanks!” you said as you trotted over to Axel.

He turned just as you approached him. A flash of annoyance ran through his mind as he thought of his conversation with Namine and was quickly replaced with mild surprise. You were smiling brightly, happy to see him. It was not something he was accustomed to. Not since Roxas anyway. But there you were happy with a smile all for him.

He returned it with a soft smile of his own. You noted that a smile that wasn’t one of his cocky ass smirks actually suited him rather nicely.

“Who’s following who now?” Okay you take it back. Smile be damned.

“I didn’t know you’d be here!” you defended rather quickly. He smirked. “What’re you up to?”

“Just taking a walk,” he answered with a shrug. You shuffled from foot to foot, biting your lip. Were you nervous? Why?

“Mind if I tag along?” you finally blurted out in a rush.

“No, thanks.”

You seemed disappointed and confused.

“Well what are you doing here if you’re not stalking me?”

“Okay, wow, conceited. Look, you’re cute, but I do have my own life you know.”

Oh no. You were about to do that thing. You could already feel the giant, goofy smile forming on your face. You hated that smile.

He called me cute.

And you knew he didn’t mean anything by it. But having a cute guy call you cute was nice. You’ve been staring at him with this stupid smile for a few seconds now. Time to go before you make an even bigger goof of yourself. You spun around and began to march away.

“Wait,” he called, and you looked back, smile half way under control, “What are you doing here?”

“Nothing!” you called and jogged off.

Notes:

You get to fight Setzer in the next chapter!

Chapter 10: I'll Take That Bet

Summary:

You get into some minor trouble with one of the locals and into awkward situation with Axel.

Notes:

You remember when I said you get to fight Setzer? It's pretty one-sided.

“It’s just weird,” you said to Figment who rolled his eyes. You just wouldn’t shut up. Yes, it was weird that he was on the exact same planet as you at the exact same time again! Yes, it was weird that for once he wasn’t there to follow you! But you had a job to do!

But here the two of you were at a bistro sitting at one of the little umbrella tables outside while you let your thoughts wander around rampantly about Axel. Again. He was going to cry. You couldn’t pull your head away from trouble to save your life. And sometimes that was very well the case.

You let out a sigh, putting your head on the table and looking at Figment who was face down on the table. You knew you should be thinking about anything and anyone else right now. Well, not anyone. Sora. That’s what you were here for. Ugh, but you felt like you could barely focus.

You took a deep breath and held it for a second before exhaling slowly. Then you stood up abruptly.

“Let’s go,” you said. Figment looked up. He could let a few tears of joy slip from his eyes. Finally!

You paid for your lemonade and left.

You continued walking around, asking if anyone knew a Sora or if he’d passed through recently. It was always a, “No, sorry,” or a, “I saw him a few days ago.” Well a few days ago isn’t helpful! You let out a growl of frustration passing by the Struggle match area again and stopping to watch.

Apparently, this wasn’t a tournament so much as just an entertainment source and means of practice. The official tournament was apparently a few days away.

“You must be new here. I’d remember a face like yours.” Who the fuck? You turned to look at who had just spoken to you. Oh. He was pretty. He had striking purple eyes and silver hair. His face had a few scars, but they certainly weren’t unflattering. Lotta people with scars on their face lately…. He smirked. You knew it was because you were checking him out. You weren’t hiding it. You gave a small smile.

“Is that so?” you flirted back.

“A woman like you with all the beauty of the heavens contained in her eyes? Of course. The name is Setzer by the way,” he said in way that was almost like a purr. Oh he was good. “Are you enjoying the tournament?”

“________, and it’s alright I suppose. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Are you one of the competitors?”

“And current champion.” He made a gesture to the belt he wore. “It took a bit, but I managed to take it from, Seifer, the previous champion.”

It was a little gaudy for your taste but not wholly unappealing.

“Was it difficult?”

“Maybe for someone else, but I assure you, I’m the best there is.”

“Maybe one day I take it from you,” you tease. He snorted.

“I’m not sure you could handle the first few rounds, hon.” You weren’t sure if he were talking about the matches now or something a bit more lewd. “You’d have to be a pretty strong fighter to qualify, and no offense but you don’t look cut out for the warrior lifestyle.”

Okay, yeah, he was insulting your ability as a warrior. You scoffed.

“Offense taken. I’m a decent enough fighter, thank you very frickin’ much.” You thought he’d abandon his shameless flirting after he’d obviously insulted you. But he wasn’t done yet.

“Alright then. How about a little wager? You and I can do a quick little match, and if I win, you get to go on a date with me.” Well wasn’t he just as bold as could be. You weren’t sure.

“And if I win?” you asked, slowly. He gave you a cocky smile that said you most certainly were not going to win, but he’d humor you with an answer.

“I’ll let you have my championship belt.” You didn’t think you’d be wearing that gaudy thing with any of your clothes on a regular basis, but to see the look on his face as you swished your hips with his championship belt loosely hanging from them would be too good to pass up.

You bit your lip as you considered his offer a second more. And a date, while strange and very forward, didn’t sound too bad.

“Alright. I’ll take that bet.” Figment facepalmed.

~

Figment has officially given up. He doesn’t know what he can do at this point to convince you not to fight this strange man you just met off the street. Maybe if you get your ass kicked, you’ll snap out of it and be all business from here on out. And as soon as the two of you started, he was honestly afraid he would get his wish. He just lay face down on the ground as he waited for you to come to your senses.

Despite the fact that he called you out on being an amateur fighter, Setzer didn’t go easy on you. Or maybe he was going easy on you, and you were just that bad a fighter. Most of your hits didn’t land, but he was certainly handing you your ass with a cocky smile on his face that was beginning to annoy you a lot more than charm you. He was looking forward to that date as much as he seemed to be enjoying kicking your ass this way and that.

“You must really want that date,” you panted as you barely managed not to go down on that last hit.

“You could say I give my all in whatever I do. Believe me, I’ll make it up to you when this is all over,” he said. He hardly sounded tired. “Had enough, pet?”

You lunged at him again. But he swiftly dodged you, giving you a firm hit on your back. You stumbled then whirled around to face him, prepping yourself to attack once more.

“Nope,” you half laughed.

“Then I’ll just have to end it myself.”

He was fast. Very fast. You could only take a step back as his hit was about to connect with the center of your chest when your view was obstructed.

You heard Setzer make a gasp of surprise before you watched Axel fling him to the other side of the stand the two of you had been fighting on. You stood there in mild shock as you watched Setzer pick himself up off the ground. Axel grabbed your elbow and began to lead you away.

“Come on,” he grumbled.

“Calling in reinforcements?” Setzer said in a relatively mocking manner. You looked back at him and gave him a half shrug as you were led away. He looked after the two of you but didn’t do or say anything, just watching with a look of confusion and mild amusement.

Axel led you around in a daze until the two you were in a smaller, vacant town square. He let go of you and turned to face you with an expression of, “What ever am I going to do with you?” His arms were folded, and you just blinked up at him with doe-like eyes.

“That was just sad,” he said finally. You imagined he was talking about your fight with Setzer. You put your hands behind your back, shuffling from foot to foot, and looking anywhere but at him as you gave a shrug. You were embarrassed. Axel rolled his eyes.

“Did you kidnap me just to insult me?” you shot back.

“I guess not,” he said after a moment, “Attack me.” You looked back up at him. Uh, excuse me?

“I don’t want to hurt you,” you said quietly. He snorted.

“Trust me. You won’t.” You were getting pretty sick of everyone acting like you couldn’t do any damage. You summoned your keyblade.

He looked at you expectantly, and you were still slow to act. But you did. Swinging at him half-heartedly so as not to cause any harm if you managed to hit him. He grabbed your wrist.

“Like you mean it. Or are you actually that bad of a fighter?”

You swung again, this time with all your speed and strength. He easily dodged you, moving passed you and giving you a light push where you had left an opening.

“Again,” he instructed. You tried again from another angle. He dodged you again, once more giving you a light push where you were vulnerable.

“Again,” he instructed, but it just yielded the same outcome. You weren’t really sure what he was playing at.

“You’re too careless. Stop putting all your focus into your hit and think about your defense for once, or you’re going to get yourself killed.”

“I’ve been fine up to now,” you argued.

“So far you’ve only fought cartoon characters and non-sentient monsters. Don’t think for a moment that up against an experienced fighter, you’d stand half a chance. You’ve attacked me three times and three times I hit you where you were most vulnerable. If this were a real fight, you’d be dead.” You had a lump in your throat. You had not considered any of this before.

You don’t think most of your actions through, if you stop to think at all.

Those words rang loudly in your head.

And it is my professional opinion that you’ll be dead sooner rather than later.

“So what do I do?” you asked.

“Attack with your opponent’s next move in mind for starters. And maybe don’t attack first. Strength clearly isn’t your strong suit so much as speed and movement. You’re a dancer, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but how did you know?”

“It shows. You move more fluidly than most people and every step you take is measured and on your toes. You’d be great at dodging if you weren’t so focused on attacking.”

“Well how do I land a hit on someone if I’m just dodging?”

“The same way I did to you every time you attacked me,” he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Oh.”

“I’m going to attack you. Find an opening. Use it.” Almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he was moving towards you at a lightning fast pace. You squeaked, barely dodging it but not hitting him in your surprise.

“You didn’t hit me,” he stated.

“I wasn’t expecting you to move so fast,” you admitted sheepishly.

“Your opponents aren’t going to care that they’re moving too fast for you.” He attacked you again though at a notably slower speed – but still fast as hell. You dodged, nudging him with the flat of your keyblade so as not to hurt him.

“Not bad. But you could be better.” He attacked you again. A bit faster this time. You did it again. “Nice, but this time hit me. I’m tougher than you’re giving me credit for. Or you’re weaker than I thought.”

You huffed. He attacked you again and you countered, putting all of your weight and strength behind it. He must not have been anticipating it because you managed to cause him to lose his balance. This would have been a victory in your book if you hadn’t fallen too. On top of him no less.

He was surprised. One moment he was teaching you to fight, the next he was looking up at the sky. He could feel you shift your weight above him. Your chin was resting on his shoulder, and your legs were straddling his hips. He heard you let out a giggle at the ridiculousness of the situation in which the two of you landed.

You both began to sit up. It was an innocent enough movement. But you were sitting in his lap and incidentally rubbing yourself intimately on him in your attempt get up. And for a moment, just a split second, it caught him off guard to be touched like that by someone. And he lost control for a bit – incidentally igniting himself as a hot, red flame spread over his body. He felt many things in that moment. He was confused. And surprised. And embarrassed.

You yelped at the intense heat, jumping off of him before you could be burned.

You both stared at each other in shock for a few seconds. Then you heard rapid footsteps approaching. Your head snapped in the direction of the approaching person and then back in Axel’s direction. But you found that he had vanished – not unlike the night the two of you first met.

“Are you alright, miss? I heard a scream.” A man said with a look of worry on his face.

“Oh, yes,” you recovered quickly, “I tripped and fell. Clumsy me!” He looked relieved then concerned again as his eyes trailed to the ground next to you. Your eyes followed to see a large burn mark on the ground.

“What happened?”

“It was there when I got here,” you lied. The man nodded slowly and walked away. You got up and brushed yourself off. Then you were pushed by what felt like someone throwing a sack of flour into your back. You spun around to see Figment looking at you angrily.

Oops.

You had kinda abandoned him. You gave him a shy smile.

He was not having it.

“Um, sorry?” you tried. He continued to scowl at you. “I hadn’t planned on leaving, but then Axel showed up and….” You continued to ramble, and Figment, just not wanting to hear it right now, tuned you out.

Oh of course it was Axel again. He stared as you kept trying to justify the unjustifiable when he noticed something just passed you. A silvery body writhing unnaturally beyond your field of vision. This was bad. He flew after it.

“…and I just thought hey you know it ain’t that bad – Figment?!” You stopped your ramble which at this point you weren’t even sure where it was going to follow your friend. You ran after him, fighting back a giggle at the thought of chasing a purple dragon, following him this way and that until the two of you had run back out of town and into the forest.

Finally, Figment slowed, looking around frantically.

“Figment,” you panted, “What’s wrong? Why’d you run off?” But he was still looking around. You waited until he had calmed to try to ask again.

“I was wondering where you’d run off to,” you heard Axel coming up from behind you.

“I think something spooked Figment,” you said as he stopped looking around to level a glare at Axel who stared back bewilderedly.

Then you realized that the two of them had never actually met. At least, not officially.

“Oh, uh, Axel, this is Figment. Figment, this is Axel.”

“Is he your…pet?” Axel asked. You looked shocked and a little like you wanted to laugh. Figment just looked offended.

“No, no,” you said through giggles, “He’s my uncle’s lab assistant.”

“He’s a lab assistant?” Axel said disbelievingly. You nodded.

“He’s got a doctorate in psychology and everything,” you stated as if you were proud of him. Figment just continued to stare in a distrusting manner at Axel. “And, Figment, you said you’d trust me more,” you all but whining at him. Figment looked back at you with a mix of disbelief that you were playing this card and also anger that you were playing this card for someone you obviously had no business being around.

“So what is he exactly?” Axel asked, still inspecting the dragon closely.

“He’s the literal embodiment of the creative mind that serves as a bridge between the human psyche and reality,” you quoted your uncle, “That means he can go into the mind of any living being and view and interact with your thoughts, desires, and memories.”

Axel blinked at you.

“What?” you asked after a few seconds of silent staring.

“Nothing,” Axel said with a shake of his head. For all the random and crazy shit he’s seen, this should not be a shock to him. You just shrugged then looked around you at the woods, appreciating its untamed beauty. You smiled and closed your eyes at the feeling of a breeze. You almost flipped your shit the first time you felt one.

“We didn’t have forests on Spaceship Earth,” you said as you began to walk about the woods, Figment settling on your shoulder where he could watch Axel’s every move. “Nature was never this untamed or wild or natural.” The day felt nice and warm.

“Yeah, I just assume if it’s normal, you didn’t have it.” You swatted him lightly on his arm with a laugh. You didn’t notice him distance himself slightly after. He was still mildly flustered from earlier, and he’d like to keep the contact between the two of you to a minimum.

“My home had things other planets have. Just nothing so… spontaneous? Is that the word for nature? That didn’t make it less beautiful though. It’s just everything that involved the beauty of the world there was an extension of the beauty and creativity of the people that lived there.”

Hm. The way you described it made him almost want to see it.

The two of you strolled in what you thought to be a companionable silence when you stopped abruptly, remembering his sudden disappearance from earlier.

“Hey,” you began. He looked down at you. “Where did you go earlier? You just vanished???”

“Oh, uh,” he looked taken off guard for a minute then got a mischievous smile on his face, “I had explosive diarrhea.” You looked at him and that stupid smile on his face, already feeling laughter begin to erupt from deep in your gut. You almost doubled over with laughter, nearly throwing Figment from your shoulder and hearing Axel’s laughter join your own.

“Wait!” you almost shouted between gasps of laughter, “What was that?! You were on fire, but like you weren’t burning?! What the fuck was that?” You looked more excited than anything. He smirked, holding out his hand and producing a small flame. Your eyes lit up.

“Holy fucking shit! That is so cool!” you said in a rush, “Can you teach me to do that?”

He chuckled starting to walk again. You eagerly followed like a puppy, Figment resting on your shoulder again.

“I could,” he started slowly looking like he was actually considering it, “But it would take years for you to master it. And I just don’t have that kinda time.”

“Oh come on,” you whined, “I’ll be your best friend.”

“I thought you were trying to convince me not chase me away.”

“Oh screw you,” you laughed.

“We should head back before it gets late,” Axel said after a moment. The two of you had walked enough, and he wanted to keep you as far away from the mansion as possible.

You looked up at the sky. It was still twilight – as if the town were stuck in a permanent sunset. But time had indeed passed, and had to meet your mother soon. You lowered your eyes when you noticed something just above the tree line. You almost missed it. A steeple to a building somewhere in the distance. You wouldn’t have cared were it not for the fact that you recognized it.

You stared. Axel waved a hand in front of your face, and even Figment was looking at you.

Then you began to move towards it instead of the town.

“Where are you…?” Axel noticed your gaze and followed it to the steeple peeking up in the distance. He let out a long groan of annoyance. Really? Just when he had stopped thinking that you were kind of annoying with the way you always seemed to subvert his intentions and expectations, you do the very thing he absolutely doesn’t want you to do in that moment.

“I know that place,” you mutter.

“That’s crazy. As far as I know, you’ve never been here, yes?”

You stopped.

“Well, yes, but, and I know this sounds crazy, I saw it in a dream once. It looked just like that.”

“Do you know the odds of seeing something in a dream and seeing it in reality when you’ve never even been to the planet it exists on are incredibly slim to none?”

“Yes…,” you said, feeling more than a little foolish. But it was right there, and you were certain it was the Old Mansion the girl had told you about. You may not have even given the place a second thought were it not for the fact that she had appeared in your dreams so often. She had even appeared in your memories, and you’d had those dreams so often before with no blonde in sight outside of Genki.

Figment’s head snapped to attention at something moving behind Axel. Axel noticed, whipping around to see a dancer nobody slinking passed them. It wasn’t really that alarming, but it belonged to Demyx. And he knew damn well Demyx wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near Twilight Town.

In his distraction, you began to slink back off in the direction of the mansion – somehow oblivious to the dancer nobody Axel now had to get rid of. You felt like you were in a haze. It started as a walk but soon you were sprinting in the direction of the mansion, stopping in front of the gate and leaning on the wrought iron bars.

“I knew it,” you breathed.

Notes:

I hope you enjoyed! We'll set up your exploration for a brand new world next chapter and dive into it in the chapter after that! As always comments and kudos are welcome! I'm off to write some more!

Chapter 11: She's All Yours

Summary:

You finally meet the mysterious girl who's been in your dreams. You and Axel prepare to go on a crazy adventure.

Notes:

Here it is! The final setup before the new world! Please enjoy!

Things just kept getting better and better for him.

Axel slammed Demyx into a tree, Demyx throwing his hands up in surrender and letting out a yelp as his back slammed against the rough bark of the tree.

“I’m not here to cause you trouble! Please don’t hurt me!” Demyx said in a rush, blue eyes wide and scared as opposed to Axel’s which looked damn near murderous. Watching him interact with and seem to relax around you had caused him to forget that Axel could be ruthless.

“What are you doing here?” Axel’s tone was cold. Demyx thought quickly about how to approach this. He decided on the roguish approach.

“Just getting some leverage on ya,” he said with a wink. He felt Axel’s grip tighten and the air around them began to heat up rapidly. Okay, roguish wasn’t working. Pleading? Yeah that seemed like a good idea.

“Hey, hey, wait! I was just saying that to get your goat! I want in!”

“In what?” Axel said, re-slamming Demyx into the tree.

“Whatever you’re doing! I wanna just do whatever! I mean the Organization isn’t exactly helpful ya know? And they want me to fight all the time, and I hate that. I don’t even miss my life from before I was a nobody.” Axel’s expression flicked to neutral in a split second. The temperature dropped so fast it was almost like having cooling water thrown on you.

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Oh come on,” Demyx whined just like you had not ten minutes before. Suddenly Axel remembered. He was doing something before he chased down the dancer nobody and subsequently Demyx. He was with you, trying to keep you from going towards the mansion. And if he’d learned anything from your impulsivity, you were definitely at the mansion right now. He did not have time for this.

“And let’s not forget,” Demyx said, all smiles, “I do have the upper hand. Be a shame if someone back at HQ heard anything about this.”

“Fine,” Axel bit out. Demyx gave a little fist pump.

“Two questions,” Demyx said, holding up two fingers. Axel gave him a look but didn’t verbally respond, “First off, where is she?”

“The Old Mansion.”

“Right. I don’t know where that is. Second, is she single? I mean, I know I don’t really know her like you do or anything, but hey I figured she’s cute, ya know?”

Axel was giving him an entirely different look now. It was a mix of confusion and annoyance. Demyx misread this though. He never was the best at reading people.

“Right,” Demyx said quickly, “Off limits. She’s all yours, bud.”

Axel rolled his eyes, making his way to the Old Mansion with Demyx walking alongside him with a doofy smile on his face.

You were frozen with your hand on the door when they found you. Figment was standing next to you, watching you with a concerned expression on his face. You looked scared.

Something was here. You knew. But like your dream, you didn’t know what.

“________.” Axel’s voice made you jump, and you looked at him. He looked at you curiously, noting the hints of nervousness and fear fading from your face at the sight of him. Had something spooked you? You couldn’t have been that scared if you weren’t desperately trying to get in or out of the mansion.

“So your name’s ________.” A new voice said rather loudly. You turned all the way around to look at the newcomer. You squinted at him, your inner alarm system going off. He looked innocent enough, but he was wearing the same robe as Axel, and that was weird. His face was actually quite disarming. Honey blonde hair in a mohawk/mullet style, big, round, blue eyes, and a full rounded face.

Your eyes glided over to Axel. He was surprised. He’d made so much progress with you, it was strange to see your distrust aimed at him again.

“Who’s this?” you questioned slowly. Figment had a similar look on his face but more aggressive than cautious.

“This is Demyx. He’s….” He looked like he didn’t know how to describe him. But Demyx, idiot that he was, threw an arm around Axel’s neck and brought him in close.

“I’m his best friend!” he announced proudly with a wide, stupid grin on his face. It was such a contrast to Axel’s cool, calm, and collected demeanor that it made your serious face crack as a minute hint of a smile pulled up the corner of your mouth. Demyx’s grin widened as he noticed this.

“Is he really your best friend?” you said, trying to maintain your serious façade while Demyx all but broke it immediately. Axel sighed with a roll of his eyes.

“Yup,” he said throwing an arm around Demyx’s neck and pulling way too tight, “Best buds.”

You giggled. Figment huffed next to you, crossing his arms.

“What is that?” Demyx questioned pointing at Figment.

“That’s not important,” Axel interrupted, “What is important is that we get out of the forest and back to town.” You looked at the sky again. It was a still twilight, but you were late. Your mom was going to be angry. She would never trust you again. But if you were already in trouble….

You spun around and opened the mansion door before your nerves could catch up to you again. Figment took off after you. It was dusty inside. You entered the foyer quickly, almost running up the nearest set of stairs you came to, placing a hand on a door nearest you.

“________, wait!” Axel warned, but you had already pushed on the door and entered a room that was pure white. Everything was white. The walls. The furniture. How tacky….

“I knew it,” you whispered.

“You’re here!” Your eyes snapped to the corner where a girl sat. She set down her notebook and pencils to stand and greet you.

“It’s you!” you said in shock, “Namine.”

“Yes, that’s me. I’m afraid you were never asleep long enough for me to get your name.”

“_______,” you said with a smile. Meeting her, somehow, felt like meeting an old friend. You walked toward each other, stopping in the middle.

“You knew where she was the whole time?!” Demyx damn near screeched. You both flinched, looking at him with a look of both confusion and annoyance. Axel let out an exasperated sigh, placing his hand over his eyes. Figment looked more overwhelmed. He just wanted to go back to the ship like you were already supposed to do. He felt like crying again.

“Yes, and if you tell, I’ll hurt you. Severely,” Axel said coldly to Demyx.

“You’re keeping her hidden?” you questioned looking at Namine to ask if she needed help.

“Axel protects me from those who would abuse my abilities,” she explained. You visibly relaxed at that statement. But something else had piqued your interest.

“Your abilities?” you asked. She nodded.

“That’s part of the reason I called you here. Come with me.” She exited the room, and all of you followed her – Figment, Axel, and Demyx more reluctantly than you – as she descended the stairs. Demyx pulled Axel back slightly. Both were on edge. Deeper in the mansion was the entrance to an alternate Twilight Town. And beyond that the World That Never Was. Any moment, any member of the organization could appear. And they were both in too deep in this to come out of it unscathed – assuming they came out of it at all.

“So remind exactly what’s going on? You know where she is? Knew where she was the whole time?!” Demyx was whispering and glancing up at where you and Namine walked ahead, but the two of you seemed invested in your own conversation.

“Yes,” Axel answered curtly, his irritation at the current situation mounting faster than his paranoia that Saix or Xemnas or any fucking organization member was going to come waltzing up those stairs as they were going down.

“And you brought ________ here too? So you’re fraternizing with the enemy and harboring the Organization’s ‘secret weapon’ which would have made our job with recruiting ________ significantly easier if you’d come out about it like you found her like it was some big surprise? Are you like turning on us or something?!”

“No,” Axel stressed out through gritted teeth.

“Then why are you flirting with ________ and keeping secrets from the Organization and bringing her here to help Namine?!” Demyx’s voice was getting higher in pitch the more his panic grew. He was in it now, and now that he knew so much, there was no backing out.

“I’m not flirting with her! And I didn’t bring her here! She just does whatever the hell she wants even when people say it’s a bad idea! She’s so damn stupid!”

“Well that doesn’t explain the Namine thing! Why are you keeping her a secret? The Organization’s been looking for her since you let her go at Castle Oblivion!”

“I owe someone.” That was all Axel really wanted to say about it. Someone didn’t kill him, said look after her, and here he was. He didn’t have to be persuaded to look after her now. She was a friend. But you were a risk he wished he hadn’t taken at this point. He didn’t like feeling or thoughts of feeling or even memories of them. They felt like a tease, dangling something just out of reach. And while he wanted to be certain Namine was wrong, he couldn’t deny that at hearing you say that you’d never seen the moon made him, at the very least, acknowledge that it was something to be pitied.

And that pity snowballed into the reason you were here now unintentionally fucking everything up.

Demyx was looking at him, but Axel wasn’t meeting his eyes. He was glaring ahead at you. Demyx always knew Axel to be laid back, so to see him like this was new. You’d gotten under his skin in a way that shouldn’t have been possible given the nature of his existence. And it made him wonder. It wasn’t like Axel had ever been one to show his cards to everyone. He’d always kept his opinions close to his vest and read everyone else like a book, but he was acting, or feeling, like you were a nuisance. And this was a puzzle to Demyx.

He looked at you and Namine as your face lit up while speaking to her. And he felt nothing. Well, sort of. Maybe it was the memory of envy he was feeling when he saw that you felt something so easily. It took over your face in a way you probably weren’t even aware of simply because you’d never been without emotion. He couldn’t be sure.

You were puzzled to say the least.

“So… you can go through memories?”

“Yes and manipulate them which is how I was able to communicate with you the last time we spoke.”

“How did you know I existed?”

“I sensed the presence of another keyblade wielder in the realm of light when you were on your way to Hollow Bastion. I’ve interacted with enough keyblade wielders to understand what their hearts feel like. And when I felt you, I thought you could help me.”

“Why me though?”

“Two of the three I knew are busy in their own missions and have to follow their own hearts. And the third is lost to me,” she said with a sad smile on her face, “But you can do even more than they can and help a lot of people along the way. Your friend, Figment, has actually changed everything. I know through your memories that he can go inside the minds of others and subsequently escort others there too. This is really important for what I need to ask of you.” Figment’s eyes widened. Whatever was going on, he wanted no part in it. When you looked at him, he was already shaking his head no. But you just frowned, continuing to follow Namine wherever she was going with the reluctant Figment trudging alongside you.

She led you down a set of stairs in a library to a room with a multi-screened computer.

“Namine,” Axel began, sounding more wary than you’d ever heard him – considering his cocky attitude before.

“We’re not here for that,” she said.

“What’s ‘that’?” you asked, placing air quotes around the word.

“Nothing to worry about for now. We need to keep moving.” You followed without question. Something about Axel’s tone sent shivers up your spine. You didn’t know what “that” was, and you were hesitant to find out.

She led you down two more hallways into a corridor with flower-like containers made of a tinted glass. She stopped in front of one near the end. Inside was a middle-aged man who appeared to be sleeping. Namine lightly touched the glass.

“You know about the experiments of Ansem the Wise,” she stated. You nodded. “He is one of them. His heart was deconstructed and reconstructed with the hearts of some thirty other people. He is thirty-one hearts and consciousnesses put together. Originally, I wanted to just set them free and have you unlock them, but since you have Figment, things have changed.”

You and Figment exchanged a look. You were surprised at what you saw though. He looked sad and worried. He clearly didn’t want to be here.

“You can retrieve the memories of the experiments. Perhaps with them, some of the damage done can be undone. Rather than just setting the hearts free, lives can be saved. If you agree to help, of course.”

“Why can’t you just go through the memories yourself? You were able to sift through mine just fine,” you asked. This was all a lot to take in.

“The memories I’m looking for have been locked in the subconscious, and his heart locked his subconscious as a defense mechanism when his heart was being tampered with.”

“And there are no others that have these memories? No one else who can… I don’t know…. Testify?”

“He was, unfortunately, the only survivor of this particular experiment of the thirty people whose hearts were forced together. I wish there were another way, but there isn’t. I feel like it’s destiny that brought us all together. You can unlock the subconscious, Figment can get you there, and your uncle is a scientist who can undo the experiments on the remaining survivors. I know it’s a lot, but it would mean so much that you would save these people and put the others to rest.”

“Of course, I will,” you answered automatically. You looked to Figment who continued to look at the man in the pod. Then he turned to you and nodded. You gave him a little smile.

“Thank you, so much, but I do have to warn you. Each mind is essentially a world. And heartless may be an occurrence because of the nature of the experiments done on it, but you’re a keyblade wielder. So this will be no unfamiliar task to you.”

“Nope,” Axel interjected, stepping forward from where he and Demyx had been quietly listening, “She’s way too inexperienced for that kind of mission.”

“Hey! I’ve fought heartless before!” you countered. He gave you a dry look.

“You just learned how not to completely get your ass kicked today, and that was after you thoroughly got it kicked ten minutes before. You’re not ready for this.”

“So come with me!” you nearly shouted, much to the surprise of both Axel and Figment. “You always seem to know what you’re doing and seem keen on at least making sure I don’t die. Come with me.”

Figment began to violently shake his head ‘no’ to the point where it was almost a blur.

“We need him, Figment,” you said, hands on your hips. He frowned up at you then looked at Axel. “He’s right you know. I’m not that experienced yet, and we need all the help we can get. And we can’t just let it go when we know that there are so many depending on us.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Axel interjected again, “Don’t I get a say in this? Who says I want to go with you?”

“Then don’t complain when I say I’m going with or without you!” you say, giving him a hard poke in the middle of his chest. He grabs your wrist, staring you dead in the eye with a steady, heated glare.

“Why are you so damn difficult?”

“How am I being difficult because I said I want to help people? Isn’t that what you said keyblade wielders do? They help! Well that’s my job now too! Why don’t you want to help what may be hundreds if not thousands of people?”

“Because they’re not my responsibility!”

“Well neither am I! So come with me or don’t, but I’m going,” you said, snatching your arm out of his grip. The air around Axel was noticeably warmer but you were too annoyed/pissed off to notice or care.

“So what do we do to go into the mind?” Axel finally asked after a moment, looking to Figment who still hated the thought of bringing him along – and it showed in his face. You on the other hand gave Axel a smile – one he was not appreciative of despite all the gratitude it communicated.

He hated that look more than the sympathetic one.

Figment motioned for Axel and you to lay down on the floor. Then he put your hands together. You gripped Axel’s hand lightly, noting how warm he was.

“Wait, wait,” Demyx said anxiously, “Let me see if I’ve got this right. That guy is in a coma because of some crazy experiment done on him who knows how long ago, and the two of you are gonna go inside his mind and get his memories and try to wake him up?”

“Basically,” you said.

“And we’re just gonna take this guy’s memories in some half-cocked attempt to undo a bunch of damage done to other survivors?”

“Yes.”

“And what does Demyx do?” he asked, pointing to himself.

“Demyx,” Axel said in an authoritative tone, “Watches Namine, ________, and me until we get back and makes sure nothing happens. And if anyone you know might cause trouble comes through, you end it right then and there.”

Demyx got the picture. He wished it weren’t the case though. What if Saix or Xemnas came through? He was just supposed to be able to kill them? He wasn’t that strong. His only hope would be the element of surprise.

“Right,” he answered unenthusiastically.

You looked at Axel and gave his hand a light squeeze. He looked at you and was met with that ever so grateful smile again that he hated oh so much. But he didn’t show it.

“Thank you. For this, I mean,” you said softly. He grew a fraction warmer, not that you noticed.

“You’re hopeless,” he said simply, a dry look painted over his face.

“That’s why you’re here,” you said, your smile growing a bit brighter. He just rolled his eyes and looked up at the ceiling. You giggled at his reaction and looked up as well. Figment motioned for the two of you to close your eyes and you did so.

It was quiet, and the only thing you could hear was your own steady breathing.

Then you felt winds steadily going passed your face, growing in pace until it was whipping passed you at an alarming rate. And as you acknowledged the feeling of weightlessness about you, you snapped your eyes open to realize that you were falling. You looked at Axel who seemed to open his eyes and realize this just as you did.

Below you saw clouds. They were far away but rapidly approaching. You were falling, and Figment was no where to be seen. You were going to die.

Notes:

Next chapter we actually get to see the new world! I hope you enjoy your Journey Into Imagination!

Chapter 12: You Have Really Pretty Eyes

Summary:

You enter the pre-conscious and the conscious and share a moment with Axel. Your mother finds more than she expected in the mansion basement.

Notes:

Finally delving into that new world! I hope it gives you chills and thrills!

Your mother had a headache. You were becoming a hassle to keep up with. She hadn’t been this stressed since you had learned to crawl and walk and kept wandering every time she had her back turned for more than a second. More than a few times she had to catch you from falling off of changing tables. But now it was worse because you were running around a strange and new world.

She’d been at the ship for a while now. She’d been forgiving when you were running a bit late. She imagined you were exploring the town as much as looking for Sora or the King, and you were always so excited about new things. She imagined you lost track of time, and Twilight Town was such a calm town that she doubted there was any trouble you could really get into. But it was an hour passed your meeting time, and she just knew you were in the middle of something. Again.

She walked into the ship and to the bunks where Ludwig was snoring. She shook him gently.

He stopped mid-snore and looked around blearily.

“Huh? What? Who’s there?”

“Ludwig,” your mother said softly, “We need to go.”

“What happened? Where’s ________?”

“That’s why we need to go. We were supposed to meet up about an hour ago. But she’s run off. Again. I don’t know what I’m going to do with that girl.”

“I’m sure she’s fine, probably off at some wild party or something,” he said as he hopped down from his bunk.

“You said something similar back in Disney Town, and she was stopping a bank robbery.”

He let out a sigh as he followed your mother out of the ship and back into town.

They asked around, and many people had seen you wandering around town before challenging someone, apparently the reigning champion, to a Struggle match – whatever that was supposed to mean!

Apparently, you were losing until a tall, red-haired man intervened and escorted you away with no resistance from you. It seemed like you knew him from what they said.

“Well do you know which way they went?” your mother asked a young woman who looked a bit younger than herself.

“Well I believe they were headed that way. Not much over there except a few shops. Most of it is residential.”

“Right, thank you,” your mother stated, barely finishing the sentence before marching off in that direction. She and Ludwig combed the streets looking for you while occasionally stopping to ask if anyone had seen a red-headed man come by with a girl matching your description. They each pointed to a little town square not far from there.

When she arrived, your mother eyed that burn mark on the ground. She didn’t know how you did it, she just knew you were the cause of it.

“How do you think she managed that?” Ludwig asked, inspecting the mark more closely.

“I was wondering that myself,” a man said as he came towards the two. “A girl came through here a few hours ago and said it was there when she arrived, but I know it wasn’t there this morning when I was first here. I walked away a bit after she said that but heard she was running through the town later.”

“This girl,” your mother began almost desperately, “What did she look like?”

The man gave a brief, relatively accurate description of you.

“I saw her run off into the woods,” a woman who overheard the conversation interjected.

“Was she with someone?” your mother asked, wondering if you were still with some redhead.

“No, she was by herself, but she seemed in an awful hurry to get into the woods as soon as possible. But there’s nothing out there but the Old Mansion, and it’s been abandoned for as long as anyone can remember.”

“Can you point me in the direction of the mansion? If I know my daughter, the one place she has no business being is where she’ll be.”

“Well sure miss.” The woman gave her directions, and she and Ludwig immediately set off to find you. If they were lucky, you’d still be there.

~

They started their search on the lower floors but saw no sign of you. Upstairs was a room that was pure white where your mother found a rudimentary drawing of you. It was the library that yielded results. She could hear faint voices coming from further in the mansion – a male and a female. Though the female didn’t sound like you. The voice was too soft. Your voice was sharper, more commanding. It always made its presence known when you spoke normally and stole attention when you raised it – not unlike your mother’s.

She followed the voices.

“Hello?” she called, and the two voices stopped speaking immediately. She continued onward, hoping that you were somewhere nearby or with these people and safe.

She saw a young blonde girl with large blue eyes dressed all in white and a young blonde man also with blue eyes dressed all in black. She looked to the ground where you lay with your eyes closed next to a tall redheaded man whose eyes were also closed.

“________!” she said rushing over to you and kneeling next to you. She sighed with relief when she saw you were still breathing. She brushed some hair from your forehead.

“You must be ________’s mother,” said the soft voice of the girl. Your mother looked at her with a questioning gaze. “I’m Namine. This is my friend Demyx. You must have questions.”

“Too many. Why isn’t she waking up?” your mother said looking back down at your sleeping form with a look of concern.

“She’s with Figment. She’s safe. They’re going inside the mind of a man who was experimented on. Are you familiar with the experiments of Ansem the Wise?”

“I know a bit about them,” your mother answered numbly, eyes never leaving your peaceful expression.

“She’s looking for information on the experiments done on one of the test subjects. We think that we may be able to undo some of the damage of the few remaining subjects that still live. So she went with Figment and Axel to find his memories that were locked away in his subconscious.”

Your mother’s eyes drifted to the man laying next to you. She could assume this was Axel. She then noticed that your hand was holding his.

“Do they know each other well?” she asked. Namine noticed where she was looking and giggled softly.

“I’d like to think they’re friends or that ________ got under his skin in a similar manner.”

Your mother let out a breathless laugh. That did sound like you.

“And who are you?” she asked the other blonde in the room.

“Oh me? I’m Demyx. I’m just here to guard and stand watch. Who’s the duck?” he said, eyeing the professor who was looking shocked at the man in the pod. Your mother noticed his odd silence as it was a rarity for him to not introduce himself and his credentials upon meeting new people. But then her eyes drifted to the pod he was staring into.

She let out a shocked gasp and began to sob desperately as she stumbled over to him.

“Is something wrong?!” Demyx asked in a panic, jarred by your mother’s violent reaction.

“Where did you get him?!” she said as she leaned on the pod.

“He was one of the few survivors of Ansem’s experiments. He was brought here to keep him safe,” Namine explained, eyes wide at your mother’s reaction. “Did you know him?”

~

Axel and you held each other’s hand for dear life as the two of you fell through the sky. Then you landed, rather softly surprisingly, on two large fluffy pillows on the floor of a boat. You looked around in a daze, shaking and still holding Axel’s hand, wondering how it was you were still alive when just seconds ago you were plummeting towards the clouds below.

“Ahoy, mateys!” Figment exclaimed from the front of the boat the two of you had landed in, “All aboard the SS Imagination!”

“Figment, what the hell?” you shouted as soon as you found your voice.

“Relax,” he waved you off, “I wasn’t going to let you die.”

“He can talk now?” Axel questioned, dropping your hand as he stood up, his legs a bit shaky but not nearly as much as yours. You struggled a bit more to stand, and Axel grabbed your hand again to help you up, letting go once you were steady on your own two feet.

“He can only speak in the mind,” you said before redirecting your anger back at Figment who was wearing a little yellow and orange sweater that had his name spelled across the chest… and a pirate’s hat?

“Why’s he wearing the hat?” Axel mentioned. It didn’t seem that important, but his curiosity was minorly piqued.

“I don’t know. I thought it looked nice,” Figment mumbled, slowly taking the hat off of his head. You swatted Axel’s arm who gave you a look.

“What?”

“Why’d you have to go and make fun of his hat?” you questioned in a hushed voice.

“I wasn’t making fun of it,” Axel countered, equally hushed. “I just wanted to know why he was wearing it.”

“Well now look at him! He’s got anxiety!” You both looked over to Figment who was kicking the hat, muttering that it was stupid over and over again. Axel rolled his eyes. Then you took in your surroundings. You were on a boat. In the sky? You looked over the edge of the boat. You were no longer falling but floating towards the clouds. All around you was a bright blue sky.

“Where are we? Is this the mind?” you asked Figment. This didn’t look like the mind. Or at least, not what you thought it looked like.

“Yep! We’re in the hub of all imagination and innovation, creativity and creation! Here you can conjure anything and everything with your only limitations being the ones you set for yourself!”

“Can I imagine things too?” you asked excitedly.

“No!” Figments said, smacking you on the forehead with a newspaper, “Only I and the person whose mind we enter can.”

You rubbed the spot where he smacked you.

“So what part of the mind is this exactly?” Axel asked as he looked around at the bright blue.

“We’re in the preconscious. These are thoughts and opinions that have yet to form, the part of you that is experiencing life just before your mind processes how to feel about it. Every thought and feeling begins here, so this space is ripe with potential for anything and everything. This is anything that can be potentially brought into the conscious mind.”

“And what are those clouds down there?” you asked, leaning further over the edge of the boat to gaze down below.

“Below lies the conscious mind. It is everything you’re aware of in any given moment – thoughts, memories, feelings, and wishes.”

“I thought the memories were in the subconscious?” you questioned, if what Namine told you was true.

“Yes, they exist there too. But these are memories that are retrieved easily and brought to awareness. Where we are about to descend is where these things can be thought about and discussed about rationally.”

“And what about where we’re going? What’s in there?” Axel asked as he casually leaned on the side of the boat.

“Where we need to go is the subconscious. That would be the unconscious mind. In there are the hidden thoughts, suppressed urges and memories – things tied to your id that your ego and superego keep in check so you can act like a person with social graces as opposed to a wild animal. There are also the unpleasant as well as the unacceptable contents – such as feelings of pain, anxiety or conflict.”

“How do you know all this again?” Axel asked as he eyed Figment who eyed him right back.

“I studied Freud’s theory of the mind in college,” he said, sticking out his tongue.

“And what college was that exactly?”

“Why the Imagination Institute of course!”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“What does the conscious look like?” you asked. If the preconscious looked like the sky, you could only imagine what the conscious looked like.

“It varies from person to person,” Figment supplied. You were both excited and worried. You hoped this guy wasn’t some kind of pervert or something. “Here I’ll sing a song about it, so you can understand better.”

Three other Figments appear to form a barber shop quartet, complete with little straw hats and thick mustaches. Axel just looked at him as he sang the first few notes and walked away. As interesting as Figment hijinks were, you decided to follow him.

“We shouldn’t be here. I don’t wanna be here. I’m in some guy’s head. And a magical cartoon dragon, who apparently went to college, is singing to me about the wonders of the imagination.”

“Actually it’s an entire choir now, and he’s doing a gospel rendition of the song he was just singing,” you supplied. Axel looked at you.

“You know for someone’s whose entire concept of being and existence was shattered only a little over week ago, you’re taking this – whatever we’re doing – remarkably well.”

“I’m one of the only people who can bring my world back. I can’t let my personal feelings get in the way of what I have to do. And you taught me that things will be different everywhere I go. I think I’ve kinda come to terms with the fact that everything will be different for me from now on. Which, not gonna lie, was all you. You’re a good teacher.” He looked at you. You meant it. He could see it in your eyes, your smile. You appreciated him, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it considering the circumstances of his job regarding you. And despite himself, the longer he kept you alive, the more he knew he would want to keep you alive.

“You remind me of Roxas sometimes,” he said finally. You remembered him mentioning him once in Disney Town.

“Was he difficult too?”

“Yeah, he could be real hard headed sometimes. It was the death of him.”

He didn’t need to look at you to know you were giving him that fucking look again, but he did and there it was. But… oddly enough, he wasn’t angry about it this time. He felt a little bit happy, grateful you shared that sympathy with him. He’d never known it from anywhere else. Not in a long time. He chuckles a bit. You were caught off guard. You’d never really seen him smile before. He sure smirked a lot, but never a genuine smile like the one he wore now. It was handsome smile. One that brought out his eyes which you noticed were a really pretty shade of green.

Axel noticed that you were just standing there looking at him with wide eyes.

“What?” he asked after a moment.

“Nothing,” you said, mildly flustered and more than a little dazed at this tiny realization, “I just noticed. You have really pretty eyes.”

His eyes widened. He was more caught off guard by your honest statement about his eyes than you were when he smiled. He blushed, a light pink spreading over his cheeks, and turned away quickly.

This was bad. He was showing vulnerability to someone he was supposed to kill. But he was realizing with dawning horror… he might not want to kill you. That isn’t to say he couldn’t. He just might feel a little bad about it.

“We should get back before Figment notices we’re gone,” you said as you heard the song hitting its high point, which probably meant the big finish was coming up.

“Okay, yeah,” he said a little hastily. Anything, anything, to get him out of this moment.

You were already walking back when he turned, and he stayed a few steps behind you to let his face calm down before he reached Figment.

The last note was playing as soon as you reached him. He was now dressed as Abraham Lincoln alongside forty-something other Figments all dressed as presidents, panting and sweating and wiggling their jazz hands with lively smiles on their faces.

“So,” Figment panted, clearly out of breath, “What’d you think of the song?”

You both blinked. Then you started clapping and cheering. Axel just clapped lightly along with you, his blush gone but his mind still darting around the fact that he was feeling, and he didn’t like feeling. At least not when a target was involved.

“That was great!” you lied, with a happy smile and a little bounce.

“Well that enough of my wacky shenanigans,” he said with a snap of his fingers, reverting back into one Figment, “We’re entering the conscious now.”

The boat touched the clouds and began its slow descent through them, rumbling as it did so.

“Why’s it rumbling?” you asked with minor worry.

“WHAT?!” Figment screeched. “You didn’t listen to the song at all did you?! There was a whole verse dedicated to the rumbling!”

Figment began hitting you repeatedly with the newspaper while you waved an arm around trying to swat him away. But you all froze at what you saw below those clouds.

It was awful. The color had all but vanished from the landscape below you. The only distinguishable shades were whites, grays, and blacks. Everything that you could make out looked rotted away, like the land was poisoned.

“What was this guy into?” Axel asked, his own surprise showing on his face.

“It shouldn’t look like this,” Figment said in a low voice, “No one’s mind should look like this.”

You looked at Figment who looked worried and moderately scared to say the least.

“What happened?” you breathed.

“I don’t know.”

You could see a mountain scape in the distance that had thick layers of fog running over it. No snow capped the tops. They merely jutted out as dark gray and black shapes like the finger tips of a giant that slept below the surface… waiting.

There were forests, but trees were gnarled and barren. They looked like deformed skeletons with their trunks and branches bleached various, sharp shades of white. The branches stretched up like arms, reaching for help. Or to pull you down with them.

There were cities too, but they were dilapidated. Some looked like they’d been shaken down to the bare bones of their structures. Fragments of buildings were scattered and layered over each other. The only indication that it had been a city at all were where some buildings still managed to stand but they looked as if they had not been touched in years.

And when you got a little closer, you could see little things running around, darting in and out of trees and through the streets of the cities. If you had to guess, you’d say they were the heartless Namine warned you about.

And in some places, there was nothing. They were pitch black spots where it looked like holes had been cut out into the world. It was something difficult for your own mind to comprehend and you felt dizzy staring at them. But occasionally there would be a glint, light managing to reflect off of something. It made the pools of black appear to have movement. They undulated and writhed in a way you didn’t understand – couldn’t understand unless you got any closer. You did not want to get closer.

“This is gonna be a journey,” you breathed. Then you noticed something out of the corner of your eye. You almost didn’t with how dark it was nearly blending in with the rest of the landscape. You turned your head quickly seeing a humanoid… thing with large horns curling to form a heart. It had wings on its back and forearms and a large sword in one of its hands. It looked at you with bright yellow eyes, its tail swishing behind it.

Your keyblade was in your hand instantly, and good thing too because it charged you as soon as you noticed it. The sound of your swords clashing alerted Axel and Figment to its presence, but they had no time to help you as several more of the same kind of heartless swooped down to attack the three of you and the boat.

You weren’t much help unless any of them got close to you. And those that did proved to be very powerful. You’d been so sure most if not all heartless attacked similarly to animals, but these were different. They attacked, and they had brute strength to match it. You did your best, holding your own for most of it, and implementing the lesson Axel had given you earlier to avoid some of the nastier hits they would have landed on you.

Axel held them off in the air with Figment as best he could, using a weapon you couldn’t make out outside of the fact that it reminded you of a frisbee that was on fire and Figment using a purple RPG he’d imagined. But it seemed the combined efforts of the three of you weren’t enough as the boat took several hits. It began to jarringly rock back and forth unsteadily as it was pushed and battered in the air. And you, you were thrown. And you were falling again – staring into one of the deep pools of black that gaped at you like the maw of the world widening to swallow you up.

Notes:

Comments and critiques are always welcome, and your kudos are much appreciated! Thank you for reading!

Chapter 13: I Never Said That

Summary:

You enter a new part of the conscious mind. Saix has a chat with Xemnas. Ludwig gets some news on Sora's whereabouts.
Also you can't swim.

Notes:

Woo! It's been 5 days since I've updated, and I am way overdue! Enjoy!

“Xigbar.”

Xigbar stopped in his tracks, turning to Saix who looked at him as serious as ever but with an underlying anxiousness about him. He watched him silently.

“I’m looking for Xemnas. Have you seen him?” Saix continued.

“First you lost the duck and now your own boss? Man, you really are bad at tracking. They might be better off putting Demyx on it, or did you lose him too?” Xigbar was all smiles while Saix only glared coldly at him. After a moment of quiet anger, Xigbar chuckled.

“He’s on his way to the Chamber of Repose,” he answered finally, with a roll of his eye. Saix’s eyes widened and he let out an angry huff before hurrying to catch Xemnas before he locked himself away for who knew how long to talk to who knew what.

“You’re welcome,” Xigbar called out behind him.

Saix just barely managed to catch Xemnas in time just as he was about to enter the chamber.

“Xemnas,” he called. Xemnas stopped all movement. He was annoyed.

“What do you want?”

“I’m concerned,” he answered immediately, not one to waste an impatient Xemnas’ time.

“This is about Axel again.” It was a statement, not a question. Saix almost flinched at his tone. It was as calm as always, but Xemnas had always had a way of communicating his anger without using a tone.

“The girl is still alive.”

“Be that as it may, we have more pressing matters to attend to. Like your failure to bring me the only person who can bring any form of stability to my world. Your incompetence wears my patience thin. As does your incessant prattling about someone else’s job when you have failed to do your own. If Axel wishes to lay his life down for the life of some whelp, then let him. Now if there isn’t anything else?”

Saix didn’t respond. He wasn’t supposed to.

“Good.”

Xemnas disappeared into the Chamber of Repose.

~

“Excuse me, I have to take this.” Your mother nodded at Ludwig as he stood up, ringing gummi phone in hand. He gave her a lingering glance as she sat next to your unconscious body, holding your free hand and idly rubbing a thumb over it.

He stepped into the other room where the computer was before answering his phone.

“Oh thank goodness! I’ve made a horrible mistake!” Queen Minnie said from the other line.

“What? Did something happen?”

“I’m afraid I’ve given you the wrong information. I told you that the last I’d heard Sora was headed towards Twilight Town.”

“Yes, we’ve been looking for him for about a day now.”

“I know. That’s why I’m sorry! Chip and Dale told me Sora came from Twilight Town. He wasn’t headed there. He was leaving! I sent you on a wild goose chase!”

“Hey! Watch your language! I have geese in my family! It was hard growing up, but I’m okay with that now.”

“Oh, uh, sorry.”

Ludwig let out a long dreary sight.

“Well I’m afraid we’ve gotten wrapped up in a situation here in Twilight Town and can’t leave as of yet. Do you know where he might be headed next?”

“He just left here actually. And I actually don’t know where he’s headed at the moment. But I’ll keep an eye out for him and let you know when I hear anything.”

“Thanks, Min. Hey! What was he doing there anyway?”

“Oh just some epic time travel mumbo jumbo.”

“What?!”

“Well I have to go now. Duty calls!”

“Wait!”

Minnie hung up. Ludwig let out another sigh. Well finding Sora was doomed to failure, but at least something came out of it.

~

You were falling, wind whipping passed your face, the horror of knowing Axel and Figment did not know you fell. The dread of watching that dark abyss draw ever closer. You could see the shapes that moved within it come into view. They were hands, reaching for you. They stretched forth with sinewy, skeletal arms with fingers that seemed to extend further than they should. You were going to fall right into their grasp.

You screamed at the thought – a horrible shrill sound that ripped through your throat and made it feel shredded and raw. You curled in on yourself, shielding your face from what was below with your arms as if that would protect you.

Then you heard a sound that was very much out of place.

“We-oo! We-oo! We-oo!” It was Figment. He had transformed into a helicopter and was swooping in to save you, catching you just as the icy tips of those too long fingers brushed your skin. It felt like that part of you would never get warm again.

You looked around but didn’t see any sign of Axel. A quick glance up showed that he was still fighting but was slowly being overwhelmed. The ship was also coming down at a much faster rate. It wouldn’t hold for much longer.

“We have to help him!” Figment began to fly closer but couldn’t get too close for fear of drawing the attention of the heartless near the ship, but one of the heartless grabbed Axel and began to pull him off of the ship, pulling him into the air and taking him who knows where.

You did the only thing you could think of and threw your keyblade at it. It worked. The heartless dropped Axel but now he was plummeting into the abyss below as well. You jumped, grabbing him by the hand and dangling over the abyss as the Figment-copter held you by your feet to keep your from falling.

He looked up at you surprised, letting out a somewhat nervous disbelieving laugh. And you did too, letting tears fall from your eyes. It was too much like it had been with Genki. But you were determined. He would not fall. You would not let him.

Figment pulled the two of you back into the body of the helicopter and you both collapsed on the floor, panting from as much the exhilaration and anxiety as the exhaustion.

“Are you alright?” you breathed. He looked surprised. Only mere moments ago, you were the one in danger. The next thing he knew, you were jumping from the helicopter with absolutely no hesitation to save his life. He was not alright, but he nodded, nonetheless.

“The skies aren’t safe,” Figment observed as he searched for a spot to land.

“And something’s up with the heartless,” Axel noted.

“What do you mean?” you asked, eyeing him warily, dreading what he was going to say next.

“They didn’t disappear,” he said, looking outside the Figment-copter to watch for danger. “When you defeat heartless with your keyblade, they shouldn’t reappear. That should be it. End of story for them. But they kept coming back. Almost immediately. We never stood a chance in that fight.”

You looked to the skies, also watching for more heartless, noting that the ship had already crashed in the distance. It seemed to draw heartless to the noise, and you could at least be grateful that wherever you landed, at least a good chunk of the heartless had left the area.

Figment landed in a small clearing. You hopped out of the Figment-copter and into the dried grass below you. A small cloud of gray dust kicked up where your feet landed like the ashes of a fire put out long ago.

You looked around. The air was bitter and stale, and the landscape looked no less ominous from the ground than it had from the sky. In fact, it was darker now that you were on the ground as opposed to when you were in the sky. It was like a black fog had rolled in. It didn’t obstruct your view, but it choked a good amount of the light out, dimming your surroundings.

“We shouldn’t be out in the open,” Axel said, lightly grabbing your elbow and leading the you to a small thicket of trees nearby in the forest, eyes scanning the area for any immediate danger.

Figment’s eyes darted around in a panic.

“It shouldn’t look like this,” Figment said again, “There shouldn’t be heartless in here!”

“Like, not as many?” you asked.

“Like at all!” He took in a deep breath, and once he exhaled, looking calmer once he did. “Well… we press on.”

He donned a pair of hiking boots and began to fly off deeper into the forest. You and Axel followed.

“How do you know which way we’re going,” Axel questioned as he eyed the trees.

“I have my ways,” Figment answered. It was a large compass that just said yes and no. Thankfully, you were heading into the yes direction.

“Do you know when we’ll get there?” you asked.

“When we get there,” he answered. You rolled your eyes and continued on.

Axel noticed a bit later that you were staring at him, but your eyes were sad and distant.

“Are you alright?” he asked. You blinked, surprised. You’d apparently been deep in thought about whatever had made you so upset. You shook your head, letting out a bitter laugh that didn’t suit you at all.

“Yes and no. You reminded me of someone earlier,” you said. Axel snorted.

“What? When I was falling to my death?” he said with a smirk and a light roll of his eyes.

“Yes,” you answered somberly, looking away from him.

“Oh.” The two of you grew quiet for a few seconds. “I’m sorry.”

You looked back up at him with a small smile, one of gratitude he noted.

“It’s alright. I’m just glad I didn’t let you down too.” Figment popped in next to you.

“Hey, I’m sorry to cut in on the conversation, but your talking is going to draw a lot of attention to us in this ever so quiet and heartless infested death trap.”

You both nodded, resigned to remain quiet, eyes watching the trees for signs of movement.

~

“Please tell me,” you mother began softly once her sobs quieted, “Where are they exactly? What are they doing?” Ludwig sat next to her with a comforting hand on her back. He was still quiet.

“Perhaps a bit more explanation is in order to help you understand better,” Namine suggested. Your mother was impatient but nodded anyway. Her answers would do no good if she could not understand any of them.

“Your daughter is a keyblade wielder.”

“Which means she can stop the heartless,” your mother supplied.

“Yes,” Namine said, “This also means she can lock and unlock any door in existence. This is not limited to physical doors. She can unlock and lock the barriers between one universe and the next, the barriers of one’s heart and mind, even between realms of light and of darkness.”

“And she’s trying to unlock a heart and mind right now?”

“Yes, she’s going to unlock his mind in the hopes of traversing the subconscious.”

“What does she hope to find there?”

“With any luck, a means to undo the damage done to him,” Namine looked sadly at the pod where the man still slept.

“How do you intend to use what she finds?”

“Well we may be able to reverse the experiments if we can figure out what exactly was done to them. I know what happened to him,” Namine nodded towards the pod, “But if there’s anything else it can be a big help. These experiments were done on hundreds of thousands of people. Anything we can do will help out. If, of course, you’d be willing to help, Professor.” She was looking at Ludwig now.

Ludwig looked at her silently as if he were in a stupor. Slowly a look of determination overcame his glassy eyes. He nodded.

“I don’t know how. I never specialized in memory conversion. It was the work of one of my colleagues, but I’ll dig up his old research and do my best to convert the memory into something useable so I can learn from it.” Namine smiled at him.

“I don’t know that they’ll even find anything,” she mentioned, “But if there’s even a chance that she can bring something back that’ll help, it’ll be worth it. And I know she can do it.”

“How can you know that? She doesn’t have any formal training or experience,” your mother said, a little frantic and frustrated.

“I’ve seen her memories. She’s had some minor training, fencing with her friend. And Axel is with her. He’ll protect her and Figment.”

“How did the two meet actually? ________ always made fast friends but hardly in a day,” your mother said, casting a wary glance at Axel.

“That I can’t say I know, honestly,” Namine said, giving both you and Axel’s sleeping forms a soft smile. A tear ran down your face, and you gripped Axel’s hand tighter, “But I know they’ll look out for each other.”

Your mother looked back down at the two of you, brushing your tears away and watching as your eyes moved rapidly behind your eyelids.

“Do you know when they’ll be back?”

“Well, time moves faster in the mind than it does here. They may be gone for only a few hours, but it will have been days for them.”

~

Even if you could swim, and you couldn’t, you wouldn’t dip a toe in that.

Before the three of you lay a swamp. The water was dark and black – not as black as the pools you saw earlier but pretty damn close. There was thin dark, green film that floated over the water which gave it a sickly, poisonous, and oily appearance. It gave off a slightly sour smell that made your nose wrinkle, and the air felt thick and humid. Yet, despite its humidity, it felt cool – just enough to be moderately uncomfortable, yet nowhere near as icy as the fingers that had brushed your arms earlier.

“Looks like we’ll need a boat,” Figment said, conjuring up a big purple motorboat with his face on the front and a small cabin for him to start and steer the boat from.

“All aboard,” the boat called to you from little speakers on the outside of the cabin.

You didn’t want to go on that water – not because of the boat but just because of the general sense of unease the swamp gave you. Maybe you could walk around?

You looked left and right. The swamp didn’t appear to have an end as far as you could see – which wasn’t far considering you had to see through the haze of fog that seemed to thicken minutely as you approached the water. You let out a sigh and hopped onto the boat, Axel close behind you.

You took a seat on one of the few benches while Figment started up a motor from the front of the boat. Axel sat next to you, and the warmth he radiated felt good. You almost leaned into him, but that would be weird.

You glanced up at him. He was looking at the swamp. His brows dipped down lightly in concentration as his really green eyes scanned the swamp’s shore where the two of you had just been. You looked around too. The trees here were different than they were in the forest. These trees appeared to droop like they were being pulled toward the water by an invisible force. Limp gray moss hung from their bare branches. The bark of more than a few trees had gouges and claw marks through them, exposing rotted wood underneath, and more than a few looked like they had been snapped under the weight of… something.

“I think something large lives in this swamp,” you said quietly. Your heartrate picked up hearing it out loud as opposed to just hypothesizing it. It made it feel more real. Axel gave a brisk nod of acknowledgement.

“On the bright side,” he replied, “The swamp’s plants are pretty spread out and thin. It won’t be able to get the drop on us.” You nodded. It didn’t make you feel better.

Axel turned around to where Figment was fiddling with the ignition.

“Any reason we aren’t moving yet?” he asked Figment who was turning the key over and over again for the engine to sputter.

“Well I don’t wanna flood the engine,” Figment said, turning the key again.

“Isn’t this boat imaginary?”

“…”

“…”

Figment squinted at Axel, starting the engine and grumbling about how Axel had no imagination to begin with.

The boat finally started moving, and it moved forward at a snail’s pace. The motor hummed quietly, and it seemed to be the only noise around.

It navigated the swamp, and thankfully the vegetation never thickened. The trees that had been broken and carved even began to vanish. You could at least say you’d moved out of the creature’s place of residence or hunting grounds.

You looked at Axel again who seemed to have relaxed a bit like you. He looked at you with bright, observant eyes.

“You were crying earlier…. Said I reminded you of your friend. Was it the one you mentioned back when we were in Disney Town?”

You nodded.

“Genki…. When everything was falling apart… When the world opened up beneath our feet… I couldn’t save him. I tried to hold on. I really did,” your eyes were sad and distant with a mild look of horror to them. He didn’t need to ask to know that you were reliving that moment in your head. And you were. Re-seeing it in perfect detail. You absently rubbed at the scabs on your wrist. Axel glanced down at your hands as you rubbed your wrist with one hand and clenched and unclenched the other.

“I know you did all you could,” he said finally. You looked up at him with mild confusion written on your face. “You jumped from a helicopter to save me with no questions asked and you don’t even know me. I know you did all you could to save someone you obviously care so much about.”

“I just wish I could have saved him,” you said gravely.

“You will,” he said, and you gave him a warm, tender smile.

“I know. Thank you.”

“So what was he like? Genki, I mean.”

You brightened.

“He was my best friend. Taught me how to sword fight.”

“Yeah, that’s an odd occupation, don’t you think?”

You shrugged.

“I mean, he’s been fencing since he was a child. I never questioned it. It was something he was passionate about. I mean, I feel the same way about dancing.”

“How long did you know each other?”

“About five years. We met in high school and have been together ever since. I mean, we met in a shared geometry class, but it wasn’t until I made some sarcastic remark about the teacher half way through the third quarter of the school year that he laughed at that we even noticed each other. We found we actually had a lot in common after that. We were like the perfect match.” You were obviously very proud of your relationship.

“Oh so the two of you were dating?” Your eyes widened in surprise before you let out a nervous laugh, waving his comment off.

“Ha, ha, oh no, no. We were just friends.”

“But you wanted to be more?” Now you looked a bit guilty, not meeting his eyes anymore.

“Well not me,” you admitted sheepishly.

“Well you clearly have such a strong bond. Was he not up to your standards physically?”

“I’m not that shallow!”

“So he was ugly.” You scoffed, mildly offended.

“I’ll have you know that he was gorgeous!” Axel gave you a dry look.

“Okay, so you have a lot in common and can have fun with each other for hours on end, and you think he’s ‘gorgeous’. But you’re not into him?”

“No. Not like that.”

“Well… what was the problem?”

“Ugh… It was mostly his confidence. He was always so unsure of himself and self-conscious, but he never did anything about it. He complained a lot, but never did anything to improve himself to make himself someone he was proud of. And I don’t know… I guess I just like guys who are a bit more… assertive? Is that the word I’m looking for? I mean, that’s why he learned to fence to give himself a confidence boost, but….”

“Learning to fight doesn’t help with personal issues.”

“Well I know that, but he was adamant that it was the only thing that gave him self-esteem. But it never changed anything. If he was bullied, I was always coming to his rescue. I mean, I don’t really have a problem with that, but when it comes down to it romantically, I want someone who’s more self-assured.”

“Oh. So you want to be dominated?”

You choked on air for a moment.

“No! That’s not what I’m saying! I mean it would be nice, but that’s not what I was getting at!”

You cast a glance at his face and saw he was smirking at you. He was just messing with you. You gave him a rough shove while he chuckled at your reaction, nearly falling from the bench as he did so.

“You’re the worst,” you said half-heartedly as he righted himself on the seat next to you, sitting a bit closer to you.

“Hey, you’re the one who said you wanted to be pinned to a wall while he bites your neck and you wrap your legs around him.”

“I never said that!” you almost screeched.

“Well you’re not denying it.” You were laughing and leaning on each other for support at this point while Axel kept making lewd comments about your sexual preferences.

Your laughter devolved into giggles and he just chuckled. Hmmm. There was that nice smile of his again. Your laughter quieted after a moment, but you looked at each other again and your fits of laughter came back.

“Hey!” Figment snapped, flying between where you and Axel were leaning on each other, separating you and Axel and smacking you both on the head with a rolled-up newspaper. “Need I remind you that you have to shut your pie holes! I don’t think you understand. If you die in the mind you die for real. Well, not exactly. Your body will be a vegetable, but your conscious mind will be gone for good.”

You both quieted quickly with wide eyes. That sounded awful. You couldn’t imagine what your mother would do if Figment had to tell her that she’d essentially be waiting for your body to die because what was left of the real you was dead.

Figment went back to the cabin of the boat to continue steering and you looked at the swamp around you disappear as the boat floated into a cave.

“We’ll be fine,” Axel whispered to you when your look of fear hadn’t left your face. You seemed to relax a bit and you offered him a small smile, giving his hand a grateful squeeze before letting go.

The cave was ominous and there were low hanging stalactites above you. They were pointed like teeth and the walls and ceiling of the cave were slick with damp moss and water, and it only made worse the feeling of being engulfed. The creeping darkness wrapped around you as you drifted further from the mouth of the cave, and the temperature dropped at least another ten degrees.

Figment conjured a few lamps to light the area next to you and turned on some headlights near the front of the boat. There were no sounds now except the muffled putting of the boat’s motor and the echoes of liquid dripping from the ceiling and into the water below. There was no light except that on the boat. It felt like you were floating in the void. It was unsettling. You remembered staring up at the blue screens of the sky with Genki and feeling weightless. You felt like that now, but now it was more ominous. You gripped the edge of your seat as if you would fall up into the inky blackness any minute.

Where the light faded, the water and cave seemed to meld into one.

It was just black.

You weren’t even sure if the boat was on water anymore.

“Why is the boat so slow?” you asked Figment after a while, eager to be out of the cave. Your own voice made you flinch in the quiet.

“I’m not sure,” Figment said, looking over the side of the boat. The water was pure black as well, no longer covered in a thin film that you could see. “If I had to guess, it’s gotta be the water.”

He dipped a finger in the water. It dripped from his hand like a thick sludge and onto the boat where it quickly grew two bright yellow eyes and a body. It was a shadow heartless. You wasted no time, slicing through it with your keyblade immediately.

“We should get out of here,” you said. Figment nodded. He conjured up a second motor, and the boat hummed louder. The boat moved no faster. It drifted as slowly as it had before. You were getting anxious. You bounced on the balls of your feet impatiently. Even Axel was drumming his fingers against his leg, eyes darting this way and that. Every little noise set you on edge. The slosh of the water, the hum of the engine, the drip of the water from the void above into the abyss below, your own breathing.

Figment conjured up another motor, and the boat was making a significant amount of noise now. It moved no faster. You began to pace, eyes glued to the floor beneath you because the never-ending black surrounding you made you dizzy. Then you stilled.

Just barely over the roar of the motors you heard thudding. It was low and you had to strain to hear it. You looked around the boat, but all you saw was darkness. Nothing. Your heartrate picked up. You strained to see beyond the low light the boat managed to give off. Then you just barely saw it. Two, tiny, dim little dots in the distance. They were high up and swayed back in forth as they grew slowly closer. Your mind darted back to the trees where they’d had chunks of rotten wood gouged out of their trunks.

Something large was coming.

You took a staggering step back, summoning your keyblade.

“Guys?” you squeaked. Axel looked at you and followed your gaze, eyes widening at the approaching entity. Then you noticed two more sets of eyes not far behind the first.

Axel readied himself for a fight.

The first one broke through the dark haze. It was far too close for your liking. It was pitch black, and you could barely see it. It towered over you, dwarfing the boat you stood on by a large margin. It had a large muscular frame with a giant heart cleaved into its center. Its head was a mess of tentacles with yellow eyes peering through the tangle. You felt the eyes settle on the boat, and you tensed.

It continued its slow walk over to you, a low thud echoing through the cave with each step. It reached a long black arm out, its large hand which was easily half the size of the boat moving to grab the small vessel.

“Figment?” you called to him. He had seen them too and was now talking to the boat and asking him to hurry up.

“I’m trying,” the boat answered, and you heard the engines straining to go faster, but the boat wouldn’t move any faster despite all the black goo it kicked up in an effort to move forward.

They were nearly upon you now. You drew your keyblade. Then the boat gave a lurch as it struggled to move.

One of the creatures was here now, and reaching a hand out to grab the boat. Axel threw his weapons at it agitating it, and it drew the hand back. But the other one was already swinging at the boat in anger. You jumped from the boat.

“No!” Axel shouted.

You carved your keyblade up part of its arm before propelling yourself from its there to its face where you stabbed it with your keyblade.

It stumbled, moving to swat its face. You couldn’t dislodge your blade in time and jumped before the hand could strike you. But then you were falling again.

You landed in the water. It burned your eyes and stung with cold. It was pitch black. You couldn’t even see the light from the boat floating atop the waters. You were lost and scared. Your lungs, in your panic, burned with a need for air. Your mind urged you to scream, reach for help. Your limbs flailed to find something, anything, to pull you to the surface. You could feel yourself sinking. Slowly. Then there were eyes.

Hundreds of tiny yellow eyes that turned their gaze to you as you sank deeper into the cold abyss.

You felt numb now. You couldn’t move. The eyes began to move closer. How long until one would grab you, pull you deeper to drown? Or kill you outright? Leave your body a barely living husk back in reality?

You felt despair. You didn’t want the last thing you saw to be the dark or the eyes of hundreds of monsters that were going to kill you and take your heart.

Then you felt warmth, something that felt incredibly out of place for the cold abyss you found yourself in. A warm limb wrapped around you and pulled you upwards. You clung to it desperately.

You gasped when you broke the surface, feeling the sludge cling to you.

Axel grabbed the edge of the boat and hoisted himself and you back into it. You were flat on your back gasping while he looked deeply into your eyes to see that you remained unaffected by the darkness that had moments ago, swallowed you up.

The boat lurched. Figment had snapped his fingers, and the boat had sprouted wings and began to flap frantically to propel you forward. It had moved out of the way just in time to miss another attack from the heartless and just as the other two had caught up. The ceiling blurred passed you and Axel stayed low. The stalactites were much too close now, but the giant heartless had vanished rapidly in the distance. You were grateful to have the ordeal behind you. You shivered as you sat up, the cold and wind making your wet clothes even colder.

Then you saw a barrier, a thin translucent film that led to… somewhere. All you could make out on the other side were blurred shapes and multi-colored lights in hues of orange, pink, and purple.

The boat flew through the barrier.

Figment and Axel both let out sighs of relief. Until they saw the shattered remains of the hearts of thirty people floating in the air.

You on the other hand, couldn’t look. You had collapsed back onto the floor in a heap, crying out and alerting the others to your state.

It felt as if your entire being had shattered, and you hugged yourself to keep everything together. You were crying and sobbing and screaming. You could hear them. All of them. And you could feel them. And it hurt. It felt as if your own heart had been fragmented just as theirs had. They cried for help you could not give. And no relief came to you.

Axel held your shaking form close, unable to find any injury on you and unable to offer any other form of comfort.

“Can you go any faster?” he snapped at Figment.

“I’m going as fast as I can,” Figment snapped back.

~

Your form began shiver, and your mother worried over you. Did you need a blanket? Were you okay? Suddenly you began to sob loudly with tears running from your eyes in a constant stream. Axel’s hand gripped yours tighter.

Namine swiftly walked over to the man, probing his conscious to find the problem.

“What’s wrong? Where are they?” Demyx asked as he glanced between you and Namine.

Namine concentrated, finding your location.

“They’re in his heart.”

Notes:

Comments and kudos welcome! Thank you all for your wonderful support!

Chapter 14: The Man With No Face

Summary:

Final chapter in the mind, and it's extra long!! Let's see how you fair! I hope you like surreal horror. Cuz it's my favorite :)

Notes:

I hope you think of this chapter at night when lie awake in your bed in the dark.

You moaned in pain. Your head was splitting open. Or at least it felt that way. It was your head, right? You could hear them all. And they wouldn’t stop talking and s c r e a m i n g.

“________.”

That one! That’s your name.

I’m ________.

But that’s not my name. I… I don’t remember my name. We’re lost. Is it over yet?

I’m lost.

“________.” Your eyes snapped open, and you looked at Axel. He looked mildly relieved to have you look at him. You tried so desperately to cling to this moment. It felt like moving through tar.

“I… I can’t,” you choked out before you were pulled back into the haze. And you were lost again. Your head fell back limply, and you hung in his arms with a horrified look in your eyes. Your eyes darted back and forth, and you occasionally let out whimpers, but then you’d grow still and quiet. Then you’d be crying again. Then all emotion would vanish from your face, and no sound would come from you. You’d look dead. And that would scare Axel. And he’d call your name, and sometimes you’d look around or make a noise. Then you’d stop, and he’d worry again.

That had been the first time you responded coherently, making eye contact and speaking actual words. Axel looked to Figment who was steering the boat as fast as he could into what looked like stretched into an endless nothingness.

“Where are we?” Axel asked, looking around at the shattered fragments of hearts which glowed and dimmed rapidly.

“We’re in the heart chamber.”

“Why does it look like this? It’s just that I just imagined it differently.”

“I’ve never been in a heart before, but if the conscious was anything to go off of, I’d say it’s not supposed to look like this.”

“How were we even able to access this place?” Axel asked, looking down at you when a gasp left your lips before you began the cycle of sobbing softly again. He dried your tears. You leaned into his touch. He felt minor relief rush through him. You were responding again. Then you went limp, a look of fear on your face once more while your eyes darted back and forth rapidly – looking at what he couldn’t see.

“The conscious mind and heart are tied together. Separately the heart functions as your emotional guide. Your mind functions for everything else – wants, desires, wishes. But they function as one to create you as a whole.”

“How much longer to the other side?” Axel asked. You choked out another sob. You weren’t responding to him again.

“I think we’re getting close. I see a light.”

Axel tried to see where Figment was looking. It was a small dot of light. You wouldn’t be there for a while, but if he could keep you responding until then, maybe he could find out what was wrong with you. If the problem even could be fixed.

“Have you figured out what’s wrong with her?” Figment asked as he cast you a worried glance.

“No. If I had to guess, being a keyblade wielder and in a heart affects her.”

“But since it’s thirty people plus the original host, it might be having an adverse effect on her,” Figment concluded. He heard you let out another groan of pain.

Your hand shot out and grabbed Axel’s robe, fisting it tight. You pulled yourself up, looking him in the eyes. His eyes were wide in shock.

“Please,” you croaked, searching his face with desperate, half-crazed eyes. It was all you could say before you fell slack into his arms again. You weren’t just asking, no, you were begging him for… something. Your face held an expression of despair. Your eyes were dull but not void of life, your lip quivering and tears reappearing on your face. You curled into him, letting out a despondent noise of suffering.

You were scaring him. Which was quite a feat. He wasn’t scared so easily. But you were scaring him. You seemed to rely on him but in a way in which he could supply no support. He was useless, and that scared him too.

~

When you passed the barrier on the other side you gasped. It was like breaking the surface of water after having been under for so long. There was quiet around you, and it was a relief. Axel was relieved briefly that you were functioning as normal, but your eyes still looked frightened.

“________,” he said, grabbing your attention. You held your gaze this time, and Axel took that as a good sign that you were not going back into your stupor. You sat up slowly, crawling to sit next to him, hugging your knees to your chest and burying your face in them to cry.

Axel put an arm around your shoulders. He didn’t know what else to do. You leaned into him.

“I could feel them,” you said finally after a few minutes. “But I couldn’t feel me. I was all of them, but I knew I wasn’t any of them. I was lost. I couldn’t find myself or my way back and it was so dark.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“The people here. When we were in there, I couldn’t tell the difference between me or any of them. They’ve been trapped here for so long. They can barely tell themselves apart anymore. And I couldn’t find my way back most of the time. They kept pulling me back in and begging me for help, but I- I couldn’t do anything.”

“If it’s any consolation,” he began, “We are here to help them. I know you feel like you can’t do anything now, but you will.” Your eyes turned up to him, brighter than they were a moment ago but still very dull.

“Thank you,” you croaked out, leaning further into his side.

After a few hours the silence began to be unsettling again. Despite the fact that you had longed for it a while ago, now in the silence all you could hear were the echoes of those agonized and angered screams bouncing around in the back of your mind. And you felt better at least. You didn’t hurt anymore, and your headache had ebbed away.

“Say something,” you thought, “Anything.”

You looked up at Axel. His arm wasn’t around you anymore, and you weren’t leaning on him, but he’d stayed firmly planted by your side. A comfort you were very grateful for. You didn’t want to be alone – even if your company could only stray about five feet from you.

You thought about other times he’d been there for you, and your mind immediately went to Disney Town. The safe, the crosswalk, the bank….

You snorted, and the sound was loud in the stillness. Axel flinched lightly, eyes darting down at you in worry. But then you started laughing your loud braying laugh, and he relaxed.

“Oh great. She’s lost it,” Figment said walking over to you with a bucket of water. He prepared to throw it on you, but you put a hand up in protest through your fits of giggles.

“No! No wait! I’m not crazy!”

“Well what’s so funny?” he asked. Axel looked at you as well.

“Axel,” you said turning towards him, eyes so much brighter now, “Back in Disney Town. The sign you left on the Beagle Boys! Why did you write that?”

Axel looked confused for a moment then recognition crossed his face, and he chuckled, scratching the back of his head.

“Seemed appropriate at the time,” he said with a light lilt of laughter in his voice. You continued giggling. Axel began to laugh too.

“Oof. That’s a laugh only a mother could love,” you heard the boat comment. Figment and the boat continued laughing, but you slapped a hand over your mouth, laughter dying in your throat. You seemed to shrink in on yourself a bit. Figment noticed before halting his own laughter and slapping the boat.

“Now look,” he said gesturing to you, “You hurt her feelings.”

“I’m fine,” you muttered.

“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” Axel commented with a shrug. You smiled, bashfully looking down at your feet.

“Thanks,” you said. You were glad to have him as a friend. Wait. You were friends, right? Well, you barely knew each other, but you’d be hard pressed to say you didn’t like or trust him. After all you’d been through up to this point, it was certainly hard to say you felt like he hadn’t earned that title.

“Axel,” you began again. He looked down at you with a small smile on his face. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

He seemed surprised by your question. He was surprised. He hadn’t expected it… well ever. This was bad. Not only had he kept a target alive. He had allowed it to believe the two of you could be friends. And the worst of it was… he felt guilty. It made sense to him now – why he hated when you gave him that look of sympathy. He didn’t deserve that look. He had never gotten that from anyone in a long time, and when he finally did, he didn’t fucking deserve it. He realized, with revulsion, he liked having you around.

“Well I’m here with you. That’s gotta count for something, right?” Your smile brightened.

“Yeah. Thanks for that by the way. You’ve been a big source of support for me.”

“No problem,” he said softly.

Meanwhile Figment was having his own conversation with the boat, glancing at Axel and you. The two of you were smiling and talking innocently enough.

“No, sir, I don’t like it,” Figment said as he steered the boat around a tree. “He was on Disney Town. So what’s he doing here? Because last I checked I’m 87% sure that inter-worldly travel is expressly prohibited.”

“So he’s just following her? That’s creepy,” the boat said with a quirk of his brows, “How does he even know about other worlds?”

“Yeah, and then another guy wearing the exact same outfit shows up and claims to be best friends with the guy, and she just takes it all in stride!”

“Yeah, who does she think she is?!”

“What? No! That’s not the point!”

“Well what is the point?”

“I don’t trust Axel. Something about him just rubs me the wrong way.”

“And it rubs her the right way if you know what I mean,” the boat said, wiggling its eyebrows.

“I’m gonna act like I didn’t hear you say that about someone who is basically my niece.”

“Sorry, bro.”

“It’s cool, bro, but then he’s also a pyromancer! Where’d he learn to do that? Why is this pyromancer in some edgy, Hot Topic trench coat following my niece around?!”

“Hey, what are they doing now?” the boat asked. Figment looked behind him. The two of you were just laughing together.

“They’re just laughing.”

“Ooh. That’s how it starts.”

“Wait, what? That’s how what starts?!”

“Well if I wanted to get close to someone, I’d make them laugh. It’s the easiest way to break the ice. I mean look at him. He’s tall and has those gorgeous, green eyes.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, look at them. She can’t get enough of him.”

And Figment did look, noting that the two of you were a lot closer than you were before, just a few inches more and you’d be leaning on each other again. Figment panicked.

“If I were you, I’d handle that shit, bro,” the boat said, “Oh but we’re about to hit shore.”

Figment breathed a sigh relief, thankful to have a reason for you two to separate. You all hopped off the boat and onto the foggy gray shore. It was a relief to not be confined to the small space any more. It made you feel vulnerable. You and Axel stretched your stiff legs while Figment had one more word with the boat.

“Remember, keep an eye on Hot Topic over there,” the boat said, eyeing Axel as he stretched. Figment nodded and gulped as he snapped his fingers and the boat vanished.

“Well,” he started, flying between you two, “Let’s get a move on.”

“Wait,” you said. They both looked at you. You were squinting ahead of you down the path you stood on. You could see heartless ahead. They looked like the shadows you were used to seeing but taller and with a lanky muscular build. You almost didn’t see them in the dark haze, but their movement and eyes stood out just enough for you to catch them. “Get behind the trees.”

They did as you instructed. They looked where you were gazing.

“Good eye,” Axel whispered, noticing the neoshadows writhing about the path ahead of you.

“How should we handle this?” you asked, voice low.

“You’re the keyblade wielder. Tell me your plan, and unless it’s really bad, I’ll back you up.”

“Me?” you asked in a slightly higher voice. Figment also looked shocked.

“You want to be a keyblade wielder, you’re gonna have to make a few strategic decisions.”

You bit your lip, nervous. Then you looked around at your surrounding and what you had to work with. A direct attack was out of the question. If you had been able to spot them, then no doubt they would spot you as you were coming down the path. The trees offered a little in the way of cover. You might be able to go passed them unnoticed, but an attack would only go so far before they caught on. There didn’t look to be anything else.

“We’ll use the trees,” you whispered, “Attack only if necessary. Spread out.” Axel nodded, and you breathed a sigh of relief. This meant you were at least a little competent. The three of you spread out, Axel summoning his chakrams and Figment conjuring a bazooka. You decided against summoning your keyblade. You were a beacon, a fact you couldn’t forget since Leon had told you. And here that may very well be a death wish.

“I mean I could just turn into a bulldozer and knock them all down,” Figment said with a shrug, but you shook your head.

“They’ll just come back a second later since we can’t get rid of them, and then they’ll know we’re here.” Figment sighed but relented. You were right.

You rushed between the trees as quickly and quietly as you could. Every sound seemed amplified to you. You never knew if the rustle of the leaves were your own or a heartless that had passed you. You hugged close to every dark surface, holding your breath each time one walked by you only a few feet away. Your heart beat loudly in your ears, and you prayed that they didn’t have some sort of super hearing that allowed them to notice you.

You pressed your back into the next tree when one sidled up next to you. It stood there twitching and rocking back and forth. Your breath hitched. You could see Figment and Axel from where you were. They had stopped to look at you, eyes wide, glancing between you and the heartless. You made no movement to attack. All it had to do was turn its head and you would be spotted. Sweat beaded on your forehead. Seconds ticked by that felt like hours. Then it moved on. Your legs felt shaky. You hadn’t realized how frightened you were until now. Axel and Figment were still looking at you, and you gave a tiny nod that you were fine before peeling yourself off of the tree and moving on.

Then you heard a snap, and the world around you stilled. You looked to see where it had come from. Across from you Axel stood stock still as a few neoshadows crept closer to him. You watched the grip on his chakrams tighten as he readied himself to be discovered. This would end badly; you could feel it in your gut. But what could you do? Drawing the attention to yourself was just as bad if not worse. You looked around hastily and thanked your lucky stars that you found a rock. Just large enough to make a sound and small enough to be thrown a reasonable distance.

You chucked it in the other direction, behind you and away from Axel, watching as a small group of them ran passed to see what had disturbed the leaves. You looked at Axel who had already darted ahead and away from his previous hiding spot. You ran ahead too, eager to be out of reach of the horde.

You crouched in a small huddle of bushes. The next tree had been too far to dash over without risking being spotted. But as you looked between the branches you saw a neoshadow that you could swear was looking at you. The two of you stared at each other for a moment. After a minute, you were sure it hadn’t actually spotted you and that you had imagined it – that it was just looking in your general direction. You sighed in mild relief. Then it began to run towards you. You almost jumped from the bushes, feeling your keyblade calling to be summoned. But the heartless jumped, landed near you and kept moving. You were shaking. That was entirely too close. You dashed ahead to the next tree, thankful that this stretch of your journey appeared to be at an end. You couldn’t see any more heartless infesting what little of the forest there was left to get through, and you began to step into a clearing.

Axel looked at you, already heading to the edge of the forest. Then he noticed a shadow. It was turning just as you were passing it, and it spotted you. He jumped from his cover immediately using one of his chakrams as a pseudo shield when its claws swiped through the air. With the other he sliced through the heartless’ middle. By now you realized what had happened and that he had alerted a few nearby shadows to your presence.

“Call it,” he ordered. Call it? Oh! Fight or flight.

You looked across the clearing. The forest was much thicker over there and would provide plenty more cover, provided you could make it across and into a hiding spot. You could fight them off here but then you’d be trapped in whatever hiding spots you picked until they stopped searching for you. How long would that take?

“We’ll run for it. Figment!” you called, “Give us some cover!”

“Right-o!” he said, firing off a shot from his bazooka. The noise was near deafening, especially considering the silence that almost ruled this world, but the cloud that billowed up from it was just what you needed.

“Move!” you ordered, sprinting across the field to the other side. You already picked a set of bushes to dive into. Axel and Figment were hot on your heels. You looked behind you once you were half way across. The dust had begun to settle where you once were and the neoshadows were just starting to emerge. You pushed herself harder across the clearing, all but throwing yourself into the bushes, and crouching down low. Axel and Figment hid behind trees. The three of you dart silently through the forest, keeping close but not enough to draw attention to yourselves. But it seemed that no matter how fast you ran, they stayed on your heels.

The three of you broke through the trees, but when you looked back you saw something that chilled you more than the swamp. They just stood there, just inside the tree line, watching you with bright eyes. You slowed to a stop, watching them closely. They did not come forward. Axel and Figment stopped to look back at you. Why weren’t you running? Then they saw the heartless line that formed along the trees.

“What are they waiting for?” you asked quietly.

“Something’s wrong if they won’t come forward,” Axel mentioned, watching them with narrowed eyes.

“Maybe it’s a barrier?” you suggested. Though you couldn’t see anything keeping them back.

“Maybe,” Axel agreed. But he, himself, wasn’t so sure.

The three of you continued on, glancing back nervously, but the heartless began to creep back into the forest silently. You entered a neighborhood shortly afterward.

“Figment,” you called, “How much further to the subconscious?”

“Not long now,” he said, pulling out his compass which now said, “Won’t be long now.”

The houses were run down with caved in roofs and shattered windows. Some leaned dangerously to one side, and you wondered how they managed to continue standing. The lawns were gray and dry as the vegetation everywhere else had been. There didn’t seem to be any heartless around which was just as odd as when they hadn’t entered from the forest. And yet you felt you were not alone.

The three of you walked silently through the neighborhood. It was devoid of any signs of life, yet you felt as if you were waiting for someone, or something, to leap out at you from one of the houses. You remembered your time below Spaceship Earth as you made your way to the ship and the unknown danger following you. Why did this feel so similar?

Then something caught your eye. It was hard to miss. A house that stood at the end of the cul-de-sac of the neighborhood. It was a house that stood up perfectly intact – a far cry from the ruins of the cities you had seen earlier and the neighborhood in which you found yourself now. It was also colorful. It was a bright spot amongst all of the black and rot that had poisoned the land. And yet, it was the most unsettling thing of all. You stepped forward, noting the lush green of the lawn. The paint was mostly white with a dark blue roof. The windows though… they were pitch black, and you could not see into them. You stood at the end of the concrete walkway that led to the porch. Your breaths were shaky, and every fiber of your being screamed to turn back and take your chances with the heartless in the forest or the swamp or the heart chamber with all of its endless screaming. Whatever awaited you inside there was so much worse – you just knew.

.

.

.

“What are you waiting for?” Figment’s voice snapped you from your reverie. You nearly jumped. Your feelings of dread had not entirely ebbed away, but even the momentary distraction of conversation was a minor relief. Better than facing whatever lurked inside.

You blinked at Figment before actually registering his words. You didn’t know what you were waiting for. You should unlock the door now. Using your keyblade. Hmm. Well the key obviously wasn’t going to fit in the door. How did you go about this exactly?

“I… uh… I don’t actually know what to do?” you said, looking at the door ahead of you. “I’ve never actually had to unlock anything before.” You only knew that you could.

“Well I’m sure you’ll figure it out?” Figment said with a shrug, sitting on the grass and watching you expectantly. You looked at Axel who was also looking at you. He shrugged. He wasn’t keyblade wielder and knew about unlocking as much as you did. Was there some secret to it? A phrase or magic word?

You paced back and forth, lost in your dilemma. Did it have anything to do with the connection of the wielder to the key? Was the key an extension of yourself? Was it as simple as being a keyblade wielder and just opening the door yourself?

You summoned your keyblade and stared at it. It held no more answers about its abilities and existence now than it had when you got it five years ago. You took a deep breath, holding it with both hands and feeling the connection you held to it. It was indeed an extension of yourself. It felt like you. You gazed back up at the door, pointing your keyblade at it and willing it to open. Your keyblade began to glow, and you were certain this was right.

But what’s inside?

Your fear came back full force and halted any progress you made. Your key was shaking in your hands, but you felt more frustrated with yourself than anything.

You don’t even know that there’s anything in there! You’re being ridiculous!

Two hands wrapped around yours and steadied your keyblade, pointing it back at the door.

“Relax,” Axel said in a low voice. You nodded lightly, taking another deep breath and concentrating again. Your keyblade began to glow and beam of light connected from your keyblade to the door, illuminating a keyhole shape and unlocking it with a satisfying click.

You breathed a sigh of relief, missing the warmth and temporary comfort Axel’s presence gave you as he lowered his hands from yours and stepped away.

You walked up the stairs to the porch, every step feeling heavier than the last. Your hand froze over the doorknob. You felt the stares on your back as they waited for you to lead the way. Holding your breath you turned the knob and pressed inside, freezing once you had stepped over the threshold. It was dark. Far darker than it had been when you were traversing the forest. About as dark as the swamp. But you could see walls. It looked like a hallway lined with doors that led to who knew where. Just a simple hallway.

But everything felt off, and you began to shiver in place. You were terrified.

Axel placed a hand on your shoulder. You looked up at him, and he gave you a small, encouraging smile. You took a small comfort in it, but the comfort was quickly lost.

You heard something. It was so faint that you almost couldn’t hear it over the pounding of your own heart.

Crying.

It faded so quickly though; you couldn’t be sure you hadn’t imagined it.

“Do you hear that?” you ask, unsure if you want them to answer in the affirmative or not. On the one hand, this place might actually be driving you crazy. And on the other, you were completely sane, but something or someone actually was in here. And you couldn’t decide what was worse.

Axel and Figment both looked at you questioningly. They each shook their heads. Crazy it is then.

“Okay, I think I’m hearing things.”

“You’ve been through a lot,” Axel rationalized for you. Yes, that had to be it. You’d rest once you were back in your body. If restful sleep were even going to be possible after this.

“As much as it pains me to say it,” Figment began after the three of you were fully in the subconscious, “You need to hold hands. The subconscious is ever changing, and if any of us get separated, it’ll be near impossible to find you.”

“Why does it pain you?” you asked. Figment just cast wary glances between you and Axel.

“No reason.”

You rolled your eyes, slipping your hand into Axel’s before following Figment. You wanted to speak, say that this wasn’t unlike what you had been through in the heart chamber, but you were afraid to make a sound here. Your feet didn’t even make a noise as you walked through the ever-changing halls. Even the walls which shifted and moved behind you and in front of you were quiet. It was disorienting to say the least, especially when you’d turn a corner, look behind you and see the corner gone – replaced with a path facing another direction or a dead end. The only comfort, only thing keeping you grounded, was the tight grip you kept on Axel’s hand. He seemed unaffected by the darkness or the strange environment in which you found yourself, and his surety in this place gave you a vague sense of security.

You continued walking silence, and you heard the weeping noise again. You shook your head. Hearing things. You’d heard a lot of things today. You’d heard crying in the heart chamber – crying and screaming. Now was no different. But no matter how many times you told yourself this, your frayed nerves got no better. And you kept hearing it. It would slowly make itself known like an icy chill up your back and fade away. After the third time, you had to say something.

“I still hear it,” you rasped barely above a whisper, “I know you don’t hear it, but I swear to you I can hear someone, somewhere crying.”

“Well I’m not sure we can help them,” Axel said. But that was the thing, you realized with mild disgust, you didn’t want to help them. You wanted them to leave.

The three of you kept walking in silence, you deciding to keep your selfish revelation to yourself, when Figment opened a door. You and Axel stepped over the threshold, entering a hall covered in what looked like screens. Most of the images were blurry and muffled, but it was enough to see what was going on in them. They played out like movies in first person. Memories, you realized.

“We’re here,” Figment announced, closing the door behind you. You headed deeper into the memories. Most of the ones you passed were mundane, day to day activities. Then they got worse. Kidnappings. Tiny cells void of light. The sounds of crying, which further set you on edge. Then the experiments started. They started small with just general observation, poking and prodding, responses to stimuli. Then there were the injections. You heard the screams of a woman having pure darkness injected into her heart. How they managed to keep alive people separated from their hearts, you weren’t sure. Then you saw the many fatal experiments used just to achieve that result. Some of the people were kept on a sort of life support while their heart functioned outside of their body. They were capable of little more than facial expressions and pained groans and whimpers.

The darkness forced into them consumed their hearts, and those who did not survive it, had their hearts collapse under the strain. It was an experiment that did not often have a successful outcome. Those who did survive, lost their minds to the conflict of desires that were not their own. They were transplanted, and you watched them go mad when their bodies rejected them, flailing wildly and screaming, sometimes foaming at the mouth with a wild, animalistic look in their eyes.

Some people were just given to heartless just to see how long they would survive. They never lasted long. Hearts were tested to see how long they could tolerate darkness before turning into heartless. Some of them would succumb quickly – that was almost a mercy. Others had their dragged out far beyond what could be possible, going mad, losing the whole of their being to the darkness before they could even turn into a heartless.

Tears began to stream down your face. You were crying. These people suffered so much.

Some hearts were depleted of light and darkness completely. It left the subjects tranquil, emotionless and blank. When anything was reintroduced to them, light or dark, they begged for death. They’d been trapped within their own body and unable to express any of what they felt.

The experiments went on and on. Hearts cleaved in two; hearts that were separated from the hosts being fed to heartless to see how the host would fare; putting hearts in dusks and watching them both collapse under the strain; seeing if the hearts of children and the elderly could last longer in these conditions than that of young or middle aged adults.

Then, finally, there was this one. Thirty hearts cleaved into shards and fragments and spliced into the heart of the existing host. By the time it was done, the heart didn’t even look like a heart anymore. It was grossly misshapen into a lump with jagged edges the curved and jutted out in random places. The colors bordered each other. The hearts would not mix. They were just shoved into each other and forced to exist.

Every single one of the subjects forced to be the host of the thirty hearts died. Except for this one. He went into a coma in his body’s last-ditch attempt to preserve his life. It worked. But he never woke up.

The last memory was one you were all too familiar with. You had lived it and relived it over and over again when you were in the heart chamber. It was darkness full of screams and cries for help. It was loud and unnerving. You put both of your hands over your ears and moaned in pain. Your headache was back full force, but your body didn’t collapse as it did then. But you couldn’t do this. Couldn’t take this anymore.

You bolted.

“________, no!” you heard Axel and Figment call, but you couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to stop.

Axel and Figment both ran after you, calling for you to stop before you were lost in the subconscious for what could very well be rest of your life, but you kept running.

You ran out of the door, hearing it slam shut behind you. And the screaming from the memories stopped, but then you heard the crying from before. And that was worse. You kept running, but the sound of his sobs seemed to echo around you, and you didn’t know where to go. You turned this way and that desperate to escape it.

Then you saw it. It was a man. No, it was shaped like a man. He was pure black, and he sobbed loudly. He was just standing there. His cries were warped and inhuman. They were almost like screams as much as sobs, and you ran in the other direction. You wanted to be far away from him, but no matter how far you ran, the volume of his sobs never decreased.

“Leave me alone!” you screeched. Your eyes were shut tight as you ran, afraid to look behind you, but the moment you opened them, he was there and far closer than he should be. He held no face. It was just a void where it should have been. You let out a shriek of pure terror as you turned and ran in the other direction. You kept your eyes wide open now so you could avoid him as best you could. He seemed to be around every other turn you made, his cries getting louder to an almost deafening roar, and he was getting closer. He would be on you soon enough.

Tears blurred your vision and kept coming in fat, heavy drops that blinded you. You ran for what felt like an eternity. Then collapsed finally. You sobbed wildly, hands gripping at your head as you awaited whatever this apparition had in store for you, but nothing came. You took your hands slowly from your head. It was silent now.

You looked around, blinking away tears that still fell from your face.

There was nothing.

It was all nothingness, nothing but a black abyss that stretched on forever. You didn’t know where you were, and you didn’t see anymore doors or hallways. You were truly lost now.

~

“W-w-w-w-w-we need a plan! A plan that’s what we need! A good old-fashioned plan ‘o action!” Figment was near hysterical with worry, and it showed in his incessant talking. To say it was getting on Axel’s nerves would be an understatement. He was heated with annoyance and anger and worry. Figment wouldn’t shut up, and you’d run off and there was no guarantee either of them would ever be able to find you again.

Figment had also summoned a small committee of five other Figments – each with a number on their sweaters to identify them easier – to come up with a plan. All of them talked over each other in a layered babble while pacing. Axel just stood there, watching him, arms folded while he tried to keep his cool.

Why had you run off? Well he knew why you had run off. He was pretty ruthless being that he was an assassin, and he’d done his fair share of murder in the past, but the torture he’d just witnessed was pretty hard to stomach. And you’d only been a keyblade wielder for a little over a week. None of this was anything you’d been exposed to, and he could imagine how overwhelming it must have felt. He just wished you had said something instead of waiting until you were having a mental breakdown to do anything about it. Especially since that thing was to run off to probably never be seen again.

It should have been an easy thing to accept. His actual job was done and after they searched around for you for a few days, it would be safe to say you had been taken care of. He wouldn’t have a nobody to bring home, but in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t necessary. Xemnas could overlook it.

But it wasn’t that simple anymore. He didn’t actually want you gone. And he felt actual upset that you were now. This was a mess. He should’ve just killed you as soon he had you in Ansem’s castle. That was the plan, but like then, you ran off. You did that a lot. And now he actually felt worry. He shook his head, focusing his anger and annoyance that he felt towards himself to the committee of Figments now sitting around a table with a large atlas on it and still talking over each other and arguing.

He walked over to them.

“If you could pull yourself together for a few minutes, I say we just start walking and go find her.” He was honestly tired of waiting around. You were unstable and probably a bigger danger to yourself than anything else they might find there.

The Figments all glared at him, the original standing up to speak.

“Need I remind you that the subconscious is constantly changing? It could take literal years to find her, and her body will be long dead by then. We have four days to find her before her body dies of dehydration, and if her body dies, her consciousness will cease to exist.”

“Then let’s go,” Axel said turning on his heel. Figment flew in front of his face, halting his progress.

“We can’t just go! This place is a maze, and if we waltz in there with no plan whatsoever, we may as well sign her death certificate ourselves! Also yours, buddy boy!” Figment snapped, jabbing a finger in Axel’s chest. “So you would do well to trust me!”

“I don’t even know you,” Axel said, lightly slapping Figment’s hand away. He was being facetious and petty at that point, but he was too annoyed to care.

“Let me tell you something,” Figment said, narrowing his eyes at Axel, “I don’t know you either! I saw you with her in Disney Town! You obviously don’t belong there! And you just happen to show up on another world, the one she’s in, wrapped up in whatever business she has with that other girl and you just happen to be involved in that too?! I don’t know who you are or what you want, but I don’t trust you! But it doesn’t matter because my niece is lost somewhere and you’re all the help I’ve got to find her. I don’t care if you don’t know me! If you actually care about her the way you act like you do when she’s around, you’ll do what I say!”

“…Fine.”

“Good, now if you’ll excuse me, I was in the middle of a very important meeting.” Figment marched back over to the other Figments where they proceeded to continue arguing, throwing cups of coffee at each other.

~

You sat in that spot for a good long while. You were afraid to move, but you knew you couldn’t stay here. Not forever.

You stood on shaky, wobbly legs and began to walk. You didn’t know where you were going but if you kept going straight, then you’d wind up somewhere. So that’s what you did. Eventually you could hear a faint echo of something in the distance and see a small light. You nearly sprinted towards it, your legs aching in protest. But as you approached you saw it was another memory, this one crystal clear with clear sound.

The viewer was looking through a camera from what you saw. It was a bright and clear day. They pointed the camera at their house and said they wished you’d get to see it, but they were going to a new home soon where you and everyone else would be safe.

He pointed the camera at a woman, and your whole body froze. You were certain that even your heart had stopped.

It was your mother. But she was heavily pregnant, waving to the person holding the camera. He introduced her as the love of his life and the person who would be the best mother ever.

You felt tears welling up in your eyes again as your father swung the camera around to look at him. He was bright and smiling, a face that was twenty years younger than the man you saw in the pod but undoubtedly the same man.

“I can’t wait to meet you,” he said, “I’m gonna give you the world, baby girl.”

You were crying and smiling. Your tears were bittersweet. You were happy to have gotten to see something of your father that wasn’t in pictures in old albums your mother had shoved into an attic. You wished you had gotten to meet him properly. You were saddened that he was here – that he was one of these long-suffering experiments. But you were happy he’d survived.

“That’s the last good one,” said a voice from right behind you.

You shrieked, jumping away several feet and landing on your ass. You looked up with wide, frightened eyes at a face that actually put you at ease. He had a thick red beard that framed a jolly face. His eyes were warm and jovial. But that was only half the reason you’d relaxed. You knew this man. Well not really. You’d only seen him in the one picture your uncle had, but you recognized him all the same.

“You’re Dreamfinder,” you breathed.

“Somewhat! Blarion Mercurial to most, and Dreamfinder to my friends and colleagues. Are you one of my friends and colleagues? And how do you know who I am? Are you my rescue party?”

“Uh, no,” you answered sheepishly, “My name is ________. And, no, I didn’t come with a rescue party. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, of course, I’ve only been stuck here for twenty years might as well make it twenty-one!” he said throwing his hands into the air in frustration.

“I have so many questions and a lot of things to say.”

“Let’s start with the first one.”

“Okay, um, for starters I read your journal, and I know who you are. I came here with Figment –”

“Figment! How’s Figment? What’s he doing these days?! Where is he? I’m sure he’s been leading you, no doubt.”

“Well that’s the thing…,” you said, glancing around anxiously.

“Let me guess. You got separated from him, and now you’re lost here in the void with me?”

“Sort of. I ran off, terrified might I add, got chased, got lost, and then ran into you. And now I’m here in the void.”

“Chased? So you saw it?” You stilled, mind flashing back to whatever had chased you, blank face staring at you, cries echoing loudly all around you. You nodded. You doubted you would ever be able to forget it.

“What is it?” you whispered.

“Bad,” he looked at you gravely, and you wondered briefly the level of the threat you had escaped. Your hope diminished – not that there was much of it left.

“Oh,” you said lowly. You looked around. “Do you know how to get out of here?”

“Oh, I don’t think there’s a way out. I mean, the subconscious is consistently on the move, so now that we can’t even see what it is that’s changing, we can’t find our way out. Besides, you don’t want to leave here. It’s the only place it hasn’t tried to enter. It’s the safest place to be. Figment will find us in due time.”

“But my other friend is here too.”

“Well if he’s with Figment, then he’s in good hands.”

“I know, but I don’t feel right just sitting here in the one spot. There’s got to be a way out. I mean, if we keep going forward, we’ve got to wind up somewhere right?”

“What if it’s in the clutches of the creature that attacked you?”

You shuddered to think what would happen if you ever came face to face with it again. You might not be so fortunate as to escape this time.

“I can’t let it get to my friends either. They may not have much of a chance against it with me, but I know they won’t without me. I can’t abandon them. Not again.”

“And might I ask, who are you? Just to be on the safe side, I can’t risk following another hallucination.”

“I’m _______. This is my father, and I originally came to search his memories.”

Dreamfinder quietly regarded you for a moment before his face lit up in a grin. He clapped his hands together, rubbing them together like he was getting ready for something exciting.

“Lead the way!” he announced. You blinked. Just like that? You shrugged and smiled; happy you’d at least have a companion on this long journey. You picked a direction and began to walk in it.

It was an easier said than done task. You’d been walking for what felt like hours, but you didn’t have time to lose hope. Right now, your best shot of leaving was this, and you’d be damned if you let it end here.

“If you don’t mind my asking, what exactly prompted this little expedition of yours?” Dreamfinder asked, breaking the dead silence and causing you to jump a little.

“I’m trying to find the memories of the experiments done on these people and then some. You were doing the same thing, right? I saw it your journal.”

“I was indeed before the host was captured. I couldn’t very well leave then at risk of discovery. I thought I could wait it out, but when they did the experiment on him, things became severely more complicated. I can normally navigate the subconscious with little to no problems, but the introduction of some thirty people has warped it into a maze that changes at thirty times the rate the average subconscious is supposed to change. If I’d had Figment with me, I’d have been able to find my way out much more easily.”

“But you couldn’t risk his discovery in the involvement of your plan too?”

“Precisely.”

“I’m so sorry. I’ll get us out of here.”

“It’s quite alright, but if may ask one more question. After the host locked me in here, I wouldn’t have been able to get out if I had wanted. So how did you manage to bypass his mind’s natural lock?”

“I’m a keyblade wielder,” you answered simply, “Basically, I was given this key, somehow, that can function as a weapon and unlock any and every door, regardless of whether or not it resembles a door. Pretty much if it’s locked it can be unlocked.”

“Fascinating! Tell me more!”

“Well I don’t know much about it outside of the fact that it should be able to take on heartless and get rid of them permanently, but that the ones here in the mind are far less effected by that than those outside of it.”

“So it’s an object tied to heart? If it can normally banish heartless, it must be.”

“It is. I know it’s an extension of myself and my heart.”

“Hmmm,” he thought this over for a minute.

You looked up at him as you walked, watching him turn this information over in his head.

“I’ve a hypothesis,” he said finally, “The keyblade is tied to your heart, correct?”

“Yes…,” you answered slowly.

“Hearts are a hub of connections, not unlike the mind itself. But the heart has the unique ability that the mind lacks that allows it to form connections outside of its central core. If the keyblade acts as part of a physical manifestation of your heart, then you ought to be able to use it to amplify your abilities.”

“Like what? I don’t know much of how to use it except to unlock things and fight, and I only learned how to unlock things a few hours ago.”

“Well I hope your ability form friendships existed before you got that blade. You may be able to use it find your friends, sort of like a dowsing rod but for strong emotional connection.”

“Oh!” you gasped, summoning your keyblade, “I’ve never tried that!”

“And now we’ll see first hand what you’re capable of! I love trying new experiments!” he said, clapping jovially. His attitude was catching. This was the best you’d felt in a while. “Now concentrate on your friends. Think of all the strong emotions they’ve made you feel – happiness, anger, passion!”

You closed your eyes, bringing your keyblade up until it was touching your forehead. You thought about Figment and Axel. You thought of all the laughter you’d shared with Figment in the years of your life you’d known him. You thought about how Axel liked your laugh and how you appreciated his comfort after you’d been in the heart chamber. You thought of Figment giving you comforting pats on the arm when you cried just after your world had collapsed. And…

You saw it. Two lights pulling your heart towards them. You could feel and recognize Figments easily – most likely because of how familiar you were with him. The second was less recognizable as if it were barely there, but you knew it was Axel. And you were so happy to feel them. In your burst of happiness, you watched Axel’s light grow a bit in brilliance. It flared back at you, and you felt hope.

“This way,” you all but yelled, grabbing Dreamfinder’s hand and pulling him along at a run.

Meanwhile, Figment and Axel had resolved to walking deeper into the subconscious to head towards the center where they’d have a better chance of running into you. But then Axel felt a tug. It was a small little feeling that he could have ignored. But it felt foreign. It wasn’t his. But it felt vaguely familiar. Then he felt a small wave of happiness hit him all but out of nowhere.

Figment had stilled.

“Did you feel that?” he asked. Axel nodded. Then he felt another tug, this time giving him hope.

“This way,” Axel said quickly, grabbing Figment and taking off in the direction he felt pulled. It was a long run, one that nearly exhausted him, but he couldn’t stop. Even Figment gave no protest. This was the right way to go, and there was no doubt about that.

He eventually had to stop running, and he let Figment go, but the two continued at a brisk pace towards where they were sure you were.

You sent out another pulse, searching for them again. Axel’s light continued to grow a little brighter, and you kept seeking it out as every little bit of brightness that accumulated seemed to give you renewed energy. Dreamfinder followed alongside you at a brisk walk. You’d both tired after about ten minutes of solid running, but it didn’t stop you. You’d finally made your way back to the twisting turning hallways with their endless supply of doors, and you hadn’t heard any crying, which was a good sign. You pressed onward, never letting go of Dreamfinder’s hand.

Dreamfinder was absolutely beside himself with glee that his hypothesis was correct and that he was going to see his lifelong friend again and that he was going to be out of this abysmal place for the first time in so long.

You were so close now. You could practically feel the pulses between the three of you rapidly bouncing between you back and forth sending emotions at such a rapid pace, you almost had trouble processing them. You were so overwhelmed by the determination and hope you felt that tears had sprung up in your eyes again.

And then you saw them.

“Axel,” you called, breaking into a sprint, Dreamfinder following close behind. Figment and Axel ran to you too. You all but jumped at Axel, throwing your arms around his neck. He hugged you close. He was overwhelmed with emotion too, not enough to cry as you were, but he felt more than a little happy to see you. And overcome with relief.

“Dreamfinder!” Figment yelled in happy surprise, leaping into his arms. Dreamfinder held him close, doing a small little jig. You laughed, still drunk on your own emotions and so happy that they were reunited after so long. You couldn’t help it, you joined in on their hug, and they welcomed you.

“How did you manage to find us?” Axel asked.

“I saw your lights. I looked for the two of you using my heart, and I could see the light in your hearts,” you breathed. “Axel…,” you said, looking at him like he was someone new, “You were radiant.”

He blinked at you in surprise. Him? Light? Heart? He almost scoffed in your face, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it when you were looking at him like that. In fact, beneath all that disbelief, he felt happy(?) that you saw light in him. As if maybe some small part of him actually deserved all the sympathy you’d given him up to now, even if he knew most of him did not.

Figment looked at Axel. Begrudgingly, he was regarding him in a new light. If you’d seen light in him at all, then he couldn’t be all bad. And he still didn’t entirely trust him, but this was enough to at least know he wasn’t going to kill you.

“Well now that the dynamic psychiatric duo has been reunited,” Dreamfinder announced, “It would be my pleasure, and Figment’s I’m sure, to escort the two of you out of here!” Figment nodded.

You let out a giddy laugh of excitement. Then you remembered.

“Oh! The experiments! Did you get the memories?” you asked Figment and Axel.

“We immediately started looking for you,” Axel said, scratching the back of his head.

“Not to worry!” Dreamfinder stated, “It just so happens I had grabbed them as they appeared. I did come here for that very thing after all. I kept collecting them as they were done, and the host witnessed them. Of course, this was before that thing became a consistent threat.”

As if on cue, you heard the crying again. It wasn’t loud as it had been before, but it was there. Your body seized up with fear, and you almost fell to your knees. You stumbled, and Axel steadied you.

He was looking around.

“Was that what you were hearing?” he asked you, looking down at you with a firm gaze. You nodded frantically.

“We have to get out of here,” you gasped, “Now!” Dreamfinder nodded eagerly.

“This way,” he instructed. You all left at a brisk pace. The cries faded but you were no less on edge, hugging yourself tightly as you walked.

You walked for hours more, every now and again hearing the cries and picking up the pace whenever you did. Even Axel seemed off put by the noise now. It didn’t sound right to him, and he was moderately grateful you did want to play hero in this case and run off to help them.

You finally arrived at a door, and Dreamfinder pressed it open with no small amount of haste. You all rushed out of the door, and you were almost relieved to see the run-down neighborhood. You closed the door behind you, turning and freezing. In the center of the street, a ways from your crew but still too close for your liking, was the faceless man. He just stood there. Crying.

You felt little tears spring up in your eyes again, a shuddering sob making its way passed your own lips.

“Is that him?” Axel asked lowly, already armed, eyes never leaving the man in the street.

“Quickly! We can escape on the Dreamcatcher!” Dreamfinder said, nearly jumping down the porch steps and circling round the side of the house. You followed after Axel grabbed your arm. You nearly fell. You could hardly get your legs to function.

Then you all fell to your knees, covering your ears as his cries were deafening to the point where you could hardly function. You looked just beyond the corner of the house where you could see. The man was gone, and the had screaming suddenly stopped.

Dreamfinder wheeled his vehicle, a strange contraption you’re not sure you could ever describe if you tried, around the side of the house. It looked like a mix of a hot air balloon and several random tubes and one container meant for little dragons and another container attached to a large hose that funneled out to the front of the contraption to capture/collect you didn’t know what. You all tried to pile on to it as best you could. It was not meant for more than one passenger and a little dragon, and so you and Axel had to pick points on which to stand on the metal piping and hang on, as if you were windsurfing, across from each other. Dreamfinder began to peddle as fast as he could, trying to gain speed enough to lift you off of the ground.

You looked behind you. There was the man again. But then he flickered in and out of existence. One moment there and gone the next. Then he flickered away for what seemed for good, but then you were thrown from the Dreamcatcher in a sudden lurch as Dreamfinder pulled a sharp turn to avoid colliding with the heartless who appeared before you.

Axel had managed to grab your arm, pulling you back on before you could hit the ground.

“What are they doing in the neighborhood?! They wouldn’t set foot here earlier?” you yelled.

“It’s gotta be that guy,” Axel said, looking around frantically for him. “They’re blocking the way!”

Heartless surrounded all of you, shadows that writhed about in an excited frenzy. You hopped off of the Dreamcatcher, keyblade drawn in hopes of clearing a small path for the Dreamfinder to pedal. Axel and Figment joined you. You slashed your way through heartless in almost manic fever. You had gotten this far. You would not fall so easily. They were drawn to you though, and it was up to Axel and Figment to ensure you were not overwhelmed.

But they began to overwhelm you anyway. You fought harder, growing too tired to keep up with their movements. But you were so close to clearing a path.

“That’s enough! Let’s go!” Axel shouted, and the three of you turned to go back to where Dreamfinder waited for you.

“Behind you!” you heard Dreamfinder yell. You were still midturn, ready to face whatever was about to attack, when Figment jumped in your path to block the hit a heartless would have landed on you. He fell limply to the side.

“Figment!” you cried. Axel scooped him up, holding him close as he continued towards Dreamfinder.

“I’ve got him! Let’s go!” You nodded, still worried beyond belief but understanding that no help you could offer would matter if you did not make it out of here alive.

You hopped onto the Dreamcatcher as Dreamfinder began to pedal fervently. You glanced behind you as the man appeared again. But he was getting further and further away as he just stood in the one spot. You almost felt relieved as you felt yourselves began to lift off the ground and away from this awful place.

Then he flickered out of existence once more, but when he reappeared, he was a giant, taller than most skyscrapers you had seen. You’d already been a good distance into the sky and away from him, but now he was closer and taller. He began to walk towards you, taking long, slow steps. You kept your eyes on his hands, waiting for him to lift one where you would be easily within reach and grab you or hit you, and there would be nothing you could to avoid it.

But he just kept taking those long, slow steps, pushing buildings and debris out of his way with each step, the ground fracturing beneath him with each stomp. You should have been able to outfly him easily, but after every second or third step, he would begin to flicker, and he would appear much closer than he was before. And he was gaining on you. You looked at Axel who looked far beyond worried at this point, almost afraid as he looked between the clouds which were so close and yet so far and the man who flickered and stepped ever closer to you.

Then he flickered far too close to you. If he had a face, you would be directly in front of his nose, almost touching it with the close proximity of the creature to the Dreamcatcher. You put little distance between yourselves and him as he leaned in close then opened what you could only assume was something like a mouth. You could almost feel the end upon you. You were going to die this time; you were sure of it. Inside that gaping maw it was darker than he, and he exhaled a cloud of black that began to surround the Dreamcatcher, almost consuming it, as little yellow eyes appeared in the thick fog. You were sobbing now and screaming. It stretched forth, almost consuming you to the point where in front of the Dreamcatcher was a tiny spot of light. But that would be consumed too, and this is where your journey would end. Just as you were certain the darkness would consume you and your companions, you broke through the clouds, ascending quickly through them until you were met with a bright blinding blue. You wept with relief, letting out a hysterical laugh and hearing Axel and Dreamfinder let out their own. The air was refreshing, and you wanted to faint, feeling yourself sway slightly. Axel placed a steadying hand on your shoulder.

You turned immediately to Axel and Figment.

“It he alright?” you said glancing worriedly at Figment who let out a loud snore at that moment. You all breathed a sigh of relief, smiling at Axel who smiled back. It was a larger smile that you were used seeing on his face, and you realized that this may have been the first time you saw the full of his emotions on his face where you normally only saw what he wanted to show you.

You lingered on that smile for a moment, committing it and the feeling of freedom, having just escaped death, to memory. You felt different, partially renewed. Something in you had changed, and part of you swore to free your father from this affliction. You would fight darkness to the end of your days and defeat the people who had done this. Then you felt something like a shift in your heart.

You summoned your keyblade to see that for the second time in your life, it had changed its form. The handle was a circle made of two crescent moons, one light and one dark that came together at their points to a star where the light pushed the darkness back. The body of your blade resembled a flame intertwined with a dragon. You knew immediately what you would name it.

The Break of Dawn.

Notes:

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I loved writing it! Comments and kudos are my favorite things, and I appreciate when you leave them! Thank you so much for all of your support thus far! And don't worry. We'll give you a break from all the crazy excitement for at least one chapter. But it shall be no less interesting :)

Obscure-ish References:

The Dreamcatcher: https://i0.wp.com/www.disneytouristblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/dreamfinder-figment-dreamcatcher-stock-disney.jpg?resize=620%2C413&ssl=1

Chapter 15: Let's Take a Picture

Summary:

Some much needed downtime after your wild adventure in the mind. But don't worry, things will pick back up again soon.

Notes:

You and Namine have a moment, you have breakfast with your mom, and Demyx tries to figure out Axel's motivations.

A bubble drifted from the pod. It went passed Demyx, Namine, Ludwig, and your mother who didn’t even notice. It floated outside where it popped. There Dreamfinder and Figment as well as the Dreamcatcher rematerialized in the physical world. The consciousnesses of Axel and you snapped back into your bodies where you both gasped awake.

“_______!” your mother gasped. You looked around, disoriented, hardly believing you had managed to escape the mind. Once your eyes landed on your mother, you threw your arms around her in a hug, crying into her shoulder. She pats your back, shushing you quietly as she held you. Axel shook his head, reliving the moments in the mind as if they were too surreal to be reality. Demyx puts a hand on his shoulder, giving a look that mirrored worry.

“You okay, man?” Axel nodded, standing up.

“It was just… a lot,” he said lowly, moving to go outside and get some fresh air. You parted from your mom, looking around.

“Wait,” you said, standing up on stiff legs, “Where are Figment and Dreamfinder?”

“You saw Dreamfinder?” your mother and Ludwig questioned. It was someone they had not seen in a very long time. You trotted outside the house with everyone else in tow to see them out there, Dreamfinder and Figment kissing the grass around the mansion while Axel looked on with mild amusement and disgust.

“Dreamfinder!” Ludwig exclaimed. Dreamfinder looked up over a mouth full of grass!

“Lufwif!” he yelled around the grass, rushing forward to envelop his old friend in a hug. Your mother joined them, Dreamfinder saying her name in a muffled fashion as well.

“Blair, where have you been? I’d thought you were lost with the engineers,” your mother said as she backed up a bit. Well such wasn’t entirely untrue.

“Your husband and I were on the verge of exposing a nefarious plot where we had discovered several engineers had gone missing! Your husband learned that Ansem the Wise’s apprentices were kidnapping them and taking them back to Hollow Bastion. I was going to go inside his head, retrieve those memories, and convert them into digital data play them for all to see and thereby end their plot! But he was captured before I could escape his mind, and I’ve been trapped there ever since. Well, that is, until young ________ here helped me to escape.”

You looked down bashfully, kicking a pebble near your foot.

“About my husband,” your mother said, gaining a sad, far away look to her eyes, “Did you see him? Could you wake him up with what you found?”

“I’m not sure,” Dreamfinder said grimly, “But rest assured, I will do everything within my power to ensure I undo everything done to the victims of Xehanort and his accomplices.”

A few tears slipped from your mother’s face, and you grabbed her hand.

“Don’t cry, mom,” you said, though you were tearing up too, “I’ll find a way to bring him back. I swear to you I will.” She just nodded, crying anyway while she pulled you into a hug.

Axel just watched the two of you, unsure of what he wanted to do but feeling like he was intruding on something in which he was not welcome. Demyx stood next to him, looking around awkwardly. He didn’t know what to do either. Namine watched calmly, as she often did, smiling at the small reunion you were having.

You turned to them, jogging over with a bright but saddened smile on your face.

“I want to thank you all. I couldn’t have done all of this without all of you. You reunited a part of my family and may have opened the way to helping a lot of people. I’ll never be able to repay you for that,” you said, your smile wide as you looked between the three of them. Your mother walked over to you, placing a hand on your shoulder.

“Are you going to introduce me to your friend?”

She’d said that looking at Axel who you imagined was the only one she had not gotten a proper introduction from. You suddenly felt embarrassed. It was mostly her tone, as if she’d caught you in the middle of something naughty. Then you shook your head. You refused to think of anything that involved Axel or being naughty.

“Mom, this is Axel. He helped me when we were inside Dad’s head. Axel, this is my mom.”

“Namine said you went in there to protect my daughter,” your mother said, extending out a hand which Axel hesitantly shook, “I can’t thank you enough for bringing her back safely.”

“It’s, uh, no problem.” He glanced away as his face heated up in light blush. You giggled behind your hand at his reaction. It was cute. Your mother smiled warmly before looking at you.

“We should get back to the ship so you can rest. I imagine you’ve been through a lot.”

“Yeah, let’s do that.” She began to walk off, but you stayed a bit, lingering with the others as you shuffled from foot to foot watching her.

“Thank you again,” you rushed out, “I hope to see you again.” You looked at each of them as you said it, eyes lingering just a fraction longer on Axel than the others, before joining your mother and the rest as they left to go towards the ship.

You had trouble sleeping though. You were plagued with nightmares that caused you to toss and turn in your sleep and occasionally cry. Eventually you were able to fall into a dreamless sleep. That was a great relief to you, and then you drifted into dreams that were far more pleasant.

~

You were standing on top of a clock tower. You could see the sunset, and you were stunned. It was so beautiful. You gazed at it for a while longer, but you were confused. You’d never seen a sunset before. Much less one over Twilight Town. You looked at the scenery below. Yup. That’s Twilight Town alright. You had to be dreaming. You hoped the sunsets were really like this.

You looked for a place to sit so you could continue to soak up the marvel your mind had created, and you were surprised to see Axel already there looking at you. He seemed as surprised as you were before a flurry of emotions flickered over his face too quickly for you to catch any of them.

You walked over to him slowly, almost reluctantly as if you thought he’d bite, and plopped down next to him before looking back out at the sunset, letting that look of wonder consume you again. He turned to watch the sunset too.

Was it weird you hadn’t said anything to him? Well, it was your dream, and he didn’t seem to mind the silence. You didn’t either to be perfectly honest.

This was nice.

You closed your eyes and inhaled deeply to breathe in the fresh air, but when you did, you could smell the farms of Spaceship Earth. You opened your eyes and you were standing near the fields of a farm.

“Well that’s creepy,” Genki muttered next to you. You looked at him in shock. This day again? You didn’t want to dream of this day. You looked to the field and sure enough, there was a hooded figure.

.

.

.

Wearing the same robe you’d seen Axel and Demyx in….

~

You jolted awake, looking around you in a panic. Your mother was already awake, exiting the bathroom wearing clothes you’d never seen her in before. She looked at you and gave you a smile.

“Well, good morning, sleepy head.” You kept looking at her clothes, and she glanced down to see what you were looking at, “Oh I did a little shopping yesterday while I was looking in town for Sora and the King. I picked up a few things for you too, though I see you picked up something as well.”

You groggily looked down at your clothes from yesterday which you’d been too tired to change out of when you landed in your bed.

“Well get up and get dressed. We can head into town later for breakfast. I’m going to have a bit of a walk to stretch my legs.” She walked out of the ship, and you stayed silent, mulling over the ending of your strange dream. You had more questions for Axel now, and you were afraid of all of the answers.

You pushed yourself off of the bed, slumping into the bathroom. You looked better rested now than you had yesterday when you got back from the Old Mansion. You showered quickly and put on one of the outfits your mom bought you – all of them delightfully girly – a pale lavender sundress that tied around the neck and stopped a few inches above your knees. You slipped on some sandals and put a few ribbons in your hair until you could separate yourself as far as possible from ________ the keyblade wielder and just be ________ the girl from Spaceship Earth who liked girly dresses and long walks in the park. You wanted no adventures today. You needed a break.

You didn’t even want to ask Axel about his robe. Nope. You were not thinking about that right now, and it certainly had not been buzzing in the back of your mind the whole time you were getting ready. And you certainly weren’t going a little crazy over it.

You shook your head. Calm down, ________. There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for the robes. Probably.

You exited the bathroom and glanced at the bunk above yours. Pops was resting peacefully in his bunk, Dreamfinder spooning him…. And Figment on Pops’ other side, snuggling in close. You snapped a quick picture on your gummi phone.

“Oh, you look nice,” your mother said as she stepped back on the ship. The ribbons brushed over your shoulders as you whipped your head around to look at her. You’d put your hair in a couple of French braids with the ribbons woven throughout. You smiled at your mother.

“How about we spend the day together, Mom?” you asked. She blinked in surprise.

“I thought after breakfast, you were going to go find Axel,” she said with a sly smile you pretended not to notice. She gave you that smile whenever you spent time with any boy that wasn’t Genki.

“We haven’t really spent time together since –,” you stopped short, picking your words more carefully, “In a long time. I thought it’d be nice.”

~

“So,” your mother started after a few minutes of silent eating, “You’re making new friends.”

You looked at her, swallowing a mouthful of omelet before answering.

“Yeah.” She watched you for a moment. She was probably expecting more than, “yeah,” but what else were you supposed to say? You hardly knew any of them, but Demyx and Namine certainly earned the title friend after helping you get through what you went through – even if you’d only known them about an hour or so longer than your mom had.

“How did all of you meet, exactly?” Oh boy. She was probing. You could lie, but it seemed pretty futile at this point considering you could only have known them on Twilight Town for the short amount of time you’d been there.

“I actually met them when I was exploring the woods,” you said. Half-truths were easier. “I ran into Namine and Demyx when I got to the mansion in the woods.”

“When I was looking for you, plenty of people said they saw you with Axel beforehand. When did you meet him?” she said as she sipped her cup of coffee.

Uh oh. This was no-no territory. Maybe. You probably weren’t supposed to be involved with people that were doing some interplanetary multiverse planet hoppy trips. And Axel was most definitely doing that. Figment might call you on it later if you lied now. It didn’t take a genius to know he was not as fond of Axel as your mother was, and that was only because she’d only met Axel, the protector of ________ – not Axel who was following ________ from world to world. Meh. At least Figment can’t talk.

You shoved a forkful of food into your mouth to give you more time to answer. Then you sipped your orange juice. Then you slowly but thoroughly wiped your mouth. Then you gingerly folded your napkin back up, and okay ________ you’re stalling.

Your mother quirked an eyebrow at you, waiting. You took a deep breath.

“Okay don’t be mad,” you started, and your mother rolled her eyes. “See! You’re mad already!”

“I’m not mad, ________. I just have to wonder what you’ve stuck yourself into this time.”

“Well, I mean, nothing really. Axel’s not from this world,” you said lowly so nearby patrons wouldn’t think you were crazy. Your mother gave you a dry look. She already did not like this.

“So what’s he doing here? Is he following you?” Hmmm. Better to lie this time around.

“No, we just happened to run into each other. And then we hung out for a while and walked around the woods together.”

“Wait, was this the same friend you had in Hollow Bastion that was in the castle?”

You nodded slowly, wringing your napkin in your hands. Your mother watched you for a moment, and you did your best not to look guilty. You didn’t want to have to spill that you’d seen Axel in Disney Town either because that would raise too many alarms for your mother, and you didn’t want her to forbid you from seeing Axel again. And despite recent suspicions involving his odd attire, you still wanted to see him.

Your mother sighed. Time for the verdict.

“Well,” she began, picking up a strip of bacon, “I’m glad he made it out of there alright.”

You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding and smiled brightly.

“What do you want to do next?” you asked as you pushed your plate away. You had finished your meal, and your mother was nibbling on her bacon but for the most part done. She shrugged.

“You didn’t really tell me about your other friends.”

“Oh well, I don’t know so much about them other than the fact that they’re old friends of Axel’s. Maybe he comes here to visit them every now and again.” She nodded.

“Well they seemed nice. I have to admit though; I’m worried with what they were involved in too. I understand them bringing Axel into the mix but to drag you into the mess from yesterday. Do you know how you looked at me when you saw me? Like you didn’t believe I was there. ________, what happened in there?”

“Nothing happened,” you muttered. It was a blatant lie, and there was no hiding that. But you didn’t ever want to revisit those memories if you could help it.

“________, if you can’t even talk to me about it, how can I trust you can handle it? I know you’re doing this for something that’s much bigger than me – bigger than all of us – but I’m still worried.”

“I know, Mom. But I can’t stop now. We have a whole world of people counting on us, and what if what happened yesterday can bring back Dad?”

Your mother froze, mouth pressing into a tight line.

“I know that would be a wonderful thing. You know better than anybody, I’d give just about anything to have my husband back. But I don’t trade lives, ________. I wouldn’t trade you for anything.”

“I know. It’s just… Yesterday was a lot to take in. And a lot of it was really scary, and I don’t want to relive any of it – memories or no.” The worry line on your mother’s brow deepened.

“You cried while you were in your father’s mind. You cried a lot. And there was nothing I could do, and I wondered what was going to happen to my baby girl when she got back from wherever she was – if she got back.”

“I was with Axel and Figment. You didn’t need to worry about me.”

“I saw you two holding hands. I know he was there for you,” she said with a slight smirk, trying to lighten the mood. You wanted to be relieved that she had tried to change the subject a little, but now you were too flustered.

“That’s not why we were holding hands!” you almost shouted, and your mother laughed.

“I know, I know,” she said with a wave of her hand, “But it’s not like there’s anything wrong with it. I mean, he’s cute, isn’t he?” Her smirk was twice as devious now.

“I am not having this conversation!”

~

“So I gotta ask,” Demyx started as he barged into Axel’s room, “What happened in that guy’s head?” Axel had been laying on his bed, reflecting on recent events involving his trip through the mind. It was more than a little jarring, and the fact that you came out of it more or less sane was a miracle.

Axel leveled a glare at Demyx as the door closed behind him. Demyx had always been kind of obnoxious and was never that good at reading a room, but to walk into someone’s room unannounced was pushing it even for Demyx.

“There’s nothing to know. We got there, it was messed up and crawling with heartless, we found the memories, we got out. That’s it.”

“Well that just sounds boring. Were they like crazy brain-y looking heartless? Did _______ take ‘em out with her sweet keyblade moves?”

Axel snorted at the thought of you having “sweet keyblade moves.” You were still a beginner and it showed even in the way you held yourself. You were still far too impulsive – to the point of self-destruction, he realized when he thought of how you jumped from the boat to fight the darkside that had attacked you. You had potential though. Your leadership skills and ability to think your actions through when you actually took the time to think about them was nothing to sneeze at.

“Yeah, sure. She took out so many,” he lied. He didn’t know why the heartless never disappeared when you took them out with your keyblade but explaining that to Demyx was a headache he wasn’t ready to have.

Demyx flopped down to take a seat on Axel’s bed near his feet, and that’s where Axel drew the line. He kicked him off none too gently, and Demyx landed on the floor with a grunt, but he didn’t seem to mind too much. Demyx leaned against the side of the bed, hands resting behind his head like he’d been intending to rest there all along.

“I heard about the Kairi situation. You know with Saix getting a hold of her and all that.”

“What about it?” Axel snapped. Demyx filed that little outburst away for later.

“What was the endgame?”

Demyx had never been too smart about getting information from people who weren’t ready to hand it over. That’s why Axel acted as the resident spy and assassin and Demyx was on recon duty almost all the time – because that’s what he did best. Not interrogations. Like the one he was casually trying to pass off now.

But how would Axel have answered that anyway? Oh I just wanted to rile Sora up so he’d get careless and get killed, and maybe I could bring back my best friend who ________ occasionally reminds me of to the point where I both want to keep her around and simultaneously strangle her? Yeah, that wasn’t gonna fly. Especially since Demyx had trouble keeping his mouth shut. He’d nearly given them away yesterday when they got back to the castle when Saix asked where they had been. He’d let it go, but there was no doubt that little bit of extra surveillance Demyx caused was how Saix managed to get a hold of Kairi in the end.

“Get Sora moving. Complete Kingdom Hearts. Same goal it’s always been.”

“Then why is ________ still alive?” Axel looked down at Demyx. Demyx wasn’t looking at him. He turned his eyes back to the ceiling. He’d be damned before he admitted he screwed around just to fuck with Saix and wound up fucked because you had decided to be friends.

He didn’t answer. He heard movement. Maybe Demyx was getting the hint. But then Demyx just popped up in his line of vision. He had a weird smile on his face. Axel gave him the same face he had been giving the ceiling a moment ago – straight up boredom.

“Is it cause she’s pretty?”

“What?”

“I don’t know. I just thought maybe….”

“No.”

Axel wasn’t sure why Demyx was on this whole ________ was cute thing. He thought of every moment he’d spent with you up to that point. And despite the moments where you made him feel any sort of emotion just by the looks you gave him alone; he couldn’t think of a single time he found you cute or pretty. Those weren’t even words to describe you. They didn’t match you at all. Bull-headed. Now there was word. Uncontrolled was another one. Maybe fierce. But not pretty – let alone cute.

Demyx shrugged then left. He clearly wasn’t going to get any info from him while he was being so grumpy. Maybe he’d pop by Twilight Town in a few days to see if you were still there and chill for a bit.

~

“I feel a bit rude about just dropping by unannounced,” your mother said as you gave the heavy wooden door of the Old Mansion a few solid knocks.

“I’m sure she won’t mind. Plus she’s probably dying to get out of this stuffy old place.”

Your mother gave a sigh of frustration. You’d suggested after a small walk through town that you wanted to visit Namine. It was apparent she lived here if her room were anything to go by. And plus you wanted to get to know the woman who may have opened the door to reviving and meeting your father.

The two of you waited patiently, then you heard footsteps quickly approaching the door. Namine peeked her head out. She looked pleasantly surprised.

“Are you here to visit him?” she asked. You could assume she either meant your father or Axel or Demyx if they were here at all. You shook your head. You still weren’t ready to confront those demons.

“I’m actually here for you!” you said brightly, and she seemed even more surprised then.

“Me?”

“Yeah, I wanted to know if you wanted to hang out for a bit today.” Namine mulled this over a little in her head. She was a bit conflicted. Leaving the mansion was a big no – especially when there was a chance the organization could find her. But leaving sounded nice after having been cooped up for so long. And here was someone who viewed her as something like a friend. She nodded finally.

You face brightened even more.

“Great! Let’s go!”

Namine stepped out of the house and followed you and your mother through the woods and back to town. It was so surreal to see the town. She’d seen it before, but now she was seeing it more or less as a fugitive.

The three of you walked about for a bit. She asked you about your family and what you enjoyed about the town so far. You asked her about her life from before. She gave vague answers that showed she was a bit uncomfortable talking about it, so you let it drop.

“We should get her something,” your mother whispered to you as the three of you walked around a shop to browse.

“I was thinking about that,” you said as you checked the price tag on a dress. It was cute.

“I saw a nice paint set in the last store we were in, and I know she likes art,” your mother said, holding up a shirt.

“You should get her that. I think I’m going to get her this dress. It would be a nice color on her. It matches her eyes.”

Your mother eyed the deep blue garment with an appreciative hum.

“You’re right. That would look nice.”

Namine was ecstatic about her gifts but seemed guilty she would not be able to repay you. You assured her you didn’t need her to. After a few more hours, your mother went back to the ship to rest and curl up with a few books she bought to occupy her time for the evening.

You continued your little jaunt about town with Namine for a few hours before the two of you retired to a bubbling fountain in the town, resting on the lip of it while you dipped your fingers in on occasion. Namine looked sad, with a distant look to her eyes. She’d been making that face a lot today. You weren’t sure if your mother noticed, but you had.

“I should probably head back now,” she said with that same sad look on her face.

“You keep making that face. You’ve been doing it all day,” you said quietly over the gurgle of the fountain.

“You’ve learned quite a bit about being a keyblade wielder and hearts,” she said after a long moment of quiet passed between the two of you. “Do you know about people without hearts?”

You briefly thought back to the experiments where people had their hearts forcibly removed and shuddered. That probably wasn’t what she meant though. She continued without waiting for an answer.

“Sometimes when people die, a part of them is left behind. This part is their will. It keeps them around even after the body has passed on and their heart becomes a separate entity. The heart turns into a heartless, but the body exists as a person unable to feel any emotion.”

“That sounds awful,” you concluded after thinking it over for a moment. She just laughed lightly.

“The person can be recompleted if both the heartless and the nobody die. They’ll reform just as they were before they died.”

“So they just exist as an emotionless husk until their heartless and them just die? There are so many heartless that exist. How do they even know which one theirs is?”

“Usually they don’t. I’ve only seen one instance where the heartless actually had a form.”

“And the body? It just doesn’t feel? How does it live?”

“That’s the interesting part. I don’t think they stay emotionless forever. I think when they form strong bonds through other people, they can reform their hearts.”

“Why are you telling me all this? I mean, not that it isn’t interesting! I’m just curious. Is that why you look so sad sometimes?”

“I’m a nobody, ________.”

“Oh.”

The two of you were quiet for a moment longer.

“You don’t feel?” you finally asked after what felt like an eternity.

“I don’t know. I think I have something like feelings. Sometimes I know I feel things.”

“If it means anything. I think you might have them. I mean, I couldn’t even tell anything was different about you from anyone else. And you looked so sad sometimes, you must be able to feel something.”

She smiled softly. She felt something like reassurance.

“If meaningful connections help you get a new heart, then I’m glad we’re friends,” you said with a smile on your face. You pulled out your phone. “Let’s take a picture! It can be our first recorded friendship memory!”

Namine’s smile brightened at your giddiness before she leaned in with you to take a selfie. The golden light of the sky made the two of you glow and made a pretty nice “filter” for the two of you. You snapped the picture of your smiling faces and went to have it printed.

You handed her a copy.

“For your wall. It can be like another piece of artwork.”

She smiled at the picture then enveloped you in a hug as she felt a strong feeling of gratitude and happiness overcome her. You hugged back tightly before the two of you parted ways.

Notes:

As always comments and kudos give me life! And thank you for all the support I've gotten thus far!

Chapter 16: Hard Truths

Summary:

This is another downtime day! But we get through some heavy conversations.

Notes:

You and your mother have a hard discussion. You and Namine share a heart to heart. Saix hands out some assignments. Axel has a moment with Namine. Riku and Master Yen Sid discuss a troublesome matter.

Ludwig awoke with a sensation of comforting warmth surrounding him. He blearily opened his eyes to be met with those of Dreamfinder’s uncomfortably close to his own.

“Good morning, bestie,” Dreamfinder said lowly with warm smile on his face. Ludwig blinked. Then turned over to the other side to be face to face with Figment who was giving him a toothy smile.

“Okay! Everybody out!” Ludwig announced, booting Figment from the bed. This was the fourth time he’d woken up to them uncomfortably close and cuddling him since your little journey in the mind. They needed a place to stay. One with separate rooms where the beds were far apart. Maybe back home in Disney Town.

“Oh you’re up!” you said as you walked out of the bathroom. You were wearing another sun dress – this one in a pale blue – with little flowers pinned to your braids and ballet slippers your mother found a few days after your shopping trip with Namine laced up your legs. “We’re gonna head out for breakfast in a few minutes if you’d like to join us?”

“Oh that sounds nice!” Dreamfinder said as he hopped out of the bed, pushing Ludwig out with him, “Where are we going?”

You giggled behind your hand as Ludwig picked himself up off the ground, muttering something about personal space and potential restraining orders.

“There’s a café in town I’ve been frequenting,” you answered as you stood from your spot on the bed.

“Well that’s all well and good but we’ve got a lot of business to attend to. We’ve been here for four days now sitting on our keisters,” Ludwig said as he began to pace the ship. “We have a world to save and experiments to reverse. We’ll need an actual place to work because the ship is too cramped and lacks the appropriate materials.”

“Oh don’t worry about that now,” your mother chimed in as she stepped onto the ship from a little morning walk she had taken. “Let’s go eat and chat about what we’re going to do later. You’ll want to be well rested anyway.”

Ludwig started to protest, but everyone else had already voiced their agreements, food winning out the room. He let out a long sigh and begrudgingly followed you.

“We do need to talk about it though,” Ludwig continued as you all stepped off of the ship, “She still needs training, and we’d be hard pressed to find a suitable teacher for keyblade wielders around here.”

“Well that may be true,” your mother replied, “But we can discuss how to handle it after breakfast.”

“That’s what you said yesterday,” Ludwig grumbled.

Huh. Had she said that yesterday? You thought back to the last time she’d said it. Yesterday when you got back from chilling with Namine you may have recalled her mentioning it. You mostly just remembered your time out. You and Namine had become quite close quite quickly. You’d been hanging out every day, and she seemed to enjoy herself. That was good. Emotions were good.

“Well it’s true. We can recuperate here and talk about it when we’re ready to get on the move again.”

“We’ve been recuperating for days! How much longer do you intend to put it off?”

“I’m not putting it off. I’m just enjoying time with my daughter.”

“Hmm. I don’t know, Mom. Maybe he’s right. We’ve been doing nothing for a while now.”

“A few days ago you said you couldn’t even speak about what you’d seen on your last adventure,” your mother said, narrowing her eyes at you. You were mildly taken aback.

“I don’t have time to focus on that when there are billions of lives on the line, Mom.” Your mother turned to look at you. She did not like that.

“Don’t ignore your mental health, _________. How can you be a protector if you can’t even think straight?” She patted your head. It was a gesture that normally felt comforting, but it felt more forced than anything now.

“I don’t know,” you mumbled, ducking from under her hand, “But I’m sure not gonna be one if I can’t figure out which end of my keyblade is the pointy one.” She looked a bit hurt that you shied away from her touch, so you grabbed her hand to give it a little, comforting squeeze. She didn’t let go.

“You’ll learn in time,” your mother said, “Like all things that come in time.”

“I don’t have time, Mom. I have however long until the heartless catch up. They’re here too you know.” You’d been lucky in not seeing them the first and second day you’d been in Twilight Town, but as you ventured deeper into the forest, you saw them appear more. Thankfully, not in the overwhelming numbers you’d seen on Spaceship Earth or in the Mind.

Your mother’s grip around your hand tightened.

“You know I understand what it’s like to be worried for those you love,” Dreamfinder interjected, “But your daughter has chosen to take up her blade and fight. That is her wish, and it’s a very admirable one at that.”

“My daughter can’t even manage to stay out of trouble for two seconds! How could I not be worried?” Her grip tightened a bit again.

“Well that’s exactly the point isn’t it?” Dreamfinder said, stroking his beard, “She can’t stay out of trouble, and from what I’ve learned of her adventures up to this point, trouble isn’t likely to vanish because she decided she didn’t want to be involved in it.”

Your mother leveled a glare at Dreamfinder.

“You remember what Leon said,” Ludwig picked up where his friend left off, “Heartless are drawn to her, so this lifestyle has chosen her as much as she’s chosen it.”

“So that’s it? I send her off into battle and maybe she comes home, maybe she doesn’t?”

“Well I’ve actually given that some thought,” Ludwig said, looking anywhere but at your mother or you. “You could stay with Leon and his friends.”

“Excuse me?! I’m just supposed to abandon my daughter? You must be out of your mind!”

“Let me explain!” Ludwig said, putting his hands up as if your mother was going to hit him. And she didn’t look far from it, but she kept her fist clenched firmly at her side, the other gripping your hand tightly to the point of pain. You tried to wriggle out of her grasp, but she wouldn’t budge.

You all stopped walking at this point, just at the edge of town.

“They can protect you because they’re experienced fighters. ________ can barely protect herself – let alone you if anything happens to you.”

“Mom, you’re hurting me,” you said, tugging lightly at her hand. She whipped her head away to look at you.

“I’m protecting you!” Then she looked down to where you were tugging at her hand. She realized her mistake, dropping your hand as if it burned her. You were giving her a look of shock. She couldn’t backtrack from her response at this point. She looked sad, angry, and embarrassed. “I want you to be safe,” she said softly.

“She’ll die,” Dreamfinder finally said gravely. You all looked uncomfortably between each other, your mother’s eyes welling up with tears. She wanted that even less than she wanted you running into danger. You wrapped her up in a hug and she hugged back tightly.

“I’d do anything to protect you,” she said sadly into your shoulder.

“Even leave?” Dreamfinder asked. Your mother let a little shudder pass through her body and silently shook her head, holding you tighter.

“No. I could never leave her. But I’ll back off. I’ll give her space, but please don’t make me leave her behind.” She pulled back to look at your face. She studied it as if she’d never see you again, but you both understood that it was a very real possibility if she left. And… you didn’t want her to.

~

“Xemnas trusts you. You’d be wise not to betray that trust again,” Saix warned carefully, narrowing his eyes at Marluxia.

“Or what? The assassin will hunt me down? I hear he’s slacking off lately.”

“Your recompletion didn’t make you immortal, and you’d be foolhardy to test that theory. The only reason you’re still the Organization is because Xemnas needs you as one of the thirteen seekers of darkness. Because that would be much simpler than finding a brand-new recruit. But you’re on thin ice, and I’m sure you wouldn’t like spending the rest of your borrowed time as a dusk. That being said, if I were you, I’d watch how I speak to my superiors.”

Marluxia cast a passive glance at Saix. He seemed hardly phased by the threat but knew that Saix did not make idle threats.

“Regardless, getting the duck was your job. If I’m so untrustworthy and this job is so important, why are you handing if off to me?”

“Because I know you won’t mess up because there’s too much at stake for you.” Marluxia could hear the hidden threat in his words again. “Besides, Axel’s recent behavior has given us an advantage over Sora.”

“Advantage?”

“We have Kairi, Sora’s driving force. It’ll make him angry, reckless. He’ll keep destroying heartless and simultaneously make himself vulnerable in his blind fury.”

“So why do we need the duck?”

“The world is unstable. And that duck is the only person who’s versed enough on the hearts of worlds to help us either build a new world or stabilize the one we’re currently residing in. Just as well, Xemnas’ Kingdom Hearts is destabilizing.”

“Oh is that all?” Marluxia said with a roll of his eyes. Saix leveled a glare at him but didn’t have time for his insolence. Not that he wanted to deal with it anyway.

“You have your assignment. I suggest you prepare to do it,” Saix said in a cold, detached tone. Marluxia left. He was bored and now he was on kidnapping duty. He’d have much rather had Axel’s job of eliminating troublesome targets, but he was on the bottom rung of the Organization now. And beggars can’t be choosers and all that.

Saix waited until Marluxia had left the room before turning to the other person awaiting orders.

Vanitas stood there with his arms crossed, leaning against the wall.

“So why do you need me?” he asked.

“I need you to take out Axel’s pet.”

~

The plan was set. Your mother and you would be put up in a hotel for a few days. Ludwig, Dreamfinder, and Figment would go to Disney Town for a few days to learn a few things about being a keyblade wielder. So with any luck they’d be able to find some books and journals in the King’s library to help you.

Everything was set in motion. You were going to learn about your new abilities and then some and get your planet back. You were happy about this. You would do them all proud.

 “You would be fine,” your mother told herself.

And you would be.

You both stayed and watched until the ship was out of sight before heading back into town to get a room at the hotel. The walk felt longer than normal, and the world felt quiet. It wasn’t ever noisy on your walks from the ship to town but staying on this strange alien world without a means of leaving was a surreal and somewhat uncomfortable yet thrilling thought.

You checked into the hotel. The room was modest, two twin beds, two nightstands, a desk with a chair, and a window overlooking part of the town.

Your mother settled onto her bed, pulling out a book to read. Great. She was occupied. Now what do you do?

.

.

.

You wound up on top of the clock tower. Well, no, you didn’t wind up there. You very deliberately climbed up there to see if the sunsets were as beautiful as you had dreamed. They were, but something about seeing them in person was even better. You don’t know how long you were up there before Namine joined you. You noticed she was wearing the dress you’d bought her. You smiled.

“I saw you when I was looking for you. The ship was gone but I still felt you nearby.”

“Mom and I are gonna hang here for a few days while Pops, Dreamfinder, and Figment go to Disney Town to find Sora or books written by the King to teach me about being a key blade wielder.”

She hummed an acknowledgment, and the two of you watched the sunset in a comfortable silence for another few minutes before a question burned at the forefront of your mind.

“Namine?”

“Hm?” She looked at you, but you felt you couldn’t look at her eyes.

“What happens when you’re recompleted? Where do you go?”

“We go to where our bodies last were when they first died. But… that won’t be the case for me.”

“Why not?”

“I’m something of a special case. The person I am and the person I recomplete into are two separate people. They did not form a heartless because there was no darkness in their heart. I merely exist as an extension of them that will one day return.”

“You don’t have to. I mean, if they can exist normally without you, why leave?”

“Because I’m not supposed to exist. Nobodies aren’t supposed to exist. And I’m a part of her. I can’t just continue to exist. That’s like stealing.”

“Asking you to go back is stealing too! You have a life! Our friendship is proof of that! You have memories and experiences just like the rest of us, and it’s no one’s business of whether or not you should exist. You do, and that means something.”

“You believe nobodies should exist?”

“It’s not that I believe they do. Because the circumstances that exist which create one are a bit farther than I’d be willing to push. And if they exist as themselves and gain a heart then it should be totally up to them whether or not they be recompleted. But you said it yourself that you’re a special case. You exist as a separate person with a life that you’ve lived. You don’t deserve to lose that anymore than the original person deserved to die to create you.”

“You think I should exist?” Namine sounded sad, and you snapped your head in her direction. She was crying, little tears dripping from her chin where they’d run down her face, but she was smiling. You grabbed her hand.

“Of course, I do. You’re my friend, and I don’t want to lose you.”

No one had ever told her openly that she should exist. And here you were expressing that you wanted her to exist and be friends with you. She had never, before that moment, felt like anyone but Namine, Kairi’s nobody. But now she just felt like Namine. Her own person.

She knew it didn’t matter though. One day she and Kairi would be one again, and that would be the end of her. But she didn’t mind being her own person, having a friend, and enjoying a life she had never fully acknowledged for now.

~

Riku walked through a corridor and into Master Yen Sid’s quarters.

“I haven’t been able to locate it. I’ve combed the area, but it’s like a signal getting bounced around so I can’t track it,” Riku said in a solemn voice. Yen Sid ran a hand over his beard.

“That is worrisome. I’ve never seen an influx of darkness like this, especially one that has been unable to be located by normal or otherworldly means.”

“We may need the King to find it and bring it down.”

“He’s occupied with his own tasks. However, there is another keyblade wielder I’ve been monitoring that I would like you to observe for a while.”

“Do you think they will be able to locate it?”

“No, they aren’t ready yet. They’re still new to the responsibilities of being a keyblade wielder. But when they are ready, I’d like to make contact so they may hone their skills. And I’d like you to be their guide.”

~

Axel showed up the next day to see Namine and see if she needed anything as usual. Demyx had also opted to tag along, and outside of that nothing had changed. And yet….

Everything was different about Namine. Well not everything. They were subtle things that Axel could pick up on. If that weren’t enough, he could always see the more obvious things – like the pictures on the wall. Regardless, everything pissed him off – especially you right now.

Namine was a bit tanner. It was almost unnoticeable, but it contrasted a bit with her pale hair. She’d been outside more. Okay. No big deal. She could have been in the courtyard out front or the garden in the back.

She had a new dress. Also not a big deal. You could have just as easily brought it to her as you could have taken her to get it. Though he doubted that.

There was paint on the table and a paint set next to it. It was strange to see any colors on the stark white furniture, but he could ultimately chalk this up to the same reason as the dress. You could have just brought it there. But he really doubted that.

But then there were the pictures. Of you. And Namine. Out and about and in town. It was bad enough that she would leave the mansion at all considering the risk of the Organization popping up and spotting her. Then they would take her away and kill him – or turn him into a dusk – because he supposedly didn’t know where she was.

He inhaled slowly through his nose, pinching it and leaning his head back. Namine just watched him silently. He exhaled slowly through his mouth before looking at her with an annoyed glare. Namine looked around guiltily. Demyx, reading the room for once, saw himself out and took a leisurely stroll around the upper levels of the mansion.

“Before you get mad at her, you should know that I didn’t tell her I’m not supposed to leave,” she said finally, meeting Axel’s heated glare. It softened a bit at that.

“So this was purely your decision, no impulsive and reckless influences had any part in convincing you to leave?”

Namine shook her head. At least you weren’t being a bad influence. It’s just that your bad judgment seemed to rub off on everyone you came in contact with – himself included. He sighed again.

“Why?” he asked simply. Namine did not need clarification. He wanted to know why she would willingly put her and himself at risk for a few hours of being in town.

“The same reason you used to be so reckless. The same reason you’re still reckless. I know I’ve only known her for a little under a week, but she makes me feel like I have a heart.”

Axel stared. He knew that feeling far too well, and it drove him to do more than he was willing to admit just to feel it again and have his best friend back at his side. He let out another sigh, this one a sigh of defeat. What could he say to that that wouldn’t make him a hypocrite?

He looked at the pictures again. Namine had a large smile on her face, larger than the small ones she always seemed to have, even going so far as to show teeth and posing in some of them. You looked different too – more girly. It was strange considering he’d only seen you in shirts and shorts up to now. The clothes didn’t quite match the personality you emitted. But then again, he’d only known some of you up to this point, always stepping into trouble or already in it. He didn’t really know much else outside of that. Apparently, you were a little girly.

He thought back to Demyx calling you cute. It still didn’t quite match what he’d known about you. He’d just known you as the person who always seemed to be in trouble or danger of some sort. He thought of more words to describe you. Perilous. Brave. Those were right. Though the latter was interchangeable with wild depending on how you looked at it.

Noble too, he realized. Almost every time he’d seen you in danger was almost always to help others. Whether it was stopping a bank robbery, finding information to help total strangers, or being a vigilante on your home world for years. And not once had he seen you second guess doing any of these things for your own self-interest. Or preservation for that matter.

Now there was the matter of Namine who he was certain wouldn’t want to stop her trips into town with you. But she had to. Ugh. He didn’t want to have this conversation.

He didn’t want any of this. You were invading too many aspects of his life. You were a danger to himself, Namine, and yourself. And Demyx by some odd extension.

There three sharp knocks on the door downstairs. Axel’s breath hitched, and Namine hopped up excitedly. She wanted to move passed Axel, but his tall frame took up the space in the doorway.

“I’ll get it,” Demyx called up. Axel wanted to stop him because it could be anyone at the door, and he and Demyx would do well to stay out of sight. But he had a pretty good idea of who it might actually be.

Demyx opened the door, and there you were looking up at him and more than a little surprised. A flurry of emotion flicked over your features. It settled on worry. There was an unspoken question on your lips, and you were warring internally with yourself of whether or not you wanted to ask it.

“What’s up?” Demyx said finally when it seemed you were too stunned to speak.

Your hand shot out, grabbing the chain that hung on his robe. You yanked him down to eye-level. Demyx was caught between surprise and fear. Were you here to fight him? Well you didn’t look angry or murderous. Then you asked him a voice that sounded odd but worrisome to him. It was low, full of fear and warning, almost like a threat made by a cornered animal.

“Where did you get this robe?”

Notes:

Next time you get some answers, discover a new ability, and have a personal discussion with Axel!

Keep the comments and kudos coming! I love it all! And I love you all!

Chapter 17: Are You Okay?

Summary:

You get some answers. You get a new ability. You share a moment of vulnerability with Axel.

Notes:

Uploading a little late in the day but it's something! :D

I hope you enjoy the chapter.

Demyx swallowed a lump in his throat and gave you a nervous smile before he attempted to lighten the mood with humor.

“Nice to see you too,” he said with a light chuckle.

“Answer me,” you demanded. Your voice wavered a bit, but the threat was still there. You were on edge to say the least. You had only wanted to hang out with Namine but then seeing Demyx and that robe shocked you into a state of mind that was a mix between fear and anger as you switched between the thought that your friends may very well not be your friends at all and that your friends may be more closely related to the destruction of Spaceship Earth and maybe Kelewenya than you’d like.

You could feel the magic of your keyblade swirling around you, running down your arm and feeling like a weight in your hand already. Though you kept it from forming. You did not want to threaten Demyx – especially since you weren’t sure if he really was tied to Kelewenya or Spaceship Earth.

“Is there a problem here?” you heard Axel’s voice drift to you – smooth and cold. He stepped around Demyx to stand next to him, in front of you. Your eyes slid up to him, and he was mildly taken aback at the predatory gaze in them. He’d never seen you look like that. Dangerous.

“When my world fell, there was a man wearing this robe. He was everywhere. Following me. Like you,” you said with more acid to your tone than you had intended as you didn’t break your gaze from his. He maintained his cold demeanor. As did you. “Tell me why.”

“I told you I go from world to world. I use corridors to do it. The robe protects me from exposure when I use them. Plenty of people who world hop have them when they don’t use ships.”

You stared at him for a moment longer before your expression softened. The anger was gone, but the fear lingered.

“Please don’t lie to me, Axel,” you said pleadingly, letting go of Demyx’s robe. Axel glanced at Demyx who looked at him with a mix of concern and curiosity. What was he gonna say this time? He looked back to you. You hadn’t broken your gaze from him, though there was sadness in your gaze now.

“I’m not lying to you,” he said finally. You visibly relaxed. Your magic dissipated. You looked tired.

“Good,” you said glancing away. You were relieved to finally have that question answered. You almost felt silly for doubting them after all they’d done for you – especially Axel. “I’m sorry.”

“I’d have done the same in your shoes,” Axel answered with a shrug, some of the warmth having returned to his voice. You smiled at him.

“I actually came here to see Namine, but if you guys are here, maybe you want to come with us?”

Oh right. You didn’t know Namine wasn’t supposed to be out. He still had that headache to deal with.

“About that,” he started, scratching the back of his head, “You remember how Namine said I helped her? I’m still technically helping her. She can’t be found, and she can’t be drawing attention to herself. And, no offense, you’re like a walking, talking spotlight.”

You wrinkled your nose at that in a half-hearted scowl.

“So she just stays here all the time?” you asked. It hardly sounded appealing.

“Yep. I mean, you can walk around the forest a bit or hang around the mansion but going into town is out.”

“I mean I guess that’s fine. Why didn’t she tell me?”

“I just wanted to go into town,” she said from behind Axel. He stepped out of the way. She gave you a sad, somewhat guilty smile, “But I should’ve told you. I’m sorry about that.”

You shrugged.

“I’d have probably done the same,” you admitted. Even when you were back home, it was hard to keep you in one spot. Even now you were restless. “We can hang around the forest if you want?”

She nodded with an eager smile.

You walked back through the courtyard with Namine by your side. You turned around where Axel and Demyx still stood.

“You aren’t coming?” you asked. Demyx looked excited at that prospect and quickly walked to where you were. The three of you continued on, and Axel just ambled up at an easy pace eventually matching your speed.

“So where are you from?” Demyx asked you. Your face lit up as you retold your tale of what your home and life was like. Demyx and Namine were, of course, in awe. Axel listened too though he knew a good chunk of your story by now. Demyx was floored that you hadn’t seen the moon or sunrises or sunsets until recently and cast mischievous glances at Axel when you mentioned you had gazed at two of the three with him. Axel just rolled his eyes.

You all stopped at another point in the forest not too far from the mansion, near the remains of an old wall to some structure that had long since fallen away. Then you began climbing the nearby trees, minding your dress but not caring too much.

“You know I’ve never done this before?” you mentioned from a branch below Demyx.

“Really?”

“We weren’t allowed to climb the trees that were actually sturdy enough for climbing because they were usually food trees, and we weren’t permitted anywhere near them. The trees in the parks were more decorative than anything – skinny little things with plenty of flower blossoms.”

You swung upside down from the branch you were on, holding your dress with your hands so you wouldn’t flash everyone. You looked towards the ground where Namine sat that the base of the tree smiling up at you. Axel leaned on it next to her also looking up but with a neutral expression on his face.

You briefly wondered if you could let go and land on your feet safely next to them. Hmmm… You were agile but not catlike. You sat back up, standing on the branch and walking on it as if it were a balancing beam. You stood near the edge of the branch where you were sure it could support you. You could see the town in the distance.

You admired it briefly before looking up at the next branch. Demyx was sitting on it now. There was enough space for you. You jumped up to the next one, grabbing it with both hands then swung yourself up into the air, landing on your toes.

“That was dangerous,” Demyx noted. You looked down. If you fell it wouldn’t kill you, and provided you didn’t land awkwardly, you probably wouldn’t break anything.

“I’m not worried,” you remarked. You continued to look around you when you noticed a tiny glint of silver near the base of the tree. Neither Axel nor Namine had seen it yet. You didn’t think, just acted. You jumped from the branch, keyblade already drawn. You sliced cleanly down its middle, landing on your feet with a harder thud than you intended, but you’d survive.

More of the creatures appeared but by now Demyx was next to you and Axel was already fighting the next one. Some of them you had never seen before. They were relatively large, frames that were built like soldiers – armored like them too. They also carried large claymores. You’d hate to find out how heavy their swing was. It looked like a definite one-hit kill.

Demyx and Axel exchanged a look at the appearance of the berserker nobodies. He didn’t need to be told that the dusks were probably here to watch to see what side Axel would fight on just so they could report back to Saix.

This was a do or die mission for the two of them now. Because if any word of them got back to Saix, they’d be dusked or killed for sure.

You struggled against the larger ones to be certain, and, unfortunately, their larger size didn’t slow them down by much. It gave you a decent strike zone though. It also meant a harder time dodging. You focused on the smaller ones as best you could. Demyx and Axel seemed to have the larger ones under control.

Axel kept a wary eye on you and Namine during the fight. You were still very new to this, but you were doing better than he’d expected – even implementing the short lesson he’d given you. You almost seemed to dance around the battle with how you moved around the writhing dusks and heavy-handed berserkers. You managed to avoid being hit so far and that was good.

You executed a turn on the very tips of your toes, swinging your keyblade in an arc and looking every bit the dancer you were. Graceful.

Your eyes landed on him briefly and widened. He spun around just in time to block a hit by a berserker, but it still sent him flying. He hit a tree with a less than soft thud and slumped slightly. His vision swam.

“Axel!” you called. He looked up at you through hazy vision to see you fighting much less gracefully than before – less controlled, with less thought. Your emotions were in the way. And you were getting sloppier with each passing moment – angrier with every hit you didn’t land and every hit you took.

He got up quickly, ignoring the throbbing pain in his back, and thudding headache. He jumped back into the fray.

“You’re getting sloppy,” he noted as he fought next to you.

“I’m doing my best,” you said through gritted teeth, but your fighting got no better.

“Calm down. You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

“I’m doing fine,” you stressed as you barely held off a claymore from striking you in the face.

“You’re getting worse.” You pushed the berserker off of you and it slid quite a distance from you. Had you not been so angry at Axel’s comment, you might have been impressed by your own strength. You whirled around to face Axel who had just destroyed another dusk.

“Do you want to do it by yourself?” You were shaking with how angry you were, tiny tendrils of a black aura swirling around the hand which held your keyblade.

“Look out!” Demyx yelled having looked to see how the two of you could possibly be managing an argument in the middle of a fight and seeing the berserker you knocked away mid-swing.

It struck you. Hard. You went flying into the brick wall which crumbled around you. Namine who was behind a tree, watched with wide eyes full of horror. Demyx had a similar expression but quickly went back to fighting. Axel looked scared and pissed, destroying the berserker immediately after it struck you and sending out a wave of fire that nearly scorched everything in its path, destroying the remaining nobodies.

They all ran over to you – or your corpse – frantically digging through the heavy cement blocks.

Please be alive.

Then the pile moved once a significant chunk of it had been removed. You pushed the remainder of the rubble from you standing up and looking around to see if there were anymore creatures to fight. Your shoulder ached from where the berserker hit you, but you felt okay for the most part. Which was strange. You could’ve sworn you were knocked into a brick wall.

You looked around. Yup. That was definitely once part of a wall. Your friends stood around with mildly shocked expression on their faces. You looked down.

.

.

.

These were not your clothes. You looked at your hands, your arms, chest, legs, circling around yourself to look as best you could at your back to look at your gleaming armor. It was pointy to say the least but smooth. It flattered you quite nicely. And were those little metal wings on your back?! You looked at your armor again then felt your face. There was a helmet. You pulled it off and looked at it. It was dragon-like in nature.

Holy shit.

“That is so cool,” Demyx finally said. You let a little laugh escape you.

“This is so beyond cool!” you said with giddy laughter. “I have fucking armor! This is fucking amazing!” You, Demyx, and Namine gushed about how cool it was and wondering if the wings let you fly, but you weren’t eager to jump off of any buildings to find out.

Axel looked at you with relief coursing through him. You were alive. You were safe. That was scary. He looked at the armor which had no doubt saved your life with mild awe. It was cool. And he noted that you looked… not pretty necessarily but something. You looked nice. Really nice.

You stepped out of the rubble feeling good enough that you hardly acknowledged that your shoulder had been hurt but still like you’d been through a lot. You’d be getting a bruise from it no doubt, but you couldn’t even be bothered to care.

You carried the helmet under your arm as you went to rest against a tree. You were tired. Your eyes went to Axel, widening as you remembered that he’d been hit as well but had no armor to protect him.

“Are you okay?”

You were giving him that look of sympathy and worry again which was good. Because that at least meant you weren’t suffering from any kind of brain damage and were still your usual emotional self.

“I’m fine, but you should get some rest. This has… been a lot. And you should have a doctor look you over. That was a really hard hit you took.”

Aww. He was worried. You wanted to protest but saw that Namine and Demyx held similar expressions of worry on their faces as well. You were tired. And while you were certain you didn’t need a doctor, you’d love a nap. You shrugged.

“I’ll head back then,” you said, starting to walk back toward town before you turned to face them again, “You should go see a doctor too, Axel.”

You had a genuine look of caring and worry in your face this time, and it felt nice. He found he was not as put off by your emotions as he had originally been. That coupled with the fact that he had very much not wanted you dead earlier meant he was in this far deeper than he intended to be.

.

.

.

He’d check in on you later.

 

~

Your walk back to the hotel was, thankfully, uneventful. Somewhere half way through your trek your armor vanished, and you were back in your clothes as if nothing had happened. You couldn’t figure out how to bring it back, so you assumed that was going to be one of those keyblade wielder things you’d have to practice.

Your mom wasn’t in the room. She probably left to go about town again or get something to eat. You made your way to the communal bathroom and had a long, hot shower. You felt like you needed it after that fight. You looked at your back and shoulder in a mirror. Yup. There was a nice large bruise forming. You would be wearing tees for a while if you didn’t want your mother to worry about you.

You changed into a soft cotton t-shirt and some pajama bottoms that stopped just above your knees and flopped into your bed, jostling your shoulder a little and making you cringe. Mom wasn’t back yet. You closed your eyes while you waited for her, your eyelids felt really heavy all of a sudden.

.

.

.

You weren’t sure how long you were asleep when you heard a knock on the door. You jolted awake. Mom still wasn’t back. Maybe that was her at the door? But why would she knock? Unless she had done a lot of shopping and couldn’t get the door.

You hopped up, opening the door and being met with Axel instead of Mom. Weird. He was holding a pizza and your stomach growled really loudly just then.

“Please tell me that’s for me,” you said automatically, eyeing the box in his hand.

“Actually it’s for me,” he said with a smirk while you pouted, “But I guess you can have some.”

You rolled your eyes, smiling as you let him into the room. You both sat on your bed facing each other as he opened the box. You picked up a slice, munching on it as politely as you could so as not to shove the whole fucking thing in your mouth. He hadn’t started eating yet, eyeing you instead.

“How’s the injury?” he asked finally. You rolled your shoulder; it stung a bit.

“Fine. It’s bruised but that’ll fade. I can still move it.” He nodded. That was good. You were okay and he could put some of his more stubborn worries to bed. He kept staring.

“What?” you asked after a moment of him just staring at you. His eyes were boring into you and it began to make you uncomfortable. He blinked as if he were surprised to see you there.

“Nothing. Sorry. You just remind me of someone.”

“Roxas?” you guessed. He nodded.

“You got hurt today,” he began, solemnly, looking out of the window at the town, “It’ll probably happen again. Trouble will always find you. Keyblade wielders always find themselves in trouble.”

You nodded. You knew this. But he wouldn’t have said this without reason. You slowly pieced it together.

“Roxas was a keyblade wielder, wasn’t he?”

Axel looked at you. Roxas was keyblade wielder. He had mentioned that he lost Roxas. Your heart broke for him. You remembered losing Genki, how that felt – the feeling that you would never see your best friend again. That must have been how Axel felt.

You could feel tears welling up in your eyes and… you saw them in his too…. You brushed your finger under his eye just as his tear began its descent. He looked shocked more than anything. He grabbed your wrist, looking at the tear drop on your finger like tears were a strange and foreign concept to him. Then he looked at you, feeling a dull ache in his chest he hadn’t felt in so long.

“You’re crying,” he said finally, letting go of your wrist. You hadn’t even realized your tears had fallen, too focused on his. You wiped at your face, sniffling a little.

“I’m sorry,” you apologized, “I didn’t mean to be.” You laughed at yourself lightly.

“It’s fine. I’m kind of being a buzzkill,” he joked.

“No, it’s fine! Tell me about him. Roxas, I mean. If you’re comfortable with it, of course! I know it can be hard to talk about the people we’ve lost.”

“I can’t,” he admitted though, of course, you would assume it’s because it’s too painful to talk about and not just because Roxas was a part of a life that he had not told you about and did not want to tell you about.

You grabbed his hand, surprising him again. The ache in his chest had dulled. You gave him a comforting smile that told him it was okay to not want to talk about it. And even though you didn’t know why he couldn’t, he felt better.

“Should I come back later?”

You both jumped and looked at your mother who stood in the doorway looking between the two of you with a smirk.

“Nothing’s going on!” you blurted, putting your hands over your face to stop that stupidly big grin that always popped up on your face at the most inopportune times – usually when you were stuck between giddy and embarrassed.

“Okay, wow, I thought we were having a moment,” Axel said, feigning offense.

“Get out!” you said, hitting him with a pillow. He laughed, and you tried to ignore the flutter in your chest at the sound of it.

Notes:

Comments and kudos are welcome! I hope you enjoyed! Next time you learn a little magic and how to better use your armor! Also you need to keep your uncle and Demyx out of trouble. :3

See you all next time!

Chapter 18: Can Only Make Fire When Aroused

Summary:

You go to Disney Town for your first day of official training with your armor and keyblade! Also you learn more about the heart experiments.

Notes:

And extra long chapter today! Axel's your teacher! Have fun!

Pops called you one morning about a week after you’d learned you had armor. You were relaxing at a pond with Namine, Demyx, and Axel when he called. You were sitting a short distance away from the edge of the pond on a large boulder, soaking in the sun like a cat and smiling contentedly.

Demyx was showing Namine how to skip rocks, and Axel was reclining against the base of the rock you sat on. You’d occasionally make conversation but enjoyed the comfortable silence between the two of you.

“Now I’m sure you’re wondering why I called,” he said with a toothbrush in his mouth. Honestly you wondered why it couldn’t wait until he was done brushing his teeth. “Well I’ve discovered something interesting! As a keyblade wielder, you have a number of abilities! However, the one I think will interest you the most, and keep you safe, would be that you can summon armor!”

You chuckled and heard another low one drift up from Axel.

“What’s so funny? Is that your boyfriend I hear?”

“Nothing! I know how to summon armor, and what boyfriend?!” you damn near screeched into the phone, fighting off a smile.

“You know the one!” Dreamfinder interrupted, taking the phone from Ludwig while he yelled several obscenities and how he had no privacy. “He’s tall, dreamy eyes –”

“Axel is not my boyfriend!” you snapped at him, already knowing where this was going.

“I never said it was Axel.” You could hear Axel quietly laughing at you.

“Would you get out of here?! I told you several times that bathroom time is Von Drake’s special time!”

“What do you want?!”

Ludwig snatched the phone back.

“Go sit in your corner!” Ludwig snapped at Dreamfinder who left the bathroom. “Now, I called to tell you about the armor. I figured knowing how to summon it would benefit you most as a first lesson. But since you already know, I suppose we can come pick you up in about three days to train and hone this skill.”

“Oh you don’t have to do that!” You jumped. Demyx, Namine, and Axel were all looking over your shoulder. You couldn’t meet Axel’s eyes. “There’s a better way to get there.”

Demyx opened a corridor which honestly looked like the gateway to hell with how creepy it was. You approached it, eyeing it warily.

“I don’t know about this. It looks –”

Demyx pushed you through to the other side.

“What the hell?!” Axel said, more than a little pissed.

“What?” Demyx asked with a shrug.

“She isn’t exactly protected against darkness, you idiot!”

“Huh? Oh yeah,” Demyx said with a nervous chuckle, scratching the back of his head. Axel sighed and shoved Demyx through the corridor, following behind him with Namine in tow.

~

“What are you doing in my bathroom?!” Ludwig all but screamed at you, waving his toothbrush around and holding a towel around his waist.

“I don’t know! I don’t know!” you yelled covering your eyes and facing the other way.

“Is that ________?” Dreamfinder asked, barging back into the bathroom and hitting Ludwig with the door, Figment in tow. Ludwig peeled himself off the back of the door and stumbled around with his toothbrush in his mouth just as Demyx came flying through the corridor and crashing into him. Axel and Namine followed closely behind.

Ludwig was choking on his toothbrush, the shape of it clearly defined, sitting horizontally in his throat. Axel rolled his eyes and grabbed him by the neck, pushing the shape of the brush up his neck until it came flying out of his mouth and landed on the floor near your feet.

“Ew! Pops that gross!” you complained, wrinkling your nose at the drool-y thing on the floor.

“You should really have better manners in the bathroom, Ludwig. I mean, honestly,” Dreamfinder said with a shake of his head.

“Everybody out! Out! Out!” Ludwig shouted, and you all filed out mumbling about how he didn’t have to be rude about it.

~

It was shortly after the bathroom incident when you found yourself in the library. You looked around in wonder. The bathroom, you realized upon exiting was not in the castle – just as well it was pretty small for a castle bathroom – but was in Ludwig’s house. Which turned out to be a mansion.

You stood in the library looking down the sloping hill in the front of the mansion. The lawn was a lush green with a winding sandy path that led to the front door. Dotted through the greenery were several topiaries cut to resemble Ludwig in many majestic poses. Also dotting the lawn were several marble statues of Ludwig in togas posing with small harps and olive branches.

“You never said your uncle was rich,” Demyx said as he reclined on a royal blue and gold fainting couch in the corner, putting his hands behind his head and stretching his legs. Namine sat at the end of a matching couch that sat in the center of the room, flipping through a book she’d picked up from one of the many shelves. Axel was leaning on a wall looking to cool for school as usual, lost in thought. You tried not to let your gaze linger on him too long. Dreamfinder and Figment had gone somewhere else – probably to surprise your uncle with another of their impromptu bathroom visits.

“He never told me,” you admitted. Though you supposed it had been unimportant for him to mention it. You had never considered the life he had outside of Spaceship Earth. Of course he’d have had one. You had assumed he was from another planet – then found out there was even more to it – but had never asked what his life had been like on that other planet. You had just grown up with him and assumed that’s where he’d stay until the day he died.

He must have been happy to come home – even though you knew he loathed the circumstances which had allowed it as much as you did.

The doors to the library opened and you were broken from your train of thought. In came Ludwig and three other cartoon birds – a short blue owl in a suit with a collar that was much too high on him, a duck in a dress shirt and tie, and a tall, skinny chicken wearing a button-up shirt, loose fitting vest, and a little hat.

Ludwig cleared his throat and made a sweeping gesture to the birds lined up next to him before he spoke.

“The birds you see before you are my esteemed colleagues,” he said, gesturing with his hand, “They are highly regarded in the scientific community and legally certified geniuses, like yours truly. I give you Professor Owl, Gyro Gearloose, and his assistant Fenton. Gearloose and Fenton specialize in scientific engineering where as Professor Owl teaches music.”

“Music is a very important science! But I teach much more than that. I assure you!” Professor Owl defended.

“Yeah, sure, whatever you say, bub,” Ludwig said, brushing him off with a wave of his hand.

“Wait. Did you say Fenton?” you asked.

“Uh, yes?” Fenton said, looking every bit like you thought he would – which was the way he was described to you if he was in fact who you were thinking of and you were very sure he was. If that made any damn sense.

“Like, Fenton Crackshell?”

“Yes? You’ve heard of me?” Everyone but Ludwig looked just as confused as Fenton.

“Are you kidding me?!” you almost screamed as you bounced in your spot, “Pops used to tell me stories about Gizmo Duck when he used to babysit me all the time! I mean, I never thought he was a real hero, but you were like my childhood idol!”

“Why thank you!” He seemed as excited as you were.

“But you don’t look that old?” you questioned. Ludwig had told you those stories at least fifteen years ago, but this duck looked fairly young.

“Oh, yes, you don’t know how time works,” Ludwig explained, “Time can vary from world to world. Some worlds will have time that flows much faster than your own or much slower. Some will have a roughly equal ratio. Two days in one world can be two months on another.”

“Really?”

“I told you each world has its own set of time and physics. Thought you had it memorized,” Axel said from the corner. You vaguely remembered him mentioning that.

“Take my nephews for example,” he said pulling out his wallet. Out flopped numerous pictures of family, yourself and your mother included and even a picture of your mother and father. He pointed to one with three little ducks dressed in red, blue, and green. “Huey, Dewey, and Louie when I came to Kelewenya to build Spaceship Earth were eight years old. And decades later they are still eight years old.

“Oh. I see. Wait,” you said already jumping to your previous train of thought about superheroes you thought were fake turning out to be real, “But like they’re all real, right? The superheroes? Like Darkwing Duck, Launchpad, and Paperinik?”

“All real,” Ludwig said, “The last one is another one of my nephews He’s actually traveling with Sora.”

“I’m related to Paperinik?! This is so cool! Oh my gosh please tell me we’re using Gizmo Duck to train! The lowly rookie learning to fight from the young scientist turned superhero via his super cool mech suit!” You felt like you were going to explode with how eager you were.

“Absolutely not!” Gyro interrupted, “We are not ruining the suit after I just fixed it after his last battle. Now why don’t we get on with the evaluation so we can start her training.”

You visibly deflated a bit, but you were still eager to work with the hero’s alter ego.

“Uh, nice to meet you by the way,” you said, wondering what you’d actually need any of them for. You were visibly excited, unable to stop moving. Gyro and Professor Owl looked at you rather skeptically.

“So… she’s really the keyblade wielder?” Gyro questioned, continuing to eye you up and down. Rude.

“I know. She isn’t much to look at,” Ludwig agreed with a shake of his head.

“Hey!” Wasn’t he supposed to be on your side?

“I just expected something or someone more serious about this. Not a fan girl.”

“Well what can she do?” Fenton asked. He seemed more eager than skeptical. Which was a nice.

They all looked at you. You felt the stares of your friends on you too. You could only really summon your keyblade and unlock things – and you didn’t have much practice in that specific skill. Oh gosh what could you do? You hadn’t even been able to summon your armor except for a handful of times. How much should you know by now? Sora probably knew a lot. You’d been at this for how long now? Your excitement was quickly fading under the crushing weight of your newfound anxieties.

You looked down, rubbing your arm before answering.

“Nothing, really,” you finally admitted. The scientists – sans Fenton – gave you a disgruntled look before looking at Ludwig who began to sweat under their gaze.

“I did say she was new to this,” he defended. You shrank when their gaze landed back on you.

“Don’t sell her so short. She’s learned way more on her own than most people, and she doesn’t even have a teacher,” Axel remarked. You gave him a grateful smile before turning back to the birds standing in front of you. “She can do enough fighting to keep herself alive, and she’s already discovered the ability to unlock things – an invaluable skill among keyblade wielders. She discovered her armor by complete accident. That she was able to summon it at all is probably a feat in itself considering she didn’t even know she could.”

“See she’s a natural,” Ludwig added. You couldn’t tell whose side he was on anymore.

“Has she at least been able to summon her armor since discovering it?” Fenton asked.

“I try,” you admitted, “But I’ve only managed to make it come back a few times, and it doesn’t always stick around when I’m not concentrating on it.”

Gyro pulled out a notepad from his pocket and began to jot something down.

“Can you use any magic? Fire, water, ice, force, etc.?”

You shook your head. He began to write on the notepad again.

“How much formal training have you had?”

“None?”

You were pretty sure Axel’s five-minute lesson didn’t count.

“Well we have our work cut out for us, gentlemen,” he said, pocketing the notepad once more.

“Let’s move them to the training grounds so we can observe her in action,” Professor Owl said, finally contributing to the conversation.

They filed out of the library and you and your friends followed shortly afterwards.

“Thanks,” you said quietly to Axel.

“I didn’t do anything,” he said with a shrug, “I only told them the truth. You’ve got to have more confidence in yourself if you’re gonna be some sort of keyblade wielding hero one day.”

“Hero?” you giggled.

“You butt into everyone else’s problems to help them with next to no questions asked. That’s the kind of sappy thing heroes do isn’t it?”

You laughed, giving him a light push. He chuckled.

“He is right though,” Namine said from your other side. “You have a kind heart. You helped that man in the basement even before you knew he was your father.”

You smiled softly – somewhat sadly.

“You’re gonna be the most kickass hero ever,” Demyx said with a bright smile. You let out a small laugh. You would not let them down.

~

The training grounds turned out to be a local park. But it was open and empty, so it would have to do for now.

Ludwig and the other scientists had set up a table and chairs with plenty of stacks of blank paper on it. You assumed they would be taking notes on you and observing. Or at least, your friends, Fenton, Gyro, and Professor Owl would be observing. Ludwig did not even attempt to hide his intentions. He put out a lawn chair and a small side table where he had a pitcher of lemonade and a stack of little Styrofoam cups sitting on top. He hopped into the chair, wriggling to get comfy and slid on a pair of sunglasses.

“Let the training commence!” Ludwig announced from his spot on the lawn chair. You just stared. After nothing happened, you rested your weight on one leg, folding your arms under your chest with a frown on your face.

“Is there, like, a training dummy or something?” you asked with a roll of your eyes, “Or do you just expect me to attack the air?”

“What? Oh right,” Ludwig said before giving a whistle, ignoring your sarcasm and attitude. In ran a black metal robot the vague shape of a rectangle with large claws for hands, red and yellow eyes, and bright red and white sneakers. “This is the Martian robot. He doesn’t have a name, so we’ll just call him Manny. Say hi, Manny.”

Manny waved. You waved back. You felt uncomfortable now. You wanted a target but not something with, you know, sentience.

“And you’re sure he’s okay with this?” you asked, wondering what creature could possibly find any enjoyment in being someone else’s punching bag.

“Yeah, yeah, he signed a waiver.” Ludwig held up the paper. You sauntered over to him and squinted at the paper before giving Ludwig a dry look. You loved toons to death, and your uncle was among your favorite, but sometimes their own humor went passed the point of sensibility.

“That’s your handwriting and it just says waiver where the name should be!”

“Don’t question your elders,” he snapped, rolling up the waiver and bopping you on the nose with it. He lay back down. “Oh and if you see park ranger walking around just be cool, and don’t tell him anything.”

.

.

.

Okay?! You rolled your eyes and huffed. Fine. Whatever. But you should probably ask “Manny” if he was okay with this first.

“If you want to back out, no one will question you,” you said to him. He just blinked at you. You shrugged. Okay then. “So, uh, how do we start?”

You’d never had an actual training session before. Ludwig didn’t even appear to be paying attention anymore, and you could have sworn you heard a small snore. The scientists just shrugged. They weren’t exactly fighters or coaches. Axel stood up with a sigh.

“Let’s start with offense,” he said, coming up next to you. You looked at him, surprised. Well at least someone was taking charge of this day. “Hit the robot.”

“Just… just hit him?” you asked. Axel quirked an eyebrow at you as if you were not as smart as he thought.

“That is what I said. I thought it was a pretty basic command, but if I’m moving too fast for you….,” he answered with a smirk. You gave him a soft push as you moved passed him and towards Manny.

“Smartass,” you muttered, summoning your keyblade, bounding over to Manny and hitting him with it. He blocked it. Okay. At least he took measures to defend himself. You’d feel less bad hitting him knowing he wouldn’t stand there helplessly while you assaulted him.

You looked back at Axel.

“Keep going,” he ordered. So you did. You continued to hit him until Axel stopped you to give you more instruction regarding your movements.

“Glad to see you know how to hit, but your movements don’t follow through. You never hit with the next move in mind. You should always think about your and your opponent’s next move. He blocked you, so you need to move on and attack the next opening. But that opening won’t mean anything if you have to stop to think about your next move. You should already have it planned out by the time he’s blocked it. The next time you hit him, direct the next hit from that position.”

You nodded, not sure you understood, but you tried your best.

“No,” he said after watching you try for a few minutes, “Like this.”

He stood with your back directly against him, and you tried your best to ignore how close he was. His arms came around you, and he placed his hands over yours. He slowly directed you through a strike then another, flowing up from the previous one. He continued to do that for a minute, and then he pulled away much too quickly.

“Practice that drill for a bit.” You did. You and Manny worked slowly as you followed hit to hit until they were almost the same movement. You picked up your speed a bit, and Manny followed suit.

“Good. Now look for openings.”

You did your damnedest, but Manny was good at predicting your next move. Maybe it had something to do with being a computer. He saw your moves coming as you were making them.

Hmmm. Or maybe… you were just too predictable. Maybe it was time to try something new? It was a bit juvenile, something that worked on children when joking around, but it was the best idea you had right now. You used a feint. You moved as if you were going to attack one side. Manny leaned to block the hit. Good. He predicted that. You changed directions mid-swing to the other side. Manny’s eyes widened just a bit. He hadn’t been predicting that, so it was time to make this hit count. With his weight leaning to the one side and you hitting him full force, he didn’t stand a chance.

He hit the ground with a thud and slid a few feet from you, mowing down the grass and digging up some dirt as he did.

You were breathing heavily; exhilarated and happy it had worked. But you also felt a smidge guilty. You hadn’t meant to hit him so hard that he fell or slid with his face in the dirt.

“Sorry!” you squeaked, moving to his side. “Are you okay?”

Manny picked himself up, dusting off his exterior before giving you a pat on the head. Um… okay? At least he wasn’t broken or angry with you. You still had some reservations, but if he was willing to continue, then so would you.

“Not bad,” Axel complimented, looking mildly impressed. You couldn’t stop the big smile that found its way to your face, but you were okay with this one. Namine gave you a thumbs up and an eager smile. The scientists were busy scribbling down notes, but they looked pleased with what they were writing so you took that as a good sign.

“Are you kidding? That was great!” Demyx cheered. You giggled.

“Thanks,” you said lowly.

“Okay, okay. Don’t get cocky. You still have a long way to go before we call you a professional. Let’s get back to it,” Axel said with that same cocky smirk from earlier. You nodded, turning back to Manny, and readying yourself again.

“Ready?” you asked him. He just blinked. You’d take that as a yes.

You trained offensively with Manny for about another hour. Occasionally, Axel would remind you to follow through and stop breaking up your attacks, but for the most part you did alright. You wound up getting many more hits on Manny than you had in the beginning. You continued to use feints similar to the one you had done earlier. They worked a few times, but Manny was catching on, and you were forced to learn other methods of attack. You were learning. That was good.

“Let’s switch to defense,” Axel called, and Manny obeyed immediately. One of his claws was replaced with a spinning saw blade. Your eyes as well as those of everyone observing – i.e. everyone that wasn’t Ludwig – widened.

“You don’t think this is getting a little dangerous?” you called to Ludwig.

“No, Manny can take it! Can’t you, Manny?” he said, waving his arm flippantly in the air.

“You can handle it!” Axel called though he was less sure than he sounded. Demyx and Namine glanced at each other nervously. If anyone could handle it, you could. But that didn’t mean you should try. But you didn’t back down.

You dodged Manny’s attacks this way and that. You thanked your lucky stars you were faster than he. Then you remembered Axel’s first lesson to look for openings in your opponent’s attacks. The second was to think about your own moves as well as theirs. You could try blocking? But you weren’t sure. Manny’s follow through on his attacks were much more calculated than your own – and faster. Were there any openings to attack? Did robots leave openings?!

You tried blocking. Or at least you thought it was blocking. It was more of an attack against an attack where you wound up in a battle of strength against the robot. You were not winning. And as you were locked claw against keyblade, you noticed his saw blade lifting. You jumped out of the way, watching the saw come down where you once were.

“I said defense, ________. That’s not how you attack defensively or protect yourself,” Axel called in a mildly scolding voice. It was cute that he was teaching you, but it annoyed the fuck out of you to hear him scold you.

“Yeah, I know that,” you snapped back. As if almost getting sliced in half were not enough of a lesson for you.

You jumped back into the fight as if nothing had happened, tiny pulses of darkness swirling about your hands as your annoyance towards Manny grew. He continued to attack, repeatedly trying to cut off some part of your body. Or at least, it seemed like he was trying.

Probably just in his programming. You tried to tell yourself this to push back your own anger. Why were you even angry? Because this was hard? Why weren’t you better?

Your anger flared even more when he managed to actually knock you back a few feet. You picked yourself up. He wasn’t attacking yet, so you at least knew he wasn’t actually gonna kill you. Or maybe he wouldn’t attack when you were down. It didn’t matter. You grit your teeth, running forward to attack.

Wait. Bad. Bad idea. Manny pulled back his claw. He was going to push it forward just as you would run into it. No. You needed a new tactic. Then you saw it. An opening. Right behind him. Unguarded. Unconventional, sure. But not impossible. You jumped a bit, letting your momentum carry you forward. Manny raised his claw to match your trajectory, but you dropped to the ground just as he pushed it out to catch you. Flat on your back, ignoring the dull pain you felt as your head hit the ground and as small rocks rubbed you through your clothes, your body slid beneath the robot’s legs.

You jumped up as soon as you were out from underneath him, swinging around in a spin and bring your keyblade around in a wide arc. You bashed Manny in the back of his head and like the first time you caught him off guard, he slid forward on his face.

You turned around breathless. After the hit you took, you didn’t feel the least bit bad about this one.

“Alright, that was pretty good,” Axel called, “Now do another one.”

Manny began to pick up on your counter attacks just as he had when you used feints in your previous training. He even began to use feints as you had, and that made dodging significantly harder. You got hit far more than you’d like. Was he even pulling his punches?

He swung his claw around to hit your side. You did not have time enough to block that hit. You raised your keyblade as best you could to block, but your stance was all wrong. You flew this time. He definitely wasn’t pulling any punches, and this impact would hurt a lot worse than when you slid beneath Manny. You curled in on yourself to minimize the amount of damage you’d take.

You hit the ground shoulder first. But it didn’t hurt? You bounced off the ground flipping onto your stomach and sliding the rest of the way. But it didn’t hurt! You looked down. Your armor was there. At least it showed up when you needed it – otherwise you’d have been looking at a pretty fucked up shoulder. Now you just hoped the armor would stick around.

You charged at Manny who was charging you as well. You blocked his hit with your keyblade, pushing away the claw and using the momentum to spin and hit him from the other side. He blocked your hit, moving to hit your opening. But you were ready. You blocked it. Barely. And stumbling a bit as you did.

Manny took advantage of your weakness and began to attack you rapidly with you barely managing to keep up. But then you couldn’t. And he swung at you with his claw. You put your arm up to block the hit out of instinct, your keyblade not held in a position that would allow you to block. You closed your eyes, fully prepared to feel a brute, crushing force as the heavy metal contacted your arm. It made contact, but it didn’t hurt as much as it should have. In fact this also didn’t hurt?!

You stumbled backwards a bit from the impact, barely managing to keep your footing and lowering into a crouch to get your balance better. You opened your eyes to see a shield.

Shield?!

You looked closer realizing that the material looked familiar. Manny swung at you again, but you used your shield to block it, using the push from your crouched stance to force him back. You threw a quick glance to your back where you saw that your wings were missing. They’d come together on your arm to form a shield.

This armor is so fucking cool!

“Woo! Go, ________!” Namine cheered.

You didn’t hear her though. You were too pumped on adrenaline. Your shield disappeared shortly after, and you went back to trying to block with your keyblade.

“Watch for his follow through! Your openings are in there somewhere,” Axel instructed from the side. You were trying. You really were. But you were tiring.

When Manny finally knocked you back again, you were slower getting up, letting yourself rest on your arms. You pulled your helmet off, panting and reveled at the cool air that hit your face. Axel approached you and offered you a hand.

You took it.

“That’s enough for today,” he said with a smirk, “You look like you’re gonna die.”

“I have been dodging being crushed by a claw and sawed in half all day. I feel like I’m gonna die.” He chuckled lightly as you stood to your feet. You were so ready to end your training. It had been fun for you mostly. You couldn’t deny that you learned quite a bit, but you were exhausted.

Then you noticed Manny’s charging shape out of the corner of your eye. He was closing in fast. You pushed Axel behind you just as Manny’s saw was about to reach him. Your shield reappeared. You pushed the saw away, carrying through with the motion of bringing your keyblade around, knocking Manny away. He slid through the grass.

“That’s enough for the day, Manny!” you said, kinda sick of his programming or whatever it was that made him fight to the near death. The robot picked himself up, saw returning to a claw, and just stood there awaiting further instruction.

“Day-uhm!” Demyx yelled from the sidelines, “She totally saved your ass, Axel!”

“Yeah,” Axel breathed, “That wasn’t bad.”

“I saved your life and that’s all you have to say?”

“What do you want? A medal?”

“Yeah, that’d be nice actually,” you said with a laugh and looking like you were actually considering. He just rolled his eyes at you.

“Hold up!” Professor Owl called, “We still haven’t tested her for magic ability, and every last variable counts toward our final goal.”

“Oh I don’t know any magic,” you said, looking away. If it was supposed to be some innate ability for keyblade wielders, you certainly didn’t fit the bill. “I don’t think I have any.”

“Well according to the king’s journals, all keyblade wielders can use magic, so hop to it,” Gyro said as he continued to write on his notepad.

“Let’s take a break first,” Axel said to them, “She’s been at this for almost four hours.”

Gyro heaved a sigh like you’d been slacking for four hours and not training.

“Fine. One hour. Then I want to see some magic.”

You breathed a sigh of relief as the two of you walked back over to the table. You poured yourself some of Ludwig’s lemonade. He was still snoring soundly.

“That was some grade A training out there, ________,” Demyx said, making a gesture for the lemonade. You passed it to him and leaned on the table.

“Yeah, well I’d still be at square one if it weren’t for Axel,” you said with a small smile.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Axel said, stealing the cup Demyx had just poured, “You’re barely on square two.”

“What? Really? That’s not fair. Isn’t there like extra credit or something?” you asked as he leaned next to you against the table.

“Whatever it takes to pass, huh?” he said with a roll of his eyes as he sipped his lemonade.

“Oh I’ll do anything for an A, Teacher,” you said in a flirty tone as you pushed yourself off of the table to walk over to where Namine was. So you didn’t notice Axel setting his cup on fire. Demyx held back a loud barrage of laughter and settled on quiet giggles behind his hands.

“Things -snicker- things heating up between you two, Axel?”

Axel picked up Demyx’s lemonade and tossed it into his face. He smirked at Demyx’s sputtering and coughing.

“Interesting,” Professor Owl muttered. He, Gyro, and Fenton shared a look, eyeing Axel after his reaction to your flirtation.

Axel didn’t think it was interesting. He felt not unlike he had when something you did caused him to set himself on fire the first time. And a bit like the time where you told him his eyes were pretty. He didn’t like it – primarily because he lost control of himself.

It wasn’t like no one had ever flirted with him before. It’s just that usually it was just Larxene. But she was Larxene, and she hardly meant it. Plus he didn’t like Larxene enough to even tolerate her for more than a few minutes. But it was you. And that was different. And weird.

After about ten minutes of chatting with Namine the two of you left to walk around the park for a bit.

“So how do you feel? About the whole training thing?” Namine asked as the two of you enjoyed the gentle breeze blowing through the park.

“I feel pretty good! I mean, I’m kinda exhausted, but I feel really confident about this!”

“You’re gonna do great things, ________.”

“I sure hope so. I have a lot riding on this, and a lot of people counting on me. I can’t afford to let any of them down.”

Namine watched you for a moment with mild awe in her eyes.

“I want to be like you some day.”

“What’s that mean?” you asked.

“I mean I want to be like all of you. You, Axel, Sora. I want to do great things too. I hope one day I can do something for other people.”

“You did. You called me to you so I could help a bunch of people who were tortured and experimented on in the past.”

“Yes, but you’re the one who actually did what had to be done to save those people.”

“But none of it would have been possible without you. You are capable of great things, and you’ve already started. You have a brave and compassionate heart.”

“I don’t have a heart, ________,” she gently reminded you with a soft smile.

“Well I think you do. Demyx and Axel too.”

“Speaking of Axel,” she began, changing the subject and giving you a sly smile, “You have a crush on him?”

“Yeah,” you said, fighting off a smile and looking away from her.

“Are you going to tell him about it?”

“I think he knows, honestly,” you admitted, “I’m not exactly subtle about it.”

The two of you shared a quick laugh before turning the conversation to other things.

~

Your break came and went much too quickly, but you were eager to start your next lesson which would, no doubt, be more fun than the others – and maybe less tiring.

The scientists watched you with eager eyes. Maybe because science and magic were so far apart on the spectrum? Then again when didn’t science and magic collide when it came to toons? Your uncle had taught you that.

You gave a sigh. Where does one start when learning magic? You shrugged after a moment.

“I have no fuckin’ clue what I’m doing,” you finally admitted. Axel chuckled at your statement before walking over to you.

“You still wanna learn how to make fire?” Axel asked, looking down at you with a knowing smirk. Your mouth dropped open and your eyes went wide. You let in a deep gasp of air, bringing your hands up to your mouth, and you tried your hardest not to squeal that you were about to learn fire magic.

“Teach me fire!” you almost shouted at him, bouncing on the balls of your feet. He quirked an eyebrow at you, smirk still in place as he watched you with amusement. He motioned for you to follow him.

“Fine, let’s go where we won’t burn down any nearby trees.” He led you to a small clearing where the birds could still see you and where you wouldn’t be causing any unnecessary damage to the surrounding foliage. You were practically skipping behind him; you were so excited. Then he turned and stopped, and you almost crashed into him. He gave you a dry look at your antics, but you were too giddy to care.

Axel held out his hand, gave a small wave, and a tiny flame appeared in his palm. He held it out to you. Though you’d seen him fight with fire before, you still felt mildly amazed to see it – even though it was no bigger than the flame you’d find on a candle. You looked between the little fire and him. Did he want you to touch it?!

“I… I just hold it? Just like that?” you asked, looking up at him.

“Just like that. You’re wearing armor, so I don’t think it’ll be too warm for you.”

You hesitantly cupped your hands underneath the tiny little flame, holding them just above Axel’s hands. You could feel the magic in it that separated it from regular fire. It felt so strange and so familiar. It was Axel’s magic, and you could feel that. It almost felt alive.

“Now push your own magic into it,” he instructed.

“I, uh, I don’t know how.” You had only just learned about a few minutes ago that you could do magic, and you’d certainly never accidentally summoned it when using your keyblade before. Was the magic you felt summoning your keyblade similar to this? You tried to feel for it, but there was nothing. Nothing about this fire felt like the magic you felt when summoning a keyblade. Your brow furrowed as you buried deep into yourself to search for magic. What was it supposed to feel like?

“I can’t find it,” you admitted. You felt mildly dejected and frustrated with yourself. “I don’t know what my magic is supposed to feel like.”

Axel brought his hands under yours, supporting you. You felt warmer than before. You were probably imagining it, but you could have sworn that the tiny flame, for the smallest instant, flickered brighter.

“It’s more than just magic. What do you think of when you think of fire?”

You thought of a lot of things actually. You thought of warmth and heat. You thought of warm, cozy nights and dimly lit candles that made the house smell like warm vanilla. You thought of sunsets and the fiery colors they painted the sky.

“Which thing am I supposed to think of?” you asked after you couldn’t decide on any one thing.

“Whatever makes you think of fire.”

“That’s so vague! Is that how you learned?”

“Yup.”

“Well what makes you think of fire?”

“Anger.”

“So you’re just angry all the time?” He almost laughed, giving you a lopsided grin instead that made your heart do too many flips. The tiny flame definitely flickered a little brighter that time.

“No, it’s just I discovered it when I got really angry. Your magic is more than your keyblade and it’s more than just magic. It’s a part of you.”

You thought about what he’d said for a moment, staring into the tiny flame that still flickered between the two of you. Your brow furrowed. When he’d asked you to think of fire, you didn’t think about anger. You didn’t think about anything like emotion, but you thought of things that made you happy and warm.

“I think of warmth when I think of fire. Like little things that make me happy like scented candles and sunsets.” You smiled warmly as you thought about them.

“Then use that.”

You closed your eyes and thought about the moment you’d shared with Namine at the fountain in town and again on the clock tower, how happy you were that she existed, that you found a friend. You thought about how warm it made you feel. You held on to that, trying to find the magic in it, and you felt an odd warmth surround you. Or was it in you? It was nice. It felt like a bubble rising through you. You felt for it and pushed it up and through your chest and a little giggle escaped you and you felt a flutter around your hands as your magic swirled around your fingers and into the tiny flame.

You remembered your friends at home who gave you so much joy. You thought of the new friends you had made. Demyx and Axel. You thought about Axel and how he always seemed to be there for you.

The flame grew a bit brighter.

You remembered being in the mind and the bright light Axel had given off when your heart found him. You remember the push and pull of hope and determination you felt between the two of you which, at the time, felt raw and uninhibited.

You felt another flutter in your chest.

The flame grew bigger, a rich blue pushing up from the bottom until it had consumed the red of Axel’s original flame completely. You couldn’t feel Axel’s magic anymore. This was yours. You let out a giddy, breathless laugh as you stared at it. It flickered and waved as if laughing too. It felt like a little part of your heart was in your hand.

“You learn quick,” you heard Axel say lowly. You’d almost forgotten he was there. He was leaning in close to the flame like you were. He’d never actually seen blue fire magic before.

“I have a good teacher,” you said back quietly. He chuckled.

“Flirting is not going to be a part of the research data, so if you could stay focused, that’d be great!” you heard Gyro yell from where he sat. Your heartrate picked up. You weren’t flirting.

.

.

.

You may have been flirting a little.

“We’re not flirting!” you yelled back anyway.

“Sure, whatever you have to tell yourself!”

You gave a dramatic roll of your eyes while Axel laughed it off, and you tried to ignore the little flips your heart was doing – that it always seemed to do when he laughed lately.

You tried again to summon the flame on your own, but you had more trouble channeling the magic. Before you had one to build on. Summoning your own was much harder, but you’d get there eventually.

After a several more attempts where you had actually managed to do it once more, you and Axel walked back over to the scientists to see if they had gathered any more useful data.

“Could you try summoning your magic one more time? And could you,” Gyro gestured towards Axel, “Stand all the way over there please? I have a theory I’d like to test.” Axel walked a short distance away. You tried once more to summon your magic but all you managed was a bit of hot air and a small spark.

“Hmm. Just as I thought,” Gyro said, as began writing and muttering to himself, “Can only make fire when aroused.”

“What?!” In your shock and embarrassment, your whole body ignited in blue flame, startling everyone nearby. The flames died quickly but your embarrassment lingered long afterward. “Don’t write that down you sick fuck!” you yelled, chucking some papers at him. It wasn’t true anyway.

He continued writing.

“And when prone to violent outbursts.” You prayed that Axel hadn’t heard that. It was bad enough that both Demyx and Namine were within earshot, but the thought that Axel might hear it would be enough to kill you on the spot. Sure he probably knew about your crush, but you didn’t want to make it into something awkward. He treated you like a friend, and you were very happy with that. You didn’t need him thinking you got off to him.

“What was that?” Axel asked walking back over, looking both shocked and mildly impressed at your sudden magical breakthrough. You shot a deadly look at Demyx, Gyro, and Fenton.

“Science,” Gyro answered, eyeing you to see if you’d set him on fire next. Demyx snickered despite your glare.

“Yeah, science,” he chuckled out. “Or chemistry,” he muttered under his breath. Axel didn’t seem to hear, so you didn’t have cause to murder him. Yet. But he sure was walking on thin fucking ice.

“Excuse me,” a new voice said, “But what, may I ask, is going on here?”

There was a rather chubby man standing in a park ranger’s outfit. You looked at his ranger badge which read, “Ranger J. A. Woodlore.” This must have been the park ranger Pops told you about.

“Science,” Gyro answered again, not even looking up from his notepad. You didn’t say anything.

“I see, and would you happen to be the head of this little operation?”

“No. That would be him,” he said pointing to Ludwig. Ludwig lowered his glasses and gave the park ranger a nervous smile.

“You again?!” he shouted. You flinched, glancing quickly between the ranger and your uncle. “I’ve told you three times already that the public park isn’t for your wild experiments! And I’m not cleaning up any bodies this time!”

What?!

“Whoa! Hey!” Demyx interrupted, “There’s nothing crazy going on here! We’re just having a little fun see?” Demyx used his magic to splash a little water around as if you all were just trying to beat the heat when a little water splashed on Manny.

Manny froze in place then stuttered and jolted while several sparks flew from his head. The colors of his eyes inverted so they were primarily red and angry. Then he looked at Demyx. Your breath hitched, waiting for him to make a move. It felt like everyone briefly froze in place.

Then Manny grabbed Demyx with both of his claws and began shaking him vigorously. You, Axel, and Fenton rushed forward to try and pry his claws off of him, but he swatted you all away at every turn, spinning about rapidly and throwing out his arms in random directions while you all barely dodged them.

The park ranger eyed Ludwig, a growing frown on his face while Ludwig tried to explain the situation in the best way he could to make himself sound innocent.

“I’ve had it up to here, von Drake!” the ranger snapped, “Humphrey!”

A big brown bear quickly lumbered over, and the ranger pointed at Ludwig. The bear growled and picked him up.

“What are you doing?!” you screamed, afraid your uncle was about to be eaten.

“He’s under arrest for disturbing the peace! Humphrey and I will be escorting him to the big house where he’ll serve out his sentence. I suggest you focus on cleaning up his mess because I’m not having it!”

Once you were certain the bear wasn’t going to eat Ludwig as they left, you turned your attention back to Manny. You looked just in time to see Fenton being flung away while Axel attacked Manny, doing his best not to injure Demyx in the process. You jumped and caught Fenton, landing on your side as you did so.

“Are you going to be alright?” you said once the two of you righted yourselves. He dusted himself off, none the worse for wear.

“I’ll be fine, but it’s time to bring out the big guns!”

You gasped. He didn’t mean that did he?!

“You don’t mean…” You couldn’t even finish your sentence due to your mounting excitement.

“Blathering blatherskite!” Fenton called, and you watched the Gizmo Duck armor they mentioned earlier zip through everything in its way to get to him. You nearly squealed as your childhood idol stood before you in all his heroic, ducky glory.

You let out a squeal of delight, readying your keyblade to fight alongside the Gizmo Duck.

The two of you jumped back into the fray. You smiled as you realized that the three of you were starting to actually win since he couldn’t take on all three of you with only two arms and holding a screaming idiot. Manny seemed to understand this too, so he began to run. Fast.

You were never going to be able to catch up to him.

“Come on!” Gizmo Duck said, as he grabbed you and Axel and hoisted the two of you up onto his arms. This was so weird but so cool! He zipped after the robot, and you and Axel had to hang on for dear life not to fly off, but you were gaining fast.

Manny went on a rampage. When he wasn’t focused on Demyx he was swinging his arms about and knocking them into various stands and walls – thankfully never the arm he was holding Demyx in. He crashed through the back wall of an opera house, and, miraculously, you lost sight of him. There was a play going on currently.

“We need to evacuate these people until that robotic renegade is stopped!” Gizmo Duck exclaimed, slamming a fist into his palm. You nodded as he wheeled out onto the stage.

“Excuse me, everyone! There’s a rogue robot on the loose! He has a hostage! Please remain calm and exit through the back!” The actors looked at each other with confusion written all over their faces.

There was moment of silence before the audience clapped, exclaiming about the budget on the prop designs. Oh my fuck they thought it was part of the play!

“No! I’m serious! There’s a mad robot on the loose!”

That was about the time Manny decided to come crashing through the roof from who knows where, Demyx still clutched in one of his claws, coughing through the dust of drywall and debris.

The audience let out another round of applause before Manny began to rocket all over the room, spreading smoke everywhere and catching the curtains on fire.

It was only when burning parts of the opera house began falling did anyone seated in the audience take it seriously. It was chaos. You watched through the hazy air as people stepped over each other to get through the exit and avoid the falling debris.

Then Manny shot off back through the roof and into the sky. Just like that. Just into the fucking sky, leaving you with a tough decision. You looked up at him through the large hole he’d made then back down to the theater with several more people trapped inside and caught under the debris. And while you were certain none of them would die because the rule of funny and living with cartoons taught you that, you still didn’t want them to get hurt. Whatever jokes they made, pain and fear were still very much real to them.

“I’ll take care of the fire,” Fenton instructed, “But I’m not sure what can be done about your friend at this point.”

You looked back up at the quickly fading duo.

 “Throw me,” you told Fenton. He looked at you then back at the ever-decreasing size of Manny and Demyx as they disappeared into the sky. If Manny didn’t stop his ascent soon, he’d be in space. And Demyx wouldn’t survive. This, of course, was assuming Manny didn’t just drop Demyx altogether.

“Are you insane?!” Axel shouted.

“I can do this! Gizmo is the only one who can put out the fire, and you’re probably more fire resistant than I am and can get these people to safety. It has to be me!”

Axel couldn’t refute these points, but he still didn’t like the thought of you being that high in the air with no way to come back down.

“Do you at least have a plan?”

You did kinda.

“I do. It’s half-baked, but it’s all we got. Demyx is getting too high. I gotta do this now!” Axel nodded. You couldn’t afford to wait anymore. He understood that.

Fenton picked you up, and you straightened out, allowing him to hold you similar to a spear.

“Yeet!”

And just like that you were flying through the sky, quickly catching up to Manny and Demyx, latching on to his antenna as best you could. You were grateful for your helmet because you weren’t sure how you’d handle this wind. You could barely hang on. You summoned your keyblade anyway, hitting Manny on the head with the blunt end. You didn’t want to have to hurt him for a malfunction, but the sky was getting darker around you, and Demyx didn’t look so hot. Actually, he looked like he was struggling to breathe, already turning a bit blue in the face.

You hit harder. Nothing. You shouted for Manny to snap out of it. He reached up and grabbed you before flinging you back towards the ground.

Shit!

You tried to think of something, anything that might save you before you hit the ground. Was this really it?! But then you landed with a thud.

Huh. The ground didn’t seem that close when you were clinging to Manny a second ago? You turned your head and were met with empty space. You looked down. You were still in the sky but laying on something. You looked at what had caught you. It looked kinda like a surf board but floating? A glider? You stood up. It looked like your keyblade.

Could you make it move? You thought about going forward slowly and it obeyed the command. You thought about backing up. It did that as well. You thought about flying after your friend and Manny, and you took off much quicker than you were expecting, just fast enough to catch up. You passed him slower than you would have like and the sky was getting alarmingly dark. You didn’t have much longer and no time to calm him down normally – not that that had worked so well last time. You went faster turning once you were a good distance from them. Then you charged them. You jumped from the glider, launching yourself at them and drawing your keyblade.

You rammed your keyblade straight through the upper part of Manny’s head. His jets stuttered and went out and for a few quiet seconds the three of you floated. Demyx was unconscious and now so was Manny. Then you were falling again.

You grabbed Demyx, pulling him close and willing your glider back. It caught you at an odd angle where you were desperately clinging to Demyx’s arm. You yanked him up. He landed on top of you. You huffed. He was heavy – only more so now because he was unconscious. But he was breathing again without any need of assistance on your part. So that was good. You lay there for a moment, exhausted before pushing the both of you up. You struggled to stand, wobbling unsteadily in the air as you tried to hoist Demyx up to a semi-standing position. You supported him, slinging his arm over your shoulder and letting him rest on your side. You began your descent back down to the ground.

About half way down Demyx showed signs of consciousness. He was tired and worn and continued to lean on you for support.

“Where’s Manny?” he barely mumbled out, head lolling until it was resting against your own.

“Gone. Er, well, falling now.” The robot was rapidly descending below you, and there was no hope that you’d be able to catch him. But cartoons had gotten out of worse scrapes, and Manny was unconscious. So you at least could avoid the guilt of causing unnecessary pain – outside of putting a hole through his head.

“How are we flying?”

“Glider.”

“That a keyblade thing?”

“I guess.”

Your answers were short and clipped. You weren’t annoyed at Demyx so much as you were just exhausted and wanted to go home. Why did everywhere you go have to be such an ordeal? Though you’d be lying if you said you didn’t think your shield and glider were totally kickass. Because they very much were.

Manny hit the ground with a loud crash that rivaled an explosion, leaving a crater in the ground. Axel and Gizmo Duck rushed over, frantically searching for signs of you or Demyx in the wreck. Several other toons gathered round to see the mess. But it was just Manny with a gaping hole in the center of his head and two X’s where his pupils once were.

So, where were you?

Axel had a brief moment of panic flash through him at the thought of you and Demyx floating in space dead or in your own craters, having fallen off before Manny met his untimely end. But he breathed a sigh of relief when you and Demyx descended a moment later, stepping off of your glider.

That was new. Had you discovered that on your own? Maybe he should have given you more credit. You were more capable now than when he first met you. You looked every bit the hero you were in that armor, and you actually had some of the skill to back it up. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t the least bit impressed. But you’d been surprising him since day one.

Demyx had more fully woken up about half way down and wouldn’t stop thanking you no matter how many times you said it was no problem. The two of you stumbled off of the glider, and you were met with a round of applause. You were surprised, and you were grateful no one could see the look of embarrassment on your face thanks to your helmet. Demyx, once steady on his two feet, even joined in on the clapping

“Okay, people, move it along nothing to see here,” an officer who arrived on the scene said as he shooed the crowd away. He was a spotted… cat? His badge read Officer Bonkers.

“You!” he said suddenly, whirling around to face you, a gloved hand pointing in your face, “You did this?” He jabbed his thumb in Manny’s direction.

“Um, yes?”

“Then on behalf of the Kingdom of Disney Town, I’d like to thank you. Also, uh, your… uh, duck friend says you’ll be bailing him out?”

“Duck friend? You mean my uncle?”

“Oh so he wasn’t lying.”

“What did he say exactly?”

“He said his armored, human, superhero niece and her pyromancer boyfriend were going to save the town from a rampaging robot and bale him out. For obvious reasons, we didn’t believe him.”

“Well what’s the bail?” you asked. Maybe it wouldn’t be too high.

“Five billion dollars.”

“What?! For disturbing the peace?! How long are they gonna hold him?”

“Two days.”

You gave the officer a dry look, spun on your heel, and walked the other way.

“What’d he want?” Axel asked when you approached him and Gizmo Duck. The four of you began walking in the general direction of the park, going at a slower pace for Demyx who was still worn out.

“Nothing,” you said with a flippant wave of your hand.

“What about your uncle?” Demyx questioned.

“He’ll be fine. Let’s go back to the park.”

“Oh that reminds me,” Gizmo Duck interjected, “We collected the data at the end of your little, uh, display of power, and they should already be on their way back to the lab if they aren’t there already.”

“Which reminds me,” you said, “What’s this data for anyway?”

“Oh that’s the cool part!” he said, suddenly excited. “We’re building a virtual fighting room! Well it’s got a better name than that, but that’s basically what it is. It’ll create a virtual environment with virtual enemies for you to train with. And, and this was my idea, it’s got a learning algorithm that will learn from the data we gathered to start off your training. And it will continue to learn from you the more you train with it, adjusting the difficulty to your level and style of fighting!”

“That’s amazing!” you said bouncing on your feet as you walked. “Tell me more!”

Demyx and Axel hung back a bit as the two you continued to talk animatedly about the graphics and abilities the new training program would have for you.

He looked at you. You were almost a new person from the one he’d met almost a month ago with her face stuck in a planter smelling flowers and gazing at the moon. You were stronger now, more formidable an opponent. He didn’t need to babysit you anymore. At least, not as much now that you could hold your own in a fight. You were sort of remarkable. Never mind the fact that you took a semi-coldblooded assassin and turned him into a friend. He wasn’t sure he’d have another one of those after Roxas. Let alone one outside of the Organization.

And he’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy being your friend. You were fun to be around.

“Dude,” Demyx began, eyeing you with open infatuation, “If you don’t ask her out, I will.”

Axel snorted and Demyx laughed. He’d only said it to get his goat, and Axel didn’t take the bait as usual whenever Demyx tried to egg him on – especially about you.

But it wasn’t like he couldn’t see why Demyx might like you. You were brave and noble and nice. You were just a nice girl.

.

.

.

And you didn’t look half bad in that armor of yours.

~

When you got back to the lab you, Axel, and Demyx popped in on Dreamfinder and Figment to say goodbye before you portal-ed your way back to Twilight Town for a well-earned meal and a nice long rest. Namine was already there waiting for you.

“I’m actually glad you stopped by!” he exclaimed upon seeing you, giving you a big hug. He was a very friendly fellow as you had learned on Twilight Town. And with how grateful he was to you, he’d all but adopted you as his niece as well. “I’ve been converting the memories we picked up into data that we can view on Laserdisc – the most technologically superior audio and visual format.”

No one bothered to correct him.

“And also I have gifts for Axel and Demyx! Namine already has hers.” He pulled out a cardboard box and you all peered inside to see two gummi phones – one in dark blue and the other in dark red. Demyx immediately grabbed for the blue one.

“That’s great!” you said, already pulling out your own phone. “Give me your numbers!”

You spent a few moments exchanging numbers. You were overjoyed that now you’d have a way to contact them!

“And I’ve hired Namine!”

“What?” you asked, confused. You looked at her, and she looked as if she could barely contain her excitement.

“She has the ability to manipulate memories, making them clear, rearranging them, putting them in order, etc. She’ll be a wonderful asset to deciphering the rest of these memories. Of course, she’ll have to go through a bit of training at the institute, but I just know she’ll pass with flying colors.”

“Really?” you asked her. You were really happy for her. She nodded.

Namine was overjoyed. She’d finally be doing more to help people like she wanted. You ran over to hug her and give her hearty congratulations. Even Axel and Demyx gave her praise for her endeavors.

Dreamfinder let you all revel in the excitement for a bit before he got more serious.

“Which brings me to my next bit of news,” he said, face turning grave. “The story of how all this came about – my time in your father’s mind and wrapped up in the experiments – is a dark one I’m afraid. And I understand that you went through quite a bit before you found me, so if you’d like to wait a while before I tell you this, I won’t question it.”

Your mood plummeted immediately. You could feel your hands shaking. Hear the sobs of the creature in your father’s head echoing in the back of your mind. Every hair on your body was on end. Your eyes were already beginning to well up, but you blinked away the tears.

 “This isn’t about me,” you answered, voice wavering against your will, “I want to know what you have to say.”

You didn’t want to know.

Figment and Dreamfinder both cast you wary glances, but he nodded, nonetheless. You felt a warm hand grab yours and realized Axel had come to stand next to you. He gave you a worried look, and you managed a small smile before turning back to Dreamfinder.

“Back when Spaceship Earth was still under construction, when Kelewenya still existed but was falling to darkness, your father was one of the engineers that worked on its design and maintenance. We met one day when having lunch and hit it off right away. We worked together on many aspects of Spaceship Earth. But then he began to notice things. Engineers that went missing. He investigated it. The first answer given to him were that they were volunteers to a special project being conducted by Ansem. But they didn’t come back. Your father grew worried – suspicious. He began to investigate, did some digging. He learned about Ansem’s heart experiments but also they had been shut down.”

“So the engineers should have come back,” you filled in. Dreamfinder nodded.

“But they didn’t. He learned that Xehanort was continuing the experiments. He heard this conversation, and he knew he couldn’t just tell everyone. It was crazy, and no one would believe him.”

“Which is why he asked you to go into his head to get the memories yourself. You were going to do with them what you’re doing now,” you said, remembering what you’d read in his journals.

“Precisely. Now I’ve converted the memories to be viewed. It isn’t much because I was unable to properly convert and order most of the memories thus far. That’s where Namine comes in. But I’ve prepared what I have so far to watch, that is, if you’re still comfortable with this.”

You would never be comfortable with this.

“Keep going,” you instructed. It almost sounded like an order with the way you had to force the words from your mouth. But no one questioned you.

~

The first memory was from inside of a cell. There were numerous cells lining the walls, and your father could see a woman in the cell across from him crying. She was curled in on herself, rocking back and forth while she sobbed. There were similar sounds coming from other cells. But they paled in comparison to the sounds of the screaming. He wasn’t far from the door that led out of the holding area, and he could hear the screams of the victims from within.

He did not know what lay beyond that door, and he didn’t want to know. But he knew it hardly mattered now. Blair had not made his escape from his mind, and if he didn’t do it soon, he would not have an opportunity to escape. He may be subjected to the same fate as himself. And who knew what that would be.

The door at the end of the corridor opened, and in strode two tall, imposing figures – one a quiet man with broad shoulders, a stern face, and fiery red hair; the other shorter than the first but still tall with broad shoulders, violet eyes, and pitch-black hair. They stopped in front of his cell, the brunette unlocking it while the other stood by, watching him with cold eyes.

They grabbed him roughly, dragging him through the hall and into the torture chamber. They dragged him passed bodies laid out on stretchers, their faces frozen in fear or agony – sometimes a crude mix of both. Their chests were carved open. Some looked like precision cuts done with instruments. Others looked like the victim had clawed at their chest themselves, the tips of their fingers covered in a dark red-brown where the blood had dried. There were piles of people on the floor. The stench of death and decay hung thickly in the air like a rancid fog, and your father gagged a little at the sights and smells.

There were men and women, young and old – some children or the elderly. And they all held the same glassy, milky-eyed stare, faces contorted around those soulless eyes in pain.

A child, probably no more than six years old, lay almost in the middle of the aisle, dried blood on its lips, accusing eyes staring up at nothing. A hole in its chest where a few ribs could be seen and the remains of a heart glimmering faintly in side.

One of the guards kicked it away.

At the end of the long room of bodies there were numerous work tables. People lay there either screaming and writhing or barely moving, hardly blinking, with eyes still filled with abject horror. And there were hearts and shards of hearts everywhere. In trays and dishes, sometimes containers that kept them suspended in the air and others being held by the people working on the victims.

He watched a woman’s heart shatter. Just one moment there and the next it broke into hundreds of tiny shards.

“Bring him here.”

He knew that voice.

He looked up at Xehanort as the two guards dragged him to his feet.

Xehanort let a light frown crease his features.

“You look around and all you see is death and destruction. I know this because you are ignorant to the truth. You can not know the true power that lies within the heart. I seek to unlock that power.”

“You’re sick.”

He regarded your father quietly. His frown was no longer there, just a blank stare that held no emotion. It only further enraged your father.

“You will be a special project. You will know the true strength of your heart,” he said finally, “We will see how much pain and experimentation you can endure before you are broken into nothing.”

He looked to the two guards.

“Prepare him. I will be along soon to conduct his experiments myself.”

Notes:

Next time we see what Vanitas and Marluxia have been up to since being given their assignments; Demyx and Axel have a talk about Axel's increasingly risky situation the longer you're alive; Axel takes you to the beach; You finally meet Sora face to face; you get a letter from Master Yen Sid.

Obscure-ish Disney References

Manny The Martian Robot: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Martian_Robot

Prof Owl: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Professor_Owl

Gyro: https://ducktales.fandom.com/wiki/Gyro_Gearloose_(2017)

Fenton: https://ducktales.fandom.com/wiki/Fenton_Crackshell-Cabrera

Ranger Woodloore: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/J._Audubon_Woodlore

Humphery: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Humphrey_the_Bear

Gizmoduck: https://ducktales.fandom.com/wiki/Gizmoduck

Bonkers: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Bonkers_D._Bobcat

https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Darkwing_Duck_(character)
(Unseen Shout Outs)
Darkwing Duck: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Darkwing_Duck_(character)

Paperinik: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/The_Duck_Avenger

Launchpad: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Launchpad_McQuack

Chapter 19: You're Sora

Summary:

You visit the Destiny Islands; Vanitas and Marluxia discuss their assignments and trade a few tricks and tips; You finally meet Sora; You get a letter from Master Yen Sid.

Notes:

Only one update this week, guys! I've fallen behind on typing and I'm not gonna do that thing where I type as I go because that stresses me out! I like staying a few chapters ahead. But be on the look out just in case I get ahead and upload anyway!

Namine was going to be staying in Disney Town for a bit. If she needed to get back, she could open her own corridors. Who knew? Demyx went home. That just left Axel to take you back to the hotel.

He opened the corridor right in your room so you could rest immediately. You were exhausted. Emotionally now too. You’d only seen the one sequence of memories, but it had still been a lot to digest. It was only worse because it was your father.

You both stepped through the corridor, and you immediately sat down on your bed. Your mom wasn’t there, so you assumed she had gone into town. Axel looked at you. You looked angry and hurt.

“Will you be okay?” he asked.

You were quiet for a moment, staring at nothing. He wondered if you even heard him. Then you looked at him, eyes dull and sad like night he first met you when you told him that your planet had fallen.

“Can I see you later?” you asked. You needed rest. You wanted it too. But you wanted to see him again. You needed him. He was the only other person besides Figment and Dreamfinder who knew what you were going through, and you just wanted the support.

He nodded.

“Text me when ever you need to,” he said. You nodded. He gave you another look, appearing like he wanted to say something but decided against it. He did that a lot lately. You’d always had trouble reading passed the expression he showed you, but you always knew there was more to him that he would let on.

He opened a corridor and left, casting one more worried glance in your direction before leaving.

You took a quick shower and put on a soft pair of cotton shorts and a tank top to sleep in. When you collapsed on your bed, you tossed and turned for a while. The still quiet of the room didn’t lull you to sleep as you had hoped. You were only consciously aware of how lonely you felt now that Axel was gone.

You got up, despite your protesting muscles and went through town. You didn’t see your mother. You leaned on a wall, thinking of where she might be. Then you walked into the woods, summoning your glider as soon as you were out of sight.

You couldn’t go too fast, but you still got to the mansion quicker than if you’d walked.

You descended into the basement, walking until you were in the pod room.

And there was your mother. She was standing next to the pod, hand lightly touching its surface as she gazed at your father with a mix of longing and sadness. Your heart ached.

“Hi, mom,” you said quietly. She was mildly startled, turning to look at you.

“Hi, sweetie,” she said opening her arms for a hug which you quickly accepted. “How was your day?”

“Busy. I went back to Disney Town. I trained.”

She took a step back from you with a mild look of surprise on her face. Then she smiled.

“I was about to go back to the hotel if you want to tell me about it,” she said softly. You nodded. You cast a glance at your father, your heart breaking just a bit all over again.

You didn’t tell her about your father.

~

Axel laid on his bed. His head was a jumbled mess right now, and it kept sleep from him – no matter how tired he was. And he was exhausted.

“Is she okay?” Demyx asked, as he poked his head through Axel’s doorway. He didn’t need to ask to know who he was talking about.

“She just saw her father’s memories of heart experiments, and those were just the one that scratch the surface.”

“Yeah,” Demyx said as he stepped fully into the room, “That was pretty heavy. How are you holding up by the way?”

“I’m…,” he hesitated, the sighed, “Fine.”

“You’re usually better at covering up lies,” Demyx joked. If Axel didn’t want you to know something, very often, you didn’t know it. So this was almost a laughable moment. You know, if they hadn’t just seen what they had.

“I’m worried, then,” he answered honestly.

“Why?”

“I want her to be safe. Tell her what she needs to know to keep her safe,” he said, staring up into the ceiling, hands behind his head.

“I mean,” Demyx scratched the back of his head, stepping a bit further into the room so he could read Axel’s expressions better, “Sure, but you probably shouldn’t tell her everything at once? I mean, she trusts you. Telling her everything might fuck it up, ya know?”

“I guess.”

Silence hung thickly in the air. Demyx could practically feel all the unspoken words Axel was sorting through.

“There’s more, isn’t there?” he prompted.

“I… feel bad about the Kairi thing,” he said turning his head away so Demyx couldn’t read him. “She didn’t do anything. Doesn’t have anything to do with any of this.”

“You did it to rile up Sora, right? I know that’s why Saix wants her.” Demyx ignored the part where Axel mentioned how he felt. He wasn’t supposed to feel. None of them were.

“Sort of.”

“Is this about Roxas?”

“It was. But I’m not sure it’s worth it anymore. I don’t know that any of this is worth it.”

“Hey, man. That’s something you may not want to go around saying. If the wrong person hears it, you’ll get dusked. Like, imagine if Xemnas heard you.”

“Fuck Xemnas. He’s lying. I know it.”

“About what?”

“The hearts? Our hearts? I don’t know. But what I do know is that there’s more to nobodies than what he says, and I’m tired of running around doing icky jobs for the guy when I’m not even sure he’s telling the truth about it anymore.”

“So what? You’re gonna turn on the Organization completely?”

There was a creak at the door.

They froze. Demyx crossed the room quickly and stuck his head out.

There was no one.

He turned back to Axel, who was standing up now and glaring at the door. Demyx shook his head. Axel visibly relaxed.

“I don’t know what I want to do,” Axel admitted in response to Demyx’s previous question, “But I’ve got a good feeling about her. She’ll be a good keyblade wielder.”

Demyx nodded.

“I should probably go,” he said after a quiet moment, having registered Axel’s words. “I gotta big recon mission tomorrow.”

Axel nodded, and Demyx left the room.

He lay back down and stared up at the ceiling again. He felt a little better having gotten at least some of what he was thinking off of his chest. His exhaustion was catching up with him quickly, and he felt his eyelids droop.

~

Another field.

You were in another field. But you weren’t on Spaceship Earth this time. You didn’t know where you were. But it was dark all around, and it reminded you of being in your father’s mind.

But that wasn’t why you stood frozen in your spot. Surrounding you in a circle were heads. Thirty of them. As tall as trees and upturned to look at the sky. They were pitch black and you could see no eyes on them, just gaping maws that were frozen in silent screams.

You were compelled to look at the sky.

You didn’t want to look at the sky. You didn’t want to see what made these things so fearful. But nothing about your body was listening to you. Your head slowly began to tilt back to bring you gaze upward, and you felt mounting panic.

You didn’t want to look at the sky!

Your gaze finally landed on the sky. And there was nothing. You felt a great relief wash through you. There was nothing there.

You looked back down to be met with the gazes of all the heads as their gaping, silent screams and their empty black gazes were now directed at you.

~

You jolted awake, thankful for the constant sunlight of Twilight Town. You had not been able to handle the dark. You were terrified of it now. And every nightmare you had was plagued with it.

Your body was shaking, and you felt like all the breath had been knocked out of you. Above all you felt tired. You’d probably been asleep for a few hours now, but your nightmares had a nasty habit of sapping all of your energy from you. But you couldn’t sleep now.

Not with those faces. Or not faces. Or whatever they were still burned into your mind.

You looked at your mother who was still sound asleep. At least she could sleep easy. She’d have to now that she had a job. She’d told you on the way back from the mansion that she had gotten a job at the local bakery. Hotel rooms didn’t pay for themselves, and the munny you’d gotten from the banker and Queen Minnie had almost run out.

You picked up your phone from the nightstand, prepared to text Axel. You hoped he’d be awake. Just as you were about to hit send, there was a soft knock on the door. You threw quick look at your mother who remained soundly asleep before getting up and crossing the room.

You peeked through the little peephole on the door and saw it was Axel. You nearly threw the door open, quickly stepping outside and hugging him close.

You so desperately needed this – needed someone who understood.

He was surprised at the welcome but hugged you back lightly.

“I wasn’t expecting you back so soon,” you admitted as you finally let go and took a small step back, almost pressing yourself to the door.

“I wanted to check on you,” he said honestly. You smiled. It was one of the few times Axel was completely genuine with his emotions, and you studied his face to commit it to memory.

“I was about to text you, to be honest,” you confessed, clutching your phone a bit tighter in your hand, “I feel like I’m going crazy. Like all the time. And you’re the only one who really gets it.”

He looked at you for a moment, a million and one thoughts running through his head at once.

“Do you wanna go somewhere?” he finally asked. You nodded, and he opened a corridor. “Oh by the way,” he said, handing you a little black bundle you hadn’t noticed he was holding, “I got you this. Well, Demyx, Namine, and I got it for you, and Demyx customized it.”

It was a black robe like his and Demyx’s. You held in a little squeal of excitement, slipping it on. It fit you very nicely. Stitched in tiny letters on the edge of the sleeve was the word “besties” with a little heart next to it.

“I love it!” you exclaimed as you did a little twirl in it. Axel smiled a little. You looked nice – and happier now than you had when you rushed out of your room.

“It’ll keep from being exposed to anything when we go through the corridors. Let’s go,” he instructed, allowing you to step through the corridor first.

You did as you were told and stepped through and out the other side. It was dark but not too much so. The sky was lit with countless stars and a bright moon. You gasped and marveled at it. It had been so long since you’d seen the moon. And you’d already forgotten how beautiful it was. You de-summoned your armor, and took a few steps forward, gasping again at the feel of sand beneath your feet. You wiggled your toes in it.

It was cool and rough against your skin but not unpleasant. You picked some up, feeling it and letting it drop through your fingers. It was weird. Before you lay the largest body of water you’d ever seen. It made the air smell salty and added a bit of chill to the wind but not enough to be uncomfortable. Dark waves rocked gently further out at the sea and every few seconds white rushes foam would roll in and lap at the shore.

Beneath the moon, it all seemed to glow. It was incredibly stunning.

“I figured you hadn’t been to a beach before. Was I wrong?” he said with a half smirk, half smile. You smiled widely at him.

“No, no beaches on Spaceship Earth. Fountains, sure, but no beaches.”

You walked further onto the beach, reveling at the feeling of the sand shifting beneath your feet as you walked.

“I also thought you might like to see the moon again. I don’t know how you do it in Twilight Town with the sun always up.”

“I have to admit,” you began as you sat in the cool sand, “It is a little maddening sometimes. But I don’t mind. I don’t like the dark all that much.”

Axel sat next to you, and the two of you just enjoyed the sound of crashing waves and the smell of the salty air for a few minutes.

“Thank you,” you said softly, “For everything. And for this. I needed it.”

“It’s no problem,” he said as he looked away from the moon to look at you. You were smiling softly and looking at him with that look of gratitude in your eyes he’d seen so many times from you before, your eyes glowing softly in the moon light.

This was a problem. This was a big problem. Because there was so much he needed to tell you, and even telling you bit by bit like Demyx had suggested was difficult. Because he like being friends with you, and he didn’t want to not be friends or even risk being not as good friends because everything he was doing would change the way you looked at him.

And he didn’t want you to ever stop looking at him like that with those eyes that glowed in moonlight and showed him sympathy and gratitude when he didn’t deserve it.

Your gaze lingered on him a bit longer. Axel looked quite handsome in the moonlight. But you turned away before he noticed you were staring at him for more than just your conversation, pulling your knees to your chest and resting your arms on them before burying your face where your prominent smile could not be seen.

“So, where are we?” you asked after another moment, looking around and noticing the thick forest of foliage lined up behind you where the beach ended.

“The Destiny Islands.”

“There are other islands?” you asked as you turned back out to the ocean to see if you could spot another on the horizon.

“Yes. I picked this one because it’s a little more secluded.”

“Trying to get me alone, Axel?” you giggled out. He rolled his eyes but smiled.

“It also has the best view of the sunrise.”

Your eyes widened. You were going to see another sunrise? You missed them just like you missed the moon. You turned back eagerly to the shore, toes curling and uncurling in the sand in your excitement.

He couldn’t do it. He’d tell you. But not now.

“When will it start?”

“I’d say in another half hour or so,” he guessed based on the slightly lighter blue of the night sky. You let out an exasperated and impatient sigh before lying on your back. You’d probably get sand in your hair, but you didn’t care all that much. You just lay there and watched the stars.

You looked at Axel with a smile and patted the ground. He lay down next to you and looked up at the stars.

“Each star is different world you know,” he said, drawing imaginary constellations in his mind as he gazed at the twinkling lights.

“That’s so surreal. I mean, just under a month ago I was sure worlds like I know them now, didn’t exist. Everything is so much bigger than I thought. It’s kind of amazing. And I’ve gotten to see so much more of it than anyone else may ever see.”

You were quiet and still for a moment, and Axel began to wonder if you had fallen asleep, but then you shot up abruptly, sand flying from your hair and back when you disrupted it.

“I want to find seashells!” you said finally. “I’ve never had one before. Or seen them in person.”

You were up before Axel fully registered what you said. You began pacing around nearby, toeing through the sand and occasionally moving it around with your hands to find shells.

“You’re too far back. You’ll find more closer to the ocean,” he said standing up and walking towards the water. You followed behind him, your eagerness to find shells, dissipating the closer you got to the massive body of water. It was so big. You felt… intimidated….

You eyed it warily, standing just at the edge of the wet sand where it reached. Axel had stopped walking to watch you, looking at how you gazed intensely at the tide as it rolled in and ebbed away.

“It’s not gonna hurt you,” he said finally, offering his hand. You grabbed it tightly and let him lead you over the cool, wet sand as the water pulled back out into the sea. The sand felt more compact here, molding to the shape of your foot rather than spilling over it when your weight sunk in. You could see seaweed and shell fragments on the ground, and you brushed a hand over the plants. Then the tide rolled back in.

It rolled over your feet, giving you a jolt at how icy it felt. It went over your feet and splashed up against your ankles, and all you could think about was your descent into the swamp when you’d been back into the mind. It was no where near as cold as the swamp, but the sensation and the memory sent your body reeling into full on panic.

You gasped, yanking your hand from Axel’s and hugging yourself as you backed up rapidly until you could feel dry sand beneath your feet again. Your breaths came rapidly, and you hunched over slightly, a groan of sadness rumbling out of your throat and passed your lips. Your body shuddered as if you’d been submerged in ice water and not feeling it run over your feet. Your eyes were blurring with tears and you began to hyperventilate. Your eyes shut tight and a sob worked its way up and out of your mouth.

You felt two warm hands on your shoulders and could vaguely hear Axel calling your name, telling you to breathe. Your shaking form clung to him in a desperate hug as you struggled to slowly inhale and exhale as he instructed. He was warm and comforting, and you needed warmth right now. He held you close, paying close attention to your breaths until they began to even out.

You were exhausted at the end of your episode, the weariness from before overtaking you, and causing your legs to barely support you. Axel continued to hold on to you, eventually settling the two of you on the ground so you were sitting next to each other while you leaned on him. After a few minutes, he asked you what had happened.

“It felt like the swamp,” you said quietly as you sniffled lightly, voice wavering, “When I fell in. I couldn’t – I can’t –” You shuddered. His arm around your shoulders tightened.

“You don’t have to say anymore.”

You sighed.

“I’m sorry. I feel like I ruined a good time.”

Axel shook his head.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. Let’s just enjoy the sunrise.”

You looked out to the ocean where the sky had turned dusky shades of light pink and purple on the horizon. Slowly, it peeked brightly over the ocean, and the sky was a gradient of red, yellow, and blue, with pink clouds dusting over the sky in wispy strokes. Axel watched until the sky was a deeper blue then laid back with his hands behind his head. You continued to watch until the sky was almost completely blue with only a faint hint of any other colors barely gracing the sky.

You felt better. The warmth of the sun caressed you and the light gave you comfort.

You looked at Axel. He fell asleep, snoring lightly. You giggled. He looked cute. And calm. You’d never seen him so relaxed.

You lay down next to him, staring up where the sky was a deep blue and watching the white clouds drift by. The air had gotten significantly warmer but not enough to be hot. The ocean rolling in and out the shore relaxed you too. You’d forgotten up to now how exhausted you had been.

Your eyes slowly drifted closed.

.

.

.

You woke up slowly in your room in Twilight Town, blinking the sleep away as you slowly realized that you were on a soft bed and not warm sand. You sat up and took in your surroundings. Your mother had already left for work. You were on top of your bed, your robe folded neatly and placed on your nightstand, lightly dusted with sand. On top of it was a little scallop shell. The ridged back was a bright peachy-orange, and on the other side it was a wash of pale cream and rosy pink. It was beautiful. You marveled at it for a while, alternating between the rough ridges and the smooth glossy sides.

Axel must have carried you back to your room, and you grinned openly at the thought of Axel carrying you to bed, breaking out of your reverie when it began to turn a bit steamier than thoughts of your best friend ought to. Even if it was just kissing.

~

Axel had a day off. He’d had a lot of those recently, but he knew why that was. He was what Luxord would refer to as a wild card. Or a gamble. He’d become erratic in behavior in regard to the Organization, and that meant that he toed the line between barely useful and expendable – no great loss in the eyes of the Organization.

And he was certain there was no chance for redemption as there was for Marluxia or Larxene. And they were the only two members more monitored than he. Though from what he knew, Marluxia was running an important job, but he was now too low on the list of trusted associates to get a hold of the information in regard to what it was.

But he hardly cared right now. Nothing he’d managed to gather in terms of the Organization’s next move involved you, and that was good. You were under the radar, and that’s what he wanted. And now he wanted to visit. He was bored, and he hardly had a dull day whenever you were involved.

So that’s why he was in the middle of the woods, walking towards Twilight Town to find you. Maybe you’d want to explore deeper into the woods, picking a new direction. The pond had been a neat find for you the last time you had decided to explore. Or maybe he’d take you somewhere new again. You seemed to like the Destiny Islands. There were other islands with beautiful beaches you’d probably like. Maybe one with black sand. That would probably blow your mind.

Snap.

Axel stilled. He wasn’t normally one to be paranoid. He could write off the sound as a squirrel that had run by. So why did he feel this was something different?

He looked behind him.

Nothing.

He kept walking, taking slower steps, listening more closely and swearing he heard the faintest sound of a second set of footsteps. A chill ran up his spine. Something was wrong.

He was paranoid. And nervous.

He looked around again, slightly anxious.

When he turned back around he saw Vanitas standing a short distance away from him.

Now he was paranoid for different reasons – and anxious and nervous and scared for your well-being. Vanitas should not be here. Vanitas should not be anywhere near your location.

“What are you doing here?” Axel asked in as calm a voice as he could manage when the urge to see you and make sure you were still breathing was setting his every nerve ablaze. He almost felt sparks at his fingertips as heat raced through his veins.

Then Vanitas blipped out of sight.

Axel whirled around this way and that, seeing nothing. Vanitas’ laugh echoed around him.

He needed to go.

Now.

He enveloped himself in a corridor, reappearing in his room. He took out his phone and sent you a text.

Axel: Where are you right now?

You texted back almost immediately.

***: I’m in my room. Why? Wanna hang for a bit?

Axel: I can’t. I won’t be able to see you for a while. I’ve got some stuff to take care of.

***: Aww ☹ Text me when you’re free again. It’s so boring when Namine isn’t around to keep me company.

Axel: Be safe ________. I’ll see you soon enough. Demyx will keep you company while I’m gone. And try not to get into too much trouble.

***: You sound like you going off to war lol. I’ll be safe, mom.

Great that was done. Now he had to text Demyx.

Axel: Vanitas is on the move. He’s watching me. I’m gonna keep a low profile and hop different worlds for a bit until I think he’s off my trail. That means you need to look after ________ and take her to her training sessions. And MAKE SURE SHE GETS HOME SAFE.

Demyx: What??? Why me???? If Vanitas is looking around shouldn’t I be keeping a low profile.

Axel: Because you “wanted in” and now you have to follow through. No one suspects you anyway. All you have to do is take her to Disney Town and back and maybe hang out with her a little at her room. Don’t be seen with her in Twilight Town.

Demyx: Ugh fine! But you owe me! You told her some stuff about the Organization right?

Axel: Not yet.

Demyx: Well what am I supposed to tell her about why she can’t go out.

Axel: DON’T tell her. Just make something up. Or act like you’re too tired and just wanna stay in the room with her and talk.

~

“Did you find her yet?” Marluxia asked, eyeing Vanitas from a distance. Vanitas was harder to read than most of the Organization members, and the mask obscuring his face didn’t help.

“Why? Does she owe you munny?” he asked, not moving from the spot where he was leaning against the wall. Marluxia resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Better to not piss him off until he found out what he wanted.

“No, but your target and my target are most likely to be found around each other. It’d be a great help to me to know if you found her.”

Vanitas was silent for a moment.

“I didn’t find her.”

“And you took my advice? To follow Axel?” He’d given him this advice roughly two weeks ago, so it was a wonder Axel hadn’t been with the girl since then.

“I did.”

“And he hasn’t led you to her? Did something happen between you?” Maybe somewhere in the middle of that two weeks, Axel got wise to the situation – someone giving him information they shouldn’t.

“He saw me.”

Marluxia was quiet for a moment, pushing back great annoyance and mild anger.

“How?”

“I stood in front of him.”

“Why?” Marluxia stressed out. It was becoming harder to restrain the anger and annoyance from his tone, but he had a hunch at this point that Vanitas was enjoying that.

“Because he’s paranoid. He’s paranoid, anxious, and worried,” he said letting out a little chuckle. Oh right. He had a thing for negative emotion. Or something.

“Axel’s a nobody.”

“I know. Threw me for a loop too, but I’m not complaining.”

At least this confirmed his theory that at some point Axel had figured out he was being followed.

“And when was this?”

“Two weeks ago.”

Marluxia took a deep calming breath.

“And you’ve been what? Following him around on a wild goose chase just to feed off of his negative feelings?”

“If he’s putting his life on the line to keep her alive, he’ll find his way back to her.”

“I don’t have that kind of time,” Marluxia snapped, irritated. He couldn’t see his face, but Marluxia felt Vanitas’ heated and angry gaze on him. He reigned it in a little. “A few weeks ago I overheard Axel and Demyx talking. I didn’t hear most of it, and only came in at the end of the conversation. But I’d be willing to bet that maybe Demyx is wrapped up in this somehow. Follow him too and tell me what you find. If you don’t mind.” He’d only added the last part as a curtesy but felt nothing but annoyance towards him. Vanitas’ sadistic nature was throwing a wrench in his own plans.

Vanitas didn’t answer him, and after a moment, Marluxia left.

~

Axel texted you often over the next two weeks but not to say he was available to hang out. So that bummed you out a little, but Demyx more than made up for it. You wished his attitude weren’t as laid back because it made for not so exciting days, but you were happy to have the company. Especially since Namine had left for her training at the Institute of Imagination a week ago, so you couldn’t even visit after your training sessions when Demyx would escort you back and forth between Disney Town and Twilight Town every other day.

Thankfully, Demyx had the decency to visit on a few of the days between your training sessions to give you company. The two of you remained confined to your room most of the time, but he could be persuaded to leave every now and again.

Like today. You’d tempted him with the prospect of free food. It was only supposed to take a few minutes. Go into town, get a few cookies, go back to the hotel. Easy breezy beautiful Demyx doing a good job. But then you went and signed up for the struggle match. That was not part of the plan. Demyx was not prepared for this part of the not plan. So he texted Axel.

Demyx: ________ is trying to sign up for the struggle match!

Axel: ?! So STOP her! You’re not supposed to be in town anyway! What happened to keeping a low profile?!

Demyx: I know but we were only gonna be out for a few minutes you know like for snacks! But then she saw that there was a tournament today and now she’s signing up!

Axel: So don’t let her! Get back in the room! And for fuck’s sake keep her from leaving!

Demyx: It isn’t that easy! You’re asking me to keep her in a hotel room until you can come back and be all protect-y and heroic and stuff, but you don’t even know when that’ll be! It’s been two weeks already! How long is she just gonna have to sit in a room day in and day out?

Axel: Until it’s safe.

Demyx: …

Axel: It’s not like I don’t get it or know it isn’t easy when she’s so damn headstrong. But just hold out for a little longer. I’ll take care of Vanitas.

Demyx: What?! What are you gonna do?

Demyx: Axel?

Demyx: Axel answer me!

Demyx: Don’t do anything stupid!

Demyx: I don’t wanna have to tell ________ you died or some shit!

Demyx huffed. Axel had stopped answering. Maybe he was already doing something stupid. He really didn’t want to be the one to deliver the news to ________ that something had happened to him.

You chose that moment to come bounding back up to him, bright smile on your face, excited gleam in your eyes.

“I’m all signed up! I’m so excited!” you said. And Demyx suddenly couldn’t say anything, just kept looking at you with those sad blue eyes of his. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” he lied, badly you realized. “Let’s, uh, go stretch before your big match!”

“Okay,” you muttered, heading off towards where the other competitors waited, stretching. You heard them talking quietly amongst each other.

She didn’t actually sign up for this did she?

Girls don’t really do this for a reason.

Guess she’s gonna learn that the hard way.

She’ll be out in the first round.

You calmed your breathing, determined to not let their statements get to you. Nearby Demyx was pacing nervously. This was bad. You were supposed to be flying under the radar, and now you were participating in an event that would very much mean damn near the entire town would have you in their sights. You already stood out enough as it was, wearing your robe, and he was no better in a matching one. You were already drawing attention to yourself just by being female and entering apparently.

But then Demyx saw someone that made his blood freeze in his veins, and without thinking he hid away, opening a corridor in a secluded area so he could go anywhere that wasn’t the town.

Demyx: Axel! I just saw Sora! What do I do?!

Demyx: Axel come on! This isn’t cool, man!

Demyx swore to himself. What was he going to do now?! You were in town drawing attention to yourself; Sora was walking around doing who knows what in Twilight Town of all places; Axel wasn’t responding to any of his texts. This was a mess.

~

“I’ve never seen her before. Maybe she’s new?” Sora said as he eyed you at a distance.

“Who knows how many members the Organization has gathered by now,” Goofy said as he glanced nervously between you, Sora, and Donald.

“Remember, Sora,” Donald said, eyes never leaving your stretching form, “We need to talk to her first. She hasn’t caused any trouble, and it would disrupt the order to outright accuse her.”

“And if she drops out of the competition early, you need to do the same so we can get a hold of her,” Goofy finished. Sora nodded.

They’d watched you fill out the form to enter the struggle match, and they needed to figure out exactly what it was you were planning. Whatever it was, it probably meant trouble. You hadn’t spotted them yet, so chances were that you didn’t know he was here. Donald and Goofy kept out of sight to keep you from spotting Sora too easily. If you were planning something, you may react differently if you knew anyone was here to stop you.

You felt like you were being watched, but when you looked around, you didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. People were stretching, towns people being skeptical about your fighting ability, Setzer watching you having reminded you a few minutes prior that this officially counted as a rematch if you got to the final round against him – and he was still very much looking forward to that date. Though Demyx had run off somewhere, but if you had to guess, it was to get more food.

.

.

.

You began to worry when he hadn’t come back after an hour. You were doing quite well in the matches so far. You’d worked your way up to another kid, close to your age with brown hair and blue eyes, who fought like he knew what he was doing. Honestly, you were looking forward to his fight more than the others. And you were almost bouncing with giddiness when the announcer was about to announce the match.

“Up next!” he called. You were already standing up, your heart pounding. “________ versus Sora!”

You froze, eyeing your opponent as he mounted the arena. This was the same Sora you were looking for? You readied your weapon, still eyeing him. He readied himself too. The two of you just stood there, watching each other for a moment. You stepped closer slowly, and he did the same, and the two of you began circling each other.

“You’re Sora,” you said finally.

“And who are you?” he replied, eyes watching you carefully, almost as if he were wary of you.

“________,” you said, “The announcer said that.”

“Oh, right,” he said, a light blush coating his cheeks. You giggled. This kid was the keyblade wielder you were looking for? Two sentences and he’d already broken whatever badass image you’d built up for him and turned into a somewhat awkward kid with a knack for fighting.

“I’ve been looking for you,” you admitted, suddenly excited again. He went from embarrassed to suspicious all over again. What had this guy so on edge?

“Oh yeah? What for?”

“Are you two gonna fight or dance?” someone from the audience called. You both looked around, surprised. You forgot the reason you were even here.

“Oh right!” you mentioned. Sora struck first. You dodged, spinning around him to get a hit in on his other side. He stumbled forward a bit but didn’t go down so easy. He attacked you with more fervor than before. He was fast, and it was a struggle for you to keep up. He certainly knew what he was doing, but you were no match for him. You matched him almost blow for blow but the more tired you got, the fewer hits you landed and the more you took.

Finally, you went down, the announcer holding up Sora’s hand to announce him winner of the match and the next opponent for Setzer. You huffed. It was a good match, and at least you could say you made it to the second to last round before being knocked out.

You climbed out of the arena and walked past a few grumpy competitors who you’d personally kicked out of the competition with no small amount of pride.

Out in the first round my ass.

You wanted to get some water before seeing the rest of the next match and maybe getting a chance to talk to Sora after all this time.

“Hey! Wait up!” you heard Sora call after you.

“What are you doing? Don’t you have to fight the final round?” you said, looking passed him at the arena where the announcer was already calling Setzer the reigning champion.

“I dropped out,” he said in a rush, “Who are you and where did you get that robe?”

“________, we’ve been over that, and a friend gave it to me.”

“What friend?” he said with his eyes narrowed. Your eyes narrowed back.

“Why does it matter?”

“Why so secretive?”

You both regarded each other silently for a moment. Something was up. Something he wasn’t telling you, and now you had a sneaking suspicion your friends were wrapped up in it if he needed to ask about the coat. Or maybe he’d met another traveler in a similar coat. Axel did say that people who hopped from world to world needed them.

“I’ve been looking for you,” you stated again, “I have been for almost a month now.”

It wasn’t entirely true, but he didn’t need to know that you’d stopped looking for some time now.

“What do you want with me?”

“I was looking for a teacher.”

He looked shocked. He was very much not expecting that at all. He opened his mouth then closed it again. He didn’t know what to say next. Had you thrown him for a loop that hard?

“A teacher?” he finally said after all that hard debating he’d done in his head.

“Yes. I have a keyblade, and I needed someone to teach me how to use it. I mean, I don’t need one now,” you said scratching the back of your head, “But I also wanted to ask questions.”

“Questions?” He seemed even more confused than before.

“You brought all the worlds back. All the ones that fell to darkness. Mine didn’t come back.”

He looked at you with something like confused sympathy now.

“I don’t know about any of that,” he admitted after a while. You looked upset. You took a deep breath, held it, then blew it out slowly, looking around at anything but him until your eyes landed on two cartoons observing from a short distance away.

“Um, hi?” you said, giving a small wave. They took this moment to approach you, standing on either side of Sora before introducing themselves.

“I’m Goofy,” the dog said with a friendly smile.

“And I’m Donald,” the duck said. Your face lit up.

“Like Donald Duck? You’re the Paperinik!” You were bouncing on the balls of your feet. “We’re related!” You said, noting the looks of absolute confusion on the faces of all three of them. They very clearly thought you were insane.

“Well sort of,” you began to clarify, “I’m the adoptive niece of Ludwig von Drake!”

“That’s my uncle!” the duck exclaimed, suddenly excited.

“Mine too!” you said back eagerly, “You’re one of my childhood idols. Pops told me so much about your heroic adventures!”

“Whoa, whoa,” Sora interrupted your little family reunion, “You still haven’t answered any of my questions!”

You had almost completely forgotten about that tense little convo you were having moments ago. You calmed your excitement, turning back to Sora – all business.

“You said you got that coat from your friends. Who exactly are your friends?” he asked finally.

“Why does it matter?” you repeated, frowning a little, “Plenty of people have these, right? What makes you so sure you’ll know who they are anyway?”

“Because the Organization wears them too,” he answered, and you cocked your head to the side a little in confusion. Organization?

“I don’t think she’s a part of the Organization, Sora,” Goofy said after you tried searching all of your memories for mentions of an Organization. Hmmm. Nope. Nothing. Nada.

“I don’t even know who they are,” you said. Sora visibly relaxed.

“Well it’s true that not everyone who wears those is a part of the Organization, Sora,” Donald said, looking up at his friend, “The King wears one.”

“Oh. That’s right. He does,” Sora said, scratching the back of his head with an apologetic smile.

“Should this Organization be something I worry about?” you asked finally, not quite piecing together what they were talking about.

“They’re a group of people who steal people’s hearts,” Sora answered with no small amount of venom in his voice. He almost looked angry. You on the other hand were more caught on the end of horror rather than anger.

“And they all wear these?” you said, tugging at the sleeve of your robe a little nervously. If these robes were so common, you didn’t need to worry about your friends being wrapped up in whatever the Organization was involved in. That was good.

“Yeah, it’s kind of like their uniform.”

“But other people wear them too?”

“Yes. Though usually they’re a part of the Organization.”

“Right,” you said, quietly. You had tiny nagging doubts in the back of your mind. “Would I have anything to worry about regarding the Organization?”

“I don’t want to worry you, but maybe.” Sora looked at your face morph from troubled to mildly alarmed. “I mean, being a keyblade wielder could mean something to them. I don’t know what they’d want with you or how they would know you even exist, but you should be careful.”

You were silent for a moment. You remembered the blue haired man on your planet and the icy glare he’d given you. You remembered the invisible stares on you when you’d run into him near the fields the day Spaceship Earth fell and fought the heartless with your keyblade.

Was he in the Organization?

You thought about running into Axel on Hollow Bastion. Your blood began to run cold. You thought about how he knew where to find you. Knew you were staying with Merlin. Took you to the castle to get answers alone. The dusks that attacked you not long after. He found you on Disney Town.

But if he wanted to do you any harm, he’d have done it by now. You kept telling yourself that. You believed it a little less every time you needed to keep telling yourself this.

He was your best friend. Did Namine know? Did Demyx know? Were they both involved?

“Please don’t lie to me, Axel.”

“I’m not lying to you.”

You were starting to develop a headache.

“I’ll be careful,” you assured him.

“Um, also I know you said you didn’t need a teacher anymore, but I think I know someone who would really help you learn to use your keyblade,” Sora said, warily watching you. You were worrying him with your sudden silence and lack of movement. You’d been so animated before that this was a sudden and relatively off-putting change in demeanor. You looked at him expectantly.

“Oh you’re talking about Master Yen Sid!” Goofy answered with a nod, “He’ll be able to tell you everything there is to know about being a keyblade wielder. He trained the king!”

Your eyes brightened a little. You filed it away to ask someone about later to see if he was someone worth visiting. You could almost hear Axel asking if you had it memorized, and your eyes dulled a bit.

“Thank you,” you said, “I have something I need to take care of. But I’m glad to have met you.”

You spun on your heel and began to walk away, eyes combing the street for Demyx.

“She looked awful sad, didn’t she?” Goofy said as they all watched your retreating figure. Sora and Donald nodded, watching as you turned a corner.

~

“I know you’re there,” Axel said, summoning his weapons and putting himself in a stance ready for a fight. Vanitas’ chuckle echoed around him.

“And you’re going to fight me? That’s treason you know.”

“I’d like to avoid it, but something about you just rubs me the wrong way,” Axel snarked back, trying to keep up his calm and prepared demeanor. In all truth, he didn’t know if he could take Vanitas, but he couldn’t keep up this cat and mouse game and leave you unguarded. Well, Demyx was there, but he was way more lenient with you than he ought to be.

“You must really like her to be throwing it all away for her,” he heard Vanitas’ voice behind him. He whirled around in time to block his attack, sending him sliding back just a bit. Not enough to knock him down. Vanitas didn’t move from that spot, just remained ready to strike or defend just as Axel did.

“Throwing what away? An Organization that sent you to kill me?”

“Oh I’m not here to kill you. I’m just enjoying the show. Watching you run around in circles like a coward, knowing that if you go be with her, it’ll be all over for you. I like those feelings of loneliness, all that negative energy you’ve been emitting.”

Little sparks ran over Axel’s fingertips when Vanitas talked about you.

“But it’ll be nothing compared to what she’ll feel when I hunt her down and tell her you’re gone. Or maybe I’ll just tell her you left. Abandoned her. Or maybe I’ll just be honest about it. You’re supposed to kill her, and nothing you’ve done with her, no friendship she thought she had with you meant anything.”

Axel’s body had ignited about halfway through Vanitas’ little speech, but he made no move to attack. That was what he wanted.

“You don’t know where she is.”

“I got a tip, and I can assure you that once I’ve beaten you to nothing, I’m going to casually waltz right up to her, tell her that her friend was never her friend and kill her while I watch the betrayal linger in her eyes as in her final moments she thinks of how you let her down.”

That actually got more of a rise out of him.

He lunged at Vanitas who reciprocated, weapons clashing in a flurry of flame and darkness.

~

You were typing out a text to Demyx, glancing up occasionally to watch where you were going when you bumped into someone. You saw them just as your shoulder hit them. He was wearing a black robe just like the one you wore. You were frozen in your spot, turning a few seconds after the encounter to see no one there.

That worried you more.

You felt a weight in your hand and looked down to see a piece of folded paper sealed with a wax stamp that depicted a little wizard hat with stars adorning it.

This worried you even more.

You doubted anyone was having as bad a time as you were right now.

You were wrong, of course. Marluxia had followed Demyx here. And his hunch was correct, he led him right to you. It seemed that Vanitas had elected to ignore his tip about Demyx in favor of chasing down Axel. Probably trying to absorb more of Axel’s potential emotions if such things actually existed. You didn’t lead him to the duck the entire time you were out and about, and he found himself increasingly annoyed with having to watch you. He couldn’t see why Axel enjoyed you so much. But then there was another wrench thrown into his plans with the appearance of Sora. He wasn’t quite ready for a rematch with you helping him.

He was pleased when you finally separated yourself from him, but then he saw that other one. As if one keyblade wielder weren’t bad enough, Riku had to go poking about the town for reasons he didn’t quite know.

He was still lurking around for a good while after too. You had scampered off back to your hotel. He lingered nearby. Maybe the duck was inside?

You rushed outside of the hotel maybe half an hour later talking on your phone, and he made his move. He walked calmly into your room through his corridor. It was empty. On your bed was a letter with a broken wax seal. He read the letter, placing it back on the bed just as he found it. He concluded that the duck was nowhere around as he should have made himself known at least once during some part of this day.

Vanitas would be very interested in what he’d found, and maybe next time he asked for a favor, he’d be more compliant. He left shortly after. Riku was still sniffing about, and that was a headache he didn’t need right now.

~

Demyx wasn’t picking up his phone. Neither was Axel. Namine didn’t either. You figured she was just too busy. Usually she called you when she had down time. But the other two had you legitimately worried about what you might find out about them. Especially since you didn’t know where either of them was. Had Demyx seen Sora and run because he was involved in the Organization? Or did he just wander off? He’d done that plenty of times before when the two of you went into town. But what if he was involved in the Organization? That would mean Axel was too….

You really didn’t want to believe someone who had done so much for you was involved with people who took hearts from others. Nothing about any of the people you’d met and befriended fit the description of anyone who’d do something so horrible.

You couldn’t imagine Axel so ruthless – let alone Demyx who’d only presented himself as laid back and relatively lazy.

You called Ludwig. You didn’t know what information he could offer, but he was the smartest person you knew, and you were desperate to get answers for your latest discovery which had your mind reeling.

You remembered the letter you’d gotten, lying on your bed where you’d left it when you decided to head back into town and look for Demyx.

You remembered every word as if they’d burned themselves into your mind. You didn’t know what you’d do, but you knew you only had until 6:03 to make your decision.

________,

You have grown into a formidable keyblade wielder; however, you lack direction and instruction. I believe under my tutelage you have the potential to do great things and to grow to be a worthy protector of worlds.

My envoy, Riku, has given you this letter, and enclosed with it a ticket for a train that leaves at 6:03 p.m. This train will bring you to my realm where I will give you your first assignment as a keyblade wielder. This will be the first of many in your journey to becoming a keyblade master.

It is understandable if you should choose not to accept this task as it will be a long and arduous journey that will push you passed your limits and to the very edge of your capabilities. But I believe there is much potential in you. But should you choose to accept my invitation, I have no doubt in my mind you will grow into your full potential as a keyblade wielder and guardian of worlds.

I await your decision but know that the train will not wait, and the opportunity may not present itself again.

Sincerely,

Master Yen Sid

The line continued ringing on the other end as you paced nervously near the train station, phone clutched almost desperately in your hand, the other idly rubbing a thumb over the ticket you’d received for the train.

“Hello?”

At least, Ludwig was answering his phone.

“Hey, Pops. I don’t know if you’ll actually know anything about this, but I’ve got about fifteen minutes to even have this conversation, so let’s make it quick.”

“Uh, okay.”

“Do you know anyone by the name of Yen Sid?”

“You know him? I mean, of course I know him! He used to live here!”

“He’s a toon?”

“Yes, but he moved away quite a long time ago. How do you know him?”

“I think I got a letter from him. I think this might be one of the keys to getting back Kelewenya, but I have to go there’s something I need to take care of first.”

You hung up. You knew he would have questions, but you didn’t have time. You tried calling Axel next. No answer. You tried one more time. No answer.

You huffed.

You called your mother. She would be at work, but maybe you’d catch her at a good time.

She picked up on the second ring.

“________, is something wrong?”

You chuckled. Classic mom.

“No, nothing’s wrong. I was calling to tell you that I’m going on a little trip, but I’ll be back before you know it.”

“A trip? When was this scheduled?”

“It wasn’t. I, um, I ran into Sora today, and I have to go see someone about some potential training.”

“Oh. So this is a keyblade thing.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting it to happen so soon, but I might not get another chance to do this.”

“It’s fine. I understand. At least you told me. Can I know when you’ll be back?”

“I don’t know. When I get my assignment, I’ll tell you how long it’ll take and give you plenty of updates until I’m back.”

“Well I suppose that that’s all I can ask. Please be safe, ________.”

“I will, Mom. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

You hung up. You tried Axel’s phone one more time. Nothing.

You were dialing Demyx’s number when he came running up to you. You glanced at the clock. Ten minutes to go.

“I have been running around like crazy looking for you!” he panted. You backed up a few steps when he got close. You hadn’t meant to. You just… It was like he was someone you weren’t sure you recognized.

“Demyx,” you began slowly, eyes downcast, “Do you know anything about something called the Organization?”

Notes:

As is the norm for me, all of your comments and kudos are welcome! Thank you so much for all of your support! You're making this journey for me even more amazing!

Next time: You meet Master Yen Sid, fight Vanitas, and discover someplace new.

Chapter 20: Hunted

Summary:

You finally get some answers. Yen Sid points you to your first task. Axel returns. You finally meet the man who has been searching for you.

Notes:

Sorry I only updated once last week, but I'm all caught up! If all goes well I'll be back to my regular updates on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Enjoy!

“Demyx,” you began slowly, eyes downcast, “Do you know anything about something called the Organization?”

Demyx froze up at your question. What was he supposed to say? How did you even know?!

“How do you know about that?”

He wasn’t denying it. That didn’t necessarily mean he was in it. Just that he knew about it. But his face looked scared and unsure. You didn’t want to think that meant anything. You knew you’d be lying to yourself if you acted like it meant nothing though.

You took in a deep shuddering breath.

“I met someone who knew about them.”

Sora. Sora had to be the one to tell you. Demyx couldn’t think of who else it might be.

“I know about the Organization,” Demyx finally admitted. The air grew more tense around you.

“They take hearts,” you choked out. It was a statement not a question. Demyx didn’t say anything. He didn’t deny it though. “They’re not good people.”

Demyx still didn’t say anything. He looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there right now. He wished Axel had talked to you like he was supposed to so he wouldn’t have to be the one to tell you about any of it.

“Are you…,” you trailed off, looking like it physically pained you to ask the next question. Though Demyx had a good idea of the next question you were going to ask, but being in no hurry to answer it, waited for you to manage asking first. “Are you and Axel a part of the Organization?”

He was quiet longer than he needed to be. But he looked no less uncomfortable.

“I need you to hear me out,” he said slowly. You already looked crestfallen. “Please! I can tell you everything I can and why anyone would do something like that!”

You looked like you wanted to run. Demyx wanted to run too. He also kind of wished you’d run first, so he wouldn’t look like so much of a coward for having a conversation with you that he should have had with you in the beginning. A conversation both he and Axel should have had with you in the beginning.

“Okay,” you all but whispered.

“Yes, we are a part of the Organization. We lost our hearts a long time ago.”

“You’re both nobodies?!” you almost screeched. Demyx looked surprised.

“You know about those?”

“I know Namine is one. She didn’t tell me you both were too,” you said, head reeling with this revelation. It furthered your belief that nobodies do, in fact, have emotions. But you wondered why they never told you.

“Well, we are,” he said awkwardly but mildly relieved he wouldn’t have to explain how nobodies worked to you. “We were recruited by the Organization because they told us that we could get our hearts back in time by… working for them.”

“By stealing people’s hearts…?” you said, eyes narrowing just slightly.

“Well that’s not necessarily what everyone did. Like I did recon. So I just scouted what planets looked like. I never actually did much in the way of taking hearts.”

That was easier to hear even if you knew the endgame of every part of their process was to steal the hearts of others. But that left one question.

“What did Axel do?” you asked. You were really hoping he was just a scout like Demyx.

“I can’t say,” he said in part because he didn’t want to mention the word “assassin” and partially because he felt this wasn’t his story to tell, “We didn’t get overly involved in the jobs of others. So you should really talk to him about what his life was like in the Organization. I mean, he was in it longer than I was.”

“And these robes,” you said, needing to know if Axel lied to you that day, “Are these just worn by the Organization or do people actually use them to prevent exposure when traveling to other worlds?”

“Uh, both actually. The organization wears them sure, but we use those black portals to protect ourselves from darkness. I mean, they’re called corridors of darkness.”

You nodded. You didn’t want to ask for clarification, didn’t want to believe your best friend lied to your face when he said he wasn’t.

“And the two of you are still in the Organization?”

“Well, yes and no. We kinda left. I mean, Axel all but committed treason. Which is really frowned upon by the way.”

“What did he do?” you asked with a little bit of hope placed back into your friend.

“Well he protected you actually,” Demyx said with a smile. “The Organization doesn’t want another keyblade wielder like Sora running around and meddling in their plans, but Axel’s pretty much been looking out for you since day one.”

You felt a small swell of joy in your heart.

“Why though? If it would get him into a lot of trouble?”

Demyx shrugged with a smile.

“You’ll have to ask him that.”

“Okay. I will as soon as I get back,” you said as you turned to the train station. Demyx blinked in surprise.

“Get back? Wait! Where are you going?!”

This was going to be another one of those parts of the not plan he was not prepared for.

“I got a letter from someone who’s going to help me learn to master my keyblade, but I have to go now. My train leaves in like five minutes,” you said as you went to give the ticket master your ticket.

Demyx panicked. If this was a keyblade thing, he certainly couldn’t go. Namine was away at some institute he didn’t know where to find, and Axel wasn’t answering his phone. He tried to run through the list of people he could ask to go with you and thinking of no one.

No wait!

He ripped open a corridor to the lab Dreamfinder worked at in Disney Town, practically flying through it. He looked around frantically for the near inseparable duo and spotted them almost immediately.

“You!” he yelled, pointing to Figment who was sitting down to tea with Dreamfinder, “Let’s go!” Demyx said, grabbing Figment like a football.

“Heavens!” Dreamfinder swooned dramatically before fainting. Demyx ran back through the corridor and into Twilight Town just as you were boarding the train. Demyx held Figment up, looking him in the eyes.

“________’s going somewhere to learn keyblade stuff, and I don’t know if she’s allowed to bring anyone. But I gotta make sure that she’s safe! That’s why I picked you. Don’t let her or anyone else know that you’re there okay?”

Figment looked at him with wide, worried eyes but nodded, and Demyx smiled with relief. He let go, and Figment jetted off to you, slipping into your mind with you none the wiser.

Demyx breathed a sigh of relief. At least you wouldn’t be alone.

~

Axel woke up to darkness. It was jarring and unexpected initially, but then it all came rushing back to him. Vanitas, the fight, ________…. ________! He needed to find you! Now!

Axel landed on the hard ground with a thud. He’d taken more than just a beating, and that last blow to the head had his vision swimming, little black dots appearing in his vision as he struggled not to pass out.

He heard Vanitas’ breathless laugh drifted through the air as he limped to where Axel lay. His steps faltered a few times. Axel had given him a run for his money. But that’d been his fault. Axel knew Vanitas was tough, but Vanitas had assumed Axel would be weaker.

He let his keyblade drag along the ground next to him, hoping the noise of impending doom would illicit more of those negative emotions from him, but Axel was out of it.

No matter. He knew how to get a rise out of him even on the edge of consciousness.

He stood next to Axel who wearily looked up at him. He tried to push himself up, but Vanitas put a foot on his back and pushed him back down with ease.

“You know,” Vanitas began, letting out another dark chuckle, “I was gonna kill her.”

He felt the anxiousness rise up from Axel, body tensing beneath his foot. He smirked beneath his mask.

“Let me finish before you get all worked up. I said I was gonna kill her. But you know, I might let her live. Fighting you made me realize that. I’ll keep her around. Listen to her scream and beg for death that’ll be slowly coming for her. She’ll curse your name and the betrayal that brought about her suffering.”

Axel’s eyes clenched shut, trying to block the images from his mind of you being tortured by Vanitas. He was losing consciousness fast. He needed to get to you. Had to find you.

He felt Vanitas lift his foot off of him, and Axel gathered all the fight he had left in him and shot out a fireball. It caught Vanitas off guard, and he stumbled backwards.

Axel used those few precious seconds to open up a corridor around himself. He passed out before picking a destination though. But he was safe at least, floating in the space between.

Now he was awake, and his body ached all over. But he hardly had time to think about that now. He opened another corridor, going into Twilight Town and beginning his search for you, ignoring the stares of people who asked if he were okay or needed a doctor. He didn’t care right now. He needed to know where you were.

He saw Demyx walking in the distance, heading towards the hotel. Maybe you were there.

“Demyx!” he called, limping over. Demyx looked at him, eyes widening when he saw the beaten, bruised, and bloody state Axel was in.

“What the hell happened to you?! I thought I told you not to do anything stupid!” Demyx threw Axel’s arm around his shoulders to support him, and Axel welcomed the shift in weight. He was exhausted and carrying himself around was more and more of a hassle with each agonizing step.

“I fought Vanitas. He said he might know where ________ is. I need to find her.”

“Never mind that!” Demyx said, as he opened a corridor to let Axel into your hotel room. Your mother wasn’t there, but Demyx would explain everything to her later. He set Axel on the bed. “She’ll be fine. She’s not even in Twilight Town right now.”

“What?!”

“She just left. She’s with someone who will keep her safe. I’m gonna go into town and get some potions for you. You need to rest.”

“Wait!”

But Demyx had already left. Axel had no idea where you were, and that left him no choice but to lay on the bed and wait for Demyx to get back. He pulled out his phone, mildly surprised it had not been damaged in the fight. It was durable at least.

He had too many missed calls to count. Some from Demyx. Some from you. He felt a pang of guilt run through him as he wondered if you were calling for help. You didn’t leave any voicemails, and Demyx said you were safe and with someone safe. Whoever that was.

His exhaustion tried to pull him back under to sleep, but he couldn’t sleep until he knew where you were.

Demyx came back with an armful of potions. He opened one and handed it to Axel who downed it in one swig. He felt better at least and less tired. His bruises faded and his milder cuts sealed themselves seamlessly. The deeper cuts left scars behind in addition to the ones he’d accumulated over the years.

“Now tell me,” Axel began, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “Where is she, and who is she with?”

“She didn’t say exactly,” Demyx said, as he realized you never actually said where you were going, “She just said she was going to meet with someone who would help with her keyblade stuff. I sent Figment with her just in case anything happened.”

“What’s Figment going to do if something happens to her?” Axel asked with a dry look. From what he understood, Figment was limited in ability outside of someone’s mind. Demyx shrugged.

“I don’t know! But it’s better than nothing! At least now we have someone who can give us info if anything does happen to her.”

Axel sighed and leaned back on the bed. He looked at his phone again and read all of his missed text messages. There was a new one from you from 6:08. That was roughly an hour ago.

***: I’m going somewhere for a while to train as a keyblade wielder. I’ll be back before you know it. And we need to have a talk. Be safe, Axel.

He didn’t know what the last part meant. But he felt the impending weight of the words “we need to have a talk.” It could be about anything, but there would no doubt be a moment mixed in where he should talk about who he really is and why he’s so involved with you.

Though he himself wondered why he was so involved with you. You were friends. He had Roxas. Then Roxas started acting on his own agenda, acting out against the Organization. And Axel had warned him not to. Tried to stop him. Couldn’t. And now Roxas was gone.

It had been when he was supposed to kill him and didn’t that he first didn’t act in the best interest of the Organization. Then you came along. You were presented as an opportunity for redemption. If they could trust him to take you out, then he’d be more well trusted again. Not fully. But he wouldn’t be on as low a rung as he was now.

But then you were pathetically pitiable since you hadn’t even seen the moon before. Then you had reminded him of Roxas, and suddenly it was that much harder to kill you. Now he was sticking his neck out there to keep you safe. Worse. He’d attacked someone working with the Organization. He was a traitor now.

But he didn’t regret it. He had lost one friend by choosing to stick by the Organization. Lost someone that made him feel again. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Demyx shuffled from foot to foot awkwardly. He wasn’t sure what to say in this situation. He was still getting used to the idea of emotion. Namine told him her theory, and he wasn’t so sure about it. But he liked the idea that he wasn’t just experiencing memories of emotions and still had them – was still himself before the Organization.

“She’ll be okay,” he offered, and Axel sat up to look at him. Then his eyes drifted to something on the bed next to him. He picked up the letter.

“She’s gone to see someone named Master Yen Sid,” Axel said after reading the letter, “Riku gave her the letter. That’s good. She’ll be fine.”

He seemed to be telling this to himself more than Demyx.

~

You kept staring out of the window. You could have sworn you saw something fly passed it. Though maybe it wasn’t anything in particular. A meteor or something? It wasn’t like that would be the most interesting part of this journey. No that was definitely the part where you had boarded a train to space apparently. You wondered what this meant for Master Yen Sid.

Where did he live exactly? You tried imagining all kinds of strange and fantastical places, but then again you had no idea what he looked like. Pops had said he was a toon, but that could mean he could be any number of people, places, or things. You wondered when you’d be there. You’d already been on the train for about an hour or so.

You started to get a little sleepy, feeling your eyelids droop. Your breathing slowed, and you were just about to rest your eyes for a minute when a tiny whisper floated by your ear. It was so small you almost missed it entirely beneath the sound of your own breathing.

You are nothing. Give up child, or forever join the ranks of the key-bearers that proceeded you.

Your eyes blinked blearily in confusion. There was no one else on the train. You shook your head. It was nothing. You were dreaming probably – unaware that you’d even fallen asleep.

~

Vanitas was unsure of Marluxia’s endgame. If he had to guess it had something to do with a grudge against Axel. He’d heard about the events of Castle Oblivion and knew that Axel played double agent. He knew that while Axel himself hadn’t offed Marluxia, he was definitely going to until Sora showed up.

That would explain why Marluxia told him where to find you. He’d found the mysterious tower with little trouble. If it existed in the lanes between and was accessible by train from Twilight Town, he could deduce that it would be at least near the town. He almost gave up looking until he saw your train go by. So he hopped a ride on top, quietly riding until the two of you reached your destination. He watched you leave the train, and he picked another hiding spot.

You were uneasy. He could feel that. The train vanished behind you. That made you even more uneasy. He reveled in your raw emotion for a bit. You walked up to the tower with slow cautious steps and knocked on the door. You were riddled with apprehension when no one answered.

He felt his tongue run over his lips. He was enjoying those emotions a bit too much. He watched you open the door and poke your head in. He didn’t know what was inside outside of a very powerful wizard. He knew it would be foolhardy to underestimate him. He’d only just recovered from his fight with Axel.

He’d wait until you got back.

You cautiously stepped into the tower and were met with stairs. Lots and lots of stairs.

“Hello?” you called. No answer. Looks like you were going up.

You went up the staircase for what felt like forever. The first room you entered was empty. So you went through the door and discovered more stairs. Hooray. The second room was also empty, and you wanted to kill yourself when you saw another corridor with another set of steps. You were going to die in this tower. This was obviously your first test as a keyblade wielder, and you were going to die and fail and not be a keyblade wielder. How many others had perished on this journey as you were about to?

Against all odds, you made it to the top of the tower. This new room looked like someone actually used it. Well that was a good sign. There was a desk with a skull on it with a candle melting over top of it. What kind of toon did Pops say this was again? There were also numerous bookshelves about with dusty tomes lining the shelves from end to end.

You caught your breath and walked around the room, gazing out of the large windows behind the desk. You looked out to the countryside. Or what of it that existed. You’d expected an entire world and to get off the train there. While the train still brought you where you needed to be, you didn’t expect an island floating in space amongst the shimmering green lights and stars in the sky. You looked at your phone. You’d took a picture as best you could. You wanted to show Axel. You wished he were there to see it with you.

You heard a little bell like chime and whipped your head to see something that made your blood boil.

An elevator.

There was a fucking elevator!

Out stepped quite possibly one of the most intimidating toons you’d ever seen. He was tall and imposing with eyes that seemed to look right through you. He had a long gray beard and wore a blue robe and a hat that matched the one on the wax seal your letter had. It made him seem even taller.

You were caught between bowing with respect and sticking your hand out to shake.

“You must be ________,” he said finally, voice old but still commanding. He moved to sit at the desk, and you circled around to be standing at the front of it.

Seriously. Were you supposed to curtsy or what? He noticed your slightly sweaty and out of breath state.

“Did you take the stairs? You know there is an elevator.”

You bit your tongue and all of the obscenities it longed to fling at him.

“It hadn’t occurred to me,” you answered dryly.

“Can I get you some water?”

Okay so he wasn’t all bad.

“That would be lovely, thank you.”

He snapped his fingers and in walked a broom. No really. It was a broom with arms. It saluted Master Yen Sid and awaited its next orders.

“Fetch, ________, some water please.”

It nodded – kinda – and left. Master Yen Sid turned back to you.

“My envoy Riku has been keeping an eye on you at my request, and he tells me a great deal about your progress as a keyblade wielder. I am to understand that you’ve chosen Axel as a teacher in combat and magic?”

“You know Axel?” No wait. That wasn’t an answer. “I mean, yes. He’s taught me a bit. The rest is on a training ground my uncle built.”

He nodded. Taking in this information.

“That is good. However, I’ll be assigning you a new teacher – one with experience using a keyblade. But tell me what you’ve learned so I understand the lessons you need to learn.”

“I know how to summon my keyblade armor and glider, but I only just recently got used to that one. I’m okay at sword and shield combat, but that’s it so far.”

He nodded as he stroked his beard.

“You’ve progressed farther than most keyblade wielders with your amount of training.”

You beamed with pride.

“But you still have much to learn,” he said, standing up and crossing the room to a map. He gestured for you to come closer. You did. He pointed to a location on the map.

“Your first lesson will take place here. Riku will meet you there to instruct you on the order. You’ve been lucky that every world you’ve visited thus far has some understanding of the existence of other worlds or has been one that you blend into without the help of magic. But this will be one that does not know of other worlds and has only a small collection of beings similar to yourself there.”

“So I’m going there to learn what exactly?”

“You will be learning how to change your appearance through magic so you can blend in as you visit different worlds.”

“I’m going to learn how to shapeshift?! That’s so cool!”

“I understand your excitement but know this: The order is something that cannot be ignored. Your knowledge of other worlds must be kept a secret, and therefore others cannot know where you truly come from. Take this lesson and the responsibility of your new role in the universe seriously.”

You calmed down and nodded.

“Go back to Twilight Town and prepare for your journey, and the next day travel to Riku where you will begin your training.”

“Thank you! Um, how will I get back? I took a train here, but it vanished as soon as I left.”

“You may use your glider and armor to get back. My realm exists in the lanes between. Use your keyblade to enter and exit the lanes between worlds.”

“Okay? And how do I find these other worlds from the lanes between?”

“May your heart be your guiding key,” he said cryptically.

Well what did that mean?!

If you had to guess, it meant the same thing as every other time you’ve had to use your keyblade for non-combat purposes. When you used it to unlock your father’s subconscious or used it to understand your heart better to find Axel and Figment.

“Thank you, Master Yen Sid for your wisdom and guida-AAH!!!”

You weren’t sure what happened. One moment you were thanking the almighty wizard, and next you were soaking wet. You looked behind you to see the broom from earlier standing there with an empty bucket. But why? Oh wait. Get some water. Ha-ha. Very funny. You were so fucking done right now.

“You know that isn’t what I meant,” Yen Sid said to the broom who just shrugged and walked away. You turned back to Yen Sid who was rubbing his temples. “Forgive him. He’s still learning.”

“Thanks. I’m gonna go,” you said as you trudged over to the elevator, not caring that you were dripping water over his nice, clean floors.

When you reached the bottom floor, you thought to call your friends and family to tell them you were on your way back since you neglected to tell them when you had arrived.

You called your mother. She was in a café now enjoying dinner before she’d head home. She was glad you made it there safe, and you told her you’d be back hopefully by the early morning since you’d left sometime around the beginning of the evening. You exchanged quick “I love you-s” and hung up.

You debated on whether or not if you should call Axel. He hadn’t picked up before, but maybe he would this time. But you had said you needed to talk. And you did. But you weren’t sure you were ready to hear the full story.

You bit your lip, debated it for another second then decided to do it anyway.

It rang twice before he picked up. You were almost surprised to see his face on your screen. It felt like it had been ages since you’d seen him – even though it had only been about two weeks.

“Axel,” you breathed, a small smile gracing your face. You couldn’t even remember what made you nervous about talking to him. You were just overwhelmed with how happy you were to see him safe and sound and wait –, “Are you in my room?!”

Axel laughed, making a show of reclining on your pillows. The nerve of this guy!

“You can’t just be in my room! That’s so inappropriate! And creepy! And are you wearing your coat in my bed?! You wear that thing literally everywhere! Take it off!” you were flustered though you weren’t exactly sure why that was.

“If you insist,” He said, unzipping the robe to reveal more skin. You stopped him before he got too low on his chest.

“No! Stop! Keep it on!” you said, trying so desperately not to take it all back so you could see what he looked like shirtless. You couldn’t look at the screen until you were sure it was zipped up all the way. He was giving you an amused look. He liked agitating you like this. He had since the first time he’d done it in Disney Town.

“Relax. It’s not like we’re in bed together,” he said with a smirk. He knew that would get another rise out of you, but you would not be had this time! No it was his turn to act like an idiot when someone flirted with him!

“I mean,” you said lowly with a smirk of your own, “I can change that.”

He gave you a look you’d never seen on him before. His eyes were half lidded and darker. The smirk on his face seemed much more devious now.

“I’ll be waiting,” he purred. Oh. Oh no. That wasn’t fair. He’s not allowed to do that!

You bit your lip to keep that stupid fucking smile off of your face.

“That’s not fair,” you said with a lilt of a giggle in your voice.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” he said, all hints of flirtatious deviousness gone from his voice. Oh no you don’t!

“You know exactly what I’m talking about!” you snapped back playfully. “You’re… you know!”

“What?” he asked, daring you to say it. And normally you wouldn’t. He knew you wouldn’t.

“You’re sexy,” you said bluntly, with a straight face. It obviously took him off guard because now he was a blushing mess on your phone, and it was so cute it made you want to die. You laughed at his expression.

He tried to keep his blush from getting any deeper when he heard you laugh. He missed it. He missed you. He didn’t even realize how much until he got to actually see you again.

“When will you be back?” he asked, trying to change the subject.

“Why? You miss me?” you teased.

“Yes,” he said back with a straight face. Your heart fluttered. You gave him a soft smile.

“Hopefully by tomorrow morning. Hey! If you’re back, that means we can hang out, right?” You were eager and excited again. He chuckled at your reaction, his eyes softening just a bit as he looked at you.

“Yeah. I’ll see you when you get here.”

“Yay! Bye!” you said, eyes bright and over excited.

“See you, ________.”

You hung up. You rushed out of the tower, now too hyped up at the prospect of seeing your friend again after all this time.

Vanitas watched you don your armor and hop on your glider. Huh… You were further along in your training than Saix thought. He doubted any of the Organization knew you were already capable of such things when Sora and Riku had yet to manage them.

You flew up into the sky and waited.

You bowed your head and closed your eyes and concentrated. You tried to feel where your heart would pull you. You thought it might be simple to single out the hearts of your friends and family, but you felt too many pulls in too many different directions. You couldn’t feel exactly where any of them led, so you picked one at random. And if you were wrong, you’d just have to try again.

You focused on the singular connection, opening a gate that looked like a hole in the fabric of existence. It was strange and surreal, but you knew it had been you who had made it. That gave you some comfort.

You flew through. It looked the same as before on the other side, but the pull you felt on your heart was stronger now. You were closer. You followed it, hearing the gate you’d opened up close behind you, unaware of the presence that slipped through at the last moment.

You flew towards the pull at a fast pace. You hoped this was the right one. You saw a planet in the distance, yet you weren’t sure. You hovered just outside of its atmosphere, trying to feel if the pull on your heart were the right one. It didn’t feel all too familiar. It probably wasn’t right. You took out your phone, ready to text everyone and say you were still figuring out this whole heart map mumbo jumbo that was supposed to miraculously lead you wherever you needed to be.

But maybe you should try again? You’d only done this once, and no one is an expert after their first try. Maybe just one more try, then you’ll text everyone about how hopelessly lost you were.

You felt for more connections, pushing through them to connect more strongly to something.

That was when you felt it.

A presence. It wasn’t a good one. It made your blood freeze and your heart hammer against your chest. You froze, hearing nothing but your own breathing within your helmet.

Then you were flung sideways, violently knocked from your glider and tumbling through space. You re-summoned your glider, righting yourself and seeing a man in a purple-black body suit with red highlights lined throughout. His face was completely obscured by his helmet.

He stood on his own glider; arms folded across his chest.

This was him. This was the presence you felt. He was trouble. You began to turn and run but almost as soon as you had started to glide away, he was in front of you, slamming his foot into your chest and knocking you backwards.

You coughed, struggling to breathe passed the pain. You righted yourself again as best you could. You didn’t think anything was broken, but you were certainly bruised to hell.

He was on you again before you could blink, kicking you in the head. Your vision was swimming, and you felt yourself slipping in and out of consciousness. Who was this guy? And what had you done to piss him off?

Passed your still doubling vision, you watched as he slowly approached you on his glider. But that wasn’t what caught your attention. It was… Figment? He’d turned himself into a mallet and was already mid-swing just before the masked stranger could harm you again.

Where had he come from? Had he been with you the whole time?

The stranger was barely affected by the hit, stumbling forward a bit on his own glider before reaching behind him to grab Figment.

You gasped, ignoring the pain in your chest as you did so to reach out to catch Figment as best you could in your delirious state as the masked stranger threw him. You curled around Figment to protect him from any harm as you felt the stranger grab you and punch you in your already dizzy head. You were fading faster now.

The stranger shook your shoulders lightly and your head bobbed back and forth. You held Figment tightly though. His grip on your shoulders tightened. You could feel a heated glare behind the mask as if he were displeased with you for some reason or another.

And he was displeased. You were a disappointment. Vanitas had assumed your ability to summon armor and a glider might mean you were more advanced than those other keyblade wielders that had the Organization running around like a chicken with its head cut off. But no. You were just some bitch who got lucky. Torturing you wouldn’t even be satisfying.

He grabbed you by your neck, just as you were feeling the rest of your consciousness slip from you and flung you towards the nearby planet. At least his job was done. You’d burn up in the atmosphere. And if that didn’t kill you, the crash landing most certainly would.

He noticed something floating just off to the side in his peripheral vision. It was your phone. He pocketed it. A trophy. Something to give to Axel to remember you by.

~

Figment desperately tried to wake you up as he clung to your falling form. You’d miraculously survived the part of the atmosphere you were supposed to catch fire in – he’d done his best to put you out, and your armor didn’t appear to be damaged at all. There was hope.

But you were halfway to the ground, and he doubted even the world’s best armor could protect you for a fall from such a height. He slapped you back and forth across the face repeatedly. He was running out of options and time.

Your eyes blinked blearily open. You saw Figment in your haze. Your head lolled to the side, and you saw a tree. It was enormous – the size of a mountain with intricate carvings of animals on every inch of its trunk.

Beautiful.

You fell out of consciousness again but very briefly this time. The next time you resurfaced, you were well aware of what was happening. You summoned your glider as quickly as you could, pulling up at the last second just as you were about to hit the ground at full force.

You didn’t have time to right yourself on the glider once you’d summoned it. You only barely managed to hang on to it with one hand as you used it to save your skin.

Your fingers slipped off shortly after and you landed in a rough tumble across the ground being battered against hard rock and soil, hearing a snap and feeling a sharp pain in your leg that had your vision blurring as your eyes welled up with tears.

You cried out when you felt the break, gasping in pain with every other hit you took as you rolled across the ground. You finally slammed into a tree, back first and stopped. You vision was blurring again but this time it was because you were losing consciousness. You looked around you as the darkness creeped in at the edges of your vision. Around you were a layer of thick vegetation that formed a canopy of green over your head.

You turned your head to the side to see where you had tumbled in from. You had mowed down quite a bit of bushes and sapling trees in your crash. You could see in the distance the mountainous tree from before. Figment quickly popped into view, removing your helmet and looking in your eyes with his own bright yellow ones. His brow was creased in concern as you faded into unconsciousness once more.

Notes:

I hope all was enjoyable for you! Next time: You learn a hard lesson of self-sufficiency.

Chapter 21: Survival Instinct

Summary:

You learn to care for yourself. Axel searches tirelessly for you. You have a meaningful dream. Marluxia is in trouble.

Notes:

Little late in the day but an update was promised and an update you shall receive!

Axel had a strange sense of foreboding when he went to the hotel to check on you. You should have been back by now, and maybe he was conceited to think it, but he’d hoped you’d have been practically dying to come see him. Hmm. Yeah, now that he thought about it, it was extremely conceited. Especially since it was him who was almost dying to see you – make sure you were okay, didn’t have any trouble getting back, didn’t see anyone suspicious. He was just as eager to hang out as he was to make sure he was safe though. It was already midafternoon by the time he decided to visit you himself. Because maybe you were with your mother and catching up with her to have a little family time. There was no cause for worry. But he did anyway.

He knocked on the door to your hotel room, and your mother swung open the door and visibly deflated when she saw him. It was all he needed to see.

“She’s not back is she?” he asked. Your mother, face wrinkled with worry, shook her head.

“I had hoped that she’d just forgotten to text or call me when she got back. I had hoped she was with you or Demyx.”

Axel checked his own phone. No new calls or messages. No voicemails. Nothing.

He was far more worried now. He didn’t wait. He immediately opened a corridor to Disney Town.

“I’ll find her,” he said over his shoulder to your mother as he stepped through the corridor. He entered Ludwig’s lab. Ludwig was hunched over several papers and books on the hearts of worlds. Dreamfinder was fiddling with a machine that displayed static on the screen – sorting out memories perhaps.

“Have either of you seen ________?” Axel started, not bothering with formalities. They both looked up startled, too absorbed in their work to have noticed him.

“It’s not her training day,” Ludwig responded, casting a confused glance at a nearby calendar.

“This wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with Figment would it?” Dreamfinder asked as he eyed Axel warily.

“No, but I know he’s with her. Demyx told me he sent Figment along with her to keep an eye on her in case anything went wrong. She was supposed to be back earlier today, but I haven’t seen or heard from her. Neither has her mother.”

“Do you think they could be in trouble?” Ludwig asked, leaving his desk and stepping closer.

“I don’t know,” Axel answered honestly. You very well could be in trouble, but what kind was what worried him the most. If you were lost at least it meant there was a chance to find you again. If Vanitas or one of the other Organization members had gotten to you, it was almost certain that you were dead. And he didn’t like to think about that. It made him feel sick and angry and hurt.

So he held on to hope. Hope that somewhere you were alive and well.

~

You were alive but not well.

You blinked your eyes open when you felt drops of moisture hit your head. Then many more came after that. It was raining, you realized.

You wished you were under better circumstances to appreciate seeing it for the first time, but you could only look around in panic at the foreign environment. You scrambled to get up when a searing pain shot up your leg.

You screamed, sobbing a little after as tears welled up in your eyes. Figment was up and over to you in a second. He hadn’t left your side since you’d crashed. He wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t know where he was, and he didn’t have the ability to open gateways to other worlds to get back to your own and get help. And you couldn’t do it. Your leg was obviously broken. He looked at it again. Your armor had disappeared shortly after you lost consciousness again, so he could see it. Your tibia was snapped. It wasn’t bent in too odd an angle so he could assume at worst it may have been a fracture rather than a clean break. But the point was that you weren’t going anywhere any time soon in this condition.

“This isn’t happening,” you whimpered, tears falling from your face in grief this time rather than pain. You hugged yourself tightly. “I can get out of this in no time. I’ll just call him, and he’ll come get me. Him and everyone else.”

It sounded forced and desperate as you were saying it. You felt around for your phone. Nothing. You must have dropped it. Somewhere.

You looked around. You were in a jungle. There was no way you were going to find that phone. There was no way they were going to find you. Your leg was broken. It would take at least six weeks for it to heal. You couldn’t survive out here for that long.

“I can build a signal fire. They can follow it here.”

But you weren’t even in the right world for that. They were in an alternate one that you couldn’t even reach right now.

Another choked sob forced itself from your throat. Figment just watched as you forced your way through your situation, trying to find a solution. He’d thought about all of them, and none of them were viable options. Well, except survival. It was your only option.

You seemed to realize this after a few minutes, and so you began to cry. You cried and cried until you couldn’t cry anymore.

Then you sat there and sniffled for a while. The rain had soaked through your clothes and you shivered. The air was warm and humid, but the rain caused the wind to chill you to the bone. Something about the bracing cold made you snap out of it a little. Figment watched some clarity appear in your eyes as you thought about your current situation. Several expressions flickered over your face before it settled on pain.

You took a deep shuddering breath.

“Figment, I need you to find two sturdy, straight sticks. About this big,” you said, holding up your hands to about the length of your lower leg. He nodded.

He flew off to gather them and was back in about half an hour. You took them then ripped the bottom half of your shirt off. Then you split that in half to make two strips of fabric. You were a little upset that you had to rip the shirt. It was the little dragon one you’d bought in Twilight Town the first day you were there. You laughed a little at yourself. What a trivial thing to be upset about considering your current situation.

“This is gonna suck,” you said lightly whispering to yourself. Now that was funny. This was way worse than just “it’s gonna suck.” Being late to a date sucked. Breaking your favorite pair of high heels sucked. This was way worse.

You picked up a nearby piece of wood and wiped it off on your already dirty, ruined shirt. It would have to do for now. Figment had an idea of where this was going. He wasn’t looking forward to it either.

“I need you to set my leg,” you said looking at Figment. You felt your stomach cramp at the thought of how bad this was going to be. It was risky you knew. You had no x-ray to know if it would be set properly, and it was extremely dangerous as you might hit an artery. But you couldn’t function with it like this, and there were no doctors nearby to help you. You were stranded, and no one you knew was going to come help you. At least not for a few days, but you’d be possible dead by then. It was time to act like no one was ever going to come. You were on your own.

Figment moved over to your leg and looked at you, waiting for you to signal that it was okay to start. He looked nervous. He knew this was dangerous. He knew the two of you had no choice.

You placed the wood between your teeth, clenched your fists, and closed your eyes. Taking a deep breath, you nodded at Figment. He hesitated the began to right your leg as best you could.

You screamed and cried around the obstruction in your mouth, and you thought you might pass out again from the pain. It was excruciating, and you thought you might not be right again, but then Figment approached you to tell you it was done.

You lay there for a while to get passed the pain before you set to work with Figment’s help to structure a splint for your leg. It was crude, and it was no cast, but it would at least make sure your leg wouldn’t heal completely wrong.

It was still raining.

You needed shelter. And water.

“Figment, could you find a place with water? I need to get there.” He nodded and flew off. You lay there and once he was gone, began to cry again. You wanted to go home. You missed Pops and Dreamfinder and your mother. You missed Namine and Demyx. You missed Axel. You wanted to lay in your bed and sleep and forget about everything for a few hours.

This was hopeless. How were you going to manage this? You were stranded with a broken leg. You could look at the bright side. The person who had caused this had obviously meant to kill you. And against all odds you had lived.

Hmm. No, the thought that there was a homicidal maniac somewhere trying to kill you didn’t make you feel any better.

Figment didn’t come back for an hour, and you were at least hopeful to know that he had indeed found a body of water to move towards. He pointed in the direction and you nodded.

You took a few deep breaths, bracing yourself before rolling to on to your hip, injured leg up. It still hurt like hell, but you imagined it would be far worse without the splint to keep it from jostling as much. You brought you good leg under you and pushed up as best you could. You managed to get into a standing position, balancing on one leg. You summoned your keyblade and used it as a makeshift crutch. It wasn’t as long as a crutch, so it was really more like a cane. But it was the best you could do.

You hobbled down hill for about an hour when you came to a clearing. You could see the tree better now despite how far in the distance it was. It was the largest tree you’d ever seen. You studied the trunk for a moment. It had weird patterns all over it, and you wondered what force of nature had caused it. But you didn’t have too much time to focus on it.

You looked at the sky. The rain had let up a little, but it was still coming down in steady, fat drops. The sky was gray and coated in a blanket of clouds, but it was bright out. You couldn’t tell what part of the day it was, but you could guess you had a few hours of sunlight left.

You continued to hobble down the hillside after Figment, taking frequent breaks to rest your leg and occasionally cry. Figment was patient with you. He understood you were probably a little depressed. The fact that you were managing to do anything at all in your mental state was amazing – even if it was just walking.

It took another hour or so before you reached the water. The rain had stopped a bit ago, and you were grateful. The water Figment led you to was a wide stream that began at a small waterfall and flowed through the rest of the jungle.

You hobbled to the waters edge. You were still wary of water. You didn’t like this. But you had no choice either. You struggled to get on the ground, even with Figments help, until you were laying on your stomach, propped up by your elbows just at the water’s edge.

You splashed your face with the water, to clear the dirt and sweat from your face. It was cool against your skin, colder than the rain had been. You ran your tongue over your lip. It wasn’t salty either. That was good. You could drink this then.

Ugh. But it wasn’t clean. And it was probably full of dirt and clay. You looked at the edge of the stream. You were lying on bright red clay and dirt. It clung to your skin and clothes and contrasted sharply against it. Yeah you couldn’t drink this without at least boiling it or something.

You could probably use your magic to start a fire. You weren’t that good at it yet. You hardly made flames bigger than a candle’s light. But you didn’t have a choice. You also had nothing to boil it in.

“We have to boil it,” you said to Figment, “We don’t have anything to boil it in.”

Figment paced around for a bit, getting red clay on his feet and leaving little dragon prints behind in the clay. A little water from the stream gurgled up and lapped over where he was pacing, filling the little hole.

You gasped before frantically digging at the clay near the water. Figment watched you closely. You were probably going mad. Funny. That usually took a few days.

You finally stopped when you had a sizeable ball of clay and sand in your lap. Your hands were stained with bright red. You pounded all the lumps together then began to make a large bowl shape. Figment caught on quick and began to do the same.

“The sun’s not out,” you said, suddenly dejected. “These won’t dry right. We can’t get water today, and we can only hope that the sky clears up soon so we can use the sun to dry them out.

Figment dug a pit in the ground and flew off to get something. What? You didn’t know.

When he came back, his little arms were full of sticks and leaves. He threw the leaves into the pit then lay the sticks over the pit in a crisscross pattern. He got ready to breathe fire into it when you stopped him.

“Wait!” you called. He stopped and looked at you with a quizzical gaze.

“Let me do it,” you said, practically crawling over to where he knelt near the fire pit. “I need to do this.”

You needed to take care of yourself too.

You moved the sticks resting on top around a bit so you could get to the leaves below. You held one in your hand and concentrated. You tried channeling your magic as best you could.

Come on, ________. Think of happy things. Think of happy things. Warm nights and cozy places and sweet smells.

It wasn’t working. You weren’t happy. You were upset. You were lost and cold and hungry. The only people who could rescue you were literally worlds away, and your leg was broken. If anything you were angry. You hated yourself right now. You hated this planet. You hated your magic which never wanted to work when you needed it. You hated that prick who knocked you here in the first place.

The leaf began to burn where your hand gripped it. You wanted it all to burn. Everything. It ignited in a blue flame and you flung it heatedly back into the pit where it slowly began to spread to the other things Figment had gathered in the pit. Soon you had a small blue fire. Figment put your bowls over the fire. They wouldn’t be ready for a good few hours.

You huffed from where you sat on the ground, throwing a miniature tantrum in your head and wishing you had more things to burn.

You cooled off after about half an hour, staring up into the bright, gray sky in almost a trance as you watched the vague shapes of clouds overlapping each other float by slowly. Eventually Figment approached you again. He tugged on your sleeve to get you to move.

“What you want?” you grumbled out. He made a house gesture with his hands.

Oh. Right. Shelter.

“I don’t know how to make one of those,” you said, fully prepared to just deal with the elements as they came. You prayed storms were not a thing you’d have to experience. Figment rolled his eyes and gave you a dry look. You knew damn well you couldn’t just brave the elements. You weren’t a survivalist. You were an unlucky 19-year-old girl.

“Well I don’t,” you stressed. Even if you wanted to, lack of knowledge about such things proved to be a barrier you could not surpass – not that you were trying too hard. You were sad and angry again. And unproductive.

Figment gestured to himself.

“You know how to make a shelter?” He nodded. You didn’t need to be told that he was going to make a shelter, he would need your help. You struggled up with Figment’s help, letting out steady streams of swears when you accidentally jostled your leg. Figment led you back into the jungle, instructing you to cut down a few sturdy branches with your keyblade. You could only carry one at a time, but apparently that was all you needed.

You dropped it back off at the camp, and Figment led you back into the jungle to get several much smaller and more bendy branches. You needed a lot of these, and it took several trips to get a decent bundle together.

Figment did most of the work for the next part, pulling down broad leaves that were at least a foot wide from tall trees and several leaves that were only an inch wide but several feet long from shorter trees. It took several trips to bring back all of those too. You could only carry enough to fill one arm, and apparently Figment needed every damn leaf in the forest.

You dug up roots next. Flexible yet strong. You used them to tie things together. He guided you the basic process of constructing a lean to. Motioning for you to weave the sticks through each other. That one is too high. That one is too low. Good. Weave the leaves through. You left a hole in it. If it rains, you’ll get wet.

It was near maddening work with only silent instruction to go by, but it got done. It was a modest structure, but you felt a small sense of accomplishment come with having made it.

The bowls were almost done. Figment had been turning them this way and that as the hours between your trips deep into the jungle and back and building your new lean-to structure ticked by. They were almost as hard as stone. You’d have fresh, clean water soon enough.

You sat beneath the roof of your new shelter. It looked out towards the stream and waterfall. Now that you had calmed some and could relax for a bit, you could appreciate its beauty. The nature here was more untamed than the forest in Twilight Town, but it was no less beautiful.

Eventually your appreciation gave way to sadness again. You curled in on yourself as best you could with your broken leg and began to cry again. You missed everyone so desperately, and you had no idea if they’d ever come for you, if you’d survive long enough for them to get to you once they realized you were missing.

The sky was getting darker. It had to have been at least sometime in the afternoon by now.

Figment approached you again once he had set the pots down to cool.

“What now?” you whined out. Then your stomach grumbled. Figment motioned that that was “what now.” You needed food this was a fact. You began to stand up, but Figment motioned for you to stay put for now. Then he flew off at breakneck speed to who knows where.

You had actually begun to doze off when Figment came back. You were getting cranky with the inconsistent time to rest. He’d given you breaks sure, but it never felt like enough. And your leg was constantly throbbing in a dull pain. And when you moved, it escalated to sharp stinging pains.

You couldn’t imagine how bad it might be without the splint.

Figment helped you into a standing position, and you wobbled unsteadily as you tried to balance on your keyblade. You were normally better at balance than this. Maybe you were still shaken up.

You hobbled after Figment regardless.

He led you to a guava tree. You’d never eaten them before, just saw them in stores back home in the tropical fruit section. It was fortunate to find one here. Your stomach let out another growl, and you moved to the tree. You couldn’t use one of your legs, but surely your arms would be enough to get up the tree.

Figment stopped you with a stern look. You leaned heavily on the tree. It was a welcome support as opposed to your keyblade which caused you to lean quite a bit just to be able to hobble around with it.

There were quite a few of them there – most dark green and some a bright yellow green. You could assume if you found them in stores yellow-green, then they were the ones that were okay to eat.

“Only get the bright ones,” you told Figment. He nodded and flew and proceeded to knock them down. You picked them up as best you could, shoving one into each of your pockets and using what was left of your shirt to hold more. You could hold more like that than you could in one arm since the other would be needed to lean on your cane-blade.

Ugh. You felt so damn useless.

Once you were back at camp, Figment filled one of the bowls with water and added more kindling to the fire before setting some water to boil. You dumped the fruit into the other bowl and moved it near the lean to.

Figment began to clear the ground of excess leaves until there was a clear patch of dirt beneath the covering of your lean to. Then he laid the small twigs you’d gathered there and covered it with small blankets of moss. You imagined it was because it was a softer covering. But Figment did it so you wouldn’t lose all of your body heat in the leaves and dirt overnight. After all, you had no idea how cold it might be at night.

The sun was definitely beginning to dip below the horizon as the fire began to be the brightest thing you could see. You were happy to have everything done by night fall. You would survive. You would. You kept repeating this to yourself, and it didn’t feel wholly untrue with everything that had passed up until now.

You had clean water and food by the time the sun had gone away. And you were able to push back your sadness enough to enjoy the view of the stars. It reminded you of being on the Destiny Islands with Axel. You missed him and wondered if he was thinking of you too.

~

Axel couldn’t stop thinking about you. He would not lose you. Not like Roxas where he had practically let him walk out of his life.

While your whole day had gone by, not much time had passed for Axel or anyone else for that matter due to the world time differences. In fact, by the end of their first day of searching, a little over a week had gone by for you. They combed Twilight Town and Disney Town repeatedly to search for you in case you showed up there. They called you endlessly, but you never answered. Your phone would often go straight to voicemail.

“Axel, you should rest,” you mother said, when he came back to see if you were there for the umpteenth time that day. They didn’t know where to look. Axel had never been to Yen Sid’s realm before and had no means of getting there to see if you’d left and gone back without telling anyone. Though he knew deep down the Organization was somewhere behind all of this. He could only hope that they had recruited you as a nobody in the best-case scenario.

He didn’t want to think about the worst.

Axel looked at your mother when she said this, seeing the concern for him in her eyes. He let out a dreary sigh and sat down on your bed. He hadn’t slept yet. Not when he thought he might see you. He thought about coming the woods again. Maybe you were out there for who knows what reasons.

He knew you weren’t out there. He wished you were. At least then he could see you again.

“I can’t sleep,” he finally admitted. He was restless almost all the time. It wasn’t like he didn’t feel his body’s constant exhaustion. He felt that to the point of pain. He was pushing his limits and he knew it. But when his body wasn’t restless, his mind was. He was haunted by what Vanitas said.

“I’ll keep her around. Listen to her scream and beg for death that’ll be slowly coming for her. She’ll curse your name and the betrayal that brought about her suffering.”

“You should at least try,” you mother encouraged gently. “I know you care a great deal for ________. She means a lot to you, and I can’t thank you enough for trying to help find her. But you can’t look if you haven’t slept. You won’t be able to see properly or function. Your body needs rest.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said, not meeting her eyes. He checked his phone. No missed calls or messages.

Your mother let out a weary sigh. She’d been a mental wreck. She told her boss that her daughter was missing, and, of course, the boss told her to look for her and gave her time off. She almost wished she were still working, needing the distraction. It was hell being unable to traverse universes and search alongside Axel and Demyx, but she knew they left no stone unturned.

Demyx was worried as well. He worried for Axel too. Axel was coming undone, and he worried what would happen if the search extended too long. Someone would have to tell him at some point that they might be looking for a body.

He shuddered to think of it, so he kept trading off with Axel to search Disney Town and Twilight Town. Well trading off was a stretch since whenever Demyx needed a break, Axel was flying between both realms searching. He was going to wear himself out sooner than later.

~

By the middle of the second week, you’d finished bargaining with yourself that anyone would find you. And you were thrown into your thoughts of your mysterious attacker. Why had this happened to you? Why did they attack you of all people?

You vaguely recalled Demyx mentioning to you about how the Organization wanted you out of the picture. Had they sent him?

He wasn’t wearing the coat though. Could he just have been some random and violent stranger? You doubted it.

He had glider too. Was he a keyblade wielder? Or did he just have a glider? You hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary about him outside of his strange fashion choices.

You groaned out in frustration. Figment glanced at you from where he sat. You had been doing that a lot lately. You were angry.

He glanced at the fire before removing the sticks from over its top so they wouldn’t burn up. The fire flared up as you let out another huff. You still couldn’t get fire to appear every single time you wanted it to, but you were getting very good at it very fast – able to produce fires much bigger than before. But you still seemed linked to any fire you created, regardless of if you were trying to summon it or not.

You didn’t necessarily need anger to do it anymore or happy thoughts. You’d gotten much more familiar with your magic and yourself. It was a part of you now, and you realized that your emotions were still tied to it. If you got to emotional, sometimes you’d flare up. It didn’t mean you weren’t allowed to express yourself, but you had to keep an eye on your magic. It flowed through you like blood and boiled just as easily when emotional.

You were still caught in your thoughts. You knew being a keyblade wielder was dangerous. You knew it from the very beginning when you were a no name vigilante on Spaceship Earth. But you’d always been attacked by creatures and monsters and heartless. This was a person. Someone who had an advanced cognitive ability to think about their actions outside of the base need to kill on instinct.

It frightened you. That there was someone who didn’t have a drive to kill you because of instinct but because they wanted to kill you. You knew the Organization had had similar intentions, but you hadn’t seen any attempts to do so.

But Demyx also said that Axel had been looking out for you from the beginning. How many attempts had they actually made without your knowledge that Axel had stopped? How many people actually wanted you dead?

It was overwhelming and scary. And oddly enough it didn’t make you want to curl up and cry. No, you were done crying on this miserable planet that you’d been stranded on in the hopes that you’d be dead. No, you were angry and fully prepared to survive out of spite alone. You wanted to find them. To end them. Them, and their plans to steal the hearts of people. To make sure they never hurt you or anyone else again.

You remembered how you felt the first day you were here and trying to start a fire. You felt similar now. You wanted everything to burn. Your body felt hot but not unpleasantly so.

Figment was looking at you in concern now. Your body had small blue flames flickering across it. He really hoped you wouldn’t burn down the lean-to.

~

You couldn’t live off of fruit alone. You needed protein, and the guavas and pineapples you found were far from it. There were fish living in the stream, but you often had more trouble than anything catching them.

You’d finally gotten used to water again. You’d had to but going under water was still strictly a no-no. Needless to say, you hadn’t learned to swim in your time here. You’d crawl into the water on all fours, minding your leg and would try to snatch the fish up, but it proved to be too difficult.

You were trying again because you didn’t know what else to do. You couldn’t find any beans or other plants good for protein. You resulted to trying to use your keyblade.

You held it like a spear above your head. You had next to no luck in getting it to actually spear a fish. If it did manage to hit anything, it split it in half and the pieces would be carried away by the current, even with your mad scramble to try and grab it. You hated your limited range of movement.

It was one day when you were bathing beneath the waterfall you saw a particularly large fish nearby. It wasn’t humongous, but it was sizable. Maybe your keyblade would be able to not slice it in half. Maybe you could catch this one.

You lifted your blade above your head, balancing as best you could on your one leg. You were getting good at it in moving water after two and a half weeks. You concentrated. You needed this to work. Then something changed.

You glanced to the side and saw your keyblade had changed its form. It kept the aesthetic of how it had looked before with the dragon and flame, but now that was merely a design on the staff of what looked like double-sided spear. The two spear heads were the sun and moon that had been at the hilt of your keyblade. You were surprised, but two and a half weeks in the wilderness had taught you not to waste the opportunity. And newfound abilities rarely stuck around long from what you’d learned with your armor, shield, and glider when you’d first gotten them.

You quickly took aim and threw your spear with all of your strength. It stuck in the sediment below, clouding the water so you couldn’t see the results of your throw. Then a little pool of red began to form.

You scooped the spear up so see a dead fish hanging from the other end. The spear quickly remade itself into a keyblade, and you quickly scrambled to catch the fish which had fallen now that there was nothing to support it. You barely managed to catch it and keep yourself from falling into the water.

There was blood smeared across your chest and arms and was dripping steadily down the rest of your body, but you hardly cared now. You were ecstatic to show Figment what you’d gotten.

He was as happy as you had been. He fashioned some tools out of clay and you gutted the fish and deboned it as best you could. You almost cooked it in your bare hands due to your eagerness to eat it. You’d almost done just that when you were bringing it back in your excitement. You’d gotten much better at building fires and creating them yourself considering how often you had to make them.

The fish tasted awful. It wasn’t seasoned, and it was bland and almost tasteless excluding the fish’s own natural flavor. But you couldn’t overlook that it was the first hot meal you’d had in a long time. You couldn’t wait to go home and have hot meals again. You truly did not realize how you took things for granted until you were stranded with only fruits readily available to you. And even those you had to forage for.

You couldn’t wait to do a lot of things. Like see your friends and family. You’d given up hope that they were going to come for you. They had no way to find you. No way to know where you were. And you had to accept the fact that they probably assumed you were dead. Or at least that they’d never be able to find you again.

It made you upset to think that – especially for your mom who only had you. And here you were. For all you knew, planets or galaxies or worlds away.

But you felt for them every day, using your heart to find them. It had taken a very long time – days actually – but then you happened to find one. Axel. It was bright and familiar to you and you reached out to it but felt nothing in return.

Maybe you were too far away.

Slowly but surely, you eventually found all of them. And they were a comfort to you on the long nights that got lonely and when you afraid and having nightmares and when you missed them more than life itself.

~

Axel collapsed from exhaustion at the end of the third day of looking for you. They placed him in your room to sleep while your mother kept a wary eye on him whenever she wasn’t out looking for you herself.

~

You stood at the edge of the water. The sun shone gently on your face, lightly warming your skin. You gazed at the tree in the distance. A gentle breeze blew by, and you heard the soft footsteps of someone behind you. You turned to look and saw Axel.

He looked surprised to see you there. And happy. And relieved. He hugged you tightly, and you hugged back equally tight. You missed him so much. You often had dreams like this, some idealistic but ultimately empty hope that Axel would come for you – be there for you like he always had been before he had to leave. Those dreams hurt you the most. And they didn’t stop hurting even when a month on this planet had passed.

He pulled away, keeping his hands on your shoulders as he studied your face, committing every detail to memory.

You stared at his eyes, the pretty green something you missed seeing so dearly. You were much better than you had been when you had arrived. You would be leaving soon.

“I miss you,” you said finally.

“I’ll find you,” he said with a note of finality in his voice. He looked around you, spotting the tree in the distance and looking at your surroundings. It was an odd place for him to dream. He’d seen plenty of jungles in his travels but none with a tree like that in the distance.

“I’ll find you,” you promised. You knew this was just a dream, and Axel couldn’t know what you were saying or promising. But you felt better saying it.

~

Axel awoke with a start. His vision was blurred. When he blinked, he realized his eyes were clouded with unshed tears. He continued to blink them away.

“Are you alright?” Axel looked at your mother. She was giving him a concerned look.

“Bad dream,” he mumbled, sitting up on your bed.

“Tell me about it,” she said, sitting on her own bed, “I could use the distraction.”

So he did. He told her about his short dream of being in the jungle. Of feeling like he was being called to the beach. Of seeing you and telling you that he’d find you. Of the large tree in the distance that seemed to be the size of a mountain with strange shapes he couldn’t quite make out decorating the tree from top to bottom.

Your mother’s eyes widened at that.

“We need to go see Ludwig,” she announced suddenly, standing up abruptly, “I don’t know where ________ is, but I have an idea.”

~

The hand tightened around his neck. He hoped it wouldn’t bruise. Though he supposed that should be the least of his worries. Xemnas didn’t play around, so this was either a very strong threat or he was going to die.

“Have I done something to upset you?” Marluxia asked with strained breath. Xemnas’s grip tightened even more.

“What you have yet to do is my main concern. Tell me. How hard is it for a high-ranking member of the Organization to catch vermin?”

Was that a rhetorical question? His eyes drifted to Saix who stood just behind Xemnas. His glare was no warmer than Xemnas’s.

“This was your task. Your only task, and I’m not going to be lenient with deadlines any longer. Axel’s betrayal has shown what comes of letting you have too much free reign. You will catch the duck. You will bring him here. And if you do not –”

“You’ll turn me into a dusk?” Marluxia finished for him.

“No. I will do to you what I did to Saix. I will show you what true loyalty looks like.”

Marluxia’s eyes drifted towards Saix again, eyeing the large scar in the center of his otherwise beautiful face.

“I… understand,” Marluxia croaked out. Xemnas eyed him for a moment longer before dropping him. Marluxia collapsed, hand moving to the tender flesh of his neck. He glared balefully at the retreating figures of his superiors. Damn them both.

“Are you alright?”

It was Larxene. She looked down at him with an almost neutral expression on her face, though worry darted through her eyes.

“No,” he answered darkly, “But I will be.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going make their precious Organization turn on them. Then I’m going to destroy Kingdom Hearts. I’ll show him how to destroy vermin.”

Larxene let a slow, devious smile spread across her face.

“Okay. So how do we take down the Organization?”

Notes:

I hope all was to your liking! Don't forget to leave a comment and tell me how I did. I live to please!

Also I cannot stress enough that if you break one of your limbs NOT to try and set it yourself. You might accidentally tear a vessel and that can worsen the problem! You should seek care from a physician. Splinting the area of broken bone is okay though.

Next time: The search for you continues! And you search for a new source of food when your own begins to deplete and in doing so make an even bigger discovery about this mysterious planet.

Obscure-ish References:

The Tree of Life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_Life_(Disney)

Chapter 22: Animal Kingdom

Summary:

A search party forms! Animal Kingdom is to Beastly Kingdom as Kelewenya is to Chinyama.

You saw something. You awoke from your dream of Axel in the middle of the night when a light storm was blowing over. You huddled back as far into your little shelter as you could to keep dry, and for the most part it was working. It wasn’t a chilly night, which you were thankful for, but the rain would certainly make you feel cold. Occasionally a streak of lightning would rip across the sky.

But that was when you could see it best.

Light would flash in the sky and you would see the giant figure of something in the distance. Well it didn’t actually look that big, but at the distance you were, you knew it would be enormous up close. It would stand in the branches of the mountain-tree and turned this way and that, the lower half of its body obscured by the many leaves and branches of the tree. And yet that was also when you began to feel a pull. It was the same pull that called you to the realm of this world in the first place. You had felt it dully in your heart for a while, but you just assumed it was because you were here. But now the pull felt stronger and it was on the tree where whatever that thing was, was located.

You nudged Figment awake, eyes never leaving the spot where the figure was. He got up, took the sleeping mask off of his eyes, and looked at you crankily, not that you noticed.

“Figment look at that thing,” you said.

And he did look. You looked to where he was to see a dust cloud shaped like Figment dissipating where he once was. Then you felt him shivering next you on your other side. You could understand his fear. Watching the figure eerily reminded you of the giant heartless that lurked in your father’s mind. But the call you felt in that direction was stronger than your fear.

Figment looked between you and where your gaze was pointed, still looking where the figure last was. And he saw that look in your eyes. He always saw that look when you were going to do something he generally didn’t approve of. Like heading towards the figure on the mountain.

He flew in front of your face, arms crossed, and gave you a stony glare. You met him with an even gaze.

“Someone needs help, Figment. And I have no idea if it has to do with that,” you pointed to the darkness where the figure once was, “But I have to go there. We may not even see it. But there’s someone out there.”

Figment pointed to your leg.

It was almost healed. You could put weight on it without it sending crippling pain through your body, but you still did not rest on it. You were summoning your spear with more ease now. It made a much more effective support than your regular keyblade had been.

Figment dropped to his knees to beg you to not go there, hands clasped tightly in a pleading gesture as he stared up at you with big, sad puppy eyes. You were doing fine. You were successfully surviving the wilderness – had been for a month now. You’d be able to leave in a few weeks when your leg was completely healed. You were going to be able to go home.

Why? Why when they were so close to leaving, did your hero complex have to kick in? It was the same complex your father had when Figment knew him. It was the same one that landed him in the experimentation lab. But you had a chance to escape – leave this planet behind and never come back.

But you were going to abandon that for people you didn’t know with problems you didn’t know if you could solve that most likely involved the giant creature on the mountain.

“I don’t like it either, but I have a job to do,” you grumbled as you looked in the distance again. “But I’m no good like this. I’ll wait until I’ve fully recovered.”

~

Recovering was hard when you were running out of food options. The pineapples had been depleted, and there weren’t many ripe guavas left on the tree. And the fish were already scarce to begin with, but now they were even more so.

To be honest, you were surprised your hunting and foraging has lasted as long as it had between you and Figment. Rations were low until the two of you would be able to find a new steady source of food for the next few weeks.

When you were down to enough guavas to maybe last a week if you only had two for a meal. And that was one meal a day. You also had a small fish, but you knew you’d need to eat that soon before it spoiled. You were growing desperate. There would not be enough to last more than one more week, and you had already cut down to one meal a day. Figment had stopped eating all together when he realized the food was going to run out, and he didn’t need to eat.

The two of you finally decided to go hunting. Now normally you wouldn’t bother. With your leg, you could hardly track, trek, or chase anything. It was hard for you to keep quiet with how you had to hobble around on your spear for support, so most animals ran from you as soon as you approached. And after three hours of attempting to hunt, you were ready to throw in the towel.

Then the two of you spotted something. A sizeable enough bird lying on its back, with bright red and yellow feathers. Its legs were trapped under a tree branch, and it flapped its blue and green wings in a desperate attempt to get out. It probably got caught under a branch knocked down by another one of the storms that had blown in the night before.

It wasn’t much, but it was food.

You looked at Figment who looked back at you. You both nodded. It was better than nothing.

Figment handed you a large rock. It wouldn’t take much. You just had to bash it over the head, and you’d at least have food for the next day.

You inched closer to the bird kneeling down next to it. It looked between you and the rock and began to flap its wings frantically. You lifted the rock up, silently counting down from ten to yourself. You couldn’t afford to back out, so you had to just do it at one and let it be over with. Then it stopped flapping its wings. It looked at you just as you reached two.

.

.

.

You dropped the stone. You couldn’t do it. You didn’t know why it was easier to kill fish, but something about this bird was just sad to you. It made your heart ache. You let out a sigh, feeling like you wanted to cry but refusing to do so.

“I’m sorry,” you apologized before rolling the branch off of the bird. It looked alright for the most part. It flipped itself right side up and walked a few steps before taking off into the sky.

Figment watched the little exchange and sighed. He gave you a look when you walked back over to where he was. You shrugged.

“I couldn’t do it,” you sighed to him. He sighed too. He may not have been able to do it either, so he couldn’t really blame you all that much. The two of you continued your fruitless hunt with nothing to show for it when you returned to camp.

Once you ran out of food, and found no hope of finding a new source that you could safely eat, you and Figment loaded up the guavas closest to being ripe and some water in a jug the two of you had managed to craft and began to walk down stream in search for a new source of nourishment, simultaneously heading towards the mountain-tree where you’d felt that pull ever since the storm so many nights ago.

~

Axel told Ludwig his dream. Demyx, Dreamfinder, and Namine were also there. She returned in the middle of her graduation to help search for you. They listened as he told his short dream, though your mother had not explained why this was important. But as they listened, Ludwig and Dreamfinder both perked up at hearing about the tree, looking at each other and sharing a look of understanding.

“Now I find it incredibly interesting that you’ve had this dream as the tree you described does, in fact, exist. The question is, how do you know about it?”

“That’s what I wanted to know,” your mother chimed in, “There are legends of a tree like the one you described that existed on Kelewenya. And I couldn’t just write it off when I know you’ve never seen it. And I know that Kelewenya is gone, but I need to know if there’s something more to this. When you told me what she said… When she said that she would find you, something resonated with me. As a mother.”

Everyone turned to look at Axel. He shrugged. He didn’t know if there were anything more to it.

“I didn’t know it existed. I’ve never been to Kelewenya, and ________ never mentioned anything about a tree.”

“See now that’s where my concern comes in. The tree you described exists in only two places,” Ludwig continued, “One of which fell to darkness 20 years ago and did not come back. And we know you weren’t on Kelewenya before it fell. The other place it exists is on a planet called Chinyama, or the ‘Animal Kingdom’ as I have it catalogued in my ledger. This is the sister world to Kelewenya.”

“I didn’t know Kelewenya had a sister world,” you mother chimed in.

“Yes, and even more interesting it’s one of few binary worlds that exists. Binary worlds are worlds that contain either two hearts or two halves of a heart. Kelewenya, or ‘Beastly Kingdom,’ is the other part of this world. It’s a wonder that Animal Kingdom is still around. I monitored it as I had other worlds, but it never fell to darkness.”

“Why is it called Beastly Kingdom?” Demyx asked, wondering why the two worlds needed different names to begin with if they shared a heart.

Ludwig pulled out a book and flipped to a page that depicted an artist’s rendering of the tree from Axel’s dream. The tree’s markings were actually animal carvings that stretched from top to bottom.

“This tree has a depiction of every creature that lives on it engrained onto its surface. These are animals that are more common – creatures most of us are familiar with. Kelewenya has a similar tree but it’s got animals that we once thought were mythological.”

He flipped to another page where the tree was covered in strange and foreign animals that they only recognized from descriptions in fairytales – a unicorn, a phoenix, a pegasus, etc.

“You’re kidding me,” Demyx said with mounting excitement.

“Nope,” Ludwig said pulling out his wallet and showing them one of the many pictures he had in it – particularly one of you when you were five riding a unicorn at your birthday party.

“And they’re magical?!" Demyx nearly shouted.

“What? No! Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a stupid animal. They’re just animals like you’d find anywhere else and used for food, work, and recreation.”

Your mother stepped closer, running a finger over the picture of the tree.

“I never knew the tree existed,” she mused.

“Yes, well,” Ludwig cleared his throat nervously, “The tree probably fell long ago. When I arrived with Ansem we theorized that it once protected the heart in some sense, but we don’t know to what extent. What we did discover, however, is that the spot where the tree was missing was heavily concealed with magic and beyond that the heart was almost completely exposed.”

“I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Dreamfinder interjected, changing the subject much to Ludwig’s great relief, “You said if one world falls then the other falls, yet Axel has had a dream of one of the worlds to which he’s never been which shouldn’t exist right now. He shouldn’t know what it looks like.”

“I actually have a theory about why he would know that,” Namine spoke. The room waited with bated breath while Namine gathered her thoughts, a bright and happy smile breaking on her face, and tears springing into her eyes. “________ is alive.”

The room stilled.

“How can you know?” your mother asked quietly. You could cut the tension with a knife. Your mother wanted to believe you were alive which is why when Axel told her about his dream she held out hope that he had found you somehow through magic or keyblade wielder mumbo jumbo.

“Well,” she began, somewhat nervously, “When hearts form strong bonds, through constant interaction or experiencing things together, they can connect more strongly to each other. Now, Axel, I personally believe that your heart is in the process of rebuilding itself. It started with Roxas when you were friends and stopped when he left. But when you met ________ it started again as the two of you grew close. I think that while your heart was being recompleted she connected with you really strongly at some point. And I think it was amplified because she was a keyblade wielder.”

“So you think they connected hearts the same way one might call someone on a phone?” your mother asked, casting a quick glance at Axel before refocusing back on Namine.

“I think they may be sharing the phone actually. Not quite sharing a heart, but they have a connection so strong that if Figment were to enter the mind of one, he could travel to the heart, enter the other heart through that connection and come out the mind of the other person,” Namine clarified. “Hearts that connect don’t necessarily share dreams or memories. Those are things tied to one’s own heart. To be able to do such without existing inside the heart of another should be impossible, but they’ve managed to do it. It’s possible the two of them shared a moment where they understood something about each other in perfect clarity and connected. But they never disconnected. That is, of course, assuming you can.”

“You think ________ and I share dreams?” Axel asked.

“Well I can only confirm this one dream, but if you’re seeing places you’ve never been, then there’s a good chance that wherever Animal Kingdom is, is where ________ is. You entered her dreams via her heart and saw what she saw. So I have reason to believe that not only is she alive, she’s on her world’s sister planet.”

There was a moment of joy and relief throughout the room. You were quite possibly alive, and that happiness was palpable to everyone.

Dreamfinder gave Namine a hearty clap on the back, expressing how proud of her he was. Your mother was crying tears of joy while Demyx gave her comforting pats on the back. Ludwig was searching his lab for a book and map on Animal Kingdom. And Axel was overwhelmed. You were alive. He hadn’t lost you. And apparently the two of you had joined hearts in a sense. He wasn’t sure how that should make him feel. But he liked the thought of having a heart again – even if it wasn’t whole yet.

“Now that leaves one question nagging in the back of my mind,” Ludwig said as he laid out several maps on a table, “If Beastly Kingdom fell, then why hasn’t Animal Kingdom?”

“Perhaps you’ll find out when you get there,” your mother replied.

“You’re not coming?” Demyx asked.

“I’d love to. I really would, but I need to go back to work so my daughter has a place to come home to. I know you’ll bring my baby home to me,” she said with a warm smile, eyes still laced with unshed, happy tears.

“So I guess it’ll just be me, Ludwig, and Axel then,” Demyx said with a shrug.

“I’m coming too,” Namine chirped, “________’s my best friend. I want to help find her.”

“I’d also like to find Figment as well as ________,” Dreamfinder added, “So I’ll be coming on this little expedition of ours as well.”

“Great!” Ludwig said, clapping his hands together, “Let’s gather some supplies. It’ll take a few days to get there. We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

~

Even after three days with guavas you could barely stand to eat and light headedness and exhaustion nagging at you, you still didn’t regret letting that bird go. Wouldn’t have mattered anyway. You’d only have had maybe an extra day of food. At least with the stream and your ability to start fires, you’d never run out of water or warm places to sleep.

At least you could admire the scenery. While plants that had food on them were a rarity, an abundance of beautiful flowers was not. And also your leg was much better now. You could put weight on it again, but you didn’t test it out too much. No need to accidentally put yourself back at square one.

Well keeping off of it was the plan, but then you saw something you hadn’t expected in the least – at least not out in the middle of the jungle. A person. People didn’t tend to live in nature this wild, and if Figment had found a bustling city or metropolis when he had first scouted for water, then no doubt he’d have told you. You were both shocked when you watched this person – a little girl – run past you at a breakneck speed through the bushes. You doubt she’d noticed you through the thick bushes as she ran, she seemed too focused on pushing forward.

A second later, you realized why that was.

Despite the fact that you had gone quite the distance, you had not once run into heartless. You assumed that if they had not yet infected this world then they were more concentrated in areas you were not it. But here they were chasing after a little girl.

So, ignoring your plan to let your leg heal naturally and avoid straining it, you took off at a sprint after the heartless, not thinking twice about any pain you may have felt or progress you’d ruined. Someone was in trouble. Thankfully, your leg didn’t feel that bad at all, and with all the adrenaline coursing through your veins, you hardly noticed anything feeling off at all.

These heartless looked like primates but not quite the ones you were used to on your home planet. They were smaller and their lower leg joints were pointed in the right direction. They also had long, curly tails. They chased her to a tree which she desperately tried to climb, but one of them grabbed her by her leg.

You acted fast, summoning your spear and throwing it and nailing the heartless dead center in its back, the other side of your spear firmly embedded in the tree the little girl was trying to climb.

You were huffing already. You didn’t have the energy for this. But that didn’t matter. The heartless all turned to look at you, and you re-summoned your spear as a keyblade and put on your armor, and shield.

There were at least 20 heartless all jumping around sporadically, and your eyes darted back and forth in their haze to keep all of them in your sights.

As soon as you fought back against the first one to lunge at you, they all seemed to come at you from all sides. You took more hits than you needed to, thankfully not against your already weakened leg, and Figment did his best to help defend you.

By the time the last one had fallen, you were about to collapse from your injuries and exhaustion. The little girl jumped from the tree and approached you just as you fainted.

Your armor and weapons vanished. The little girl nudged you while Figment watched, trying to wake you up, but you were out cold. So she ran. She ran as fast as her little legs could carry her until she found who she was looking for – the foraging party she’d wandered off from when she stumbled upon the nest of heartless lurking in the trees.

~

You awoke in a building. Strange. You didn’t fall asleep in a building. You couldn’t remember falling asleep. You thought hard for a moment. You were hungry and looking for food, going towards the tree to see what heart called to you for help. There was a little girl.

You shot up, ignoring the thudding aches of bruises and cuts on your body to look around frantically.

“Oh! You’re up,” said a voice from not so far away. Your head snapped in the direction of the voice to see a woman dressed in a bright orange and gold garment. Her arms were covered in gold bands, her hair in a long braid down her back.

She gave you a warm smile, her bright, brown eyes sparkling.

“You’ll need to take this,” she said, handing you a cup that was half full of mystery liquid. You looked at her skeptically. Who was the woman exactly?

“Don’t worry, dear,” she said, placing a hand on your shoulder, “You’re safe now.”

You felt your eyes blur as you registered those words. She quickly took the cup from you, placing it on a little side table before she sat on the bed next to you and wrapped you up in a hug. You leaned into her as you began to sob.

The hug felt nice. You hadn’t seen anyone else in so long. To see another person – have them talk to you and tell you that you were going to be okay – was overwhelming. She let you have your moment, gently patting your head and rubbing your back, uttering words of sympathy.

When you could finally calm down enough to speak, you looked around.

“Where am I?” you asked.

“You’re in somewhere safe. The chief’s sister said you helped her escape from the dark creatures, so she and the foraging party she was with brought you back here for treatment.”

“And she’s okay?”

“She’ll be just fine. And you will be too as soon as you drink your remedy,” she said placing the cup back firmly in your hands.

You downed it in two gulps. It was sweet. And you felt better. So much better! Your cuts healed instantly as if by magic. You felt well rested and rejuvenated – like you hadn’t been almost starving and beaten to unconsciousness before you’d gotten there.

“Doesn’t that feel better?” she asked as she leaned over and jostled your previously broken leg. You stretched and flexed your foot, wiggling it in the air and feeling no pain whatsoever from your leg. Not even minor discomfort.

“That’s amazing!” you exclaimed, hopping up on your feet and bouncing a little, rising on your tiptoes and rocking back down on your heels.

“We’d have helped you recover as soon as you got here, but you’ve been asleep for almost two days now,” she said, as she wrote down something on a sheet of paper on a desk.

Two days?! Then you remembered Figment. Where was he? Was he out there? Did he keep hidden? Was he in your head? Had he been missing for two days? Worried about you for two days?

The door to what you assumed was a clinic swung open. The little girl you saved popped her head in, looking around with wide eyes until they landed on you. Her smile was bright and happy. On her shoulder, slightly draped by her long hair was Figment.

You breathed a mild sigh of relief.

“Um, hello,” you began. Figment darted over to you and hugged your middle. You hugged back of course. Then the little girl did the same, latching around your legs.

“Amaya! Don’t just attack her like that,” a new voice said as another woman entered the room. She had a slender frame and wore a royal blue garment with a beaded belt around her middle that stretched from her rib cage to her hips. She also had gold bands lining her arms and a circlet with a single red jewel in the middle upon her head. The little girl let go but held tightly to your hand, still smiling up at you. Figment had relocated himself to your shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” the woman apologized, “My name is Daealla. I’m the mother of the chief, and this is my daughter Amaya. I cannot thank you enough for saving her life.”

She walked over to you and bowed deeply. You were flattered and embarrassed. What does one do when royalty bows to you?

“Of course, my lady,” you said as best you could. Were chief mothers “my ladies” or was there a different title you were supposed to call them. She giggled at your flustered attempt at being proper.

“If you are feeling better, the chief, my son, would like to speak to you about an urgent matter regarding your arrival.” Her eyes looked more somber when she said that, and you briefly wondered if your being there was disrupting their way of life somehow.

“Oh, um, okay,” you said as you followed her out of the door, Amaya still gripping tightly to your hand. You threw a quick thank you over your shoulder to the doctor who gave you a happy smile and continued your trek through the village.

It was strange.

All of the buildings seemed to be made of wood, though there were plenty of smaller structures that used bricks and metal. There were people milling about in brightly colored clothes all threaded with gold and silver embroideries, gold bands up and down their arms and piercings lining their ears. They watched as you passed, stopping in the middle of their activities to watch and whisper amongst each other.

You walked through a market district where they seemed to trade other commodities rather than money. Strange.

Then there was the residential area where all the buildings were once again wooden with flat roofs. They had large windows with bright curtains hanging in them, also embroidered intricately.

At the end of one stretch of the neighborhood was a house that was much, much larger than the others. You could assume this one belonged to the chief of the village.

Your theory was confirmed when you followed Daealla into the house. The room you entered was something like a throne room with sweeping staircases that led to other parts of the house. You assumed this must have been where most of the business with the public was handled.

In center near the back of the throne room sat the throne, and on that the chief. He looked young, not much older than you. He watched you approach with cool, contemplating eyes that watched you as if trying to learn everything about you in the short time it took you to cross the room.

“My son,” Daealla spoke once the three of you stood in front of the chief, “This is the warrior Amaya spoke of.”

“And you’re certain,” he said, voice deep and authoritative, as he looked to his young sister, “Of the weapon you saw this woman using?”

Amaya nodded earnestly.

“So you really are a keyblade wielder then,” he said to you. You nodded quietly.

“You know of them?” you asked as he continued to watch you carefully.

“There used to be quite a few of them that lived here. We have not had many in quite a long time. You are the first. I must admit, you are just as he described you.”

“’He?’” you questioned. As if on cue, a bird with bright red and yellow feathers and green and blue wings flew over to the chief’s throne, perching on the armrest and looking at you with intelligent eyes. You remembered him.

 “He told me of a woman in the jungle whose leg had been injured. He said you spared his life. After that, he watched you and frequently told me about you.”

“Why would you want to know about me?” you asked. He smiled at your confusion, amused.

“It is not every day someone from another world comes to visit. You had to know that you don’t exactly blend in with the community.”

 ~

They’d only been traveling for a few hours when something strange happened.

Axel got a text.

From your phone.

It made his blood run hot and cold as a flurry of emotions ran through him. He felt dizzy.

“You good, Axel?” Demyx asked from where he sat next to Namine on one of the bunks near the back of the ship.

“________ just texted me,” he said. His mood was somber yet hopeful. Ugh. Conflicting feelings were probably the worst thing about having a heart again.

“What did she say?” Namine asked quietly. He didn’t know.

“I haven’t opened it yet.”

Namine and Demyx crowded around him to read the message, Dreamfinder and Ludwig too focused on finding the best path to you and steering the ship.

***: Axel where are you?

Another message popped up beneath that one.

***: Axel I’m scared.

Then another.

***: You let me down Axel.

***: I trusted you.

***: I hate you.

Axel felt too many things in that one moment. He couldn’t pin down any of them, but they made his chest ache with hurt.

Demyx and Namine also felt bad. Where were you? Were you hurt? Did you really blame Axel for all of this? Had they let you down as well?

***: Your girlfriend seems pretty upset with you Axel.

***: I would be too.

Demyx and Namine were more wrapped up in confusion than anything, but Axel felt a tiny chill slowly crawl up his spine. Something wasn’t right.

“That’s not ________,” he said finally. Of that he was sure. He looked out of the windows but saw nothing. And no more messages came for a while either. They flew through space in silence for the next few hours.

.

.

.

“Sure is quiet back there for three friends about to be reunited with their other friend,” Ludwig called when he had noticed that they had all gone eerily quiet. They were much too somber for such a happy occasion.

“It’s probably your driving that’s depressing them,” Dreamfinder said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“What?” Ludwig asked, clearly thrown by the logic of that statement – or rather the lack thereof.

“Let me drive,” Dreamfinder said with a giddy lilt in his voice.

“What? No!” Ludwig said as they began to argue back and forth about who should be allowed to drive.

Meanwhile the text messages kept playing over and over in Axel’s head. They weren’t from you, but for just a moment he believed you felt that way. That you hated him. He didn’t want that.

Namine and Demyx continued to look on worriedly at their friend as he went through his emotional roller coaster.

“We’re going to find my new friend and Figment, so I should get to drive,” Dreamfinder whined as he and Ludwig continued to argue back and forth.

“We’re going to find my niece!”

“But I deserve to drive!”

“It’s my ship!”

“You’re being very inconsiderate, Luddy!” He said, bumping Ludwig from his seat and taking the wheel. Ludwig quickly hopped up and pushed him back out of the seat.

“Don’t call me that! Now look! I let you drive for two seconds and there’s guy standing on the hood of the ship!”

Everyone stiffened as they registered Ludwig’s words. Everyone looked at the hood of the ship, and there stood Vanitas. He had his arms crossed, resting his weight on one leg and leaning into that hip in a relaxed yet cocky stance.

Axel stood up immediately. Demyx did as well, moving to stand in front of Namine so Vanitas could not see her and know where she was.

“Ew. Wipe it off of there,” Dreamfinder instructed, squirting wiper fluid on Vanitas’ shoes and turning on the wipers. Not that it did anything except piss him off.

Vanitas summoned a corridor and walked through and on to the ship. He took a few steps towards Axel who looked ready to tear Vanitas a new one.

“Remind me when we get back to Disney Town,” Ludwig said to Dreamfinder, “To buy a stronger wiper fluid.”

Vanitas filed that bit of info away for later but preferred to focus his attention on the traitor in front of him.

“I knew it was only a matter of time before you’d come looking for her,” he said, voice laced with cockiness. “Too bad there isn’t much to find. But I have to admit that you were really something when you were looking for her, Axel. I don’t think I ever felt so much raw negative emotion before. Not so strongly anyway.”

Axel just glared at Vanitas silently.

“No, wait,” Vanitas said, “There was one time. ________. The fear she felt when I found her was almost intoxicating. She felt so good,” he purred with a sensual tone to his voice.

It took all of Axel’s self-control not to set anything on fire. He was pissed. He was beyond pissed. Not only had Vanitas attacked you, this fucker was getting off to it.

“But all isn’t lost,” he cooed at them, “I brought you a little something to remember her by.”

He tossed Axel your phone, and he caught it without taking his eyes off of Vanitas.

“I swear,” Axel almost growled out, “I’m going to find you. I’m going to kill you.”

Vanitas just laughed.

“And after I gave you such a lovely gift? You should be thanking me. I didn’t even torture her like I said I would. I didn’t leave a mangled corpse behind either. No, I thought it would be better if there weren’t a mess to clean up, so I chucked her to the nearest planet to let her burn up in the atmosphere.”

…

Axel almost relaxed when Vanitas said that. That meant that this was a while ago. Before he’d had his dream. Vanitas didn’t know you were alive. He could see everyone else ease up as well at the news.

“So what will you do now that your pet is gone?”

 “I already told you,” Axel repeated, “I’m going to find you, and I’m going to kill you.”

Vanitas laughed again.

“I’ll be looking forward to our rematch,” he said, stepping through another corridor and leaving them alone with their thoughts.

A collective sigh of relief was breathed throughout the ship.

“We need to hurry,” Axel said, “We can’t risk him or anyone else finding her.”

Each of them nodded or murmured out an agreement.

“How did you know him?” Dreamfinder asked, eyeing Axel rather warily.

“He’s someone from my past,” Axel answered vaguely, “A past I’m leaving far behind me.”

Dreamfinder nodded and considered this for a moment. Then he turned to Ludwig.

“You know, Ludwig,” Dreamfinder began, “I think you’re right. It’s your niece, you should get to fly my ship.”

“IT’S MY SHIP!”

Notes:

Next time: In the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room!

As always thank you for all of your love and support! Thank you!

Obscure-ish references:

Animal Kingdom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney%27s_Animal_Kingdom

 

Beastly Kingdom: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Beastly_Kingdom

Chapter 23: The Jungle Cruise

Summary:

A gentle cruise down the river with your friends.

Notes:

My apologies! I put in the ending note in the last chapter something about a Tiki Room. I should not have. That's not until the next chapter! But there is a Tiki Room coming!!!

Also 1000 hits! Woohoo!

Your first week in the village showed you just how strange it was. All your life you’d been with electricity in some way shape or form, but the village was completely devoid of it. They made do without it, and it seemed to benefit them just fine.

Lights were oil lamp sconces fitted with mirrors that allowed the light to shine down brightly from where they sat against the wall near the ceilings. Homes were made from several different kinds of wood of many different colors and were carved ornately and were quite beautiful. Stone and clay were used to create tools, but metal and glass were not unheard of.

They made cloths and silks by hand and dyed them with dyes they made from all the different plants found in the jungle.

They preferred to coexist with nature more than anything, and in a way it was beautiful.

You quickly found a place in the village. You absorbed their culture like a sponge, trying to integrate as best into society you could until you were just another villager.

Though you mostly worked with Daealla. She had become something of a mentor to you during your stay, showing you the best places to gather fruits and how to bake herbed bread. She taught you dances once you mentioned that you were a dancer where you came from. She gave you clothes typically worn by the village people, noticing you seemed to prefer the dresses with beaded waists. She took you out foraging for fruits and vegetables with other members of their tribe and often put you to work with the scouts who searched the nearby areas for places with food sources that weren’t crawling with heartless.

You learned that they once had farms, but the heartless had become a problem there and were steadily creeping closer to the village. Moving was not an option with all of the elderly and children they had. Basically they were waiting for war with the creatures, and your arrival had put a spark of hope into the people. Though that wasn’t the only reason they needed you as you had learned from the chief. But you were currently in no condition to do anything seeing as how you needed to gain all of your strength back.

Daealla admitted that sending you out with the scouts was to help build your strength. Though as another method of doing so, she sometimes took you hunting. That was when she noticed the spear you used to hunt with.

The two of you were riding horses bareback back to the village, two dead boars strapped to the backs of them and three wild turkeys hanging over the sides.

“You realize that spear isn’t really made for hunting, yes?” she asked with an amused glint in her eyes.

“Well keyblades aren’t usually used for hunting… I think.” Your horse chuffed, shaking its head as if he knew your statement were stupid.

She laughed. You took no offense. You’d had no proper training in using the spear, so it was to be expected if you weren’t exactly good at it. You could at least say you had decent aim.

“Your spear is double ended. The moon forms a curved blade on one end for cutting down enemies. The star on the other end is to pierce your foes,” she said as she ducked beneath a low hanging branch.

“How do you know so much about spear combat?”

“I was a warrior before I was the wife of the chief. I could show you how to use it if you like? It will be good for you to get into some training now that your leg is better. I know we’ve been doing lots of physical work to get your strength up, but if you’re going to do what you do best, it’d be best if you got back into your combat. And I would like to be the one to train you.”

You nodded, excited at the prospect of learning a new technique of fighting. You hadn’t realized how much you missed training and fighting until she mentioned it.

“When should we start?”

“Tomorrow. So get a good night’s rest. I will be ruthless in my training. And by the time I’m done with you, you will be a master,” she said with a mischievous smile. She said it in a rather joking manner, but you knew she meant it. And while you may not be a master any time soon, you knew she’d work you until you were at least a formidable opponent.

“So why the spear?” you asked, “I mean, why, when you were a warrior, did you pick to train with a spear? I’ve seen other warriors use plenty of other weapons too.”

“There is an old legend about the goddess of balance and chaos, Uh-Oa. She was considered a goddess of ruin at one point as she set fire to the forests and brought about storms that ravaged the land. The people cried out to her and begged her to stop. She told them that she did what she did for the benefit of mankind. She burned forests to make new fertile land for plants to grow, clearing the brush of small weak plants that would have caused larger, unstoppable fires that would destroy entire forests. She brought storms to soften the earth and usher fish to shore so crops could be planted, and fish harvested the day after the storms for the food of the people. And the people saw the rains brought forth bountiful harvests in lands that previously could produce no fruit. The people realized that she was not a goddess of ruin but of balance and chaos. And when she is depicted, she is shown to be holding a double-headed spear to represent the balance she brings through her destructive ways. I chose the double-headed spear to honor her.”

“That’s incredible,” you breathed.

“And you will be too,” she said, smiling brightly as the two of you approached the village.

~

You progressed quickly through your training. Sometimes that’s all you did with Daealla. The two of you would disappear into the jungle for hours on end training – leaving early in the morning and returning late at night. She taught you how to hide amongst the forest and move silently. How to use the layout to your advantage and, of course, how to fight with your spear.

It was made for you – was an extension of yourself that you felt completely in tune with. More so than with sword and shield combat. It required fluid, controlled movements, and this benefited you most when it came to combat. It was like dancing. You caught on quickly, much more quickly than Daealla was expecting you to, but she was proud to call you a student. By the week’s end she said you could at least hold your own. But you practiced religiously everyday you weren’t working in the village – even when you were not with her.

You sparred often with the warriors of the village, learning from the other spear bearers as well, and they had much to teach you. By the end of the next week, you were capable of wielding a spear with amateurs without them having to go easy on you.

It was in your third week when you were out in the forest training not too far from the village when you heard the commotion. A loud noise that sounded like a low rumble like thunder that began to grow. You began to run back to the village to see what was happening, and you prayed that no one was in trouble or hurt.

You broke through the trees stopping short at the sight before you.

It was a gummi ship.

But you recognized it.

It was Ludwig’s gummi ship.

You pressed forward, sprinting across the village, one fourth of the way there just as the ship touched ground. You could just barely see the village’s warriors gathered near the ship, not standing in a pose ready for attack but cautious in case the visitors were not friendly. The people of the village were standing a bit farther back.

You could see the door opening and a figure stepping out just as you reached that halfway point. You pressed onward faster, pushing yourself harder, your garments flying wildly about your legs, the beads in your braids clacking against each other noisily.

You slowed to a brisk walk once you reached where the villagers were, gently nudging them out of the way as you pressed forward, just as Dreamfinder, Ludwig, and Namine had finally exited the ship. Figment was already there being greeted eagerly by them. They looked so happy. You missed their smiling faces so much.

You could already feel tears in your eyes, a smile breaking across your face.

Demyx stepped off of the ship just as you broke through the wall of warriors. They spotted you as soon as you did, looks of happy surprise washing over their faces. You couldn’t decide who to go to first, so you threw your arms out wide trying to hug them all at once. You were sobbing into someone’s shoulder, all but collapsing against them as you felt them hug you from all sides. You didn’t know who. You didn’t care. It had been so long since you’d seen them, and you’d had no idea when you’d see them again after knowing you had to help the village – if you’d ever get to see them again.

You stood upright, looking at all of their bright tearful faces when a flash of red caught your eye. You looked passed Namine, who had been the person you almost collapsed on, and saw Axel.

It felt surreal.

He looked at you like he was seeing you for the first time in years. You had a similar look on your face, your heart swelling with happiness to have him at your side once again. You felt your legs move of their own accord towards him, picking up speed until you were all but running at him, kicking up dirt behind you.

You jumped into his arms and felt him hold you back tightly, lifting you off the ground and holding you close. You clung to him, feeling more tears slip from your eyes and a gentle push and pull of happiness and hurt flowing through your heart.

Axel felt it too.

He continued to hold you even after he had set you down. And he just looked at you, studied your face, glancing down more than once at your lips.

And you just stared at his eyes, the bright seafoam green quite possibly the thing you had missed most about him. And now he was here.

“Guardian,” you heard the chief call to you, “You know these people?”

You broke away from Axel to face the village who looked at you expectantly.

“They are my friends and family,” you answered with a bright smile. He regarded each of them individually, gauging them and their demeanors. He was cautious about everything as you had come to learn.

“Then,” he said with a soft smile, “We’ll have to prepare a place for them to stay.” The crowd behind him, sensing that there was no longer a need to observe, began to disperse to continue with their preparations for the evening. The chief and the warriors remained.

You smiled and began to turn back to your family when Ludwig interjected.

“Stay? No, you’re mistaken. You see we have a ship! A ship that will allow us to leave whenever we want. Which is right now. Come on, ________, get in the ship.”

Ah. Right. You hadn’t told them yet. You had, somehow, almost completely forgotten.

“Actually we can’t go yet,” you said rather somberly considering your bright mood earlier. “There’s a problem with the people here that I need to take care of.”

“Seriously, ________?” Axel asked, mildly annoyed. Were you seriously playing hero again? He was happy to have you back and not quite willing to lose you again because you had to do something big and heroic that, knowing your luck, was likely to get you killed.

“I agree. We don’t have time to fix the world’s problems, and you can’t fix the problems of every world you visit,” Ludwig concluded already turning back to the ship.

That was when a scream pierced the air.

You whirled around in a panic to see who it was this time. You saw one of the warriors, a female you knew by the name of Akash. She fell to her knees, trembling as her eyes rolled into the back of her head. She continued to scream even as she fell to her side.

You rushed over, cradling her head in your lap, whispering a few words to her you’d learned in the village that they said to all of their dying. Something which was happening at a steadily accelerating rate. You felt a pang that told you to go back to training. Something you always did in excess when this happened. You needed to be ready. You needed to save these people and end this cycle.

Your friends and family watched you whispering to the warrior, a look of peace passing over her face before she faded from existence. You held your tears. As did everyone else. You felt the stares of them on you. They looked to you every time this happened. You were the answer to all of their unasked questions.

“Their planet is dying,” you said lowly but aiming it at your friends and family, “And the people have been slowly dying with it. And it gets worse every day.”

Everyone remained frozen in place.

Ludwig turned back around to you with a tired and relatively fearful expression on his face.

“We’ll stay. But your mother’s worried about you. I mean, you have been missing for a week.” he said as he walked past you and towards the village, prepared to get acquainted with his new surroundings. But you were still stuck on the mention of the “week” you’d been missing.

You must have had the stunned look blatantly and openly on your face because everyone else began giving you a worried look.

“Are you alright, ________?”

“A week?” you murmured. Then you remembered that time could function differently world to world. It was a small comfort to know that they may not have had to think you were dead and that your mother wasn’t mourning you.

Then you started laughing a little hysterically.

“Oh great, she’s got jungle madness,” Ludwig said, with a nervous glance in your direction.

“A week,” you laughed out, standing up, “I’ve been here for over two months.” You kept laughing, a bit more of your hysteria seeping in.

No one else was laughing.

“I thought you were looking for a corpse,” you wheezed out, “Assuming you were still looking at all. I think… I think I’m relieved. I’m glad none of you went through that, but talk about a mind fuck, am I right?”

Despite your laughter, a part of you was obviously distraught.

“Geez, if you were here for two months why didn’t you come home? You had to know we were worried about you! Axel worked himself to exhaustion everyday looking for you! He didn’t sleep for three days!” Demyx said before Axel roughly nudged him in the side.

“I’m sorry,” you said, with a sad smile, “I know that’s not funny. And I would have come home, but I didn’t just show up here and decide to stay for so long. In fact, I hadn’t even known these people were here until about one and half months – maybe a little over – into my stay.”

“So what were you doing here?” Namine asked warily. Your expression was suddenly completely serious, brief flashes of fear, anxiety, anger, and sadness all flickering over your face so fast, they almost missed them.

“I was attacked,” you said after a moment of quiet had passed over you. “Someone – I don’t know who – attacked me when I was trying to find my way back to Twilight Town. I didn’t even stand a chance against them. They knocked me out, next thing I know I’m hurtling towards the ground from space and barely managed to avoid a full-on collision with the ground. But I didn’t manage the most graceful landing. I broke my leg. So I was stranded in the middle of the jungle for a while.”

Each of your family members wore a look of horror.

“________,” Namine choked out, overwhelmed. She wasn’t sure what she was going to say after that. Axel came up and hugged you again. You hugged back suddenly overwhelmed with all of the things that had happened to you that you never once said out loud since they had happened. Hearing them made them different. More real. And, yes, you’d thought about them before, but now you didn’t have to carry such a burden by yourself.

A few tears slipped out of your eyes, but you didn’t need to cry. You’d gotten past this and come to terms with it. Then you felt the weight of each of them coming to hug you again.

You laughed a little. You missed them so much.

“It wasn’t all bad,” you said, slightly muffled against Axel’s chest, “I had Figment. But there is something I want to know. How did you all even find me?”

You had broken away from the group hug to look at all of them. And they all looked at Axel, a light pink beginning to dust his cheeks no matter how hard he fought it off.

“We share dreams,” he said bluntly. There now it’s out of the way.

“Share dreams?” you asked. Great. Now you’re asking questions and it’s not out of the way.

“Namine has a theory where our hearts are connected really strongly to each other. I was able to see you in your dreams that way. Do you remember a dream where I told you I would find you?”

You did, in fact. That dream came to you more vividly than any other dreams you’d had here, and it stuck with you. As did your promises to find each other.

“That was really you?” you asked in a hushed, stunned voice. Had you known it was, you’d have never woken up just to stay with him a little longer. You felt a push and pull of warmth and affection run through you, and you could only assume now that the reason it pushed a pulled like the waves of an ocean so much was because you and Axel were connecting and exchanging your feelings and emotions.

Realizing it sent a jolt of nervous excitement and disbelief and comfort. The resulting mix made Axel’s head a little dizzy, but that was okay because you felt it too. This was strange and new. But… not unwelcome….

“So, uh, what’s this whole business about the planet dying? I’m just curious because we brought it up and never came back to it. And we just watched someone die,” Demyx said, ending the moment between you and Axel. Well sort of. Now that you were aware of it, you couldn’t not feel the connection, but now the two of you weren’t so intensely focused on each other.

“We should go to the temple,” you said, turning to the chief who gave you a nod, admittedly taking everything that had been discussed in stride. Though he was a chief that believed all things happened for a reason no matter how strange, even your less than safe arrival and your friends’ sudden appearance.

Your group walked through the village, while you prattled on about life there, noticing the cautious yet excited stares of the people on them. You had all but ignored them, used to just being another person here.

You looked like it too, Axel had noticed. Your hair was braided like the other people here, beads woven throughout in intricate designs on the crowns of their heads. You wore a red dress that hung loosely from your shoulders and showed quite a bit of your chest. The bottom of the dress stopped just above your knees. Two slits ran up the sides that stopped at the top of your hips, showing off your legs. The slits stopped where they met a beaded belt that ran the length of your waist and cinched the dress tightly to you. You looked nice.

You eventually led them to a large boat that sat in the river tethered to a dock.

It was large enough to walk around in and was shaded by a canopy. There were a few benches to sit in, and you hopped right into the boat and took a seat on one of them, secretly hoping Axel would want to sit next to you but content if someone else did.

He did sit next to you, and you did a little celebratory dance in your head. Your feelings for him had not dwindled even a little while you were here – if anything they’d only gotten stronger.

You offered him a bright smile with sparkling eyes that made him feel warm. He missed you. A lot. The chief untethered the boat and sat at the back near the steering mechanism. Ludwig and Dreamfinder stood near him so they could ask questions, and Namine and Demyx sat on a bench not far from you and Axel.

The boat began to slowly drift forward, and a cool breeze blew on your face. You took in a deep breath, taking in the smell of the river and plant life around you and listening to the chirp of birds.

“Two months,” Axel mused after a while. He seemed upset.

“Two months,” you repeated.

“I should have been here sooner. Should have never left you alone.”

“You couldn’t have known what was going to happen to me when I left. It’s not your fault, Axel.”

But it kind of was his fault. If he had just told you about Vanitas and the Organization, then maybe you would have been more careful and would’ve seen Vanitas coming. Or maybe you wouldn’t have gone at all and he could keep you safe.

He wanted to tell you this. That you were safe for now, but they always ran the risk of danger. But then you grabbed his hand and you looked at him with all the sympathy in your eyes that he missed seeing so much, and he felt the push and pull of comfort in whatever parts of his heart existed and found he couldn’t do it. Though he knew he needed to.

He let out a sigh, looking away from you. He was disappointed in himself. You felt bad you couldn’t comfort him, but maybe he just needed time.

Your eyes drifted to the river. The sides were lined with the occasional tiki masks. You’d been down the river before and knew they would become more frequent. The boat drifted through a wider section of river. And more birds would fly overhead, and a few would land on the boat.

You recognized them.

“I missed you,” you said finally, trying to lighten Axel’s mood, “And I really meant what I said in that dream. I was going to find you. It’s funny. I felt bad for being gone so long, and now you’re beating yourself up over it.”

Of course, that wasn’t the main problem, but Axel couldn’t tell you that.

“I missed you too,” he said after a long moment. You gave him another smile and this one he returned, “So how did you manage out here for so long?”

Demyx and Namine tuned in to listen as well.

“It wasn’t easy,” you began before launching into the story of your survival.

Meanwhile Dreamfinder and Ludwig had numerous questions about the planet and its people dying. Ludwig knew about planets falling to darkness though usually it happened quite suddenly and without warning like it had on Spaceship Earth. Planets did not fall slowly unless they were tampered with like Kelewenya had been in its slow corruption and fall.

“So you know about keyblade wielders?” Dreamfinder began, starting with the basics.

“We all do,” the chief admitted, “For a while they were considered myth and legend, and their legacy and the knowledge of other worlds was something only the royal families knew to be truth. This is because we had not had a keyblade wielder amongst our people in generations. The arrival of the Guardian was a blessing to us all.”

“So you know about Kelewenya, then?” Dreamfinder continued.

“I do,” he nodded, “Kelewenya is sister to Chinyama.”

“Did you know it fell to darkness twenty years ago?”

The chief’s expression turned grave.

“I had not known. The dying of our planet makes more sense now. I had suspected something had happened, but I had wished it were not so. My father also suspected as much because if Kelewenya had fallen, then our home would follow.”

 “I’ve traveled to many worlds and have known several to fall to darkness,” Ludwig interjected, “I’d like to ask exactly how the people became linked to the planet. I understand ________ said the planet was dying, but I’ve never seen people die with them.”

“It is because of the Tree of Life,” the chief said, gesturing to the great tree in the distance. “Long ago a lowly ant planted a seed and made a wish to the gods. He asked for a tree to grow – a tree so large all of the animals could find shelter beneath it. The ant’s wish came true and up sprouted a tree so mountainous all of the animals could find room beneath its limbs. On the tree images of the animals appeared along its trunk, branches, and roots. And on the top of the tree sprung up the leaves of the people. With each person born, a new leaf sprouts forth. However, the opposite is also true. When a person dies, their leaf falls from the tree. Though nowadays, the tree’s leaves fall long before the end of anyone’s life, and the person dies with it. That is why the tree called the Guardian here. That is why we need ________.”

Ludwig felt guilt. He knew why the tree was dying and why the people were dying with it. And apparently you knew too and said nothing.

“Is there anything I or my companions might do to help?” he asked after a moment of absorbing all of this information. “I know a bit about the hearts of worlds. I can theorize that with the destruction of one, this one may be suffering from corruption before its fall.”

A slow and painful death for everyone.

“I cannot be sure. All I know is what is written in the temple. All I know is that whatever help you may be able to offer, it will be ________ who keeps the darkness in all of its forms from us.”

Ludwig looked to you where you were talking animatedly about something. He prayed you would be able to fix one of the many aftereffects of his mistake.

Axel looked at you like you were a new person. You had survived the wilderness for a long time by yourself. You were self-sufficient. It was impressive. He was still worried about you, of course, and hardly wanted to let you out of his sight.

You stood up to stretch, arching your back and spreading your fingers as you lifted your hands high above your head. You stood up on your toes and held for a moment, and Axel took a moment to notice that you were a bit leaner now that when he last saw you. No doubt the endless training you spoke of and limited diet you’d had in the jungle contributed to it.

He stood and stretched himself. You smiled at him and walked to the edge of the boat near the front, giving him a look that told him to follow. He did.

The two of you leaned on the sides of the boat, gazing out at the river. You were passing by elephants who bathed each other in the water, spraying each other with their trunks to keep cool in the humidity.

“I would’ve killed for that before,” you said, joking about your waterfall showers.

“I mean I could wash your back if you really want to.”

“Axel, what the hell!” you laughed.

“Yeah, I know, I heard it as I was saying it. Sorry,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly but smiling all the same. You laughed again, and he looked at you, taking in your expression. He’d missed your strange laugh and your smile.

He was still staring.

You watched him stare for a moment. You began to feel uncomfortable. Then something clicked in your mind. You remembered reading something – or hearing about it, it didn’t really matter – that if someone stared at you for extended amount of time that usually meant one of two things. They wanted to kill you or fuck you.

Well, there was no doubt in your mind that Axel certainly did not want to kill you. And while you were also certain he didn’t want to fuck you, you took in the softness of his expression, the fondness in his eyes, and the soft smile on his face.

Axel liked you.

You couldn’t tell how much and if this were the kind of thing where he’d romantically pursue you, but you could see that he did hold at least some interest in you.

You bit your lip to keep that goofy smile off of your face.

“You’re staring,” you pointed out after a long moment. He seemed surprised, blinking and looking away quickly, a blush quickly spreading over his face. You just smiled softly to yourself as your heart fluttered in your chest.

“Sorry,” he apologized.

“It’s fine,” you said as you stared back out at the river, “I don’t mind.”

Axel couldn’t be sure, but he thought he felt the tiniest stir in his chest.

Notes:

I hope you all enjoyed it up to this point! Next time you and Axel have a hard talk, but it's for the better that you did.
As always comment and critique as you see fit! I love your support, and thank you so much for it!

Obscure-ish References:

The Jungle Cruise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungle_Cruise

Uh-Oa: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Uh-Oa

Chapter 24: The Enchanted Tiki Room

Summary:

Finally! The Tiki Room!

Notes:

Maybe only one update this week because I'm in the processing of moving and it's putting me a little behind in the writing process, but be on the lookout just in case!

You stepped off the boat at the foot of large set of stairs. They led up to a stone temple that looked as if it had seen better days.

It had three levels to it. You could only see the first, and the others descended below the ground.

Your group ascended the stairs, each lost in their own thoughts. Namine and Demyx in awe at the structure before them; Ludwig and Dreamfinder mulling over possible solutions to perhaps slow the tree from dying until you were able to permanently fix the problem; Axel running through the current situation of having to make sure saving the planet didn’t kill you, realizing about the same time you did that he had a bit of a thing for you, and knowing that none of those feelings mattered if he didn’t tell you about the Organization that had just tried to assassinate you and how he was tied to it – and had been for years now. You were still lost in your hormonal, lovestruck haze at your revelation about Axel but coherent enough to understand that you needed to get serious for the task at hand.

A red parrot landed on the chief’s shoulder as he marched ahead of you up the stairs.

A yellow parrot with blue and green tipped wings and bright red head alighted on your shoulder as well. You turned and smiled at him, offering a brief hello. He nodded then turned his head to observe your companions as they climbed behind you, some of them eyeing the parrot casually riding on your shoulder. Then they noticed there were quite a few tropical birds about. Not too many to be unnatural but a few.

The front of the temple had a large round door on it with a ba relief carving of Uh-Oa etched on to it. She stood there in a fighting stance, holding two dual headed spears in two of her four arms. One was lit with fire, the other searing with lightning.

“Guardian, if you would,” the chief said, stepping to the side. You summoned your keyblade and pointed at the door, concentrating as you felt for the lock before you. Light burst forth from your blade and you heard a satisfying click as an invisible lock gave way. The door pushed forward and rolled to the side.

You grabbed one of the torches from a sconce near the door and lit it. The chief grabbed another and you shared the flame from yours. Then you began your trek through the temple. The walls were lined with tiki masks, some with eyes that watched your approach and continued to watch as you moved through the temple. Their eyes glowed in the dim light.

Namine felt a chill run up her spine. This place was creepy. Demyx was practically hiding behind her as he tried to watch practically every mask in the room for any sudden movements. Ludwig tried to keep a brave face, but he was warily watching all of the masks too and sweating nervously.

“How are none of you creeped out by this?” Demyx asked, referring to Axel, Dreamfinder, Figment, and yourself. You looked around at the tiki masks. You supposed they were a tad creepy, but visions of the horrors you’d seen in your father’s mind flicked through your mind too. Then the masks were hardly a problem.

“We’ve seen worse,” you muttered. Demyx couldn’t know what it meant, but the horrors you’d seen before far outweighed a few glowing masks. Demyx took it at face value. He didn’t know what you’d seen, but he could assume it would have to be pretty jarring to not find any of this the least bit worrisome.

The chief descended the stairs before you, and you hurried after.

“Watch your step,” you cautioned, “The stairs are slippery here.”

They were slick with water and wet moss. As you went lower, the walls dripped with moisture, and the further into the temple you moved, the more masks appeared. You could hear the distant sound of rustling and many voices conversing deep within.

“So what’s down here that we’re going to look at anyway?” Demyx said, noting the eerie way the voices drifted up from below. But if you weren’t cowering in fear, then there was probably nothing to worry about. Then again, you were much braver than he.

“In the farthest reaches of the temple is the prophecy. Well it’s not so much a prophecy so much as an answer to long awaited questions.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Demyx said, as he continued to nervously glance around from his safe place behind Namine who had significantly calmed down much more than he had.

“Surprise, surprise,” someone muttered quietly. You glanced at the bird on your shoulder, giving him a warning look.

“The prophecy speaks of keyblade wielders of old in their service to the goddess Uh-Oa,” the chief further elaborated.

“So… where are all these keyblade wielders?” Demyx asked, “And why don’t they just take care of the whole planet dying thing?”

You could almost feel the bird on your shoulder rolling its eyes.

Your group came to a dead end just then. There were two large ornately carved doors depicting keys on each one. The stone wall surrounding it depicted several birds all facing in their direction.

“You can ask them yourself,” the chief said with a mischievous smile as pressed open the two large doors. Inside were roughly a few hundred birds all sitting in various places amongst the stone and perched upon tiki totems that stood proudly amongst rest of the tikis hanging from the ceiling or the walls.

“All I see are a bunch of dumb birds,” Demyx remarked dryly. You rolled your eyes this time, allowing the yellow parrot to walk on to your arm.

“And these are the friends you said were so wise and brave?” the bird asked you, giving you as much skepticism as its bird face could manage.

“I swear they’re braver when they’re actually facing the danger,” you assured, “But would it kill you to be nice, José?”

José fluffed his feathers a bit, glancing at your friends who looked at the bird with mild shock written on their faces.

“Well I hope their smarter than that one,” José said as he pointed a wing at Demyx before flying off to find a new perch to rest on.

“They talk…” Demyx said numbly.

“So does my uncle,” you said dryly, “It’s not like you’ve never seen a talking bird.”

“Yeah, but Ludwig a cartoon character! These are ACTUAL birds!!” Demyx argued. The bird on the chief’s shoulder laughed. You giggled as well.

“What exactly is this place anyway?” Axel asked as he looked around the room. What wasn’t covered in moss depicted birds, people, and keys.

“It doesn’t have an official name,” the chief answered.

“I’ve been calling it the Enchanted Tiki Room,” you said with a little smile.

“That sounds weird,” Axel said, giving you a dry look. You just smiled back.

“We like it,” José said from his new perch, preening his feathers, “We made up a song for it. Maybe we’ll sing it for you later.”

Namine held out her hand as a red, white, and blue bird flew nearby. It landed on her wrist.

“Bonjour,” he greeted, “_________, you didn’t say your friends would be so attractive.”

You groaned.

“Pierre, no,” you warned, noting the mild look of amusement on Namine’s face. She also looked partially disturbed.

“They all have different accents,” Axel noted, looking at all of the different birds.

“They’re from everywhere,” you explained, “They’ve come from all over this planet. Some are from other worlds but chose to stay here when they were alive.”

Demyx finally put two and two together.

“Wait. They’re the keyblade wielders?” he nearly shouted.

“Oh now he gets it,” Fritz said from the chief’s shoulder.

“But why are they birds?!” Demyx continued, flinching as a green and white feathered bird landed on his head.

“We chose this form. We were once keyblade wielders like your friend there,” Michael said, nestling into Demyx’s hair, much to Demyx’s chagrin, “But when we died we chose to stay and protect this world and its heart. That’s become a bit of a problem recently.”

“What’s the problem?” Dreamfinder asked as he moved out of the way of a bird flying passed, Figment shooing them away from the shoulder he himself was perched on.

“The main protector of the tree is the goddess born from it. She is the tree as much as the tree is her, and right now she’s the main attacker of the tree.”

José perched back on your arm.

“Your guardian friend here,” José continued, picking up where Michael left off, “Is the only one who can bring her back down to herself. We’ve sworn to protect her, so we cannot act against her – even if it’s for her own good.”

“The prophecy explains it better than we can,” Fritz says, bobbing his head towards a doorway on the other side of the room.

You and the rest of your little troupe moved to the door which led to more stairs. Fritz, Pierre, Michael, and José tagged along, riding on shoulders and Demyx’s hair.

“I can guess the redhead is Axel, yes?” Pierre asked from Namine’s shoulder, eyeing the tall redhead from where he walked in front of him.

“How did you know?” Axel asked casting a glance over his shoulder to look at the bird.

Pierre chuckled a bit knowingly.

“Lucky guess,” he chortled out and the other birds chuckled as well. You felt your heart racing. You had told them about all of your friends, but you hadn’t guessed that they had picked up on how you felt about Axel.

José whispered into your ear.

“He does have pretty eyes.”

You almost swatted him away. He was lucky you held such a deep respect for him and all of the former keyblade wielders.

You stopped at the foot of the stairs, automatically summoning your keyblade and pointing it at the door that now blocked your path. This wall was not ornately decorated like any of the previous doors you went through. It was just a plain slab of stone that looked like a dead end. The floor was also covered in a few inches of water.

Your keyblade lit the room as you unlocked the door, and the stone slid up into the ceiling and revealed a pitch-black room. Had you not been carrying a torch, you’d have panicked. The dark terrified you. The birds flew into the room, and little sparks of magic flew from them, lighting the torches that lined the walls and the large brazier in the middle of the room.

You stepped into the room, the water sloshing about your ankles. Axel noted that you were not reacting as you had on the beach, but he knew you also had to push passed such a fear in order to fish and bathe in the waterfall. He wished he’d been there so you would not have to face such a fear alone.

A whistle sounded next to his ear as Michael landed on his shoulder.

“Hey, lover boy, I know she’s very pretty, but pay attention. This next part is important,” he said, gesturing as best he could with his wing to the long wall in front of you that was split into three separate depictions. You glanced briefly at Axel, feeling your heart flutter before you refocused yourself. Now was not the time.

The first segment of the wall before you portrayed several keyblade wielders kneeling to the Tree of Life and to the goddess Uh-Oa. The second depicted the goddess holding the people in one hand, the Tree of Life in another, and her spear in her remaining two hands. The third depicted a keyblade wielder pointing their keyblade at Uh-Oa’s heart. There was a connection between the two, but whether they were attacking or joining her was a mystery. But one thing was clear.

Whatever had to be done, you had to be the one to do it.

“Now the first part depicts our job to Uh-Oa and the tree. We are the protectors and informants. We’ve sworn our lives to her and have chose to do so even in death as her eyes around the world and protectors of the tree,” Michael explained.

“The second part,” Fritz continued, “Is the balance. Uh-Oa, goddess of chaos and balance, keeps everything in a healthy cycle. Peace and ruin; Order and disorder; She keeps the whole of the world together.”

“Lastly,” José concluded, “Is the bond between keyblade wielders and Uh-Oa. Keyblade wielders are not gods by any means but they possess great power to keep or upset the balance of worlds they visit. Here is where ________ comes in. She needs to restore the balance to Uh-Oa. Even if that means killing her. We will not survive without a keyblade wielder’s help and neither will the planet.”

“But we can survive without a goddess provided the heart of the world is put back into balance, and all keyblade wielders have the ability to purge, cleanse, and balance the light and darkness within hearts that are open to them,” Pierre spoke.

“So how do you know Uh-Oa will be open to it?” Namine questioned, eyeing the last panel of the wall. You couldn’t blame her. If you could not balance the goddess, you’d have to kill her. And could a goddess really be killed.

“We don’t,” Michael answered, “But if she can weaken her heart, she can force it open. Some part of our goddess yet lives in her, but it is buried beneath corruption and rot. The darkness you will have to force open, but that part of her heart will be willing. And Uh-Oa will either be brought back to us or destroy herself in a last attempt to save us.”

“This is a lot to absorb,” Dreamfinder admitted. He as well as everyone was unsure of the plan. But what could they do? Say no?

Just as well, if this world fell, there was no telling if they could even bring Kelewenya back when its sister world would have also fallen to darkness.

“I’m going too,” Axel announced. There was no way he was going to let you fight a goddess by yourself. Sora technically did it when he was fifteen – if the memory he’d seen about Olympus in Castle Oblivion was true. Those titans were nothing to sneeze at either.

You looked at Axel with surprise. He smirked.

“You don’t think after everything I’ve been through looking for you, I’m going to just let you go fight a goddess by yourself do you?”

You giggled a little behind your hand.

“No, I guess that wouldn’t be you if you weren’t always protecting me,” you joked.

“I’ll go too,” Demyx said, actively surprising you, “I can’t just let my friends go on a crazy epic adventure and take all the glory for themselves.”

You all shared a laugh that time.

“And if it’s alright with you,” Namine chimed in, “I’d like to look at the tree and see if there’s anything I can do to help here on the ground.”

“Precisely what I was thinking,” Dreamfinder added. He was very glad to have picked Namine as his apprentice.

Ludwig was still silent.

“I’ll have the village prepare for your journey upon our return,” the chief said with a proud smile on his face, “We should head back now that we’ve discussed all of the important things.”

Everyone seemed to agree, but something was nagging at Axel that he needed to take care of.

He grabbed your hand before you could go. You looked up at him with bright, inquisitive eyes.

“You guys go on ahead,” he said to the rest of the group, “I need to talk to ________.”

Everyone blinked in surprise, looking at each other then repeatedly between you and Axel and where your hands were joined.

“Of course! Of course,” José crowed, “Come along everyone! We’ll sing you the song we wrote while you wait!” The other birds fluttered with excitement, flying ahead and eager to perform.

Axel waited until everyone was out of earshot before turning to you. You waited with a mostly neutral expression on your face, your soft smile the only hint of your emotions.

“Is something wrong?” you asked. Axel gave you a troubled look, and your smile faded and was replaced with concern. You looked at him all over as if he’d just suffered some form of physical injury he hadn’t told you about. He wished you stop worrying over him. You were making this harder than it needed to be.

“I know who tried to kill you,” he said before he could back out of the conversation.

Your eyes widened, and there was a small spark of realization in your eyes.

“Is he a part of the Organization?” you asked. Axel blinked at you in surprise. Demyx or Namine must have told you. That made things both easier and significantly harder.

“How did you…?”

“Sora told me,” you said looking away from him.

“What else did he tell you?” There was an edge to Axel’s voice. You hadn’t really heard it before. It sounded dangerous, and suddenly the thought of Axel being a part of a murderous group of nobodies didn’t seem impossible.

“He told me the Organization takes hearts. And I know you kinda of lied about the robe. It’s true about using them as protection, but the Organization uses them as a uniform. Just like you,” you wanted your voice to sound sturdier and surer, but the venom in Axel’s tone seemed to shake you to your core just a bit.

“It’s true, and I’m sorry about that. I really am.” He sounded warmer now. “I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to change around me. Didn’t want to hurt our relationship.”

You were silent, not looking at his eyes. He wasn’t sure that was worse than if you could stand to look at him. What would that look like? Hate? Sorrow?

“I joined the Organization to get my heart back. Everyone who’s in it did. It seemed like the only way we could be whole again. So we did bad things and hurt people. It was easy when I couldn’t feel anything. Right. Wrong. Didn’t matter. I just wanted to be able to be who I was before everything happened.”

You finally looked up at him, and your expression was a mix of sadness and confusion.

“You hurt people.”

“I did. Even after we met.”

You looked shocked now. You were searching his face for something. He didn’t know what.

“What did you do?” Your voice was quiet and scared. That hurt more than the disappointment he’d expected. To dislike his actions was one thing. To be afraid of him was another. He didn’t want that. He wanted to take it all back. But he needed you to hear him out – needed to tell you everything.

“I kidnapped someone,” he said bluntly, ripping it off like a Band-Aid. He looked away that time, didn’t want to see the look you’d give him then. “A girl. Her name is Kairi. She’s Sora’s best friend. And maybe a little more.”

“Why would you do something like that?!”

He flinched. You sounded scared and horrified. And you were.

“For Roxas,” he blurted. He could see you freeze out of the corner of his eye. But he still couldn’t meet your gaze. “Roxas was my best friend. I didn’t protect him like I should have. Wasn’t there for him when he needed me. And he was destroyed because of it.”

“By Sora?”

“Sort of. Roxas was Sora’s nobody. He needed Roxas in order to be recompleted. But Roxas was also my best friend. I… At the time… I wanted….”

What was he supposed to say? He wanted to kill someone to bring back his best friend?

“You wanted to bring Roxas back,” you finished. You didn’t sound angry or disappointed. When he looked at you, you looked neutral, calculating, eyes cast down to your feet where the water continued to gently rise and fall around your ankles.

“Yeah,” he sighed out. You nodded.

“And what about the person sent to kill me?” you asked, changing the subject. You’d heard enough about that.

“Vanitas. He was sent to kill you because I didn’t.”

Now you looked shocked. You were looking at him like he was a stranger.

“I was supposed to kill you and didn’t,” he admitted.

“Why?” Your voice was barley above a whisper at this point as you studied his face.

“At first, it was because I pitied you. You’d never seen the moon or stars. You never knew sunsets or sunrises. Even the flowers on Hollow Bastion seemed like a novelty to you. I felt bad. So I let you experience things. I hadn’t expected to be friends with you. But every moment I spent with you made it harder to do my job. And eventually I didn’t want to do it anymore. So I started protecting you. And I’d like to keep doing that if you’ll let me,” he said. You didn’t respond yet.

A moment of quiet passed between the two of you.

“Those few weeks you were gone, where were you?”

Changing the subject again.

“I figured out that Vanitas was following me. He was hoping I’d lead him to you. So I left. When you called that day you went missing, I was acting casual, but I wanted to be with you in case he found you. I’d fought him not long before that. He said he knew where you were. So when you didn’t come back the next day, I assumed the worst. But I didn’t want to believe it. I keep thinking that if I had told you, you would have been safer – would have known to take measures to avoid capture or worse. I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” you sighed.

“Okay?”

“I need a moment to think about all of this,” you said as you brushed passed him, not making eye contact.

Axel didn’t know how to react. You weren’t screaming at him or yelling. You didn’t say you never wanted to see him again.

“I’m not that person anymore, ________,” he called after you. You paused at the door then kept walking. And Axel didn’t know what to do. So he followed silently, giving you space.

You could hear the birds as you climbed the stairs. You wanted to be out of this moment. You didn’t want to think Axel was who he was – even if he said he wasn’t that person anymore. You didn’t want to think he was that person ever.

In the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room

In the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room

All the birds sing words and the flowers croon

In the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room

The birds were finishing up their final chorus when you finally walked back into the room. Your friends, excluding Ludwig, and the chief gave light applause while the birds bowed from their perches around the room.

“________!” Fritz called, “You missed our song!”

“She doesn’t look so good,” Michael said in what he imagined might have been a hushed voice. You grimaced a little.

“Her boyfriend isn’t looking too good either,” Fritz mentioned, noting Axel’s facial expression.

“A lovers’ quarrel perhaps?” José asked no one in particular.

You ignored them, moving across the room silently to go up the stairs and exit the temple. Your friends and the chief followed. You were silent even on the boat, keeping to yourself and talking to no one while Axel gazed at you worriedly.

You were stuck in your thoughts. You knew you couldn’t under any circumstances overlook Axel’s actions, but you at the very least understood them. You remembered how you felt after you lost Genki. You would be willing to throw yourself down that hole just to bring him back. But would you be willing to kill anyone else?

Sora more or less killed Roxas hadn’t he?

That would drive anyone over the edge. You didn’t think you’d take it lying down either if someone killed your friends. Especially if killing them meant bringing back your friend.

It still wasn’t okay. But you could see why someone might do that.

You could also see why someone would join the Organization if they lost their heart. They don’t have any emotion. How much of their self – their true self – is left after something like that? Does it change how you feel about what’s right and what’s wrong?

Probably considering right and wrong are entirely based in your emotions and sense of self. Something that had been ripped from Axel forcibly. At least until he met Roxas. And, remembering what Namine told you about relationships, he had started forming a new heart. A heart that you remembered was now connected to yours.

Axel had done bad things.

But you had seen light in him. He had protected you and gone against the people who promised him a heart to protect you.

You felt for your connection to him. You knew the connection didn’t allow you to feel his every emotion or he yours, but maybe you could feel through that connection. See how he really felt.

You closed your eyes, testing it. It felt like being pushed and pulled like being caught in the tide. You could feel guilt and remorse. You could feel hurt. So at least he meant what he’d said. He wasn’t that person anymore. He wasn’t the Axel you knew either.

But he wasn’t bad either.

He was a victim of circumstance in the beginning. And some of his actions after that fact were not a direct result of that, and you could no more overlook them than you could any of his good deeds.

But you could understand them. You could offer understanding. He was doing better. And he was willing to tell you – albeit a little late in the game – about what he’d done in an effort to be honest and keep your trust. He did bad things and made mistakes.

But he was your friend. And you didn’t want anything else to change between you.

You weren’t the only person silently contemplating your actions. Ludwig sat in a corner of the boat in a fetal position, rocking back and forth. His hair was frazzled, and he looked like he’d seen better days. Namine and Dreamfinder were doing their best to comfort him.

“Come now, Luddy, it isn’t all bad,” Dreamfinder said, moving to pat his friend on the shoulder. Ludwig hissed, and Dreamfinder withdrew his hand.

“I did this. I could have said something to Ansem, threat or no threat. How many people have suffered for my inaction? I thought I could make it right by building Spaceship Earth, but there’s just been another world still suffering the whole time!”

Namine and Dreamfinder looked at each other.

“We’ll figure something out, Professor,” Namine said in a soothing voice, “When they go up the tree to find Uh-Oa, we’ll be on the ground keeping everything together for them.”

Ludwig took very little comfort in it, but he took comfort all the same.

“Yes, yes, you’re right. I let Beastly Kingdom fall, and I’ll be damned if I let Animal Kingdom fall too.”

~

By the time you’d arrived back at the village, the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, and the village was decorated brightly and beautifully and smelled of hot, delicious food.

“What’s all this?” Demyx asked as he stepped off of the boat.

“The village is celebrating,” you answered, “It’s because tomorrow I go up the tree and face Uh-Oa and maybe fix all the damage caused.”

“Sweet!” Demyx said, bounding over to the nearest table with food. You waited by the edge of the boat as your friends and family each hopped off one by one. Then Axel stepped up. He hopped off the boat and looked at you. You were obviously waiting for him.

“I’ve thought about it,” you began. “I know you’re not a bad person. I know you did what you felt you had to. And while that’s not an excuse, I think I understand your reasons behind your actions. And if you want, I still want to be your friend.”

You lightly took his hand, looking up at him with a smile and a look of sympathy in your eyes. It was different from all the one he’d received before, but this one was somehow better – perhaps because now you knew him better.

He smiled, holding your hand more firmly. You both just looked at each other for a moment, enjoying each other’s company and the way the evening felt, your heart still fluttering even with your view of him changed.

That was when Amaya came bounding up to the two of you with a bright smile on her face.

“This is Amaya,” you explained to Axel as she looked between the two of you, “She’s one who told the village about me.”

“Is this Axel?” she asked, looking at him with lively eyes to match her smile. Axel blinked in surprise.

“How did you know?” he asked.

“Because ________ said you were really cute!”

“Amaya!”

Notes:

As always love those comments! You all are so sweet and so supportive and I love doing this and I love that you love it!

Obscure-ish References:

The Enchanted Tiki Room: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney%27s_Enchanted_Tiki_Room

Chapter 25: Longer, Slower, Sweeter

Summary:

There's a party! Also Axel has a boner. I mean it guys. If you're not into slightly more mature content (that is sexual in nature) then the last but of this chapter might not be for you!

Notes:

Still moving but I'm still caught up in my writing! Huzzah!

You try to remember the last time you’d been to a party, and it all feels fuzzy. Had it really been so long? Didn’t matter now. You were going to enjoy this.

The center of the village was alive with people, dancing, eating, drinking. Even Daealla, who always maintained an air of motherly calm about her, was partying like it was her last night alive.

Demyx was trying his best to charm a few of the village girls into thinking he was incredibly brave and strong, doing a few tricks with his sitar to their many oohs and ahhs. This, of course, was when he wasn’t stuffing his face with food.

Your uncle had relaxed only a bit with the aura of the party giving an infectious calming flow with its mirth and laughter. He drank a bit, not a lot, instead nursing one steady cup of alcohol for the whole of the night.

Dreamfinder was even more conservative with his drinks. They kept offering them to him, but he wasn’t a fan of the taste. So he kept giving them to Figment who was drunk off his ass before the party really had a chance to get under way.

You sat on one of the many benches near the open square with Axel and Namine. You were glad she was there. You needed a buffer friend to diffuse the awkwardness you felt since Amaya spelled out your feelings for Axel. Well, sort of. He knew. And you knew he knew. And he knew you knew he knew. Your feelings were obvious before, and they hadn’t gotten any less obvious apparently. Though if you knew the object of your affections was going to meet the people to whom you spilled your heart, you probably wouldn’t have been so open about it. Specifically about how cute and sweet he was. And his eyes. Ugh, you could live in those eyes of his, and damn near everyone who asked you about your life before knew it.

Namine wasn’t touching any alcohol though she thoroughly enjoyed the food. You knew not to drink since you had a big day tomorrow, but you needed a cup to take the edge off. Maybe you could kick your awkwardness a bit and act like how you normally did. Axel was also having a cup, but he barely touched it.

“You’ve hardly eaten anything, _________,” Namine pointed out after a while, “Is something wrong?”

“Ah, just nerves I guess,” you said, sipping your drink and staring deeply into your cup. It was sweet with a strange savory after taste. Not bad, but not your favorite either. You didn’t do much drinking back home anyway. Only at parties and even then just a few sips of beer. You’d never been more than tipsy, except once after a several glasses of champagne at a New Years party when your mom let you drink.

You decided promptly that you didn’t like being drunk. Not enough control of your body and you felt nauseous the whole time. No, drunk wasn’t for you, but tipsy you could handle. Not like it mattered. You weren’t aiming for any of that tonight. You doubt you would have even touched the stuff were it not for your nerves.

“I know you’ll do fine tomorrow,” she said, laying a comforting hand on your shoulder. You just smiled. She couldn’t have known that you meant how you felt about Axel. Of course, boys were also the least of your worries, but the heart wants what it blah blah blah….

“So what did the two of you need to talk about earlier?” Namine asked innocently enough, sipping a non-alcoholic juice. You stiffened, taking another quick sip of your own drink. You felt like you needed it. You could see Axel sip his own rather hurriedly too. Was he feeling awkward too? Did you incidentally make things weird by entrusting an eight-year-old with your secret-not-so-secret crush?

“They weren’t talking!” Demyx slurred as he half-walked, half-stumbled over to your little group. “They were making out!” He started making mock kissing noises at you and Axel. You downed another portion of your drink. Where was that mother fucking buzz when you needed it?

“We were not making out!” Axel snapped at him. He did not need to revisit that moment right now. Not when you were all supposed to be enjoying your time here.

“I don’t know, Demyx. They looked upset when they came back,” Namine countered.

“That’s just cause Axel’s a bad kisser. I would know,” he said with a smirk. You and Namine snapped your heads over in Axel’s direction with wide-eyed looks. Axel rolled his eyes.

“He would not know!” he defended. “And I’m not a bad kisser! Not that, you know, I’m tryna to get kissed or anything! Not saying I don’t want to either! I mean! Ugh! Shut your drunk ass up, Demyx!”

Demyx laughed then cried then laughed some more. You were worried about him and his drunk ass but not enough to care. You were still stuck on, “Not saying I don’t want to either.” You sipped some more of your drink trying to calm your thirsty ass down.

“Well maybe I don’t know, but ________ sure does!” Demyx said leaning on you.

“I don’t,” you said dryly, downing the last of your drink.

“But I bet you wished you did,” he said, poking you in the cheek. You moved to bite him, but he pulled his finger out of the way at the last second.

He was right though.

“________!” someone called. You looked to the square to see several of the warriors standing there, bearing their spears. One of the warriors, Nym, beckoned you over with an eager smile on his face. You could already hear the drums starting up for a dance you loved oh so much. Nym knew it was your favorite.

The warriors lit their spears one by one, bright red and orange flames dancing on the ends of their weapons. You stood from your spot, letting Demyx fall into the space you once occupied. You summoned your own spear, lighting it aflame with your own azure blaze.

Your friends looked on in mild surprise. You certainly hadn’t been able to do that before. They knew you could summon a spear and control your fire from your tales of survival, but a combination of the two was a creative twist on the weapon. You were becoming quite the warrior.

Dreamfinder, Figment, and Ludwig walked over to where Axel, Namine, and Demyx sat. Daealla joined them to watch you with an eager smile.

“What are they doing?” Namine asked as she watched you and the other warriors get into position.

“They’re dancing,” Daealla responded, eyes never leaving you, “This is a dance that was created in honor of Uh-Oa which is why only the spear-bearers do it.”

The drums began to pick up their beat, signaling to the dancers that it was time to start. Your hips began to sway, and you lifted your spear above your head. The dance always started slow, and you loved the way it picked up. It felt like your heart taking off. You twirled your spear around, spinning on your toes and striking defensive and offensive poses alike. Your spear and your flame were an extension of you, and you danced with both with all the grace you could muster looking like an ethereal warrior – something both beautiful yet destructive; perilous and celestial alike.

And Axel was in awe. He knew you were graceful, and he’d seen you grow powerful. But you were something new now. And he couldn’t think of how to describe it. He just sat there with his eyes slightly widened, taking you in as you danced, the light of your beautiful, blue flames shimmering in your eyes and the glass beads in your hair.

You were radiant.

You glanced at your friends out of the corner of your eyes seeing their happy, and wowed expressions. Then you saw Axel. That was very much the look of someone who liked what they were seeing, and you were feeling bold – one might even say flirty. And so you tossed him a wink.

He ignited, a bright red flame, coursing over his body. He quickly got it back under control before he could burn anything down but not before Ludwig’s feathers caught fire a bit. He quickly patted it out before glaring at Axel who gave him a quick apology, blushing as he did so. He found himself doing that a lot lately. Or at least found himself trying very hard to with every time you managed to catch him off guard like this. You were kind of driving him crazy.

He couldn’t feel bad too long though because he was once again caught up in your dance, watching your every lithe step and spin as you handled your spear with all the care of an expert.

Daealla looked on with pride. Namine, Dreamfinder, Figment and Demyx looked on with light amazement. Ludwig was more worried than anything. If anything happened to you, your mother would kill him – and you just had to be dancing with a weapon that was on fire. Why was no one else worried about this?

Well it didn’t matter because soon the dance came to an end. You, panting and exhilarated, de-summoned your weapon, your flames fizzling out in a flash of smoke and glowing cinders.

You bounded back over to your friends.

“I’ve taught you well. You looked amazing out there,” Daealla said with no small amount of pride in her voice, “And I’m not the only one that thought so.” Her eye somewhat subtly flicked to Axel and back to you with a knowing smile not unlike your mother’s. At least someone in this world knew how to be subtle about your feelings.

“I know Axel thought so,” Demyx teased, and even Namine giggled.

“You were okay,” he said with a smirk. You smiled but looked away nervously.

“You set me on fire,” Ludwig said dryly. You couldn’t help but giddily giggle. “Don’t giggle giddily at that!”

“Yeah, he thinks you’re hot stuff,” Dreamfinder added with a nudge.

“And don’t nudge me!” Ludwig snapped.

Your heart was beating rapidly in your chest, happily but nervously. You cast a glance at Axel who was blushing and trying to act like he wasn’t.

You couldn’t help the giggle that escaped you again. He looked at you. And you giggled a bit more, albeit more nervously. Could everyone hear how loudly your heart was beating?!

“What’re you laughing at?” he challenged with a smirk.

“You’re cute when you blush,” you blurted – that alcohol must have been catching up to you. He looked surprised, blinking at you before looking away again.

“You’re cute when you dance,” he said. Your heart is either beating so fast that it’s a steady vibration that feels like nothing or it stopped altogether. Both of these things seem plausible. Obviously one was true because not enough blood or oxygen was making its way to your brain because even though you were probably going to humiliate yourself in some way, you sat next to him.

“Thank you,” you said softly, with a light smile. He looked in your eyes, and this time you found you couldn’t look away. No matter how much it made that stupid grin pop up on your face or made your heart beat to the point you thought it might explode, you didn’t want to look away and leave this moment with him. He found himself stuck in a similar trance.

The others took the hint and left the two of you alone.

The two of you didn’t do as much flirting after that, preferring to just talk and get to know more about each other. You told him more of your life before, and he told you stories of being with Roxas when the two weren’t running jobs for the Organization.

You were in the middle of a story about accidentally knocking your uncle’s beak off and how it had taken two days to staple it back to his face when you heard one of your favorite songs cue up. It wasn’t warrior specific and had no designated dance for it, but you loved dancing to it regardless. Your eyes lit up, and Axel knew what you were going to ask before you even asked it. And he was prepared to turn you down too, but then you gave him this look of absolute bliss when you heard the drums tapping out a beat that a flute-like instrument matched, and he forgot how to say no.

“Wanna dance?” you asked, already hopping up to your feet. You were obviously going to dance with or without him, but you also very obviously wanted him to dance with you.

“I’m not really much of a dancer,” he said, scratching the back of his head. You were already pulling him to his feet. He couldn’t say no.

“This song is simple,” you said, swiveling your hips as you pulled him close. You put his hands on your hips and you leaned into him, hands reaching up to his shoulders. He stumbled a bit, but eventually fell into a natural rhythm with you. You didn’t break it or push your moves too far. You wanted him to be comfortable in this. The two of you continued to do your slow rhythmic dance until the two of you were pressed rather close to each other – you lean into him even more and he pulls your hips flush against his own.

You felt warm like this. Really warm. But pleasantly so. You couldn’t take your eyes off of his, his eyes seemingly darker now as he gazed at you. You also felt like you were going to fall into them. Your body felt like it was soaked in searing heat building to a crescendo.

And just like that you ignited, body enveloped in bright blue flame.

Axel blinked in surprise, looking down at your own wide eyes which had been, a second ago, enamored with his own. He had to admit that he liked dancing with you. He liked you. And he liked feeling your body move with his own. He probably shouldn’t considering it was just a dance, but the way you were looking at him made him want far more than he ought to.

And the next thing he knew, you had caught fire. Apparently you were feeling it too. He snapped out of his surprise relatively quickly, allowing a red flame to consume him too so you wouldn’t be alone or embarrassed about having lost control for a moment, and then you continued your dance, the two colors of flame dancing around each other just as you did now.

You both shared a light laugh at the situation, letting the music take you away again until a low rumble of thunder rolled overhead. A moment later a downpour came to rain out the party. Just as well, it was getting late. The rain felt cleansing and cool, and you stepped away from Axel to revel in the feel of it, smoke rising off of your body as the flames extinguished and sizzled against your burning skin.

You sighed in contentment, turning to head inside.

Axel followed you trying not let his eyes linger on your outfit which had begun to cling to your body, and the way it drooped lower on your chest when heavy with rainwater – and how it moved with the graceful sway of your body.

He shook his head. He absolutely should NOT be thinking about you like that. He should absolutely NOT be desperately trying to keep his pants from getting tighter which they absolutely should NOT have been doing in the first place in reaction to his best friend. Though he’d been shaking those thoughts off since the first time he’d seen you in your armor – which he’d been denying to himself until more recently that you looked good in… maybe more than good. Maybe so good he actively had to think about keeping it in his pants.

Ugh. He was a mess.

~

This was awkward. No this was just cruel.

You were both acting like you were busy, taking your time getting ready for bed when in actuality this was a really big problem. You had agreed that it was no big deal and you were adults perfectly capable of handling this situation that should not have been that big of a deal. Yet here you were acting like sharing a bed with Axel was totally normal.

It was an honest mistake that had been made anyway. Daealla and the chief had assumed the two of you were together and would want to share a room, and with your friends occupying all the other rooms in their large home, there was no extra one for Axel. So you both just accepted and told them it was no trouble while acting like you were mature enough to handle this. And you were. It’s just severely more awkward when a few moments ago you were dancing with each other and pressed so closely together that you created literal sparks, and now you had to share a bed.

It wasn’t like you hadn’t been in bed with a boy before.  You’d made out with a few on their beds and some on your own, and you and Genki slept side by side all the time – with him on top of the covers with his own blanket of course. And this situation was no different than that one. You were just two friends sleeping on different layers of bed with absolutely no sexual overtones whatsoever.

So why was letting him sleep in your bed so fucking awkward?!

You let out a quiet groan for the umpteenth time that night as you ran your hands down your face. You were in your pajamas, a night gown that was moderately modest. It didn’t look like something you’d seduce somebody in, outside of the fact that it was extremely short. It almost resembled a t-shirt with its loose fit and capped sleeves.

You’d take care not to do any bending over and there you have it – totally normal, unsexy pajamas.

You splashed some water on to your face and dried it before walking back into your room. It was dark except for the bright moonlight that shown into the window, illuminating everything in a pearly blue glow.

Axel had already taken off his boots and was in the process of taking his coat off. You don’t think he heard you come out of the bathroom, and you were glad he didn’t hear you gasp as you watched him slide the wet garment from his shoulders.

He was muscular but lean. Years of working for the Organization did not do him wrong. But he was scarred too. A lot. They were all over, tiny little cuts that crisscrossed and zigzagged over each other. But there was one large, dark one that cut him from shoulder to hip. Unlike the other scars he had which were raised and jagged, this one was smooth with clean edges.

He had been through a lot. But despite the scars, he was kind of beautiful.

You tried not to let your eyes linger for two long, casting one last long glance at his frame as he folded up his coat. Your bed was pressed up against the wall in one corner of the room, and you hopped in and under the covers, quickly scrambling as close to the wall as the bed would allow so he wouldn’t have to look at your exposed legs as some strange attempt to seduce him.

You’re that paranoid.

“Oh, you’re back,” he said, a deer in headlights look about him.

“Yep,” you said, looking anywhere but at him. Your heart was beating even faster now. It was going to fly into your throat at this rate. Then it started skipping every other beat when he began walking to the bed. He climbed on top of it, not looking at you. Not that you’d have noticed because you weren’t looking at him.

And you were both just staring up at the ceiling awkwardly. Waiting to fall asleep. Which was taking way too long. You let out a long sigh. You felt ridiculous.

You tried to think about anything else, but all of your thoughts drifted to Axel. And those thoughts would remind you that there was a shirtless Axel lying right next to you, and you would ignore the thrill of nervousness and excitement that would run through you as best you could.

You closed your eyes and tried to think of a memory you could focus on instead of the moment you were in – thoughts finally drifting to the ones before Axel. Before all of this. When things were simple.

Axel was in a similar predicament. He was trying to pinpoint exactly when it was that he started to develop feelings for you. When had your noble bullheadedness turned into something to admire? When did he go from thinking you weren’t cute to having to shake thoughts of attraction from his head every time you walked into his line of vision? And when had his flirting to get a reaction out of you turned into real flirting because he liked it when you flirted back? How much of this was just mounting sexual tension and active romantic feelings?

“Thank you,” you blurted suddenly but quietly, startling Axel out of his thoughts, “For the shell you got me. I never got a chance to thank you for it. It’s really pretty.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. He didn’t know what else to say after that. Should he try to start a conversation? “Maybe we’ll go again sometime.”

“I’d like that,” you said after a moment, wringing your hands over the cover as your heart fluttered again. Ugh... When had you fallen so hard for him that a simple invitation to the beach was driving you insane? “And thank you for dancing with me earlier. I was afraid you’d back out of it.”

“I liked dancing with you.” More than he wanted to admit.

“Me too,” you said, then with a giggle you added, “In case my setting myself on fire didn’t tell you.”

He let out a light chuckle. The two of you were certainly something out there. Neither of you had even noticed the village gazing at you and your beautiful display. You were too wrapped up in each other’s eyes and the movement of feeling your bodies pressed so snugly together and the searing heat that surrounded the two of you – you also quietly marveling at the fact that Axel’s fire didn’t burn you or yours him.

“I mean I’d already set myself on fire earlier that night,” he half-joked. You giggled.

“And that was when my performance was just ‘okay,’” you added with little air quotes. He chuckled again.

“Maybe you were a little more than okay,” he admitted. You felt yourself relaxing around him, and he felt calmer too. Now that you weren’t so wound up, exhaustion began to pull at you. It had been a long day. You’d been reunited with your friends and family, your crush maybe kinda sorta liked you, and tomorrow you’d start your journey up the tree.

“You’re a little more than okay too,” you said quietly. Did that count as a confession? Or were you too tired to think straight anymore? Axel wasn’t sure either, but he was tired. Maybe he hadn’t even heard you right.

Your eyes drifted shut, and within a few minutes you were snoring lightly. Axel had fallen asleep too.

~

You were on the Destiny Islands again, your feet standing on wet said, the warm water coming up and lapping at your ankles before retreating again.

Axel was with you, and you both gazed out at the two contrasting blues of the sky and the ocean where they met on the horizon. You turned and smiled at him. He smiled back. The two of you waded deeper into the water, soaking up the warmth of the sun when you got a mischievous look on your face.

He knew where this was going – knew it as soon as you bent over to scoop some water up. And he was just a bit faster, splashing you in the face with warm, salty water. You spluttered while he laughed at you. You splashed back. Then he looked predatory, but playfully so. You ran, sloshing through the water as best you could to get back to shore, but when you looked back he was gone.

You turned around to see him stepping out of a corridor, and you were running too fast to stop now. He caught you, lifting you up into his arms and you let out a peal of laughter. He set you down immediately afterwards and the two of you returned to the edge of the wet sand right where the ocean came up to meet your toes and retreat.

Your heart was going crazy, and the part of his that existed was too. This was nice. It made you feel warmth radiate throughout your body. You looked for shells and he found a pale pink one with turquoise streaks going through it that he gave you. You held it close and sat on the sand, patting the spot next to you so he would too.

The two of you admired the view of the sun sparkling on the water before you felt his hand brush over yours. You looked at your hands and then at him. He was looking at you, his eyes soft and inviting. You grabbed his hand, letting your fingers lace together.

Then he leaned forward. You leaned forward a bit too, eyes fluttering closed. A fraction of a second later his lips were on yours. It was short, sweet, only a half of a second of a kiss, and when you pulled back, the two of you looked at each other with a mix of wonder, giddy excitement, and nervousness. You let out a giggle, he chuckled out a breathless laugh. You were nervous, sure. But you weren’t nervous enough to let it overwhelm you because a moment later, the two of you were kissing again – this time longer, slower, sweeter.

Your heart felt like it was going to burst in your chest. You twisted your body around a bit so you were facing him more and he did the same, the two of you breaking apart for only the barest second before you were back on each other, one of your hands on the back of his neck and the other on his shoulder. Both of his hands were on either side of you, one eventually resting just above your knee on your thigh. It began to inch up a bit, stopping on your inner thigh.

Then Axel faltered. Was this alright? Was that too forward?

He began to pull his hand away, and you put it back, leaning towards him more and encouraging him to touch you more. Sweet fuck you needed this. You were resting on your knees now, and Axel pulled you forward until you were on his lap, nearly straddling him.

His hand left your thigh and was on your hip moving to the small of your back and lightly rubbing the skin beneath your shirt.

You broke away to take his gloves off and were back to kissing him again, reveling in the feeling of his skin on yours. Finally! And you scooched forward a bit more until you were straddling him, arching into him just a bit.

His other hand rubbed across your stomach just under your breasts.

You unzipped his coat, letting your hands run over his body too, and trailing them everywhere they could, and he seemed to appreciate the feeling of it. He took his lips off of yours, eyes half-lidded and needy. He rocked you back until you were lying on the ground with him over top of you. He trailed a few kisses up your neck and you panted before his lips were back on yours, and you were digging your hands into his hair, pulling him closer.

His hand that had run over your stomach before now crept up to your breast, and you arched into his touch, feeling him explore parts of your body as if he was trying to learn you. You brought your own hands back to his chest and lightly scratched down his back, feeling all of the rough scarring with patches of smooth flawless skin between. His hips lightly bucked into yours, telling you what he wanted, and you began to trail your fingertips over his hips, never trailing lower.

While you teased him, only just barely brushing over where he really wanted to be touched, he reached his hands beneath your arched back and under your shirt, beginning to fiddle with the clasp of your bra. Just as he had figured out how to undo it, your hand began to trail down to the bulge in his pants and you were about to touch him….

~

Axel blearily blinked his eyes open. He was uncomfortable. Painfully so. When he looked down he realized why that was. He was cuddling you – or rather spooning you as best he could through the blankets on the bed, and you were pressed snugly against him. He was just thankful you couldn’t feel his erection – which was painfully pushing against his pants in a desperate attempt at freedom – pressing into your ass through the blankets. He felt like he was about to erupt, pulling away from your body and out of the dream just in time. Fuck only knows what would have happened if you had actually managed to touch him in that dream. Also he was on fire. Something he hoped wouldn’t be a frequent occurrence every time he was mildly aroused by dreams.

He should not have been dreaming that. He should not be thinking about you so sexually, and he felt weird thinking that if he hadn’t woken up he’d have probably done much, much more in that dream. And woken up with an even more embarrassing situation to deal with. Especially if you woke up before him and saw it.

He groaned lowly as he shifted away from you before getting on the floor to sleep. He lay there awake for a bit, trying desperately to ignore the boner and his nearly unignorable urge to finish himself off that had yet to go away, but he refused to take care of it. And eventually he was able to ignore it enough, and it had softened enough to be ignored and he could sleep.

He didn’t have anymore dreams like that, thankfully.

~

You woke slowly, a gentle sunlight streaming in through your window. The air was pleasantly warm and comfortable. You turned to your side and noticed Axel was missing.

Maybe he had to use the bathroom?

You shrugged, stretching your limbs out and basking in the warmth the sun offered, feeling your bones pop here and there. You’d had a good night’s sleep and a very good dream about you and Axel. It ended before it got to the best part, but you could just imagine an ending later.

You bit your lip. You probably shouldn’t be thinking about him like that, but he drove you absolutely wild.

Then you noticed the markings on the bed. It looked like it had been torched to hell.

You swung your legs over the side of the bed and saw Axel on the floor not far from where you were. You blinked down at his sleeping form before creeping over to him, kneeling next to him – minding your short nightgown – and gently shaking his shoulder.

“Axel?”

Even on the uncomfortable floor he looked absolutely adorable sleeping. Ugh. You were lovestruck – crush-struck? Whatever you were. If you kept this up, you’d stab yourself in the gut from your own romance-y mind.

He stirred, blinking several times in the light of the room before taking in your form kneeling next to him, your eyes looking at him with mild concern.

What were you concerned about? Already he wanted to fix whatever it was. Then he realized it was probably because he decided to sleep on the floor. But you didn’t know that.

“Um, good morning?” you said with a small smile, “What are you doing on the floor?”

Keeping his inappropriate thoughts away from you – and the not so subtle reactions his body had to said thoughts.

“I fell out of the bed,” he answered, sitting up and rubbing the shoulder he slept on. You snorted a little, trying not to laugh at the fact that your friend had fallen in the middle of the night.

“You could have gotten back in?” you said with an amused smile and a little giggle in your voice.

“It had not occurred to me,” he said with a small smirk, standing up and offering you his hand. You took it, standing up and giving his hand a little squeeze. You giggled at his response.

“And what about the mattress? It looks like it’s seen better days,” you said, casting a wary glance towards it.

“It enraged me.”

You couldn’t help the snort of laughter that escaped you.

Notes:

So Axel thinks you're pretty damn cute.

Anyway leave your comments and kudos behind because they give me life! I love you all and all of your wonderful support thus far! See ya next week!

Chapter 26: The Tree of Life

Summary:

You begin your trek up the mountain with your friends by your side. Ludwig, Dreamfinder, and Namine explore the roots system. You make a discovery in the depths of the tree.

Notes:

Hey! Hey! Sorry the chapter is coming a little late in the day. I've been busy! But here it is! No mature content this time around, just some mild horror-ishness if you're not a fan of the trope "And I Must Scream." Enjoy!

You took in a deep breath. Your heart was already pounding in your chest.

You were… intimidated to say the least. You’d seen the mountains in the distance and the mountain-sized tree in the distance, but to be standing at the base of it was overwhelming. You’d never seen any of these things up close and in person before.

“You okay?” Axel asked, eyeing you warily.

“Yes, I’m fine,” you replied, taking another deep breath, “Can you tell I feel strange?”

“I can feel it,” he remarked, touching the spot where his heart would be – no, was forming. You hadn’t even realized you were sending out your emotions like that.

“Sorry,” you said quickly, “I didn’t realize I was doing that.”

You were trying to reign in your emotion, but it was proving to be easier said than done and every glance at the tree sent another wave of mild anxiety through you. You felt two warm hands rest on your shoulders. You looked up at Axel who was giving you a calm, steady gaze.

You felt better.

“Breathe,” he commanded, “Slowly.”

You took his advice, closing your eyes and taking in slow, deep breaths. You felt your heart calm slightly. You opened your eyes to look at Axel again. Oops. Your heart skipped a beat that time. But if he felt that too, he didn’t mention it.

“Thanks,” you said once you were more under control. “It’s just…  enormous.”

You looked at the Tree of Life again, feeling the similar feeling of awe and anxiousness creep up again but not nearly as bad as before with Axel grounding you. You could see shapes of the animals more clearly now. Some you could recognize or at least looked vaguely familiar. Others were lost on you, strange things you could only hope to hear about in fiction.

“What are you afraid of mountains?” Demyx lightly teased while Axel shot him a look. You laughed a bit anyway. Humor was nice. Humor got rid of the nerves.

“No, I don’t think so. I’ve just never seen one before. I mean, I’ve seen pictures but never stood next to one – let alone climbed one. And I’ve never seen a mountain that was a tree before either.”

“Hm. You got me there. I’m not familiar with mountain trees either,” he said as he eyed the tree. He didn’t look awed at all. Which was a marvel itself to you.

“We are all counting on you, Guardian,” the chief said as he walked up to you, handing each of you a pack of supplies, each stuffed to the brim. Axel would be carrying the tents, one for the boys and one for you. Demyx would be carrying food, fresh fruit and dried meats and animal skins full of water and juices. You would handle the first aid kits, potions, and sleeping bags. “And I understand that you all are magic users. If you would be so kind to respect our customs, I would ask that you refrain from using any dark magic on the tree.”

You each nodded. You didn’t know any dark magic, but you knew this meant no corridors of darkness from Axel or Demyx.

“You will be victorious. I know it,” Daealla said with a proud smile as she moved to hug you. You gave her a tight squeeze back, looking behind her at all of the proud and expectant faces of the village people who had come to see you off. Then you saw Amaya push through the crowd, running up to you to give you a goodbye hug as well. She all but fell into your arms, and you both shared a giggle. But then her laugh abruptly stopped, cutting off with a choking noise and a gurgle. She fell slack against you and you quickly turned her to face upwards. You saw her expression flicker between fear and peace.

“Amaya?!” you said with alarm. The eyes of Daealla and the chief snapped down to the two of you as you watched her fade away in your arms.

“No!” Daealla screeched as she lurched towards you, her child passing through her fingers. She let out a choked sob as she grasped at the air where her child had once been. When she registered that there was nothing to grab for she finally gripped your hands like a vice. You hardly noticed. Your head was down, and little gleaming tears fell like a silver waterfall from your eyes, your body shuddering.

Why her?

You felt a hand come down on your shoulder and looked up to see the chief. His own eyes brimmed with tears he wouldn’t let fall in front of his people. His face said that it was time to go. You nodded, swiping at your face, helping Daealla to her feet, while she leaned on you. She was quietly sobbing into your shoulder.

“You’ll bring her back,” Axel said, voice strong, supportive. You needed to hear that. “All of them.”

You nodded. Daealla seemed to also take comfort in this. Her tears never stopped, even as she backed away from you. Your tears hadn’t stopped either, and you turned to face the tree. All trace of your anxiety was gone in the face of your determination.

You raised your keyblade, pointing it at the invisible barrier around the tree and watched as a wave of light rippled around the enormous plant. The barrier fell and you, Axel, and Demyx strode towards it, as deathly silent as the crowd behind you.

They dispersed somberly, praying you would.

~

The chief led Namine, Dreamfinder, and Ludwig to the basement of his home. It started like a normal basement before it gave way to the damp, dark earth. It was dimly lit with oil lamps that cast an eerie glow in the space surrounding them.

“I hate to be a bother, but as you know, my people have grown weary and panicked in their wait for a solution to our problem. Have you discovered anything, anything at all, that will save our world?” the chief asked as he led them down the long, spiraling staircase deep below the earth.

“Well,” Dreamfinder began, “I’ve developed a few theories based on the hearts of two of our friends on their way to tangle with the goddess.

“You mean the guardian and her lover?”

This earned a giggle from Namine as she thought about the face the two of you would make to be called lovers.

“The very same!” Dreamfinder said with a chuckle. “You see one of them does not have the whole of his heart."

"Axel, correct?"

"Precisely! But he has been recompleting it via the strong relationship he's formed with ________. Well it was recently discovered that he actually shares an intimate connection with ________, and this connection allows them to share dreams and sometimes feel the emotions of the other when they’re particularly strong - all stemming from a moment of absolute emotional clarity and connection.”

“And what does this mean for us?”

“Well it means that maybe the heart of Kelewenya can be reconstructed. Maybe the world's binary heart can be recompleted in a sense. If the heart can be separated between memories and emotion as we've seen when Axel expresses emotion separate from ________ despite experiencing the same dream and memory, then maybe a heart can be separated like that as well. It would be an incredible discovery! An existing emotion with no specific memory or bias attached to it! I believe one could construct a heart using these raw emotions and allow it to grow based on personal experience. It would be something like an artificial heart or heart stem cells!”

“Tampering with the heart is not something one should take lightly,” the chief warned.

“I understand,” Dreamfinder continued, “But this could allow us to reconstruct a heart for Beastly Kingdom, so your world remains stable. However, it’s too early in this research to know if such is even truly possible. If nothing else, it allows people without hearts to have a chance at forming them.”

The walls of earth were now showing hints of roots that began to weave and tangle around them.

“If it will save my people,” the chief said hopefully, stopping and turning to them, “I will trust you to it. But I must ask that before each of you sees the heart of the Tree of Life, you give of yourself to the tree through an ancient ritual that our people partake of from the moment they are born.”

“What does this ritual entail exactly?” Namine questioned as the foundation of the house was now overcome by roots carved with animals the further down they went. It looked much like the trunk of the tree with each space taken up by an intricate animal carving.

“It is a simple blood ritual in which you will take one drop of your blood and offer it to the roots,” the chief said as he pulled out a small dagger and handed it to Ludwig.

“Oh well that sounds simple enough,” Ludwig stated, pricking his finger and wiping it on one of the roots of the tree. It absorbed it immediately. You’d have never known there was any blood there at all.

Dreamfinder and Namine did the same, watching as their blood was absorbed.

“Now that you each have your own leaves, I’ll escort you down to the heart,” the chief said turning and continuing down the long staircase.

“Our own what?” Dreamfinder exclaimed. Namine looked on with wide eyes at the chief’s retreating figure, and Ludwig fainted.

~

“What’s that one?” you asked for the umpteenth time. Demyx and Axel looked at the animal you pointed to this time. You were trying to keep the questions to a minimum, trying to only point out the truly bizarre ones, but you found yourself incredibly curious the more time went on and the more animals you saw.

There was a path up the tree that twisted and turned between branches, widening and thinning in areas like a mountain trail – though never so thin that you’d have to scooch against a wall. But sometimes thin enough that only one of you could pass at a time. Then sometimes so wide you could fit maybe one hundred people side by side on it.

“That’s a zebra,” Demyx answered. His annoyance with your questions grew as much as your fascination, but he kept his cool. Sometimes it was funny when you didn’t know basic animals. He thought it was weird.

You frowned at his answer.

“It looks like the naked unicorn we saw,” you commented, further inspecting the “zebra.” This was just a “horse” with stripes. Why did the markings change the species?

“It wasn’t naked, and it wasn’t a unicorn,” Demyx repeated, referring to your discovery of the horse, “Your planet just has weird mythical creatures on it.”

“They’re not mythical if they exist Demyx. And it’s hardly my fault your, ‘horse’ is missing a horn or wings. I mean that’s just weird. If something like that exists on my world it’s because poachers cut them off.”

Demyx grimaced at the image of a mutilated horse.

“Well it’s not my fault you don’t have normal animals! How do you get a planet of normal human beings and not normal ani –”

“A planet of what?” you asked, scrunching your face up in confusion. If this thing he spoke of was so normal, then why had you never heard of it?

“Human beings,” Demyx repeated with a dry, disbelieving look. Your face showed no realization of what he was talking about.

“He means whatever they call you on your world,” Axel clarified. He was curious now too. If you didn’t call yourselves humans, then what were you?

“Oh! Elves,” you replied. Demyx and Axel looked more surprised than before – with mild shock written on Demyx’s face.

“You are not elves,” Demyx said with a mild trace of annoyance to his tone, “You’re not short enough and your ears aren’t pointy enough and you don’t sing and make toys.”

“I don’t know what that last part is supposed to mean, but this isn’t, like, millions of years ago where our ears come out to here, Demyx,” you snarked back with a roll of your eyes pointing your finger a foot from where the tips of your own ears were  , “People got taller and ears didn’t need to be as big.”

Axel got closer to you, turning your head to the side to inspect your ears. You wouldn’t really notice if you weren’t looking for it – which no one ever really was – but there was just the slightest hint of a point at the ends of your ears.

“Huh,” Axel mused.

“What’s wrong?” you asked, moving back and rubbing your ear a bit.

“Nothing. Just elves are myths too, and you almost look exactly like a normal person,” Axel said as he watched Demyx inspect your ears much less gently and was met with annoyed swats to keep him at bay.

“My planet is not a myth, and I am normal you dicks!” you said with a little stamp of your foot. Axel held back a little laugh. You were obviously being serious, but… you were acting… kind of adorable really. He forced the thought to the back of his mind, however, when he remembered the dream he’d had. He needed to keep his distance if just watching you be frustrated was going to set his emotions – or his hormones in the case of his dream – off.

You huffed, folding your arms and continuing down the path. You’d been walking for hours and the midday sun was high in the sky. The village had shrunk considerably behind you to where it looked like a small overhead painting rather than something you’d been able to stand in just that morning.

This was about the time Figment stumbled out of Demyx’s head. You all blinked in surprise. He was holding his head, bed robe disheveled with one sleeve hanging off of his shoulder. He sipped from a coffee cup that said, “Mondays ain’t so bad.”

“Figment, what are you doing here?”

Figment blinked at you like you were the crazy one. Then he blearily looked around and took in his surroundings. Then he leaned over the edge of the pathway to see the village below. Then he fainted.

You sighed, picking him up in your arms and cradling him like a baby. He must have slipped into Demyx’s head the night before to sleep off his drunken stupor then woke up too late. Well, he was with you now. You weren’t about to carry him five to six hours back down the tree. When he awoke he could fly down his damn self.

“So,” Demyx began, “Are you guys like Tolkien elves and really tall, like, ya know living with the land and stuff?”

“I don’t know about living with the land or who or what ‘Tolkien’ is but, I mean, before the world imploded there were fossil fuels and cars. And like most people, we all have differing heights, and once again, I am a normal person,” you stressed, “I mean, you’re shorter than Axel! Are you a dwarf where you’re from?”

“Yeah, actually,” Axel joked.

“What?!” Demyx snapped.

~

It was only day two and things were off with your dynamic with Demyx and Axel. Or rather, Axel had been acting strangely. In that he was distant. He joked with you and Demyx sometimes but then it was like he remembered he wasn’t supposed to be and stopped. Well he stopped with you anyway. Demyx was still fair game apparently. And you’d be lying if you said you weren’t the least bit jealous about it, but like hell would you ever admit that you were jealous of Demyx of all people. Maybe he was going through something? Maybe he was pushing you away? Maybe he didn’t like you as much as you thought. And maybe Axel, friend that he was, didn’t want to lead you on or give you the wrong ideas.

Maybe it was your fault.

You’d flirted with him a bit the night before when you all were setting up camp, and he seemed okay with it initially, falling into an easy response before he backtracked severely and changed the subject.

You were caught off guard by it but not deterred. Maybe you should have been. You tried again and got an icier response. You stopped trying after that, ego and feelings thoroughly wounded.

Axel knew he hurt your feelings. He hadn’t meant to do it, but between his erratic feelings for you and his own inability to process them, he didn’t know what else to do. He obviously couldn’t handle flirting with you without relatively lewd thoughts sneaking their way into the innocent ones. And he very much did not want to lead you on romantically to only find out that maybe he just wanted to bang while still remaining close friends. That wouldn’t be fair to you who obviously did want to pursue him romantically.

So he didn’t apologize for so abruptly pushing you away despite the fact that he wanted to because he was incompetent when it came to potentially romantic feelings because these were things he’d never felt before.

Sure, he’d had a crush on a few people before he was a nobody, but he hadn’t felt them in such a long time, processing them was like a mind fuck that gave him a headache every time he tried. And these feelings were fairly new because they were either severely romantic or purely physical with a touch of friendship.

So that was how the two of you found each other almost always using Demyx as a buffer between you for the entirety of that day, talking to each other only when necessary – so basically anytime you were discussing the task at hand. So not very often.

You were admiring the tree again as you walked, hardly paying attention to whatever Demyx was prattling on about this time. The leaves in the mornings glittered like jewels when there was a dew on them, though the higher you, got the drier the air became. Now they had a translucent matte look about them that cast pretty, yellow-green light on everything. It reminded you of a dance you’d done back on Spaceship Earth in a recital as a tribute to nature – one you thought was rather ironic considering the circumstances.

Though you frequently found your thoughts interrupted by Demyx exclaiming something or by your own intrusive thoughts about the cold demeanor emanating from the object of your affections.

“You know, I feel like I’ve been carrying our conversations a lot lately,” Demyx said after he stopped his ten-minute rant about ________ and effectively interrupting your daydreaming.

“That’ll happen when you talk nonstop for ten minutes,” you answered dryly, looking around at all of the branches. You were beginning to notice more gaps in the trees canopy the further up you went, barren branches looking severely out of place amongst the full ones – a grim omen of what was to come.

“Well if I don’t talk, no one will,” Demyx said as he rolled his eyes, “You and Axel have barely said a word to me all day, and you haven’t spoken to each other at all.”

The four of you let this sink in before Demyx let out a big, dramatic gasp, eyes darting rapidly between you and Axel.

“Did something happen between the two of you?! You fucked didn’t you!”

“No!” you snapped, slapping him across the back of his head. “Nothing happened!”

“Then why aren’t you guys talking to each other? I mean, you’ll hardly look at each other.”

Figment glanced between the two of you from where he sat on top of Demyx’s head, trying to read the situation as best he could. Honestly, you both looked tired. Though you carried an air of sadness where Axel looked more frustrated than anything. He had decided to stay with your little group, but now he was rethinking that if he was going to be caught between your drama.

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” you admitted, somewhat bitterly, glancing away from everyone and walking ahead. Axel inwardly cringed. He needed to fix this.

He sighed and walked forward, catching up to you and placing a hand on your shoulder. You didn’t stop, but you didn’t remove his hand either.

“________,” he began as the two of you walked, trying to figure out how to best say that he’d had a dream where he was pretty sure the two of you were gonna have sex while not sounding like a creep, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I know,” you admitted, “You always protect me. I didn’t think you were trying to hurt my feelings. I just thought I pushed you too far. You know how I feel. I thought….”

Your words trailed off as you approached a large cavernous hole in a part of the trunk of the tree. It stood in front of you like a gateway. It was intimidating and inviting. And also so very dark.

Your anxiety spiked. You could only think of your journey through the mind. Your heart began thumping so hard it was almost painful. Axel felt it too, your heart sending out a rush of fear called to him like a beacon and calling for help. It was then he realized you were afraid of the dark.

Demyx, ever oblivious, caught up to the two of you and tried to peer into the cave before asking you what the hold up was. Axel didn’t need to feel your heart to see the look of fear on your face.

Figment transformed into a flashlight that Demyx grabbed and began to shine into the cave. It illuminated a large chunk of it as the light bounced off and shown through what looked like crystals lining the walls of the cave. It cast opalescent blue-purple glows on everything. It made your heart calm somewhat. It was beautiful in a way, and for a brief second you felt like you could do this.

You gave a flick of your wrist, summoning a sizeable blue flame to act as a torch for you. Demyx stepped into the cave first. Darkness encroaching behind his retreating figure. Your bravery began to vanish. But you had to do this. You needed to do this.

As you continued to stare into the mouth of the cave, your hand began to tremble, and you swallowed thickly. You could hear the crying of the creature echoing in your mind. That was the only sound you could hear over the thump of your own heart.

Even Axel felt wary. He could not be afraid of the dark. Not when he’d experienced it so much already. But he could never shake the memory of all he’d seen in your father’s mind – the fear he might never leave, the thought that you would die, the nightmares he occasionally experienced.

But he needed to do this. And so did you. And you would do it together.

Axel grabbed your hand, a flame already flaring in his other one. He began to lead you through the cave, and you squeezed his hand tightly, afraid to let go. Afraid to be in the dark alone.

But he was there. Just like in the mind.

He was there.

“I’ve got you,” he said softly as the two of you walked, “And I’m sorry. That I’ve been distant. I’ve been thinking a lot about myself and my emotions and what they mean for you.”

You looked up at him in the dim, cool light of the fire and crystals. Now that there was a sizeable amount of light coming from the two of you, you could see the bright and sparkling crystals that jetted from the walls in every available space, bathing everything in a lustrous glow that made the non-crystalized floor you stood on gleam like opals and pearls.

“For me?” you asked, heart jumping into your throat as you stopped to look at him. Your eyes were bright and inquisitive, reflecting the glow and shimmer of the walls around you, and he felt his own heart jump into his throat.

He cleared his throat, glancing away so he’d have the nerve to say what he needed. When he opened his mouth to clarify, he was cut off by Demyx’s scream. The two of you rushed forward, the crystals and all of their light seeming to dance as your flames zipped by them. Your eyes scanned for him and Figment at a rapid pace, stopping only when Axel through his arm out to stop your sprint. The two of you skidded to a rough halt, stopping completely at a large crack in the ground. It spanned the length of the hall of the cavern you were in and was just small enough to jump over if you had a running start. Figment fluttered nearby, peering into the abyss below. You looked down into the hole too, stooping close to the edge and listening.

You shook memories of Genki from your mind. You couldn’t focus on that now. But the imagery you conjured of his bloody, broken body invaded your thoughts and now they were replaced with Demyx.

“Demyx!” you called down, an echo reverberating through the cavern. Your palms were sweaty, and you felt a chill of dread creep up your spine.

Silence.

“Demyx!” Axel called down, “Say something!”

He kneeled down to the hole too, brow creased with worry.

There was a heavy pause after that, and you began to worry for your friend. Was he even alive at this point? Or was he fine and just too far down to be heard? Or what if he was hurt just like you had been and waiting to die?

Your heart began to race, and you entered panic mode as you tried to gauge the best thing to do right then and how to rescue Demyx. If he could even be rescued.

“I’m okay,” Demyx called after a minute.

“Why didn’t you say something sooner?! You had me worried sick!”

“Sorry! I can’t see anything, and I have no idea where I am.”

“Are you hurt?”

Demyx was quiet for a moment.

“No. Everything seems to be in working order.”

You let out a sigh of relief. He was okay. Everyone was okay.

“Come on down! I think it’s safe.” Demyx called.

“Uh, okay,” you called before standing up straight.

Okay. You can do this. You can do this.

You.

Can.

Do.

This.

You groaned and paced nervously. You’ve done way scarier things than this. You faced a Lovecraftian faceless giant. You can jump in a hole.

You stood at the edge. Then you groaned lowly in your throat. Why did it have to be so dark in here?

“Okay. I’ll go on the count of three,” you said, mostly to yourself while Figment and Axel watched.

“One,” you started hesitantly. Then Figment pushed you down the hole.

You screamed as you fell through the darkness until you hit the hard but slick surface of the cave with a resounding, “oof.”

Air whipped passed your face as you slid, and you were terrified. You couldn’t see anything, and you didn’t know what awaited you at the end. What if Demyx only thought he was fine, but that was because he couldn’t see any danger? Panic and questions bombarded your mind endlessly for the short ride – though it felt like an eternity with your alarm-riddled mind. It was almost a relief when you crashed into Demyx’s back and you were no longer alone. You fell on top of him, and he let out a pained groan. You had your eyes shut tight and seeing the endless darkness did nothing to soothe you when you opened them.

You scrambled up, panicking in the dark, whirling this way and that looking for a source of light before igniting yourself in a large blue flame in a desperate attempt to keep the darkness at bay. You whirled around to see your surroundings.

Meanwhile, Axel gave Figment a dry, unamused look until he felt your panic. He looked back down the hole, wondering that if Demyx was fine, then what could have caused such a panic in you. Was something else down there?

“________?!” he called, an edge of worry in his voice. Then he heard you scream. Figment pushed Axel into the hole next before jumping after him. They both landed on Demyx who grumbled something about how people ought to look before they leap.

Axel looked for you almost in his own blind panic, spotting you relatively easily as you were on fire and showed no signs of putting yourself out. You were staring warily up at a perfectly preserved mammoth encased entirely in crystal.

“You should have seen her face,” Demyx wheezed from his spot on the floor, “Priceless.”

Axel ignored Demyx, breathing a sigh of relief. You were shaken but not in any danger. He got off of Demyx and approached you, lightly placing a hand on your shoulder. You instinctively stepped towards him.

“Are you alright?” he asked in a soft voice. You nodded, never taking your eyes from the beast in front of you. You hadn’t seen a carving for this animal on the tree. It was large with giant tusks and an angry looking face. It had no toes or paws from what you could see. In fact digits were absent entirely and it had a large bump on its head like the camel Demyx told you about when you’d first been scaling the tree. And why the tentacle in the middle of its face? It was… unnerving – like it was missing parts and trying to make up for it with parts that obviously didn’t belong to it.

“What the hell is that?” you asked, leaning minutely closer to the giant beast.

“It’s a mammoth. They’re like elephants that lived a long time ago only much larger and covered in hair.” You wrinkled your nose in confusion.

“Elephants?” you said, finally looking up at him.

“You know what elephants are! We saw some the other day!”

"I know," you giggled, grabbing his hand like you had before.

As the four of you continued walking through the cave, you found there were more and more animals in the cave which prompted another session of, “What’s that one?” Though they didn’t have as many answers this time around. You hadn’t seen any of them on the tree, and these ones proved to be far more bizarre. And the further back you went, the more bizarre they became.

Some looked like animals you’d seen on the tree though they were severely larger than or much smaller than the versions you’d seen. They also seemed like they were different – mutated or misshapen. They looked like some of the animals yet not. Then you came across the dinosaurs.

These just looked like mismatched dragons to you with their large teeth and reptilian bodies.

“Are these this planet’s dragons?” you inquired.

“These are dinosaurs,” Demyx replied, staring at a triceratops with great fascination, “Don’t they have those where you’re from?”

“We have dinosaurs, but ours are extinct,” you said as you looked at a crystal with a feathered, bipedal dinosaur in it. It stood at roughly your height.

“I think all of the animals in here are extinct,” Axel concluded as he hadn’t seen a single one in the cave so far that he knew to be living.

“But why are they crystalized?” you asked, running your fingers over a small crystal containing a trilobite. It was cool and smooth beneath your touch.

“Maybe the planet preserves them,” he answered as he looked up to see several crystalized winged dinosaurs that looked as if they were posed midflight.

“Also did you mention dragons?” Demyx asked as he moved on to the next animal, “Are dragons like a common thing where you’re from? Do they breathe fire and shit?!” Demyx nearly shouted with a broad grin on his face. You smiled sadly.

“Not anymore. From what I know, dragons were hunted to extinction long ago. So I’ve never actually seen one – just pictures. And there are stories that they breathed fired and other things, but I can’t say if that’s true or not.”

Figment nudged you. You smiled with a roll of your eyes.

“Oh right. I’ve never seen any non-toon dragons that were native to Kelewenya. Though I guess if I count Figment, I’ve seen more dragons than most people in my world if not more than all of them.”

You continued on your journey, forgetting about any impending darkness to explore deeper in the caves, forging ahead of Axel, Demyx, and Figment.

You flipped your shit at the T-rex, walking backwards while still admiring it until you felt the sharp point of one of the crystals jab you in the back. You hissed in pain then whirled around to deliver a swift kick to the offending rock before you stopped short, a gasp leaving your lips.

Your hands flew to your mouth, tears welling up in your eyes. Your chest began to heave, and your shoulders shuddered. You couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge the flame dying from your body. It was only when Axel noticed your dying light and walked over with his own flame in hand did he see what had caused such a strong reaction.

It was Amaya. She stood stock still frozen in a crystalline casing. Her eyes looked forward, glassy and unseeing. You kneeled next to her, hand brushing over the crystal she was in.

And it wasn’t just her. There were hundreds of people encased in the cave, a good few that you recognized from your time in the village – all with those same unseeing eyes staring forward, waiting for you to free them.

Notes:

Comments and kudos are always welcome, and thank you for reading and supporting the story! You all mean so much to me! Thank you!

Chapter 27: Pseudo-Hand Hold

Summary:

You and Axel have a tender moment.

Notes:

Here's some fluff for ya! Enjoy!

As day two of your trek up the mountain ended, Axel began to notice that you, yourself, were distant. You seemed distracted, like your mind was in a faraway place fighting itself.

He noticed once you had recovered from seeing the villagers in the cave. You weren’t quite yourself after that. No one would be. Then when it seemed you had gotten better, renewed with a sense of determination and purpose, driving towards your goal and the top of the mountain, you seemed to be lost again. Then warring with yourself.

You were like this for several hours while all of you were walking. Demyx and Figment had written it off as more shit you needed to process. Demyx, chatty as he was and slightly more used to the horrors of the world thanks to the Organization, was quieter too. It was a lot for anyone to process.

And even though he was also disturbed, Axel couldn’t ignore the fact that something about how you were feeling went deeper than that. And he worried.

He noticed it in the cave, when you exited the cave, and when the four of you trekked for roughly three more hours up the mountain. You weren’t even admiring the scenery as you had been before you’d entered the cave.

Even now, while Axel helped Demyx set up their tent, you were off to yourself. Distracted.

Demyx was setting up the framing while Axel laid out the tarp when he noticed that your tent laid off to the side untouched. He looked around, eyes trailing the area until he saw you. You were sitting on the edge of the path, feet dangling over the drop below. Once he was sure Demyx could handle setting up the rest of the tent, he walked over to you, prepared to ask if you needed any help with your tent.

When he reached you, he realized you were gazing out into the distance, a beautiful sunset before you. But you weren’t really looking at it.

He could tell because your eyes held a vacant expression. You were lost in your own thoughts. Usually when you looked at any form of beauty in nature, your eyes took on that childlike look of wonder he’d seen since your first sunrise. But not now.

He sat next to you, observing you in silence for a few moments. He doubted you even knew he was there. Every now and again your eyebrows would dip into a frown then a look of worry would pass over then sadness then blank. You obviously had a lot on your mind and none of it good.

“Are you alright?” he finally asked. You blinked a few times before looking at him, eyes wide with surprise. You blinked again.

“I’m sorry,” you apologized, “What?” He chuckled at your expression.

“I asked if you were alright. Do you need help with your tent or anything?”

You gave him a sweet smile then turned back to the sunset, eyes still not registering its presence, before your smile dropped.

“I can handle it,” you said quietly, kicking your feet back and forth. You didn’t answer the other question.

“I don’t doubt that, but are you okay? You’ve been… distracted to say the least.”

“Well you too. What’s your deal?”

“I asked first,” he said with a smile and a playful nudge. You tried not to smile but did regardless, rolling your eyes at the playful gesture.

“I’m just… I think I have my priorities confused?”

“Priorities?”

“I’m supposed to know what I’m doing, and that should be at the forefront of my mind. And there’s no doubt about what I’m doing, I mean, I wouldn’t be climbing a mountain to fight a goddess if I didn’t know what I was here for, and yet I keep thinking about… other things…..”

Your voice dwindles out at the end of your sentence, and your eyes begin to cloud over yet you look more nervous than before.

“Does this… have anything to do with me and what we were going to talk about earlier or am I being conceited?”

You let out a short laugh.

“Both,” you say with an eyeroll, and Axel can’t help but chuckle a little, “I thought maybe there was a thing, but I feel like I pushed you too much, and I’m sorry. And I’ll back off.”

“It’s not that,” Axel said quickly. He let out a sigh. “It’s not that you pushed too much. It’s that I pushed you. Or at least I think I did.”

“I’m lost,” you admitted. He let out another sigh, this one deeper and more beleaguered. He was struggling with whatever he had to say next, and this made you a little nervous.

“Do you remember a couple nights ago where we spent the night together after the party?”

“Yes…,” you answered slowly.

“Do you, um, remember….”

He was blushing now. He had to ignore the nervousness. He needed to say this and fix the minor rift he created before it got any bigger.

“Do you remember any, uh, dreams you had that night?”

“Dreams like what?”

Axel coughed into his fist, looking away as his blush deepened. He didn’t look at you as he said the next part. He could not look you in the eye now.

“Uh, anything involving you and me?” he said, feeling himself heat up the more he thought about it – though more because of nervousness than arousal as it had been that night.

“Hmmm no, no, nope, wait….”

Axel watched the gears in your head start turning, the realization sparking in your eyes and the sheer mortification that followed after.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted, “I wasn’t thinking. I had completely forgotten that sometimes we share dreams, and I get that that’s not an excuse, but I feel really bad about it. And I’m sorr –”

“What? No! Axel, shut up!”

He stopped talking abruptly, searching your face for some confirmation that nothing was really wrong. Or maybe he was misreading you.

“You didn’t do anything wrong! I didn’t know we were sharing the dream either! I thought it was my dream!”

“So I didn’t push you to do anything you weren’t comfortable with?”

“No. I went with it. I wanted to do that,” you admitted, saying the last part a little more quietly. Axel studied you for a moment and you looked anywhere but at him. “I’m sorry if that was too much.”

“No,” he said softly, “I wanted it too.”

You looked at him, and for a moment, the two of you studied each other – trying to read everything between you.

“What do we do now?” you asked in a voice so low it was almost a whisper.

“I don’t know. I want to say that I feel something for you. I do. But I’m… confused more than anything by it,” he said as he looked away and out at the horizon. The sun was gone, replaced by the ever-bright moon. “I’ve had other friends. People who either should have helped start my recompletion or did. So… why didn’t I feel this way about any of them?”

“You mean like with Roxas?”

And Isa. But Axel didn’t feel like talking about him.

“Yeah, like with Roxas. I don’t feel half of the things for him that I do for you, and that confuses me. And then there’s things like the dream we shared. Does that play into it too? Do I like you as a friend but also find you sexually attractive, or is that just a part of it and I want more than just friendship from you?”

“So what do you want to do?”

“I think I want time to figure myself out. Answer these questions. Why you? But why not you? I mean, it’s not like there aren’t plenty of things to like about you. But there are things I’ve liked about other people, yet none of them have shown up in dirty fantasies.”

“I wouldn’t have called that dream dirty. That was pretty vanilla,” you muse.

“Yeah, if it had gone on for about five more minutes, I doubt you’d be saying that,” he says, giving you a devious look and a quick onceover.

You felt your fire magic welling up in you and quelled it down before you could ignite. Though you didn’t doubt that Axel felt that sudden rise in temperature. You just chuckled nervously and looked out at the moon. This time your eyes did sparkle with wonder and Axel turned his gaze to look at it too.

“The main reason I want time to figure it out is because when I first got here there were two things I felt. Relief because you were alive and unhurt. And the other was the feeling that I really, really wanted to kiss you. And I had never considered doing it before. It’s not to say that the idea ever repulsed me, but I had never looked at you like that to the extent of romantic interaction. I don’t know exactly what I want right now, but I’ll figure it out,” he said finally. You just smiled to yourself. He hadn’t said that he wanted to date you. But you were at least happy to have sorted some of this out. Also you’d be lying if you didn’t die a little of happiness because Axel admitted to wanting to kiss you at some point.

Little lights began to dance across the sky. Within a matter of seconds the sky was bathed in shimmering green that stretched on in ribbons that flowed out and into the distance. You’d seen something similar to it when you were on the train to Yen Sid’s tower. But this one was better. You sighed at the beauty of it, finally content with your own personal dilemma and free to focus on the task at hand.

But for right now you just wanted to live in this moment. Axel did too. But with you.

He placed his hand over yours, sliding his thumb under your palm in a pseudo-hand hold, never taking his eyes off of the iridescent lights above. You were surprised but happy, feeling your heart flutter rapidly in your chest. You smiled, eyes remaining glued to the sky, then you leaned on him a little and he let you, leaning back just slightly.

This was nice. You loved this. You hoped you’d have more moments like this one.

Demyx bounded over, chewing a piece of dried meat from your rations.

“Is that an aurora? Wow! Wait ‘til Namine hears about this,” he mused before he noticed you and Axel not really paying attention to him, eyes glued to the sky and smiling contentedly. He saw your joined hands and relaxed postures and realized that two of you were probably having a moment.

He gave Axel a thumbs up to which Axel didn’t respond, thoughts of you preoccupying his mind, so Demyx shrugged and went to Figment – who’d set up his own little Figment-sized tent – to tell him about the aurora borealis in the sky.

He peeled back the flap to peer in, and Figment was sitting in his little sleeping bag, reading glasses on the end of his snoot and a book in his hands.

“So there’s an aurora borealis out here,” Demyx said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

Figment looked at him skeptically as if to say, “Aurora Borealis? At this time of day, at this time of year, in this kind of environment, localized entirely on top of this tree?”

And Demyx was prepared to defend this position but then he cast a glance back to where you and Axel were pseudo-snuggling and decided against it.

“You know what? Never mind. I lied.”

~

This time it was you who awoke to cuddling. Your head was resting on one of Axel’s arms with his other arm draped over your waist. It made your heart go crazy. Draped over you was both of your sleeping bags, unzipped to make makeshift blankets. You assumed Demyx had done that after the two of you fell asleep on each other.

You wanted to cuddle closer, enjoy this moment as you had last night with just the two of you enjoying the night and the beauty of the sky, but you knew that all romantic advances made needed to be on his end now. Regardless if last night was by far one of the most romantic things you’d ever experienced, if Axel needed to figure himself out, you’d let him.

But you still wanted to scream in happiness.

You closed your eyes again and let out a small sigh of contentment. That was about when Axel started to stir. You slowly opened your eyes to be met with his own. He blinked at you sleepily with a soft smile on his face.

“Morning,” he mumbled out, still blinking sleep out of his eyes.

“Hey,” you breathed, already moving to sit up. You stretched your legs out in front of you, pointing your toes and reaching for them. Romantic night or not, trees were not very comfortable and left your muscles aching and stiff.

Axel stood up, reaching up to the sky and stretching before offering you a hand to get up. You took his hand, being pulled to your feet and trying to ignore how close the pull had brought you before walking to the campsite where Demyx was already laying out the morning’s rations of little bags of dried fruits and pouring juice into cups from animal skin pouches. You all sat in a small semi-circle, three little cups sitting between all of you.

“So…,” Demyx began, eyes darting between the two of you with a sly smile on his face, “Anything interesting happen last night?”

“Saw an aurora borealis,” Axel mentioned casually as he sipped his drink.

“Nothing exciting?” Demyx pressed, leaning forward just ever so slightly.

“That’s pretty exciting,” you responded, casually eating fruit.

“________, you literally have not stopped smiling since you woke up this morning,” Demyx said dryly, hoping his rare moment of observance would trip you up. It didn’t – just served to make you a little giddier. Your smile broadened just slightly.

“Oh? I hadn’t noticed,” you said, casting a quick glance at Axel out of the corner of your eye. He was also looking you, a soft smile on his face.

Demyx glanced between the two of you again before letting out a big dramatic huff.

“You guys are boring,” he groaned, leaning back to stare up at the sky through the overhead branches. You giggled behind your hand, heart still doing as many flips as it could within 60 second span.

Figment just shook his head as he watched the exchange. You were both obviously twitterpated.

Breakfast was short but your joy and elation at having Axel’s romantic attention was not. You wanted to ask him if he had made any large revelations about his heart and emotions after you had fallen asleep on him. But you didn’t want to make him uncomfortable and knew these things took time. If he wanted to be with you, he’d say so. But, just based on his light hand holding last night, you kind of liked where he was headed with this.

You were floating on cloud 9 for most of the day.

Then the heartless appeared.

“That wasn’t too bad,” you huffed, taking your helmet off of your head and allowing it, but not the rest of your armor, to vanish. Best to keep this much on if you were running the risk of seeing more heartless.

“I was honestly wondering when we’d start seeing them,” Axel mused aloud.

“Well I know that they’re on the ground and creeping ever closer to the tree, so I don’t doubt that we’ll be seeing a lot more,” you replied as you gazed up the path ahead. “Let’s keep going.”

Your voice took on a more authoritative tone that anyone only ever heard from you when ever you were placed into the role of leader.

“Yes, ma’am,” Demyx said with a mock salute to which you rolled your eyes and laughed lightly. Axel’s eyes lingered on your retreating form, eyes tracing your body. He couldn’t ignore that ever since you first summoned it, he thought your armor looked good on you. Though lately he’d found himself liking it more and more.

Now was no exception.

Then he felt a nudge on his side, and Axel looked at Demyx who was looking at him with a wide smirk. Figment just rolled his eyes. So long as he didn’t keep his eyes glued to your ass, Figment could moderately ignore that Axel was so blatantly checking out his niece.

You were making good time that day. Ten hours later and you were almost touching the sky. Well technically you already were, but the clouds, you noted, were significantly closer than when your journey started. You’d reach them by tomorrow around midday if you woke up at sunrise and hopefully breach them by the evening.

But that may have been wishful thinking.

Small groups of heartless kept appearing as you traveled – a few shadows every hour and a half to two hours. But around the six-hour mark of that day they stopped being simple shadows and were more complex heartless – similar to the ones you saw attacking Amaya the day you met. And they came in larger and larger droves the further up you went.

That was when the second problem arose. You hadn’t noticed it initially since you wore your helmet almost consistently now, now that the heartless were becoming a more regular problem, but soon you began to see Axel and Demyx panting more. They were having more and more trouble catching their breath, and when you took your helmet off, you noticed it was harder to breathe.

Your mind flashed back to Disney Town when Manny had intended to leave the atmosphere with Demyx, how the sky had grown darker as it was now the further up you moved, how his face had paled, dark circles began forming under his eyes, and how his lips began to turn blue.

They could not breathe. They could not continue.

“You need to go back down the mountain,” you said after a particularly straining battle where you did most of the work because Axel and Demyx couldn’t catch their breath.

“We’re heading back?” Axel questioned, “We’ve gotta at least be halfway there by now are you sure?”

“No, Axel, not me, you and Demyx.” Axel gave you a dry look – well as dry as could while he was hunched over and resting his hands on his knees to catch his breath.

“I’m serious,” you continued, “You can barely breathe. I have armor so it’s not a problem for me. I can move in the vacuum of space in this. But you and Demyx don’t have that, and if you get any further up the mountain you’re going to pass out. Maybe even suffocate.”

“But you can’t take on a goddess by yourself!” Axel snapped. He was getting kind of angry with you, but you knew he wasn’t actually angry. Just worried.

“I’ve been training for this for a while now. I’ve been training period. I survived the wilderness of an unknown planet for well over a month with no help, and I want you to come with me. I do. Nothing would give me more assurance in what I do if I could do it with my friends by my side. But you can’t do this, and I can’t ask you to.”

“You’re not asking,” Axel said, striding up to you and staring you down, “I’m going with you with or without your permission.”

“She’s right, Axel,” Demyx muttered from where he was laying on the ground. You both turned to look at him. He was only just now catching his breath, and even then he was still panting slightly. “I can’t keep this up. And you can’t either, and you know you can’t.”

“I’m fine,” Axel said, with a huff.

“You’re not fine, Axel. You know you’re not fine. And honestly, you’re being really stupid about this,” Demyx said, sitting up to glare at Axel. Axel ignited a bit at those words, but the flames could hardly stay up.

“Even your fire is starting to feel the effects of no air,” you said, nodding at the red flames flickering over his arms and shoulders. “And it won’t be long before Demyx’s ability to use water starts acting up on him. The temperature has already dropped. It’s only going to get lower from here.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” Axel finally said in a way that was almost a plea, and your heart ached for your friend. You didn’t want him to leave, but you didn’t want him to die even more. You weren’t sure what to say to that other than what you’d already said, opening and closing your mouth to find the words.

“She’ll die, Axel,” Demyx finally said, much more serious now than you’d ever seen him before.

Axel slowly turned to look at him, expression neutral but eyes heated.

“Think for a moment,” Demyx started, not backing down, “We’re struggling to stand up straight after a fight. We won’t be able to after a certain point up the mountain. She’ll spend her entire fight against the goddess trying to protect us and not even think about herself until she’s lying on the ground thinking in her dying moments about how she wasn’t strong enough to protect us.”

Everyone was silent for a moment.

Axel didn’t have anything to say, just looked away when he realized that Demyx was right. You were too reckless to try and protect others and yourself.

“I’ll be fine, Axel,” you said as you gently laid a hand on his arm. He looked at you, and his gaze almost burned with how intense it was.

“Promise me,” he said finally, “Promise me you’ll be fine. Promise me you’ll come back and that I’m not making a mistake by letting you go alone.”

“I promise, Axel. I’ll come home,” you said with a soft reassuring smile.

Axel brought you into a hug, Demyx and Figment joining in. And the four of you remained like that for a while. Despite your own confidence in yourself, you knew that there was still a chance that this was the last time you might see any of them – however slim you believed that chance to be.

You rationed out the food they’d need to get back down the mountain and for you to go up the rest of the way, ensuring them you wouldn’t need any for a return trip as you were going to fly as much as you could now that they wouldn’t be accompanying you, and you intended to fly all the way down as well.

Figment went with them to ensure their breathing didn’t become too labored, and you watched as they descended until you couldn’t see them anymore.

Then you turned, feeling more nervous than you had when you were at the base of the tree now that your support system had gone. But you didn’t have time for nervousness, so you pressed on, soaring past waves of heartless on your glider and fighting the few that could fly.

But even they were beginning to become too much. You started to see heartless similar to the ones you saw in your father’s mind, large, horned heartless that carried heavy swords.

Initially there were only a few of them, and you found that the heavy swings of their swords were not as unbearable as they had been in the mind. You were getting stronger, but they were still formidable one on one. So they were a challenge when they were coming at you all at once.

Amongst the flying heartless you also saw masks. Tiki masks like the ones you’d seen in the temple, though you had a sneaking suspicion that these masks were not there in remembrance of past keyblade wielders. They floated and watched you. And every few miles up the mountain you covered, more would appear. But you soon did not have time to focus on them as they never attacked you, but the heartless did. And they became more and more relentless in their attacks. And you grew wearier with each one. Every wave grew larger until you could hardly manage against them.

Your fire began to weaken no matter how much you put behind it, and eventually your stores of magic were gone altogether, and you knew it would be a while before you were casting it anymore.

Soon you were fighting them with just your sword and shield, and, eventually, you couldn’t even do that. It was as if the heartless began to notice this as they began to attack you even more fervidly as if they could not kill you fast enough, and you were forced to retreat.

You felt like you were losing your mind as the further you flew, the more heartless would appear, occasionally landing hits on you no matter how much you dodged, and more than once you almost fell from your glider. And more masks began to appear, all of them watching you with glowing, unblinking eyes.

Your eyes scanned the tree as you climbed, looking for a place to take refuge, somewhere the masks could not watch, somewhere the heartless did not search. And you spotted a large branch jutting up and near the pathway carved into the tree.

You flew as fast as you possibly could, trying to use what fire you could to give you a boost as you dove behind the branch which you could curl up next to for refuge.

Your curled in on yourself, forming a tight little ball to try and be as invisible as possible. You were panting and sweating, and you wanted to rip your helmet off of your head for more fresh air, but you knew if you did you wouldn’t be able to breathe with how high you had gotten.

But it hardly mattered now you realized.

Your vision blurred.

You felt lightheaded.

You wished Axel were here.

.

.

.

You weren’t sure you could do this.

Your vision faded to black, and you rested, curled up next to that branch praying you’d live to see the next day.

Notes:

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and aren't too mad at me that no extensive progress in your attempts to date Axel has been made.

Next time: You meet a new ally and learn their story and how they relate to you.

Chapter 28: The Elf and the Orc

Summary:

It's a long story (and a long chapter).

Notes:

Warnings include: mentions of masturbation and sex but no actual masturbation or sex. We're keeping it vanilla this chapter, but I'll warn you in the future if there's anything a bit more explicit (though that's a good long ways off).

“So…,” Demyx began, attempting to sound as casual as possible, “Did you tell her?”

“Tell who what?” Axel said, eyeing Demyx as they walked down the mountain path. Figment had gone back to be with you once he was sure Axel and Demyx would make it alright on their own.

“You know. How you feel? About her?”

“You were there, Demyx. You heard everything I had to say to her before we left.”

“No, not then. I meant that night the two of you were watching the aurora borealis. Like you tell her you had a thing for her. You know, something for her hear from you from your heart before she goes to fight a goddess because there’s always a chance she won’t come back.”

“She’ll come back,” Axel said rather gruffly, ignoring the pang of worry in his chest, “Besides I’m still figuring myself out.”

Demyx stopped in his tracks, staring disbelievingly at Axel as he continued onwards.

“Bullshit!”

Axel stopped and turned towards Demyx, a look of confusion on his face at his friend’s strange outburst. Demyx just looked more frustrated than anything.

“You know damn well how you feel!” Demyx continued, reigning in his frustration a little, “You very obviously have a thing for her, and she’s got a thing for you. Also I walked by your room that morning and saw one of you burnt the bed to hell. You wanna talk about that, Mr. I Light Myself on Fire When I Feel Really Strong Emotions? Did something happen between you two last night? Or more obviously, just you? Did you do something? To yourself?”

“What are you implying?”

Demyx rolled his eyes.

“DID YOU JACK OFF THAT NIGHT?”

Axel’s face lit up in a bright, hot blush.

“No, Demyx. No, I did not.” A moment of silence passed. “But I really, really wanted to.”

“Well shit I didn’t think I’d get a straight answer out of you,” he said, scratching the back of his head, “What happened? Was she like super flirty or something or, like, all up on you?”

“N-no. I just had a dream was all.”

“A wet dream?”

“Well… almost. I woke up before it got that far. I mean, we were spooning when I woke up, but I deflected that problem quick.”

“What did you do?”

“I slept on the floor.”

“I mean, you could’ve just jacked off in the bathroom and gone back to bed. You didn’t have to do all that.”

“I know, but it felt… wrong.”

“How so?”

“She’s my best friend, and it’s weird because only months ago I was supposed to kill her. It feels like I’d be taking advantage of her. Especially considering our friendship was built on a bunch of lies.”

“Well if you told her everything, then there shouldn’t be an issue. I’m assuming you did anyway. And she very clearly has a thing for you. A very big thing. I mean, she accepted you after you told her everything. She’s got it bad.”

“Well, I guess,” Axel said, nervously rubbing the back of his neck.

“Plus everyone saw the two of you dancing the other night. I mean, I’ve never seen you look at anyone the way you look at her – not even Roxas.”

“Well I wasn’t aroused by Roxas,” Axel said with a shrug.

“So you admit you’re aroused by ________?” Demyx asked, with a mischievous smirk.

“I already said that,” Axel said, rolling his eyes as he continued walking.

“I know,” Demyx said, jogging to catch up, “I just like that you’re actually admitting things to me. You’re never this open and genuine with anyone. Not even ________. And I didn’t just mean you looked at her like you wanted to fuck her. I mean, you looked at her like she was everything.”

“Well, I mean, if she’s the reason my heart’s being recompleted, I guess that means she kind of is everything to me.”

“Well there you go! You’ve figured it all out. So how do you feel about her?”

“I really, really like her. Romantically, not just sexually. But I like her sexually too,” he said blushing as he looked away.

“Then you should tell her when she comes back down the mountain,” Demyx said, putting careful emphasis on the positive chance of survival you had.

“I can’t.”

“What is it now?” Demyx nearly yelled with no small amount of irritation in his voice.

“I still have things I need to tell her. Personal things.”

“You don’t mean Organization things do you?”

Axel was silent.

“That was literally the whole conversation you were supposed to be having the other day! Before you started putting the moves on her at the party! Before you felt the uncontrollable urge to fuck her all damn day! Before you decided to leave the Organization to fight Vanitas for her sake. She should know all of this!”

“I told her everything she needed to know and that we left it all behind.”

“Even the part about how the Organization is looking for her uncle?”

“Well, no….”

“Or the part where the Organization is directly tied to her planet’s fall and that’s part of the reason they need her uncle in the first place?”

“No.”

Demyx gave Axel an exasperated look, Axel not meeting his eyes because he didn’t want to acknowledge that Demyx was right. Again.

“Well, shit, Axel! Did you even tell your real name?”

Axel was silent.

“Okay, so you like her, you’re considering the possibility of starting a relationship with her, and she doesn’t know anything about you?”

“She knows a few things about me, and I know plenty about her.”

“I know you do,” Demyx countered, “I do too. When we became friends, I asked her a million and one questions about her just because her whole fricking story is interesting from start to finish. But that’s not what’s important. She knows you used to be a part of an Organization – that tried to kill her by the way – that we left, yet she doesn’t know what they were planning that directly involved her and her uncle. She knows you ambled into her life and have made some strange vow to always protect her, but she doesn’t even know your actual name. She doesn’t know anything about you, just surface level things she could learn from anyone.”

“You know you were a part of this Organization too, so why didn’t you tell her?”

“I’m not the one trying to date her while harboring this information. She trusts you the most. You’re her best friend. You should be the one to tell her. Imagine how she’ll feel if I do it, and she finds out that you knew and didn’t say a damn thing.”

Axel let out a long sigh. Demyx was right. AGAIN. He had a lot to think about if Demyx was the one making sense out of the two of them.

“You’re right. I’m just nervous.”

“Would you shut up with that? ‘I’m just nervous,’” Demyx mimicked in a mocking tone, “You need to get over yourself and tell her the truth. Show some backbone and quit being a baby about it. You’re a grown ass man, so act like it. Because if she finds out and you didn’t tell her, your chances with her are shot.”

Axel looked at Demyx with mild shock. He’d never actually seen Demyx this serious (or correct) about anything.

“Why do you care so much, Demyx?”

“Because you’re my only friend in the Organization, and I’m trying to be a good friend. And then I became friends with _________, and I want to see her happy. And she’s close with Namine, and I like Namine. And I don’t want to see you fuck yourself, and by extension ________, over because of something so stupid as being nervous about a past she is currently willing to accept. You all are my friends, and we’re close, and I’d like to keep it that way. I swear Axel if you fuck this up….”

Axel stopped him in the middle of his sentence and gave him a tight hug. And Demyx felt himself tear up a little now. He liked that he had people who actually cared about him as no one in the Organization really had before this. He liked this little family that you all had built, and he’d like to see it through to the end.

~

You awoke to the sounds of feathers fluttering and birds shuffling in the branches around you.

You fluttered your eyes open. The sun was still up. No, wait, the light looked similar to early morning. You’d slept through the rest of yesterday.

“Look who’s up,” you heard a familiar voice say. You looked up to watch Fritz land in front of you. He cocked his head at you, and you could feel his smile even if his face couldn’t express it.

“Fritz? What are you doing here? What are all of you doing here?” You said looking around at the hundreds of birds surrounding you – watching over you.

“We came to ensure your safe passage to Uh-Oa. We could feel your heart growing weak. You’ve been out for two days now,” Michael said as he fluttered down next to Fritz, “halYou can’t allow your heart to grow weak from the heartless attacks and your own self-doubt.”

“You must be careful, Guardian,” Pierre said, taking a seat on your shoulder, “Having a weak heart will do you no good here or in your fight against Uh-Oa. We believe in you.”

José landed next to Fritz and Michael.

“If you were not fit for this task, she would not have chosen you.”

“She? You mean Uh-Oa?” you asked, eyeing the top of the mountain, which wouldn’t be far now. Maybe a little over a day’s journey?

The birds cackled just a bit.

“No, they mean me,” a feminine voice said. You looked around at all of the birds, unable to pick out any one bird that stood out. Then you saw it flying towards you. But it wasn’t a bird. It was akin to a dragon with bright scales. She landed in front of you, looking up at you with sharp eyes that seemed far too familiar to you.

“We’ll leave you to talk,” José said, “Meanwhile, we’ll take care of your heartless problem.”

A bright glow began to surround the birds. It grew to such an intensity, you had to look away. When you looked back, you were surrounded by ethereal bodies, keyblade wielders of every make and build standing around you, ghostly keyblades drawn to face the oncoming heartless.

“José and I will take the upper levels,” Michael said, pointing towards the upper branches of the tree, “Half of you come with me.”

They all mounted their other worldly gliders and flew to the upper levels of the tree.

“The rest of you will come with Pierre and I,” Fritz instructed, “We’ll take to the skies and keep them off of the tree and away from the guardian. Then we’ll clear the lower levels.”

They all mounted their own gliders before taking off. Before they left, Pierre stopped and turned to you.

“May your heart be your guiding key, and may it be ever strong,” he said before he flew off with the rest of them.

You turned back to the small dragon in front of you. She gazed up at you with intelligent eyes, reading you, gauging you. Then you could have sworn you saw her smile.

She then began to glow, and you found you couldn’t look at the blinding glow she gave off either. When you saw her again, she stood above you at a rather tall height, her ears narrow and pointed, eyes sharp. She had a very slender build, lined with muscles and scars from years of fighting in life. Her hair trailed down her back in an intricate, beaded braid similar to the styles here but not quite the same. She looked vaguely familiar and you tried to place where you’d seen her before.

But then as you gazed into her eyes, you realized they were your own. The longer you stared, and the more and more she resembled a much more feminine version of your father.

“I am your grandmother,” she said, “Well not exactly. I’m your ancestor on your father’s side from hundreds of years ago. I was the last guardian of Beastly Kingdom.”

“You were?” you asked dumbly, a bit dumbfounded to be looking at someone you of all people were related to.

“Well I was, until I bequeathed my blade and my armor to you,” she said, clasping her hands together, “Now you will finish what was started so long ago.”

“Long ago?”

“Yes. Long ago there stood a tree in Beastly Kingdom much like this one. The people did not give themselves to it, so it was weak to protect its heart, and it bore no leaves such as this one. One day, the orcs, a race of beasts made entirely of darkness, not unlike your heartless, led a war to remove the tree and plunge the world into darkness.”

“What happened?”

She gave you a soft, kind smile before taking a seat next to you.

“It is a long story.”

~

They threw him in there like an animal. He was chained around his wrists and ankles, and on his neck there was a collar of heavy metal bound to his wrists. He turned to them with a sneer on his face as they slammed the door shut behind him.

He let out an animalistic roar, banging his fists upon the metal. It creaked beneath the force of his blow but did not give. Three of the four guards drew their weapons, gleaming silver swords carved with elven designs. The last guard summoned forth their keyblade before stepping towards him.

“If you do not to wish to be slaughtered like a calf like the rest of your brethren, you’ll behave yourself, beast,” he sneered, pointing the keyblade through the bars and resting it against his throat where the collar did not obstruct it.

A low growl emanated from his throat. All four of his bright, yellow eyes stared down the keyblade wielder with all the defiance he could muster, but he did not move to attack. Nor did be step away from the blade being painfully pressed into his neck.

After a tense moment, the weapons were put away. The orc let out a low growl as he retreated further back into his cell, sitting in a corner and glaring down at the floor.

“He’s got some nerve,” one of the elves growled as they left the dungeon, “You’d think he’d be grateful to have been kept alive seeing as how we slaughtered the rest.”

“It was a successful battle, yes, but the war is almost unending. We need information, and he’s our best bet.”

“Him? He’s little more than a wild animal. They only respond to one thing. I mean, did you see the way he tried to attack through his cell. If it were up to me, I’d have him skinned alive. He’ll speak then. And, oh how he’ll scream,” the elf cackled, joined by the others who went with her.

~

Dara strode into the dungeon. The elf guarding the orc regarded her quietly, eyes trailing down to the food she held in her hands.

“We’re feeding it now?” the guard asked as he looked back up at her with amusement dancing behind wide dark eyes.

“It’s been two days,” she answered softly, “Living things must eat to survive.”

“Hardly deserving of it though. All he does is sit in his cell probably thinking of all the different ways he could kill us if only he could escape. That’s all they know how to do, those dark ones.”

She moved towards the cell. The orc did not move to acknowledge her. It did not look up to see the food she pushed through the bars of its cell.

“There is food if you want it,” she called, though she had the sneaking suspicion he knew what she’d done. There were no other noises in the dungeon, therefore he’d probably heard the conversation between the two elves.

“I do not want your filth,” the orc spat, voice gruff and low, coarse with dehydration.

“I’ll get you some water,” Dara replied patiently.

She returned a few minutes later, a cup brimming with water in her hands. She carefully placed it on the floor. She observed him for a few minutes when he did not move from his spot. He did not acknowledge her as he had not acknowledged any of the elves.

“You will die if you do not eat or drink soon,” she gently chided him.

“I’m not a fool, elven bitch,” he said lowly. Dara frowned.

The guard slammed his shield into the bars of the cell, a loud clang reverberating through the halls that made her ears ring.

“This is why we do not show them kindnesses,” the guard spat at the orc, though his words were directed at Dara “The beasts can barely comprehend basic decency without turning to vile behavior as a response.”

“Calm yourself, Onas,” Dara soothed, “If he won’t eat, then he only prolongs his own suffering. A little name calling can hardly hurt me more than he hurts himself.”

The food remained untouched until Dara came to collect the dirty dishes in the morning.

~

It was such a random thought to have.

Dara remembered a time when she was young and needed help. She had scraped her knee and it bled everywhere and when a boy, one she did not particularly get along with, brought her a bandage, she didn’t want to use it. Purely out of spite. The boy did not care either way. He left it there with her and left, and when he left she felt better about using it.

It was a random thought but quite possibly useful.

Perhaps the orc did not eat because he did not want to accept help from the people he hated so vehemently.

So she went down the next day, food and water in hand, sliding it through the bars as she had the previous day. She observed him for a few minutes longer then stood and turned to the guard that watched the orc that day – a young and somewhat lazy boy by the name of Gael.

She put on a mischievous smile, a little twinkle in her eye.

“Take a break, Gael. You look like you’re about to pass out,” she said in a feather light tone. Gael fell into it immediately, slouching his stiff posture, eyes coming alight once more. But then he paused, face twisting in confusion.

“But,” he began, tossing a glance at the orc who watched them from the corner of his eyes without turning towards them. Gael leaned in close to whisper rather loudly, “Who’ll watch the prisoner?”

Dara smiled slowly, calmly, putting at ease whatever major concerns Gael had to rest almost immediately. It never took much to convince him that leaving was an option and a very good one at that.

“I will,” she said slowly, putting about a lazy air of calm that Gael only further fell into, giving a slow, half-hearted shrug before ambling away. Dara waited to hear the groan and slam of the door to the dungeon entrance. Then she gave the orc one last look and approached the door herself.

She pulled open the heavy door and let it slam shut before her as she leaned on the wall next to it, listening to the rattle of chains as the orc finally moved. He noisily ate, chomping through his food loudly, and gulping down the water like his life depended on it. Which it did.

Dara smiled to herself.

Fifteen minutes after he’d finished eating and she heard his chains rattle back into their corner, she pulled open the door again as if returning from her own little trip.

She tried not to laugh at the state of the plate which almost looked as if it had been licked clean. There was no need to put him off from these meals. Though it was quite laughable the pettiness of it all. And to think he might have starved just because he didn’t want to be seen accepting aid from someone.

How childish.

What an odd thought. That a brutish, hulking orc that was little more than a beast could be childish.

“Not a fool” indeed.

~

Dara kept up this pattern as the days went on, bringing the orc food and convincing the guards to leave or accompany her or help her with something. More often than not it worked though not always – though those were the guards who were much harsher, sometimes kicking his food in the orc’s direction and spilling his water.

So it was almost like a break when it was finally her turn to guard him. No one to have to convince to leave him be. He would just be, and she could just leave.

It was a surprise though when she returned to see the food still sitting there. She looked at the orc and let out a tiny gasp of surprise to see him standing there much closer than she’d ever seen him before considering he was almost always hunched up in the far corner.

He was large. Not much larger than she had anticipated. She had fought his kind before. She’d seen them up close and personal as they had attempted to kill her just as she had to them.

He was broad and muscular, skin pitch black and almost blending into the shadows, leering down at her, all four of his eyes squinting in distrust as he eyed her up and down. In the center of his abdomen was a large hole shaped like a heart.

She steeled her face, showing no more surprise but not so much as to show distrust and unkindness towards him. He’d done her no wrong.

“Why?” he growled out, voice deep and commanding. It was almost a demand rather than a question.

“Why what?” she questioned back, annunciating each word.

“I am no fool. What is your game? What do you hope to gain from leaving your prisoner alone? My trust?” he scoffed.

“I don’t need your trust,” she stated firmly. He stepped closer to the gate, his form towering over her own and she stood at an even 6 feet tall. Yet her eyes went no higher than his collar bone. The large curved horns on the top of his head did not help, adding probably another seven or eight inches to his impressive height.

“Your bravado is nothing. Your cell is nothing. These chains do not hold me. You cannot chain darkness,” he said, letting one of the cuffs that bound his wrist fall through. His hand and wrist and turned into a fine, black, intangible mist. He reformed it as soon as the chain fell away, flexing his fingers and claws as he stared down at her.

She did not back down.

“Then why stay?” she asked calmly, reaching through the bars calmly the grasp the cuff as it dangled on the chain attached to his neck.

“I know I am no match for you all. I’d be struck down before I could leave this place where they hold me. But you are a fool just to assume I would not merely escape.”

She held up the chain, and he phased his hand back through.

“I knew you would not,” she said calmly as she stepped away from the bars and took her place next to them, smiling as she heard him begin to eat despite the fact that she was there to know he had accepted her help, “You are no fool.”

~

“What is it like where you live?” Dara asked as she sat next to the bars of the cell, legs folded beneath her as she sat across from him. He was taking a bite of his bread before he looked and eyed her like she was a bothersome child rather than his jailor.

“Dark,” he grunted around a full mouth. That was the end of it as far as he was concerned.

“Are the women as big as the men there?”

He looked at her with a look of confusion and annoyance. Why did it matter?

“None of us are big. Your kind are just puny,” he said, “Like ants.”

He had hoped to piss her off.

“Why are you a soldier?”

This question caught him off guard more than the others. She would normally ask questions. He would normally ignore them. He humored her once, and she did not leave him alone as expected. She continued to ask questions. He ignored them. She made up some stupid assumptions that he found idiotic at best.

“I did not choose. All men must fight. This is the way. This makes sense. You are a warrior are you not? You should know this. Or are you too stupid to figure it out?”

“I chose to be a warrior,” she stated evenly, “How sad that your kind cannot choose.”

He threw the rest of his food at her. She raised her arms to block most of it, bread and smashed vegetables splattering across her arms.

“How dare you assume any of my culture to be sad. You do not know! You cannot know! What gives you the right?!” He slammed his fists against the bars, breathing heavily.

Dara watched him as he calmed down before he stomped back over to his corner to sulk.

“You are right. I am sorry,” she said after a moment of consideration. She did not and could not know. She did not have the right to assume that his culture was lesser than hers because it was different. “That was ignorant of me.”

He did not speak to her for the rest of the day. She did not ask her questions.

~

He was a proud creature. She knew that much. She had known it when he refused to eat. She knew it better now that she had personally insulted him.

She brought him a tiny cake with his meal, setting it down on the tray once she had convinced the guard of the day to leave.

“What is this?” he sneered.

“A treat.”

He regarded her dully.

“Why?”

“It’s an apology. For what I said the other day.”

He kept looking at her, mild confusion, disbelief, and anger flickering over his face. Then he began to chuckle. At first it was a tiny little chuckle. Then it was full-blown uproarious laughter, loud and booming, filling every corner of the dungeon.

She looked shocked. She had never known him to show anything other than anger, aggression, or annoyance. This was new. But not unpleasant.

She began to laugh too, a light giggle more out of surprise than anything.

“Why are you laughing?” he asked abruptly.

“I’ve never seen an orc laugh before. I was unaware that you truly possessed emotions. Were you not born without hearts?”

“We are made of darkness. We have no hearts. This is true.”

“Then why are you laughing?”

“Because you are an idiot.”

~

“Do you need anything?” Dara asked with concern lacing her voice. The orc was hunched over, black dripping from his mouth and wounds on his body.

“Do not insult me. I bear wounds because I am loyal to my cause. I wear them with honor. I am no weakling.”

“I still wish they had not beaten you so harshly for information. Why did you not just give it to them to keep yourself safe?”

“Would you give up your people so easily?”

Dara was silent. She often found herself trying not to judge his odd behavior and customs simply because they did not make sense to her. And she’d all but abandoned assuming it was lesser than hers. But this… This was true. She would have done the same without question.

She wasn’t even sure why she would ask a question with such a blatantly obvious answer.

Perhaps she just did not enjoy seeing him hurt.

“What…,” she began hesitantly, not wanting to provoke him with her ignorance, “What is your cause?”

“To survive.”

“Is that why you attack the Tree of Life? You would see our people destroyed to help your own and claim our lands and plunge us all into darkness?”

“Your people are not our concern. We don’t care what happens to your people. Only ours. We will not survive without the darkness.”

“Why not inhabit the light as we do?”

“You’re still a fool, elf. The light hurts us. We could no more thrive in it than you could locked up down here and away from the light.”

“Then I am sorry that our causes have driven us to such extremes.”

“I don’t want your pity.”

“Then take it as a kindness.”

~

“I think we would have been friends in another life,” Dara mused.

The orc grunted around a mouth full of food, acknowledging her comment but neither confirming nor denying it.

“What is your name?” she asked after a few more minutes.

“Thorian.”

Dara hummed as she considered this, running the name through her head and committing it to memory. It was not as gruff sounding a name as she had expected. It was smoother than many of the elven names she had learned in her life. She had expected something similar to the rougher elven names for him – like Bramdur or Northrasit.

“Tell me, Dara,” Thorian said before sipping his drink, “What do you think of our cause?”

“Your cause? You mean the war?”

“No. Just the cause.”

“I think…. We are a lot alike, you and me. Our causes are the same. Our causes are just. We would see our people thrive.”

He was silent for a moment.

“You would compare your people to mine?”

“There was a time where I would not have, no. I would think you and your people little more than savages who only understand violence. But then I watched them drag you through the village and to the dungeon. You looked….”

She wanted to say vulnerable. She wanted to say that she felt immense pity to see him collared like a dog and dragged about like wild game, freshly hunted, writhing in pain as he was exposed to the light of the sun as it crept steadily into the sky that morning.

At the time she could not even remember that he was her enemy.

But he was too proud for that. And she did not want to insult him again.

“Say it,” he growled, rising to his full height to stare down at her, “Say I looked weak.”

“No. You looked… vulnerable. And that is not weakness. I had never seen an orc so unguarded. I could not even draw the comparison to the ferocious beasts who tried to fell me in battle. I saw a man who was being treated like an animal. And it never quite settled with me.”

“So you brought me food out of pity.”

A moment of quiet.

“Yes,” she said, barely above a whisper. “But not anymore.”

She reached her hand through the bars of the cell, resting her hand over where his heart would have been if he’d had one.

He looked reproachful but made no move to remove her hand.

“You and I are the same.”

~

“We are going out today,” Dara said as she passed a cloak through the bars of the cell.

“Out,” he said in a cross between disbelief and defensive, critical skepticism.

“I have made an appeal in your case. I have convinced the elders that a different approach may be necessary in persuading you to give us information.”

“You are an even greater fool than I imagined if you ever think I will bow to your will, elf,” he spat.

“I know you won’t. You are as loyal to your people as I am to mine.”

“Then why have you made such a foolish proposition.”

“So you may see more than just the inside of this dungeon.”

Dara unlocked the cell, stepping inside and closing it behind her. She held up a key to which he offered his arms. She smiled.

“Why are you smiling?”

“You’re allowing me to undo your chains rather than ridding yourself of them on your own. You trust me.”

“You are no threat to me.”

“It’s all the same to me,” she said as she unshackled his feet and moved to the collar around his neck, “Now put on your cloak.”

“What is this for?”

“To protect you from the light, of course,” Dara said with an eyeroll. He shrugged the cloak onto his large frame. It hung to his feet, almost touching the ground.

Then she placed a new cuff on his wrist and attached a much smaller one to her own.

“Your people do not trust me.”

“They do not. Any punishable thing you do will be my responsibility, and all crimes you commit will result in twice the punishment over for the both of us.”

“And you trust me to not rampage through your village despite the fact that this,” he said, raising his arm so the chain dangled in front of her face, “Means nothing.”

“I trust you too.”

~

The village was full of life. Though that seemed to all but vanish when Dara walked through the town with Thorian attached to her arm.

People watched with wary eyes. Mothers hid their children behind them or ushered them inside their homes. Men placed hands on their weapons in case the beast was ready to attack.

Thorian remained silent as Dara walked through the village as if nothing were wrong, waving to and greeting the people she’d called her friends and family all of her life even as they watched her with judgmental, sometimes betrayed, expressions etched across their faces.

He placed his hand in the light, hissing and jerking it back in place. He was aggravated. These people were annoying. The light was annoying. Even her casual demeanor was annoying.

“Did you bring me out her just so that I may be silently threatened and feared?” Thorian asked as he watched the people they passed.

Dara let out a light laugh.

“Of course not. This is exercise.”

“This is hardly exercise.”

“It’s better than pacing your cell I bet. Here let’s stop for lunch,” she said as she sidled up to a booth in the village square. A young, male elf stood behind it with fear written all over his face, eyes never leaving the tall figure in the cloak.

“Hello, Tam,” Dara greeted as if nothing were off. She reached down and grabbed a pouch strapped to a belt hanging loosely from her hips. She poured a few coins out onto the counter of his stall.

“I’ll have two meat pies, please.”

“Uh, am I allowed to serve it?” he asked as he eyed the orc. Thorian let a low growl rumble through his chest but remained still, arms at his sides.

“Well I’m paying aren’t I? Why wouldn’t you serve him?”

Tam’s eyes darted to Dara’s and back again. Poor thing looked as if he were going to wet himself. He quickly served up two meat pies, not even grabbing the money off of the counter before retreating to the back of his stall behind a curtain.

Dara picked up the pies and led Thorian to a bench so they could eat.

The orc frowned at the taste of his food.

“Is something the matter?” Dara asked. She knew Tam had done nothing wrong. She watched him prepare the pies right there in front of them. He didn’t spit in them, didn’t use any strange and unrecognizable ingredients.

“I thought the prison food was all the quality they were willing to serve me. Now I see that elven cooking is just shit.”

“Hey! I worked hard on those meals!”

“You made them?!”

This was even funnier to him as he threw his head back laughing that loud, boisterous laugh. Several of the villagers flinched at the volume, glaring at him yet looking just as bewildered that he was showing any emotion at all – much less laughter.

“And what’s so funny about that?” Dara laughed along with him.

“You’re even more hopeless than I thought,” he chuckled out as he took another bite of his meat pie.

The two were silent for a while as they ate. Eventually the village was actually able to ignore them to some extent. Eyes were always trained on him, especially when people passed him, but they did not dart around him like he was prepped to explode at any moment and take out anyone who dared to be within the vicinity.

“I know you are a proud warrior,” Dara said as she watched the village try to move about as normal as if one of their sworn enemies were not invading their space, “But do you ever wish that you could have chosen to be anything else?”

Thorian was mildly offended but knew she meant no offense in her wording. She was just being curious again. She had a knack for asking questions about his life and culture – an annoying trait he’d come to appreciate given the interest the rest of her people took in him. Which was to assume that he and his people were savages and ask no questions whatsoever. So he took her questions in stride.

“I love being a warrior. I would not have wanted to be anything else.”

“Do you think you would have liked to have chosen it though?”

“Perhaps. But it hardly matters.”

Silence fell over them again.

“I admire that though,” he said suddenly. She looked at him.

“Admire what?”

“That you have chosen the life of a warrior. It is one thing to be born to it. It is another to have chosen it and all that it entails of one’s own free will.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly, smiling to herself.

~

After a few weeks of allowing Thorian to roam the village with Dara, she started trying to include him in conversation. Initially, it went nowhere. He would not contribute to conversation. It was hard when the people she spoke to could only stare at him in fear and anxiousness. Some she had previously called friend refused to speak to her entirely with or without the orc accompanying her.

Eventually, she could prompt him to give more than that – noncommittal grunts and tiny nods. He did not want to speak to these people.

Then there were children.

Most were not allowed near the big, scary orc. Though many children questioned why at this point. There were stories, of course, told to the children at night about orcs who stole away with children in the night who were bad. Yet this one had been here a while. And no children had gone missing. So it was only natural that the children eventually got curious.

Dara and Thorian pretended not to notice them getting a little closer to observe them every day. They would dare each other to see how close they could get each day – and each day getting almost within reaching distance. This was mostly the older boys and girls, however. True bravery always exists in the ones too young to know that danger exists.

So it was rather surprising when a young child, no more than four, ran up to them one day. He stopped directly in front of the orc, eyes wide and sparkling. Dara doubted he’d ever seen a creature so large that wasn’t an animal.

The orc stared down at him with mildly curious eyes. Dara observed silently, aware of all of the staring, cautious eyes and weapons trained on the orc for any sudden movements and her simply by association.

“Can I touch you?” the child asked. The orc seemed taken aback by his statement. Though he was also mildly impressed. This tiny child was more courageous than the adolescents of the village.

He kneeled down next to the child, watching the child’s eyes marvel as it darted to each of his eyes. Then he slowly, oh so slowly, offered his arm to the child, palm upturned and open, forearm exposed to the light though he ignored burn, the heavy cuff on his wrist glinting in the sun.

The child gaped in wonder that he was allowed to do such a thing. He grabbed the orc’s fingers, inspecting each one before turning the orc’s hand over this way and that. He trailed a finger along the pitch-black skin up to the metal cuff before letting it graze the edge of the metal.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, looking back up to the orc.

“Fenri!” a shrill voice ripped through the air. An elven woman with long hair marched up to the three of them, “Get away from it!”

She snatched her child away by his arm, and the child let out a yelp at the force of it.

“How dare you!” she said, rearing her arm back. That was when both Dara and Thorian noticed the rock in her hand. Just as she brought it down to strike the orc, Dara stepped in the way.

Thorian heard many of the elves gasp, including the children observing at a distance. Even the elven woman who dealt the blow let out a noise of surprise.

“Dara,” she breathed, looking at the elven woman she once called friend. They’d once been as close as sisters. She then snapped out of her stupor, settling a wavering glare on Dara with tears brimming in her eyes as she pulled her child away.

Dara turned back to Thorian, looking for any signs of injury on him despite the fact that she had taken every blow dealt. They both stood to their full height. Dara also had tears brimming in her eyes. There was a large cut above her eyebrow that was steadily dripping blood down her face.

“You are hurt,” Thorian observed.

“I once called her something like family.”

“You did not need to do that. I could have handled my own.”

“I know. But I would not have you hurt. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

Thorian observed her for a few quiet moments before he lifted a hand to brush a tear from her cheek.

“It will scar,” he said moving his hand to lightly brush above the cut.

“I will wear it with honor,” she said firmly, looking up at him with a fierce determination in her eyes. Thorian’s hand stilled, watching her with wide eyes.

~

Thorian was a bit more restless the next time they stopped by Tam’s stall for food. He was agitated watching the elf move about his stall in a nervous frenzy picking up ingredients that would never do. They were fine by elven standards, but not his.

“Come on,” Thorian grunted, pulling on the chain that tethered him to Dara so they could move behind the stall.

“What are you doing?” she asked, bewildered but going along with it anyway.

Tam stilled in his movement. Thorian looked about the stall.

“Do you have any other spices?” he finally asked. Tam pointed a quivering finger towards the back, and Thorian moved back there with Dara in tow. He inspected the different little spice jars amongst the shelves, pulling down a few before moving back out of the stall.

Tam stood in the corner, having not moved from that spot since the two had disappeared. He looked as bewildered as scared now. But it hardly mattered. Thorian ignored him entirely as he began to move across the little cooking area. Dara eventually got tired of that and uncuffed herself.

Tam looked at her as if she were crazy, and she just shrugged, leaning against a counter near him.

“You can’t just let it do whatever it wants,” Tam hissed at her, eyes glancing nervously over to Thorian who was mixing spices and cubes of meat in a bowl.

“Are you going to stop him?” Dara asked casually, giving Tam a cool smile. Tam for once looked annoyed rather than scared. He didn’t answer, but they both knew he wouldn’t.

They watched Thorian as he cooked, observing him move with all the precision of a practiced chef who’d been doing this all of his life.

He made four meat pies, and he and Dara took two, leaving Tam with the leftovers. He watched as they walked to their usual spot on a bench not far from him.

Dara fidgeted with nervous excitement. She did not know how Thorian’s food would taste, but she was eager since all he ever did when they ate was complain about elven food.

She took a bite of the pie once it had cooled down enough to eat, and nearly wept. It was sweet and savory and spicy and every bit of amazing as she had hoped.

“This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten,” she said around a mouthful of food.

“I know,” Thorian said casually, though she knew his head had to be swelling with pride.

Everyone who had watched the spectacle of an orc cooking kept an eye on the two afterward. Yet Dara showed no signs of being poisoned, just disappointment with other meals.

~

“Da-Dara!” Tam called as Dara and Thorian were passing that day.

She approached the stall. Tam seemed to have gotten something of a backbone considering he always looked as if he were about to die every time Dara and Thorian approached his stall. He looked at her with a smile, small though it was. When his eyes drifted to the orc, his smile drooped, and he looked more nervous though not as he had been before.

“I was wondering if you could give me that meat pie recipe you used from the other day,” he said, eyes cast downward where his fingers traced a pattern in the wood.

“It wasn’t my recipe,” Dara said, already smiling at the turn the conversation was taking. Tam gulped audibly, eyes sliding over to the orc who looked at him with patient, haughty eyes.

“Do… Do you think you might teach me?” Tam said in a rush before he lost his nerve. Thorian eyed him silently, scrutinizing him, before he looked to Dara who watched him with patient, expectant eyes.

“This is your call,” she said after a moment, “I will go with whatever you choose to do.”

Thorian let out a tiny chuckle.

“I might as well,” he said, “Otherwise no one in your village will ever know what good food tastes like.”

Dara let out a light laugh, and even Tam let out a disbelieving chuckle.

~

Eating food prepared by an orc had two very strong, very different opinions in the village initially.

In the beginning no one would touch it except for Dara, Tam, and Thorian himself. Tam would just follow the orc’s instructions on spice mixing and cooking different meals besides meat pies. He was just happy to receive the cooking instruction. He’d always had a passion for cooking.

But as time went on, the opinion on orc food was similar to the one of approaching him altogether – most of the intrigue lay in the adolescents and children who would dare each other to get close to watch the orc work with one of their own while Dara stood by and took a few notes of her own. Eventually the dares of watching turned to actually eating the food.

It was a 14-year-old girl.

She defiantly strode up to the stall, money clutched tightly in her hand, palms sweating more and more the closer she got to the stall, but she couldn’t back out now. Her friends were watching, and they’d all heard her say that she wasn’t afraid of anything – especially not wild beast who thought it could cook like the rest of them.

Her friends shuffled a bit closer, keeping a good distance from her.

She approached the counter and slammed her money down. Tam approached her with a friendly smile. Her eyes slid from him to the orc who had not even acknowledged her presence. He was large, much larger up close than when she had been standing behind a tree watching with her friends.

“Can I help you?” Tam asked, and her eyes darted back up to his familiar and somewhat calming face. She swallowed. Her throat felt dry.

“What’s on the menu?” she asked lowly, voice cracking as she feigned confidence. Dara held in a chuckle at the girl’s brave façade.

“Well meat pies are one of our specialties if you wanna try that?” he asked. The girl nodded quietly, nerves eating up her words no matter how much force she put behind her act.

Tam returned shortly with a fresh meat pie and placed it in front of her.

“Thank you!” the girl forced out, grabbing the food and darting back to her friends. They huddled behind some bushes looking at the food in her hands. It looked like any other meat pie. It didn’t have a weird look or smell about it that should have screamed poison. Then again that one elf who was always with the orc ate his food all the time and was never poisoned. Though she had also been branded a traitor by some of their parents – confused and crazy by the rest.

Orcs probably didn’t poison allies. Though Fenri had gone up to the orc a few weeks ago, and the orc didn’t hurt him or anything. If he was going to kill someone. He’d have done it by now, right?

“Are you gonna eat it already or what?” one her friends asked. She puffed out her cheeks in defiance. Now that the orc was not so near, her bravery had come back.

She took a large bite out of the meat pie.

~

Tam’s business had come back to him. Though most of the patrons were children, teenagers, and a few adults who trusted that if none of them had been poisoned yet, then Dara must have been keeping a good leash on her pet. It was good she was not a traitor.

It was after a few weeks of it that Dara started leaving. She didn’t go far initially. Maybe she would step into the back or visit a stall or booth that would still take her business that was not far away. And she got her desired results.

People hardly noticed. She always did her best to blend into the background, and now she was normalizing his socialization with the people. Granted they were still ignorant about him and his kind, and they still treated him like little more than an animal that Dara had to train, but it was a start.

It wasn’t until things had quieted down with the orcs a few weeks later that any true progress had been made.

It had been a long day at the booth with customers becoming more frequent. Dara was sure Thorian didn’t want to only cook with his time, but it was the only recreation he was allowed and the only time he was not shackled he had. So he bided his time with this small freedom, grateful to have something to do besides rot in a cell or walk around the village while those who still did not trust him, eyed him like a target.

By the time they officially closed up shop, the sun had set. Days like these were rare but among Thorian’s favorite. He liked the stars. And Dara liked them too. They liked looking at them as they returned to his cell, a small comfort before the next day when he would be allowed out again.

It was as they were walking, admiring the twinkling lights that they heard it. A sound like a horn. Dara’s eyes narrowed as she looked in the direction of the tree. Already she summoned her keyblade and armor.

Thorian watched her.

“Do you wish to come with me?” she asked, tone grave. They both knew he would see his kind slaughtered. It was something she wasn’t sure he would want to see, but he was not deterred.

He nodded and they sprinted off in the direction of the tree.

~

It was a deadlock by the time they reached the Tree of Life. The keyblade wielders at the forefront held a bulk of the attacking orcs back while many of the other soldiers would take down those that managed to break the line in front. But they weren’t making enough progress, and they couldn’t hold them off forever. Orcs’ resilience to most attacks was a point of difficulty for the elves.

Dara took her place next to the tree, guarding with her shield and cutting down orcs as they approached her. But she did not attack with all of her fervor. All she could see when she was attacking was Thorian. Of course, they didn’t look like him, but they could have been him. They were like him. They did not know they could be like him – that this world could be as much their home as it was the elves’ home.

She was not paying attention. An orc with a spear nearly ran her through until Thorian broke it before it could reach her, letting out a terrifying roar as he took the point of the broken spear and stabbed it through the orc’s neck.

Dara looked at him in shock. He’d killed his own.

“Thorian,” she choked out.

“Light,” he said simply, watching as the orcs began to surround them.

“What?” she said as she stood back to back with him, facing the other side of the semicircle of orcs.

“We are weak to light. If you wish to defeat them before they reach the tree, you will need to use light as the base of your attacks.”

Dara only knew one attack based in light. Summoning her all, she created a ring of light around the two of them before she sent it out in a burst of energy. It felled the orcs directly in front of them immediately, but only injured the ones further out as the wave of energy dispersed the further it got from her. The other warriors took note of this, using what little light magic they’d practiced in order to do similar damage.

She panted, stumbling a little in her stance but holding her blade and shield at the ready as more orcs approached. She imbued her keyblade with light magic as best she could and began to cut the orcs down with precision strikes while Thorian fought beside her, keeping the orcs from ganging up on her.

The battle continued until there were naught but a few heavily wounded orcs left. The soldiers began to make quick work of them until there were only bodies littering the ground – most of them orcs with black tendrils of darkness floating from their bodies as they vanished from existence and very few elves. Dara de-summoned her weapons and armor and was prepared to lead Thorian back to the village when a cough sounded at her feet.

She looked down to see a fading orc, coughing up a black, viscous substance. Something she’d seen drip from Thorian when he was injured. She grimaced.

The orc looked at her and then at Thorian. It spat in his direction.

“You’d leave behind your brethren for this. You’d see us all perish. You were given your duty, and you squandered your purpose in life,” he rasped from his place on the ground.

“I would not see you perish. Nor would I see this world destroyed by darkness. Not when I’ve learned that we could survive in it. I have not squandered my purpose in life. I have simply chosen a new one.”

The orc was fading more now. A sneer crossed his face.

“You’ve chosen,” he spat, “No. You’ve abandoned everything. You’re a coward and a fool, and when they turn on you, you’ll think of what little meaning your continued existence has garnered when you fade into oblivion like you’ve condemned me.”

With that, the orc faded completely, leaving nothing behind.

They returned to the village in silence. Dara was silent the rest of the way, brow furrowed in frustration.

“Are you going to say what’s on your mind or continue to stare at the ground until it catches fire?” Thorian’s deep rumble of a voice interrupted her thoughts.

She stopped walking to turn and look at him. Her face was one of concern and worry. She looked sad and angry.

“He was wrong. They won’t turn on you,” she said, voice firm but hardly directed at him. No, she was trying to convince herself.

“They might. I’ll always be an outsider here,” he said lowly.

“No!”

He was taken aback by her outburst.

“I won’t let them. They know you won’t hurt them.”

“Some do. We both know most do not. Do not fool yourself into thinking that because I am tolerated that I am accepted. You have accepted me. As has Tam. But it would take decades before I would truly be accepted into this community, and even then I would not be accepted by everyone. There will always be attempts on my life.”

“I will not let them!” Dara said, voice getting a bit louder, “I will protect you.”

He lets out one of his booming laughs. She frowns even more.

“I’m serious!” she says with a little stamp of her foot. His laughs quiet a little after though his smile does not leave his face.

“I know you are,” he says. He takes a knee in front of her, bowing his head to her.

“I will fight by your side. I vow this from here to the day I die that I will be by your side until the day my body leaves this world.”

Dara looks at him in surprise.

“You would fight for our cause now?” she asked, confusion lining her features.

“No,” he says as he stands back up to his full height, “I will fight for you. Nothing else. Whatever cause you support. Whatever trials you face. No matter how futile, trivial, or challenging. I will stand by you without faltering.”

Dara was at a loss for words. All she could do was throw her arms around his neck in a hug. He was caught off guard by the gesture but eventually wrapped his arms around her in a hug as well.

~

Keyblade wielders had a job. The fate of the universe was always more important than the fate of one world. But Dara could not very well abandon her home when it was threatened to be plunged into darkness. Even if there was a keyblade war raging in another part of the grand scheme of things.

Everyday more and more keyblade wielders left to join the cause. And this worried her to no end. They couldn’t all leave. But they were, and with each small battle waged against the orcs she feared they would notice – feared they would take advantage of their weakness.

Their non-keyblade wielding soldiers were formidable opponents against the orcs, but they could only do so much. It was thanks to the keyblade wielders that the tides seemed to turn in their favor at all. Light had become a well-practiced magic that was taught to every soldier, but keyblade wielders had more power and were not as limited in magic use as those who were not strengthened by their blades. As such, battles drew on longer and more people were lost. Orcs were able to retreat and recuperate and report on what they’d seen. Dara did not know how long they could keep this up.

But one thing was clear. The orcs were becoming bolder, and the final battle would soon be on the horizon. And with the keyblade wielders gone, more of their other soldiers would be lost. Their army was dwindling.

And Dara needed to seek council with the only one who may have any idea of what to do.

~

Thorian would never admit it, but… he was intimidated. He’d never seen a creature such as this. When Dara said they were going up the Tree of Life to meet its guardian, he did not know he’d be staring into the eyes of a dragon. His name was Mythiss.

Dara and Thorian kneeled before him, and Mythiss gave a huff of frustration.

“You may rise,” he said in a bored, almost annoyed, drawl and roll of his large ice blue eyes.

“Guardian,” Dara said as she stood, looking up at the dragon, “I grow fearful of the fate of our world.”

“You are referring to the detestable behavior of your fellow keyblade wielders are you not?” Mythiss growled out, mouth never moving but words spoken as clearly as a roll of thunder.

“I am,” Dara answered gravely.

“You should be,” he said with no hints of sympathy in his voice, “Your kind are meant to protect the world and the light that exists within it, yet they leave to fight in pointless war that can have no winner.”

His large eyes slid to Thorian.

“And you’ve brought darkness to the tree. Though…,” he leaned in close, his large muzzle close enough to touch Thorian though he did not flinch, “He does not fear the light.”

The dragon’s eyes flashed gold for a moment before disappearing, and Thorian couldn’t have been sure that he really saw it.

“He has a heart,” the dragon mused before looking at Dara again, “How has this happened?”

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly, “All I know is that he does. I know his heart.”

“And he has chosen to fight in the name of the light?”

“He has chosen to fight in my name.”

The dragon scoffed before looking at Thorian once more.

“Still a more just cause than the keyblade war. And you will not abandon her?”

“I will not,” Thorian answered firmly.

“And you will not abandon this world?” the dragon asked Dara.

“I will not.”

“Then if you wish to protect her,” he said redirecting his attention to Thorian once more, “You will protect this world alongside her. Hold out your hand.”

Thorian did as he was told and a keyblade materialized in his hand.

“Do not fail me.”

~

Thorian rolled off of Dara with a groan. She just lay there absolutely still outside of the heaving of her panting chest. She was exhausted. She didn’t know if she’d ever be able to move again.

Thorian stood from the bed, walking over to the chair where he’d thrown his clothes. Dara watched his large muscular frame move, dazedly wondering how he still had the energy to do so after he had fucked her so thoroughly.

“What are you doing?” she mumbled out as she watched him dress.

“We still have training to do,” he answered simply.

She sat up, wincing at the pain of her lower half.

“Really? After all of that?”

“You’re tired?” he asked, an amused smile playing across his lips.

“Yes,” she stressed out, “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to walk again.”

He chuckled lowly before walking back over to the bed and picking her up like a bride and spinning her around. She clung to him, letting out little elated giggles before kissing him. She hummed in contentment as she snuggled into him before he set her down on the edge of the bed.

Her content was short lived.

“Something troubles you, my heart,” he said as he brushed some of her hair out of her face, thumb idly tracing the scar above her eyebrow.

“War is coming. I cannot ignore the signs anymore than you can,” she said gravely.

“I know,” he said, leaning his head against her own, “And we will face it together.”

She took a small comfort in that.

~

“Wait,” you interrupted, “So heartless can have sex? Like normal people?”

“Well the orcs could. They were… anatomically correct,” your ancestor answered.

“Yeah, I got that. You didn’t actually need to describe the sex to me by the way.”

~

Thorian cut through training dummies with ease. His brute strength was a great asset, and now that he was learning to put it behind his keyblade, he was almost an unstoppable force. It helped that he was built like a tank.

“Should we work on your form changes next?” Dara asked, walking up next to him where he stood amongst the dummies littered on the ground.

“Are you sure I’m ready?”

“I have every confidence you will master it in due time. We will be ready when the time comes.”

It had been roughly two years now since he’d gotten his keyblade, and he had quickly become something of a master. He trained relentlessly, protecting Dara and Ellaria being his only goal.

She stepped back and summoned her keyblade before melding with it, sprouting wings and scales and becoming an ethereal dragon of light. She took a deep breath, eyes flashing red as she let out a wave of fire that mowed down more targets before taking to the skies.

Thorian marveled at her for a moment, reminiscing that that same fighting spirit and fire was why he had married her in the first place.

He summoned his all in his form change, morphing into a pitch-black dragon. Dara landed next to him. Thorian stretched his wings experimentally. Then the form abruptly disappeared, and he was left panting on the ground.

Dara returned to her original form.

“It will get easier,” she said as she offered a hand to help him up.

“Working hard?” they heard a voice say. They turned to see Tam approaching with a warm smile on his face and a little bundle in his arms.

“As hard as we can,” Thorian assured, “Thank you again for babysitting.”

“It’s no problem. She slept the whole time.”

Dara smiled back, taking the bundle into her arms and smiling down at her beautiful daughter as she slept. She looked completely elven, the only trait she retained from her father being irises that were a bright golden yellow. Though this gave her an otherworldly beauty more than anything else.

Thorian came over as well to look at Ellaria’s sleeping face. Seeing it gave him peace.

“Have you heard from any of the others?” Tam asked, looking worriedly at Dara. Dara’s smile dropped as she shook her head. She feared the worst. It was most likely that all of their keyblade warriors who had gone to fight in the keyblade war were dead or dying. Regardless, she knew they were not coming back. And she and Thorian were the only keyblade wielders left.

~

Dara swallowed hard, but the lump in her throat wouldn’t leave. She moved sluggishly, putting together everything she thought her baby could possibly need or want. Thorian helped her take it over to Tam’s home. The last thing they would move would be Ellaria.

She was asleep.

Dara stood over the crib, taking a moment to watch her sleep. Thorian did the same, an arm around his wife’s shoulders. They stood there for what felt like ages, but it was only about five or so minutes. Her shoulders began to shake.

Tears rolled down her cheeks in fat drops.

Thorian held her closer, placing tender kisses along her forehead.

Dara gathered Ellaria in her arms, and the two departed for Tam’s home.

He met them at the door, a forlorn look on his face.

“Thank you for this,” Thorian said, his wife still too choked up to say anything. What could one say in a situation like this? Tam merely nodded.

“Do you remember what to do?”

“To go to the next village. Say I’m from anywhere else, that I used to be a drifter with my wife before she died. Now I’m looking to settle down and raise my child.”

Thorian nodded.

“And she can never know about us,” Dara croaked out, “She can never know where she comes from. If they knew… if anyone ever found out she was part orc, she’d never be accepted. As far as you or anyone else knows, she’s just an elf.”

“But that won’t be a problem when you come back,” Tam said reassuringly, though he hardly believed it himself.

“If…,” Dara started then shuddered with more tears. Thorian put his arm around her. “If we come back. We’ll come find you.”

Tam nodded.

“Maybe you’ll come back. Maybe we don’t have to go…,” Tam tried again, trying to stay positive.

“If we don’t and the orcs make it to the village, they’ll ravage it and set fire to everything. And you and our daughter will be killed,” Thorian said with a faraway look in his eyes. Dara held her daughter a little closer at the mention that anyone would try to kill her – angry and saddened.

She held her baby closely to her, and Thorian wrapped both of them up in a tight hug. He felt tears slip from his own eyes. His heart was heavy and breaking.

“You can still stay,” he said to Dara, “Our child needs a mother.”

She shook her head again. They’d had this conversation time and time again.

“I have a duty to do to ensure our daughter has a world to grow up in. No matter the cost.”

A horn sounded in the distance just as it had only an hour ago to signal the approaching army at their borders. They were almost upon the village now. Thorian and Dara were among several hundred leaving their families for battle.

Thorian and Dara each kissed their daughter before giving her to Tam. Tam hopped on his loaded cart full of supplies that would support his day’s journey to the next village. And Thorian and Dara watched with tears rolling down their faces as Tam and Ellaria rode away.

~

Rage fueled them as they strode onto the battlefield with the rest of the elven army at their backs. They were at the forefront. Between them and the tree stood 500 soldiers. On top of the Tree of Life the dragon gazed down below. He still resented the keyblade wielders who’d abandoned the world in its hour of need. But it hardly mattered now. He would not see it fall. Not while he still drew breath.

They were outnumbered and nothing short of a miracle would save them. Their meager army was facing one at least ten times its size, but they would give them hell. They would die for this world and its people.

The orc army charged with a great roar that rolled over the field like a wave. The elven army charged in a similar manner with Thorian and Dara at the front, keyblades ablaze with light that cut the orcs they met down to size almost immediately. The battle raged back and forth, the line between the two armies wavering as if being pulled on the ends by some invisible force. But the inevitable happened. The elven army began being pushed back as soldiers fell. Steadily back they went until they were nearly upon the tree.

Mythiss flew overhead, lighting the field in a blaze that stunned many of the orcs, but the darkness kept encroaching upon them. More and more orcs poured forth until it was clear that no amount of fighting would save the elves.

Soon there were only Thorian, Dara, and Mythiss left standing, and Thorian and Dara were already heavily wounded.

Mythiss erected a wall of fire around the two and the tree, which they stood next to. The orc army was surrounding the wall, waiting for its blaze to burn out, some charging foolhardy into it anyway, almost clearing the blaze before they succumb to the heat and flame. Soon the fire would not hold them off anymore. Soon they would charge through the blaze and attack. Soon they would reach the tree, and the world would be lost to darkness.

“This is the end,” Mythiss conceded, his long, draconic body curling around the two keyblade wielders like a shield, “We have failed this world.”

“All is lost,” Dara mourned. Thorian held her tightly to him and she held back.

“No,” Mythiss said with an eerie calm about him, “I will destroy it all. The tree and the orcs. But you must lend me some of your power and light. This will leave you weakened. You will probably not survive the attack, but the world will press on without us.”

There was not even a question in their minds about whether or not they should do this. It would mean that Ellaria would survive, and the world would continue, and they will have done their jobs as keyblade wielders.

They summoned their keyblades, pointing at the dragon and giving all of their power to him, every last bit of it they had.

“This world will not fall today,” Mythiss said as he closed his eyes and began to concentrate.

Mythiss began to glow so brightly, they could no longer look at him. They merely held each other, placing one last kiss on each other’s lips, thoughts of their time together and their daughter and their love rushing through their minds as oblivion overtook them. Though they held no fear.

Just as the orcs broke through the fire, Mythiss unleashed a magic of restoration that purged the darkness from the world and with it every orc in the army, Thorian, and Dara. His magic melded into the world, meshing with its own heart and will, concealing the heart that lay beneath the tree from the naked eye.

With every orc male extinguished the race eventually died out. Except for Ellaria who went on living without knowing any of her true heritage and nature. And that, as far as anyone knew, was the end of it. There was no more consistent threat to the world of Kelewenya, and all the keyblade wielders of that world perished.

All of the tales of the elf and her orc lover and keyblade wielders and the Tree of Life were mere legend.

~

“Until you, of course,” your grandmother finished, “Kelewenya lasted far longer than I thought it would, but it fell one day. And once there was talk of an artificial world, I knew it was only a matter of time before it too fell with no heart to balance and protect it. So I bequeathed my keyblade to you, and I think I chose right. You’re growing into quite the little hero.”

“Am I as good as you?” you asked cheekily. She laughed and patted your head.

“No. Not even close. You have far too much to learn, and you are far too impulsive for your own good. But you have a good heart, and that will take you far while you learn.”

“Also does this mean I’m part orc?”

“Yes. You’re part heartless.”

“But that’s such a small fraction now, right?”

“Yes and no. It’s true that it isn’t as big as Ellaria’s. She was half heartless, but the darkness that always lurks in people’s hearts has kept it from dwindling as most genes normally do. A rather large part of you is still heartless, but this does not define you. But you can become lost in it and to it.”

“Lost?”

“If you go through corridors of darkness too often with no protection, one day you may find that you’ve assimilated into it, and no part of you will be left. You will simply vanish.”

You gulped a little. You would always remember to wear your armor or cloak from here on out.

“There is something I want to give you,” she said softly before she lightly touched your head. Her fingertips began to glow dully then brightly in such a quick flash, you might have imagined it.

“What was that?” you asked, feeling no different.

“I’ve taught you a few things.”

“Like what?”

“The light spell I used on the orcs. You can imbue your weapon with it to better fight darkness and corruption. Also the restoration spell Mythiss used to purge the darkness from the world. It will not be nearly as powerful, but it can be used against Uh-Oa to cleanse her. Don’t use it too often though. It will take a lot out of you, and as you know from Mythiss’s sacrifice, it can kill you if you aren’t careful.  Also a fire spell I learned in my youth. It’s also quite powerful, so don’t use it until you’re well practiced with it.”

“Thank you,” you said, throwing your arms around her neck in a hug. She chuckled, hugging you back.

Thunder rumbled above you. Loud and intimidating. In the clouds which darkened the sky lightning flashed.

“The guardians before you have cleared a way. Uh-Oa knows this. She is waiting for you,” your grandmother spoke as she stood. You stood as well, gazing up at the sky as the clouds swirled menacingly in a vortex of dark gray. “I know you will do well, Dara. I will be with you, and those who came before you will support you. You will be backed by our hearts, and the strength of your heart will guide you to victory. And your friends will help too.”

Her eyes darted behind you and you looked to see Figment flying up to you with a big smile one his face. He saw all of the spirits fighting the heartless, and he wondered if this meant that you were in any trouble, so he was happy to see you were okay. He flew into your chest, arms spread in a hug, and you hugged back, just as happy to see them.

“Go now,” you grandmother instructed, “She’s waiting.”

With that she began to glow then faded away, and your armor began to glow. She wasn’t gone. She wasn’t your armor either. But she felt like a presence that gave you more courage.

You took a deep breath before mounting your glider with Figment clinging to your shoulder and flying up the mountain.

Notes:

Hope you all enjoyed and as always love your comments and kudos and you!!! I'll see you on Thursday with your big battle against the goddess!

Chapter 29: The Guardian

Summary:

Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!

Notes:

Sorry about the late update! I was running around all busy and such and forgot entirely to update! Then I got an email about it and I was like oh shit! So here it is!

You passed by many of the ethereal keyblade wielders on your way up. Some had resumed their forms and were birds once more, but others remained in their true form and shouted encouragement to you and telling you to let your heart be your guiding key.

And you felt better.

As you climbed the tree, blazing through the sky, the clouds around you grew ever darker. The storm Uh-Oa conjured grew more violent with whipping winds that made your glider harder to control and drops of rain that pelted your armor like tiny bullets as you flew against them.

The keyblade wielders watched over you until you were almost at the top. They continued to give encouragement but all you could hear was the storm raging above your head. But you felt their strength backing you, inspiring you.

You held no fear.

You decided to rest near the top, so you’d have all your strength in your battle against Uh-Oa the next day. The wind made putting up your tent near impossible, and it took an eternity to weigh down so it could not be blown away, but you managed.

You crawled into the tent, grateful to be out of the storm. But it was no quieter inside the tent. Your thoughts whipped around in your head, and you repeated the things your grandmother and the keyblade wielders said over and over again in your head like a mantra so you wouldn’t be discouraged. But it wasn’t enough. And you found yourself wishing your friends were with you.

Then you realized that they kind of were.

You used your heart to feel for your friends and family. You could feel their hearts, and that gave you a sense of peace you hadn’t had since the night of the aurora borealis. It was much easier now that they were closer, and you sent them pulses of love and courage. You sent them all strength and feelings of determination, and you felt them back in return.

All the while your grandmother’s words wrung strongly in your mind.

The strength of your heart will guide you to victory.

~

Axel and Demyx reached the bottom of the mountain just before you had your overwhelming run in with the swarms of heartless.

Needless to say, Dreamfinder, Namine, and Ludwig were all confused to see them back so soon without ________ or Figment in tow.

“What happened?” Namine said as she trotted up to them, looking at their faces for any negative emotion or sign that they were sad or hurt. “Where’s ________? Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. I think,” Demyx said. Axel just looked back to the mountain. “We couldn’t breathe the further up we went, but she has that armor, so she was fine and kept going.”

“Is Figment with her?” Dreamfinder asked, wringing his hands somewhat nervously.

“Yeah, he stayed with her.”

“Axel? Are you alright?” Namine asked as Axel continued to look at the mountain silently. Her eyes followed his gaze up the tree to where they could see a swirling vortex of dark clouds surrounding the top. Thunder boomed and lightning flashed and the shadow of Uh-Oa loomed over them all. She stood still except for her wings which occasionally flapped in time to the claps of thunder.

For a moment, Axel was frozen in fear. You hadn’t made it to her yet. If you had, he doubted Uh-Oa would just be standing there. No. But it was clear she was waiting. The rest of your friends and family felt similar rushes of fear and anxiety slip into them, making their blood run cold. They worried for you.

But then they felt you.

They felt you send love and affection, and this gave them a sense of hope that they needed. You gave them love and courage, and they sent you their strength and determination. You all needed each other more than ever before.

~

You barely managed to sleep that evening with the storm consistently waking you in the middle of the night. But you got the rest you so desperately needed and ate a decent breakfast. Then you exited your tent and gazed up at what little of the mountain was left. You wouldn’t be flying for more than an hour, and then you would be there.

Figment placed a hand on your shoulder in a comforting and encouraging gesture, and you looked at him, placing your own hand over his.

“This is it,” you acknowledged, “If things start going south, get back down the mountain and get as many people out of here as you can. Even if it’s just our friends and family.”

Figment gave you a stern look. You could hear him now if he could talk outside of the mind.

“That’s quitter’s talk.”

You gave a wry smile. You would do your best, but who were you in the face of a goddess?

~

As you approached the top of the tree on your glider, the limbs of the tree became more and more barren, and as you crested the top of the tree, the branches were completely bare. It was an open area, flat almost except for small rises and dips on its surface. But it was not unmanageable as far as walking goes.

At this point, all you could hear anymore was the storm. It drowned out all other noises – the pounding of your heart which you only knew was thumping so hard because of how it was undoubtedly bruising itself with every thump against your ribcage; your breathing which felt more shallow the longer you stood gazing at your makeshift arena as you waited for your opponent, even your thoughts; though you were too frazzled to form a coherent one so that may have been why you couldn’t hear them.

You summoned your keyblade, shield already braced on your other arm as you waited with bated breath for her to appear, and the longer you stood there, the more you wondered if she wasn’t sneaking up on you. But Figment would have done something to warn you. He was constantly turning this way and that as he nervously waited for her arrival.

Then the heartless came. Large waves of armed heartless appeared in the center of the arena as you waited, and you braced yourself for the onslaught.

Your mind briefly flitted to the last time you fought them. You couldn’t handle them. But then you remembered the courage and determination from your friends. And that steeled your resolve. You would not let these creatures defeat you. You would not let them take more innocent lives from the village. You would not let them reach your friends and family. You jumped into the fray almost immediately, fighting with all of your might and downing many of them with Figment doing his best to also keep them at bay, summoning a Figment-sized arsenal of weapons to push back the horde until you could get to them.

“Oh that’s hardly fair,” you heard a voice say, and you were immediately joined by many of the keyblade wielders in their spirit forms. They helped you take down most of the heartless until there were almost none left, and they could not reform quickly enough to overwhelm you anymore.

It was in the midst of this battle just as you were downing a heartless that you noticed something strange happening out of the corner of your eye. A vortex of clouds stretched down from the sky, whipping around at an alarming speed. You stood strong against the violent winds, watching as the vortex took on the vague shape of a person. This shape warped as it sprouted six wings and several faces.

Before you stood Uh-Oa in all her corruption. She had to be at least as tall as a two-floor house. Her skin was blackened and cracked in places with an eerie red glow emanating from the fissures. On her face was a blank mask and jutting out from her skin were three other masks that seemed melted into the flesh. They looked like warped and stretched versions of the masks they should have looked like with tentacles spewing forth like sickness from one of them, the jaw stretched unnaturally long on another as if it hand been forced open against its will and the last looking as if it were stretched beyond reason in a permanent, anguished scream.

She stepped forward, two of her four arms, armed with double-ended spears. The other arms ended in large scythe-like blades rather than hands. She looked at you, and despite the blank mask, her gaze was eerie and piercing.

You watched each other for a moment. It felt like everything went still despite the keyblade wielders and heartless fighting around you. Everything felt muted and you felt something like a warning. Like a sixth sense. You felt a tingle of electricity surround you, growing until it was a hardy buzz, and you dove out of the way as lightning struck where you were just standing.

You had to act fast. You remembered Axel telling you to think with your opponent’s next move in mind, and you knew that your dodge was the perfect opportunity to strike if there ever was one.

You brought your shield up as one of Uh-Oa’s spears moved to strike you. You were knocked back a several feet but were none the worse for wear. She had taken on a fighting stance now, brandishing her spears at you with a cold malice you’d only known darkness to produce – just as it had when you faced off against the heartless and the man with no face.

She took a single bounding step, closing the distance between the two of you instantly and swung at you again. You dodge beneath her, swiping at one of her legs with your blade. She quickly picked up her leg just as your keyblade swiped through it, spinning to face you. You turned back to her, picking up your shield to block whatever hit might land next before you realized you felt that familiar prickle of electricity again. You sloppily jumped out of the way again, hardly in a stance ready for attack by the time she was charging at you gain.

~

The heartless swarmed the village in droves, coming in from all parts of the jungle and covering everything like a plague of locusts. The chief ordered everyone who could not fight to get underground, and the warriors stood at the ready to hold back the army of heartless as best they could.

But that was about when everyone realized that the heartless weren’t just here for the village. Many of them were, succumbing to their baser instinct to take hearts from the people and subsequently flood it with even more heartless, but an even larger number were stampeding towards the tree.

Axel realized this, and he was prepared to stand in front of that tree and keep all of them from you by himself. Thankfully, he didn’t have to. Demyx and several other warriors had joined them, and they fought together. But they were going to be overwhelmed at the rate at which the heartless appeared.

That was when Namine joined in, much to the shock of everyone around her. Her wide, blue eyes scanned the area until she spotted a sword on a nearby weapons rack. She picked it up, brandishing it as she had once seen you do and began to fight the heartless alongside the others.

“Let me at ‘em! Let me at ‘em!” Ludwig shouted as Dreamfinder barely managed to hold down a heartless while Ludwig proceeded to punch it as best he could. It wasn’t much, but it was help.

When the two of them had actually managed to damage it enough for it to disappear they realized something. Dreamfinder looked at his hand which had quite completely disappeared.

“Well that’s not good,” he mused much too calmly.

“No!” Ludwig wailed, “Take me instead!”

Ludwig looked at his own hand and noticed his fingertips disappearing.

“Ack! I was kidding! No! Please! The world can’t be without my genius!”

Namine looked at them with alarm in her wide eyes, then she examined herself. She wasn’t fading, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t start. She sent up a silent prayer that you were okay and close to fixing this mess.

~

You quickly stumbled to your feet, gasping and holding your middle. You had taken a really rough hit from the end of her spear. It felt like it had cut you even though your armor remained unpierced. Maybe your ribs were broken. Breathing was certainly harder but not impossible. Your vision was swimming.

Uh-Oa didn’t look like she’d taken much damage at all, still moving like she was unharmed despite the fact that you had struck her on the legs and arms many, many times.

But how do you fight darkness?!

Then you remembered what your grandmother had taught you. You searched within yourself. You searched for your own light. You could feel it burning within you. It swirled alongside your darkness which felt like ice in your soul, but you couldn’t focus on that now.

You grabbed onto that light. You clung to it for life and channeled it through your body. You felt it burn through your arms and into your sword and shield casting a white, opalescent glow over them.

You stood up straighter before charging towards Uh-Oa. She stabbed her blade-like hands at you, piercing the tree and shaking leaves loose with the force of it. The leaves fluttered and reattached themselves to her wings. At least now you knew where the souls of the people had gone. She swiped at you with her other spear and you only just barely managed to dodge it, swiping at the back of her ankle where you watched the area of darkness ignite in white flame and burn out, leaving a bright white cut that looked like you’d carved out a chunk of her flesh.

Uh-Oa stumbled, leaning heavily on her spears before standing up shakily. She turned slowly to face you, and you felt a cold, dark fury in her gaze that hadn’t been quite so intense as before.

She swept her spear low, sweeping across the ground, a trail of sparks and lightning trailing after it and lingering. You summoned your glider at the last moment as you realized the sparks weren’t leaving as quickly as a regular strike of lightning. Your chest ached as what few leaves were still on the top of the tree caught fire when the lightning managed to touch it.

You flew about Uh-Oa, defenseless as long as your keyblade was a glider. Well not totally defenseless.

You continued to brandish your shield though it didn’t do much in terms of helping you dodge her swings as she stood amongst the electricity crackling below her.

But….

.

.

.

Maybe you could use it?

You flew a distance away, and she watched you, flapping her enormous wings to follow you. She continued to summon lightning to strike you down as you flew in circles, gaining as much speed as you could before you flew towards her.

You dodge her strikes as she swung her spears at you before spinning to gain even more momentum as you approached her. Just when you thought you were at the right distance and going as fast as you could manage, you let your shield fly, sending it flying at her like an arrowhead.

You heard a sickening crack as Uh-Oa’s head flew back, bending her neck at an unnatural angle. She stilled for a moment, and you watched her in a dizzy haze before remembering that this was your opening and you should attack.

You re-summoned your shield, prepared to launch the attack again as long as she was standing there, but then you heard the sickening crack of her neck again as she righted herself.

There was a crack in her mask, large, black web-like lines streaking and tearing through the pure white of it. As she fixed her head, part of her mask fell, and you saw that where her face should have been was a hole.

You gazed into that hole. In it you could see the swirling blackened souls of the villagers moaning in agony as they cried to be released.

Uh-Oa struck you in your daze, and you fell back to the tree, rolling a way towards the edge of the tree, feeling as if you were on fire as you were bathed in the electricity that had yet to dissipate around you.

You screamed as you struggled to stand. It hurt. Everything hurt. You were burning and maybe dying. You couldn’t be sure.

~

Axel collapsed. He felt wrong. Very wrong. The world around him felt muffled even as he watched the battle rage before him. He felt like he was burning, but his fire had never hurt him before. But this felt minutely different. It didn’t quite feel like the fire was burning his skin so much as something was consuming him from the inside out.

“Axel, get up,” Demyx yelled, voice barely able to pierce through the haze in his mind. Demyx pulled him up by his elbow, and Axel did his best to fall back into the fray. He could worry about himself later. Right now he needed to be sure that whatever you faced, you would not have the heartless to deal with as well. You needed him, and he would not let you down again.

The heartless were reproducing too quickly. They couldn’t keep up. At this rate, they were holding off the inevitable and hoping you were going to end it all before they could be finished off themselves.

“Looks like you all could use a little help,” a familiar voice called. Axel looked around for the bird – Pierre he thought his name was. “We cleared out the heartless on the lower levels.”

Fritz turned to the other spirit keyblade wielders who had appeared.

“Do not let them reach the tree! Protect the guardian at all costs,” he instructed. The keyblade wielders descended into the battlefield in a blur of golden light, fighting back the heartless until the warriors began to reclaim ground lost to the heartless.

“Where’s ________?” Axel asked them, still feeling that burn that seared his very soul and just knowing it had something to do with you. He just hoped it meant you were okay. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if something happened to you.

“She’s fighting Uh-Oa, but that cannot be your main concern,” Pierre said sternly as he felled another of the heartless.

“Bullshit! Without her we don’t have anything,” he countered, fighting his own heartless.

“And that means a little more for you doesn’t it?” Pierre asked with a soft glare on his features. “Don’t let your personal feelings get in the way of what’s right. If nothing else, she needs you down here. Send her your strength through your heart, and she will be fine. But these people down here need you too.”

Axel didn’t want to let it go. His heart burned, and he needed to know you were alright. But what else could he do? He no more wanted anything to happen to you than he did to anyone else he was fighting for. But you were everything to him right now.

“Do it for her,” Pierre said, softly this time, “She needs this too.”

That made it a little better, and despite himself and his heart, Axel continued fighting, sending you what strength he could through your shared connection.

~

You stood though your body screamed not to. You stumbled forward with jerky movements.

Uh-Oa pounced.

She stabbed her spears into the ground one right after the other, jabbing at you with her blade-like hands too, and you dodged and rolled through the lightning, body feeling burned beyond belief in a searing heat you could hardly move in that sapped most if not all of your energy from you.

You imbued your keyblade with light once more before launching yourself at her wrist as she got close. You sliced your keyblade through it, and Uh-Oa jerked back, though not enough of her wrist was still there to remove her blade from the tree, so she pulled her wrist clean off, the place where it once was, dripping a black ooze onto the ground that seemed to rot the part of the tree it touched, turning it a sickly gray with gnarled veins running through it. Where your blade had gone through, it looked like her ankle where you’d cut it – pure white like a sheet of paper but glowing and pearly like the light your keyblade and shield shown with.

You breathed harshly, rasping out breaths that were jagged and shallow. You felt like you were going to pass out at this point. But you couldn’t.

You felt more determination flow through you. You could not give up now. You looked at Uh-Oa. You needed to end this soon.

She needs to restore the balance to Uh-Oa. Even if that means killing her.

José’s words rang through your head though they seemed so far away. Could you even kill Uh-Oa?

But…. Should you?

Your grandmother’s story also flitted through your head of how the planet had no guardian and eventually that led to its destruction when someone finally came tampering with it when there was no one and nothing to protect it.

Michael’s words rang through your head next.

Some part of our goddess yet lives in her, but it is buried beneath corruption and rot.

…that part of her heart will be willing….

Could your really reach Uh-Oa somewhere in this creature before you?

Would it be worth the risk if you couldn’t?

Would the potential consequences be something you could live with if you didn’t at least try to save her?

Memories of the horrors you saw the day Spaceship Earth fell flitted through your mind. If made your heart ache worse than any of the pain your body felt now. To risk inflicting that on anyone else…? You couldn’t think of it. Didn’t want to.

You summoned all of your light once more. It took everything you had. It felt like every part of your magic and being were lost somewhere in this fight. Like the patches of white on Uh-Oa were your own sense of self lost on her and exhausting you the longer you kept away from them and the more you gave up.

You charged for Uh-Oa again, dodging her erratic, furious swings as you slipped beneath her. You could not light fire for more than a split second at this altitude. Any and every attempt resulted in it flickering out almost immediately. So you needed to time this right. You didn’t think she’d let you try again if she knew the aim of your goal.

You changed your keyblade into a spear, aiming and throwing it as quickly as possible. It embedded itself in the crux of two of her wings. Summoning that fire buried deeply within yourself, pushing past all the limitation of your magic, you felt for your spear and with a yell of effort as you reached deeply for everything you had, your spear burst in an explosion of fire and light.

And Uh-Oa screamed. It was a sound so deafening, you fell to your knees and clutched your head. The storm briefly quieted and the lightning that littered the tree dispersed. The lack of lightning constantly burning you was just a bonus to what your true goal was. Her wings were charred and broken. She wouldn’t be flying anytime soon. But you had better finish this if you didn’t want her summoning anymore leaves and destroying anymore people.

~

The heartless stuttered around them, and everyone stilled. They stood there jittering as if they were glitching and unable to function.

Then they heard a scream. A great roar that rumbled down the mountain. They all looked to the top of the mountain, covering their ears as the sound grew in volume. The clouds had stilled – not like when they move so slow and you have to keep watching them to notice their slow movement. They had stopped entirely as if you were looking at a picture rather than the sky.

The heartless fell to the ground, some of them dissipating but most just lying immobile on the ground.

“The Guardian has struck a mighty blow against Uh-Oa,” Fritz announced, rallying the remaining warriors and boosting morale and lifting his keyblade above his head, “Keep fighting! We will not fail her!”

The warriors let out a rallying cry and charged the remaining heartless as they picked themselves up off the ground and restarted their attack although now physically much weaker than they had been.

Your friends all bolstered at the revelation that you were still alive and potentially winning your fight against the goddess.

“Hooray!” Dreamfinder’s head cheered from where it lay on the ground.

“I never doubted her for a second,” said Ludwig as he sat on the ground with his entire bottom half and left arm missing.

“Ludwig, I’ve got a question,” Dreamfinder began as his nose began to disappear, “How come everyone else who disappeared went quickly, but we’re taking such a long time?”

“Shhh,” Ludwig shushed, placing a finger on Dreamfinder’s lips.

~

Uh-Oa was on her hands and knees, and you sliced through the back of her other ankle to ensure she wouldn’t be standing up any time soon. She attempted desperately to crush you with her hands and stab you with her spears which she could no longer properly wield. You made quick work of her other blade and the hands with which she tried to crush you.

Then you charged for her face. You were going to end this.

But that’s when among the souls you saw a faint orange glow that quickly grew brighter and Uh-Oa unleashed a torrent of fire at you, a blaze so hot it burned white.

When the blaze dissipated, you were gone.

Uh-Oa began to attempt to stand, shifting to her knees and prepared to summon more leaves from the trees to heal her and repair her injuries.

Then she heard a scream.

Really it was more of a primal yell.

She looked up to see you falling with your spear brandished. With no time to react to your sudden attack she could only kneel weakly as you pierced her chest with your spear.

Then with everything in your being that you could spare that was left, you used Mythiss’s restoration spell, sending your light into Uh-Oa’s heart.

The world grew still, and you watched as the eerie red glow that lingered beneath her skin began to turn a bright white that shown through her black skin until every crevice and hole in her face was pouring out white light.

Then, in your exhaustion, your keyblade disappeared from her chest. And you fell from roughly the height of a second-floor window to the tree’s surface, landing roughly.

Your whole body ached, and the wind was knocked out of you. You coughed and you thought you tasted blood. You couldn’t be sure. You were almost certain you were dying this time.

Then you saw light. Blinding white light.

Notes:

Once again, sorry about the late update! But also I'm a bit behind in the writing so I'll be taking the next week to catch up. It's because I'm so slow! It takes me like 8 hours to type like ten pages. So I'll be back 7/16/19! I promise! No late updates this time!

Chapter 30: Getting Close

Summary:

You and your friends journey home.

Notes:

I'm back! As promised! Not as far in my writing as I'd like to be, but caught up for the most part! I hope you all are still with me! Regular updates are back, and I'll let you know every time there's anything about that schedule that will change (unless I forget in which case I'm sorry)! Anyway enjoy!

It was dark by the time the battle on the ground halted. It stopped with the sound of an explosion. Everyone looked and saw the top of the tree engulfed in bright white light that they could scarcely look at without shielding their eyes.

The wave of light swept down the tree and over the ground, and as it reached the heartless, they vanished completely. Everyone was engulfed in a comforting warmth that put them at ease as well as healed their wounds and rejuvenated them. And all of the heartless who were once people began to reform their bodies, and they were the people they once were.

Gorgeous, bright, luminescent blooms covered the trees branches, forming large flowers that burst in a shower of petals, and where the blooms once were, leaves reappeared. And slowly but surely the village began to fill with all of its lost people.

There was a moment of quiet where everyone just looked on in astonishment. Quietly people exited their homes and hiding places in response to the sudden quiet, all sounds of a battle vanishing. Then, like a great wave of relief and joy, everyone rejoiced. Families were reunited. Lovers embraced and shared passionate kisses. Mothers and fathers held their children close with tears in their eyes.

The air was full of cries of joy and happy, whooping shouts as the village launched into impromptu celebration.

Amaya appeared, blinking about in confusion before realization dawned on her tiny face. She whirled around looking for her mother before her eyes landed on a tall, imposing figure with a stern face. But she knew that face. She ran up to him, embracing her father’s leg – something she had not done since the vanishing first began. His stern features broke into a joyous smile as he embraced his daughter. Then they were joined by his son and wife.

“Daealla, my love,” he said with tears tracing little rivers down his face, “What has happened? How is this possible?”

“The Guardian, my dearest,” she said as she looked up at the tree you had ascended, “She came to us and freed us all and saved our world.”

“Where is she?” he asked looking around. Amaya’s face stopped smiling and she gazed up at the tree as well. Then her eyes looked down to the few people not celebrating. The Guardian’s friends all stood near the tree, waiting for any sign that you were still alive up there. But it could be days before you came back – or at least close to an hour if you flew down with no trouble.

Axel continued to gaze at the mountain, his expression worried and far away. You had to be okay. You had to come back.

You promised.

~

“Kids never listen,” you heard a voice say in your haze. You were feeling better. Stronger. Though you were certain for a moment there you were going to die. “I told you. If you put too much behind that attack with no practice it would kill you. And it nearly did.”

Ah, your grandmother was scolding you. She stood over you, ghostly glow bright against the dark of the night.

“You’re lucky Uh-Oa saved you.”

“It was the least I could do considering she saved my life,” Uh-Oa conceded, “And she is the only one who can save my brother.”

You sat up slowly, vision still swimming slightly. But considering you were coughing up your own blood a moment ago and on the verge of death, you could feel worse. But you looked none the worse for wear. Any marks and indentations and cracks in your armor were gone. You didn’t feel as if you had been battered around endlessly like a ball in a game of tennis. Only your head was fuzzy, and you found that it was clearing up quite quickly.

Figment flew over to you immediately, happy you were still alive when it looked like it was all over for you for a second. You were so still. Too still, and your chest had stopped rising, giving out a shuddering breath you didn’t take back in again.

That was when Uh-Oa stepped in, and your body was surrounded in a pale green light with little glowing plants dancing around your form.

Then you took in a quick breath. Then a longer one. Then you were breathing normal again, and Figment had stopped holding his own breath.

You looked up at Uh-Oa, who seemed smaller than before. Still much, much larger than yourself but not as tall as house. She looked like a person now (sort of). She very clearly had a face now, four arms and no wings. But she looked as if she were made of wood. Her other masks were gone. Now there was only her face which looked imposing yet kind, the sclera her eyes glowing a warm yet eerie shade of orange, her dark pupils staring you down.

“Um, thank you, ma’am,” you said as you stood up. You felt like a unicorn that had just been born and was standing up for the first time. You stumbled just a bit, legs shaky and unsteady.

Uh-Oa nodded at your thanks.

“Um, who’s your brother?” you asked, already homing in on what was probably your next order of business as far as fixing other worlds of their problems was concerned.

“My brother is the Mythiss, the guardian of Beastly Kingdom,” Uh-Oa stated simply in a smooth voice that reminded you of a calm river.

“But… Mythiss died didn’t he?” you asked, looking between her and your grandmother, “I thought he gave his life to save the world.”

“Well he did,” your grandmother began, “But it is not as simple as all that.”

“My brother merged himself with Kelewenya. His will was the planet’s will. His heart was the planet’s heart. And when the world fell to darkness, it could not be brought back by simply reclaiming it from the darkness as all the other worlds had been. When the world died, so did he.”

But if he died then wasn’t he gone?

“And you ought to know better than anybody that it is possible to exist even after death,” your grandmother said with a grave look on her face.

Your eyes widened.

Mythiss was gone.

But his nobody and heartless were still very much out there somewhere, and by extension, so was Kelewenya’s.

“He’s a nobody,” you whispered. Uh-Oa nodded. How were you supposed to find that? How were you supposed to fix it?! You doubted it was so simple as helping Uh-Oa would be. For starters you had two targets. Secondly, they were likely to be the size of a planet or something close to it. Third, you hadn’t even begun your official training as a keyblade wielder, so how were you going to save an entire world?

“I know the task will not be simple,” Uh-Oa started, “But I beseech you, Guardian, your people and my brother need you.”

You nodded, heart thudding loudly in your ears.

“I know,” you said, throat dry. You looked up at her, her expression was soft and pleading. She was a far cry from the proud arrogance your grandmother had described Mythiss to have. “I’ll bring him back. I promise.”

She gave you a gentle smile.

“There is one more thing,” she said, “A gift that I hope you will find useful.”

She kneeled in front of you, still managing to tower over you, and offered you a hand. You put your tiny hand in hers, and she gripped it between her thumb and the edge of her finger. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and all that was left was the orange glow. She muttered something rapidly, lips moving in almost a blur. The orange of her eyes began to glow a bright, pale blue. Then a stray bolt of lightning enveloped the two of you, and it was exhilarating and strange and tingly. It ran through all of your being and into your soul, making your limbs feel as if they had pins and needles as they verged on numb and overstimulated.

Then it ended so abruptly you weren’t sure it happened at all. But she was still in front of you kneeling, so you couldn’t have imagined all of it.

She stood, and she and your grandmother both looked at you.

“Well,” your grandmother prompted, no small amount of giddy excitement in her voice, “Try out your new ability.”

You blinked. Ability?

You searched your heart and, indeed, you felt a new magic there. You pulsed it through your body like you did when you used fire magic and it ran down your arms and little sparks crackled over your fingertips.

“I have lightning powers now?!” you said excited, jumping up and down a bit. A larger streak of lightning sparked between your hands at your excitement.

Your grandmother and Uh-Oa let out hearty laughs at your childlike excitement.

“Use it wisely, Guardian, and remember. There is an entire world, an entire race of people, who depend on you. Your role is a very large one, and you should not at any point let your heart grow weak to doubt. You are more than the strength of your mind and your body. You are a keyblade wielder, and your duty, your life, are invaluable to those you protect.”

“Thank you,” you say, giving a deep bow.

“You should be going now,” your grandmother said, stepping up to you, “I will help you down.”

Your grandmother began to glow and meshed into your armor once more. Then two golden, ethereal, dragon wings, replacing the ones on your armor, sprouting from your back. You gave them an experimental flap.

This is the coolest day of your life.

Then you used them to fly, circling the top of the tree before descending down the side of it, the pictures of creatures on the tree blurring in your speed as you hurried to get to the bottom of it. Your heart beat wildly with exhilaration as you soared over the ground, the village coming into view mere minutes later. This was much faster than your glider. Then again you were battling heartless every minute on the way up – no doubt adding hours to a trip that should have taken mere minutes.

The people of the village looked up and pointed at you as you descended in a little clearing just on the edge of the gathering crowd. Near the base of the tree you saw the otherworldly glow of the keyblade wielders.

They applauded as you landed, and your grandmother appeared to you once again.

“I will be with you in your journey,” she said, preparing to fade away once more.

“Wait! Do I get to keep the wings?”

She chuckled.

“You’ll learn to summon them and the rest of your dragon form in time. May your heart be your guiding key.”

She disappeared into your armor, and you watched as the spiritual keyblade wielders gave approving looks and nods in your direction before they lifted their keyblades into the air and launched fireworks into the sky. You wanted to marvel at it. You really did, but you wanted something else more.

Your eyes scanned the crowd until they landed on someone, making their way through the throngs of people surrounding you.

“Axel,” you breathed. You felt warm cinders at your fingertips when you saw him. You began to step towards him as well, hastened steps turning into all but a sprint as blue flames enveloped and trailed behind you as you ran. He ran towards you too, his own body enveloped in a fiery, red.

You jumped into his arms, and he brought you in for a tight embrace, spinning you around. And just for a moment, a split second, your flames meshed together in a brilliant purple that caused those around you to gasp in astonishment at the display before they separated again into their separate blue and red, the two colors dancing around each other.

Axel set you back down, and all you could do was gaze at him. Your heart was beating fast in your chest. You didn’t realize how much you missed him. And he’d only been gone for a few days.

Then you realized you were staring and smiling and not saying anything, and you giggled, covering your mouth with your hand so you could hide that gigantic smile.

He chuckled too, letting an arm drape around your shoulders as the two of you watched the Tree of Life, glow an array of colors as it was bathed in light from the fireworks above. You’d never seen them in person before. They were louder than you though but oh so beautiful.

You leaned into Axel as you watched, content with everything about this moment and all the love and joy you felt. Your other friends ran up to embrace you as well, happy to see you alive and well.

“We were so worried about you,” Namine said as she pulled you into a bone crushing hug.

“You won’t be rid of me that easy,” you laugh, holding her tighter.

“Yes, yes, that’s all well and good now let’s go home,” Ludwig said as he pushed your little group along towards the ship near the back of the village.

You managed to convince Ludwig to let you say your goodbyes to the people who’d been willing to accommodate you as one of their own for the past few weeks, giving Amaya and Daealla big hugs and receiving thanks from the true chief and his son.

The village gave you a quilt of bright colors depicting Uh-Oa and your keyblade and several articles of clothing and food for the trip back home, all the while thanking you for what you’d done. You would miss this world. But you would definitely visit when your world was back.

The keyblade wielders returned to their bird forms, flying up the tree in a swirl of brightly colored feathers, and you watched at many of the carvings of the tree moved to create an open space in the center of the tree where it began to carve a new shape.

Your eyes widened as it depicted you, in your armor, sans helmet, keyblade raised above your head and your shield over your other arm. Tears sprung to your eyes as the gravity of what you’ve actually done settled on you.

You saved a world. You saved an entire world and all of its people. You are a keyblade wielder.

You continued reeling even as you boarded the ship with your friends and as you watched the planet descend beneath you.

You flopped back onto one of the beds in the back of the ship, Axel sitting next to you and Demyx and Namine sitting in the bunk across from you.

You let out a dreamy sigh.

“Something on your mind?” Axel asked as he looked down at you. You looked at him with bright, excited eyes.

“I fought a goddess,” you breathed, “And won.”

“You sure did,” he confirmed.

“I saved a planet,” you said, a bit louder this time, “I did a thing. Holy shit!”

Your friends laughed at you, but you couldn’t care.

“And I felt all of you,” you said, sitting up. “Every time you sent me strength or hope or courage, I could feel it. It helped me to keep going.”

“It was all we could do,” Namine said with a shrug, “But if we could have, we would have been up there fighting with you too.”

“You fight now?” you asked incredulously with a smile on your face.

“Does she?” Demyx said with an excited smile, standing up abruptly from where he sat, “She was so cool. She picked up a sword and she was fighting like the rest of us! It was so bad ass and she –”

Demyx stopped short at the look you were giving him, a big, knowing smile with mischievous eyes. A blush covered his face.

“Keep going,” you encouraged, leaning forward, “I want to know more of what you think of Namine.”

Axel chuckled while Namine giggled behind her hand, a light pink dusting her own cheeks.

“I mean,” Demyx backtracked, scratching the back of his head and sitting back down, “I just thought it was cool was all.”

You giggled alongside Namine. Speaking of potential relationships….

You looked at Axel. He looked at you. You looked away quickly, unable to stop the giggle that bubbled out of your throat. When did you get so… twitterpated around him?

Axel chuckled at your reaction. You were cute. Having thought about how many times he’d denied that fact to himself was also pretty amusing, thinking of all the times Demyx called you cute and he would rather think about your bullheadedness instead – how he’d used just about every word to describe you but certainly not cute.

But now, looking up at him through your lashes, a demure smile playing across your lips, and a subtle glow about your demeanor, Axel couldn’t deny that you weren’t at least a little cute.

“What?” he asked you. Though he knew what. He knew damn well what. But he was enjoying your flustered nature.

“Nothing,” you giggled out. Then you looked at him again before looking away when you saw he was still looking at you with that cocky smirk that made him look so handsome.

“What?” he asked again, feigning frustration as he nudged you with his arm. You let out a light laugh before leaning into him, your face hidden against his side – all but snuggling against him.

“You know what,” you laughed out. His posture stiffened, breath hitching in his throat, his heart skipping a beat – like it needed to do that with how little it functioned compared to a normal one.

“Get a room,” Demyx groaned with a roll of his eyes. You may have caught him when he was in his own feelings, but that didn’t mean he wanted to watch your shameless flirting with each other. You gasped, forgetting yourself briefly in your love-lined gaze.

Oh? Was that too much? He had said he needed to figure himself out. Maybe you were pushing it a bit too much.

You cleared your throat, scooching a little way away from him.

“Sorry,” you said, voice wavering slightly in your nervousness.

“I mean I didn’t mind,” he said, looking away a little bashfully. He liked having you that close if he was being totally honest with himself. He was about to put an arm around you before Demyx interrupted. He should probably tell you that he’d figured himself out and ask you out, but he wanted a better setting than this where Demyx was going to interrupt any semblance of romance between the two of you because he didn’t want to watch.

“I think it’s cute how close they are,” Namine said, scooting a little closer to Demyx and leaning on him a bit. Demyx’s face lit up in a hot blush that made him look almost as red as a tomato.

“Hey! Do you guys want snacks?!” he almost yelled as he stood up abruptly, “Because I’m going to go get snacks!”

“Yeah, actually,” you began before Demyx interrupted you.

“Yeah, that’s nice,” he said, stiffly walking away. He just walked to the front of the ship and leaned against the wall with his head on it, neck, ears, and face all still as red as a lobster.

You turned back to Namine, a mischievous smirk on your face.

“What was that?” you asked. Namine just shrugged with a soft smile on her face.

“I’m trying to be more assertive with what I want I guess,” she said, smile growing a little bit on her face.

“Really?” you said, scooching forward just a bit.

“Well, I mean, I wanted to start doing more which is why I took the apprenticeship with Dreamfinder, but you knew that. But then I realized I wanted it to be that way for everything. Not just moments where I want to feel useful.”

“And… you want Demyx?” you asked with a mildly giddy excitement at talking about your friend’s potential crush.

“Well, yeah. I like spending time with him, and we did that a lot when we weren’t hanging out with you and Axel. And I think he’s sweet, and he makes me laugh.”

“Aww,” you cooed.

“And anyway, I just decided that I wanted to be close to him the same way you’re close to Axel.”

You could feel Axel heat up a bit next to you at the mention of your relationship.

“Yeah, I intend to get really close,” you purred, dropping your voice to a more suggestive tone just to fuck with Axel a little bit. And it had the intended effect.

The temperature rose drastically next to you, and Axel stood up before he could set something on fire and walked to the front of the ship where Demyx still stood.

“I guess it’s just all us guys up here now,” Ludwig commented, “You manly men catch that sporting event last night?” he asked looking around at all of them.

“What sporting event?” Axel asked, “We weren’t even –”

“Yeah, it was pretty rad,” Ludwig said with a nod.

You and Namine shared a laugh and continued to chat a bit about other things.

“So what was your training like when you went to the institute?” you asked her. You hadn’t seen her since she left to train as Dreamfinder’s apprentice, and you were quite curious to know how all had gone for her.

“It went really well! I learned plenty about the heart and mind which added to my research on connections the heart makes which helped us to find you! But I’m basically an intern. But!” she reached into the pocket of her shorts, “It came with this cute little badge!”

She held up the little gold and silver badge that read, “Cranium Commando.”

About that time Demyx and Axel finally walked back over to you.

“Did you get those snacks, Demyx?” you asked as he sat down.

“Who said anything about snacks?” he said, a light blush reinstating itself on his face. You and Namine laughed.

“So what was it like up there on the tree?” Namine asked, changing the subject. Even Dreamfinder, Ludwig, and Figment tuned in to hear your story. You seemed renewed with giddy energy before launching into your tale of the cave of animals and the aurora borealis – minus the romantic aspects of it, of course, of endless swarms of heartless and passing out, of meeting your ancestor and her story, of being part heartless and of your world having a nobody and heartless, and of your new powers.

“So you mean to tell me,” Demyx said, taking in what you’ve said, “That you’re a heartless. But, like, you have a heart?”

“I’m technically only part heartless. I mean if we’re talking things with or without hearts being heartless then that definition makes you and Namine and Axel heartless too.”

“Yeah except my grandma didn’t have sex with a heartless,” he said, folding his arms. You just rolled your eyes.

“I’m more concerned with the fact that her world has a heartless and a nobody,” Dreamfinder chimed in. Ludwig nodded his agreement.

“I didn’t even know such a thing was possible. It’s unprecedented,” Ludwig mused more to himself than to anyone else, “Xehanort couldn’t have predicted that a world’s guardian would have meshed with the world itself. But he did hypothesize that a world’s will could linger after its destruction.”

“So he might actually know something about its heartless or nobody,” you reason, “But there’s no guarantee that he monitored the world after its destruction. Did he?”

You looked to Ludwig. He shook his head.

“I don’t know. By that time our main concern was Spaceship Earth and the evacuation of Kelewenya. If he wrote about it in the journals, I didn’t see it. Though perhaps wherever his base of operations is now, he might have more information.”

Axel looked at you. That same look of determination he’d become familiar with was already crossing your face. It reminded him most of when you wanted to go to Ansem’s castle to find answers for yourself but had no idea of what you were getting yourself into.

You had no idea now just as you did then. And now would be a good time to tell you what he knew about Xehanort and who he had become since then. But when he saw that look on your face, that look that said you were about to do something he wouldn’t be able to talk you out of, he backed out of it.

If you were going to rush into this with little to no thought at all, no way was he about to point you in the direction of it – especially knowing you were no match for many of the things waiting for you.

“Axel,” Namine called, “Are you alright?”

Axel looked from Namine to you again to find you looking at him with light worry, searching his face for any signs of distress.

“Yeah,” he said, looking away from you and unable to look Demyx in the eye. He didn’t want to look and see that look he knew Demyx was giving him that said, “Tell her.”

But… he couldn’t….

He looked at Namine. Ugh. Even she was looking between the two as if she knew what he hadn’t told her already. Though if you weren’t drawing any conclusions about information he, Namine, and Demyx already had, he could suppose that Namine had gathered that he hadn’t told you much about the leader of the Organization.

“Well it hardly matters right now,” you breathed in regard to your uncle’s statement, “If we don’t even know where the guy is, it isn’t like we can break down his door to find out.”

You leaned back onto your bunk.

“Besides,” you said as you snuggled into the mattress, “We need a break anyway. We’ll worm out where the coward is hiding sooner or later – assuming he’s still alive and someone else hasn’t killed him for tampering with shit he doesn’t understand.”

A tiny tendril of darkness flitted over your fingertips. You could feel it now. It was cold.

Axel almost flinched at the tone in your voice. Vengeance was not something he’d ever thought he’d hear pass through your lips. But you’d just very much implied you were going to kill someone if another person hadn’t already.

This tension was palpable to everyone. Though it went unnoticed by you who was still too focused on your thoughts of what you’d do to Xehanort if you ever crossed paths.

Demyx was fidgeting nervously, trying to think of anything else to say.

“So your uncle’s letting us stay at his mansion,” he announced.

“What?!” Ludwig shouted from the front at the same time you said, “That’s great!”

“Why didn’t I know about this?!” Ludwig continued, turning from where he sat at the driver’s seat to glare at the four of you on your bunks.

“Well I mean it had to have been a given considering they’d otherwise be living in a mansion with no heat or electricity and the water only runs cold,” you reasoned.

Ludwig was unamused.

“I’m unamused!” he said, “Why don’t they stay with you at the hotel?”

“Because that’s pricey. But that’s why my philanthropic and genius uncle let them stay at his home as an act of charity because located beneath all of that genius is a heart of gold and humanity,” you said, stroking his ego probably more than you ought to considering his ego was already plenty inflated.

“Yes, well,” Ludwig conceded, not ready to deny your words purely out of pride, “There better not be any funny business! And no parties! I have cameras everywhere, so don’t think you can get away with anything!”

“Thank you, Uncle Ludwig,” you chirped while he grumbled to himself.

Then a thought occurred to you.

Weren’t you supposed to meet up with that Riku guy?

~

Larxene stepped out of the corridor of darkness and into Marluxia’s room.

“Any sign of him?” he asked her, and she shook her head. Marluxia let out an exasperated huff. How long did that stupid duck intend to continue looking for your corpse? Or maybe Vanitas had given him a bum tip, and the duck didn’t actually intend to return to Disney Town as he’d said.

Maybe they ought to look elsewhere. But his main base of operations was there. Of that, Marluxia was sure. He had to return eventually.

“So when are we putting this grand plan of yours into action?” Larxene asked as she leaned against the wall, arms folded across her chest. She looked positively bored, an expression she rarely wore when Marluxia was involved. He was not blind to this.

He crossed the room to stand in front of her, a charming smile blossoming on his face that caused her expression to soften minutely.

“We need the duck as much as Xemnas does,” he stated leaning over her, arm pressed to the wall above her. Her breathing hitched just slightly. “All of your hard work will be paid off soon enough.”

Notes:

Hope you enjoyed as always! Comments and critiques are welcome, and I'll update on Thursday!

Chapter 31: Let 'Em Dance

Summary:

You dance with Axel.

Notes:

This is technically not a date. But it might be a date.

It was late in the evening when you arrived back at Disney Town. You yawned and stretched, happy to be off of the ship and ready to head to bed.

You were beyond exhausted. You had started nodding off when you were in the ship when your weird lucid dreams started kicking in like they had when you were on your way to Yen Sid’s place.

The nerve of your kind to think yourselves an authority in this world or the next. Who are you keyblade wielders to have such gall to believe yourselves worthy to deem what is dark and what is light?

You brushed it off as a nightmare you almost had but never quite fell asleep enough to fall into. And you were glad for it. Your nightmares were never pleasant in the least.

“Now, Dreamfinder and I will be conducting a few more bits of research on the heart regarding what we now know about your world and its heart being melded to its guardian. And perhaps a bit on the subject of sapient heartless considering your own situation.”

You nodded, letting out a long, slow yawn.

Axel opened a corridor for you, and you donned your armor before walking through and into the hallway that led to your hotel room. You both stopped outside your door and you turned to him, wrapping him up in a hug that he returned wholeheartedly.

“Thank you,” you said sleepily, “For everything. The rescue, the help, being there for me. All of it. You’re the best.”

He chuckled.

“Anytime, ________,” he said lowly, and you felt warmth radiate throughout you, “I’ll see you soon okay?”

You nodded, happy to think of the time you’d spend together.

He went back through the corridor, and you turned to face the door.

You opened it. Your mother sat on her bed reading but dropped the book when she saw you walk through the door. You both hugged, and she peppered your face with kisses. Then you both cried and hugged some more.

You were too tired to tell her the full story, but you promised you’d tell her all you could on her lunch break the next day when she had the time at work.

That night you dreamed of Axel. Holding hands and walking through town. Talking and laughing with each other. Your heart felt light.

~

You saw your friends the next day as they were getting settled into their new home with your uncle. Though most of your time was spent training in the holo-chamber they’d built for you. The rest of it was applauding Ludwig and Dreamfinder’s first artificial heart stem cells. They hadn’t yet transplanted them into anything as they needed a test subject, but it was a tremendous breakthrough.

That being said, they wanted to keep pushing through their research, meaning there was no time to train. And you were very happy to know you’d have the next two days off according to Ludwig while they ran a few more tests and searched for a guinea pig.

~

The next day you awoke to a somewhat gentle knocking on your door.

What time was it?

You blinked blearily at your phone screen. 12:18?

The knocking at the door started up once again and you rolled out of your bed, trudging over to the door and opening it. You blinked up at Axel who you honestly forgot was coming over in your sleep hazed mind.

“Oh, hey!” you said around a yawn.

“Did I wake you?”

“No, no it’s cool. I was about to wake up anyway,” you said as you moved aside to let him in the room. He moved inside and sat on your bed. You plopped down next to him before giving him a bright albeit somewhat still drowsy smile. “So what’s on the agenda for today?”

“Well your uncle said you had an unofficial vacation, so I thought we could hang out today.”

“Oh, cool. Are we meeting up with Namine and Demyx?”

“Uh, no,” he said, a light blush dusting his cheeks, “I thought it could just be me and you today.”

“Oh,” you said with a shrug. Then it dawned on you, “Oh. Cool! Uh, what, uh, exactly do you want to do?”

“Uh, well I actually wanted to ask….”

“Yeah?” you said, leaning forward a bit, heart thumping in your chest.

“If you maybe wanted to go dancing?”

Well your heart exploded. Probably. Point is you were obviously much too happy for it to go on functioning because Axel just asked you out on a date! Maybe. Because he could still be figuring things out, and this could just be a part of that process. Or it could be a date, and he was asking you out.

Or he could just want to be with his best friend?

“Yeah, that sounds amazing!” you responded after a quick debate of whether or not it was a date to which you produced no answer. You were practically bouncing where you sat at the prospect of dancing with Axel again.

“Great! I mean, I know you said you used to dance, and I thought you might like this.”

Aww! He was thinking of you? Well if your heart hadn’t exploded before it did now.

“Let me just get changed, and we can go,” you said, walking over to the closet and pulling out dress you thought was cute as well as the dancing shoes your mom bought you. You began to lift your t-shirt, stopping just under your breasts before you yanked it back down and looked at Axel who, at the same time, seemed to have the same realization you did, his face already heating up.

You couldn’t help but laugh at his embarrassed expression. Meanwhile he was looking at anything but you, his face getting almost as red as the bright red hair on his head. It was a far cry from the smooth and competent Axel who always had a cocky smirk on his face that you first met in Disney Town in what felt like forever ago at this point.

“Get outta here, you perv,” you joked.

“Right! Sorry! I’m going! Sorry!” he said as he briskly walked out of the door. You giggled to yourself as he shut it behind him before shaking your head and pulling your pajama top off.

Axel leaned against the door and sighed heavily. He honestly didn’t think twice about it until he saw your bare stomach and how closely you had come to showing him something he’d only once briefly thought about in the dream the two of you had shared. He was embarrassed. And, though he’d never admit this out loud, kind of disappointed.

~

You bounded out of the room a few minutes later with your hair and outfit done, a few extra flowers in your hair a little more attention put into your braids.

“You look cute,” Axel said as he saw you, smirking when he saw your eyes and smile brighten just a bit.

“Thank you,” you said giddily, practically bouncing on your toes, “So where we doin’ this?”

Axel opened a corridor, and you put on your armor to pass through safely, exiting in a large auditorium. You didn’t recognize it. You looked around, the stage was well lit, and from what you could tell the seats were empty.

“Where is this place?” you asked, armor vanishing. You looked about this way and that, fingers trailing over the pulled back, dark red velvet curtains.

“It’s a world I did recon at when I first got roped into the Organization. I thought you’d like to dance here for a bit. Figured you missed it.”

You were mildly disappointed that Axel wouldn’t be joining you but flattered he was thinking of you and your life before it turned into that of a YA novel.

“Hmm,” you hummed, stepping farther on the stage, “Well I did have a recital coming up before my home fell.”

Axel hopped off of the stage and into the front row, looking up at you, his form dimmed behind the bright lights shining on you. He took a seat.

“Well let’s see it,” he said, getting comfortable.

“Now?” you asked, suddenly feeling a bit nervous.

“Well, yeah,” he said with a smirk and a shrug, “I want to see the you that existed before all this.”

“Oh, uh okay!”

You pulled out your phone, switching to the song in your music library in a playlist filled with just songs from past recitals or practices. You hadn’t listened to it, let alone danced to it, since your time on Spaceship Earth. You kind of figured you wouldn’t ever be dancing to it again. It was kind of nice to think you’d be performing considering all the hard work you’d put into it before things became complicated.

You turned the volume up and hurried to center stage before the music could start, lifting to the tips of your toes. You briefly worried you wouldn’t remember the steps and that you’d mess up and have to stutter out some excuse as to why you weren’t performing something that should come so naturally to you, but as soon as the first few notes of the piano echoed in the empty space around you, your body flowed straight into the moves as if you’d practiced it every day.

Axel watched you, mildly mesmerized. You weren’t wielding a flaming spear this time, but you were still beautiful. This was somehow different from then or every time he’d watched you fight. You were moving with a dainty grace that belied your ability to fight or be fierce. In this you were simply a beautiful woman with an air of delicate fragility about you. It was like seeing the girl before she knew she was special – before she knew she would be dedicating her life to protecting others or fighting for the fates of worlds or losing everything she’d ever known and called home.

You were just ________.

And he loved that about you.

One song ended and went into the next and so on, and you continued dancing because even though it wasn’t a part of the recital, you hadn’t realized how much you missed just dancing. And for the next half an hour you just danced and forgot the world for a moment.

You were just ________.

And you were content with that, happy that some part of you from that life still existed.

When your playlist switched to the next one, you were momentarily caught off guard but continued to dance to the upbeat music just as well. It was just as fun to remember dancing in general and not just the parts you’d practiced.

Axel was taken off guard as well, noting that your new movements were closer to your fighting style.

“You know,” he called from the audience, and you flinched having forgotten he was even there for a brief moment, “You could fight like that.”

Like a dance fight? The thought amused you, but you weren’t entirely opposed to it.

“What?” you laughed, “Like hit ‘em with fire when I spin?”

“Well yes and no? Wait a minute,” he said, standing up and climbing on to the stage with you. He stood behind you, front pressing into your back, and you felt your body stiffen at the contact as he took your arms and directed you through a few moves he’d seen you use muttering instructions lowly in your ear and simultaneously and unintentionally driving you crazy. He instructed exactly when an attack would benefit you in the move as it worked as an offensive and evasive maneuver against opponents when fighting hand to hand or when using magic.

“Hey,” you began after a while of him directing you through different moves, “Do you want to dance with me?”

“Like train? Now?” he said, still guiding you through the routine.

“No, I mean like normally. Just dancing together. Like we did on Animal Kingdom or we could learn something different.”

“Different?”

You smiled and turned to face him.

“Well, yeah. I mean it was fun, and other kinds of dances are fun too.”

“Okay,” he said slowly, humoring you. It was very clearly something you wanted to do with him, and he felt nice that there was something you loved that you wanted to share with him. “So what should we do then?”

You took his hand and placed it on your waist just above your hip and placed your corresponding hand on his shoulder. With your other hand you grabbed his and held it at a little lower than your shoulder.

“I think we ought to start with the waltz. It’s simple enough, and it’ll be a good way for me to teach you how to lead and follow.”

You guided him through the simple steps, what foot to start with, how to signal your partner to move forward, back, or to the side. It was simple enough. He stumbled through a few times, and he moved stiffly when it was his turn to lead, stepping on your foot every now and again, but you were a patient teacher. So it wasn’t long before you were teaching him how to lead through turns and eventually how to dip.

“This is nice,” you said lowly as you leaned on him a bit more, feeling his hand drift from your waist to your back, your arm resting on his as he continued to lead you through the waltz.

“Yeah,” he said in a calm, low voice. It felt like you had invited him into that world where the first version of you existed. He got the feeling that dancing with you like this would always be something intimate. The two of you continued your slow waltz for a while, feeling your bodies warm gradually but not paying it any mind, not even when you watched the familiar red and blue flames appear over your bodies. You were too focused on the dance and holding each other close.

You did, however, pay attention when two flames didn’t just dance around each other as you’d always seen them do. They fell into each other, meshing into a dazzling purple that caused your eyes to widen in wonder. Even Axel had to stop to look. Then you both looked at each other, hearts thumping, before looking away and chuckling nervously. The two of you stepped apart, hands still holding each other.

What do you say when the guy of your dreams accidentally mixes his fire with yours? Does it mean anything? You hoped so. Maybe he’d figured out how he felt? It certainly looked like it. And he had taken you dancing and maybe inadvertently given you a part of yourself back that felt like it had been gone for far too long.

“You know,” you started quietly, heart still thudding in your chest, “We could do it together.”

“You mean dance? We were already dancing,” he said, looking back at you, still holding your hands, thumb idly running over the back of one of your hands.

“No. I mean, yeah. Like the dance fighting we were working on earlier. I’ve seen you fight. You’re lithe and balanced and quick. You picked up dancing with me really easily, but I really think that it’d be perfect for you. And, I mean, we could, you know, dance fight together.”

Axel was silent, his body warming up at what you may have been implying, causing the flames to flicker a smidge brighter. True, it was innocent enough to say you wanted to fight alongside him, but dancing with you meant the two of you would be close. Really close.

But what was so wrong with that? Hadn’t he wanted to be close to you after all this time? He’d gone for days without sleep just to search for you when you went missing, learning more about how his feelings for you went deeper than just endearment when he was faced with the possibility of never seeing you again. And he had resisted every urge in his body to kiss you when he finally had you with him again when they finally found you on Animal Kingdom. He all but abandoned a fight against heartless to opt to run up a mountain for days without rest to ensure you were okay when he thought you might have been hurt on Animal Kingdom even when he knew he physically couldn’t breathe. But that thought had hardly mattered at the time.

Being close to you didn’t sound bad at all. And the more he thought about it, the more he wanted it. The more he wanted you.

“It could make some pretty amazing power moves,” you continued, oblivious to his internal thought process and all the gears turning in his head.

“Power moves?” he chuckled.

“Well, yeah!” you said, getting a little excited at the prospect, “I mean, you said I could do it pretty well, so imagine what we could both do!”

“Hmm,” he hummed, considering your words before leading you into a sudden move that you quickly adapted to, moving into a semi-defensive position and a perfect stance for you to kick your leg out and send out a wave of blaze.

You briefly wondered if the purple fire would deal more damage than just your own regular fire. But as you were slowing to think of it, Axel quickly led you into another move. You again found opportunities for attack, as did he – little sparks and cinders of violet flitting from your feet and fingertips as you did.

Once you got into the rhythm of Axel’s movements, you began to focus on him as much as your dancing. And you had to admit, for someone who learned to lead a dance about half an hour ago, he was getting quite good at it.

And you were all but smitten.

In your distracted daze, you began to only focus on him, stumbling yourself and falling further into his arms. Your face was pressed against his chest, and his arms held you tight while you steadied yourself.

“Are you,” he began, but then you looked at him and his sentence nearly died in his throat seeing the lovestruck expression in your eyes amongst your otherwise embarrassed expression, “…okay?”

“Yes,” you all but whispered, heart thudding much harder than it was before.

The two of you stared at each other for a moment. One of Axel’s arms tightened around you, and his other hand came to rest on the back of your neck, so you were forced to continue looking up at him. Not that you would have stopped even if he hadn’t.

And then he started leaning down, his eyes closing, and your own fluttering shut as you pressed further into him.

“Oh my goodness! You’re on fire!” a new voice shouted, and your eyes as well as Axel’s snapped open. You both looked in the direction of the new voice in time to see a felt frog spray you with a fire extinguisher. But it just sprayed multi-colored streamers, the little ribbons now hanging from your head and shoulders. You and Axel extinguished your beautiful, purple flames to put the frog at ease.

“Are you okay?!”

This was ridiculous.

And you and Axel began to laugh.

“We’re fine! We’re fine!” you said, waving him off. He just looked between the two of you, wondering how you managed to be okay when you were very obviously engulfed in flame only a few moments ago.

“Hey, Kermit!” A fuzzy brown bear in a bowtie and hat waltzed on stage. “Have you seen my fire extinguisher?”

“Well, yeah,” the frog said as he turned to the bear, “It only spit out streamers when I tried to put out a fire. What happened to the real fire extinguisher?”

“Well that was the real fire extinguisher. But, you know, I was thinking to myself that we could really roll out the jokes with a gag fire extinguisher, so I emptied it out and rigged it to blow streamers instead!” The bear looked extremely proud of himself. The frog… didn’t know how to respond.

“Well, uh, okay. Well why don’t you go finish getting ready then, and I’ll just find a new fire extinguisher somehow before Gonzo’s brand new cannonball fireworks spectacular,” the frog stated. The bear just continued to smile and took the gag extinguisher backstage. Then the frog turned to you. “So, uh, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave. We’ve got a show starting in like an hour, and we’ll need the stage.”

“Oh, Kermie, don’t ask them to leave! They’re young and in love! Let them dance!” A felt pig, who dressed quite well mind you, said walking up to them and pleading with the frog. You and Axel heated up a bit again at the mention of being in love, cinders flying from your fingertips, but keeping it together so as not to freak anyone out again.

“But, Piggy, we’ve got a show to do. I mean, two people can dance anywhere.”

“When’s the last time we danced anywhere, Kermit?” the pig said, suddenly seeming much terser about it than before.

The frog just looked at her, seeming to think it better to let her have her way than to answer. He let out a long sigh.

“Fine,” he said turning back to the two of you, “You can have another half hour or so but then we’ve really got to set up the stage.”

Then he turned and left to walk backstage. The pig turned to you.

“I just want to say that your dancing is quite beautiful,” she said, looking between the two of you but at you especially, “And you’re welcome to come perform with us anytime.”

She handed you a card before walking off stage in the same direction as the frog.

Ms. Piggy

Director, Actress, Singer, Producer, etc.

(555) 555-5553

“Well I guess I have a new dance space now,” you chuckled out. Axel hummed in acknowledgement. He really wished the two of them would have showed up maybe a minute later. Of course, he was just blaming them for interrupting when he could very much kiss you now. But he lost his nerve and couldn’t. So the next best thing he could do was blame them instead.

Then a shaggy brown dog with floppy ears played an arpeggio on the piano. He gave a wave to the two of you which you nodded back at, turning towards Axel.

“Shall we?” you offered, and he gave you a small smile and nodded, bringing you close all over again before leading you through a dance played to one of the most beautiful songs you’d ever heard. You let out a happy sigh as you danced a bit closer to Axel and he held you tighter.

A pair of green eyes gazed down from one of the balconies as the two of you danced. What a joke, to think that he really believed he could just leave for some girl and fall in love like he was better than any of the people he used to work with.

Though she’d say it was out of boredom rather than resentment if you ever asked her, Larxene summoned a small wave of dusks to attack, vanishing in a haze of black swirling tendrils to retreat back to The Castle That Never Was.

Your and Axel’s dance was interrupted by a scream and the abrupt halt of piano music. You whirled around to see the dog retreating as seven silver bodies writhed and wriggled towards the stage. You’d say at this point you were relatively familiar with dusks. These ones, however, were slightly different than what you were used to.

For one, they had fingers. Sure they’d already had them, but you’d never seen them unbound. These fingers were long and claw-like.

The second difference came when you saw their mouths move and rasping, whisper-like voices crackled out of their lips in a broken, haunted tone that sent chills running up your spine.

“We… destroy… you…,” one rasped out as they surrounded you on the stage. Axel and you already had your weapons drawn and at the ready, “We… take… your head… to him.”

The words were spoken like that of someone who had just recently gotten a grasp on language as a whole, but the threat was not lost on you.

“To who?” you asked, but they did not respond. They merely attacked, lunging at you in a flurry of swipes with their newly unleashed claws. Your shield was at the ready, and you tore into them just as Axel did. Though they showed yet two other differences that baffled you.

The third difference was that they bled. It was a deep red that was no different than your own, and that unnerved you. They were like people now in some strange way, and you didn’t like to think about it like that. Though if dusks were lesser nobodies, that very well may have been the case at one point. This further set you on edge.

The fourth difference which was just as unnerving to you as the first three was that the bodies didn’t dissipate and vanish as you had become accustomed to. They left behind mangled, bloody corpses that would no doubt be the next thing to haunt you in all of your nightmares.

By the end of it, both you and Axel were covered in blood, staring down at the silver and red bodies lying at your feet.

“What are they?” you asked.

“Well they look like dusks,” Axel said as he nudged one with his boot.

“Yeah, but… wrong.”

The green frog came back to the stage.

“Say, uh, there aren’t any more of those hanging around here are there?” he said, looking a little green. Uh, I mean, looking like he was going to be sick.

“I don’t know,” Axel said, considering the possibility that the Organization knew you were here now and the possibility that these were just scouts and their defeat meant that you were still dead as far as any Organization members were concerned. “I’ll check, but I’m going to take her home first.”

“Wait,” the frog stopped the two of you, “Should we, uh, call the police or something?”

“No, no!” you and Axel stated at the same time.

“I’ll handle it,” Axel continued.

“Well, uh, okay…,” the frog stated, looking unsure.

Axel opened a corridor, and you, in your armor, stepped through with him following close behind you. You stepped into the hallway just outside your door. Axel was about to step back through when you grabbed him by the arm. He looked back down at you with mild surprise on his face.

“You’ll be careful, right?” you asked, concern lining your features. Axel gave you a cocky smirk that made your heart skip a beat despite the seriousness of the situation.

“Of course,” he said, turning to face you, “I’ll be back. I promise.”

Then he leaned down and gave your cheek a quick peck before disappearing back through the corridor, leaving you there with a heart that had all but stopped.

When he stepped back through, there was a number of felt characters surrounding where the dusk corpses were. The two closest were a little felt human with no eyes, yellow-green skin, and a pair of thick-rimmed glasses perched on his nose and a more or less humanoid creature with a dramatically cut mouth, a bulbous orange nose, and a shock of red hair sitting upon his head. Both were in lab coats and carefully inspecting the dusks.

The one with glasses poked at them with a pencil and muttered something to the other which held a clipboard and began to quickly scribble notes down.

Then they both stood up and turned to the rest of the crowd.

“We have confirmed the existence of worlds other than our own!” said the one with glasses.

The crowd gasped.

“These creatures,” he said gesturing to the dusks, “Are not of our world!”

Well at least Axel was absolved of having to explain their presence (and how he literally opened up a literal portal made of literal darkness right literally in front of literal people literally).

“Do you know anything else about them?” the frog asked.

“Well we’ll have to run a few tests, but I don’t know how much we can figure out with our currently limited knowledge on other worlds and creatures of this sort specifically.”

“Could I grab a copy of whatever you come up with?” Axel asked, making his presence known to the rest of them, “They’re somewhat of a nuisance where I’m from, and any help you could offer would be invaluable.”

He didn’t mention that they were vastly different from the dusks he was used to, but best not to alarm them further.

“Of course,” the scientist agreed, adjusting his glasses, “Just give me a few hours, and I’ll tell you what I can.”

“Meep, meep,” the other scientist said, glancing between Axel and his friends.

“What’s that, Beaker?”

“Meep.”

“Don’t trust him because he created some sort of portal of darkness and is dressed like he shops at Hot Topic?”

The first scientist and the rest of the puppets turned to look at Axel who felt a smidge nervous at all of the attention directed at him – especially since they were currently his only hope of figuring out what was up with the dusks behaving the way they did and remaining as they were now.

“But he was here with a pretty girl earlier,” the brown bear from earlier spoke up, “And everybody knows that pretty people are trustworthy, so this guy must be alright.”

A murmur of agreement ran through the crowd, and Axel could feel himself relax a bit.

“Now you see, Beaker, don’t be so judgmental of new people… as long as they’re not ugly,” the first scientist scolded the second. Beaker just shook his head.

That worked for Axel. He continued to scout the nearby area while the scientists conducted their research, and he came back roughly three or so hours later, having found no more dusks. He was left to conclude that they were just scouts and stumbled upon you and himself by accident as opposed to a hit taken out on you by the Organization.

That was a relief. The longer they knew you were dead, the better.

“So what did you find out?” Axel asked, strolling into their lab.

“Well not much outside of that this blood is not very different from that of a human’s,” the scientist replied.

“Meep, meep, meep, meep,” the other scientist said, head going into his shirt for no particular reason. Axel just blinked.

“He said he has a copy of those notes you asked for. It’s all in this folder,” the other scientist said as the first handed him a manila folder containing whatever research they managed to hash out in such a short time period.

“Thanks,” he said before stepping through a corridor and back to the hotel you were staying at. He sent Ludwig a quick text before knocking on your door.

Axel: Something different is happening to the dusks. More information to come later.

He turned to the door and knocked, and it practically flew open mid-knock. You stood there in a tank top and shorts, hair wrapped up in a towel. You’d clearly just showered and were anxiously waiting for him to return. Relief washed over your features as you looked at him, a smile breaking across your face.

He chuckled.

“I told you I’d be back,” he said, stepping into the room, “And I brought this.”

He handed you the folder.

“It’s a copy of the notes their scientists took when they studied those dusks. Apparently, their blood is human-like, but that’s all they were really able to decipher,” Axel said with a shake of his head.

You were already opening the folder, glancing over the notes, a light frown appearing over your face.

“This just says ‘meep’ over and over,” you said a little dryly.

Axel looked at the notes over your shoulder.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

You let out a sigh.

“Well I know you tried your best,” you said, slumping on your bed.

“Oh!” he exclaimed suddenly, “I almost forgot!”

Axel opened another corridor and vanished through it. He was back in a matter of seconds holding a bouquet of peonies. He held them out to you, and you took them feeling a rush of pleasure and giddy excitement run through you.

“I meant to give them to you after you were done dancing. They do that at the ends of recitals right?”

“Well some people do,” you said, already burying your face in the flowers, “They aren’t a requirement though.”

“Well I figured you’d like them. Considering I first met you with your face buried in them.”

“You… remembered that? It was so long ago.”

“What can I say?” he said as he opened another corridor to go home and backing out with a cocky look on his face, “I’ve got it memorized.”

You rolled your eyes, but smiled nonetheless, heart jumping all around your ribcage as you thought about the tiny kiss he’d planted on your cheek, the beautiful flowers he remembered were your favorite, the dancing that brought you two so close, the beautiful violet hue of your flames when they meshed with Axel’s, and the almost kiss the two of you had shared when you were alone.

You might be in love.

~

“Tell me,” Marluxia began, voice calm but laced with anger, “Why you thought an attack with our brand-new projects would be a good idea.”

Larxene knew to pick her next words very carefully. But then Marluxia continued.

“We don’t have many, and any we have would be invaluable to our cause. But you seem to want to jeopardize that, and I’d like to know why.”

Marluxia gazed at her with cool eyes that held malevolent intent. Larxene swallowed her somewhat sarcastic remark.

“I was bored,” she said, a somewhat flippant tone still lilting about her words. “And who does Axel think he is anyway? He takes us out at Castle Oblivion and acts all chummy with the Organization then starts going rouge. Next thing you know a little know-nothing keyblade wielder has him wrapped around her little finger.”

“You were jealous?” Marluxia deduced, a small hint of condescending amusement in his tone. Larxene flinched but recovered quickly, a spark of annoyance in her gut.

“No,” she stressed, “Bored.”

“You don’t like that Axel seemed to make it out of the Organization okay. That he turned on us and the Organization and still got something good out of it. Some illusion of emotion that lets him believe he can care about someone the same way they do for him. And some part of you wants that too.”

Larxene never liked it when he got like this. He was smart and underhanded and observant. He could read you across a room and know your thoughts and motivations better than you did by the time you crossed the room to get to him. And he was using that skill now and throwing her own weaknesses back in her own face – whether or not he intended to just to be sadistic was unbeknownst to her.

He was as good as masking his true intent as Axel was.

She didn’t respond to him, just narrowed her eyes like he was annoying her rather than needling her own insecurities into her forehead and making her squirm unpleasantly under his scrutinizing gaze.

“Relax, pet,” he said approaching her and letting a finger trace her jawline. Larxene held back all response to the touch, ignoring the pet name as well. She couldn’t even tell if it were endearing or not with the way he said it. “I’ll overlook your mistake. Plus there are droves of lesser nobodies to recruit.”

“How do you even know they’ll follow you?” she snarked, more at ease than she had been and happy to have the subject of herself and anything involving Axel put to rest.

Marluxia opened a corridor to Hollow Bastion, stepping out on to a ledge to peer down and see hundreds of heartless battling hundreds of nobodies – dusks specifically. Larxene followed, ready to see just where this was headed.

He then summoned two of his personal nobodies, modified just as the dusks had been that Larxene sent to attack you. They wore no hoods now, faces unobstructed to reveal a skull as black as night with tiny pinpricks of light to act as eyes.

Marluxia gestured down to where the battle raged below.

“Finish it,” he instructed, and the two reapers with all their newfound power descended to the battle below, obliterating most of the heartless in a few fell swoops and clearing the battlefield for the rest of the nobodies.

Marluxia appeared before them, and the field of nobodies immediately paid attention to him. Marluxia smirked. They knew who controlled them.

“I see I have your attention,” he said, smirk morphing into an amicable smile. “Today I’m going to do something for you that no one has ever done for you before.”

Silence.

“I’m going to ask for your opinion,” he stated simply. There was a rustle of interest amongst the crowd. “How would you like to stop having to serve under a cause for a man who has deemed you as expendable? We know how your journey ends. You’ll all undoubtedly come face to face with Sora at some point, and he’ll do all he can to dispose of you.

“It’s a waste. Really it is. But I have not only a way for you to choose what you will do with your life, but a way for you to live it to its fullest. Sentience. Freewill. Freedom. All of these at your fingertips. A chance to remove your shackles – hands unbound, eyes uncovered, lips unsewn. You can be free once more. And all I ask,” he paused for dramatic effect, “Is that you join me and build an army to bring down the one who started the era of your enslavement.”

Marluxia gestured to his nobodies, and they came to float by his side.

“Our Marluxia…,” it rasped in whispery, broken wheezes, “Has given us… our sight back.”

“Our Marluxia… has given us… a choice.”

“Our Marluxia… has… shown us… the way… and he will… break… your binds.”

Marluxia picked up where they left off.

“I’ll lead you to a new beginning. And together we’ll begin a new era of freedom where you decide your futures and live for a cause for yourself rather than die at the hands of a child because someone else has willed your life away.”

Marluxia opened a large corridor of darkness leading back to the World That Never Was. There was silence at first. It seemed none of the nobodies were going to move. Then slowly they began to trickle in, and steadily it increased until most of the hundreds of nobodies were clamoring to join. Marluxia opened up two more large corridors for them to go through before tossing a look up at Larxene.

She didn’t need to be next to him to know that the look was arrogant and smug as fuck.

Notes:

I hope you all enjoyed! I'll be back Tuesday!

Here's the song that Rowlf plays on the piano btw (in case you wanna give it a listen): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJPvIdgsajs

Obscure-ish References:

The Muppet Theatre: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/The_Muppet_Theater

Kermit the Frog: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Kermit_the_Frog

Ms. Piggy: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Miss_Piggy

Fozzie Bear: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Fozzie_Bear

Rowlf: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Rowlf_the_Dog

Beaker: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Beaker

Dr. Honeydew: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Dr._Bunsen_Honeydew

Gonzo: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Gonzo

Chapter 32: It's A Secret

Summary:

Axel takes you back to Destiny Island to get closer to you, but the two of you are interrupted by a family emergency.

Notes:

I'm sorry I'm late! I had a foot related injury and spent the better part of the day taking care of it (I now get to wear a special shoe because regular shoes are a no-go for a few weeks). But here it is! And the regular update on Thursday will still happen.

The next day was spent in the company of Axel, Demyx, and Namine. The three of you bummed it around Twilight Town’s woods as normal, then, feeling especially adventurous, took a few turns around Disney Town.

Dreamfinder and Ludwig were especially deep in their research – so much so that Namine was too inexperienced to help them and to the point where they hadn’t even left the lab.

But you knew this to be normal for your uncle, thinking of all the times he’d rather order food from your mother’s bakery on Spaceship Earth rather than leave to get food or make his own dinner. And if Dreamfinder were anything like him, and you hadn’t seen anything that made him especially unlike him (except for maybe his lack of a concept of personal space), you could assume he could go days working without a break as well.

They hadn’t responded to Axel’s text about the nobodies, and you reassured him that it was probably seen and taken into account, but they’d forgotten to respond. Your uncle was not averse to this behavior either.

You’d also received another letter from Master Yen Sid who was contacted by Ludwig the evening you all returned from Animal Kingdom.

He congratulated you on your first victory against the darkness and expressed an interest in the nature of your being (being part heartless). In a few days’ time, you be expected to go with and  train with Riku in your previously established location from all that time ago when you first visited him in his tower, but in the meantime you would take the next few days to recover from your, no doubt tiring, adventure. So at least you were still in the running for being a keyblade wielder, and he didn’t think you had ditched it all to back out of it.

Everything for the first time in a long time was calm and under control, and you were more than happy to act as if would be like this for a good long time even when you would be expected to go somewhere else quite soon – personally escorted this time according to Yen Sid’s letter.

The next day you and Axel showed up for training, but your uncle was nowhere to be found, no doubt locked away in his lab fast asleep face down in a book like you used to find him when you went on impromptu visits to check on him back home. So you and the others just bummed it around Disney Town.

The day after Axel visited you – alone just like when he took you dancing. You had hoped this would be a more romantic venture that didn’t end in peril as it had last time. The past few days had been quiet, and you’d like to keep it that way.

He leaned on the doorway to your room looking down at you with a soft smile on his lips and a playful glint in his green eyes they made you feel as if he were up to something.

“We’re going to the beach,” he announced.

“The beach?” you asked, as you stepped passed him and out into the hallway.

“Yeah, back on Destiny Island,” he said, already opening a corridor as you summoned your armor.

“Why there?”

He turned to you with a smirk, placing a finger over his lips.

“It’s a secret until we get there,” he said with a wink. Oh he was definitely up to something. You merely rolled your eyes but smiled. You were eager to see what exactly the beach could hold for you that would be so interesting. You found beaches to be beautiful sure, but it was just sand and water.

He stepped through the corridor, and you followed suit. But you didn’t see anything especially interesting about the beach at the moment – just sea and sand like you expected.

Hm.

Still pretty though, you thought as you gazed out at the sparkling blue ocean.

Axel ambled down the beach at a leisurely pace and you followed him, looking up at him as he gazed forward with a calm air about him, his hands shoved lazily into his pockets. The only thing betraying this demeanor were his eyes which were intensely focused ahead of him. You looked forward and saw a tree. Just a regular tree with no immediate abnormalities on it outside of the fact that it looked like a cross between a banana tree and a palm tree with its oddly shaped leaves.

So why was Axel gazing at it so harshly? You tried to put two and two together but couldn’t and assumed you were making the wrong assumptions. Maybe he wasn’t even looking at the tree. But as the two of you grew closer to the tree, you could feel heat radiating off him in waves that was so intense when you looked down at his feet, you could see small tendrils of smoke being left behind where his feet were. If he stood still and continued to let the ground heat up, you briefly wondered if he’d make glass. You were lucky his fire and heat didn’t burn you.

He stopped in front of the tree, gazing up at it for a moment before taking a deep breath and blowing it out slowly. The heat dissipated on the exhale. He took a few more deep breaths until the heat was all but gone before he began to climb the tree.

“Wait there,” he called down, and you did, looking down at where he was standing to see cooling glass where he once was.

Heh.

Neat.

He climbed back down the tree a moment later, jumping once he was close enough to ground to not get hurt and landing in front of you.

In his hand was a fruit. It was bright yellow and shaped like a star, two deep green leaves hanging from it. Axel wiped it down on his sleeve before taking a bite.

“You brought me here for a snack?” you said, tone light-hearted but also curious if this was really the case.

He swallowed the bite he took.

“Well yes and no,” he said, looking away. The air was getting warm again. What was making him so nervous? It couldn’t have been that fruit… right?

“It’s a paopu fruit,” he clarified, gaze settling on the fruit in his hand, as he rubbed a thumb over it, “It’s native to these islands, and there’s a legend surrounding it.”

“A legend?”

“Yeah,” he said slowly before clearing his throat and continuing, looking out at the sea now. Basically anywhere but at you. “They say if two people share one then they’ll be in each other’s lives forever.”

Your eyes widened. He was looking at the sky now, a light blush over his cheeks.

You giggled, and he looked at you for the first time since he had gotten that fruit.

You took the fruit from his hand and watched as his eyes widened minutely.

“You don’t have to get me to eat a fruit to want to stay in your life or to want you in mine. Because I already want to be in your life, and I want you to stay in mine too,” you said. He chuckled. He felt a little ridiculous but mostly relieved and really, really happy. “Does this mean you’re all figured out?”

“Yeah,” he admitted, eyes softening as he gazed at you. You gave him a warm smile. You raised the fruit to your lips as you prepared to take a bite when your phone began vibrating nonstop. You held up a finger to tell Axel to wait as you checked your messages. It might have been your uncle trying to tell you something important.

But it was Namine.

Namine: ________ I think something is wrong.

Namine: I had tried calling and texting your uncle yesterday when we all hung out around Disney Town, but he never responded.

Namine: So I checked the lab, and it was empty.

Namine: It looks like no one has been there for days.

Namine: I asked around to see if anyone had seen them. And no one had.

Namine: I thought maybe his scientist friends would know where he was, but I couldn’t find them either.

Namine: I asked the queen if she could help search for them because I was getting really worried, and she sent out some guards.

Namine: And they haven’t come back. Not even to report that they were missing or anything. They’re just gone!

Namine: I think something is really wrong.

Namine: I think they’re in danger!

Namine: I’m in Twilight Town now.

Namine: Where are you?

Your smile fell as you read the text messages.

“We have to go,” you said, previous activity forgotten, “My room. Now. I think something’s wrong, and Namine is freaking out!”

Axel’s eyes widened, opening a corridor immediately to the hotel. You stepped through it quickly, feeling the tiniest pull on your body as you passed through without thinking and without armor. But you hardly cared at the moment.

You walked outside of your room and no sooner had you stepped through the door than Namine had enveloped you in a hug.

“Oh thank goodness you’re alright!”

“Of course I am. Now what happened?” you asked, holding her at arm’s length and looking her in the eye.

Meanwhile Demyx pulled Axel off to the side, a stern and urgent look on his face as he roughly grabbed his arm and all but yanked him away from you and Namine.

Axel roughly pulled his arm back.

“What?” he snapped, not one to be pushed or pulled around.

“Please, please tell me you told her about the plot against her uncle. Because I have a pretty good idea of what happened, and it’s really gonna fuck her up if she finds out what you kept from her.”

Axel blanched, eyes widening in worry – more selfishly over you and how you’d behave around him more than the well-being of your family. Of course he was worried about your family. They were his friends too. But the thought that everything between the two of you would be gone was just as worrisome to him.

“You didn’t,” Demyx said, looking crestfallen. He let out a groan, turning away from him. Axel let out a sigh of his own, running a hand through his hair. Maybe nothing had happened as bad as all that. Maybe Ludwig and Dreamfinder had gone off world for something in the gummi ship and forgot to tell anyone.

Axel looked at you as Namine spoke. He watched your facial expression cross from stern into worried before you tried reasoning, acting like maybe they were off doing something else as he had just told himself. But then you looked more increasingly panicked.

“Take me to his home,” you instructed, and Namine opened up a corridor. You turned to Axel and Demyx. “We’re going to search his home for clues as to where they’ve gone. I think something might be wrong.”

Axel just nodded. Demyx didn’t respond, just followed you through the corridor (this time with armor).

The four of you stood outside of the mansion, and you’d never been so wary about ringing a doorbell before. You almost laughed at yourself. But you did. You pressed the little button, your heart thudding with every moment no one answered the door.

You hugged yourself.

What if something had happened to them. Losing them meant losing everything. They were what little bit of your family you had left. They were your only hope of ever seeing the rest of your friends and family again. You couldn’t do this without them – couldn’t bring everything back without their help.

You didn’t want to.

You rang the doorbell two more times. Hardly waiting 10 seconds before you began knocking rather harshly on the door. Your knocking slowly escalated to banging your fist against the door in a vain attempt to make them answer faster, aware of how crazy you probably looked to your friends. But you didn’t care. You just needed them to answer the fucking door.

But you knew they weren’t going to.

You forced the door open, walking briskly through the foyer, footsteps echoing noisily in the empty space.

“Pops!” you called, voice echoing loudly around you. You began to walk faster. “Po-oops!” you called again, walk picking up into a brisk trot.

“Uncle von Drake!” you called, almost running at this point as you ran from room to room, practically knocking down each door you opened.

“________,” Axel’s calm voice pulled you out of your panic, and you looked at him. He looked worried too – though you couldn’t be sure if it was for you or your family. It hardly mattered. You wrapped your arms around him in a crushing embrace. You needed him right now.

He held you close, and you felt yourself calm just a bit. Axel had always been a place of support for you. That he was always there for you was a part of the reason you felt the way you did about him.

“We need to calm down and split up,” he instructed calmly, and you felt your heartrate drop just a bit more as you calmed. You heard the shift of his clothes as he turned to look at something nearby – no doubt Namine and Demyx. “You two scout around the east side of the house and the upper floor. We’ll take the west side and run through the basement.”

You heard a small silence before you heard their footsteps retreating. You were still holding on to Axel, and you felt his arms squeeze you in an embrace for a few more seconds before you felt him lightly push you away, hands on your shoulders grounding you much like they had before your trek up the mountain on Animal Kingdom.

“We’ll find them,” he said with a tone of finality, “But I need you to keep your head.”

You nodded, and he brushed a stray tear from your cheek. You hadn’t even realized you’d started crying.

“Thank you,” you said, brushing away any tears trapped in your eyes, “I must look ridiculous.”

He chuckled.

“You’re worried about people you love. Don’t apologize for it. Let’s go.”

He began walking towards the west wing of the house, and you followed silently, still worried about your family but not losing your head this time around.

~

The west wing provided no clues to their whereabouts. It was empty and pristine as always – no signs of a break-in or a struggle. No molted feathers. No hairs. Not even a stray dragon scale to say that they’d ever been there.

This had your emotions running around in a flurry. There was no sign of danger upstairs which was good. But there was still no sign of them which was bad.

You wrung your hands nervously as you descended down the stairs. Axel kept glancing back to look at you to make sure you were holding up alright. You were holding up about as well as could be expected, and this wore on him. Of course he couldn’t show that. Not to you. So he was wearing that mask of calm he always wore when he first met you.

And so the two of you went from room to room in the basement as silent as church mice, searching for people that, with no clues to their whereabouts, were very obviously not here.

You held back more tears when the two of you walked in the lab, and you came across a half-eaten sandwich and cold cups of coffee – including a little Figment-sized one that said “Monday? More like Funday!”

Their papers were scattered in a disorderly fashion you were accustomed to. No signs of them being flung about or torn or wrinkled in a way that said they were attacked and hurt. Which should have been a relief. But it wasn’t. Because where were they? If there was an attacker at least you could hunt them down and maybe locate your family. But if there was nothing, then what hope was there?

It was when the two of you were walking past the holo-chamber where you did your training when you noticed the slightest hint of movement.

Oh finally! They were just in there making adjustments! They did that from time to time to make sure it properly adjusted to your powers and abilities as time went on. No doubt they were trying to account for your newly acquired power to create and control lightning.

You let out a loud sigh of relief that caused Axel to turn to you as he watched you enter the outer part of the chamber where the control room was.

“Where are you going?” he asked as he followed you inside. But there was nothing. Maybe they were further in in the actual chamber where you did your fighting?

“I saw something,” you said, voice audibly becoming drearier as your hope began to dwindle, “I thought they might be in here.”

You continued walking with Axel right on your heels as you pushed past the door that allowed you into the combat area. There was nothing. Just a large empty space, and you briefly thought that your mind might have been playing tricks on you. What a cruel thing to do to yourself.

Slam!

The door to the chamber slammed shut behind you and Axel, and you heard the familiar sound of it locking into place. And the world around morphed into that of the park, a wide field stretching out before you.

A robotic voice sounded from overhead.

“Now starting mirror simulation. Level 10 difficulty. Simulation will end once all enemies are defeated.”

You blinked. You’d done the mirror simulation a few times but never on that level of difficulty. It was hard enough on levels five and six when the simulation was learning directly from you and reciprocating those moves at a speed you couldn’t calculate at for a fair fight. It was by far the most challenging simulation you faced. And at level ten, you wondered how bad this would go.

You looked across the field as Axel stood next to you. The two of you wasted no time drawing your weapons. This was going to be a tough fight. Especially since this was not Axel’s first time fighting the mirror simulation either. It knew his moves too.

“We need to end this quickly,” you said lowly. Axel nodded. Every second it learned from you was a bit more of an advantage for it.

Across from you, maybe about 15 feet away, two digital versions of you and Axel appeared. They mirrored your stances, looking as fierce as you did – though digital Axel wore a cocky smirk much like your own Axel liked to. Of course, he knew the gravity of the situation too much to put one on his face now.

Digital Axel attacked first, launching himself at Axel in a flurry of flames that he blocked and followed up with an attack of his own. Your replica charged at you in a similar manner, sans the flames, and the two of you were locked in almost a stalemate, meeting each other blow for blow. Axel found himself in a similar situation, and with each passing moment, it became increasingly clear that this was getting the two of you nowhere. And with each moment after that, you began to tire more, and your replicas were gaining the upper hand.

It was when you took your first heavy blow that you knew you needed a new strategy and fast. You began only dodging as you tried to think it through. Attacking wouldn’t do anything except expend needed energy at this point, and somewhere along the way, Axel had the same thought, avoiding his duplicate alongside you.

Then a little lightbulb went off in Axel’s head. He looked at you as you jumped out of the way of yourself, calling to you.

“________,” he called, and your eyes flicked over to him and back to your replica as you dodged another hit from her sword, “Dance with me!”

“What?!” you called, clearly thinking that this man had officially lost his damn mind. He dodged his way over to you, grabbing your hand and quickly pulling you to him.

“I said,” he repeated as he led you through a few dance moves you recognized when he acknowledged your dancing to be a decent means of fighting back at the stage he’d taken you to, “Dance with me.”

“Oh,” you said, the pieces clicking together in your head. You ignited yourself and so did he, and the two of you let loose a flurry of moves that sent out waves of red and blue fire that seemed to deal roughly the same amount of damage as it had before, but as they two of you grew more in synch with each other, your flames meshed together in an amethyst blaze that seemed to do far more damage than either of your attacks did separately. And it only grew brighter and paler the longer the two of you danced until it was a pearly white-hot blaze that cut the duplicates down to size.

The finishing blow were white rings of fire that dissipated the duplicates as it flew from your forms in a great wave as Axel picked you up and spun you around, fire flying from your fingertips and the tips of your toes as you arched your back.

He set you down as the room returned to normal, an empty box with nothing in it. You heard the door unlock, and the two of you stumbled out, exhausted after your bout.

“What happened?” Axel wondered aloud.

“Somebody’s here,” you said, looking around the control room, though it was clear that there was no one else in the small space but the two of you, “And they wanted us gone. Uncle never turns the level on the mirror simulation up that high. It’s hard enough already.”

Axel texted Demyx and Namine to be on the lookout, saying that they weren’t alone in the mansion but had no way of knowing who else was there.

“If only there were some way to see everything that goes on in this house. It’s so large that you could easily miss anyone by minutes walking through it,” Axel groaned. And you slapped your forehead in realization.

“Oh my gosh I’m so dumb. Cameras! Pops said he had them everywhere! That means there’s got to be a room where all of the recordings are shown or where you can watch things happen as they happen!”

“Good thinking,” he said, “Let’s keep searching the basement. Maybe the security room will be down here. If not, then Demyx and Namine have probably seen it.”

You nodded, following him out of the chamber.

A few twists and turns through the empty hallway later, with you wringing your hands once more but now because you were on edge because someone else was in the mansion obviously targeting you and your friends, and you both spotted a door at the end of a hall with a bronze sign that read, “security room.”

An errant thought stopped you cold in your tracks as you neared the door.

What if that someone or something had disposed of your family and that was why there was no trace of them? What if they hadn’t been taken at all? What if their bodies were still in the mansion somewhere but hidden so no one would find their grisly murder? Or if it were some strange and ravenous creature and the reason you couldn’t find them was because they had been eaten?

You were trembling in your spot, thoughts of their deaths clouding your vision with tears of hurt and a fierce anger. Darkness swirled, cold and stinging around your hands. If anyone had so much as harmed a single feather on your uncle’s head or harmed anything on any of their heads for that matter, you swore you would make them pay a million times over. You’d kill them.

Axel opened the door and turned to you, realizing you had stopped in your tracks looking like your world was ending and like you were going to destroy something. He watched the darkness swirl about your hands which were clenched in fists at your sides. You were looking down at the floor, tears threatening to spill over.

He approached you, taking your chin in his hand and tilting your gaze upward to meet his own.

“Breathe,” he instructed calmly. You took in a shaky breath, and some of the darkness you’d conjured dissipated at the release of some of the tension in your body.

“We’ll find them. I promise,” he said in a tone that made you believe him.

“What if something’s happened to them?” you asked, voice wavering. Your eyes were wide and glistening with more unshed tears. You looked like a lost child.

“You don’t know that anything is wrong,” he said lowly, “Keep your head. We’ll find them.”

You nodded, swallowing thickly and feeling like your whole world was being held together with just those words. You took another deep breath and followed Axel into the security room where you were greeted with the sight of a wall covered in screens and a cartoon horse leaning back in a chair, snoring soundly.

You felt anger again. If something had happened, he should have been able to see it. But what if something had happened, and the very reason no one knew anything was because he was in here asleep and not monitoring anything like he should have been.

You stormed past Axel to roughly tap the horse on the shoulder. He awoke with a start, snore abruptly cutting off, and nearly falling out of his chair as he looked back and forth in a daze. You noticed the stitching on his clothing, a dark blue guard uniform, which read, “Horace.”

“Are you the security guard here?” you asked in a tone that almost sounded too sweet. You were trying to be polite, but there was almost a hidden malice behind it that Axel noticed. Horace did not notice, giving you a warm smile that almost had you frowning in disdain as a response.

“Why, yes, ma’am, I am! What can I do ya for?”

“Well you can start by telling me how long you’ve been asleep.” Your eyes had narrowed minutely, but your smile remained plastered to your face. Axel observed quietly. He didn’t think it best for him to step in or say anything at the moment.

“Hmm, well let’s see,” he said, looking down at a watch on his wrist before muttering numbers to himself and mumbling something about carrying a one. “I’d say since about March 20^th, 1942!”

Your smile only faltered just slightly.

“So you’ve no idea where my Uncle Ludwig or any of his colleagues have gone because you were asleep?” The darkness that seemed to flurry around your hands before returned with a vengeance. Horace did not yet realize the gravity of the situation or what it meant to you. And that made the darkness swirl faster, yet your hands remained clenched at your sides, feeling so cold it burned.

“Well I’d have to say that no I do not,” he said, jovial smile still broad on his face.

“Right,” you said in that same sweet tone before eyes flashing yellow so quickly that Horace blinked and missed it.

 You punched Horace in the face as hard as you could. Axel flinched. He’d seen some forms of anger from you, but this was on a new level. He’d never seen it make you quite so violent to almost innocent parties. Horace’s head slumped back. He had a black eye, a missing tooth, and an array of little birds circling his head and chirping.

“Shit, ________! I get he made a stupid mistake, but you didn’t have to knock him out!”

You didn’t respond, almost seeming to ignore him entirely.

You then walked over to the screens, searching them until you found the one that was in the lab. You began rewinding the footage. It flickered before you with mostly no change except for the brief time you and Axel were there. Then you went back to the day before and saw the police officers that the Queen sent to investigate taken out by what looked like pink grim reapers complete with black skulls and flower like bottoms that allowed them to float rather than walk. They took the guards away in their own corridors, but to where, you did not know. Then you kept rewinding. The minutes ticked by in an agonizingly slow fashion as you went back. The date in the corner next to the time ticked back to three days ago when you saw a corridor of darkness closing in reverse and three of those reapers had appeared. You held on that image.

Axel’s breath hitched in his throat. There were plenty of people who had this skill, but those most likely trying to get to the lab were none of the people that ought to be anywhere near it. And there was only one person he knew with control over those specific nobodies.

You moved the video back more slowly and watched as each of your friends and family walked out of the corridor in reverse, all seemingly safe and sound, showing no signs of injury or harm. You breathed a sigh of relief knowing that they were at least unharmed when they left. But that left one unanswered question.

You continued to rewind slowly watching as the last of your friends backed out of the corridor. Then slowly, there retreated a tall, young man with light pink hair the color of cherry blossoms.

“Shit,” Axel swore.

Notes:

I hope you enjoyed! I'll be here (hopefully on time this time) on Thursday! Comments and critiques are always a welcome sight, so let me know if you enjoyed it!

Chapter 33: Trust Issues

Summary:

You find out what happened to your family. There are some rising tensions between you and Axel, and none of them are good.

Notes:

A little late in the day but here it is!

You knew everyone who wore that robe wasn’t inherently a part of the Organization, but you knew they’d also made a uniform of it. And hearing Axel swear next to you was a grim confirmation that this was someone you didn’t want around your friends and family.

You turned up the volume for that footage, prepared to watch it. But… you had questions first.

“Axel,” you said, throat feeling dry as you continued to gaze at the man on the screen, “Who is that man? Do you know him?”

Axel didn’t answer. He approached where you were and stared intently at the screen where Marluxia was. It was easier than answering at this point. But what could he really say that wouldn’t undo everything?

Your questions went unanswered. Something in your head, the deepest recesses of it, a part that you hadn’t heard from since you told Axel to keep his distance from you in Disney Town the first time you’d been there reared its head once more. An icy trickle went up your spine and you felt an uncomfortable heat rise in your stomach that made you feel as if you would start spitting acid.

Distrust, you realized.

He knows something.

You immediately pushed the voice away. Axel had been straight forward with you up to this point, even admitting to all of his past mistakes. He had no reason to keep anything from you anymore.

Axel’s phone buzzed. It was a text from Demyx.

Demyx: All clear where we are. Any sign of who was in the house?

Axel: No but come to the basement. We’re in the security room, and we think we have a lead.

You rewound the video further to just before the stranger’s portal appeared in the room. They were all absorbed in their own work. Gyro and Fenton discussing something while huddled over a fragmented, glowing particle in a container not unlike the ones you had seen in Ansem’s study where he kept his hearts and journals.

Professor Owl seemed to be in deep talks with Figment pointing to a blackboard and switching rapidly between two pictures, trying to explain how a music note for some reason had something to do with a heart.

Dreamfinder and Ludwig were poring over schematics with drawings that were too blurred for you to clearly make out at the distance from which the camera was placed. It was calm and peaceful.

Demyx and Namine picked that moment to come storming into the room.

“What’d you find?” Namine immediately asked. All business. Then she spotted Horace and gasped. “What happened to him?”

“________ did that,” Axel said lowly. The others turned to look at you, your form hunched over the control panel as you stared intensely at the screen, not acknowledging them once.

You hit play, turning the volume up so you could hear what was being said.

They were all just talking over each other when the corridor of darkness appeared, and the pink haired man stepped out.

Namine let out a gasp, stepping back automatically. You paused the video, looking at her. Did she know too?

“Who is that?” you asked, voice low. In a strange way, Namine felt as if it would be bad not to answer. Something about you was different. Something about you felt desperate – in the same way you shouldn’t corner a dangerous animal.

“That’s the person Axel had to save me from. Marluxia. He kept me locked away in a place called Castle Oblivion.”

“He’s also a part of the Organization,” Demyx added, glaring at the screen where Marluxia was, “He’s bad news.”

You nodded and turned back to the video.

How long before Axel would have told you?

How long has he lied to you?

You shook your head. Axel wouldn’t keep something from you if he thought it was important. This is nothing but a strange coincidence, and we’ll fix it.

You played the video.

Ludwig let out a girlish scream that dragged on far longer than it needed to at the appearance of Marluxia.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Marluxia spoke in a pleasant voice before halting whatever else he was going to say to look at Ludwig who had yet to stop screaming. Everyone else looked at him too.

Then Ludwig shut up, watching the man for a moment before gesturing that he could continue.

“You were saying?” Ludwig prompted.

“Right,” the man began slowly, “My name is Marluxia, and I’ve heard a great deal about all of you.” He began stepping slowly around the room, flashing a charming smile at them that would take anyone off guard. He was very beautiful (and you didn’t think any man could be prettier than Axel).

“Like what?” Gyro asked, folding his arms. He was not so easily swayed as the rest of them. Marluxia frowned a bit but his easy smile was back on his face in no time.

“Just that you’re a group of highly intelligent scientists who strive to provide a better future for humanity.” He glided over to a wall with numerous framed degrees, awards, and accolades. “I see you’re overqualified, Professor von Drake,” he all but purred. Your uncle played right into it.

“How nice of you to notice,” he said, puffing out his chest.

“Of course,” Marluxia continued, “And it just so happens that I’m in great need of the best and brightest. Those of you specializing in matters of the heart.”

“And why do you need something so specific?” Gyro asked, cutting through the easy atmosphere Marluxia was trying to create once more with his skepticism. This time Marluxia’s smile did not falter. In fact, it widened just a bit in a cat like smile that made your skin crawl. Although you knew it would make anyone else melt.

But that voice from before did not allow you to feel ease at his presence. Just anger.

“There is a world full of nobodies like me. They are called lesser nobodies for they do not appear as I do. They are creatures with humanoid features but no striking characteristics that would label them human as a whole. They are bound and enslaved, their free will all but taken from them.”

He stopped to gauge the reactions around the room. He held everyone’s apt attention – even Gyro’s, though he still held that sarcastic and skeptical look about him.

“If they had hearts they could reclaim what was taken from them.”

“And what does this do for you exactly?” Gyro asked, arms lowering from where they were crossed. Marluxia turned to look at him, soft and welcoming expression still etched on to his face.

“I’ve been looking to turn over a new leaf like Axel. I know he’s out gallivanting with a keyblade wielder who has a heart of light, and I want to do good things too. The nobodies we’ll be liberating happen to work for the leader of Organization XIII, Xemnas – an enemy we have in common. So we’ll be doing a good thing and toppling the Organization as well.”

“Hmmm,” Gyro hummed, looking around the room. The other scientists seemed to be contemplating this as well.

“Huddle!” Ludwig called and all of them formed a huddled circle a little way from Marluxia, who stood near the corridor smiling as if he’d already won. And you knew how this ended. And he knew how it was going to end, and you didn’t like it.

They broke the circle.

“One more question,” Dreamfinder spoke up, “How did you know about our work with hearts?”

“I know about your previous work with Ansem and your troubles with Xehanort.”

“You know about Xehanort?”

“Of course. If you come with me I’ll be more than happy to explain it to you while we strive for a better future for those without hearts.”

They all stood there for a moment longer, contemplating what their next move would be.

“Well that’s good enough for me!” Ludwig said after a moment as he began to gather a few things to take with him. The others murmured their agreements – except for Gyro who expressed extended skepticism but willingness to see just where this was headed.

They finished gathering their things and waltzed into the corridor behind Marluxia.

Axel knew about Xehanort.

The voice in your head was much harder to quiet now. It was harsh and angry, and it made a feeling of cold run through you in a way that made your chest ache. You took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. You looked tired.

Axel eyed you warily.

As did your other friends.

Finally you spoke.

“Where did he take them?” you said. Your voice was low and even, smooth as glass.

“Probably to their base of operations. If Xemnas needs your uncle and Marluxia intends to use him as well, then chances are they’re back at the castle,” Axel said as he turned to face Demyx and Namine. You slowly turned to face them as well.

“Take me there,” you instructed. Your eyes met Axel’s and they were cool and darker than normal. You looked different in a way Axel couldn’t quite describe. It was like all the worried hysteria that made you so emotional earlier was replaced with… something….

“We’ll have to sneak in,” Axel informed you, and you gave a nod, “Let’s head back to the hotel room and get your coat. If we can stay at a distance, then maybe we won’t draw any attention to ourselves and mistake us for someone else.”

He looked at Namine and Demyx.

“Stay here and look out for each other. We’ll be back. Pack up their things so we can move them somewhere safe when we get back.”

“I’ll talk to Queen Minnie,” Namine said, already pulling out her phone, “It’s guarded, and maybe we can all stay there for a while to be safe.”

Axel nodded and opened up a corridor, and just as you were about to go through, Horace’s head snapped up. He looked at you.

“Wait!” he said, holding out a hand to stop you. You waited patiently for him to say something. “Don’t tell Clarabelle I was here.” Then his head slumped back again into unconsciousness. You blinked and put on your armor before stepping through to the other side of the corridor, robotically walking to the dresser you shared with your mother and pulling out the cloak Axel had given you.

You put it on silently, and Axel watched, wondering what possibly could have been going through your head.

He knew about Xehanort. What else has he not told you.

The voice in your head was all but screaming at you, and you did your best to fight it. But some part of you felt anger more than anything. And another part of you was just sad. You trust Axel. You should trust Axel. And until now you hadn’t had a reason not to trust Axel.

There’s a first time for everything, and now would be that time.

“Axel,” you began, voice sounding like a cross between the dark tone it had taken before and the voice he was used to hearing. It made you sound like a broken bird. “The Organization… and Xehanort….”

You looked like you were struggling to put the words and your thoughts together. Then you shut your mouth altogether, looking up at him like you didn’t recognize him. He almost flinched at the look. But he didn’t say anything. That look you pinned him with alone forced everything he should have told you before – should be telling you now – back into his throat.

He was scared, and so were you.

And Axel realized that for the first time in a long time, you might not trust him anymore.

And what was worse and would continue to get worse the longer he didn’t say anything, is he was currently giving you every reason not to.

Though maybe the two of you could get through this, and he could finish telling you everything.

“Let’s go, Axel,” you said, snapping him out of his thoughts. Your voice was cool again, different. So were your eyes.

Axel didn’t say anything. He just opened up a corridor to the world that never was.

“Put your hood on. They’ll recognize you otherwise.” He did the same, watching as you robotically moved the hood over your head, obscuring your face. He studied you for a moment. You were a bit shorter than Larxene, and there was no hiding that you were a woman. He could only hope you passed as Larxene at a distance and that she was anywhere but the castle so no one would wonder how she managed to be in two places at once if they had just seen her.

You studied him briefly too. You’d never seen him with his hood on before. It was different, like meeting a stranger you’d only ever seen in passing before. Or meeting someone you should know but have forgotten.

Axel walked through the corridor and into his room. It was just as he left it. He noticed a glint on a table. It was a tiny, gold medal with a bright blue ribbon that read, “Training. Day 1. Complete!” He didn’t need to turn it over to see the other side which read, “Here’s your freaking medal.”

He meant to give it to you so long ago when you had joked about getting a medal for saving his life back when Manny was rampaging through Disney Town. He’d had it custom made and everything but hadn’t had a chance to give it to you since shortly after it was ready, he had to avoid you to keep Vanitas away. Then you’d gone to meet Yen Sid and never came back. And by the time you were back, he’d already signed his death warrant as far as the Organization was concerned.

He stuffed it in his pocket. Maybe when this was all over, you wouldn’t look down on him so much you couldn’t accept gifts. If you still wanted to speak to him at all….

You gazed around the room. It was so plain. Just white. The furniture was white and so were the walls.

“Was this your room?” you asked, voice with a mild inflection of your former self in it.

“Yeah. Can’t say I miss it all too much,” he mused as he walked towards the door. He cracked it open, peering out to see if anyone was there.

All clear.

“Come on,” he said in a low voice, stepping out into the hallway. You followed suit, sticking close by him. Trekking through the hallway with distant reminders of how this was a well-lit version of the tunnels beneath Spaceship Earth – when you were first making your escape.

The stakes were even higher now. But something felt different.

You weren’t quite so scared as you had been then. No, you didn’t feel very scared at all. You were still bubbling over with all the negative emotion the start of the debacle had cultivated in you. And all you could flicker through were anger and sadness and… distrust.

You looked up at Axel as this emotion jumped into your head. You had so many questions that you wanted to voice when the two of you were alone, and you couldn’t force any of them out. You were far too scared by the answers. And for a brief moment it looked like he wanted to say something. Maybe you wouldn’t have to ask. Maybe he would just tell you the awful truths, and you could go from there.

But…

What was there to say?

He had supposedly told you everything he needed to say back on Animal Kingdom when the two of you were in the temple.

Keep telling yourself lies. It’ll only hurt worse when the truth comes out.

You hissed at the voice in your head to shut up. Axel wouldn’t keep anything from you if it was this bad. He’d tell you. He had to. He was your best friend. Your gut wanted to tell you otherwise though. You steeled yourself. This was easier than worrying.

What you mean is: This was easier than facing what it meant if he had lied to you.

You wanted to ask him your questions now, but you didn’t want to give yourself away too much.

So you just silently and mindlessly followed Axel, taking twists and turns that led you deeper into the maze of the castle. It was after ten minutes of silence that you finally spoke.

“Where are we going?” you asked as silently as you could but loud enough for your voice to carry to him. He flinched at the sudden sound. Before there had only been the sound of your footsteps. He looked at you, checking to see if there were anything wrong with you, eyes sweeping your form.

“What?” he whispered back.

“I said, ‘where are we going?’”

“Dungeon. We’re almost there. Stay quiet.”

You just shrugged and continued to follow him. Another ten minutes later and you’d arrived at the entrance to what you assumed was the dungeon.

“Well, well,” a voice called before Axel could push open the door. You both jumped, turning to face who had approached you. “Wasn’t sure I’d ever see your face around here again. Treason is punishable by fate worse than death, you know.”

Axel put himself between you and the mysterious stranger. The stranger, a tall, slender man with black hair and a gray streak down the side looked you over. His one good eye which was a striking shade of golden yellow trailed up your form.

You would have been creeped out on any other day. But today was not the day to piss you off. You felt a bit of anger bubble up in you as you watched a smirk grow on his face.

“That the girl you left us for?” His eye traced you again. “Not bad,” he purred.

You felt fire and darkness flare at your fingertips.

He just chuckled, clearly not threatened by your temper.

“And she’s a feisty one too. I’d ask why you wouldn’t go for Larxene in that case, but, uh… Larxene doesn’t have that body.”

Ugh gross.

“What do you want, Xigbar?” Axel all but growled from where he was. Xigbar’s smirk just widened slightly as his eye left you – finally – and landed on Axel.

“Just happened to be in the neighborhood. Wasn’t lookin’ for any trouble, but, uh, while I’m here I should tell you a few things. Somebody in this Organization is up to something, and I’m not talkin’ about Xemnas. Now what that something might be,” he said with a shrug, “I can’t say. Haven’t figured it out yet myself. But it has something to do with the lesser nobodies. And the ones you used to command are no exception. A piece of advice: Don’t summon ‘em.”

“Great, now if there’s nothing else?”

Axel’s tone was icy.

“Actually now that you mention it,” he said, acting as if he just remembered, smirk still in place, “I know the two of you can’t be here for anything good. Well,” he paused with a chuckle, “Nothing good for the Organization anyway. And you know me, Axe. I’m a pretty laid-back guy until I’m needed. What the Organization is doing I’ll see to the end, and it would be in your and especially her,” he pointed to you, and Axel stood between the two of you a bit more, “Best interests to not interfere with those plans. Xemnas is already spread pretty thin, and I’d hate to have to do ya dirty like that because you got in the way. And the last thing is just letting you know that if you happen to root out the something I mentioned earlier, I might be willing to overlook the hit Xemnas will take out on you if he knows you’re here if you drop me a clue or two.”

Then he turned and began to walk away.

“Get inside,” Axel ordered, not looking away from Xigbar’s retreating figure until he turned a corner.

You poked your head into the dungeon and didn’t see too much of anything out of the ordinary. You walked inside the dimly lit area, walking down a small set of stairs. You checked from cell to cell eagerly, all of your hope beginning to dwindle with each empty cell you saw. Then you reached the end. There in the cell were the two guards the queen had sent.

“Are you alright?” you asked kneeling near the bars where they sat. They looked surprised to hear a friendly voice, and you realized it was because they probably thought you were a part of the Organization.

You took off your hood, and recognition flashed in their faces.

“You’re von Drake’s niece! The queen told us about you!” one said.

“Boy are we glad to see you,” the other chimed in. You smiled. You glanced at Axel who stood nearby, watching the door in case anyone else decided to come in – or in case Xigbar wasn’t good on his word and was planning on breaking down the door any second now.

“Do you happen to know where they took my uncle and the people he was working with?”

“That pretty fella with the pink hair probably has ‘em. We were all in a holding cell together after those things with the scythes brought us here. Some guy with blue hair was saying something about Xemnas preparing a place for them to work. Then a little while later that pink-haired guy comes in and says he’ll take ‘em to ‘the lab’ and their new, fancier living arrangements.”

“Yeah,” the other one picked up where he left off, “We ask him if we’re getting better living arrangements, and he says to me he says, ‘you’ll be lucky to ever see daylight again.’”

Your anger flared again, but at least there was a good chance your family was alive now.

“Axel,” you said, turning to look at him. He glanced down at you to show he was listening, “Do you know where the lab is? I think he’s keeping them there.”

“Yeah, I’ll take you to it.”

“What about us?” the first cop asked. Axel looked at them before opening a corridor on their side of the bars.

“You can head home now,” he said.

“Gee thanks fella! That’s real swell of ya!” said the first cop as he stepped through the corridor.

“Yeah, you’re a real pal!” the second said as he followed the first.

Axel closed the corridor and you stood up to face him, silently expecting him to lead the way. He looked at you, studying you. You still looked different.

“________,” he began. Your eyes bore into him with an intensity he’d only seen a few times before. This time you looked mildly annoyed – like him daring to speak to you was some great offense. “Are you alright?”

You looked at him with a searching gaze. Were you trying to read him?

“I’m fine,” you said slowly.

“You’ve just been acting differently, and I’m worried about you.”

“There are people I care about who may very well in immediate danger. You said not to apologize for being worried!”

“That was before you punched someone who doesn’t have anything to do with what’s going on!”

“He could have told someone about what happened!”

“You saw the video! They agreed to go with Marluxia. No one who isn’t Demyx, Namine, or me could have known that they were in danger. If he’d seen the footage like we did, he would never know they were in danger. You hurt someone innocent.”

You flinched. You did do that, didn’t you?

“I’m fine,” you said quietly. “I’ll apologize to him later.”

“That’s fine, but your whole demeanor I has been –”

“I said I’m fine!” you snapped, voice echoing a bit in the open space. You were breathing a little heavier, and Axel didn’t want to push the issue anymore.

“Right,” he said quietly, turning away from you and silently leading you to your next destination.

~

It was after another ten minutes of silent walking that you began to hear something very out of place for this otherwise somber castle. It sounded akin to the sound effects you’d hear in a cartoon amongst the sounds of bickering, and you swear you could hear Gyro saying something sarcastic to your uncle while he refuted it.

For the first time since you’d realized they were missing, your heart felt lighter, and your pace picked up until you were fast walking past Axel.

“Hey, wait up,” he whispered to you, grabbing your hand to get you to slow down. It hardly made a difference. You were about to charge through the open door to see your friends for yourself. Yes, those were most definitely their voices you were hearing! Then you were suddenly yanked back and into Axel who held you there.

You looked up at him with a glare, but he wasn’t even watching you. You followed his gaze to just inside the lab where there was an overhead area you had missed entirely.

And there, standing near the railing of this overhead area, was the man who had kidnapped your family, looking down at the scientists with something between a mixture of impatience and contempt. He was flanked by two of the lesser nobodies you’d seen in the video.

Your anger flared up again, and you felt the icy chill of darkness as it wisped at your fingertips and slowly wound its way up your arms. Your eyes turned yellow until they resembled that of a heartless.

“He’s not paying attention,” you whispered, “We could take him out right now and end this.”

“You don’t know how many people are in the room. And trust me, it’s a fight you’re not ready for. Let’s wait and think of a plan.”

You didn’t want to do that. You wanted this nightmare to be over. You wanted to take down the asshole who had taken them in the first place.

But you also knew Axel was right. Reluctantly, you stayed put, yellow eyes flickering over to Marluxia once more, and darkness subsiding just a bit around your arms.

You concentrated on the other voices in the room, listening for your uncle or Dreamfinder or any of the others just to know they were alright.

Their voices became mildly hushed, but you were just close enough to hear.

“It’s not going to work! I’m telling you!”

It was Dreamfinder. He sounded panicked. That was the exact opposite of how he’d come here, with a jovial smile. You’d only heard him distressed in times of danger, like when the two of you were trying to navigate the subconscious.

“Well we don’t have a choice,” Fenton hissed back, “He’s watching.”

You and Axel crept closer to actually be able to see into the room where they were working. They were in a large holding cell with no visible door. Perhaps Marluxia keeping watch was enough to keep them in place. You can’t imagine why they would stay otherwise if they were so stressed out.

On an operating table was a dusk, strapped down and absolutely still except for the occasional jitter of its limbs. Its hands were still bound. The scientists surrounding it kept bickering with each other, growing more frantic with each passing second. They were obviously on a deadline.

“We’ll just have to do it,” Gyro said with a shrug, “And hope for the best.”

Across from them was a large machine. It was as tall as the wall of the cell and looked like a laser out of a sci-fi movie with its big bulky frame that made up the main body of it, a large, mechanical arm that had several wires and a transparent tube running along it that led to a large metallic point that ended in a needle.

What were they doing?

You watched as Fenton took a container – which held something like the floating fragments you’d seen him working with in the security footage – and loaded it into the machine. He pushed a few buttons and flicked a few switches before pulling a lever. The machine whirred to life, and the mechanical arm approached the dusk, the needle pointing at the center of its chest.

In the clear tube you could see little crystalline fragments float along in a translucent, viscous fluid. The needle began to spin rapidly, slowly closing in on the dusk until it pierced its silver skin. The dusk writhed rather uncomfortably on the table but pushed through it anyway.

Then the machine stopped whirring abruptly, making a noise that sounded like anything but properly working parts. As if on cue, little rivets of smoke rose up from the large, bulky frame. The machine had broken down. That was what they were worried about.

The dusk continued to writhe around in pain on the operating table, and you may have had some form of sympathy for it were it not for the fact that your attention was glued to your friends and family below. They all looked frightened.

You looked back up to where Marluxia was standing to see that he had vanished. When you looked back to where your friends and family were, he was standing before them in the cell, his eyes trained on them like a predator watching its prey.

“What. Happened.”

 

Notes:

Comments and kudos always welcome! Next time we see the conclusion of your trek into the Castle That Never Was.

Chapter 34: Specter

Summary:

The conclusion of your rescue mission.

Notes:

Warnings of minor existential horrors but outside of that you ought to be fine!

“What. Happened.”

Marluxia’s tone was clipped and angry, and you felt simultaneous waves of worry and anger wash over you.

Axel’s grip on your arms tightened. He knew what you were thinking. He knew you were far too worried to let anything happen to them. He knew if you jumped out there now, you may very well be signing a death certificate for the both of you.

Your breath came in quick rapid breaths that even Axel’s hushed whispers of “It’ll be alright” and “We won’t let anything happen to them” could not calm you. You could hear all of the threats behind Marluxia’s words. And you didn’t know what you would do if anything happened to any of them.

“Well, you remember how we said a part broke?”

“You said you’d fix it,” Marluxia snapped, and all of them scrambled back from his outburst.

“Well we did! Or thought we did, but it we had to improvise! We don’t have the means of replacing it with no scraps to work with so we can remake the part. Your uh nobodies haven’t come back with anything yet since you told them to scout for parts,” Fenton defended. And it looked like Marluxia was going to accept this as a reasonable excuse. Then Gyro opened his mouth.

“Frankly I’m tired of this treatment,” he said eyeing down Marluxia, who had an unnerving mask of calm over his face. “I tend to not do tiring, thankless jobs outside of my own personal interests. And your attitude, your treatment of myself and my colleagues, and your whole goal are abhorrent. I’m not working for you anymore.”

Everything felt still, like the world was holding its breath.

Marluxia stepped quietly and slowly towards Gyro, everyone else visibly backing away from him as he approached. Despite his previously self-important attitude, Gyro seemed to shrink a bit under his gaze as he approached but ultimately did not back down.

Marluxia raised his hand prepared to strike him down and you let out an audible gasp. Marluxia turned in your direction to see what made the noise, but, thankfully, a corridor of darkness opened up, successfully masking the noise as nothing more than the usual noises a corridor made upon opening.

Axel meanwhile had pulled you quickly out of sight and against his frame, flush against the wall.

“Marluxia,” a new voice said, one you didn’t recognize. You looked back into the room and felt your blood run cold. Your darkness dissipated. Your eyes returned to their normal state as they widened in shock. You felt your knees grow weak, and Axel had to hold you up. He looked you in the eyes, quietly asking if you were alright.

You nodded weakly after a bit of him trying to coax words from your mouth.

“He was there,” you whispered weakly. “He was there the day it all came down. The day I lost everything.”

You looked around the door again. Sure enough. It was him, icy blue hair, golden eyes that only seemed capable of freezing and paralyzing stares, and a large x-shaped scar across his face.

“Saix,” Marluxia greeted, voice somewhat icier than before when he was angry at your companions. His attention was held strictly on Saix, not seeming to dare drift anywhere else. This Saix was obviously his superior.

“I’ve come to check on your progress. Have they made any strides towards the stabilization of the world?”

“As much as cartoons can be expected to,” Marluxia commented, throwing a look over his shoulder. They shrank under his gaze. You noticed that the dusk which had previously been writhing on the operating table was gone and the operating table covered in a sheet and papers as if they’d been working on something else entirely.

“I have to admit,” Saix said, circling around the birds and Marluxia, eyeing them with a neutral expression, “I’m relatively impressed you were able to track them down. I was beginning to worry you’d be like Axel and run off with them.”

The Organization wanted to find them too? Not just this person who claimed to be working with them to bring it down?

How much of that was even true?

You recognized the dry smile which was now on his face as his attempt at a joke. Well you didn’t see what was so damn funny. Marluxia let out his own wry chuckle at Saix’s joke. You didn’t miss the mild flash of anger that flickered over Marluxia’s face once Saix had his back turned.

Whatever his alignment, Marluxia obviously had his own hang-ups about some of the Organization members. You could see that much.

“I’ll let you get back to your work,” Saix said as he turned away and used a corridor to exit the room. Marluxia turned back to the birds as they stood there with bated breath, waiting for what he was going to do next. Well he didn’t seem keen on hitting them anymore, so that was good. Gyro also seemed extra relieved about this.

A moment of quiet passed between them.

“Gentlemen,” Marluxia spoke in a calm tone, as if he were not angered by the presence of another a few moments ago or giving into a rather violent urge a moment before that, “I apologize for my previous behavior towards you. That was uncalled for. I just don’t have time for mistakes, and as you can see I’m on a bit of a deadline myself. If you truly want to help me bring down the Organization you’ll have to do better.”

“And if we don’t?” Gyro asked.

Geez! Did this guy have a death wish?!

But Marluxia just smiled – a slow, patient smile that relayed no ill intent. Yet it didn’t make you feel better.

He opened a corridor, to where you did not know.

Marluxia picked up one of the containers meant to hold the little glowing fragments. This one, however, was empty.

“Follow me,” he commanded in a calm tone that left no question as to whether it was optional or not. All of the bird scientists filed in behind him as he went through the corridor. You broke away from Axel to run up and follow them.

“________, no!” Axel hissed, grabbing your hand.

“I have to!” you said back, not looking at him, “I don’t know where he’s taking them! He’s going to hurt them!”

“But we don’t know where it leads! You could get yourself killed! We’ll find another way! Just trust me!”

Don’t trust him.

You froze at the words as they left his lips.

Don’t trust him!

He knew about Xehanort having to do with the Organization. He kept something so vitally important from you. What else was he keeping from you?

Don’t trust him!

Axel let go of your hand when you stopped pulling against him, and it was as he was about to figure out a plan that you dashed through the corridor just as it was closing. Because you couldn’t trust Axel. Because this wasn’t the first time he’d lied about something or kept something from you.

And you’d been ignoring it up to this point. But now the people you cared about were in mortal danger. Mortal danger that may have been avoidable if Axel had told you the Organization was interested in their whereabouts.

Now it made sense why they sent someone to kill you. You would be a thorn in their side with how protective you would be. But Axel had seemed so sincere when he told you he wanted to protect you. But then why wouldn’t he warn you? It was as if he existed purely to get your guard down so they could blindside you with an assassination attempt and kidnap your friends and family.

Though you knew that couldn’t be it. He never would have come for you when you went missing otherwise. But still… Why wouldn’t he tell you?

You couldn’t worry about that now though.

You’d arrived at the other location, a dark chamber that felt much like a cell but opened up into too wide a space to be so and hid behind a few pillars so as not to be seen. Marluxia led them to a gigantic metallic door. He touched a hand to it gingerly, smiling to himself.

Then another figure walked up, a masked figure you recognized all too well from some of the nightmares you first had on Animal Kingdom. He radiated the same dark aura you felt when you first met in space, and it rolled up your spine in a jarring chill that made your stomach roll with nausea. Your knees gave out and you slowly slid to the floor, heart pounding and frozen where you were – fear grounding you to the spot you were in.

You were just thankful they couldn’t see you from where you were.

“Vanitas,” Marluxia greeted. Vanitas didn’t respond, just looked at your companions before he looked back at Marluxia.

“Throwing away your toys already? Xemnas won’t be all too pleased with that,” he said in a chilling voice that sounded too normal to belong to someone willing to murder in cold blood. You expected him to sound more like a monster, not a young man – not when you couldn’t even humanize him with his face obscured.

“Of course not,” Marluxia answered with a charming smile and a light flip of his hair, “I’m merely giving them a little motivation since they seem to have forgotten what it is we’re working towards.”

As if on cue, two of the reaper nobodies appeared with a dusk. They held it by its arms while it struggled.

“Dear Lord, Our Marluxia,” one of the reapers rasped, “He speaks ill of you. And we would have you tell us what shall be done.”

“I’ve not! I’ve not! Love for our Marluxia!” the dusk screamed, writhing even harder in the grips of the reapers, “Only praise for the greatest Marluxia!”

Marluxia smiled, radiating arrogance and a smug pride that, were you not paralyzed with fear, would make you roll your eyes and electrocute all that pretty hair of his into a pile of singed, blackened crisps at his feet.

“I feel your love, dear one,” he said, as he ran a finger under the dusk’s chin. The dusk stopped struggling, calming a little at his ministrations and forgiveness. “But I can’t have one bad apple spoiling the bunch. It would look incredibly weak of me to leave you be when others have believed you actively spoke against me.”

The dusk began to writhe uncontrollably again, realizing there would be no mercy here. You almost felt bad for it. It obviously felt fear. But it was not your friend just because it didn’t align with your enemy. You saw no need to step in for its defense.

Just as well, you didn’t want Vanitas to see you. You were dead as far as any of them knew, and that was what you wanted.

“Hold on to him for a moment while I speak to our guests,” he said to the reapers. They stood back, holding the dusk while Vanitas looked at it, radiating an almost tangible pleasure from watching it writhe.

“You know Xemnas’s goals. He would have you stabilize this world. After all, a world without a heart and inhabited by darkness was not bound to last very long. You ought to know this von Drake, your artificial world fell after a meager 20 years. But this world, while not artificial is still corruptible without its heart. It doesn’t help that all its inhabitants reside in darkness in one way or another. Unlike those of us human nobodies, a nobody world won’t last long in darkness. That’s why we can’t dally in our plans.”

“You hardly have us striving towards that, standing around out here,” Gyro said with a bored tone.

“I know, but I want you to know about how your research will help a pet project of mine.”

Marluxia walked over to the nearest wall and placed his hand on a pad. It scanned it before flashing green. The wall began to part revealing nothing but darkness. All was still and quiet, except for Vanitas whose attention was now glued to where the door had just been. His thumb was idly tapping on his thigh as he stood there racked with anticipation and barely contained excitement.

Marluxia gestured for the nobodies to step forward, and they did, dragging their charge forward. It writhed even harder than before to no avail.

You watched with anticipation, eyes scanning the dark abyss that had opened to you. But you could see nothing. Was this it? Just a dark corridor from which no light escaped?

Then a large, dark pink blade extended from the darkness, glinting slightly. It was enormous, dwarfing everyone in the room. It pierced the ground with a resounding thud that shook the area around it. You could feel the vibrations from across the room where you were. Another blade appeared, opposite of the first, striking the ground with just as much force as before.

Then there was a horrible dragging sound. It was something large, but the sound vaguely reminded you of a heavy metal object grinding over rocks and debris. It was loud and grating but not as attention grabbing as the hooded, mannequin-like face that peered out of the darkness next. It was blank and expressionless and definitely hanging in the uncanny valley range of creepy.

You realized that it had scythes for hands like Uh-Oa, and that it had likely used them to drag itself forward.

You peered at it in mild horror before looking at your companions who had significantly shrunk away from it, all hiding behind Gyro and peering around him to look at the creature. Then your horror was gone. Replaced by something else. Your anger had returned to you, and you stood to your feet.

Marluxia’s threat was clear, and the dusk was going to serve as a convenient demonstration to them about why they should not speak out of turn.

Marluxia snapped his fingers, and the reapers threw the dusk forward. Just as it stood to scramble away from the beast, the creature snapped its mouth open. Its jaw was unnaturally wide, hanging far lower than any jaw ought to be able to. Thorny vines sprung out, wrapping themselves around the limbs, torso and neck of the dusk.

It squeezed with a sickening crunch and snapping sound, as the thorns ground and snapped against each other when they ground against each other as its grip tightened. Little rivulets of steam drifted up from its body, and you could only assume those vines were burning it.

You’d never heard a dusk scream until that moment. It was a horrible, wretched sound, a shrill cry that sounded like a wounded or dying animal. It frightened you as much as it saddened you.

Then the creature ripped the dusk apart, the scream of the dusk cut off with a quick, stomach-turning gurgle.

The creature, still holding the body of the dusk, which now dripped blood on the floor, staining it a dark red, retracted its vines, consuming the body – not appearing to chew or swallow it. It was just…

Gone….

All that was left was a small floating, glowing fragment not unlike the ones that you saw in the previous room. Marluxia stored it in the container he brought with him.

“Specter, my pet,” he said, talking to your friends and family, “Is one of the most important parts of this operation. It has the unique ability to consume the vessel around one’s heart while leaving the heart behind and intact, and yet the victim can’t be recompleted. You could destroy the nobody and the heartless, and yet it simply ceases to be.”

He let out a little hum of approval as he gazed at Specter. Then he turned back to the birds, a sterner look on his face.

“I’d like to see it with its heart soon enough. Is that clear?”

The birds nodded silently.

 “Good.”

Marluxia seemed pleased with that answer. Then Vanitas’s body seemed to stiffen, like he was sensing something for the first time. His head swiveled in your direction just as you squeezed closer to the pillar you were hiding behind. You prayed he didn’t see you. You weren’t sure you were ready to face him. Given the one-sided battle the two of you had the first time you met, you weren’t sure you could face him.

“Something the matter Vanitas?” Marluxia asked, looking in the same direction.

“I feel something,” he said. He took a step in your direction, and you heard them slowly getting closer. That was when another corridor opened, not far from where you were.

Vanitas stopped, and everyone waited to see who would come through.

It was Axel, already armed and looking like he wasn’t about to put up with anymore bullshit today. He hadn’t seen you yet as you were just out of his line of sight. But he found you through your shared heart connection. He knew you were there. He knew from the small amount of panic you had just felt and incidentally sent him that you were in trouble.

“Oh. It’s just you,” Vanitas said, tone going from interested to bored, “Here to avenge your little girlfriend?”

You could almost hear the smug arrogance in his voice. Axel didn’t respond, just continued to glare at him. Vanitas laughed darkly.

“Was her phone not enough to remember her by? How about this? I’ll leave you with a little memory of her. Well it’s really a fond memory I had. I grabbed her by her neck when I was about to fling her down on that planet. And I felt all those beautiful negative emotions of hers. She was confused and angry and scared. And with the way I was holding her? It felt incredibly intimate,” he purred.

Axel still didn’t say anything, but you could feel the heat coming off of him in waves from where you were. You shuddered at Vanitas’s words, it felt strangely violating to have your emotions played out for you like that. And to hear him enjoying them in a voice that could honestly only be described as aroused made you feel sick to your stomach.

Axel just glared, controlling his breathing so as not to set himself ablaze already.

Vanitas just stared back, absorbing all of the negative emotion until he’d had his fill.

“Well I’m needed elsewhere,” he said finally, still sounding far too pleased with himself, “I’ll let you two talk. I’m sure you have a lot to say to each other.”

And with that Vanitas disappeared into his own corridor of darkness.

“I’d say that it’s good to see you again, Axel, but I imagine this is another attempt to foil my plans.”

Axel let out a dry chuckle.

“You know me a little too well. I’m here for the birds. So are you gonna hand ‘em over, or do I have to kick your ass again?”

“I believe it was Sora who did me in last time.”

“Believe me, I was going to. I have to admit though. I’m surprised you brought out that old thing considering the last time you used it, it was bested by a child.”

Marluxia seemed hardly phased by his words.

“Yes, well, when our little collaboration is done here, I think you’ll find it much harder to beat. Once it has a heart it ought to be near unstoppable,” Marluxia said coolly, an easy smile on his face.

Axel sounded different, using a tone you hadn’t heard since you’d threatened Demyx the day you asked him where he got that coat. He was cold and calculating, and oddly enough, it matched the image of him in your head now.

“Well as much as I’m looking forward to our little rematch, I don’t have time for it.”

“Well I’m not leaving without them,” Axel said, head nodding in the directions of the birds.

Marluxia chuckled.

“You’re not leaving at all,” he said, giving a snap of his fingers. Specter snapped its jaw open, vines whipping out at almost an immeasurable speed and restraining Axel.

It didn’t matter what qualms you had with Axel then. All that mattered was that he was in danger, and you would never let anything happen to him.

“No!” you cried, keyblade already in hand, ready to cut the vines as they held him. He was lucky he wore a thick leather coat, so the acid on the vines didn’t burn him. And you were lucky too. Because the vines restrained you as well before you could cut them, but your armor kept the burning acid at bay.

Marluxia seemed surprised, blinking at your sudden appearance. Then he regained his composure as quick as he lost it.

“You’re alive,” he breathed. “You’re lucky Vanitas didn’t see you. He’s not keen on targets escaping him – especially if they’re supposed to be dead. I’m happy to have you here though. I’ve a proposition for you.”

“And why would I agree to anything you say after what you’ve done?”

“Hm?” he seemed legitimately confused by this, “Oh. Right. The two of you have a little bond going don’t you?”

He waved his hand and the vines dropped you and Axel. You gave a small glance in his direction, instinctively checking to make sure he was okay before you ran to the scientists you called friends and family. They wrapped you up in a hug, happy to see you again.

“She seems more relieved that they’re okay than she does with you, Axel.”

Axel didn’t say anything, just approached where all of you were with a stony glare never leaving Marluxia in case he tried anything.

“I’m not surprised,” Marluxia continued, “I mean. You knew about this from the start.”

Your posture stiffened.

You turned to look at Marluxia, keyblade ready in case he tried to attack.

“I mean when I thought she was dead I couldn’t fathom why anyone would come for them. But now that I see that she’s alive, I see why you would. But… I can’t for the life of me fathom why you wouldn’t have told her already. You knew our world was her world’s nobody. You knew that without a heart it was unstable. You knew Xemnas would be coming for the only other person who might know how to solve this problem.”

“You knew this whole time,” you whispered so quietly Axel almost missed it.

Axel was silent, eyes still not leaving Marluxia – though his gaze had lost some of its ferocity. Marluxia was still looking at you, studying you.

“He also knew about Xemnas – Xehanort’s nobody. And if I’m not mistaken, you’ve got quite a beef with Xehanort don’t you? He took your home. Your true home. The reason you’re one of the only survivors of a broken and dead world. You lost your family, your friends.”

“Everything,” you finished weakly, voice breaking. Your keyblade lowered minutely.

“He’s playing you,” Axel said quietly.

“Yeah, well, for all I know you might be in that boat too.”

Axel nearly flinched.

“My proposition is that you help me bring down Xemnas. You get to take down the nobody of your world, and I get rid of a thorn in my side.”

“You were going to hurt my family. You threatened them with that thing,” you hissed, eyes flicking in the direction of Specter, who waited for instruction, face emotionless and blank eyes staring at nothing.

“I understand your concern, but you have to know that I’m under a lot of pressure. Lives are at stake here, and I don’t just mean your family’s. There’s mine and the lives of countless others.”

“That’s not an excuse for abuse,” you snapped. How dare this prick try to justify the abuse of your family and friends. Marluxia gazed at you skeptically with a hint of amusement glinting over his features.

“You mean to tell me you’ve never hurt someone under a moment of extreme stress or pressure.”

Horace.

You didn’t answer.

“I thought so,” Marluxia said, not quite sounding condescending so much as sympathetic in a way. Like he was trying to justify your actions to you as well. You didn’t like that. You knew you shouldn’t have punched Horace. But you were just so angry!

But that wasn’t an excuse. And neither was his reasoning either.

“Didn’t make it right,” you ground out.

“I’m sorry I mistook you for someone who was a good person at heart. I thought you’d do whatever it took to bring back your world – like a keyblade wielder who wants to protect the universe from darkness.”

You didn’t respond.

“And it’s not like I’ve lied about anything. I told your friends that I fully intended to take down Xemnas, and that’s what I plan on doing. Not like Axel over there – someone you’ve trusted your life and the life of those you care about – who has been lying to you since the beginning. Even after he left the Organization for you, he still didn’t tell you the truth. I think he wanted earn your trust sure and maybe get close enough to you to settle some more, ahem, base desires he couldn’t get here.”

Marluxia looked you up and down. You didn’t like what he was implying. And you wanted to refute it, say Axel wasn’t so sleazy as to just want to fuck you whenever he felt like it. But he hadn’t even told you about something so important.

You didn’t know what Axel’s endgame was at this point.

“Axel wouldn’t do that to me?” you defended, trying to keep it together, but it came out more uncertain that you had intended. Did you really question that to be true or not? That your best friend was just using you and wasn’t actually your best friend?

“Are you sure?” Marluxia asked with a smirk in Axel’s direction.

“I would never hurt her,” Axel snapped. He was beyond furious at this point but knew better than to attempt to attack Marluxia while Specter was present. He couldn’t risk you getting hurt.

“Look at her face,” Marluxia said, gesturing to you. Your face was a mixture of anger, confusion, and hurt. “It looks like you already did.”

Axel cast a glance at you and found he couldn’t pull his eyes away when he saw how you looked. And he knew he was the cause of it.

“________,” he started.

“Shut. Up.”

You didn’t want to hear it.

“I’m taking my family back home,” you said, directing this statement at Marluxia.

“And leaving behind everything that could bring back your world?”

You stared him down for a moment, actually considering his words.

“Alright,” you said finally, “I’ll help you.”

Marluxia smiled, and everyone around you looked crestfallen.

“On one condition,” you said, holding up a finger before pointing at the scientists huddled behind you. “Each and every one of them has to agree to it. If even one turns it down, we’re leaving.”

Marluxia looked a tad surprised, then angry. He knew what they would say just as well as you did. He’d forgotten to account for the fact that you would put their well-being first before your own desires.

“But if they say no, you’ll be out of luck for your world,” Marluxia countered, still looking displeased.

“I’ll find a way. With or without your help. Well?” you asked, glancing over your shoulder. There was an array of “no’s” all thrown your way, layering over each other. Seemed they weren’t so keen to cooperate with Marluxia when they knew they had you and Axel to stand between whatever abuse he could dish out.

Axel opened up a corridor behind the scientists and they all scurried in.

“We’re done here,” he said to Marluxia, backing out, not daring to turn his back on Marluxia. As soon as Axel was through the corridor, you began to back in too, eyes not leaving Marluxia’s scowling face.

Then Marluxia smirked.

“Pity,” he said. Then you blinked and he was in front of you. Though you could have sworn he didn’t move. Though he was right there in front of you, looking down at you with a look of disdain and disappointment. And you felt… off…. “What a waste.”

You felt weirdly numb at the core of your body.

You placed your hand over the spot where you felt numb.

And you felt the leather of the cloak you wore as well as cool metal, contrasted by a steady flow of something warm and wet coursing over your fingers. You looked down, seeing the end of a bright pink scythe lodged firmly in your upper abdomen.

Marluxia yanked the weapon out of you, and you stumbled a bit, registering that it tore a rather large hole in the garment. Then he turned and walked away from you as you stumbled back into the corridor, barely registering the movement, feeling a pull at your center as you stumbled through.

Your back hit the floor of your destination, head hitting the ground with a sickening crack as you stared up at the ceiling. Your hand was still firmly placed over the wound that was staining the cloak and one of the dresses your mother bought you that you wore underneath.

For a few seconds no one knew how to react when they saw you, bleeding heavily from a wound that hadn’t been there only moments ago and disintegrating slowly as your being was pulled by the darkness of the corridor from the opening in your cloak.

Axel reacted first, closing the corridor, and sighing with mild relief as your body reassembled itself. But it was short lived because you were still mortally wounded.

You don’t know what happened after that. You passed out.

Notes:

Well that could have gone better....

Anyway! Comments and kudos give me the very breath I breathe! Thank you for all of your support thus far! I'll see you all on Thursday with a fresh, new chapter!

Chapter 35: Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!

Summary:

Axel and you have another difficult discussion, this one a bit more difficult than the others now that all the secrets are out in the open. Namine and Demyx tell you what the next plan of action for them is. Xemnas, Saix, Marluxia, and Vanitas are not pleased.

Notes:

Hey guys! Update came a little late in the day but here it is!

You awoke to the sound of the steady beat of a heart monitor.

You felt sluggish and tired, like your body weighed a million pounds and you could scarcely bear to lift it. So you lay there with your eyes closed, focusing on that noise until your body felt a bit stronger.

It was a minute later when you registered a weight on your hand.

You cracked an eye open, glancing beside you. There was Axel, hand holding yours, his face buried in his other arm while he snored quietly. It was cute.

You started to smile.

Then you remembered.

Your smile morphed into a grimace. Your chest felt heavy now. Already tears were springing to your eyes, and your heart was breaking.

You pulled your hand away from his, and this was enough to cause him to stir. He looked up to see you, eyes open and breathing. He felt immense relief, but…. You looked like you were in pain.

“Does anything hurt? I can call a doctor to get you some medicine?” he said lowly.

“I’m fine,” you said, a few tears slipping down your cheeks. “Why did you lie to me?”

Axel was quiet for a moment and then sighed.

“________, let’s talk about this later after you’ve recovered.”

“No!” you snapped, pissed that he would even suggest that, “We’ll talk about it now or I’m never speaking to you again!”

Axel blinked then frowned. You were being childish. He rolled his eyes.

“Fine,” he huffed, “What do you want to know?”

“I already asked. Why did you lie to me?!” you snapped, raising your voice.

“I didn’t lie to you!” he said, raising his voice back.

“Well you sure as hell didn’t tell me everything you knew, so you may as well have fucking lied to me!”

“I did it for you!”

“How did you lie for me?! That doesn’t even make sense! You smiled in my face every day knowing damn well who and what I should be looking for, and you didn’t say a damn thing!”

“Because you’re just bull-headed enough to rush into danger thinking you can solve a problem you’re not strong enough to handle!”

“So you back me up, you dick! You’re my best friend! You don’t keep shit like that from me!”

“If I told you everything I knew then you’d be dead already because you’re just stupid enough to get into that sort of trouble! I was trying to protect you!”

“Well great fucking job, Axel! I’ve never been better! I just have a fucking hole in my chest!”

“I didn’t intend for you to get hurt!”

“Well when you keep things like that from me what do think is going to happen?! If you had told me, maybe we could have prevented it at least! But you’re so damn selfish!”

“How am I selfish for trying to help you?!”

“Everything you kept from me has everything to do with the entire population of Beastly Kingdom. At what point does one person become worth more than that?!”

“Dammit, Roxas, I am not losing you to some stupid, self-righteous cause again!”

The two of you froze.

Now you had other questions. Self-conscious ones.

“Am… am I just another Roxas to you?” you asked, worried that you hadn’t actually made a place in his heart for yourself but rather were just a place holder for someone else.

Axel let out another sigh, this one wearier than the first.

“No, ________,” he said lowly, “You’re you and I’ve never seen you as anyone but you. I just don’t want to lose you like I lost him. Whatever connection we share runs deeper than just friendship and we both know it.”

You did know it. And you weren’t sure that you should really share that connection anymore.

“Maybe that’s the problem,” you said quietly.

“What’s the problem?”

“I think,” you began, swallowing back tears and the sudden urge to back out of your next decision, “We should take some time apart from each other. And maybe we shouldn’t pursue each other romantically anymore.”

There was silence all around the two of you, and it was deafening.

“Be reasonable, _________,” Axel said, sounding like he was stuck between anger and devastation. His heart might very well be breaking.

“I am being reasonable,” you said more firmly, “This is the third time you’ve kept something from me. The first was when I first met you, and we weren’t friends then, so I can’t really hold that against you. The second was when we were friends and it took an almost successful attempt on my life for you to open up to me. And, supposedly, that was everything. But now my family is involved. Your actions put them in danger of losing their lives. They and my mother are all I have left of my life before. I can’t lose them. I should have been less trusting of you when we first met and after you told me what you did on Animal Kingdom, a bunch of red flags should have gone up, but I was blinded by my own selfish feelings.”

Axel didn’t respond. What could he say?

“You cloud my judgment, Axel. And until I can figure myself out and know that you won’t continue to be a danger to my health or the health of my family and that I can think past myself, I don’t want to see you anymore.”

There was a long, drawn out silence. You felt more tears slipping down your face. Axel felt a few slip down his own face, but he wasn’t sure if it was his own heart causing them or yours.

He still felt like this wasn’t right.

“Okay,” he said quietly, “I still don’t think we have to do this, and we could work it out, but I’ll respect your wishes. If you need me just call,” he said placing a hand over his heart.

He stood up and walked to the door, shutting it quietly behind him.

You grabbed your pillow and let out a scream of frustration that quickly morphed into sobs. It took everything you had not to run after him or beg him not to go or say you didn’t mean it and that you wanted him with you always like you were going to when he took you to the beach to eat that yellow together forever destiny fruit. But he was gone now, and you knew, despite your personal feelings for him, that it was a decision you had to make.

When you finally calmed down, there was a soft knock at the door. In poked the head of a cartoon cow, peering around the door to check on you. You wiped your face quickly.

“Uh, if you’re feeling up to it,” she said, looking concernedly at your tear-streaked face that you were still drying, “You have other visitors.”

She stepped fully into the room and handed you a box of tissues.

“Thank you,” you said weakly, noting the name on her nametag read “Clarabelle.” “You can send them in. I’m fine.”

She gave a firm nod before exiting the room. A few seconds later, Demyx and Namine entered the room, almost running across the room to hug you. It made you feel instantly better.

“Where’s Axel?” Demyx asked, glancing around the room, “He’s been here for like a week straight. He didn’t move except to like shower and use the bathroom.”

You shifted uncomfortably.

“We had a fight,” you admitted rather sheepishly, “I told him that I needed to figure some things out, and while I did, I didn’t want to see him anymore.”

“What? Why?” Demyx asked, seemingly alarmed.

“Well this isn’t the first time he kept something from me, and now that it’s endangered somebody besides me, I have to think about whether or not it’s even a good idea to have him around anymore.”

“You obviously don’t want him out of your life, ________,” Namine said softly, placing a hand on yours.

“I don’t,” you admitted, “But whenever he’s around, practically all that matters is him. And I have more to think about besides just what I want. I’m a keyblade wielder. I can’t just think about what I want anymore.”

A beat passed before you asked another hard question.

“Did the two of you know about all of this too?”

“No,” Namine answered softly, “I knew the Organization wouldn’t want another keyblade wielder around that they couldn’t control, but I didn’t know they would come after your family or that they had the information you needed to save your world.”

Demyx squirmed uncomfortably.

“I did know, but I told Axel to tell you. I thought it would sound better coming from him because I know how close the two of you are.”

How close the two of you were.

You nodded quietly. So they were more or less off the hook. That didn’t stop you from being the least bit upset with them, but it was enough that you could ignore it.

Then another thought occurred to you.

“Did you say I was out for a week?!”

Demyx and Namine nodded.

“Ugh,” you groaned, “Riku must hate me. This is like the second time I had to cancel on him because of work related injury. And it’s not even cancelling. At this point I’m pretty sure he just thinks I’m throwing myself in harm’s way to avoid being a keyblade wielder.”

You friends laughed at your drama. Some friends. But you smiled, nonetheless.

“Riku will understand,” Namine reassured you with a soft smile, “And I know it isn’t really of my business, but you should consider this about the whole Axel situation: If the roles were reversed and you thought he was in danger, you wouldn’t hesitate to do the same thing.”

You were taken aback by the statement, and you very much wanted to get angry and desperately refute the very true statement, but… You couldn’t. It was true. You could even remember that despite the fact that you were certain you couldn’t trust him, you jumped at the chance to keep him safe when Specter had him wrapped in acidic vines.

So you didn’t say anything, just nodded quietly.

“We’re leaving by the way,” Demyx said, changing the subject. “Since it’s not safe here anymore because of Marluxia, we decided to go to Hollow Bastion. Ludwig got in contact with a guy name Leon and they said they’d put us up for a while since we’re all on the same side and all that.”

“We’ve been packing while you were here, but we didn’t want to leave until we all had a chance to say goodbye,” Namine finished.

“I’ll be sure to visit when I can,” you said rather forlornly. You actually had no idea how busy being a keyblade wielder would be. If it was anything like things had been lately, you doubted you’d have much time to work with.

“We’ll visit you too,” Demyx assured you with a bright smile on his face.

There was a soft knock on the door, and Namine and Demyx took this as their cue to leave.

“We’ll let you get some rest now,” Namine said softly, “Come see us off when you’re feeling better, okay?”

You nodded and promised you would.

As they left, a new figure appeared. He could not have been taller than your Uncle von Drake, with the two perfectly round ears topping his head. An Organization hood covered his face as he stepped in.

“Um,” you said, not feeling particularly threatened that he was a danger despite the coat, “I didn’t know the Organization had toons in their little group.”

“They don’t,” he said, pulling the hood off of his head to reveal a very friendly face that you doubted ever looked even remotely frightening, “I’m just cautious of darkness.”

There was probably more to it than that, but you doubted he came to see you just to tell you about his preferred methods of keeping darkness at bay.

“And you are?” you asked.

“King Mickey of Disney Town,” he responded. You blinked. As much as you’d heard about the king and queen of Disney Town and as many times as you’d been there, at no point had you ever seen, let alone met, one of them face to face.

“O-oh?”

“Were you expecting something different?”

In Disney Town? Probably not.

“I guess not,” you shrugged, “I suppose after all I’ve seen, nothing should really surprise me anymore. It’s nice to finally meet you. Is there something I can help you with? Because if so I have to get in contact with my teacher whose first lesson I have already missed twice.”

“No, no,” he said with a smile, “I just wanted to meet the new keyblade wielder. There aren’t many that are left. So far you’re number _ of _.”

“Really? I mean, I could have guessed they weren’t all that common anymore, but I didn’t think that there were so few.”

“The keyblade war took most of them. Why? Did you know others?”

“Well yes and no. The ones I’ve met had already passed on and dedicated their afterlives to protecting the guardian of their world and its heart.”

Mickey blinked.

“I feel like you’ve got quite a story to tell. Would you mind telling me?”

“It’s pretty long, but if you’ve got the time….”

Mickey pulled up a chair.

“Start from the beginning.”

You recounted tales of your life starting from the destruction of your home to the journey through the mind to leading a rescue at Disney Town to meeting Yen Sid to your survival on a foreign planet to your victory over the guardian of a world to the kidnapping and subsequent rescue of your friends and family.

It took a few hours to actually retell it all. When you were done, you felt exhausted, as if you had relived every moment up to this point.

Mickey leaned back in his chair, exhaling through his mouth in a huff as if he’d just lived through it all as well. He looked at you.

“You’ve, uh, you’ve certainly had a time of it,” he said, “I have to admit that I’m rather impressed at the strides you’ve made on your own and with the help of your friends. But I also have to warn you that it’ll always be like this. There will be times you won’t see your home anywhere from days to weeks to years. From what I understand, Sora hasn’t been home since he started this journey. I need to know that you’re prepared to accept this responsibility.”

“Yes,” you said, fiddling with the sheet of your bed, “I figured it would be like that. Things haven’t really calmed down since they started.”

“It’ll be hectic, and some days will feel worse than others. You have to take comfort in the small things – like being able to see sunrises on all the worlds you’ll be on, learning of new and exciting cultures with beautiful worlds, and knowing that you’ll have friends and family helping you on your journey.”

You smiled. You did love all of those things that you’d experienced thus far.

“Speaking of friends,” Mickey began sheepishly, “You mentioned about the connection between you and Axel.”

“What about it?” you asked slowly.

“To form a heart connection that strong demonstrates no small amount of intimacy and understanding. He may have gone about it in a bad way, but he did have your best interest at heart. People who will stick by you as close as he does don’t come around as often. And I know you have Namine and Demyx, but Axel is a good friend. And hearts don’t connect so easy. If there’s a person that even once you share a complete understanding with enough to have that connection, then they’re a valuable person in your life. And if the two of you can find and feel each other through your hearts, I don’t doubt that your relationship goes deeper than what you’ve given it credit for.”

Mickey hopped up from his seat.

“It’s just something to think about,” he said, pushing the chair back to its original spot. He turned to leave but then turned back to you. “Oh I almost forgot. They stitched you up pretty good, but potions are always a good quick fix when you don’t have a doctor on hand.”

He handed you a potion, and you downed it immediately. It was weird and tingly, like somehow being able to bottle up and swallow flavored static electricity. But then you felt all bubbly and tingly as it healed your wounds and finished closing them up.

“That ought to guarantee you to be up and out of here in a day or two. Also when you don’t have potions,” he said, taking your hand, “A little magic never hurts.”

You felt a similar tingle to the one the potion gave you shoot up your arm.

“It’s the knowledge of healing magic,” Mickey explained, “Now I’m sure you’ll be unstoppable. But you have to practice if you want to heal anything large like a broken bone, so I’d keep some potions on you just in case.”

You nodded.

“Thank you,” you said, a little excited at the prospect of new magic, “I have to say that I can’t tell you how many times I wished I ‘d had this before.”

Mickey laughed.

You let the healing magic swirl around your fingers a bit.

“It feels like light magic,” you noted quietly.

“It’s a special healing light magic. A bit different from other healing magics. Get some rest, ________. Riku will be waiting for you at your first training spot in a few days.”

“Hey, one more thing,” you started, “I spent quite a bit of time trying to get a hold of you. Do you have a phone number or something I could use to contact you more easily?”

“Sure,” he said, already pulling out a phone to exchange numbers with you.

Just as he was about to exit the room, your uncle burst in, tears dripping from his face in comically fat drops.

“Oh, Ludwig,” Mickey said, giving him a pat on the back, “It’s alright. The doctors said she’d live.”

“What?” Ludwig asked, tears coming to a halt as he looked between you and Mickey with no small amount of confusion on his face. “I’m not crying about her.”

Wow ok rude.

“I’m crying because I have to leave my beautiful home again!” he said, starting a new stream of tears and all but wailing into Mickey’s shoulder as he clung to him.

Both you and the king rolled your eyes, while he gave Ludwig some comforting pats on the back. Still, you felt a little bad for him. It couldn’t have been easy to leave your home for twenty years and as soon as you’re able to live in it again have to leave for your own safety.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Ludwig said between sniffles, “There’s someone here to see you.”

Another visitor?

Mickey gently pushed Ludwig off of him so he could get the door. As soon as he cracked it open, a flood of people came into the room. He had to back up quickly to avoid being trampled as all the people you’d met and friends you’d made in Disney Town thus far were now suddenly in your room – Gyro, Fenton in his Gizmo Duck suit, Professor Owl, Dreamfinder, Figment, Manny the Robot all patched up from your last encounter with him, Woodlore the park ranger who’d arrested your uncle and the bear he worked with, the banker you’d helped, several of the citizens you’d saved the day Manny went berserk, Officer Bonkers, Panchito, Jose, Chip & Dale, and even Benny the Cab who crashed through the wall just to be able to get into the room. Namine and Demyx came back into the room as well.

And to your mild disappointment, despite the fact that it was exactly what you asked for, Axel did not. You didn’t know where he was.

“We came to see you off,” Fenton said, as they all crowded around you, “And look! I wore the suit! I know you’re a fan of the suit!”

You laughed.

“Thank you,” you said between giggles, “And, yes, I like the suit.”

“Hmm. I expected your boyfriend to be here,” Gyro mentioned, noting that the one person you were joined to the hip with was not in the room, “Going through a rough patch?”

You shifted uncomfortably under the gaze of your friends.

“Yeah, something like that,” you muttered, not refuting the fact so vehemently that Axel wasn’t your boyfriend. It made you feel worse than you needed to especially since before the whole ordeal you were about to take a dramatic step in your relationship and eat a fruit that very much meant “together forever.”

“Well regardless, we’re here to make all your troubles vanish!” Fenton replied, redirecting the conversation to a happier note. Gyro muttered something about that being an unrealistic goal to set, but it when ignored.

“Looks like you’ve made quite a few friends in your journey,” Mickey mused with a smile. You laughed at their antics. You’d miss this place, but you knew coming back anytime soon, or at least before Marluxia was taken care of, would be a bad idea – too much of a risk.

You noticed Horace standing near the back of the crowd, a black eye shining as bright as the smile on his face. You winced.

“I’m sorry I punched you, Horace,” you said, looking down sadly.

“Oh it’s alright. I’m just glad you didn’t say anything to Clarabelle,” he said waving it off.

“Horace, is that you in there?” you heard Clarabelle’s voice coming from the hall. Horace looked nervous, searching for an exit that wasn’t the door Clarabelle was about to come through.

“Ah geez I thought you were cool! You weren’t supposed to tell her!” he said before climbing up to the vents of your room and leaving before you could tell him you hadn’t said anything. Clarabelle walked in, looked around, saw no sign of Horace, shrugged, and left.

You all shared another laugh.

“It’s really sweet of all of you to visit me like this,” you said around a cough, “But could someone open the windows. The rooms filling with Benny’s exhaust fumes.”

Everyone laughed as Mickey opened the two windows on the far side of the room.

“You have Crazy Eddie’s famous Philly cheesesteak, and we’ll see what fumes come out of your bum,” Benny countered good-naturedly.

You let out a little chuckle.

“Is something wrong?” Mickey asked when he noticed your mood wasn’t as high as it probably could be considering all your friends came to see you.

“It’s funny,” you said, “Despite everything, part of me wishes Axel were here.”

“Anyway,” Fenton continued, “We wanted to give you a proper Disney Town sendoff.”

He pulled out a pitch pipe and blew a quick note into it before everyone in the room took a deep breath to sing, “Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!”

It was a song you knew well enough that your uncle used to sing to you on particularly bad days. It never did much to improve your mood, but you like that he thought of you enough to cheer you up. You briefly wondered if this really was a “Disney Town sendoff” or if it were something he’d told them to do. Regardless, you were happy to see all your friends.

Outside the window on the ground, Axel stood waiting on Namine, Demyx, and Ludwig so they could finish packing up, listening as all of the toons sang to you, hearing you admit that you missed him. His heart let out a little pang of hurt, and he felt yours do it too.

~

If Marluxia had a heart it would be in his throat. He was nervous to say the least.

Xemnas stood before him, golden yellow eyes boring into his own which betrayed no emotion. He didn’t want Xemnas to see his weakness.

“Explain,” he commanded. It was a simple command with an underlying threat. If the excuse wasn’t good, he was as good as gone in this scenario – and gone for Xemnas could mean a number of unpleasant things.

“They didn’t escape so much as they were rescued,” Marluxia answered carefully. It was imperative that Xemnas know that he had nothing to do with the disappearance of the duck or his companions.

“Sora?” Saix guessed from where he stood just behind Xemnas, an eyebrow quirked.

“No,” Marluxia replied, fighting off a smile as he said his next words, “The other one. The one you sent Vanitas to take care of.”

“I see,” Saix answered, a frown settling on his face, though not directed at Marluxia this time.

Marluxia didn’t mention that he’d sent the keyblade wielder home with a pretty bad wound of his own. If she survived plummeting several thousand feet to the surface of a planet, it might be too optimistic to assume those scientists hadn’t saved her from dying either.

And who knew what potions or healing magics she might have had? Better to assume she would continue to be a thorn in his side. Better to not have to take the blame if she popped up and interfered with Xemnas’s plans again.

Xemnas continued to study his face. Marluxia remained stone faced and unflinching under his gaze.

“I will speak with Vanitas,” he finally concluded, turning to leave, Saix following behind him like the loyal lap dog he was.

Once they were well enough away from him and out of earshot, Marluxia let out a yell of frustration, punching the wall beside him and attacking it with his scythe leaving behind deep, angry gouges.

He was so close to having it all but then she had to interfere. It didn’t have to be a bad thing, but then she wouldn’t side with him.

Twenty minutes and several more angry attacks on inanimate objects later, a keyblade zoomed passed his head in a blur and embedded itself in the wall.

Then Marluxia was shoved roughly against the wall, the rough texture digging into his face.

“You’re a liar,” the voice growled next to his ear. Marluxia was slammed into the wall again, and he just took it. He was no match for Vanitas. “She’s dead.”

Marluxia chuckled darkly.

“Would you believe me if I told you she was in the room with us when Axel showed up. That she’d been there the whole time and only came out when she thought Axel was in danger?”

Vanitas let go of his throat and yanked his keyblade out of the wall.

“I don’t know where she is now,” Marluxia continued, “But if she’s still living out of Twilight Town, you could probably track her from there.”

Notes:

I'll see ya next time for the next brand new world we visit!

Obscure-ish References for those who don't know about Specter from Chain of Memories (also the song the toons sing):

Specter: https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Specter_(Kingdom_Hearts)

Smile Darn Ya Smile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMr7NUqEzVc

Chapter 36: Axel's Being Pissy

Summary:

New world to explore!

Notes:

So the old vernacular of my grandmother and the stories she used to tell me is a little... hard to understand. So I did my best to make it more understandable. So I hope it's all good and sounds legit.

This was awkward. Well maybe it only felt that way on your end.

It was just supposed to be a simple and quick goodbye. That’s it. So why, when you were approaching your friends – at a rather slow pace that only slowed more with your heightening anxiety – were you so nervous to see Axel standing there pointedly ignoring you? This is what you asked for. You said he clouded your judgment. And he did. But maybe you were too harsh on him?

You wanted to try and probe around his heart to see how he really felt, but that felt like an invasion of privacy. Plus you’d asked for this, and, honestly, you were a little afraid of whether or not he’d be able to feel you doing it.

You looked at him again to find him looking at you, expression blank. Then bored. You looked away quickly and tried to keep all expression off of your face to show that it didn’t hurt as much as it did. It wasn’t excruciating, but still. You must have really hurt his feelings if he was giving the same masks he gave you when you first met. You didn’t even realize how open he was with you until now when you couldn’t read him anymore.

Of course, it didn’t matter how well you could read him anymore. The two of you were just friends. And after what you’d said in the hospital, just friends you would remain.

You tried not to let that bother you. But boy did it fucking bother you. You’d only said that out of hurt and anger. Was it too late to take it back? Though he seemed thoroughly pissed with you. So probably.

He did put my family and friends in danger for his own interest. Granted his interests is me, but I can’t replace my family. And if that dusk hadn’t been there to serve as Marluxia’s example for Specter, I might be short one friend or family member.

Your anger flared up at that. You had to stay strong in your resolve.

But…

He was Axel. He was your best friend. And you were pretty crazy about him. How do you just… stop everything? The feelings, the memories, everything….

You were suddenly bombarded by your own memories. Dancing with him on Animal Kingdom and again on the stage he brought you to. Watching the aurora borealis. Literally about to promise to a future of forever with him….

Little pinpricks of tears popped up in your eyes that you could not tell if it were anger or sadness. You didn’t even know who to direct your emotions towards. Him? Yourself? Marluxia? You hid your impending breakdown behind a bright smile directed at everyone else there to say goodbye to you.

You opened up your arms wide to give Namine the biggest hug you could. Goodness knows you needed it.

“Aww, ________, you’ll be visiting before you know it!” Namine soothed you. Your tears unhidden but their meaning well concealed. See Axel? You’re not the only one who can mask your emotions!

“I know,” you said with as chipper a voice as you could manage, “You won’t be rid of me that easy. I’ll text you all when I get there okay?”

You moved on to Demyx next.

“He’ll come around,” he said lowly enough for you to hear, and you tightened your hug.

“It’s my fault he’s like that in the first place,” you said quietly, and a little bitterly.

“Hey,” he said holding you out at arm’s length, “He’s not totally innocent in this either.”

He looked at Axel, and you looked too. He wasn’t looking at any of you, gaze far away and looking at the sky.

“He’ll come around,” Demyx said again, doing his best to reassure you.

You gave him a grateful smile before moving on to Dreamfinder and Figment who wasted no time in covering you in hugs and tears, sobbing noisily into your shoulder in an overdramatic display that had you giggling just a bit under your breath.

“You have everything you need?” Dreamfinder asked, wiping at tears on his face.

You looked at down at yourself. You only had a satchel of potions, an emergency change of clothes, and a sandwich. You didn’t think you’d need anything else. Your next destination didn’t feel too far away. Definitely closer than Animal Kingdom had been when you felt for your friends’ hearts from there to Twilight Town and Disney Town.

“I’m pretty sure,” you said with a shrug.

“Call us if you need anything,” he continued, blowing his nose into a handkerchief.

“I’ll be fine,” you said with an exasperated smile.

“I know. I know,” he sniffled, “It’s just it’s your first keyblade assignment. You’ve grown so much in the short time we’ve known each other. I’ll go now.” He shuffled off to the side next to Namine and Demyx who gave him reassuring pats on the back.

Finally there was Ludwig who looked all shaken up, tears dribbling down his beak.

“Don’t worry,” you said, placing a hand on his shoulder, “I’ll get rid of Marluxia before you know it, and you’ll be back here in your home soon enough.”

You gave him a bright smile, and he looked at you.

You didn’t know it, but that wasn’t why he was crying. This time it was for you. But he appreciated the sentiment anyway. He put his own hand on your shoulder.

“You’re going to do great things someday,” he said. You blinked at him, a few more tears springing to your eyes.

“Thanks, Pops. I’ll visit soon enough.” The two of you hugged, lingering just a bit.

You only cried more than this when saying goodbye to your mother in Twilight Town who had said something similar about being proud of you and knowing you’d do great things. You only hoped you’d live up to their expectations.

You froze after that, feeling your friends stares on you as they waited – but pretended not to wait – to see if you were going to say anything to Axel.

You took a deep breath. You didn’t totally want him out of your life even if you were trying to figure shit out. You faced him and took a few hesitant steps towards him. You wanted to hug him too, after all he had been your best friend. But you weren’t sure you were there yet.

He slowly turned his gaze to you, expression bored once more.

“Um, well, bye,” you tried, looking up at him. You wanted to offer a smile, but it would probably amount to a grimace with how awkward you felt.

He just looked at you before frowning a little like you were annoying him. You felt your anger flare again. You frowned back and rolled your eyes. If he was going to be childish about this you could be too.

“Whatever,” you muttered, feelings hurt more than you were going to admit to or show him.

Then that motherfucker just smirked and got on the ship without saying anything to you. Fine! If he wanted to be an ass about it, then let him be an ass! You turned away, marching back over to them.

“I’ll text you all when I get there, okay?”

They just nodded, trying to act like they didn’t just see what they just saw. You felt mildly embarrassed about it, but there wasn’t anything you could do about that. So you just summoned your armor, hopped on your glider and flew away, a few tears actually managing to slip from your eyes.

What an asshole!

~

This was taking too long.

Vanitas looked down at you as you said goodbye to all of your friends, taking some mild pleasure in the negative feeling Axel was emitting. Taking even more when he pissed you off and subsequently embarrassed you.

But he was also impatient. Wasn’t enough that you’d had a long and sickening goodbye with your mother?

So he almost laughed in glee and anticipation when you finally took off on your glider.

He followed closely, never losing sight of you, following the trail of hurt you left behind.

He could take you out now if he wanted. But he knew better now. He wouldn’t leave you this time. He’d take you out on the world you landed on. He’d even mark your grave.

And he’d take his time this time. He’d savor every moment. That would be a fitting punishment since you had decided to live when he wanted you dead. He’d drag out every agonizing second.

He licked his lips in anticipation.

~

It was strange to be in Hollow Bastion again. Not because he’d grown up there but because it was weirdly nostalgic. Even though it had only been months since he’d seen it, he felt a weird sense of bitter sweetness overcome him. This was where he’d first met you, your head jammed into a flowerpot doing your damndest to inhale flowers. It was also where he’d met you the second time, your head jammed into a flowerpot heaving up everything you’d eaten that day.

Memories.

 “Are you just gonna stand there all day with that box or are you gonna help us finish moving you in?”

Yuffie snapped Axel out of his reverie. He’d only intended to take in the area a little bit, but it looks like he’d gotten lost in thought. He shook his head.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, moving the box into the house they’d now be staying at.

Yuffie led him up the stairs and down a hall.

“This’ll be your room,” she said before leaving. He set the box down.

What cruel irony was this?

He recognized the room – recognized the window the two of you snuck out of to go watch the sunrise, back when he had malicious intent but kept it at bay when he saw that childlike wonder in your eyes as you gazed at the sun. It had broken down his defenses more than he’d liked to admit at the time. Taking you out at the castle was a much easier plan when you weren’t being pathetically easy to sympathize with.

Of course, things were different between the two of you then.

He went back out to the ship to get another box, this one full of Namine’s things, and brought it up to her room. She was sitting on the bed, looking around at the room. It was different, not as bland as the one in the mansion yet not as colorful as the room Ludwig had given her at his own mansion.

“How’re you holding up?” he asked, snapping her out of her own train of thought. It was the first thing he’d said to her since he asked if she packed everything in Disney Town – a little before you showed up to say goodbye and he clammed up.

“Fine,” she said, “Fine. What about you?” she asked, looking at him concernedly. Demyx had been doing the same thing earlier. No one had said anything on the ship about the little stint he pulled back in Disney Town when you had tried to say goodbye to him. The closest anyone got was Figment occasionally glaring at him over Dreamfinder’s shoulder. But he was hardly fazed. Whenever Axel caught him glaring, he would just roll his eyes.

“Fine,” he answered automatically and turning to leave the room before anymore could be said. He already knew where this conversation was headed. She was going to ask how he felt about you. And you were a subject he was heatedly trying to avoid. He didn’t want to explain his actions to anyone. He didn’t want to think about the fact that you had all but kicked him from your life and just expected him to be okay with it like he wasn’t as crazy about you as you were about him.

It hurt. And he wasn’t too keen on talking about it with anyone, especially since he could hardly keep thoughts of you out of his mind. And that just made him all the angrier, hence the silent treatment he’d given you back at Disney Town.

The next hour or so was spent moving what little else they had managed to cram on the ship. The hour after that was spent getting to know each other around dinner. Axel was a bit more reserved than everyone else, and he wasn’t too keen on sharing much about himself. Thankfully, Demyx was talkative and filled in stuff about their lives from the Organization up to the current point – omitting all of Axel’s more personal business, of course, thus leaving the nature of his relationship with you boiled down to being “close” but not specific enough to be called “together.” He also didn’t say much about more recent events that had strained his relationship with you and whether they were caused by him or not.

After that Axel had pretty much zoned out. He retained names and faces and understood they were now a part of a restoration committee to earn their keep and he would be out with Leon and Cid learning how to work the security system they kept in place. But he barely paid attention after that. Everything was moving in such a blur that he practically blinked and found himself staring up at the ceiling in his own bed another hour later.

Demyx was in his own bed snoring slightly. Ludwig was in a hammock snoring much more loudly. And he was stuck in his own mind. Finding it harder to keep thoughts of you at bay now that there was absolutely nothing to distract him.

Finally, when he couldn’t take it anymore, he hopped out of bed and out of the window, walking down a familiar path passed familiar flowerpots and to a familiar sidewalk where he sat down and gazed up at the moon like the two of you had done that first night all that time ago.

~

Leon let out an exasperated sigh. Axel wasn’t paying attention. Again. Cid just rolled his eyes, looking at Leon like Axel was a lost cause. This had been the third time they caught him staring off into space. He was just leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, looking like he had better things to do and that anything would be more interesting than this.

Leon snapped his fingers in front of his face, and Axel blinked back into reality before tossing a dry, somewhat bored look at Leon who met it with a mild scowl. Axel scowled right back. Demyx shifted on the other side of Leon uncomfortably. At this rate, they’d never learn exactly what it was their jobs were going to be.

“Maybe we should take a break,” Leon finally sighed, thinking it better than punching Axel. From what he’d learned about them the night before, he’d had a rough time of it. Maybe he was just recovering from that. Though it was getting on Leon’s last good nerve.

“But we’ve barely started!” Demyx protested.

Leon paid no attention to him, instead focusing his attention on Axel.

“I understand that all of you have been through a lot, but what we’re learning today could save lives. Your performance has been unacceptable, and I need you to do better.”

Axel didn’t respond. Leon’s frown deepened.

“What’s got your coat in a knot anyway?” Cid asked, leaning over to look at him around Leon’s imposing form, “You break up with your girlfriend or something?”

Demyx stiffened noticeably, catching Leon and Cid’s attention as he made slicing motion across his neck – a very obvious “don’t talk about that,” motion.

“Oh so the two of you did break up,” Cid announced, walking over to Axel and clapping him on the shoulder, “Ah, don’t worry pal. It’s just some girl.”

Axel roughly shrugged Cid’s hand off, scooting away from him just a bit, his scowl deepening on his face. You were not ‘just some girl.’ Cid didn’t take offense to Axel’s behavior. Breakups were tough.

“What’s the problem? You’ll get over it. There’s plenty of fish in the sea,” he said with a smile and a thumbs up.

“Not like ________,” Demyx muttered none too quietly. He only realized what he’d said out loud when he realized how quiet everything had gotten after he said it, glancing over to the other three in the room. Cid and Leon looked at him with wide eyes. Cid at least had the decency to look embarrassed after realizing that he’d referred to you as “just some girl.” Turns out you weren’t.

Axel, meanwhile, just looked pissed. Demyx had a feeling he’d be dealing with that a bit later.

“So ________’s the one who broke up with you?” Leon asked, facing Axel once more.

“We didn’t break up,” Axel bit out, “We were never dating.”

“Oh so the two of you just had a regular falling out. Something mission related?”

“I don’t see how it’s any of your damn business,” Axel snapped.

“It’s my damn business because your attitude is halting our progress. So tell me what’s got you so bent out of shape about your not breakup with your not girlfriend so we can move on,” Leon snapped back, really considering punching him right about now.

Axel didn’t say a word.

“Fine,” Leon said before marching over to Demyx who took subsequent steps back with every stomp forward. Finally, once Demyx was backed up against the wall with nowhere to run, Leon questioned him, “What happened?”

“Uh, I mean,” Demyx stuttered out, anxiously glancing between Leon’s determined glare and Axel’s dangerous one.

“Is something wrong, Leon?” Aerith questioned as she and Namine approached the group, looking warily between Leon and Demyx, gaze eventually drifting over to a tense Axel and a mildly awkward Cid.

“Axel’s throwing a hissy fit because ________ and him had a fight,” Leon supplied, “But I don’t know exactly what the problem is.”

“Oh,” Aerith answered, “From what Namine told me, Axel withheld some information from ________ and it accidentally led to a few of her friends and family being kidnapped.”

Leon’s jaw dropped. Axel stiffened where he stood.

“From what I understand it was to protect her,” Aerith continued, not reading Axel’s expressions at all, “The kidnapping was an unintended consequence.”

Everyone shuffled awkwardly in their spots. It was quite a bit to unload. They knew about the kidnapping from what Demyx told them the night before. They didn’t know Axel was a direct cause.

“No wonder the two of you aren’t speaking,” Cid muttered, scratching the back of his head awkwardly.

“Well she was gonna ‘til Axel blew her off,” Demyx said dryly, thinking of Axel’s previous attitude towards you.

“Demyx,” Axel snapped, “I fucking swear I’m gonna –”

“Wait let me get this straight,” Cid said, interrupting Axel’s threat, “She was gonna give you the silent treatment, then didn’t, and you gave her the silent treatment?! Are you some kinda moron?!”

Axel had had enough. If stayed there even a second longer, he was going to set everything on fire and watch it burn.

He pushed himself off the wall and stormed off. No one followed. Better to just give him time to cool off.

~

“I get it,” Leon stated once he found Axel an hour later sitting near courtyard of flower planters, “You wanted to keep her safe. Make sure she didn’t bite off more than she could chew.”

Axel didn’t respond. But he was listening.

“But you went about it completely wrong,” he said, leaning on the wall near where Axel sat.

“How is trying to keep her from killing herself wrong?!”

“Because you did it with only your own interests in mind.”

“I did it for her!”

“You did it for you, and the sooner you accept that, the better! You knew not telling her that the same people who brought down her world were the same people looking for her family was a risk! But you weren’t the one at risk were you?”

Axel remained silent.

“No,” Leon answered for him, “Her family was what was at risk, and you were willing to let it be a risk. I know you didn’t want anything to happen to them either, but when it came down to it, if you had to choose between her or them, you’d have picked her.”

Silence.

“That’s why she thinks you’re selfish. That’s why she’s angry with you.”

“I just don’t want to lose her.”

“Well you’re going to if you keep thinking for yourself. I know she cares for you a lot deeper than any of you have really let on, and you feel the same. But she’s upset because you didn’t act like the person she fell for. You probably broke her heart.”

“I’m not different from the person she fell for. She just didn’t know me.”

“I think we both know that’s bullshit. She’s a good person. She saw something in you that even you didn’t know about. And I think she still sees that in you if after she said she didn’t want to see you, she still tried to patch things up between the two of you.”

Axel briefly remembered the light she saw in him that led her through the darkness of her father’s mind right to him. He never gave it too much thought after that. But she swore she had seen it.

Radiant was what she had called him.

“You just got selfish,” Leon continued, “But you can fix it. You can be better. Be that person she believes you to be, someone who seeks her best interest and knows that she has to put her duty as a keyblade wielder before her own needs and accepts that sometimes that means making decisions you won’t always agree with.”

“Even if it means she’s going to get herself killed?”

“It doesn’t have to mean that at all. It means you stand by her. Keep her from getting killed like you did before. But be honest with her. Give her council and support. And she won’t always agree with you, but at least she’ll know she can trust you. And that may be enough to sway her decision, and she’ll live to fight another day.”

Axel was silent.

“Also I know you were just as mad at her as she had been at you. But her job is dangerous. The next time you see her, you should make sure the last memory she has of you before she runs off to do a mission is a pleasant one. It would be a shame if you or she ran into trouble and never saw each other again and the last thing the two of you shared was one of you acting like an ass to the other.”

Leon pushed himself off of the wall and walked off to let Axel continue his alone time. He had a lot to think about.

~

Axel walked into his room quietly seeing Demyx and Namine sitting on Demyx’s bed. They were a decent distance apart from each other, but that didn’t stop Demyx from blushing about their being a girl in his room and on his bed when the door was just closed. Namine was calmer about it. Nothing had been going on, and she gave Axel an apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry I told Aerith about what had happened. But you seemed distressed and I didn’t know how to handle it. I thought maybe I could get some advice from her.”

Axel waved it off.

“If not for that I might still be sulking somewhere,” he admitted, avoiding eye contact. Demyx visibly relaxed. He was nervous Axel would tear him a new one once Namine brought up the conversation that had happened earlier. But Axel didn’t seem angry. Just pensive.

“So where’ve you been?” Namine asked. Axel didn’t come back after Leon had talked to him. In fact, he disappeared for quite a few hours, leaving Leon to teach Demyx and Namine alone with a makeup lesson scheduled for Axel for a later date.

“Thinking.”

Namine and Demyx watched as he sat down on his own bed, staring off into space.

“About what?” Demyx finally asked, voice loud in the heavy silence.

“I need to fix what I did. Not…,” Axel sighed, “Not just because of her. But because that’s who I am now right? Someone who does the right thing?”

“That’s really a question only you can answer, Axel,” Namine answered quietly, “What kind of person do you think you are?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, “I remember when we were in the mind, ________ said she saw light in me. We hardly knew each other then. I could hardly stand her. But she saw something. I didn’t really care to think about it much, but then Leon said she saw something in me. And I guess maybe I want to be the person she saw there. The person she connected so deeply with, that they share a connection in the heart. That’s the person she likes isn’t it?”

“Well I mean that still sounds like you, Axel,” Demyx said, scratching the back of his head, “Recent actions excluded, you were kind of always that person. You protected her when the one thing you had to do was kill her, and that was when killing her would have made sure the Organization wouldn’t be gunning for your ass trying to dusk you.”

Demyx was smiling brightly at him.

“You were kinda selfless then,” he added, “And, yeah, you didn’t do it right this time, but I know you were doing it to make sure she stayed safe.”

Axel felt a little better. And bringing up his blunder didn’t seem like such a burden this time around. He knew it was wrong now, but now he felt like he could get over himself a little bit.

“So how are you going to make up for what you did?” Namine asked, tilting her head a bit.

“I need to go back to the Organization and get all of the stuff we lost,” he said finally. He’d thought about it shortly after Leon left him alone. He’d thought about it for a good long while. Because this came with its own set of risks. But he could at least ensure he would be the only one at risk.

Demyx and Namine looked at him in shock. He expected as much.

“But,” Demyx began, “They’ll kill you. And that’s if you’re lucky. Xemnas will probably do much worse if he catches you himself. And that’s assuming you don’t come face to face with Specter first….”

Demyx shuddered at the thought. From what ________ and Ludwig had told them, if it took you out that was it. Nothing else.

“I know,” Axel said somberly, “But that was all the research they’d gathered on the hearts of worlds and making new and artificial hearts. That’s research that could help billions that I threw away for the sake of my own wants. And while I think ________ is more than worth that, I can’t ignore that what I ended up doing was wrong. But this time it’s just me at risk.”

“But what if you get caught?” Namine fretted, “You don’t know what to look for! And what if it’s been locked away somewhere! You could be going on a wild goose chase that may not even help!”

“I need to make this right. And if I can’t do that, then I’ll spend the rest of how ever long it takes doing whatever I have to in order to do it. I’ll bring Figment. He can help me find what I need and stay out of sight. Plus if it is locked away somewhere, he can probably get in there. And if anything goes wrong he can go through my heart to wherever ________ is to escape.”

“Let me come with you,” Demyx volunteered. He didn’t want to do this. He really didn’t want to do this, but he needed to make sure Axel got back safe.

“Demyx!” Namine gasped. She didn’t want to lose him anymore than she wanted to lose Axel!

“Don’t,” Axel said to Demyx. He wanted to keep as many people out of this as possible.

“I can watch your back while you’re babysitting Figment. You both have a better chance of getting back if I go with you. We all do. And if things go south we all have a better chance of escape, so no one has to be lost. I mean, think of ________. She might be mad now, but you know she doesn’t want to lose you. Even if it meant they’d have a hard time getting the research together.”

“I know. That’s me clouding her judgment again. But I can do this,” Axel said, determined now more than ever, “I can do right by her and myself and countless other people.”

There was a heavy silence.

“I’m going with you,” Demyx said with finality. There wouldn’t be talking him out of it. Axel nodded and smiled a bit despite himself. It was nice to know he would have a friend there with him. He’d count Figment, but he was pretty sure that whatever progress he’d made with him had been wiped the moment he endangered them and blew ________ off.

“I’ll speak with Figment,” Axel sighed.

~

When you arrived, the world was bright, colorful, and sunny. The air was warm. Being here in general felt nice. You let your armor flicker out of existence, content to just walk around and amble your way to your rendezvous spot with Riku. He’d waited this long, he could stand to wait a few more minutes while you took in the beautiful forrest scenery. You sent a quick text to your friends and family to let them know you had arrived safely. You debated on whether or not you ought to include Axel in that group text before ultimately deciding against it. If he wanted to be petty, you could be petty too.

You smiled a little cruelly to yourself. You hoped he was around everyone when their phones all went off at once except his to say you’d arrived.

He may have gone about it in a bad way, he did have your best interest at heart.

The king’s words rang in your head and you shook them away violently. He still lied to you. And he was a jerk when you tried to be nice about it. Fuck that guy!

You tried to ignore the hurt, replacing it with anger.

If the roles were reversed and you thought he was in danger, you wouldn’t hesitate to do the same thing.

That was true. That was beyond true. Still. You’d have tried to figure something else out.

So not even Namine, who was quite possibly the most sensible of all of you, was going to sway you this time! You were going to enjoy your Axel-free, drama-free walk through this happy little forest, and no one was going to stop you!

It was as you were ambling down the path that your calm was interrupted by a toon rabbit running across your path in a hurry as if his life depended on it.

“Comin’ through!” he said as he zipped passed you, taking care to avoid hitting you.

You watched after him for a few seconds before you were roughly shoved to the side, a gruff “Outta my way,” being shouted as a red and green blur zipped by you.

“Pardon, ma’am,” was the next phrase as you were all but flung into some bushes next to the path. You blinked, letting out an impatient, disgruntled huff as you pushed yourself off of the ground and ran after the three.

You caught up relatively easily, watching as the rabbit sharply rounded a corner. You cut through part of the brush around the path, circling around until you saw the rabbit peeking from behind another bush while the other two, a fox and a bear whirled around this way and that searching for him.

“Where’d he go? Where’d he go?” the fox said rapidly. You crept up to the rabbit, keeping low so the other two wouldn’t see you.

You lightly tapped him on the shoulder, and he flinched, whirling around to look at you.

“Are you okay? Do you need any help?” you asked in a hushed whisper. He smiled at you, albeit somewhat warily. Though you supposed that was your fault for coming up from all but nowhere.

“No, no. I handles these two jokers all the time.”

He pointed to a muddy swamp across the way, and you peered through the bush to look at it. Just what was he planning?

“Maybe if we ask him where he went, then he’ll tell us,” the bear suggested in a deep, slow voice, scratching his head beneath his floppy red hat.

“Well why didn’t I think of that?” the fox asked sarcastically, rolling his eyes and readjusting his own hat.

“Uh,” the bear started, “Brer Rabbit! Where you done run off to?” he asked.

“I’m in the swamp!” the rabbit called from next to you. You looked at him like he was crazy!

“Ah-ha! Now I gotcha!” the fox said already well on his way into jumping into the bush the two of you were hidden behind.

“Now hold on there, Brer Fox,” the bear said, grabbing the fox by the tail and holding him up, “Now Brer Rabbit done said he’s in that there swamp.” The bear gestured to the swamp behind him and the fox.

“No, he isn’t,” the fox snapped, attempting to swat at the bear to get him to put him down.

“Oh yes I am,” the rabbit called. You kept your hands firmly pressed over your mouth to keep your laughter under control.

The bear turned and began to walk towards the swamp.

“Now you wanna make sure you get a nice runnin’ start, hear?” the rabbit called.

“Uhh, yeah, I hear ya,” the bear began already picking up speed until he was nearly sprinting, jumping at the edge of the swamp and sailing into the muddy waters. There was an enormous splash.

The two of you peeked over the bush to see the bear sitting waist deep in the water, looking around in confusion. Numerous bubbles burbled up from below the water.

“Say, uh, Brer Fox?” he turned his head the other way, “Where you get on to?”

More bubbles bubbled up around the bear before he seemed to put two and two together and shimmied out of the spot only for the fox to pop up from the water from where his friend was just sitting on him, sputtering and coughing.

You couldn’t contain your laughter any longer, and neither could Brer Rabbit, and the two of you erupted in laughter at the soaked and muddy pair.

“Now see, Brer Bear? They’s done made a fool outta you!” the fox snapped, pointing at the two of you from where the two of you stood laughing.

“They has?” the bear asked, blinking down at the fox.

“Yeah, they did. Now what are we gon’ do about it?” the fox asked. The bear was already beginning to frown, a growl emanating from deep within his chest.

“I’mma knock they heads clean off,” he threatened, standing up from the mud and already marching over towards the two of you.

“Uh-oh,” Brer Rabbit said, laughter halting, “That’s our cue!”

He grabbed your hand and began running, and you ran after him, the fox and the bear hot on your trail.

You glanced behind you to see how far away they were. Not very. The bear looked absolutely murderous, his pupils flashing red. On his back, the fox rode, grinning viciously and like he was having the time of his life, all of his sharp teeth glinting in the sunlight.

No matter where the two of you zigged and zagged, you couldn’t seem to shake the pair. You’d have to be a bit cleverer to get out of this.

You’d use your keyblade, but you did kind of egg them on, so it hardly seemed fair. And if worse came to worse, you had other tricks up your sleeve. But you came here to learn to blend in, and obviously humans were a norm if no one seemed surprised by your appearance. But magic might not be.

But if worse came to worse….

Then you spotted it. Glorious salvation! A tree that stretched very, very high. And if you were correct in your assumption that physics here worked like typical toon physics – hence why the bear would believe a voice not coming from a swamp would be coming from the swamp, and explaining why he didn’t immediately crush his friend to death when he landed on him in said swamp – then this tree would prove to be mighty flexible.

“Up that tree,” you instructed.

The rabbit looked at you as you ran towards it.

“You sure?”

“Just trust me!”

The two of you zipped up the tree. Him seeming to run up with next to no assistance, and you, not built like a toon, needing to climb it as swiftly as you could.

You looked down once you were about halfway up to see the bear with all of his claws sunken into the trunk of the tree as he shimmied up after you, the fox egging him on, none the wiser to your plan.

You smiled to yourself. You were having more fun than you ought to be. You could hear Axel scolding you for jumping headfirst into danger, and you found yourself chuckling just slightly as you continued your ascent.

Wait! No! Bad! No Axel!

But your heart fluttered anyway despite your train of thought turning south.

He lied to you. He put your family in danger.

Now your heart was aching, rapidly switching between anger and sadness, and you shook the thoughts from your mind, climbing faster.

Damn him!

It was about when you were 70% of the way up the tree that it began to bend rapidly towards the ground. You braced yourself against the shift in gravity as the weight of the bear caused it to bend even further. You began to hear the protests of the fox as he realized what was happening.

You looked back.

The bear didn’t seem to be listening even as the fox hopped off of his back and grabbed the bear’s vest, heels digging into the tree and peeling up the bark as he tried to get his friend to stop chasing you.

You were almost to the top of the tree now, turning so you were climbing backwards as to not tumble off of the tree. By the time you’d reached the end of the tree, Brer Rabbit was hanging from the end of it about ten feet off of the ground. You let your body drop, hands still clutching at the branch. The distance to the ground for you was even less.

“Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop!” the fox yelled repeatedly, all but being dragged across the bark of the tree.

The two of you watched as the bear and fox neared even more, lowering the two of you until you could almost touch the ground with your toes.

“STOP!” the fox yelled, as Brer Bear finally reached the two of you. He looked down to see the ground much closer than it had been before, confusion written all over his face.

“I like this plan,” Brer Rabbit stated, a cheeky grin on his face.

“What plan?” Brer Bear asked, blinking down at him.

At that moment you and Brer Rabbit let go, watching as the two of them flew off into the distance. The two of you shared another laugh at their expense before the rabbit formally introduced himself, holding up a hand to shake yours.

“The name’s Brer Rabbit,” he said as you took his hand.

“________,” you replied, a smile on your face.

Notes:

Comments and kudos always welcome, and I'll see you all on Thursday! <3

Obscure-ish References:

Br'er Rabbit: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Br%27er_Rabbit

Br'er Fox: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Br%27er_Fox

Br'er Bear: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Br%27er_Bear

Chapter 37: Tar and Featherin'

Summary:

You and Br'er Rabbit decide to play a prank. It could go better....

Axel and Demyx start their mission.

Notes:

I'm back! I'm also lazy. I'm sorry. :(
But here's the new chapter! :)

Vanitas had tracked you at a distance this time, lingering just far enough behind you for you to not feel his presence. But that wasn’t why he lost track of you.

No, it was because there was another presence he wasn’t anticipating. Another keyblade wielder. This one obviously stronger than you. So he lingered a little further from you, prepared to wait until the two of you separated. And he would end you just as you were going to go home.

Oh wouldn’t it be fun to know that you and Axel had had a falling out before either one of you could apologize? He might deliver that message himself just to see his reaction.

Anyway he had no idea where you were now.

Though he could assume you may have had something to do with a bear and a fox that nearly landed on him. He’d seen them coming and walked a few steps away to avoid the collision. He looked at them as they picked themselves up off the ground, fox having to peel himself off of the bear’s back from where he’d been crushed.

“It’s bad ‘nuff to have to deal with that no-good rabbit. But that girl’s got another thang comin’ thinkin’ she can do ol’ Br’er Fox dirty and get away with it!” he huffed, dusting off his vest and pants and readjusting his hat.

The mention of a girl piqued Vanitas’ interest. He approached them silently, watching as the bear stood and began to rub his sore bottom.

“Yessir we’ll show ‘em what happens when you pull a fast one on us!” He announced, preparing to march away to who knows where.

Vanitas appeared in front of them before they could go, looking down at the fox.

“Outta my way, fool!” he snapped, prepared to push Vanitas out of the way. But Vanitas was faster and stronger, pushing the two of them back before they could blink. Br’er Bear hit a tree with a thud, Br’er Fox sliding into him just a second later.

Vanitas was in front of them again, keyblade raised to Br’er Fox’s throat. Br’er Fox plucked one of his hairs and slid it against the edge of the keyblade, watching as it split down the middle. He gulped.

“You were talking about a girl,” he began, “What’d she look like?”

Br’er Fox stuttered out your description, Br’er Bear nodding and agreeing, sometimes adding in his own tidbit of information.

“Where is she?” Vanitas continued his interrogation.

“W-we-well I’d love to tell you,” Br’er Fox stuttered, “But she done run off with a rabbit – little troublemaker always up to no good!”

“If you see her find me and tell me where she is,” Vanitas instructed carefully.

“Yes, sir, I will most certainly do that. She as good as got!” he said, nodding fervently. Vanitas gave a single nod before seeming to all but vanish into thin air, looking for you.

“Say, uh, Br’er Fox who was that?” Br’er Bear asked, blinking at the spot where Vanitas once stood. Br’er Fox stood up hastily, dusting himself off again and looking around to make sure Vanitas was not nearby.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, still looking this way and that.

“But he wants to find that girl we was talkin’ bout.”

“I know what HE wants,” Br’er Fox sniffed, “But seems I don’t much care. See that girl messed with Br’er Fox. No one messes with Br’er Fox. I don’t care how scary her little boyfriend is. Come on now!” he said, gesturing for the bear to follow him.

Br’er Bear picked himself up off of the ground, lumbering after Br’er Fox.

“Where we headin’ off to?” Br’er Bear asked.

“We need to find that girl and Br’er Rabbit ‘fo he does! Now let’s get back to my place to think of a plan to get ‘em both.”

~

You would find Riku in 5 minutes. You repeated this to yourself every time 5 minutes would go by. It was just such a nice day.

You were sprawled on a red and white checkered blanket, basking in the warmth of the sun. Br’er Rabbit had run inside his home to get a snack for the two of you while you waited outside on this cozy little blanket in the comforting warmth the sun provided.

You’d be inside Br’er Rabbit’s cozy little home too if you could fit. But you were much too large for that tiny rabbit hole in the tree. Just as well, it was surrounded by thorns as it was nestled deep into a prickly briar patch. But you were content just outside of the thorns on your blanket.

“I’m back!” Br’er Rabbit announced carrying two plates, each with a large slice of cake on them. Carrot cake to be precise. How fitting.

You took your plate from him and he handed you a little spoon. And it was shaped like a bunny on the end, with two big wide ears forming the scoop of the spoon. The tail of the spoon had a little cotton tail at the end.

“Aww this is sooo cute!” you said, gushing over the little spoon, looking at the bunny’s big round eyes and cooing a bit.

“You can have it if ya want,” Br’er Rabbit said around a mouth full of cake, “I gotta million of ‘em.”

“Oh thank you!” you said in a chipper tone of voice, already digging into a very yummy slice of cake. You hummed in contentment.

You’d find Riku in 5 minutes.

“So how’d you get into that little scrape from earlier?” you asked, a bit curious as to why the fox and bear had been chasing him in the first place.

“Oh it’s nothing,” he said brushing it off, “They tried to catch me so Br’er Fox could have me for dinner, and I chucked a beehive into his house. We do this sort of thing all the time.”

He seemed very calm for someone who just said that somebody was trying to eat him. You tried not to think of the specifics of a sentient creature killing another sentient creature for food. If it weren’t for your knowledge of the food chain, you’d almost say it was on par with cannibalism. But what did you know? You only even recognized these animals after Axel and Demyx had told you about them when you saw them on the tree in Animal Kingdom. You’d seen similar animals on your home but not quite like them.

“So you all just do this on a regular?” you asked, almost finished with your cake – quietly wishing you had more.

“Sho’ ‘nuff we do,” he answered, finishing his own plate and setting it down, “Wanna know what I got planned next?”

You ought to say no. You ought to find Riku like you said you would do 5 minutes ago. You ought not be pulled in by the look of pure mischief on Br’er Rabbit’s face.

“What?” you asked lowly, almost conspiratorially. It felt like you were sharing secrets.

“I’m gonna tar and feather ‘em,” he said, smiling and puffing out his chest, obviously proud of himself. You dissolved into a light fit of giggles which only grew when you thought of a fox and a bear covered head to toe in feathers.

“But, uh,” he said glancing around as if this really were a secret just between friends, “I could always use the extra help.”

You felt a little trill of excitement run through you. You loved pranks. You’d gotten trouble for a similar prank when you were little. You were mostly in trouble for stealing your uncle’s feathers though.

You nodded eagerly.

“Great! Wait here,” he said before hopping back into his house and returning with a large pot, a rope, and pillowcase full of feathers. He handed you the pot and set down the pillowcase and rope. He rolled up the blanket and took it and the dishes back inside his home.

When he hopped out a moment later, he picked up the pillowcase and rope and gestured for you to follow him. You passed several other animals on your way there, saying “how do you do” to all of them who offered friendly greetings in return. You also walked past a bluebird with a cane and top hat, a few hummingbirds, a family of possums, and several butterflies, with an especially giggly one named Miss Nelly. The citizens of this world are extremely friendly, and everything just feels nice and laid back. You could get used to this.

“So how’d you come up with this idea anyway?” you asked once there was a break between the people and actual time to talk.

“Well not long ‘go Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear got it in their heads to catch me, so they set up a trap.”

“They caught you in a tar pit?”

“No, nothin’ like that. They made a tar baby.”

“What’s a tar baby?”

“I’m gettin’ to that,” he said, hushing you, “Tar baby’s a dummy made completely of tar. Now you see all these nice folks sayin’ hi and bein’ polite? Well the tar baby didn’t talk since he ain’t real folk. And I got real mad when I met ‘im. That tar baby ain’t say nothin’ to me.”

“So how’d it get you?” you asked, fully confused by how someone could possibly be caught by a dummy made of tar that didn’t move or speak apparently.

“I told it that if it didn’t say “hi” to me, I was gon’ knock its uppity block clean offa him.”

“And it didn’t say hi, and you got caught in the tar when you ‘knocked its uppity block off,’” you said with a cheeky grin, trying not to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

“Go head ‘n’ laugh,” Br’er Rabbit said, waving you off, “Cuz it’s gon’ be Br’er Rabbit who gets the last laugh today once you and I show Br’er Fox what’s what.”

You let a little giggle slip out of your mouth.

“Afternoon, Br’er Rabbit,” a deep voice rumbled from atop a log perched near the bank of a river. It was a frog who sat fishing. Next to him sat a gleaming metal can full of worms and a bucket already full of fish.

“Afternoon, Br’er Frog,” he responded. That was when the frog noticed you, eyes widening minutely before he quickly glanced between you, Br’er Rabbit, and the objects you were holding.

“Good afternoon,” you said, holding the pot of tar just a little closer to you with him watching you so closely.

“What are you two up to?” he asked, ignoring your greeting and narrowing his eyes suspiciously as he glanced between the two of you.

“Nothin’ to be concerned about,” Br’er Rabbit reassured him. The frog huffed, setting down his fishing rod and folding his arms, giving you a critical eye.

“What’s he got you wrapped up in? ‘Cuz I ‘ssure you that it’s nothin’ but trouble.”

“S’just a little prank,” you said, feeling sheepishly like a child being scolded. The frog tutted at you in disapproval. Br’er Rabbit just rolled his eyes, used to this kind of disapproval from others regarding whatever it is he decided to get into.

“That may be, but knowin’ him,” he pointed to Br’er Rabbit, “It’s gonna get you in heaps more trouble than it’s worth. Best be movin’ on from it and find some other way to waste your time.”

Br’er Rabbit waved off the frog’s concern.

“We can handle ourselves,” he said, “Don’t need no babysittin’ neither.”

The frog just rolled his eyes at the rabbit and shook his head in disappointment at you. You huffed. You could take care of yourself, and this frog didn’t know you from a can of paint.

You spun on your heel to follow after Br’er Rabbit as he continued down the path.

“So where exactly are we headed anyhow?”

“Up to Chikapin Hill,” he state simply, pointing ahead to a hill that looked like something out of a cheesy horror movie with the ominous way it loomed in the distance, seeming darker than the rest of the forest by comparison.

“Why there?”

“S’where Br’er Fox lives,” he answered simply. You just nodded, following a bit more silently down the trail, winding back and forth and up and down and around until you’d reached the darker part of the forest and Br’er Fox’s lair which looked like a dead tree with a door placed in it.

Br’er Rabbit instructed you to place the pot of tar over the doorway after you had tied a rope around it. You did as you were instructed then hid behind a bush while Br’er Rabbit placed himself a good way from the door, holding the sack of feathers behind his back and managing the most innocent face he could manage.

You held back your giggles, waiting for your plan to take action. You couldn’t see anything in the thick foliage of the bush, so it would be up to Br’er Rabbit to give you the signal.

“Oh, Br’er Fox,” Br’er Rabbit called, voice as smooth as silk in his feigned innocence, “Now I know we had some bad blood in the past, but I’s come here as friend.”

You could hear the door slowly creak open, and your hands tightened around the rope you held.

“Come on out now, so we can shake hands and make peace,” Br’er Rabbit continued, sticking out one of his hands for good measure.

But that was when not a fox tricked into making amends walked out, but a lasso flew out, roping itself around Br’er Rabbit’s tiny frame and yanking him into the house. The only indication you got that anything was wrong was the sound of the door slamming.

You peeked out from behind the bush to see no one there; you had to assume the worst had happened and that somehow Br’er Fox had managed to get the drop on the two of you in some way.

“HELP!” you heard Br’er Rabbit yell from inside the little hovel in the tree.

You wasted no time, jumping from your hiding place and charging forward, bashing the door down with all of your strength.

Br’er Fox looked stunned more than anything, holding Br’er Rabbit by his neck while the rabbit squirmed in his grasp. Then he looked mortified.

“MY DOOR!” he shouted, “My grandmama gave me that door! What she ever do to you?!” he asked, seeming legitimately offended and saddened by your actions. You almost felt bad. But then again he was about to harm your new friend, and you couldn’t let that happen.

“Hand over the rabbit,” you said in as menacing a voice as you could manage. Br’er Fox frowned and then smiled rather smugly.

“This rabbit?” he said, holding Br’er Rabbit a little higher who continued to squirm frantically, but your eyes never left that fox.

“Yes, that one! Or else!”

“Or else what?”

“I’ll take it from you,” you threatened, eyes narrowing.

“You jus’ gon’ take this rabbit?” Br’er Fox said, shaking Br’er rabbit vigorously back and forth. If he hadn’t done that or if you had looked a little earlier you might have seen Br’er Rabbit’s eyes darting back and forth rapidly, trying to signal to you about what was behind you.

“Yes,” you said firmly, prepared to march over and knock him out and escape with your friend – tar and feathering be damned.

“Try me, lil’ girl,” the fox said, smiling as smugly as you please.

You took one step forward before Br’er Bear, who had come up behind you not long after you’d intruded on Br’er Fox’s home, hit you over the head with a rather sizeable club and knocked you out.

~

“Are you ready?” Axel asked, turning to look at Demyx who had a backpack slung over his shoulder. He didn’t hear. He was busy having a mild panic attack wondering if this would be the last time he would ever see his friends again. Wondering if this would be the last time he ever saw the light of day again. Wondering what death is for the dead.

Axel had already come to grips with the risks that a mission such as this would entail. He certainly wouldn’t want to be consumed by Specter, but an encounter with Xemnas didn’t sound all too appealing either. It made him think of the last encounter you had with him. He remembered the way you looked at him when you were saying your goodbyes, and now it made him sick at the way he had stubbornly ignored you.

No one to blame but himself for that one.

“Ready?” Demyx asked, walking up to him. He took a deep breath.

“Yeah,” he answered coolly, steeling his nerves against whatever might await them back at the Organization headquarters. Figment flew up next to them, shrinking down in size until he was as small as a mouse, perching on Demyx’s shoulder.

“Good luck,” Leon said. He hadn’t mentioned it to him, but he was glad something he’d said had gotten through to Axel. Axel nodded at him before opening a corridor and stepping through to the other side.

They appeared in Demyx’s room whose bed was covered in risqué pictures and magazines.

Demyx’s whole face went as red as a tomato.

“W-why’d you pick my room?!” he nearly shouted. Axel shushed him fiercely, and Demyx shrank back.

“They’re actively looking for me,” Axel whispered, “They know I’ll probably try something again, but you? Even if you join up with a keyblade wielder they’ll still expect you to be too lazy to do anything – or at least too careless.”

“Hey!” Demyx whined.

“Well that’s how they work. They always think they know someone’s character despite evidence that proves contrary. They don’t believe we can change. That’s why we went to the room of the person known for being cowardly and laid back.”

Axel managed a smirk but got serious again quickly.

“Figment,” he said, eyeing the dragon on Demyx’s shoulder, “Check outside the room. Let us know if anyone’s coming or going.”

Figment nodded, shrinking even further until he was the size of a bee – wearing a little yellow and black striped shirt and a pair of fake antennae.

He flew underneath the crack of the door, and Axel and Figment waited for him to return.

It had taken a better part of an hour to convince Figment to go along with this plan. Not just because it was dangerous, but because he was holding a serious grudge against Axel. Not just him. Even Ludwig and Dreamfinder who were almost always their kooky and jolly selves were a bit more curt towards him than everyone else. Not that he could blame them. You were their niece. Of course they were upset with him. Well that and he had endangered them in the first place. Though they had been more forgiving about that than when he blew you off.

But Axel swore on his life he was trying to be a better person and that he wouldn’t do anything that would subsequently endanger anyone else without their knowledge or consent of what they all might very well be getting into.

Figment threatened him in his own Figment-y way and agreed. Though most likely it was because he knew how vital all of the information they were getting was as opposed to actually believing Axel. It would take a bit for him to trust him fully again.

Figment flew back under the door giving them a thumbs up. Axel and Demyx nodded before exiting the room and out into the hallway.

They’d been over this before. They’d check the lab first. Then Marluxia’s room. He had been in charge of whatever experiments had been going on with the nobodies, but from what Ludwig had told him, that was strictly a Marluxia thing that they were under threat not to tell Xemnas about. If there were any information on artificial hearts to be found, then there was no doubt they’d find that information somewhere he could keep it hidden.

Which meant that if all the information weren’t there, then the things missing would undoubtedly be information on the hearts of worlds. And that would undoubtedly be in Xemnas’s study. That would be a bit trickier. Xemnas wasn’t quite so easy to keep track of as the other members of the Organization. Hopefully he’d gone to the Chamber of Repose and was content on keeping himself in there for hours like he so often did.

They walked in silence, tension as high as it could be, anxiety ridden through each of their bodies. It was to be expected though. There wasn’t a doubt in any of their minds that Xemnas was furious. Vanitas too probably. He was too proud to let the news of your survival go.

At least you were far away and safe with Riku now. It was Axel’s only comfort.

The walk to the lab felt longer than last time though Demyx’s room wasn’t too far from it to begin with. No closer than the dungeon had been in relation to the lab though. But maybe because the stakes felt higher.

When they reached the lab, they didn’t find any of the information as expected. They saw dusks conducting the same experiments that Marluxia had forced Ludwig to do. Only now it seemed wrong. The dusks having hearts placed into them seemed to be in much more pain than they had been before and the pain didn’t appear to stop after they were done having the heart placed in them.

Some of them, though very few, appeared to shake uncomfortably, but oddly. It looked as if their skin were moving rather than the whole of their body, like it moved independently of themselves. It was… unnerving to say the least.

There were also numerous holding cells with containers meant to hold hearts. They were all full of completed hearts. Strange considering Ludwig and the rest of the scientists had yet to manage it themselves. Had Marluxia managed to complete their research for them in such short time? Or had Xemnas dipped back into the habits Xehanort had when he was still whole? But hadn’t Marluxia intended to keep this from him?

Too many questions ran through Axel’s head and none of the answers explained everything.

Figment flew around the room, tiny and unnoticeable, reporting back to Axel and Demyx that he didn’t see any of the research. That was one location down. Two to go.

They reached Marluxia’s room with too much ease. It only set Axel’s nerves even further on edge. It was not remedied by the fact that the door was locked, and they needed Figment to go inside the lock and pick it from there. Every moment they were out in the open felt like the moment someone was going to round the corner and sound the alarm that the two traitors were back.

Xemnas would take it as a personal, ill-planned insult that they would have the nerve to slink back to their headquarters after the trouble they’d caused and to steal from him.

Becoming a dusk at that rate would be a mercy.

Demyx almost screamed with relief when the lock finally clicked open and the door opened, and they were able to usher themselves in and close the door behind them.

Marluxia didn’t have many places to hide his information. Some of it placed beneath his pillow that Figment found. Some under the bed where Axel found it. And the rest hidden in false bottoms in desk drawers that Demyx discovered when he realized the size of the drawers didn’t match the amount of space inside – far too cramped.

But… that wasn’t all of it. This was only information on the hearts of people – which while good wasn’t enough to bring a world back or preserve it in the instance that it began to fall like yours had.

It had to be in Xemnas’s study – the one place even Axel had reservations about going. Though he shouldn’t have as many as he did. Sure the castle was on high alert, but they still had hearts to collect and Sora to worry about. He’d picked this time of day specifically for the high amount of people that normally would be out on assignment by now. Of course, that was subject to change with the recent departure of Demyx and himself.

Regardless of his feelings, he knew he needed to go.

They gathered together their research, placing it in the backpack.

That was when Axel spied a note on the floor near a little garbage can. Just a crumpled up little sticky note that should have held no importance, but there was a legible word on it written in red that caught his eye.

The word read “data,” and that was enough for Axel to want to read it just in case this little sneaking suspicion that it had anything to do with what they were here for was true.

He bent over and uncrumpled the note.

Larxene, Xemnas wants me to convert the data on world hearts to something digital, but I’m busy. Take care of it for me, boo?

In a slightly messier script written beneath it was more.

It’s done. I’ll bring it by later.

Well that both complicated and simplified things.

On the one hand, they had less of a chance of running into Xemnas. On the other, they now had to deal with Larxene, and Axel doubted she’d just hand it over to him regardless of if they both wanted Xemnas out of the picture.

“Change of plans,” Axel announced, showing them the note. They seemed worried but no less determined to do what they had to.

Things had been going too smoothly for them up to this point. The universe had to have known that by now. So it was almost funny to Axel when they exited the room and ran into a small group of about seven nobodies – assassins and dancers no less.

Everyone froze, looking at each other.

“You,” one of the dancers hissed in its rasping voice, looking yet not looking at Demyx. Her head covering had been pushed up to reveal eyes that looked as if they had been scratched out. Her lips which had previously been sewn shut were unsewn, revealing a mouth that split open like that of a flower, revealing sharp, jagged teeth.

“W-what the hell?” Demyx stuttered out, not anticipating its speech despite what you and Axel had told him of the nobodies Marluxia led. The voice felt like bare skin being dragged across cold gravel, and it made his skin crawl. He shuddered.

“You who would send us to our deaths,” one of the assassins hissed at Axel, face revealed to be a smooth gray head with no eyes or nose, just a series of cracks across its face as if it were broken, and a larger crack that served as a mouth for its whispery words to hiss through.

Axel and Demyx summoned their weapons, Demyx placing the backpack down so none of the papers inside would be damaged in the ensuing fight. There was a terse moment of silence between them before the nobodies all glanced behind Axel, Demyx, and Figment.

Axel knew turning around would be stupid, but then the nobodies seemed to bow slightly.

“Well, well, well,” a feminine voice rang behind them.

Axel looked over his shoulder to see a smirking Larxene, a tiny flash drive on a keyring dangling from one of her fingers. She pocketed the tiny thing.

“I don’t suppose you’re here to apologize,” she purred.

 

Notes:

Comments and kudos are welcome! Thank you all for your patience and support! I'll see you all again next week!

Obscure-Ish References:

Splash Mountain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splash_Mountain

Chickapin Hill: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Chickapin_Hill

Brer Frog: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a9/6d/a2/a96da274fabe6c5a96e950eecfd5135f.jpg

Mr. Bluebird: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Mr._Bluebird

Chapter 38: Splash Mountain

Summary:

The consequences of meddling in business that isn't yours.

Axel and Demyx deal with Larxene.

Also beautiful, silver-haired angel.

Notes:

Hope you enjoy the chapter! Finally we officially meet Riku face to face!

Your head was throbbing. It hurt really bad, and you were sure it had a lump the size of a boulder on it. You couldn’t move much. The space was too cramped. Your legs were pressed to your abdomen to the point where your knees were almost on your chest.

Your mouth was dry and your tongue pressed back in an unnatural manner, but any attempt to move resulted in it moving against a rough texture wet with your saliva.

You opened your eyes, vision blurred black at the edges. Just at the edge of the blur of your vision you could see another shape next to you, pressed close – warm and fuzzy and squirming like mad. You could hear laughter, a mad cackling that almost sounded insane even to you in your haze.

“Yessir’! Yessir’! I got ya this time, Br’er Rabbit! Oh what’s that?” Br’er Fox asked, putting a hand to his ear as if he were straining to listen. There was a muffled response from nearby, no doubt the writhing, fuzzy creature next to you.

“Speak up! I can’t hear ya!” Br’er Fox laughed. It was about then that you felt that whatever you were sitting on, or in as the case may be judging by your lack of space to move, was bobbing back and forth at a steady rate that would be almost calming if you weren’t so disoriented, this confusion quickly making you aware that this situation was not normal.

Once your brain registered that not only was the situation abnormal, but that was the voice of someone you would certainly not call a friend, it began to wake up a bit more. The fact that you were gagged was the first thing you noticed. And you could finally register that you couldn’t move much because your arms and legs were tied up, your arms restrained to your sides as well as your wrists behind your back. The ropes were tight and uncomfortable and chafed your skin. You could also see that you were surrounded by wood that curved around you in tightly place planks – a barrel your realized.

And that bobbing and rocking had to be because you on an unsteady surface. The smell of water was strong around you, and panic began to set in when you realized exactly what it was Br’er Fox intended to do.

You strained against your ropes, causing them to dig into your skin even more.

“And look who’s awake!” Br’er Fox stated leaning in close to you with a bright and malicious smile on his face.

“Uh, who?” you heard the voice of Br’er Bear just out of your line of vision from where you sat in the barrel. You looked at Br’er Rabbit who was in a similar situation to you, bound and gagged.

“Why it’s Sleeping Beauty,” Br’er Fox replied, laughing in your face. You’d spit in it if you could, but your fear gripped you more than your anger could ever hope to. You felt tears slip down your face.

“Aw now don’t cry,” Br’er Fox cooed, patting you on the face, “Tell you what. To make ya feel better I’ll send you on a little trip.”

He leaned out of the barrel and pushed it roughly sending the two of you violently bobbing and weaving down the river.

“An all-expense paid trip straight down Splash Mountain!” he cackled after you, sounding distant. The river must have been carrying you away faster than you thought.

“I thought we was trying to kill her.” Brer Bear added, “But that’s mighty nice of you.”

“What? No we just….No I… How many times I gotta go over this with you?!”

~

You struggled against your binds again, desperately trying to wriggle them loose. Br’er Rabbit did the same, eventually wriggling his gag off.

“Hold on now,” Br’er Rabbit said, “I-I-I’ll have us out of here in a jiff!”

His words were rushed and panicked, and it gave you no comfort. All you could do was nod dumbly and pray that he really could get the two of you out of there. You continued fighting the ropes.

You almost couldn’t hear the growing sounds of the river over your own heartbeat thudding so loudly in your ears it was almost deafening.

Br’er Rabbit frantically gnawed at his binds around his feet, and they came undone with a satisfying snap that would have made you feel relieved were it not for the roar of the quickly approaching waterfall. He slipped his arms under himself with a little contortion, pulling his legs through so his wrists were in front of him. He began to gnaw at those ropes too, and they gave way a few seconds later.

The roar of the falls was too much, and the water was rougher, occasionally splashing into the barrel. Br’er Rabbit made quick work of your gag and the binds on your hands but not your wrists or feet. You poked your head out of the barrel, you were seconds from going over the falls. You saw a branch about to pass over head.

You weren’t going to make it. He wouldn’t get your binds off in time.

While Br’er Rabbit had his hands wrapped around your ankles to keep your legs still, you gave him a swift kick, sending him up and out of the barrel. He landed on the branch with an, “oof,” barely managing to cling to it and watched with dawning horror as you and the barrel tumbled over the edge of the falls.

The scream that tore from your throat made it feel raw and exposed. Sheer terror racked your body as you felt yourself plummeting to the water below. As you tumbled, you fell out of the barrel, your visions rapidly switching between the water below and the sky above. In your blind panic you couldn’t think of anything but the water below – it was blue when you could see it, but black and full of yellow menacing eyes when you couldn’t. Your mind could only think of the terror of the swamp in your father’s brain.

The water felt cool to the touch when you hit it, not unlike the icy depths of the swamp that made it feel as if something about you had permanently changed and would never be okay again.

But you couldn’t focus on that. You felt water filling your lungs, and you writhed feebly in the water. You couldn’t swim, but that hardly mattered since you were still tied up anyway. Occasionally you would bob up to the surface, battered this way and that against rocks and you’d try to inhale the air, but it was always cut off by being dragged back down into the water.

A sharp bump to your head, insured it didn’t matter what you did to try and breathe. You fell unconscious once more.

~

You were floating. Everything was dark. You could just barely make out the shape of your hand in front of you. And moving was sluggish.

You were in water. Yet you felt no need to breathe. But you wanted to swim up. But you didn’t know how. You could just barely see a speck of light in the distance high above you, a tiny blue-green circle with soft edges that indicated that there was any light at all.

And it was growing fainter.

You were sinking.

Sinking.

But you felt peaceful.

That if you just kept sinking there wouldn’t be any need to reach that light. No need to strain over it or any other things. But weren’t there important things you were supposed to worry about? Something was waiting for you somewhere. Oh but it was so far away. So very distant and out of reach.

You couldn’t even remember why it was important to you – only that it was supposed to be.

A shape obscured the light. Something grabbed your hand and pulled you close. Suddenly there was enough light to see it. This thing that had grabbed you.

And you were horrified.

Genki stared at you with milk white eyes that had been long since dead, mouthing words at you with blue lips that no sound passed through in the murky depths of the water. But you could see what he said.

“You killed me,” he accused, and you writhed in his grasp wildly, desperate to get away.

You had never meant to kill him! You had tried so desperately to save him!

More figures clung to you and these ones just as dead and just as horrifying.

Your mother. Your father. Demyx. Namine.

There was one more, but if you looked you just knew you wouldn’t be able to handle it. Even as he pulled your face to look at him. You squeezed your eyes shut tight, nor prepared to face the judgments he would pass.

And you couldn’t handle just seeing him anyway – couldn’t even imagine him like this, dead and unforgiving. Because of you no less. It would drive you mad.

But Axel held firm on you waiting for you to open your eyes and look into his so you could see the silent accusations of betrayal that led to his death as well.

You screamed and screamed and couldn’t stop screaming, desperate for these apparitions to vanish and leave you to the calm of sinking below would have given you. The peace they stole from you.

But you had a job to do didn’t you? And if you stopped now, these would be the images that would haunt you forever wouldn’t they. You felt them let go and yourself rise to the surface.

~

Larxene slowly sauntered around Axel and Demyx, eyes never leaving them, a smirk plastered to her face. She looked very much like the cat who caught the canary.

Axel eyed her warily as she walked until she was on the same side as the nobodies who only moments ago were accusing them of sacrificing them for their own needs and purposes.

“You know Xemnas wouldn’t be too happy about seeing all of you here again,” Larxene spoke, feigning worry for their wellbeing.

No one spoke.

“Where’s your little plaything?” Larxene asked, eyes settling on Axel.

“Where’s yours?” he retorted. Larxene almost scowled. She would hardly call Marluxia just a plaything. He was, after all, the only one she could understand and had the barest hint as to how she worked as well.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said with a flippant wave of her hand, “What matters is that you’re trespassing, and I’m under obligation to make sure you don’t make it out of here.”

She drew her own weapon, each of her little knives poking up from between her fingers on one hand. She snapped fingers on her other hand, and the nobodies launched themselves forward at Axel and Demyx.

They needed to end this quick. Fights were loud. Really loud. And every second they spent fighting was another second where someone else could pass nearby and hear it and come running. And that would be it for their little mission.

But Axel could hardly focus. Something wasn’t sitting right with him. As in something was wrong. But not just wrong. Horribly wrong. And it was growing with every second.

And he was getting sloppy because of it.

“You good?” Demyx asked, eyeing Axel, who was taking a beating from a few nobodies and Larxene.

“Fine,” he called. But he was lying.

Figment buzzed about in between the battle, for the most part unseen but unimportant as far as any of the nobodies or Larxene was concerned. So no one saw him slip into Larxene’s pocket and grab the little flash drive by the keychain and pulled it out of her pocket – which was easier said than done with the amount of moving she was doing in the fight. But he managed. He was in the clear and ready to slip it into the backpack when Larxene was knocked into the wall a few feet from him.

He froze, staring at her, watching the realization of what that backpack meant and that he was holding the final piece of the puzzle for their collected information.

“Hey!” she shouted. The nobodies turned to look at her before looking at where her attention was directed. Axel and Demyx took this opportunity to take out of few of the nobodies. “Stop him!”

Figment reverted back to his normal size slinging the backpack over his shoulder and gripping the flash drive for dear life before taking off down the hall, all of the nobodies that were left taking off after him.

“I don’t need them to take the two of you on,” Larxene threatened, standing up and facing them. Demyx didn’t look much worse for wear but Axel’s distraction had driven him to the edge of ruin. He was barely holding himself up, but he wasn’t about to give in to his injuries now.

But that sense that everything was wrong was still there.

Figment had no idea where he was going, but out seemed like a good idea. He didn’t know who he would run into while inside the castle, so outside of it would be a better bet.

So it was pure luck that he managed to exit it at all, flying forward as fast as his wings would carry him towards the city.

He looked behind him, expecting to see all of the nobodies on his tail. All he saw was them falling. He looked down.

Oh.

He was over a chasm. He hadn’t even noticed. And apparently he’d been just out of reach of the nobodies when they jumped after him. Well that made his job easier.

He flew back into the castle and tried to remember the path he took. If he was lucky Demyx and Axel had done away with the blonde woman they ran into, and they’d all be good to go.

Larxene lunged at Axel, and he barely dodged the hit, stumbling backwards and nearly collapsing.

“Axel, get outta here,” Demyx ordered, taking on Larxene himself, “I’ll find Figment and meet up with you, but you need to go.”

“No!” Axel snapped, “I can’t. I need to –”

It hit him all at once. The panic. The fear. You. It was all you, flooding his every sense.

He collapsed onto the floor, on his hands and knees as he began crying uncontrollably, feeling the need to scream and barely restraining it.

Something was wrong. Something was so desperately, terribly wrong.

And then… nothing.

Then there was nothing. The urge to scream stopped. The crying stopped. Everything stopped. And he couldn’t feel it. You. Anything. You were just… gone. And that scared him more than the sudden onslaught of your fear had. Because even when you were unconscious and sleeping he could feel you but right now there was nothing.

The tears came back. Something was wrong, and nothing in his heart felt right at the moment.

“What’s wrong with him?!” Larxene said, taking a step back. Axel was freaking her out. In all the time she’d known him, the strongest emotion she had ever managed to elicit from him was anger. And even then it was always more annoyance than anything else.

She’d never seen this level of emotion from him ever, and it was unnerving. Was that really what having a heart did to you? Because it looked like it was driving him insane – a sharp contrast from the happiness and warmth she’d seen when she spied you and him dancing in the theater.

Demyx didn’t respond to Larxene’s question, and he didn’t care to. He hit her with a wave of water that sent her flying backwards. Her electricity crackled around her, sparking in puddles of water, and she knew she wouldn’t be using that electricity again for her own sake. But she wasn’t quite a match for a Demyx who had taken no damage and an Axel who looked like he was coming to grips with his own emotions again. If he joined in on the fight while she was unable to use her powers, then the odds were not in her favor.

So she just glared at the two before enveloping herself in darkness and vanishing.

“Axel, get up,” Demyx instructed, grabbing him by the arm and helping him up.

“________,” he muttered, “Something’s wrong with her. I felt it. She disappeared.”

He could feel you again. It had been the only thing that made him calm down even remotely. He doesn’t know what he’d do if anything had happened to you and you were just gone from him.

He didn’t want to think about it either.

“Did she ever come back?” Demyx asked, looking worriedly at him. Axel nodded, and Demyx visibly relaxed.

“Well need to get Figment and get out of here first,” Demyx said, helping Axel along.

“But ________ –”

“Will be fine,” Demyx finished for him, “Someone is supposed to be teaching her, right? And if this guy has been deemed as a good teacher for her then it’s probably just some training gone wrong but she’s fine now. We need to focus on the task at hand.”

Axel didn’t protest. He wanted to. So very desperately wanted to. But dropping everything for you was why he was back at the Organization in the first place trying to right what he’d wronged.

They quickly headed down the hallway Figment flew through, anxiety mounting with each step. He could be lost.

Or worse.

Captured.

~

You could hear the rush of the river when you came to, and this sent you into a panic, jolting up from where you were laying on the ground and scooting back franticly away from the water. Your heart thudded in your chest loudly, and once you calmed you noticed two things.

The first thing was that your binds were missing. The ropes around your arms and legs were off to the side, cut down their centers and laying in some sand and mud nearby.

The second thing you noticed was a boy. Well, no, that wasn’t quite right. He was roughly your age. So he was a man. A very muscular man, you noted, eyes trailing over his form which was turned away from you.

He was bathing in the river, and you had half a mind to turn away, but couldn’t. Was he the one who saved you? Your eyes trailed over him, noting he had long silver hair – an odd color but beautiful to be sure – and a nice physique. The rest of your view was obstructed by the water which reached his hips.

Not that you were trying to look lower!

He turned towards you, and you noted the blindfold he had over his face.

“You’re up,” he observed, turning fully towards you.

Abs.

No! Bad ________! Look at his face!

Then again he was blindfolded, he couldn’t see you staring. Then again he noticed you were up. You weren’t sure how much he could see, but maybe don’t risk letting him know you’re staring at his abs. Probably ought to look up from them to do that though.

.

.

.

Any minute now.

Ack! He’s coming this way!

You looked away hastily as he began to walk out of the water. Abs were one thing but seeing anything else was too much. And probably a violation of rescuer-rescue-ee policy.

“You saved me?” you asked, voice feeling hoarse – no doubt from all of your previous screaming. You heard the rustle of clothing.

“Yes,” he answered simply. You heard footsteps nearing you, and you looked at him again, noting that he was wearing a robe like that of the Organization members.

Little alarm bells went off in your head.

“Did the Organization send you?” you asked, voice trembling. You weren’t sure how much more you could put up with today.

“No. I wear this to protect myself from darkness.”

You nodded.

“Are you Riku?” you asked next, standing on shaky legs. Your clothes clung to you uncomfortably and the breeze made you feel cold, despite the warmth of the sun still shining brightly around you.

You heated your skin, letting the water turn to steam around you.

“Yes, and you’re ________. A keyblade wielder, a protector and capable warrior. Or supposedly you are.”

What’s that supposed to mean?

“So tell me,” he continued, “How does someone who should be finding me for training wind up tied up and falling over a waterfall?”

A lump formed in your throat. You were in trouble. You knew that much.

“I got into some trouble,” you admitted.

“I gathered that much,” he responded, voice not betraying anger or suspicion. It was smooth and even, yet it made you feel like you were being scolded by a parent. And this guy was just your age!

He waited patiently for you to explain. And you did. Everything.

When you were done he took a deep breath, seeming to regard you from beneath that blindfold of his in a way that made you surprisingly feel naked and vulnerable.

“Never mind that you came here for training and were supposed to find me immediately but didn’t because you wanted to goof off,” he began, and you shrank back, “But you explicitly meddled in the business of this world where you’re not concerned.”

You looked down at your feet.

“I was just havin’ fun,” you mumbled.

“Part of being a keyblade wielder is keeping the order. That doesn’t just mean blending in with your environment. It also means not taking an active side in the matters of those from this world. Your business is the Organization, heartless, and anything that involves hearts and the hearts of worlds. You defend and protect no matter how the matters of others conflicts with your own personal beliefs. That means no pranks!”

You flinched.

He sighed.

“We’ll consider it a fluke and say I gave you a warning. You didn’t know about that. So let’s just get to what we came here for.”

“Training?”

He nodded. Your mood lifted slightly in your excitement. What would you learn?

“I spoke to the king before coming here. He’s told me quite a bit about you – the adventures you’ve been on, the things you’ve learned… the friends you’ve made….”

You didn’t miss the subtle way he implied something about your friends. If he knew as much as he claimed to, you knew he was judging you specifically for Axel and Demyx as opposed to anyone else. But he seemed content to let it go for now. He could hardly do anything about it.

But he wanted to.

“Tell me what you know. About magic, fighting, everything.”

“Uh, okay. Um, I know how to use fire magic, and I recently learned lightning. I’ve used light magic once, but it’s like a move you only do when the situation is dire. Oh! And the king taught me healing magic, but I’ve never used it before. But I haven’t really had any time to practice it yet. I know how to summon my armor and glider. Uh… That’s about it.”

He nodded again.

“That reminds me,” he said stepping forward. He reached up and placed a hand on the back of your neck, keeping you in place. Your heart jumped up into your throat.

Just what was he planning on doing?! He placed another hand on the back of your head, and you flinched. There was dull, throbbing pain where he touched it.

“You’re hurt,” he said, and you felt a cool energy wash over you. It was soothing, and your head felt better. Your eyes closed, and you hummed in contentment.

When you opened them, you expected to look up at the black blindfold but were met instead with the seafoam green of Axel’s eyes.

You gasped, almost shrieking in surprise, stumbling backwards slightly.

“Sorry,” Riku apologized, pulling his hand back. You blinked. No Axel in sight. All in your head.

You were… disappointed.

“Did I touch the part where it hurt?” he asked. He sounded legitimately concerned. You looked away, rubbing your arm.

“Yeah,” you lied, “It’s fine. I feel better.”

“Alright,” he said slowly. He didn’t sound like he believed you all too much, but he didn’t know what else it could be. “So let’s start with the basics. Basic keyblade fighting. Show me your stance.”

You got into your starter stance which was almost like when you started fencing except you kept both hands on your blade.

“Not bad,” Riku commented before stepping over to you again, “But angle your keyblade across from your body as opposed to away from it. You aren’t turned away from your opponent but too much of you is open to attack. If you were fighting just someone else with a keyblade, it would be fine. But not every enemy will be so straightforward.”

You changed the angle of your blade before looking at him for approval.

“Almost,” he said before walking around behind you and letting his arms wrap around yours, placing his hands over yours, his back pressed firmly to you, “Like this.”

Your breath hitched. It was Riku. It had to be. But all you could think of was Axel and his voice every time he had done something similar.

“Got it,” you said, hoping to make him leave you quicker. It worked, and you breathed out a sigh of relief. Sheesh did this guy exist to make your hormones go wild or to keep reminding you of Axel? Or both?

“Good. ‘Cuz now we’re gonna fight,” he said casually as he moved a good distance from you.

He didn’t give you much time to respond before your keyblades were locked in combat.

Notes:

Always love your comments and critiques and kudos!

Next time we'll focus a bit more on your training!

Obscure-ish References:

Splash Mountain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splash_Mountain

Chapter 39: Zip a Dee Doo Dah

Summary:

Title has nothing to do with the chapter, but no one has said it yet, and it feels weird to write anything Song of the South/Splash Mountain related and have no one say it.

Notes:

So anyway training with Riku! Also sorry it's a day late! Internet went out, but I'll be here on Tuesday as usual!

Riku was strong. Really strong. And you briefly wondered if he wasn’t holding back on you at all. His movements were controlled to be sure, but they were also kind of predictable. Which… you wouldn’t expect from someone who’d been at this a longer time than you had. He had to be going easy on you.

“Are you holding back?” you panted. The two of you had been at this for at least an hour. How much was he getting from this? Wasn’t it just to be a “show me your basics” kind of run? How long did he need to see the “basics?”

“Yes,” he answered with a smirk. Cocky bastard!

You began to hit harder. Maybe if you pushed yourself, he’d be forced to push himself too, but he hardly seemed affected. So all you managed to do was make yourself more tired. You began to try and used more tricks to push him, and this surprised him – if the first time you used a feint on him and his shocked expression of you suddenly behind him were any indication. He recovered fast though, so your hit didn’t land.

At least this meant you knew he wasn’t going as fast as he possibly could. You could probably just assume from that and the muscles you saw earlier that he was stronger than you too.

But at least you were more agile. You surprised him with your ability to dodge purely from the fact that you could contort your body a bit more than he could – or drop into a split when a keyblade was coming right at your face then use your legs to sweep his feet from underneath him. Not that it hindered any of his other abilities – like a quick recovery from having your legs swept from underneath you.

When he finally knocked you onto your back and you didn’t get up, he relented and announced that that was enough of the basics for now and that he’d learned all he needed to.

You looked up from where you were sprawled on the ground, eyeing him.

“It took you over an hour to figure out how much of ‘the basics’ I knew?” you questioned, throwing up air quotes around “the basics.”

“Well no,” Riku answered with a shrug. Then he smirked. “I figured that out after five minutes, but then I was just having fun. Consider it a punishment for blowing me off earlier to play pranks.”

You gaped at him briefly before letting your head fall back to the ground.

“I don’t like you,” you panted out. He laughed. It was a nice laugh.

“Alright fun’s over,” he announced after you continued to lay there for a few minutes, “Get up. We still have a lot to do.”

“That’s fun for you? Are you some sort of masochist?”

He snorted.

“Close enough to it,” he answered lightly, and you found yourself holding back a laugh of your own.

“We’ll move on to magic next.”

He set up some training dummies made of wood in a row about 10 or so.

“You said you know fire and lightning. So let’s see it,” he said.

You conjured up your fire with no problem whatsoever, chucking a few fireballs at the first dummy until it couldn’t withstand anymore damage and collapsed into a heap of burning wood and cinders.

“You don’t use your keyblade,” Riku noted.

“Well I didn’t learn to use it with one,” you said with a shrug, “The person who taught me has never wielded a keyblade, so he couldn’t very well teach me with one.”

Riku nodded.

“Would’ve been easier if you had,” he stated, “Your keyblade can also act like a wand of sorts. It’s easier to channel magic through it though not necessary. So let’s see the lightning.”

You took a deep breath. The most you’d done with it was the little sparks that crackled over your fingers when you first learned you had the ability. You hadn’t had any opportunity to practice with it since then.

You felt deeply for the magic that pooled within you like a well, feeling around for the still unfamiliar feeling of lightning magics.

It didn’t feel like the darkness which was so icy cold or the searing heat of your fire magic. Instead it felt like a buzz, like the tickle of insects scurrying around or static electricity. Pooling it at your fingertips made the air smell like ozone. It crackled in light blue-ish colored bolts that danced over your hands in little arcs, connecting between different fingertips.

But this wasn’t quite like fire magic. When fire pooled at your hands, the flame appeared and waited for what you were going to do with it.

The electricity pooled but in an invisible force. It weighed itself against the force of your hands whereas fire just floated and waited. No, electricity needed to be directed and pushed.

Now how does one go about doing that exactly?

“Uh…,” you said, looking at your hands as if they were foreign objects.

“Here,” Riku said, already moving to be next to you, “Let me help you.”

Riku help? By touching?! AnD BeiNG ClOSe?!

“Uh!” you almost shouted in your nervous state, your electricity sparking brightly around you in almost a ring when you whirled around to face Riku before he could approach you.

Mm. Yep. That proved it. He needed to not do that anymore. You couldn’t take it. And it wouldn’t be such a problem if it weren’t for the fact that you kept thinking of Axel. And it made you nervous and giddy and angry and sad all at the same time!

At least if you didn’t have Axel on the brain you’d be able to just focus on hot guy helping you out. Something easy to brush off when you had no intent for a relationship. But you did have Axel on your mind and running all throughout it, and it was causing more stress than necessary.

“Sorry! Sorry!” you said, as electricity continued to buzz around you. It felt like a more tangible force now. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so explosive if you hadn’t gathered so much of the energy around you before losing your cool.

It was the Gyro magic testing fiasco all over again. Only now because of acute anxiety rather than the attention of a guy you were attracted to.

“Maybe you should channel it via keyblade,” Riku suggested, keeping his distance, “You’ll be able to keep your, um, ‘outbursts’ limited to around your blade rather than around you .”

You nodded, taking a few calming breaths.

“Sorry,” you apologized again. “I’ve never done this before, and I’m a little nervous.”

“It’s alright. Just keep your cool ,and try not to electrocute me,” he said with a little hint of a smirk.

“There go my plans for the day,” you remarked dryly, turning back towards the dummies.

“Keep it up, and we’ll be basic training for another hour.”

You huffed, summoning your keyblade and pointing it at the dummy next to the pile of ashes that was once Dummy #1.

You felt the electricity gathering around your keyblade, and it felt as if your keyblade were pulling on the magic as well, wrapping itself around it and keeping it in place. It wasn’t unlike when you pushed fire or light into it, but now that it was something new, you were more conscious about its pull on your magic.

Electricity didn’t spark around your keyblade, but you felt the energy of it waiting to be directed now like your fire did. It really was easier. All you had to do was think about it and…

A bolt of lightning rocketed from your keyblade to the heart of the dummy. In its place was a darkened black spot with splinters of wood jutting from it. There were bright spots of orange, cooling where the lightning had heated it to the point of nearly bursting into flames.

“Not bad, but you can do better. Lightning can splinter, and you’ll be able to hit more targets at once. Think you can handle focusing on more than one target?”

“Uh, maybe? I’ve never had to before. Fire was easier. You could put it anywhere. And you know, you could even set yourself on fire.”

“Well that may have come to you more naturally, but you’re gonna have to work harder for things that don’t. So let’s see that chain lightning.”

You took a deep breath, breathing out slowly. You lifted your keyblade pointing it at the dummy again and feeling your magic gather around it again.

How do you even splinter magic?! At least if you needed more than one set of flames, you could channel one side through one hand and another through the other. But your keyblade was only one outlet, and you didn’t know how to send it through your hands yet anyway.

You tried thinking about it again. Maybe if you thought of two of them two would appear? It worked with making the lightning appear in the first place.

It didn’t work. The same single bolt of lightning appeared just as before.

“Concentrate, ________,” Riku instructed, “Pull your magic in more than just one direction. You have to control it if you want it to do what you want.”

You nodded silently, moderately embarrassed at your assumption that it would just do it only because you wanted it to rather than because you actually made it happen.

You focused again, this time channeling the energy in front of your keyblade as opposed to around it. You felt the magic and gathered it into a ball, trying to split down the middle while also focusing on the dummies in front of you.

You let the lightning fly again. It didn’t splinter like you wanted it too, but it did hit both dummies. The lightning struck the first before ricocheting into the next one and down the line of dummies before fizzling out on the last one.

“Mm. Neat trick and same result, but not quite what I asked for.”

He stood next to you facing the dummies, and you tried not to acknowledge how close to you he’d gotten. He held up his keyblade, pointing it at Dummy #2 who was now leaning dangerously to one side after all the damage he’d taken. Dummy #3 and onward wasn’t looking too hot either.

“Focus your magic,” he said, placing both hands on his keyblade. You copied his movement, focusing it as he did. The air around you felt charged.

“Now split it in two parts. You should be able to feel both parts of it.”

You did your best feeling one part that was kinda sorta split yet kinda sorta not. It was like the two halves were still touching yet not together.

“Now let it go in two directions, like you’re telling them which way to go.”

His lightning took off in a flash, striking dummies #2 and #3 as separate bolts of lightning.

You let your lightning fly as well, still not doing exactly what it ought to, starting in one bolt before splitting into two.

Riku sighed and shook his head.

“I’m doing my best,” you said with a little stamp of your foot. He just looked at you.

“Did you just… stomp?” he said like he couldn’t believe you would do something so childish. You crossed your arms, a pout crossing your face, and he just looked at you like you were quite possibly the most bewildering thing in the world if not the most amusing.

He laughed.

“What?!” you snapped.

“You’re cute,” he said simply, still laughing at you, “Kind of like a toddler.”

Hnnnng! Asshole!

“Oh screw you!” you snapped, pouting in the other direction now – which, of course, only made him laugh harder at your behavior.

“All jokes aside,” he said, getting past his mirth, “There are two more things we need to discuss. Changing your appearance to keep the order on other worlds and your darkness.”

“Shapeshifting!” you said, clapping excitedly.

“Well yes, but actually no,” Riku said, to your confusion, “The magic used for changing your appearance isn’t just a shapeshifting magic. You can’t turn into whatever you want whenever you want. The magic only locks in what’s common or natural for that world but also what is closest to your original appearance and changes your form to match it. Like if you went someplace where humans can exist, then odds are you’ll be turned into a human. However, if you go somewhere humans exist but your heart is leading you somewhere where humans don’t typically exist, then chances are you’ll turn into something else.”

“So if I used this magic in Twilight Town, I’d look like a human?”

“Yes.”

“But if a human used this magic on my home world, they’d be an elf?”

“…”

“…”

“What?”

“I’m an elf? That is my species?”

“Weird.”

“Well what’s so weird about it?”

“Nothing! It’s just… you look like a normal person.”

“Shut up, and let’s just move on!” you snapped.

“Okay. Now you’re magic for this will feel foreign to you. Because it is everything that isn’t you. All of your other magic exists as an extension of yourself, but this one is more an extension of your ability to connect with hearts like that of a world or its people. Can you try feeling for that magic?”

“I can try,” you mused, closing your eyes and feeling for something foreign. But what did foreign magic even feel like?

“It’ll get easier over time. Try connecting with the heart of the person you played pranks with. Try and take a form similar to theirs. Eventually you’ll be able to this without connecting to specific hearts.”

You felt in your little well of magic, identifying each one you recognized until you felt something that felt off to you. This had to be it! It was as unfamiliar in a different way than just feeling new magic. Your lightning magic felt unfamiliar, but it was still you . This was not you.

Now all you had to do was connect with Br’er Rabbit. You searched the area with your own heart, but he was no where to be found. You couldn’t feel him. Maybe he was too far away?

“I can’t,” you said, opening your eyes and looking at Riku. He frowned a bit.

“Do it anyway,” he instructed. You frowned but closed your eyes again and tried anyway. You still could not feel him anywhere. Maybe you could just make it up yourself. Was that within the realm of possibility?

You didn’t know what Br’er Rabbit’s heart felt like specifically. But you knew a little of what he was like. A troublemaker to be sure but not a bad person. He likes fun and has a lot of energy. Clever probably. You’d have to be to have avoided being eaten by Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear for so long.

“That wasn’t so hard was it?”

You opened your eyes to look at Riku. He was… he was taller now. You blinked up at him. Then you edged closer to the river, not too close, but enough that you could see yourself.

A small brown bunny with big round eyes, a curl of lighter brown hair on your forehead, long whiskers, a tiny, pink nose, and floppy ears that hung about your shoulders. You were also in a smaller, simpler version of the clothes you were wearing, shorts and a tee shirt. You looked behind you to see a little tuft of fluff sticking out of your shorts. A tail! What a weird thing to have after never having had one before. You gave it a few shakes, and it wiggled back and forth. Your ears perked up as you watched your tail with mild fascination. That was also strange. It was true that elves had had long ears in the past, but you never did. It was strange to say the least.

You looked back into the water, turning your face this way and that. You were adorable ! You squished your cheeks. You were soft! You were adorable and soft! You would cuddle the fuck out of yourself! You continued to inspect yourself from the little curl that was your hair to your big feet, which were far less graceful than before, but you were new to this as a whole.

You continued marveling at your new form until Riku cleared his throat. He was obviously ready to move on. You cast another quick glance at your reflection before walking back over to Riku, looking up at him with your big eyes, whiskers and nose twitching.

“Great,” he said, “Now it’ll be hard to keep this form for a while, but I’m sure you’ll get used to it in no time.”

“It doesn’t feel that hard to hold,” you boasted. Maybe he just had a hard time with it. You felt absolutely fine.

“Have another one of your little outbursts and we’ll see how hard keeping your form is.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you said, mildly aggravated.

“Well you’re sensitive obviously. And let’s be honest, you don’t have the best judgment. You probably land yourself in stressful situations all the time.”

“I do not !”

“I had to drag you out of a river because your own stupidity caused you to piss off half of the people you met today.”

“!!!”

“You lost your form by the way,” Riku mentioned casually with a smirk. You hadn’t even noticed your sudden growth spurt in your eruption of mild anger. You opened and closed your mouth, wanting to protest, but what could you say when you literally just proved what he was saying.

You really wanted to wipe that smug little smirk off of his face though.

“It doesn’t count if you provoke it!” you snapped. The smirk remained.

“There’s gonna be a lot worse than a little light fun that’s going to provoke you, so you better get used to it ‘cuz I’m being nice.”

“You are not nice,” you said with a sniff. He just laughed – like he often did at your antics or outbursts or comments. And you just quietly huffed to yourself.

“Moving on,” Riku said, “Your darkness is a problem from what I’ve heard.”

“Well I mean, I wouldn’t say it’s a problem ,” you said, looking down at your feet and shuffling nervously.

“You punched someone innocent in a fit of anger and worry.”

You looked away.

“Look,” he continued, “I get it. It’s harder to control your darkness when the people you care about are in danger, but you and I have something in common. Our darkness can be manifested outside of our hearts and into a physical form.”

“So how do you manage to suppress it?” you asked, wondering how exactly you’re supposed to keep it all at bay when flying into a frenzy at the thought of any of your loved ones being in mortal danger was bound to be a frequent occurrence.

“You don’t suppress it. That won’t do anything but ensure you can’t control it under moments of extreme duress. You need to come to terms with it.” 

“How did you do that?”

Riku removed his blindfold, enveloping himself in darkness. In an instant what stood before you was not the pale, silver-haired man from before but a tall, dark, and handsome man with incredibly golden eyes. His hair remained its pale silver though. But he was taller now. Was this how darkness affected people?

The next thing that caught your eye was what floated behind him. It made you back up a few steps in light fear. Though if Riku did not fear this thing, maybe you didn’t have to either. Though maybe he didn’t know it was there.

“Is that supposed to be there?!” you asked, pointing a finger up at the heartless that had yet to move from where it floated behind Riku.

“It’s my guardian,” he stated simply. Even his voice was deeper. “I accepted the darkness that was within me, and now I can use it to my advantage. No one is forced to succumb to the darkness within their hearts, and those of us who have more than the average person can channel it. This will be your next lesson.”

“But what if it overcomes you?”

“It cannot. You are a good person at heart. You give freely of yourself as is expected of keyblade wielders. That good nature is what keeps the darkness from overtaking and destroying you. Now, channel your darkness. Bring it forth so that you may use it.”

You felt uneasy. Nervous too. You’d never actually channeled your darkness willingly. It had always just come to you whenever you felt strong negative emotions directed at other people or things. You’d never tried just calling to it just because.

You closed your eyes once more and knew what to look for. Oddly enough it felt as familiar to you as fire magic did, though maybe that was because it was a part of your actual makeup as a being, ingrained in your DNA as opposed to just existing in your heart like it did with others.

You briefly wondered what Riku had to do for darkness to exist in such a quantity in him – assuming he too didn’t have an ancestor who was a heartless.

Before you could pull on your darkness, you felt another icy presence before you. You opened your eyes and gasped, stumbling back in your startled state.

Riku’s guardian floated in front of you, staring at you intensely with its bright yellow eyes. You looked to Riku for an explanation as to what exactly was going on, but he looked as confused as you did, glancing between you and the guardian repeatedly.

“What are you doing to it? Can you control it?” Riku asked.

“No,” you replied hastily, hands up in a defensive position, “I’m not doing anything.”

The heartless leaned in close, and you felt… something. You looked closely at it as well, leaning forward yourself, noting that it felt vastly different from other heartless that you’d encountered. For one, its presence wasn’t as cold. And two, it wasn’t the same darkness as yours, but it felt incredibly similar.

“What’s his name?” you asked finally.

Riku blinked.

“Its name?”

“Well, yeah,” you said, looking to Riku for an answer, “I mean it’s sentient, isn’t it? It feels like me, so it’s probably got a name hasn’t it?”

“Feels like you? What the hell does that mean?”

“I’m part heartless,” you explained, blinking back at the guardian before you, “Didn’t the king tell you anything about that?”

“It may have been one of the details he forgot to mention,” Riku answered, blinking dazedly at you, “But that explains the smell.”

“What smell?” you asked, self-consciously sniffing your armpit to see what smell he was talking about. You didn’t smell all too fresh right now after all of your training, and the smell of the river lingered on you a bit, but you didn’t think it was too awful.

“Creatures of darkness tend to stink depending on who they are as a person. You don’t exactly stink because you don’t have any evil or malicious intent in you, but it makes you smell… odd. That’s why I was bathing in the river. After I rescued you, your scent was all over me. It also explains a lot.”

The guardian, done inspecting you returned to its spot behind Riku.

“What does it explain?” you asked.

“Well when I gave you the letter from Master Yen Sid, something smelled off, so I stuck around to see what was what – make sure there wasn’t any inherent danger around. But then I smelled something really rotten and kept up the search. The first time, it was you, but I just happened to stumble across something worse. I never found out what though.”

“Do you think it may have been anything specific?”

“Can’t say. I did run into a few errant heartless, so it could have been them, and their smell just lingered. But it’s hardly important now. You’ve still yet to show me your darkness.”

“Right,” you said, re-closing your eyes and searching out your darkness. It swirled about as it always did, icy and frozen, chilling you to your core every time it made itself known to you.

You brought it forth, and, with a gasp, it consumed you. You felt like you were freezing in the 9 th ring of hell. It was so cold it hurt, and you wondered if it would be this painful all of the time or if it was something you’d get used to.

You hunched forward, hands on your knees as you tried to remain standing, feeling like your entire center of gravity shifted. Your head felt heavier and your weight felt like it had been dispersed unevenly amongst different parts of your body. You felt nauseous.

When you opened your eyes, everything looked different, like you could see fine detail on everything. It was almost unnatural, to see the veins on a leaf that looked one solid color at a distance a moment ago. You looked at Riku who looked back. He seemed shocked, though that was probably because of how suddenly the darkness had overtaken you. It had felt like a rush, as if it had been waiting all this time to be released and had remained pressed to the door in anticipation.

You looked down, still tired and nauseated from the sudden change, and you saw black.

Your skin was black, dark as night with no indication light was hitting it at all. It was like you were absorbing light to the point where it didn’t escape.

Your nails were claws, and your legs were different, longer. You had to have grown at least a foot or so. Your feet were also larger, tipped with more sharp claws.

What did this darkness do to you?!

Your breath began to come rapidly in shallow breaths.

Also where were your shoes?! You were wearing them before. You looked down at your body to discover you weren’t wearing any clothes. Your breasts were exposed though they lacked nipples. Just below your ribcage a hole shaped like a heart sat. You placed a hand over it. Funny, you had a scar there from the last time a hole got put through you. You’d laugh if you weren’t freaking the fuck out.

You plodded over to the water ungracefully on your big feet, all fear for the water temporarily forgotten in your panic.

Four bright yellow eyes stared back at you. They widened just as yours did. You let out a breathless huff of air in shock, eyes darting up to two large horns curved out and upward until they formed a pseudo-heart in the space between.

Two small wings flapped on your back in your anxiety.

You fell away from the creature before you in fear, landing on your butt and backing up rapidly. You looked like a heartless! You looked close to those creatures who attacked you in your father’s mind and when you ascended the tree to defeat Uh-Oa. You looked like a monster !

Was that a dick?! Oh no wait. You had a tail. You were just looking at it from between your legs. It swayed lightly, thumping on the ground occasionally. You noticed it had a flat heart shape at the end of it.

A whine/groan garbled out of your throat and your eyes felt hot like you were going to cry. You placed your hand over your face, feeling sobs rack your body. Why? Why did you have to look like them ?

“Get up,” Riku commanded.

You looked up at Riku, glaring at him with all four of your eyes. He almost flinched. He was used to heartless, but they were little more than animals whose expressions never communicated more than their instinct to destroy or consume. You were a person, looking at him with malice – something a bit more intense when there were actual emotions behind it. But Riku steeled himself, setting his mouth in a hard line and glaring right back at you.

“Get up,” he ordered again.

“Why?” you whined out, “Why do I look like this? What happened to me?”

“You said you were part heartless,” Riku mentioned, “You probably look like whatever heartless was in your bloodline – which I’m still curious about by the way.”

“My ancestor from way back when, a grandmother, fell in love with and had a child with a heartless.”

“And it was sentient?” Riku asked, wondering exactly how such a relationship worked.

You nodded, feeling the change in weight of your head more pronouncedly now that there were horns on top of it.

“So… you probably just look like the heartless ancestor,” Riku mused.

“Your point?”

“There’s nothing wrong with the way you look. You just look like your ancestor, and if your grandmother found nothing wrong with it, then there probably isn’t anything wrong.”

“But I look like a monster.”

“So accept it. You may look like the heartless you fight, but there’s nothing inherently monstrous about you. This is just another part of you.”

“It doesn’t feel like me.”

“Doesn’t it? You found your darkness so quickly as if you knew it this whole time. It is you. You have to come to terms with it. What you look like doesn’t inherently make you evil. You just look different. You can still be a creature of light even when the darkness in you is that prominent. Now stand up .”

You didn’t want to stand up. You wanted to sit and lament your lost looks, but you stood up anyway, ungracefully stumbling to your feet. You crossed your arms over your chest, feeling exposed despite the lack of specific parts of your anatomy.

Riku was polite enough to continue to look at your face, undeterred by your undressed form.

“Now let’s see how we can use this,” he continued as if you weren’t having some form of existential crisis only minutes before.

He approached you, but you were too out of it to feel any type of way about it like you had before. He lifted your arm, inspecting it. You noted that it was more muscular now. You looked at it, now fascinated, lifting it out of his hand and flexing it. You were fucking built.

“I bet you’ve got the strength to back up that muscle,” Riku commented, walking around you and looking at you, “Can’t do much with the horns. Trying to attack anything with them would give you a severe visual impairment since you’d only be able to look down. This tail looks useful though. You could probably cut something down to size with it. It’s almost like a blade.”

You felt him lifting your tail, hand holding the flat heart at the end of it, and you looked back at him to make sure that that was all he was looking at. You didn’t think he was that kind of person, but you’ve been proven wrong before.

What would Axel think if he saw you like this?

The intrusive thought was random and unwelcome. You didn’t want to think about how he would feel about it. Didn’t want to imagine him turning you away in disgust because of how you looked. Your tail curled around you instinctively, and you hugged yourself, feeling a crippling self-consciousness weigh you down.

“Hey, none of that now,” Riku said, realizing you were rejecting your body once again.

“What would my friends and family think if they saw me like this?” you almost whispered. Riku’s expression softened. He knew that feeling well enough. What would Sora think to see him now?

“I don’t know. I can’t say they’ll accept your new form. I guess all you can hope for is that they do. I’d like to think that the kind of love friends and families share could transcend it, but… I don’t know.”

It didn’t give you much comfort. But his words rang steadily within you, the tone of his voice bringing out some of your empathy. You felt his pain in a weird way. Not the way you could feel Axel’s, but you understood him to some degree.

“Riku? Do the people you care about not know you can do that or look like that?” you asked, turning slowly towards him.

“No,” he answered slowly, “I’ve been too afraid to tell Sora. I don’t want him to see me like this.”

“But you’ve accepted it?” you asked incredulously, “If you’re so accepting of it, then your friends will be too.”

“I could say the same for you.”

“Yeah, but at least you’re attractive. I look like I crawled out of the depths of hell.”

He laughed a bit, and it made you smile. But his laughter soon died.

“You know about Xehanort and his nobody Xemnas,” Riku said slowly, “But did anybody tell you about his heartless? It was sentient too. It looked just like this. He possessed me when I was too stupid and naïve to know what I was doing was wrong. Even when he was defeated part of his darkness lingered on in me. I ran from it for the longest time, but I like to think I’ve come to accept it. But how can anyone else accept it when I wear the face of someone who’s done so much bad to the world?”

You stepped forward, taking his hand in yours, minding your claws so as not to hurt him.

“Your friends will understand,” you said firmly, “They know you – know you’re sorry. Probably know that you’re trying to make up for it if you’re out here keyblade wielding it up for the sake of good. I don’t know Sora all too well but seemed like a good person. It’s just what you look like, right? This is just another part of you. There’s nothing inherently monstrous about you.”

Riku chuckled. It was almost funny to hear his own words thrown back at him like that. But it made you think too. If Riku could wear the face of a man who had done evil, you could wear the face of your ancestor who had broken from his nature and done good. You could learn to accept it.

Notes:

Thank you for all of your lovely comments and kudos as they are always a highlight in my day! I hope you all enjoyed and I'll see you all on Tuesday!

Chapter 40: Funny Business

Summary:

Br'er Fox catches up to Br'er Rabbit. You catch up to Br'er Fox. Vanitas, Axel, and Riku catch up to you. In that order.

Notes:

So due to how long the next few chapters are going to run, I'm going to start posting once a week on Tuesdays effective immediately. I'll give a heads up if I start posting on Thursdays again though. We have two major arcs and lots of character development coming up, so get ready!

“Alright, alright,” Riku said after a moment, “That’s enough of the sappy stuff.”

You both laughed, and you let go of his hand and stepped back a bit.

“Let’s get back to the training,” he said, turning away from you.

“Wait,” you said, “I really do think you should tell Sora about it. Or show him at least. I think he’ll still want to be friends with you.”

Riku thought for a long moment, and you watched him, seeing the gears turning in his head.

“I’ll do it,” he admitted, then meeting your eyes with a hard, steady gaze added, “If you do. Then we’ll both have really come to terms with it.”

You gulped. The thought of rejections from Axel was a bit much, never mind how anyone else might feel about it, your uncle, Dreamfinder, Figment, Demyx, Namine, and especially your mother.

“Deal,” you said, voice quavering just slightly. There may not be hope for you, but there was for him. Plus, you’ve taken bigger gambles than this, thoughts of your many life-threatening adventures flashing through your mind.

You weren’t sure if you were actually going to go through with this one though. But Riku didn’t need to know that.

Riku nodded at you before directing his attention back to the training dummies who all looked like they’d seen better days, especially those of Dummy #1 – may he rest in peace.

“Now let’s see some brute strength.”

“Uh, strength isn’t one of my strong suits,” you said, rubbing the back of your neck.

“Well maybe not when you were human, I mean, elf, but you’re much muscular now. And clumsier looks like. We’ll call it a tradeoff, whatever agility or gracefulness you had before is all but nonexistent now.”

“How could you know that? You’ve seen me move like three times in this whole ordeal!”

“Trust me,” he chuckled, shaking his head at the memory of you trying to walk, “It was enough.”

You flipped him off and stuck your tongue out before turning your attention back to the dummies. Let’s see him walk when suddenly you’re a foot taller and your feet have grown three shoes sizes in five minutes.

“Alright, smartass, let’s see you hit some of them around a bit.” Riku gestured to the dummies with a wave of his hand.

You drew your keyblade, taking a ready stance before charging at them. You were no where near as graceful as you once had been, but you were a bit faster due to your legs being longer. If you could get used to the large feet stomping on the ground and claws digging into the earth, then you’d be good to go.

You raised your keyblade above your head, bringing it down on top of Dummy #3’s head. It all but cleaved the dummy in two, splitting from the top of its head to the center of its abdomen.

Riku let out a low whistle. The display was impressive to say the least. He watched you pull your keyblade from the dummy with no small amount of difficulty, causing it to splinter further, one half hanging limply to the side, the other half barely clinging to the support beam it used to stand itself up.

You stared at the dummy, looking at it barely staying together. Then just because you could, you spun around quickly, sweeping your axe like tail through the dummy, watching as its upper half collapsed on the ground in a heap. With the rest of it you simply picked it up, yanking it out of the ground where the stake had been driven and snapped it in two with your hands alone.

Brute strength was right. You may not have been all too graceful, but you could deal a hit much stronger than your previous ones. And you’d be lying if you said you weren’t a little giddy about that.

“Alright, don’t get carried away. We still have a little bit of training to do, and I’m not making more of those. Let’s see you use those wings of yours.”

You looked at your back to where the little wings were perched. If it hadn’t been for the fact that you’d seen heartless with wings that small in proportion to their body fly, you’d have doubted you could do anything at all. Riku must have guessed as much as well.

You gave them an experimental flap, and it reminded you of your grandmother’s majestic dragon wings. She hadn’t mentioned anything about being able to turn into a heartless – just a dragon. Maybe this was what you could do but she hadn’t known it. Maybe she just thought you could be a dragon like her, but instead you were more inclined to your grandfather’s darkness.

Though he turned into a dragon…. Or was that specifically a “Mythiss blessed me,” sort of thing?

Riku snapped his fingers in front of your face, and you blinked, looking at him.

“S-sorry,” you said quickly, flapping your wings rapidly to try and lift yourself from the ground.

You came up quicker than you thought you would, jolting six feet into the air. You slowed your flapping down, coming back closer to the ground while Riku observed you. You tried going back and forth, up and down, side to side. You were much slower going side to side and backwards than any of the other directions. You assumed this had something to do with the size of your wings. They didn’t push enough air for them to effectively go in those directions, being partially blocked by your larger frame.

“Alright. I think there isn’t much else we can do that you don’t already know about. Let’s finish it off with a little more basic training, and I’ll let you go find your friend,” Riku concluded.

“Friend?”

“The rabbit you told me you were with before you got pushed over a waterfall. He’s probably worried about you.”

You felt immense guilt. You’d turned out alright in the end and hadn’t thought once about finding Br’er Rabbit to tell him as much. He probably really was worried sick.

Riku summoned his keyblade, and you did the same.

For another hour or so the two of you trained. As Xehanort’s heartless, Riku was much stronger than before, but he didn’t feel the need to go easy on you either because you were matching him in strength almost blow for blow. And any attacks he attempted to strike behind you were almost always met with a block and strike from your tail – which you were quickly warming up to because of that. Especially since your clumsy feet and gangly legs did not yet allow for graceful turns and kicks as they had before.

When you had actually managed to push him back almost into a kneeling position, he finally caved, just as out of breath as you were when the two of you first started this whole thing.

“There is one more thing,” Riku said before he let you go. He took your hand and you felt a cool warmth and familiar tingle run up your hand and arm, not unlike when you learned healing from the king.

“What’s that?” you asked, looking up from where your hands were joined.

“Air magic. We’ll cover it more the next time we train, but don’t be afraid to practice it beforehand.”

“Cool!” you said, hyped up and excited. And eager to find your friend. You were raring to go find Br’er Rabbit already bounding off to go find him, but Riku stopped you.

“Wait,” Riku called, and you turned to look at him, “You still look like a heartless. I don’t think he’s going to recognize you all too well like that.”

“Oh, right,” you said, letting out a little nervous laugh before concentrating. You could feel the darkness recede from you and replaced with the warmth of the sun. It was such a contrast, the warmth from before that had felt so comforting almost felt uncomfortably humid and heated.

You tucked the darkness back into yourself, and this time it felt like it had been neatly stored away, having been more or less accepted – no longer bursting to get out with an emphasis on when your negative emotions ran rampant.

You looked down at yourself. You were clothed – thank goodness – and met with the familiar sight of your regular body. A comfort regardless of how you now felt about your heartless form.

“Thank you!” you said excited, “For everything! Even the training!”

“Just don’t be late or throwing yourself into danger next time,” he said with a smirk. And with one more wave and smile you bounded off into the forest, tracing your way back to the area where you’d last seen Br’er Rabbit.

Riku watched after you for a moment. You’d be alright. He was prepared to leave when something caught his attention, a shadow of a movement out of the corner of his eye. He quickly went to it, chasing after it until he could see what it was.

An unversed.

He disposed of it then ran off to find you.

~

Your search had not been going all too well. You retraced your would-be path down the river to the waterfall. You even traced part of it back to where Riku may have found and rescued you. But you didn’t see Br’er Rabbit anywhere. You went back to his home and found no one was there. You searched near where the two of you first met – though you knew that one was a stretch.

You were about to give up, plopping down on a log near the road, when you heard a familiar voice calling your name.

“________!” he called, and you hopped up and began to trot off in that direction. He wasn’t too far away so you didn’t need to run.

“________!” a second voice called, this one of Br’er Frog. Oh, he was looking too? How sweet!

It was just as you had them in your line of sight and were about to call out to them that a large net slammed over both of them. You ducked behind some bushes so as not to be seen.

“Gotcha!” Br’er Fox said, “I knew it! I knew it! Didn’t I tell ya Br’er Bear?” the fox said, eagerly looking to his friend who lumbered up behind him.

“Uh, yep that’s what you said.”

“I knew it soon as I seen that barrel and no dead girl and no dead rabbit. I said to myself, I said them two got to be alive! And lookie lookie here! Where’s ya lil’ friend?” Br’er Fox asked, looking at a very frightened Br’er Frog and a very distraught and saddened Br’er Rabbit.

“Ol’ river done washed her away,” he said, and you could tell part of him meant it despite the fact that they had been looking for you moments before.

“Aww now don’t you look so sad,” Br’er Fox said, patting Br’er Rabbit’s cheek through the mesh of the net, “When I’m done with ya, you’ll be reunited sho’ nuff!” he added with a cruel laugh.

He slung the net over his shoulder and ambled away, Br’er Bear keeping behind him and ensuring that Br’er Frog and Br’er Rabbit didn’t escape.

You had to do something. But what?

You followed them at a distance, keeping back to ensure they didn’t see you while you tried to think of something. But what could you do? If it had just been the fox, then maybe you could intervene. But Br’er Bear was something different entirely. And this was only because you’d have to do it all without a keyblade, magic, or armor to keep “the order.”

You continued following them up the familiar winding, twisting path that led to Chikapin Hill and watched as Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear lumbered into Br’er Fox’s house – the door barely placed on its hinges since you’d knocked it off only hours ago. You crept around the house, conscious of your previous mistake of bursting through the door and allowing someone to creep up behind you.

This time you would be more careful. This time you would scout out the area, creeping over to a window which was just a hole in the side of the tree trunk and peering in. It was a simple home that you had not had time to observe last time. You saw Br’er Fox prop up the large net holding Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Frog near the door, and Br’er Bear stood next to it, ensuring no chance for escape on their own for the captives.

You watched Br’er Fox pull down a heavy book and start flipping through it. The cover read 1001 Ways to Cook Rabbits . He showed it to the two captives, and they both audibly gulped.

“Don’t you worry, Br’er Frog,” Br’er Fox cooed with absolute glee, “There’ll be plenty of ways to cook you up too! Yessuh we’s eatin’ good tonight!” He let out a long, loud cackle of a laugh, and Br’er Bear joined in on the laughter before asking what the joke was.

“Never you mind that,” Br’er Fox said, rushing over to the other side of the room where he grabbed a large pot filled with water. He plopped it on some firewood near the window, and you ducked down so as not to be seen. “All that matters is in a matter of minutes we’ll be havin’ a delicious rabbit and frog stew!”

“That sounds gross,” Br’er Bear said, scratching his head.

“You’ll eat what I cook ya!”

When you heard his footsteps retreating, you peeked back up over the sill of the window and watched as he reached overhead for a small packet of matches that he was just barely able to reach at the edge of the shelf. He placed them inside of his vest before taking Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Frog and tying them both up. He placed them in the pot of water, clothes and all before cutting up carrots and flinging them into the pot as well.

Then he pulled the matches back out and lit the first one, throwing it on to the firewood. You noted that the packet only had two matches in it. The fire spread quickly around the pot, and Br’er Fox excitedly rubbed his hands together as he watched.

“Now don’t go away now,” Br’er Fox said, patting Br’er Frog on the head, “I’m gon’ get some seasonings that’ll flavor you right up!”

Br’er Bear was getting ready by sitting at a nearby table, tying a napkin around his neck in anticipation and pulling out a makeshift menu to read that he quickly buried his face in.

Br’er Fox left to walk into the only other room available in his tiny home, and you peaked your head further over the windows edge.

“Psst,” you said quietly, and the two looked over to you, expressions quickly turning joyous at your sudden return from the dead. Thinking quickly, and ignoring the order for the sake of safety, you channeled your new magic, a wild and energetic magic that billowed from your fingertips. You sent a quick, brusque breeze, wild and untamed with your inexperience towards the fire, just powerful enough to blow out the flames around the pot like a candle rather than fan them.

You ducked back out of the window when you saw Br’er Fox returning. He gaped at the fire which had been completely snuffed out. He sent a wary glare at Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Frog who sat there watching him with wide eyes. They couldn’t have done it. They could scarcely move due to the ropes that bound them.

He watched them closely with narrowed eyes as he pulled out the little packet of matches and lit the last one, throwing it on the fire, blowing on it so that it would spread more quickly since the initial burning of the wood hindered a quick spread.

“No funny business now,” he said, waggling a finger at them, “Or we’ll skip the cookin’ and get right to the main course!”

Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Frog audibly gulped.

Br’er Fox turned again to leave, probably going to get something from the other room once more, before glancing over his shoulder to make sure the two hadn’t moved. Once they didn’t he retreated to the other room once more. You popped back up from your hiding place and blew the fire out once more before ducking back down. At this point Br’er Rabbit was keeping in a laugh. He knew you wouldn’t let anything bad happen this time around. If you could help it.

When Br’er Fox returned with more carrots and seasonings, he dropped them on the floor, mouth hanging agape, before he marched frustratedly over to them, yanking Br’er Rabbit so close their noses were touching.

“Now look here, rabbit,” he said, shaking him a bit for emphasis, “I ain’t playin’ with you. I don’t know how you did it, but know this. If you put out that fire one mo’ time, I’m gonna skin ya alive and wear it like a fur coat while I dine on rabbit steaks! Am I making myself clear?”

“Crystal, Br’er Fox!” Br’er Rabbit stuttered out, “I swear on my life I'm not gon’ mess with no fire!”

Br’er Fox dropped him back into the pot roughly, and some of the water sloshed out of the side and on to the floor.

You peeked your head back into the window.

“Br’er Bear, come stand over here so I can get some mo’ matches!” Br’er Fox said, gesturing for his friend to come over. Br’er Bear got up and ambled over to Br’er Fox, locking his hands for Br’er Fox to step on before letting him up to his shoulders while Br’er Fox felt around for more matches. That was when you took the opportunity to climb in through the window.

You pulled the two out of the pot, making the water audibly slosh. Br’er Bear looked over at the three of you and tugged on Br’er Fox’s tail to get his attention.

“Say, uh, Br’er Fox,” he said, only to have his hand swatted away while Br’er Fox continued to move things around on the shelf to look for the matches.

By this point you had already undone Br’er Frog’s ropes and sent him out the window. You began hurriedly working on Br’er Rabbit’s next.

“But Br’er Fox,” Br’er Bear tried again, staring at you directly while you finally managed to undo his ropes, “They gettin’ away.”

“What?!” Br’er Fox snapped, looking over to the pot and window just in time to see you scrambling out of the window with Br’er Rabbit in tow.

The three of you ran around to the front of the house to make your way back down the path and to safety. You looked back in time when you were getting a good distance away in time to see Br’er Fox come out of his house with an axe, swinging it wildly and screaming like a madman, murderous intent and unbridled rage in his eyes.

You saw that rage and malicious resolve die as soon as another figure appeared – this one from the sky having jumped off of his own glider – and stood in front of Br’er Fox glaring down at him from behind an opaque visor. You couldn’t see him, but you could feel all the hate and anger that radiated from Vanitas’s form.

Br’er Fox could too, dropping his axe and backing up.

You felt your run slow to a stop, Br’er Frog and Br’er Rabbit running ahead of you without looking back, too intent on getting to safety – not that you could blame them. But you couldn’t. Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear were in more danger than they possibly realized, and while they’d done absolutely nothing to deserve any form of sympathy or mercy from you, Vanitas fell under the category of things you were responsible for as a keyblade wielder. And even though the only person who would know you abandoned them would be you, you didn’t think you could live with yourself knowing that you could have done something.

After all, you were part of the reason Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Frog ended up in that situation in the first place. You had disrupted the order, and here was the time you were supposed to fix it as best you could manage.

You donned your armor and swallowed hard, fear building up in you with every step you took back towards Br’er Fox’s home and Vanitas. By the time you were over the threshold of the door you were paralyzed with it.

“I know you tried to kill her,” Vanitas growled, “That’s my job.”

“I-I-I know w-we said we’d let you know if we saw that gal, b-but you see we uh…,” Br’er Fox stammered, stumbling backwards with Br’er Bear behind him, but stopped talking when Vanitas brought his keyblade to Br’er Fox’s throat. Vanitas backed them up into the corner, both of them sweating and crying from their impending death as Vanitas raised his keyblade.

“Hey!” you called, and everyone in the room froze. Including you. Your voice had come out little more than a garbled, quavering yelp in your inability to feel anything but cold, gripping terror.

Vanitas slowly turned away from the other two figures in the room to look at you, your shaking form standing in the doorway and looking at him, this being with seemingly no face with a voice that sounded too normal for the monster beneath that visor.

He walked slowly over to you, and your eyes trained on his keyblade, watching for any sudden movements. He almost seemed non-hostile in his calm stride, but he radiated a dark cold that you couldn’t ignore if you tried.

Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear took this moment to escape, scrambling out of the window with Br’er Bear’s behind getting stuck in the window. But with a few forceful tugs on Br’er Fox’s end he was out.

He stopped in front of you, staring you down from behind that visor in which you could see your own reflection, own visor staring back at you. It felt like he could still see your eyes though wide and  terrified – something that Vanitas could not see but could feel and reveled in as a result. He wasn’t sure why but something about the negativity that radiated from you was alluring, like there was some tinge to it, something extra that made it different from standard negativity. And he was eating it up.

Then he did something you did not expect that only baffled you further. He removed the visor, leaving the chin guard in place. It wasn’t the reveal of his face that baffled you. It was his face. He didn’t look like a monster, and under any other circumstance you’d have found him quite beautiful with the way his dark hair contrasted against his pale skin which was only offset by two very golden eyes that stared down at you with a hateful yet very amused gaze, like a cat playing with its dinner. He looked like he wanted to devour you in all the worst senses of the word, and the smirk that crossed his face a moment later only furthered this feeling rather than putting you at east.

“What?” he said calmly, and you flinched at the tone in his voice – also a mix of amusement and malice. Your voice betrayed you, not squeaking out passed your lips no matter how many times you opened and closed your mouth.

He reached for you, and you couldn’t even bring yourself to move, staring into the eyes of your would be killer. You couldn’t move. You truly were paralyzed. This man tried to kill you, and he almost succeeded, and your body was well aware of this and had all but shut down.

He didn’t strangle you like you thought he would. With a surprisingly gentle touch he gripped the bottom of your helmet, lifting it off of your head, your hair falling in messy strands around you that he then tenderly brushed away, though it gave you no comfort. This was the cat playing with his meal, sending mixed signals that sent your only thought process into a tailspin. Your armor flickered from your body and all but disappeared. His smirk broadened, his eyes looking down at you heatedly.

All he wanted in that moment was to kill you, and you knew that. And he knew you knew that, and he was going to take his time, but first he wanted to put real fear into you. Because there was something else about the way he touched you that incited a new type of fear. Fear of what he would do before he would kill you.

His fingers trailed from your hair to your neck to your chest which rose and fell unevenly with shallow breaths that bordered on hyperventilation. They trailed lower still until they were lingering just over your breasts, and your body began to shake uncontrollably. It felt like your legs would give out. But it didn’t matter. He pressed you to him with his other hand, keeping you firmly placed against him. Your body finally responded, squirming uselessly against him in an attempt to get away, but he was strong and kept you there, marveling in this new fear you emitted.

He brought his other hand, the one dangerously close to your bosom up to your chin, tilting your head back as if he were going to kiss you. And you shut your eyes tight, a pathetic, quiet whine of “no” trailing out of your mouth.

“What was that?” he said in a low growl. He was just about to snap your neck, end this quickly so you wouldn’t cause him anymore trouble when you actually dared to defy him. And this pissed him off. You were supposed to be scared. You were supposed to submit .

“I said,” you breathed, voice coming back to you somehow, the air growing thicker and smelling like ozone, “No!”

Your electricity crackled around you in a violent display, you hardly controlling it, having only done it out of desperation. When Vanitas flew back against the opposite wall, it was almost as if your body snapped back into reality and your knees finally buckled. You were in danger, and you needed to get out of here. Now .

~

It took a good long while of searching, just barely managing to dodge several Organization members who were now on the hunt for them and a little purple dragon, but they finally found each other. They were ready to leave and hopefully never have to come back to this awful place, but that was when Axel froze.

He felt a fear he had never felt before and it paralyzed him on the spot. Demyx turned to him, worried and glancing around frantically. They had no time to lose on this. After a minute, Axel unfroze, a new feeling coursing through him. Worry. That was you. Again. And he had no intention of ignoring the feeling this time, so he didn’t tell Demyx.

He just wordlessly opened a corridor which Demyx and Figment hurried through. Then he opened up another one and began to go through that one. Figment poked his head out of the first as it was closing in time to see Axel disappear into a separate one. He quickly flew after him, curious as to what he could be up to now.

~

As you stumbled to your feet prepared to run Vanitas appeared in front of you as if you had only given him a light push rather than forced him across a room. And he was ready to strike. You barely threw up your armor and shield fast enough to block as he hit you and flung you out of the house. You slammed into a nearby tree, putting a sizeable dent into its trunk, wood splintering around you.

It was just as you were hit that Axel walked through his corridor in time to watch you fly into a tree. You were in danger, and he was right to come. He summoned his own weapons, eyeing the opening of the place where you’d just flown from to see Vanitas swaggering out with a sick grin on his face. He enjoyed that too much, and Axel was certain this time that he was going to kill him.

Figment realizing the nature of the situation settled behind some bushes with the collected research, ready to step in if need be, but content to let Axel handle it.

This was also the time that Riku had managed to track you down, seeing you sliding down a tree whose trunk was now bent out of shape, a murderous Axel who had already set his sights on Vanitas, and Vanitas who looked for all the world like this was a game, and he’d just gotten to his favorite part.

Vanitas stalked towards you, a glint in his eye, when a chakram whizzed dangerously close to his face, just missing him by a hair’s breadth. He jumped back, his tunnel vision, which had been lingering on you alone, expanding significantly. He’d gotten too carried away in his fun, had gotten careless.

That was why he hadn’t noticed Axel’s arrival. Then he also noticed Riku on his other side. He glanced between the three of you, you picking yourself up off of the ground, shield and keyblade at the ready for anything else he tried.

There were no words. All of you sprang into action, weapons clashing. You didn’t feel as much fear now that Axel was there, and despite all the mixed feelings his presence brought, comfort and confidence were at the forefront. They gave you the strength to fight Vanitas – fear be damned.

You attacked with a ferocity you didn’t know you had, all the feelings of fear and anxiety and anger he inspired coming to the head of your attacks. You were pissed, and you felt tears drip from your eyes, but you blinked them away. You didn’t have time to cry. You were going to end this asshole.

Vanitas could have fed on the three of your negative emotions for an eternity and be satisfied, but even that wasn’t enough to bolster him against the three of you. You alone would be an easy fight, and Axel evened it out. But to take on the two of you and Riku was proving to be a challenge. He was going to make this right, take you out specifically and emotionally drive Axel into the ground, but that was when he was assaulted by a brown blur in a pink shirt and denim pants. He floundered for a bit as Br’er Rabbit clung to his face, but he quickly ripped him off and flung him elsewhere but not before Riku and Axel delivered their own attacks, doing more damage to him than he’d care to admit he could withstand. This fight was annoying . Even more annoying was that he might not be able to finish it himself.

You dove to catch Br’er Rabbit as he sailed through the air, clutching him to your chest and curling around him as the two of you rolled across the ground. He took a safe spot behind you, and you stood ready to deliver your next attack. In front of him Riku also stood, hardly winded, and Axel was on the side opposite you, surrounding Vanitas. He could take his chances and try to finish this. Or… he could bide his time. He’d find you again, and next time he wouldn’t be so merciful.

“We’ll have to pick this up some other time, sweetheart,” Vanitas said, casting you a smirk.

Your fear welled up in you, and you forced it down. You would not be subject to it again. At least not this time, and not because of him .

“F-fuck you!” you stuttered out. Vanitas was surprised. And angry. He charged at you again, and just as he reached you a corridor opened, and he went sailing through. It shut behind him quickly, and the three of you waited to see if he would dare to come back. And after a few minutes you relaxed. Your eyes fixed on Axel, and he stared back. The two of you weren’t sure what to say to each other after your last exchange.

“________,” he began, but was cut off as Riku hit him with his keyblade in much the same way Vanitas had done to you. Riku’s guardian raced out and grabbed Axel by the arms, holding him in place so he couldn’t defend himself. You didn’t hesitate – didn’t know the situation or reason as to why Riku would attack him. And you didn’t care to. You were in front of Axel keyblade ready to defend him from Riku who stopped mid-attack the second you were in front of Axel.

One look at you and he knew. You weren’t going to back down from that fight no matter the cost – even if it meant to the death. He looked between you and Axel, seeing the desperation in your eyes as you put yourself in harm’s way for him and the way Axel looked at you, expression worried ready to die for you too if need be.

Then he put two and two together, lowering his keyblade.

“You’ve got to be shitting me right now,” he said as he realized exactly what the nature of your relationship with Axel was, “A word.”

He practically hissed the request at you, and you understood it to be more of a command than anything. You lowered your weapon and followed him off to the side to talk privately.

Notes:

I hope you all enjoyed! Comments, kudos, and critiques are always welcome and helpful and thank you SO SO much for all of your support thus far! You have no idea how much it means to me! I'll see you all next week!

Chapter 41: It's Not a Date

Summary:

Riku's gonna kill Axel. Well he wants to.
Also you're concerned for Axel's well-being.
Also you still owe Setzer that date.

Notes:

Where is Setzer anyway? We haven't seen him since chapter 10.

“Are you shitting me right now?” Riku asked again, glaring down at you with heated golden eyes, “I looked past it when I found out you were helping to harbor Namine, I ignored the order when I found out that you were taking cartoons all over the place when you didn’t have to, I didn’t even judge you when I found out two of the people you were travelling with were Organization members.”

“Former Organization members,” you defended weakly. He just glared a little harder at you.

“But intimate and romantic relationships,” he continued, ignoring your defense, “Are crossing a damn line. It’s not my business who you fall for or fuck, but did it have to be him?”

“What do you have against Axel?”

“Well the reason you even know Namine is because he was supposed to be looking after her as a favor to me when I was supposed to kill him! But then he goes around and kidnaps one of my best friends! So what you’re going to do is explain in two minutes or less why I’m not going back out there to kill him.”

You wanted to mention that he’d have to kill you too to get to Axel, but you didn’t think that would be the best place to start your defense. You weren’t even sure why you were defending him when he so obviously wanted nothing to do with you before. But he was here. And you didn’t know why. And now he needed you, and you were going to defend him. And you didn’t know why. Because all the trust issues you had regarding him now told you to condemn his ass. Because at the end of the day it always came to drastic measures to get him to tell you anything – once when Vanitas tried to kill you and again when your family was kidnapped. And even then the second part of the confession came from the kidnapper as opposed to him.

So why were you about to defend him again?

You love him.

It was as intrusive and unwelcome a thought as when you thought about how Axel would react to seeing you as a heartless. You shook it off and prepared to plead your case when a purple blur flapped up to you.

“Figment?” you said in surprise, “What are you doing here?”

He didn’t waste time with a response, just shoved a backpack at you. You glanced up at Riku and held up a finger. This had to be important. Maybe that’s why Axel was here.

You opened the pack and saw a bunch of paper that at a glance you had no idea what it was. But then you recognized your uncle’s handwriting, pulling out the papers and looking at them.

This was all the research they’d been working on! But it had been at the Organization… Your eyes widened, looking up at Figment with tears brimming in them.

“Is this all the research we lost?” you asked, voice quavering. Figment nodded with a proud smile. “Axel did this?”

Figment nodded again, and you looked back up at Riku with a new fire in your eyes.

“This,” you said, shoving the research at him, “This is why you shouldn’t kill him. I know about your friend, and I know why he did what he did. He was doing it for his own friend, and while that’s not a good excuse, he feels sorry about it. And I legitimately think he’s trying to make up for it. But this is research that could ensure that people who lose their hearts can have new ones, and worlds that are subject to falling to darkness can have their hearts bolstered to prevent it. This could save millions of billions of lives and homes. The Organization stole it, and Axel risked his life to bring it back. He’s a good person. I swear to you on my life.”

Riku regarded you silently for a moment. You were being sincere; your expression and the tone of your voice left no question about that. Axel did something really fucked up, and to make matters worse, it was personal matter regarding Riku himself. But as much as he absolutely hated Axel right now, if he was trying to atone for his actions by saving what could have been billions of people – if what you said was true – he could hardly take it upon himself to stop him for a personal vendetta.

Because that’s what it was. Personal.

And he couldn’t let his own emotions interfere with the greater good. He’d get Kairi back. If not him then Sora.

Riku took a deep breath before exhaling, a look of resignation on his face.

“You will be personally responsible for any and all things he does from this point on. If he steps out of line again, I will be there, and I will end him.”

You bristled at Riku’s threat, some part of your darkness pushing at the door again to be let out, but you controlled yourself, willing it away so it didn’t make itself known physically.

“Okay,” you agreed simply before the two of you walked back over to where Axel was being held by the guardian. Riku snapped his fingers and Axel fell to the ground. That first hit must have taken more out of him than you thought, and you ran over to him, dropping your knees by his side.

“Remember to make responsible choices,” Riku warned you. But you knew what he was implying. If Axel stepped out of line, you have to let him go as well as let Riku end him. You nodded at Riku and he opened a corridor to leave.

Br’er Rabbit walked up to the two of you, looking around to ensure that nothing else freaky was going on.

“I’s jus’ wanted to thank you ‘fo any more baddies show up,” he said to you. You smiled softly.

“Thank you. I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused,” you replied, looking away sheepishly.

“Pssh,” Br’er Rabbit said with a flippant wave of his hand, “You ever wanna get in real trouble, you come an’ find me. We’ll have a grand ol’ time yet!”

You laughed, and after a quick goodbye he went his own way and left you alone with Figment and Axel and the awkward silence. You channeled your healing magic, and a soft light shone around your hands.

“Where does it hurt?” you asked softly, not meeting his eyes. Axel gestured to his side, and you gently laid your hands there. He hissed in pain. “Sorry!”

You finally looked up at him.

“It’s fine,” he said while looking back at you with an intense gaze. One that you found yourself trapped in. You really wanted to kiss him. And slap him. Ask why he seemed so cold to you before but then showed up here in person anyway. Wanted to know why he had to make things so damn complicated. Wanted to take back your words when you told him that you didn’t want to see him anymore or pursue a romantic relationship. Because you obviously wanted him. At least to you it was obvious because you couldn’t think of a single reason to save his ass before Figment showed up. Or at least not a reason that didn’t revolve around your brain and heart shouting at you about the fact that you couldn’t let someone you loved die.

“Thank you,” you said once the silence had dragged on too long, “For the research. It means a lot to me knowing you did that.”

“I had to fix what I messed up,” he answered simply, “I was selfish. I get it now. I only thought about the fact that I wanted you and for you to be safe, but I didn’t think about what that meant for your family. I’m sorry.”

You wanted to say, “That’s okay,” but you both knew it wasn’t. But this was a really good step in the right direction to making things better between the two of you. Maybe he wasn’t such a hindrance to your judgment. But what did it matter? You couldn’t just retract the part about being in a relationship. That would be selfish. And you didn’t want to play around with his emotions. You needed to keep this relationship as professional as possible.

“Thank you,” you said again, a soft smile gracing your features. He offered one back.

All you wanted to do was lean forward and kiss him. So very desperately. Unbeknownst to you, the feeling was mutual.

“I’m sorry,” he finally blurted, “For how I treated you when you left. I was upset, but that wasn’t an excuse for treating you like that. Especially when you had every reason to. I was a dick.”

“Yeah,” you said with a lighthearted smile, “You are.” He chuckled a bit, and you tried to get your heart to not flutter at his every laugh and smile.

“By the way,” he said after another moment, “I have something for you.”

“Is it better than everything you’ve already given me?” you said looking over to where Figment sat – a little distance away to give you and Axel some much needed space – with the research they’d recovered.

“Probably not, but it was something I meant to give you way back when. I had to wait for it to get made. Then by the time I wanted to give it to you the Vanitas-thing where he was stalking me started happening. By then I’d committed treason against the Organization and couldn’t go back. I only got it when you and I went there to save your family.”

He pulled out a little gold medal with a bright blue ribbon. You took it reading it. On one side it said, “Training. Day 1. Complete!”

You looked up at Axel.

“Is this because of what I said –”

“Yes, it’s because of what you said,” he laughed. Then he smirked. “Turn it over.”

You flipped the medal over to its other side to read, “Here’s your freaking medal.”

You gave Axel a dry look but couldn’t fight off your smile for very long, eventually bursting into a fit of giggles, matched by Axel’s own laughter. He thought he was so damn clever. You put the medal over your head.

You finally exhausted your magic, breathing out a shuddering breath when it cut off abruptly. It made your body ache – not unlike when you had fought Uh-Oa and pushed yourself too far. This, of course, was nowhere near as bad as then though, and you were grateful for that.

“How do you feel?” you asked, “I can do more when my magic recharges if it still hurts.”

Axel pressed down on his side. It felt better. Still a little lingering pain but nothing he couldn’t fix with a few days’ rest.

“I’m good,” he said with a smile. You looked relieved.

The two of you stood up and looked around a little awkwardly. You didn’t want him to go, and he didn’t want you to go either. But that was one of the rules you set. He knew he previously threw that out of the window to make sure you were okay – which was good he did – but he was pretty sure that didn’t apply after the dust had settled. And it very much had.

Axel opened a corridor.

“I should go,” he said since waiting around wasn’t going to get him anything. Figment flew through the corridor, backpack slung over his shoulder.

You bit your lip, debating your next words and whether you should say them or not.

“Axel,” you called as he was about to leave. You had already started; you may as well say the rest of the words now.

He turned to look at you.

“I still need time to think,” you began, “But if it’s alright with you, I don’t think I’d be opposed to hanging out in the future? Maybe?”

“Just say the word, ________” he said with a smile, giving you a little wave goodbye before leaving. You smiled brightly to yourself, doing a little happy dance in your head before you hopped on your glider and flew back home.

~

While Xemnas was furious and showing it in his own tranquil fury kind of way, Marluxia was handling everything remarkably well.

And that made Larxene increasingly nervous. She’d stoop to avoiding him, but that would only implicate her further and frustrate the hell out of him.

So she sought him out. He was in the lab when she finally found him, overseeing the nobodies hard at work. She looked down at them, aware that he was conscious of her presence, and waited for him to say something, but after a nerve-wracking ten minutes of silence, she finally turned to him.

“Well?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest and cocking her hip. He didn’t look at her, cool expression still on his face, watching the nobodies below.

“’Well’ what?” he asked finally after a few seconds of Larxene not elaborating. She almost rolled her eyes, but if he really was mad and just good at hiding it, then that would be a bad idea.

“Aren’t you going to say something? She got away with it again.”

“I can assume you mean the keyblade wielder?”

“Yes,” Larxene said with a huff, “And she sent out Axel and Demyx to do her dirty work. Aren’t you, you know, pissed off? If only by a little?”

“________ is an inconvenience. This I can’t deny, but she’s hardly hindered my plans this time. Everything is running rather smoothly for me. I’ve managed to substitute the gaps in the duck’s research enough to fill in some missing blanks. You’d never know you needed a scientist,” he said with a cocky smirk on face. Larxene let a small smile slip on to her face. Marluxia grabbed her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting her head up and leaning in close.

If Larxene had a heart, it would have stopped as she stared into those beautiful blue eyes.

“I know you did your best,” he said lowly, letting a thumb brush idly over lips and smiling in the gentlest way he could. Larxene felt warm, a rare blush flushing her cheeks. Then cold as Marluxia pulled away and looked back down at the nobodies, all previous emotion from his face gone.

Larxene merely stood there in a daze.

“We’re going to need more nobodies, and, thankfully, the demand for freewill has recently gone up. We’re going to start the next phase of our journey and send out the scouts.”

~

“Hey, mom,” you greeted cheerily as you waltzed through the bakery she worked at. The store smelled like heaven and was pleasantly warm inside.

Your mother was setting out tray of pastries in a glass display case near the cash register. She turned to look at you a warm, motherly smile upon her face.

“Hey, you,” she greeted, plucking a chocolate croissant off of the tray and handing it to you. You devoured it immediately but still felt hungry after.

Your mother watched you with an amused smile, and you sheepishly smiled back at her.

“Did they not feed you on your little training escapade? What happened to that sandwich you packed?”

You didn’t feel the need to mention that, the sandwich as well as your change of clothes and potions were lost on some other world to probably never be seen again. So you just shrugged and told her you gave it away to Riku who hadn’t eaten in a longer time than you had.

“Well,” she said as she finished arranging pastries, “I’m about to go on my break. Why don’t we get a little something to eat and catch up a bit?”

You nodded eagerly at the prospect of more free food, stomach rumbling all the while. It had taken a long time to fly from the previous world to Twilight Town, and you felt like you could eat everything in sight.

The two of you got some barbecue from a nearby little restaurant, and you caught her up on your adventures – minus the parts where you almost died from being impaled, died and were brought back via CPR after drowning, and turning into a heartless that looked like a demon from hell.

By the time the two of you finished eating, you’d finished your tale, and she began to tell you about her days. She still visited your father every day to talk to him, and things at the bakery had been running smoothly. She missed you terribly because every time you were gone, you vanished for days at a time, and you promised to text and call more on your adventures – though you mentioned that due to time differences she still might not get your messages as soon as she wanted. Though you comforted her with the thought that some messages would be almost instantaneous.

There was also going to be a festival that started soon apparently. You didn’t ask for too many details either though. If you had no friends to go with, you doubted you’d enjoy it all too much.

The two of you spent the next part of her break talking about everything and nothing, and when it was finally time to leave, you thought you’d head to the hotel for a much-deserved nap. But then you saw something that made you duck behind the pillar of a random building to avoid being seen.

It was Setzer. He wasn’t doing anything suspicious or bad or even mildly out of the ordinary. He was just looking into a random shop window fixing his hair. You looked back out from behind the pillar to ensure he was gone. He was. And you were grateful, letting out a breath you didn’t know you’d been holding.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding all this time?”

The voice made you jump, a little squeak of a scream escaping you as you whirled around to face him. He loomed over you with a smirk plastered on his face. He enjoyed that reaction way too much. Enough to tell you that he saw you hiding from him, and he was far too happy to crush your hopes of avoiding him.

“So where’s your boyfriend?” he asked, looking around for Axel. You shuffled about, mildly uncomfortable – at his close presence and the mention of calling Axel your boyfriend.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” you mumbled out. Setzer seemed surprised. Then he smirked.

“So you’re available?”

“Nope!” you said, already spinning on your heel and walking away. But that didn’t deter Setzer who just followed you – quite easily on those long legs of his. He had to be at least as tall as Axel was.

“So there is a boyfriend?” he pressed.

“Why does there have to be a boyfriend for me to be unavailable?” you asked, turning to look at him in frustration.

“Girlfriend then?” he asked, an easy smile that only fanned the flames of your irritation gracing his features.

“Why does it matter?” you asked.

“Well you still owe me that date,” he said smoothly, bringing up the very thing you went out of your way to avoid him for, “And I wouldn’t want to intrude if you happened to have a partner.”

He flashed you a charming smile, and it almost worked. The only problem being that there was already a specific smile that had you wrapped around someone else’s finger – never mind that that someone else was not your boyfriend because you had a few trust issues with them at the moment.

“I don’t have a partner,” you muttered bitterly. Setzer picked up on the ice in your tone, now giving you a look of sympathy.

“Well its their loss,” he said with a sniff before abruptly grabbing your hand and leading you away. You stumbled after him, letting out a yelp of surprise.

“What the hell? Let go of me! Where the fuck are you taking me?!”

“We’re going on our date, of course. And if you don’t like it then you’ll never have to date me again. And if you do….” He trailed off, casting you what he must have thought was a seductive glance but really just came off as overly conceited to you. You can’t believe you ever thought this guy was handsome or even remotely charming – especially since he found it appropriate to kick your ass a moment later to teach you a lesson on how great his prowess in the battlefield was.

You yanked your hand out of his grasp.

“You’re not even gonna ask?” you said, now partially offended that he seemed to think you just wanted to do this with or without a partner. He turned to you, a smirk on his face.

“Do you have anything better to do?” he asked. You had to admit that you didn’t. You were just going to go back to your hotel and nap – and maybe shower because you’d been on a pretty crazy adventure for the better part of the day. And while the nap sounded enticing, going out and unwinding sounded better somehow – even in the company of Setzer of all people.

“At least let me go get dressed,” you muttered. His smirk broadened into a lopsided smile that you had to admit was more charming than his other expressions since this seemed like more genuine happiness as opposed to his usual cocky swagger.

“Meet me at the town square in a few hours. At six. We’ll get dinner,” he said with a casual smile. You nodded, turning and walking in the direction of the hotel. You weren’t exactly sure why you were doing this. Of course, you technically lost a bet, but you didn’t really owe him. But maybe you just wanted the company or something to do. After all, your mom wouldn’t be home for a few hours, and all your friends were away doing their own jobs and earning their keep protecting Hollow Bastion. And now that you had no training for the time being, things were looking pretty dull for you for the foreseeable future.

And that was why a few hours later you were washed and dressed, wearing one of the dresses you got from Animal Kingdom because it was cute yet casual – and with leggings so your mom wouldn’t say anything about the slit running up to your hips. You threw a few beads in your hair to hang at the end of your braids to complete the look.

Why did you look so nice?

You kept repeating this question to yourself as you walked to the square and noticed several booths being set up with signs advertising games, food, live entertainment, and a petting zoo for the next two weeks. This must have been one hell of a festival to last two whole weeks.

You saw Setzer in the square chatting up some girl – probably no older than you – who looked absolutely smitten with him. She was pretty too. Perhaps you’d be getting out of this date after all. Though now, you realized with a grimace, it was when you actually wanted to go – out of boredom, of course.

Setzer spotted you a moment later, looking up from the young girl, a ginger with bright blue eyes. His eyes swept over your form in an approving gaze, and you unwittingly found yourself pleased he found you attractive. Though it was more out of pride that you felt such as opposed to actual will to impress.

Setzer turned to the girl and handed her a slip of paper and saying something you couldn’t quite make out before nodding his head in another direction, and she ran off.

“What was that about?” you asked as you approached him, looking at the girl’s retreating figure.

“Well if this doesn’t work out,” he said stretching his arms over his head, “I have a plan B.”

You could have slapped him right then and there. He smirked at your expression.

“Don’t look so cross, my dear,” he said flippantly, “You don’t want to go on this date remember?”

“It’s not that,” you snapped, though you’d be lying if you said you weren’t the least bit offended at his dismissive nature of your feelings towards the date, “That’s just sleazy. I kind of figured you had some standards.”

He just shrugged.

“I like what I like. Plus I never really promise a relationship or anything. I mean, I have a reputation. I’m surprised you don’t really know about it.”

“I don’t go around town much,” you sniffed. He nodded.

“Oh right. People know you as that girl who likes to run off into the woods. So what would you like to do first?”

“You don’t have anything planned out?”

“Well I don’t really know your interests. Here I’ll start. My name is Setzer. I have an affinity for the color purple. I like women, and they are my favorite hobby, second only to flying. Your turn.”

You blinked. You could at least credit him for his honesty about women. And it made you glad that you hadn’t ended up going on a date with him when you first met.

“I assume you started with names because you can’t remember mine because of the throngs of women you go through. I like the color pink. My favorite hobby is dancing, and I think you’re an ass.”

Setzer just smiled at your comment.

“I remember your name,” he said, still not mentioning it though. You would make it a point to not say it at any point in the evening. “Let’s go before the sun sets. I want that to be our grand finale.”

“Sun set? I didn’t know it ever did that,” you commented.

“I had my suspicions about it before when we first met,” Setzer began, “But now I’m sure of it. You’re not from here are you?”

You blinked.

“I mean, we only recently moved here if that’s what you’re asking.”

“No, and I think you know that. You’re from another world entirely. We get people like that that pass through here from time to time. I’m one of them.”

“You are?” you asked, looking at him skeptically. He didn’t lose his composure under your critical gaze which you were pretty sure has been plastered on him since you saw him standing in the square talking to that one girl.

“Why’s that so surprising? Do I not look the part?”

It wasn’t that. Though Setzer did stand out as being more extravagantly dressed than most people in town. Most everyone else never really deviated from standard clothing. Though he was more subdued now in a royal purple button-up and black pants, ensuring the top few buttons of his shirt were open so you could see a part of his chest. But his silver hair and striking purple eyes stood out – as did the scars on his face which most people living an average everyday life would have trouble accumulating.

“Well it’s not that exactly. Just… you’ve been here long enough to accumulate a reputation. I’d assumed you would have lived in this world a while if not your whole life,” you commented.

“I’ll tell you that story over dinner. And you can tell me all about you. I’m sure you have a lot of adventures to tell.”

“Food’s not that entertaining, so I hope you’ve got other plans for me,” you said, shuffling from foot to foot, ready to get this show on the road.

“Of course,” he said smoothly, offering you a hand. You took it, feeling just a bit off by holding hands with someone you most certainly were not dating or interested in. But you shook it off. It was platonic enough. You’d held hands with Genki in a purely platonic matter, and he was in love with you. You could handle handholding with someone you were not interested in and whose extent of interest went no further than maybe getting to sleep with you (which was not happening under any circumstances as far as you were concerned).

He began to lead you from the town square to wherever fun would be had, and you searched for a topic to talk about so it wouldn’t get awkward between the two of you, although he seemed just as content to enjoy the day.

“So you said you like aviation?” you started.

You watched his face light up in a way that only happens when someone is about to talk about something they really care about. Then his expression turned boastful.

“It’s exhilarating,” he said simply, “I owned an airship before I came here. Functioned as my home and was also part casino.”

Did this guy have thing with gambling? Betting to get a date out of you, owning a casino….

“So where is it?” you asked, curious as to why you’d never seen it. There weren’t many places you could hide an airship that also functioned as a recreational building.

“Gone, unfortunately. But I’ve been working on another one. Maybe I’ll let you see it some time when its finished,” he said in a rather suggestive manner. You tried not to frown, frankly tired of frowning every time he said something boorish – which was quite often. You tried to steer the conversation back into a casual manner.

“You said you were working on another one? Like building it from the ground up?”

He looked like a peacock showing off his feathers, even going so far as to puff his chest out.

“Well not to toot my own horn,” he said while you rolled your eyes, “But yes. It’s a passion project of mine. I’ll be in the skies soon enough, and it’s been so long, I doubt I’ll ever come back down. I hope one day everyone gets to experience the joy flying brings.”

“I have a glider,” you blurted out. You almost slapped a hand over your mouth. Why did you say that of all things?

Setzer looked at you in surprise before this weird look of childlike wonder overcame his features. It was far too innocent for a face that had only made cocky or lewd expressions before. It was almost cute.

“Can I see it?” he asked, attention fully on you now though not inappropriately this time around.

You summoned your glider next to you, and he walked around it, noting its simplicity.

“Is it fast?”

You narrowed your eyes.

“Why…?” you asked slowly.

“I was going to take you to the train station so we could find something fun to do in the next town over, but this would be way more fun.”

He looked like he meant it too, and it was contagious – as contagious as Br’er Rabbit’s want to play pranks was – and suddenly you wanted to race over to the next town as well.

“Weird,” you mused allowed.

“Well what’s so weird about that?” he asked, breaking his incredible concentration on your glider to finally look at you.

“Nothing!” you said with a wave of your hand, “It’s just sometimes I forget that this and other places are like whole worlds and not just wherever I wind up landing. S’just a surreal thought that there’s a whole world attached to Twilight Town. Never mind the fact that there’s a ‘next town over.’”

He chuckled.

“So we going or what?” he finally asked, still eyeing your glider. You rolled your eyes.

“Isn’t it your job as the person who asked me out to provide the transportation?”

“Then it’s not a date,” he said dismissively with a wave. You felt a little happy at that, but you had to be sure about this.

“Not just this,” you said, poking him in the chest, “None of any of our possible though unlikely subsequent hangouts is a date.”

“Deal. Now are we going or what?” he said, not unlike an impatient child.

You nodded, finally hopping up onto your glider and allowing him to do the same. It wobbled a bit, but you were used to unexpected jostling – wind made an excellent teacher when it came to learning to glide as it was relentless in its attempts to knock you off sometimes.

But after a few moments of adjusting to how your glider felt with the added weight of Setzer, you didn’t have any trouble.

“Hold on tight,” you said, unsure of if he could hold his balance on the glider as well as you could. He wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you closer. You could almost feel the arrogant smirk crossing his features.

“Admit it,” he said lowly and in your ear, “You just wanted me on here to get close to you.”

“I reserve the right to push you off of this thing at any time and make your ass take the train,” you snarked, not having any of his bullshit. He just laughed, and you took off on your glider, zipping between buildings, feeling the rush of the air over your face.

Setzer let out a laugh that sounded like a mix of wonder and exhilaration. You rode around town for a bit, not really heading anywhere, but you didn’t think Setzer minded. Eventually he even gained his balance enough to be able to just rest a steadying hand on your hip instead of keeping them wrapped around you in an embrace.

“Race the train,” he said as he noticed one that was starting to pull out of the station and down the bridge. You zoomed down to it, slowing to match its pace and speeding up accordingly. There was an older couple in the car you were next to – probably middle aged – peering out at you with their eyes as wide as saucers. You giggled, tossing them a wink. Then Setzer did the unthinkable. He readjusted himself on your glider, and when he was steady and facing away from the train, bent over and yanked his pants down, full on mooning the couple inside.

“What the hell?!” you shouted, speeding up even more to out race the train – subsequently mooning other passengers in your attempt to get away.

“Oh lighten up,” Setzer laughed, pulling his pants back up, “We’re probably never going to see them again.

“I stand by my earlier statement,” you said, fighting off a smile as some small rush of adrenaline at doing something bad began to creep up on you, “I will knock you off of this thing.”

He just kept laughing as the two of you pulled away from the train and the more than likely stunned and mentally scarred passengers, and you felt an unwitting smile crossing your features too. You didn’t want to admit it, but you were having fun!

“So where are we headed?” you asked Setzer as you flew back towards town and stopped overhead for a bird’s eye view.

You looked down below at the people preparing for the festival while Setzer tried to think of where to go – now that he had more options open to him since you had this nifty glider.

“What kind of festival is it?” you asked as you watched the people below begin to decorate the town with banners and streamers and garlands of little flags that hung between lamp posts.

“You remember when I said we ought to watch the sunset together? That’s because every year the sun goes down for two weeks. We don’t know why it happens. It just does, and so for those two weeks we have the Starlight Festival – kids dress up and they have little skits to perform at their schools, the townspeople set up booths to sell food and wares they only make for this festival.”

“Only for the festival?”

“Makes them special. Or so they say.”

“Aren’t you ever around for the festival?” you ask, looking up at him. He just shrugs.

“Honestly I’m only ever here because my airship is here, and the people are laid back. Otherwise I like to go from place to place and do what I please.”

“Must mean that your well of women between here and wherever else you go never runs dry,” you remark rather dryly yourself.

“You seem rather interested in all the women I pick up,” Setzer remarks and you just roll your eyes, “But if you must know, I never fool around with women in the town I live in. Makes things messy when they want to pursue it farther than what I’ve got planned.”

Geez this guy really was an ass.

“Why don’t you just tell them your intentions right off the bat? Seems easier than dealing with the aftermath of angry women hunting you down.”

“I do make my intentions clear,” he says with a shrug, “But you know how some women are, stuck with the mentality of, ‘I think I can change him,’ as opposed to taking my charm and honest brutality of what I expect from them at face value.”

“That seems cruel,” you admit with a little cringe, “And shallow.”

“That may be true. I am shallow but no more than women who think I need to change after I told them what I’m like. I mean, does anyone ever consider I like the way I am?”

He had you there, so you just shrugged at him.

“So I just pick up women that seem to be just shallow enough to think I can be changed,” he continued. You froze, giving him a look, and he looked back with a smirk.

“Do I look like that?!” you snapped.

“Well obviously you’re not otherwise we wouldn’t be here; we’d be in bed.” He winked at you, and you rolled your eyes for what felt like the millionth time since you’d agreed to hang out with him.

“So where are we going?” you asked, changing the subject – pointedly ignoring that he didn’t answer your question.

“A little restaurant on the beach,” he said, pointing in the direction of the beach, “There’s a little outdoor restaurant there where we can watch the sun go down. You nodded zooming in that direction, taking care not to get anywhere near the train that was also heading in that direction.

You flew over several suburbs and a small town before reaching the beach which was relatively crowded with people who were clamoring to find a nice spot to watch the sunset.

You landed on a boardwalk where there weren’t too many people, and you and Setzer hopped off of your glider.

Setzer grabbed your hand once more and began to lead you through the thick crowds of people until you reached a quaint little restaurant near the end of the boardwalk. He led you inside, and you were surprised to find that it wasn’t too crowded.

Setzer flirted with the hostess a little bit to get a table on the next floor up on a little balcony and muttered something to waiter the two of you passed to which the waiter smiled then offered you a jovial smile as well. You smiled back. Perhaps he knew these people?

The balcony was small and quiet with a table just for you and him there. You had to admit to yourself that for a not-date this was kinda romantic. So naturally you felt a little awkward, but if he tried anything you could just leave him here to take the train and foot the whole bill – because you’d already planned to pay for your half.

But you could at least enjoy the view, the apparently not permanent sunset glistening over the sea and making it sparkle like jewels. You had always loved the red-orange of the sky of this world, but now it seemed richer. Maybe that was a result of the sun setting. It already seemed lower in the sky but probably had another hour before it would be gone in its entirety.

The waiter let you have your menus and you began to glance over it, pleased that the prices weren’t too high.

You both agreed on pasta dishes and sodas before handing your menus back and waiting patiently.

“So,” you began, “Tell me about yourself.”

Setzer let out a little chuckle.

“Such a cliché. But what do you want to know?”

“You said you were from another world. I’m sure you could tell me just about anything and it would probably be interesting.”

He thought for a moment, casting a long glance out at the sea.

“My world is gone,” he started, and you gave him a long sad look, “Well not the whole thing. One planet in sea of many, but the specific one I’m from is gone.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” you said lowly.

“Don’t be. I’m fine, and I didn’t mind the travel so much. Plus its being rebuilt anyway. I hopped a few planets here and there and then I ran into a guy, goes by Leon now, that mentioned something about there being entire other worlds outside of our own reality.”

“Oh! I know him! He’s helped me out a few times. That does beg the question,” you began, “How exactly how did you manage to get to another world entirely?”

“I was on Hollow Bastion – I’ll assume that’s where you met Leon – and saw Leon there of all places, and wouldn’t you know it? They’re rebuilding that world too! Just my luck. But anyway I stole a gummi block off that Cid guy. Threw it in my airship and started world hopping.”

“Wait if you were world hopping, then you had an airship, but you’re building one now? How many of these things have you gone through?”

“Just one! The Blackjack. Was my pride and joy ‘til the day it got destroyed back when I was somewhat of a freedom fighter.”

“Freedom fighter?”

“Yes, I used to be a bit of a hero. Try not to be too impressed with me; though I know it’s a challenge.”

You resisted the urge to roll your eyes, instead preferring to ask another question.

“So you used to be someone to admire before your world was destroyed, and now you’re a pompous, womanizing asshole?”

“Oh no, I was those things before too,” he said with a wave. You gave him a dry look. “But enough about me. What’s your story? I imagine you’ve got stories?”

“I lost my world too. It fell to darkness,” you started before launching into the story of living on an artificial world and coming to Twilight Town.

“That’s a sad tale. You were the only survivor?” Setzer said, letting his usual mask fall to reveal a sincere and empathetic expression.

“No. My mother and uncle made it off world.”

“What about your not-boyfriend who interrupted our little match the day we met? You seemed close for him to drag you out of trouble like that.”

You laughed.

“Axel? I think he could barely stand me then,” you said around a fit of giggles, “He pulled me aside because he said he saw us fighting, and I looked pathetic. But, no. He’s not from my home. We met on Hollow Bastion actually, but he hops from world to world too. Well he’s based in Hollow Bastion right now, but he’s accompanied me on my fair share of adventures.”

You had this fond, faraway look on your face. Setzer knew that you and Axel weren’t together, but you obviously had a thing for him – a pretty big thing from the looks of it.

“You made any other friends on your adventures?” he inquired next, and you spent the next twenty minutes or so just talking about all the people you’d met. They brought the food out sometime shortly after your tale, and the two of you kept talking about people you’d both met on your adventures.

~

“So you just know Mickey Mouse? The king of Disney Town. You just know him. Just like that,” Setzer said with a dry disbelieving look on his face.

“Well, I mean, I’ve only met him once when he came to talk to me about the whole keyblade wielding thing, but, yeah, I’ve met him. Why? Is he a big deal everywhere else?”

“You know what maybe we should talk about something else,” Setzer said behind a small fit of laughter. You didn’t know what that was about, but you guessed he was a notable figure – though you hadn’t heard of him anywhere outside of Disney Town or from those who knew him personally.

You weren’t paying attention anymore though. The sun was starting to set and revealing more and more stars little by little. It looked as if the whole street had turned off their lights to be able to see them, and then you saw it – rising just as the sun set. A moon. A big bright yellow moon that glowed with an ethereal beauty like nothing you’d ever seen before.

You pulled out your phone and took a picture.

“Let me see that,” Setzer said, snatching your phone from you. Then he stood up and walked over to where you were, stooping so his face was on par with yours. Then he flipped the camera so the two of you were looking at it. You managed an uncomfortable smile and he effortlessly put an easy – and arrogant – one on his own face before snapping the picture.

He looked at it and frowned.

“We’ll take a better one later,” he said, tossing your phone back to you.

“Later?” you asked, wondering what exactly he had planned, “I thought the sunset was supposed to be the grand finale?”

“Well when we had to rely on a train to get from point A to point B it was. But now we’ve got a better method of transportation. And here’s what I propose.”

You leaned in a little, waiting to see what else he had planned with the night being so young – only 8:02 at the moment.

“We,” he said lowly, leaning in a bit more – which you also did, “Go to a bar!”

You blinked. That was it? Yet he had announced it as if it were the grandest idea in the world. You’d done your fair share of drinking in life – typically at parties, that one time at New Year’s, and then once more at Animal Kingdom – but you’d never been to a bar. You were just shy of the legal drinking age of Spaceship Earth and had no idea of what it was in this world – or at least city, state, province, or wherever you were currently located was called – but if Setzer was asking you to go drinking you had to look the minimum age at least. Plus after the day/week/month you’ve had – which included several near-death experiences – you’d be hard pressed to turn down a drink or two.

“Okay,” you said slowly. It was a mundane thing to do, yet you could feel that similar feeling of excitement from impending fun creeping up over you anyway. You thought about how he mooned the train and how mortified you were then how you tried not to let the rush overwhelm you when you thought about how exciting it was.

After another few minutes, the town turned its lights back on, and the stars retreated a little further into the night where you could not see them. You figured they’d have to do as much. It wouldn’t do to have a festival and not be able to see anything.

“Excuse me,” a voice said, and the two of your turned to look at the waiter, “The dessert has arrived.”

He held out a little dessert plate, a little chocolate cake topped with two strawberries. You were confused. Neither of you had ordered anything.

“Oh, we didn’t order this,” you said, trying as politely as you could to decline. The waiter’s smile only broadened.

“We know,” he said, “It’s on the house in honor of the festival –”

“Oh how sweet!”

“– and your anniversary.”

You froze just a bit.

“Excuse me?” you asked, wondering how in the hell this man thought it was you and Setzer’s anniversary considering that outside of ordering food you hadn’t once spoken to him.

…But Setzer did.

“Your… two-year anniversary was it?” the waiter asked, looking at Setzer.

“Three,” Setzer said, reaching over the table and resting his hand on your and giving you an easy charming smile that read, “Just go with it.”

Oh you’d go with it. You’d run away with it!

“Oh, sweetie,” you gushed, and watched Setzer’s smile broadened, “What a perfect ending to a perfect evening! But the fun doesn’t have to stop here,” you cooed, dropping your voice into something much more suggestive.

Setzer’s eyes widened minutely before that same flirtatious smirk overcame his face just as it had at the beginning of the your not-date.

“Mhmm,” you hummed, “When we get home, I can do that thing you like.”

Setzer squeezed your hand. He liked where this was going.

“I know you like it when mama spanks her little baby,” you continued on, trying not to laugh when Setzer blinked back at you in surprise, a somewhat shocked smile etched on his face, “I’ll even change your diaper if you’re good.”

Setzer’s smile eased back into something familiar before he chuckled. He supposed he had that coming.

“Only if you allow me to rub gravy all over my toes so you can suck it off,” he purred back, “I know how you love it.”

At this point the waiter felt too awkward to stick around and put the dessert down, mumbling a quick, “Please enjoy,” before making a mad dash back into the restaurant.

The two of you looked at each other before laughing like a couple of maniacs. You felt a little bad though. The waiter having to listen to your fake fetishes must have felt incredibly awkward. But you didn’t feel bad enough to be unable find it at least a little funny.

The waiter brought the bill a bit later, blushing all the while, and, surprisingly, Setzer insisted he cover the whole thing with his own money, and you wouldn’t even owe him later – probably to make up for the little bit the two of you had done earlier.

Now you were flying to a new part of the town the two of you had visited. He would mutter instructions in your ear, and you’d obey.

That was how you found yourself in the inner city of… well you didn’t know the name of this town. You’d never been here before, but you’re in the inner city now. It was lively to say the least. There was music pouring out of every building of a million and one different genres and songs. It was as contagious as Setzer’s attitude, and you found your steps lighter – almost bouncing as you walked.

Setzer led you to a small bar on the corner of a rather empty street. Seemed that everyone was off on some other livelier main street as opposed to this little back alley.

You walked into the little dive bar, and you weren’t too impressed with it. There was the bar of course, a few tables, a little area for dancers, and a pool table near the center of it all. It smelled like alcohol and cigarettes. There was a no smoking sign on the wall, but obviously no one cared.

You and Setzer sat at the bar and ordered a beer to start. It was as bitter as the stuff you’d get at college parties but tolerable. Plus at least you’d get a buzz started – even if it were going to take a few beers.

Setzer glanced around the bar and smiled.

“See someone you know?” you asked him.

“Nope,” he said simply, “And that’s exactly how I want it.”

“Avoiding your women friends?”

“No, but I’ll let you in on a little secret,” he said, leaning in as if there were someone listening to your conversation, “I don’t have money for drinks.”

“You just expect me to pay where you invited me?! Hoe, I will leave you here with the bill!”

Setzer shushed you, not losing his secretive smile or aura.

“Relax, doll,” he said, leaning back again, “We can make the money.”

“Don’t call me that, and how?”

Setzer nodded his head back out at the open space of the bar towards the pool table. You frowned.

“Great,” you said, “I don’t know how to play pool.”

“I do,” he said, a boastful smile spreading on his face like a Cheshire cat grin, “I’m quite skilled at it actually.”

“So people are gonna pay you to play pool? Are they gonna give you a dollar for every trick shot you manage to pull off?” Setzer was undeterred by your sarcasm or your lack of faith.

“Something like that. But I need you to do something for me. Pretend you don’t know me. I’ll be back in about an hour or so. Give or take a few minutes,” he said and hopped out of his seat, taking his beer with him.

“W-what? Well what am I supposed to do until you get back?”

“I don’t know. You have a phone with Wi-Fi. Watch some Mickey Mouse cartoons or something. Now shut up. You don’t know me.”

And just like that he walked away and over to the pool table. He sipped his beer and watched for a bit, and you just sat there wondering what this idiot was trying to pull. After watching two rounds, he asked to join in on the next one, and they seemed amicable enough to let him. He played a few rounds, but he was nowhere near as great as he led you to believe. He was mediocre at best. He had a few good shots here and there, but also some really bad ones. Overall though he was okay-ish.

But as he played round after round he got a little worse. It wasn’t a really noticeable difference, and you doubt you’d have seen it were it not for the fact that you’d been watching so closely. You’d also upgraded from a beer to a mojito. If he was gonna get money, you’d enjoy something a little heavier. And the buzz would be nice if he failed and you were stuck getting him out of whatever situation he landed the two of you in.

After one more mediocre round, one of the people playing started making jokes at his expense, saying he should quit while he had any dignity left. The other men standing around – three of them, four in total – began to laugh as well, telling Setzer he should go find a new hobby.

Well Setzer didn’t like that and puffed out his chest. You almost laughed. As haughty as he was, and he was very, very, haughty, it was almost nice to watch him get knocked down a few pegs. Of course this meant that someone would have to pay for your drinks now, and that someone would have to be you or Setzer. Of course, according to Setzer you, “don’t know him.” So you could just tell the bartender to put it on his tab and slip out.

You ordered another mojito.

Setzer then declared loudly enough for you to just barely hear him over the din of the bar that he could take them all on and win the next round, and to make things interesting they could place bets – winner take all. He’d even let the four of them play on the same team against the one of him.

Was his pride really so fragile he had to attempt to beat the other four at once to regain his dignity? What an ego.

After the way he just played? You’d be better off dipping out on him now, so you wouldn’t have to feel secondhand embarrassment when he came trudging back to you with his tail between his legs telling you how you couldn’t pay for the drinks.

They all agreed, pooling the money on the side of the pool table and getting ready to make an easy 100 dollars. You ignored the light pang of annoyance that hit you when you watched Setzer place a twenty with the rest of them because that meant he did have money for drinks. He just didn’t want to pay.

But… Something changed. Setzer played differently. He was actually good. Really good. Leagues better than the people who had just spent the past few minutes mocking him. And in the next few minutes the round was over, Setzer having played so well that none of the other men even got a turn.

“Don’t hate the player, hate the game,” he said cockily as he thumbed through the money.

One of them, a big burly man who matched Setzer in height but far outranked him in muscle stepped up to him, growling something out about Setzer’s hustling game. You were thoroughly invested in this little story now; your half drank mojito sat off to the side gathering condensation on its sides.

“Now, now, gentlemen,” Setzer said, raising his hands in a non-threatening gesture, “No need to get upset, we’re all just having a little fun. I’ll tell you what. We can all get our money back and then some. We’ll all chip in another $20, and to show you I’m a good sport, I’ll even play this round with a hand tied behind my back.”

The other men considered this for a moment before a round of agreements was muttered from all but one of them.

“How do we know you ain’t just gonna run off with the money?” he said. The others looked at Setzer, that distrust returning to their eyes.

“I could see why you might think that,” Setzer said before thinking to himself, tapping his chin with his index finger and looking around. “How about a neutral party? Someone else can just hold on to it for us and we’ll collect at the end.”

This seemed to sate the men. Setzer began to look around the bar, before his gaze finally landed on you and your tipsy state.

“You,” he pointed at you. You blinked in surprise and confusion. Didn’t you know him? You couldn’t be the neutral party. Then it hit you like a ton of bricks. Oh duh. You “didn’t” know him.

You pointed at yourself after looking around to see no one else he was looking at, mouthing the word, “me?”

He nodded, taking the money from the previous bet and the money from the current one and walking over to you.

“I assume you saw all that,” he said lowly, gesturing to the men behind him, “Well I need you to hold on to this, and when I give the signal you leave. When we follow you, you fly away, yeah? Disappear.”

You nodded, and he handed you the money giving you a sly wink.

“The signal is, ‘I need to use the bathroom really quick.’”

And just like that he walked back over to the men waiting at the pool table.

“She said yes, but before we start, I need to use the bathroom really quick.” The men all shrugged and nodded watching Setzer start to make his way over to the bathroom.

And you slipped out of your seat, sliding a twenty on to the bar for your drinks – because at least after all this you could say that you had paid for your drinks. Maybe it was the alcohol are Setzer’s still infectious attitude that was compelling you. Because nothing in your right mind justified stealing. But it was fun. You were having fun. Small rushes of adrenaline shot through you with every step you took towards the door.

“Hey!” you heard Setzer yell. You kept walking. “She’s taking our money!”

You could feel the other sets of eyes turn to you, and you quickened your pace. You were only a few short steps from the door, so sprinting wasn’t necessary, but you did so anyway, hearing the scrape of chairs against the floor as the men barreled through them to get to you.

But you were already out of the humid bar and into the warm night air, hopping on your glider and sailing up and to the roof of the bar before any of the men could reach the outside and spot you. You heard the door swing open, and all of the men and Setzer rushed out at once.

“Dammit!” Setzer said, “That cunt got away with the money! I swear if I ever see that bitch again…,” Setzer growled, brandishing a switchblade.

Hamming it up, are we?

You almost laughed at the display. One of the men, the one who was about to threaten him before, put a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it man. She ain’t worth it,” he said in a low grumble.

Setzer put away the blade, letting his shoulders slump in defeat.

“Yeah, I guess. Hey how about a round on me guys?” he said, changing his tune. The other men perked up at this, clapping him on the shoulder and thanking him before heading back into the bar.

That was when you made your descent on your glider, holding the money up for him to see.

“Not bad,” you congratulated, and, of course, Setzer took it as a means to strut his peacock feathers and prowess in the art of the gamble.

“Yes, well that’s just the tip of the iceberg, doll. Now let’s go before they realize they aren’t getting drinks. I feel like losing money, a game, and alcohol is asking for a beating.”

The two of you flew off into the night, laughing.

Setzer eventually told you to stop at a supermarket, and you did. When asked why it was because he wanted to procure more alcohol. You were already tipsy and not the best flyer at the moment, so you declined the offer.

So you just followed him up and down the aisles picking up snacks and alcohol as you saw fit. Eventually the two of you wandered to other parts of the store. You eventually split up to look at other things, and you stumbled through the jewelry section and saw a simple silver chain that was on clearance and picked it up.

That was when Setzer came back from wherever he’d been to inspect whatever it was you were doing.

“What do you need that for?” Setzer asked. You held up the pretty chain.

“Um, a friend got me a shell when we went to the beach once, and it just kinda sits in a drawer at the hotel. I was thinking I could make it into a necklace.”

Setzer nodded before pulling up something he’d found on his venture. It was a DVD featuring Goofy, Donald Duck, and Mickey Mouse on the cover. And oddly enough on the back was a picture of your uncle. Weird. So you guessed Mickey Mouse was a big deal in other places. However, regular television for toons doubled as cartoons everywhere else, so you could understand Setzer’s confusion earlier.

“Look,” he said, “I found a DVD of your cousin.”

“Oh cool!” you said, taking it from him and adding it to the small collection of things growing in your arms – which now consisted of two bags of chips, a bottle of soda, the chain, and now a DVD.

“Hey! No, I’m buying it for you!” Setzer said as he took the DVD back from you, “Consider it payment for being the plant earlier.”

“With my cut, right?” you asked, narrowing your eyes at him.

“Of course,” he said, “30%.”

“Uh, no. Half.”

“Half?! You were just a plant! You didn’t even do any of the work!”

“No, but I came back to get you instead of just pocketing the money and leaving you with not even enough money to catch a train back to Twilight Town. And also you called me a cunt.”

“Was that too much? Cuz I thought it added to it.”

“It was a bit much,” you said dryly, “50%.”

Setzer looked like he wanted to say something, but it was true that you made good on your part of it and subsequently didn’t screw him over… and also he called you a cunt which, apparently, was a bit much.

“Well played,” he finally said, and you took out the money, handing half of it to him. He counted it like he didn’t trust you before pocketing it. “I’ll still buy this for you. Consider it a gesture of good will,” he said, waving the DVD in front of your face.

You followed him to the cash registers and hopped in line behind him when your phone began to ring.

It was Demyx.

“Hello,” you said into the phone.

“________?” he said on the other line, and you rolled your eyes.

“Who else? You did call me after all.”

“We’ve got some news about Marluxia.”

You sobered up a bit at the mention of that. You felt a cold fury run through you, and you actively had to keep your darkness at bay, inhaling deeply through your nose and out of your mouth until you were able to lock it back away. It wouldn’t do to turn into a heartless in the middle of the store.

“________? You still there?”

“Yeah, I’m here,” you said lowly after a moment, “What’s he doing now?”

“Well in those notes we got back he had his personal plans in them too. He’s sending out scouting parties to different locations. We don’t know the exact plans for them he has, but we figured at least one of them has to be recruiting more nobodies for his plans. He’s got seven places he’s gonna hit, and we thought we could take ‘em out before they get a chance to do anything bad.”

“Alright. Send me the locations. When do we start?”

“Well that’s the thing and why I’m calling you so late.”

Late? You looked at your phone. Sure enough it was almost midnight. Not quite late in your book but enough.

“The nobodies are supposed to go out every morning,” Demyx continued, “So we figured Axel could handle three of them, and you and I can handle the other four. I’m mostly just there for clean up duty or if you need back up fighting them and as a ride so you don’t have to glide there. Plus by the time you get there, they’ll be long gone.”

“Alright,” you said, pinching the bridge of your nose, “When are you coming to get me?”

“At about 7-ish. The nobodies won’t be there until 8, so we’ll be there early and waiting for them. So you know be ready for action.”

“Yeah, I got you,” you said, “I’ll talk to you later, Demyx. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Click.

“Hot date tomorrow?” Setzer asked, eyeing you as he placed his things in front of the cashier who gave him her best bright and dazzling smile.

You barked out a laugh.

“I wish,” you said, “More of my heroic responsibilities calling my name. So I need to head home. I have to be up early.”

“Shame. If you want, since this stresses you out so much, we could hang out again tomorrow. I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t some the best fun I’ve had around here in ages.”

You mulled it over in your head. It did sound nice. You hadn’t had a good drink or a good run of fun in a while. It seemed like the universe had been personally trying to screw you over lately. And you’d be lying if you said that hanging with Setzer wasn’t as nearly as repulsive as it had been at the beginning of your day.

“Okay,” you said with a light smile.

“Plus it’s just as well that you have to leave me so soon,” Setzer said with a shrug as he paid the cashier.

“You have other plans already?”

“I told you I had a plan B.”

You took a moment to try and remember what it was he had said was plan B. Then you remembered. The woman from the square.

“You pig!” you snapped, swatting him repeatedly on the arm while he laughed at your antics, hardly defending against your light little slaps.

And just when you were starting to like this asshole too….

~

“Well here we are,” Setzer said, making a grand gesture to the door of your room in the hotel.

“Thanks, but I told you that you didn’t have to walk me to my door,” you said, turning to look at him, a soft smile on your face.

“That wouldn’t be very gentlemanly of me, now would it?”

You rolled your eyes once again that evening, but the smile remained on your face.

“Because everyone knows you’re such a gentleman. I’m sure that’s why ‘Plan B’ fell all over herself for you,” you remarked dryly. Setzer just chuckled, unshaken in his character as always.

“Goodnight, ________,” he said finally, and your eyes widened. He smirked again. He really did remember your name. Trippy. “Oh! And before I forget,” he said before pulling you in close to him. He took your phone and got ready to take another selfie with you. This time you smiled an easy smile that noted you were tired but that you had fun at least.

Setzer looked at the picture and smiled before putting his number in your phone and sending it to himself.

“Call me when you’re ready to have a little more fun,” he said before tossing your phone back at you and striding away.

Notes:

Okay so here's the next chapter! I'll be back on Tuesday! Comments and kudos are always welcome, and thank you so far for supporting me! I really appreciate all the love and support!

Chapter 42: Fun Is A Fun Distraction

Summary:

Wild nights with Setzer!

Notes:

IMPORTANT: This chapter takes place over the course of three days/nights, and happens simultaneously to the next two! This is really important for story reasons!

Demyx showed up the next day just after seven to take you to the world you’d be visiting. It was a quaint little area with a vast forest that the two of you patrolled for roughly an hour. It was when you heard screams that you knew the nobodies had arrived and were ready to cause trouble.

You ran to the area where the screams were coming from to see two young kids and an old man cornered against the side of an old wooden building. There were only five dusks there.

They closed in on the small family, claws extended and ready to rip them apart. So that was where you came in, putting on your armor, and disposing of the nobodies in little to no time at all, Demyx throwing them through corridors as you did.

When you finished, the family stood there slack-jawed. One of the children, a little boy with a blue and white hat pulled out a little journal and began taking down notes furiously. You gave them a little salute and jumped through the next corridor with Demyx back to your hotel.

“Well that was easy,” you remarked. You couldn’t have been gone for more than two hours.

“Yeah, I thought that’d be way harder,” Demyx remarked, “Also I wanted to say something earlier, but we had to go. But where’d the sun go?”

Demyx leaned his head out of the window and looked up at the sky, which was still dotted with stars and the big, yellow moon.

“Oh apparently that’s something that happens for two weeks out of the year. There’s a whole festival going on in town for it.”

“Oh. Are you going?”

“Um, I mean, I might. I don’t know. I think for now though, I’m just gonna visit mom at the bakery or something, maybe watch the stars or something later.”

Demyx wanted to mention that he thought Axel might enjoy doing that with you. He knows that there were instances where the two of you would look at things like that – the most prominent example, of course, being the one he’d witnessed himself on Animal Kingdom. But ultimately he decided against it. He knew you had given Axel some small ray of hope of being how the two of you once were, but he didn’t know the full of how you felt yet – only that you might want to hang out with him some time.

You walked over to your closet, trying to pick out an outfit you could wear. You needed to go shopping soon. You had too many outfits that were ruined from fighting and just unfortunate circumstance in general.

“Hey, I’ve got a question,” you said before Demyx could go.

“Yeah?”

“I know part of the reason you’re with me is to get from point A to point B and the other is to get rid of the bodies of the nobodies and stuff, but where are you sending them?”

“Oh, Ludwig wanted to study them. He didn’t give too many nobodies hearts while he was there, and so he wants to know where they’re getting them now. So he wants to study the bodies to see if he can guess a source.”

“Hmmkay then. I was just curious.”

You turned back to the closet.

“Well,” Demyx said, “Guess I’ll go now.”

“See ya, Demyx,” you said, turning slightly to give him a smile and a half wave, “See you tomorrow.”

“Yup,” he said as he tossed a half wave back and stepped through a corridor back to Hollow Bastion.

You turned back to your wardrobe, finally settling on a simple pair of leggings and a button up blouse your mom bought for you before bounding out of the hotel and to the bakery, forgetting your phone on the nightstand.

The sight you were met with was unusual to say the least. It’s true that you had never gone there much before, but even the day before it was not so crowded as it was then.

You pushed your way through the crowds of people that were lined up outside of the door trying to get their pastries together. It was probably because of the once a year treats that were being sold there now. You hadn’t had any yet, but you knew if your mom made it, then it had to be amazing.

“Oh! ________ I’m so glad you’re here! Jump on register and help us out!” Your mother yelled at you, tossing you one of the bakery’s striped aprons. You didn’t question it, just hopped behind the register. It was simple, put in the amount owed, and give change accordingly. There was also a list you could follow for the different pastries, so you’d know what they were, and the register handled tax on its own.

It took hours to finally get the bakery back to something manageable, but it was done well enough. Your mom introduced you to her boss who was grateful for the help and gave you a box of pastries as payment.

It was as you were getting ready to leave the bakery that a familiar and not entirely unwelcome face walked inside.

“Setzer!” your mom greeted with a friendly smile. You blinked. You figured your mom might know a few of the people around town because of the bakery’s popularity, but to know Setzer of all people well enough to be on a first name basis was surreal to you.

Setzer greeted your mother just as warmly, asking for his usual – which apparently he had, and your mom knew well enough that he just had to call it his “usual” to get the point across.

“________,” he greeted simply, sliding an easy smile your way.

“Oh? You two know each other? Friends, I assume?” your mom asked. You debated on that answer for a little bit. You wouldn’t say friends exactly.

“Best friends,” Setzer insisted, pulling you close. You immediately pushed him off.

“We barely know each other. We hung out like once.”

“But that’s going to change,” Setzer declared, throwing his arm around your shoulders like you didn’t just push him off of you. You could see he was going to be fairly adamant about some form of contact, so you let it be before he got the idea to try and slip it around your waist, “We’re going out tonight for some fun. Right, ________? You’re done with your work, aren’t you?”

You nodded somewhat grudgingly, but any reluctance was going swiftly out the door when you remembered the fun from the night before.

“Hm, well, you kids have fun,” your mother said, “I’ll go get your order.” And just like that she walked to the back room of the bakery and left you and Setzer alone.

“So what’s the plan for today?” you asked, looking up to Setzer who gave you his most charming smile. He was thrilled to have you agree to go along for the ride.

“Bar hopping mostly. Maybe we play a few more rounds of pool?” he asked, and you could already feel an involuntary smile making its way across your face. A small rush of adrenaline coursed through you at the thought of pulling something similar to what the two of you had done the night before.

“Sounds good. When should I meet you?”

“It’s already close to six, and happy hour ought to be starting soon somewhere. So why don’t we take off as soon as we get my order?”

“Really? Already?” you sounded surprised, but your face belied your excitement. Your mother came out of the back at that moment with a box of cookies for Setzer. Setzer walked to the register where he paid for his order.

“I don’t see why not.”

“Cool! Let’s go!”

You were already turning towards the door by the time Setzer picked up the box, tossing a wave at your mother as he followed you.

“Bye, mom,” you called over your shoulder as you walked out of the bakery.

“Stay out of trouble,” she responded.

“No promises!” you called back. It was normally a joke between the two of you, but you fully meant it this time. Setzer let out a laugh at your half-truth half-joke.

Once the door was closed he gave you a knowing smirk.

“Lying to your mother, are we?”

You just smirked right back.

“You heard me,” you said, feeling a carefree air about you, “I made no promises.”

There was a light bounce to your step as you walked, and Setzer noticed. When he met you for the first time, you just kind of walked normally an air of lost confusion about you that had allowed him to think you didn’t live in Twilight Town when he wanted to flirt with you, but now you seemed different. Bubblier somehow. Yet it was so you. Even though the most of you he had experienced was very obviously sick of his consistent arrogance.

But you were warming up to him.

“So what makes the big hero so eager to do bad with me this evening? You’re not going villain on the universe are you?”

You barked out a laugh.

“As if,” you giggled, “I’m just having fun! It’s been so long since I was allowed to just have fun without it being an afterthought or prelude to some big mission or having it interrupted by something only I can handle. Even when I was on Animal Kingdom – you remember, that one world I told you about?”

“The one with the hippies?”

“They weren’t hippies! They just… lived with the land.”

“Those are hippies but go on.” You rolled your eyes.

“Well there was this really great party before I had to go fight that planet’s guardian. I told my friend’s it was because they were happy I was going to defeat Uh-Oa. But it was in part because I might not come back. It was a celebration of life as much as it was a thank you.”

“Well that’s morbid.”

“Tell me about it,” you muttered, “But now I’m just having fun. Something not interrupted by monsters or chores or training. Just fun.”

“Sounds like you need this.”

“I so desperately need this,” you said dramatically.

“Then I’ll make this the best few festival nights of your life,” Setzer declared, equally as dramatic, “When you’re with me, we won’t think about work or hero-ing. As far as I’m concerned you’re just my friend who has weird and cool powers that we will be using to get money and booze.”

He linked his arm with yours, and you found yourself not totally repulsed by this gesture, even leaning into it a little bit. You were friends – one of whom had weird powers – who were going to get money and booze, and this thought was far more tantalizing for you than it ought to be.

“That sounds so amazing right now,” you said as you continued to lean into him.

“Then let’s see that glider and hit our first target.”

~

Setzer and you hit three bars that night, drinking more than you ought to along the way until the two of you finally had to stop your little charade at the fourth bar when Setzer realized he was too tipsy to play effectively. At that point it really would have been a gamble, and the two of you were trying to make money, not risk it.

So you had to find new ways to find fun. So you took other gambles.

That was how the two of you found yourselves sitting in that fourth bar still drinking and laughing about random things that probably weren’t even all that funny. Honestly, you weren’t sure you heard half the punchlines right.

“So how much did we make?” Setzer asked you, while sipping a beer. You were thumbing through a decent sized wad of money.

“Four twenty,” you said, words slurring together just the tiniest bit, before putting the money into your bra.

“Ha-ha. Blaze it.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Setzer rolled his eyes.

“Well, anyway,” he continued, “We would have made more if someone didn’t pay for her drinks every time we left,” Setzer said with a roll of his eyes.

“Well excuse the fuck outta me for doing something legal.”

“You literally helped me rob like 15 people tonight.”

“Yeah, but they shouldn’t be gambling. Cuz since gambling means you risk losing your money, then it stands to reason that when you hand your money to a stranger to hold it for you while you play a little game, you’re taking another gamble and losing it. So they, like, double gambled and double risked the money.”

“That barely made any sense at all,” Setzer said, chuckling to himself.

“Shut up I’m like halfway to drunk right now,” you defended weakly. You didn’t much care though. You were still riding the high of your recent hustles.

“You know,” Setzer said, leaning on the bar, “There are other ways to have a little fun.”

“Like how?” you said, already on board, no convincing necessary at this point.

“Let’s leave,” he said.

Oh. Was that all? You thought he had something bigger planned. You just shrugged, starting to pull a ten out of your bra to pay for what you’d drank here too. But then Setzer stopped you, putting a hand over yours, subsequently resting your hand over your bosom with his over yours. You looked up at him squinting, seeing that mischievous glint in his eye that was always there when he was about to do something bad. But wait. He wasn’t looking at your chest. He wasn’t about to do something bad to you. That boob thing was just a coincidence. He was looking really deeply into your eyes instead.

You squinted at him in confusion for a second before it clicked in your mind what he was implying. You cast a quick glance at the bartender, a young man who was talking up a blonde at the end of the bar. He was a little too distracted. The two of you could just go.

You smiled. You could just go. Oh that was bad. That was doing a very big bad. It was a bad you wanted to do very, very much too.

You just nodded at Setzer who smiled back. He stood casually, and you followed suit. Then, after a small, quiet moment, the two of you ran to the door.

“H-hey!” the bartender called, and you could hear him scrambling to get from behind the bar while the two of you hopped on your glider. You waited a moment until the bartender came out of the bar. He stood there flabbergasted as the two of you floated across the street five feet off of the ground. You laughed at the gaping fish expression on his face before blowing a little kiss and flying off with Setzer laughing alongside you.

“Hey, I know another bar we can hit,” he said in your ear, practically pressing his lips to it, and leaning more heavily on you in his mildly drunken state. Your glider wobbled a bit, so you flew closer to the ground. You were not fit for this task, but that didn’t stop you from trying anyway. And at least now you wouldn’t be falling to your deaths – just to really painful landings.

Setzer directed you to the next bar, a bit classier than the last one but not by much. The bartender looked up at Setzer, and a frown set on his face. Did Setzer know this guy? “Maybe this wouldn’t be such a good idea,” is what you would have thought if you had any sense left in your body. But you’re inebriated and high on life at the moment, so shut up logic.

Setzer led you to the bar, letting you sit down and ordering a plate of fries and a couple of beers.

“I hope you intend to pick up your tab this month, Setzer? I’ve been calling,” the bartender, a middle-aged man with a comically large handlebar mustache, said in a gruff voice.

“Relax,” Setzer purred with an easy smile, “I’m good for it.”

He began to reach toward your chest for the money.

Okay that time he was about to do something bad – and incredibly stupid. You slapped his hand away before it could touch you then slapped him firmly across the face. Enough to get the point across without leaving too much of a mark.

He placed a hand over his cheek where you slapped him, a smile still plastered on his face.

You pulled the money out yourself, flashing the little roll of cash at the bartender.

“He’s good for it,” you confirmed. The bartender gave a nod and a gruff hum of acknowledgement before leaving, obviously feeling awkward at what he’d just witnessed. You put the money back into your bra.

“You are such an asshole,” you hissed at him, not appreciating what he just pulled even in a mildly drunken state.

“Oh please. I just wanted to get him to feel awkward and leave me alone.”

“There are other ways to tell people to piss off,” you snapped at him. And you could, oddly enough, feel your darkness writhing about inside you. But you weren’t that angry with him. More annoyed than anything. But how strange that it was active. Perhaps it wasn’t just tied to your deep-seated negative emotions? Maybe surface level things like annoyance were now things you had to worry about.

Ugh.

…You need another drink.

Thankfully, the bartender came back with your order fairly quickly, and you downed half your beer in one sitting before shoveling fries in your mouth.

“Well someone’s acting like they haven’t eaten or drank in months. Tough times ahead you wanna divulge about?”

“Trust me,” you said, waving him off, “This is some baggage you don’t want to deal with.”

Never mind the part where you looked like a soul-stealing monster, you were a literal partial embodiment of darkness – which you were pretty sure came with its own taboos. Plus that fell under the category of hero stuff, and you both agreed that there would be none of that shit.

“That sounds like gossip,” he said, scooting a bit closer to you, shoving fries into his own mouth and leaning in close.

“It’s weird hero stuff, so no talking about it,” you said, pushing him back from you, “So what’s the deal with you and that bartender? Aren’t tabs usually paid by the end of the night? How do you drag one out for like a month?”

“Well it’s been a little over a month,” Setzer said with a shrug, “But he knows I’m good for it. I usually pay him, but lately I haven’t been hustling much. And the last few scores I’ve had were with people who owe me money but have yet to pay.”

“So you’ve been holding out on the bartender despite the fact that you can just play the pool hustle and pay him back.”

“I actually hadn’t pulled out the ‘pool hustle’ as you so eloquently called it in a long time. Haven’t had a plant in a long time.”

“But you can pay now,” you said, thinking about the money you had safely tucked away. Setzer cleared his throat, looking away.

“It’s actually a bit more than that, doll.”

Your jaw dropped a bit.

“How the fuck do you accumulate more that three-hundred dollars of debt to a bar?”

Setzer just smiled, putting his beer to his lips before answering.

“I may have ordered a few rounds for the house the night that guy owed me. Said he could pay, and I may have been a little too drunk to make sure he could follow up on that deal. So that prick ran out on me, and trying to hunt him down was hell, and gambling ain’t exactly smiled upon around here, so there was no getting cops involved.”

“No less than you deserve I’m sure,” you sniffed, sipping your own beer.

“Nah, even I didn’t deserve what he’s done to me. Cheating me out of $500 dollars,” he muttered somewhat angrily – which as much negative emotions as you’ve ever seen from him, “Turns out he’s not a favorite to anybody around here. He’s a regular conman too.”

“Aren’t you a conman?”

“Yeah, but when I’m conning people out of their money, it’s typically what they can afford. People don’t gamble so much when they can’t afford to lose – though I know that isn’t the case for everyone. But this guy actively takes from the vulnerable under the guise of help. Even I can’t condone it.”

“You’re such a saint,” you said with an eyeroll, though you had to admit he had a minor point, “So anyway, if you owe so much money that this guy apparently isn’t paying you, why did you bring me here. Especially since you know we can’t afford the tab on your own.”

“Doesn’t the heightened risk make it more fun?” he asked with a devilish smirk that really shouldn’t have been making you all giddy with excitement – for the rush of “danger,” of course.

You just turned your head so you wouldn’t have to look at him while a smile graced your features. You munched on more fries and had a few more beers before you and Setzer decided it was high time to high tail it.

You were not too graceful on your feet right now, and neither was he. But that only added to the fun didn’t it? Knowing it would be a hassle just to get out was in a weird way fun. Even though you’d be screwed if you got caught.

You felt your darkness knock, knock, knocking at the door again. Which was even weirder. You weren’t even upset. If anything you were feeling damn good at the moment. But maybe you didn’t need to be upset?

Setzer had been saying something to you.

You blinked at him somewhat blearily.

“Hmm?” you asked, looking at him with as much concentration as you could muster.

“I said, ‘you ready?’” he said with a half-lidded gaze and a happy, excited smile. This hoe was drunk off his ass. Wait. So were you.

You nodded at him, already prepping your muscles for the sprint to the door. Setzer shifted in his seat before taking off. You, in your drunken state, followed after him a second later than he.

“Hey!” the bartender yelled as the two of you crossed the room.

“Bye, Gus! I swear I’ll get the tab next time!”

“Don’t come back here until you do you son of a bitch!”

He didn’t bother running after the two of you. You were already far out of his reach. You kept running down the street, Setzer starting to fall behind you until you swung around an alley way and leaned against the wall. Setzer caught up to you, stumbling into the alley and leaning against the wall as well – far more out of breath than you, you noted.

“Why,” he took in a big gulp of air, “Why didn’t we just – gasp – use the glider?”

“Are you kidding me? We almost – pant – crashed like twelve times last time we were going anywhere. I’m too drunk to fly.”

But Setzer was hardly paying attention to your answer. He was staring very hard at you as if seeing you for the first time.

“Whuh?” you muttered, staring back.

“Your eye. It’s yellow.”

Your eyes widened, and you pulled out your phone. You switched the camera to look at yourself. Sure enough, one of your eyes was a bright, solid yellow. Your darkness hadn’t just been at the door. It had a whole damn foot in the door.

You looked at your hands, the tips were already pitch black and growing claws. Oh why? Why now? Why did it have to come out now? You looked at Setzer, a mild panic in your eyes, then back at your phone to see two tiny almost unnoticeable bumps on your head where your horns would start protruding no doubt.

So in a fit of drunken honesty, you decided to finally tell Setzer what it was about you that had you so bothered earlier that you didn’t want to acknowledge its potential existence for even a moment.

You turned to him again, and he continued to observe you. You felt nervous, but better to tell him now than to let it grow out of control.

“So I can turn into a monster,” you blurted out, “It’s just one of those hero things. I swear I’m not, like, evil or anything. I just look like fucking Satan. Is that okay?”

“You just,” Setzer said, blinking up at you – up? You must have gotten taller – “Turn into a monster? Just like that? And you look like the devil or some shit?”

Your skin was darkening into its all-light-consuming black shade, and you nodded, feeling a mild weight on your head from where your horns continued to sprout.

“Yeah, so like don’t freak out and run away okay? I don’t normally do this. I just. I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” you whined. Setzer stood up to his full height to look you in the eyes – all four of them. Then his eyes trailed over your whole body, your naked, naked body. He smirked, eyes landing lower than they ought to, then dropped even lower so he could look at the hole in your abdomen.

He stooped over to look through it to the other side, and you just watched him with a dry expression on your face. You get it. You do. You look hella freaky. But did he have to look so intrigued by your oddness right now? You weren’t even sure why you looked like this now, but you were certain it was your drunken buzz that kept you from changing back. Your mind felt all kinds of fuzzy right now, so if he could just stop sticking his hand through the hole right now that would be great!

Setzer ran his fingers over the inside of the hole, and you gasped, shuddering in response. It felt different. You had never been touched in such a place before because there had never been a hole before – and subsequently a new part of your body that hadn’t previously existed was now being touched for the very first time. And it felt almost raw to the touch, like losing a tooth and feeling gum where a tooth once was and how odd the gum felt at being touched when there had previously been something there blocking all contact.

“Like that?” Setzer almost purred in his drunken haze, suddenly getting a mind to look you in the eyes and step just a bit closer to you. You backed up as much as you could, pressing your back to the wall, and feeling your wings rub uncomfortably against the rough brick of the building you were next to.

“No,” you hissed, “Now back the fuck up. You’re drunk.”

Setzer just chuckled before backing up and looking you up and down again, this time with a more observing and calculating gaze than a lustful one.

“Actually we can use this,” he said finally, returning his eyes to your face. You blinked.

“What?”

“You’re absolutely terrifying,” he said finally, and you rolled your eyes. Though you wondered if he could even see that now that you lacked pupils. You’re pretty sure he got the picture regardless, due to the light sneer on your face, your sharp teeth glinting in the low light of a nearby streetlamp.

“Gee, thanks,” you muttered bitterly. As if it weren’t bad enough that you had the look of the spawn of Satan, now he was insulting you by stating it to your face like a butthead.

“No, I mean that in a good way. Like I, personally, don’t have a problem with you or anything. In fact, you don’t look all that unappealing to me,” he said, giving you another once over, “Not at all,” he muttered again, eyes lingering on your legs a bit.

“Get on with it,” you snapped at him.

“You’re terrifying in the way that when people don’t know you’re actually just some girl, they shit themselves. I think I’m okay with this because I know you. And to me you’re just you.”

“What does that have to do with anyone else?”

“I’m thinking we have a little fun and pay that douchebag who didn’t pay me a little visit.”

You already knew where this was going.

And you weren’t entirely sure you were opposed to it either. A somewhat vicious smile spread across your face, showing off more of those razor teeth of yours as you bounced on your toes in giddy excitement.

“I like where this is going,” you said. Probably because you were drunk. Because at no point should you have thought that scaring the shit out of someone should have been fun, especially since you were supposed to be keeping the order, and using your abilities for something so personal – and not even personal for you – was a big no-no. Riku and Axel would shit bricks if they knew what you were about to do.

~

Riku and Axel could kiss your ass right now as far as you were concerned.

“And you’re sure this is the right place?” you whispered to Setzer.

The two of you stood on the fire escape of an apartment complex, eight floors above the ground. Setzer leaned on the railing of the fire escape letting a giddy, drunken, and somehow cocky expression cross his face.

“Trust me, doll,” he said, letting a hand gently touch your arm and leaning on you, “There is not a single thing about this man that I don’t know.”

“That’s creepy, Setzer,” you said, squinting at him for his insistent contact with you but allowing it anyway. You’d come to grips with the fact that that was just how Setzer was. With you at least – you hadn’t really seen him interact with anyone else thus far.

Setzer shrugged at your comment. He hardly cared.

“He cheated me out of over five-hundred dollars and made sure I couldn’t get it back. At this point, knowing I can scare the shit out of him is almost payment enough.”

You felt a giddy little giggle flutter out of your mouth. Even you had to admit that such a form of revenge was pretty good.

“What’d you say this guy’s name was again?”

“Gus Mahone. Why?”

“S’ a part of the act. Just trust me. Okay,” you said, rolling your shoulders, “Let’s do this.”

You turned to the window which led to the living room of the apartment. The two of you decided it would be more intimidating if you weren’t seen climbing through a window and went to whatever room he was in yourself.

You punched the window, the glass shattering effectively and almost completely. You punched in the shards that stayed in the frame before climbing in. It was a pretty nice apartment, and you briefly wondered how much of it was bought with gambling, hustling, or scam money. From what Setzer told you, his fucked-up insurance company was how he made most of his money.

You leaned back out of the window.

“Stay out of sight in case he comes to check on the broken window,” you hissed before disappearing into shadow. Setzer climbed down to the next level of the fire escape and pressed himself against the wall so as not to be seen easily through the grating.

Sure enough Gus walked into the room wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and an open robe. Ew.

He walked over to the window, noticing the glass on the floor. He first leaned out of the window to check to see if it had been something thrown at the window or if someone was there. But there was nothing, and it was hard to see anything in the dark alley below anyway.

Then he came to the more logical conclusion.

Someone had broken into the apartment.

He grabbed a bat that was leaning against the wall near his front door and brandished it over his shoulder as if he were ready to swing.

“If you think,” he said in a loud and probably what he assumed to be threatening voice, “That you can come into my home and rob me, you’ve got another thing comin’ pal! Show yourself and maybe I’ll go easy on you.”

You lowered your voice, letting out a cross between a hiss and a laugh.

Gus whirled around to face where the sound was coming from. He could see the four, narrowed slits of your eyes and just barely make out the silhouette of your imposing figure.

“Alright, kid, I see you. Step over here and maybe I won’t knock you out.”

You stood there silently and watched as each second ticked by. He became more and more unnerved as he stood there watching you. As his eyes adjusted better to the darkness he was staring into, he started to realize that you were not just a kid. You were an adult, a tall adult. And then he realized that you were also hovering, feet not touching the floor. It was then that he noticed they were rather large feet. You had a rather large build actually, and the added height of your flying only added to your intimidating and inhuman figure.

It was after his eyes widened when he realized that he was talking no ordinary person. He didn’t know what you were, only that you resembled something out of nightmares. You ignited yourself, bright blue flames enveloping your body as you began to hover towards him, keeping at least 12 inches away from the ground.

He screamed in abject horror, swinging his bat at you. You caught it with no problems outside of a dull throb of pain in the palm of your hand. Apparently this form handled pain better than your normal one. You yanked the bat out of his hands and snapped it in two, little splinters of wood flying here and there. Damn you loved this strength.

“Gus Mahone,” you rasped in as menacing a voice as you could manage, attempting to make it sound like the haunting rasps of the nobodies you’d fought before. Gus fell back onto his ass, scooting away from you until he was against the wall.

“How do you know who I am?”

“I know all about you. Your lying and cheating ways. How you took advantage of other people! For years you’ve cheated your way through countless people’s money regardless if they could afford it or not and always in their hour of need, and now your time has come! Your reign of terror is at an end!”

“What do you want from me?! Are you here to kill me?!” he screeched. You leaned in close to him, your voice a harsh whisper that was almost akin to a hiss.

“You know what I want!” came your raspy reply as you pointed at his chest as if to take his heart, and he cowered further, curling into himself until he was lying almost in a fetal position on the floor. Then you leaned away from him.

“IT IS TIME YOUR DEBTS BE REPAID!” you roared, flames glowing just a bit brighter than before.

 “Y-you’re gonna take me to hell?!”

“Hell will be a mercy when I’m done with you,” you spat at him in all your mock – and somewhat genuine – disgust with this man who sat before you blubbering like a baby and snotting all over himself, little bubbles of it popping over his face.

You reached for him as if you were going to grab him around his neck, making a show of flexing your fingers so your claws would glint in the glow of your fire.

“No wait!” he yelped, holding out his hand in a gesture for mercy.

You paused, narrowing your eyes and watching him silently, waiting for what it was he had to say. It could go one of two ways according to Setzer. He’d either beg for mercy and repay him or try to make you a deal. You hoped you’d scared him enough to not let him believe a deal would be amenable.

“I-I-I’ll change! I’ll give all the money back! I-I’ll turn over a new leaf. I’ll pay everyone I owe.”

Huzzah!

You narrowed your eyes further at him as if assessing him with skepticism, and you saw his eyes widened minutely as he realized you might not believe him.

“I swear by it on the soul you want to take. I’ll be a saint, give up everything to everyone, lead a life of charity. I’ll even become a monk if you want!”

“That won’t be necessary,” you growled, leaning in close and narrowing all of your eyes at him, “You’ll repay everyone you owe every single cent you’ve taken from them. And if you grow greedy again, I’ll return for you. And then there will be no mercy.”

“Yes, yes, of course, spirit,” he said, “I’ll never get money through ill-gotten means again. Only honest and good work from here on out.”

“And you’ll start with Setzer,” you added for good measure. Couldn’t forget what you were doing there in the first place.

Gus stopped and blinked up at you, tears shimmering in the blue firelight, his face crumpled with confusion, brows furrowing in the center of it all.

“That prick? Why him?”

Uh-Oh. Time to re-instill some fear in this fucker.

“ARE YOU QUESTIONING ME, MORTAL?!” you thundered so loud you were certain his neighbors would hear. You let your flames brighten and flicker in a bright display of power, trying not to let them get so far from your body that they touch anything in the apartment. You were just trying to scare the guy, not burn his house down. Gus flipped from his butt to his knees, bowing and clasping his hands together in a pleading gesture, scooting towards you just a bit.

“N-no! I’m sorry! I’ll pay him! Him and everyone else! Just please don’t take me to hell!” He bowed his head down until his forehead touched the floor, trying to be as submissive as possible. It was almost sad.

“Do not forget what I said if you ever step out of line again.”

“Yes, thank you, oh merciful one.”

With that you extinguished your flames, letting your feet finally touch the ground. Then in what was probably the most anticlimactic move ever, you turned and grabbed a donut from a box on a nearby counter.

“I’m taking this,” you announced, sending him a light glare, “To hell!”

He flinched at the sudden raise in your voice’s volume, and it took everything in you not to burst out in laughter.

Gus watched as you walked back over to the broken window, turning back once to look at him and shaking your head at him in disgust, before climbing out and walking down the stairs. Gus stared for a while. It was altogether a strange and frightening experience.

Regardless, he had some calls to make and hand-written apology letters to write.

You nearly ran down the fire escape after you were firmly out of the window, and once you reached the level below where Setzer was waiting, you picked him up by his arms and drunkenly flew the two of you to the ground, laughing like a couple of loons all the while. You couldn’t maintain your flight for very long though as your drunkenness was still there and caused the two of you to land rather ungracefully in the street. The two of you lay sprawled there in the middle of the road still laughing, laughing until your sides hurt.

“We should do stupid shit like this every night,” you giggled out. This was some of the best fun you’d had in a long time, and you weren’t quite ready for it to end.

“The night’s still young,” Setzer replied, “It’s only like…”

He looked at his watch.

“2 am.”

“2 am?!”

“Yeah, that’s what I said. Why?”

“Shit,” you groaned out, “I have to be up by like seven to take care of more hero shit.”

“Oh,” Setzer said, sounding more than a little disappointed, “Well we should probably head back. You good to fly?”

“Hell no.”

You looked to the side and saw something that made you want to cry a little bit.

“Aww,” you whined.

“What is it?”

“I dropped my donut!”

“Aww. That’s sad…. Let’s get more drinks for going back.”

~

You bid Setzer goodbye, choosing to fly up to your room’s window and crawl inside, leaving little claw marks on the windowsill as you did. You were even less graceful now on your feet as a heartless than you were when you were sober. Just as well, you didn’t want to scare the person at the front desk by barging in there looking all kinds of fucked up and drunk. Your mom was still fully dressed and asleep on the top of her bed. That was odd. But maybe the festival had exhausted her, and she just collapsed. She did that sometimes back on Spaceship Earth on particularly busy days in her bakery.

That was when you looked at your phone which you realized you hadn’t had all night. You had about eight missed calls and several text messages all from your friends and mother asking where you were.

Shit. You had probably worried the fuck out of them.

That was when your phone lit up with another call, buzzing in your hand. You stepped out into the hallway so as not to wake your mother.

“Hullo?” you slurred into the phone.

“________?” Namine said, voice full of worry, “Where have you been? Your mom called to ask if we knew where you were, and we didn’t know. We thought something might’ve happened again! We were worried sick!”

Namine sounded scolding. Like a mom. It was adorable.

“Aww,” you cooed into the phone, “You’re like a little mom, Namine! Mom-ine!”

“What?”

“I said you sound like a momma,” you giggled out. You didn’t personally see what the big deal was. You were fine! She was fine! Everyone was fine! “Anyway! I forgot my phone here at the hotel.”

“But where were you?”

“I was out in the next town over! I was havin’ a lil’ fun was all. You know how it be like, gurl!”

“_______, are you drunk?!”

“Shh,” you shushed into the phone rather loudly, “Don’t tell my Mom-ine!”

“Are you drunk?” she asked again, her voice dry, obviously tired of this already.

“Off my ass,” you confirmed rather proudly, “But it’s all good now! I’m home ‘n’ safe ‘n’ shit. And don’t worry. This won’t be a regular thing.”

Namine sighed on the other end of the line, seemingly content with that answer, thinking that the being drunk wasn’t going to be a problem after this, but no you meant leaving the phone behind wouldn’t be a problem anymore. So Namine didn’t feel the need to tell anyone you were out partying ‘til you couldn’t walk straight.

“Just get some rest, ________. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, bestie!” You crooned into the phone letting the word trail off until you hung up.

~

Needless to say that you were tired when Demyx came to get you and a bit hungover. It wasn’t anything too bad though. You could still function and that’s all that mattered.

The two of you visited a pleasant little countryside this time where you ran into a rather eccentric toad with a fancy motor car, a horse that seemed upset by the car’s very existence, a mouse who looked like he desperately needed a break, and a rather timid mole.

You swooped in, took care of the nobodies which seemed to have doubled in their numbers this time around, and swooped out in the blink of an eye, leaving behind a toad with an expression of wonder as a new obsession with gliders developed in lieu of motor cars.

Demyx left shortly after dropping you off as he had before. The hotel owner warned you to be careful as your mother reported the claw marks on the windowsill, and now they were on the hunt for an animal that may have gotten in the night before.

After giving him a very serious agreement that such was quite a predicament and definitely not barely holding in laughter at the fact that you were in fact the one who had caused said claw marks, you texted Setzer saying you were ready to hang out when he was.

You were tired but stressed and eager to put some distance between you and sobriety for a few hours – this time only until a reasonable hour though. You had a job to do after all.

Ugh. You didn’t even want to think about it. You wanted fun. And Setzer was fun right now.

Setzer: Can’t get enough of me, doll? It’s hardly been eight hours.

***: Yeah well maybe you’re kinda fun, and I so very desperately need fun. If you’re so tired of me, you could’ve just texted me later.

Setzer: Actually you’re doing me a favor.

***: ???

Setzer: You remember Plan B? Well apparently we had a date last night that I had completely forgotten about since we were having so much fun. Right now this conversation is “an emergency that I just had to respond to.”

***: Oh my gosh you are such an ass Setz.

Setzer: Giving me pet names? I’m flattered doll, I really am.

***: Don’t read into it. Anyway let me know when Plan B is done tearing you a new one.

Setzer: You’re cruel ________.

~

Setzer had to be one of the biggest, most insensitive idiots you had ever met.

“You’re shitting me,” you said to him as you eyed him over your margarita. He just shrugged; cocky smirk ever present on his smug face.

“What can I say? It was the only thing that could be done.”

“How about telling the poor girl something much more stupidly melodramatic that would have at least let her down easy? Like you could have said, ‘I’m sorry my dear. I’m just not ready to love again. You deserve better than me – a man who can love you endlessly and without fault,” you said, complete with dramatic poses that threatened to spill your drink as you struck them, “But no you just say, ‘Look I got other bitches to fuck.’”

“Well I didn’t say it like that,” he defended with a chuckle at your antics.

“You may as well have! Saying that you’ve got better plans for the evening isn’t better! And sweet fuck it was her last night in town too? You couldn’t have at least sent her away with a sweet goodbye instead of a bitter memory of a man who loves ‘em and leaves ‘em?”

“I mean I told her I wasn’t one for relationships. She insisted she could change my mind. So is it really my fault that when she asks for a relationship and I say no that she walks away upset?”

“Still you could’ve let her down gently.”

“Talking about letting people down is bringing me down, doll,” Setzer whined at you, “Cheer me up,” he ordered, complete with a pout that wasn’t too unadorable.

“Do you practice that face in the mirror?” you quipped. He just chuckled. Then he looked around the bar. He couldn’t have been looking for a hustle. He’d been talking to you far too long for anyone to believe the two of you didn’t know each other. Plus you’d already hit a bar that paid better than others you’d done before. You were set for the night – and a few other nights as far as the growing stack of munny in your room was concerned.

“Hey, have you ever tried moonshine?” Setzer said suddenly, eyes alight with something you’d come to associate with mischief.

“No, I don’t believe I have,” you said, downing the rest of your drink, “But I hope it’s better than these watered-down drinks we’ve been having. I don’t think I’m even buzzed yet.”

“What are you trying to get drunk?”

“Aren’t you?”

Setzer paused at your choice of words for a minute. Then he ignored them.

“I know this little town out in the countryside that has great moonshine,” he continued, you hardly batting an eye at the pause he had given.

“Cool! Let’s go!” you announced, slamming a twenty-dollar bill onto the bar and getting out of your seat. Setzer frowned, grabbed the twenty, and followed you out.

It was a quaint little town with a few buildings lining the side of the road with quaint little shops and gas stations interspersed with little convenience stores and a small marketplace.

Your destination was at the end of the road a short way from the rest of the town, the back of it concealed by the forest it rested on the edge of. The two of you stumbled into the somewhat crowded bar, your coordination barely existent at this point, and Setzer was much the same way.

The two of you stumbled over to the bar, plopping into two of the seats.

“Two moonshines please!” you called to the bartender who was facing away from the two of you.

“Sure! What kind?” The bartender said, turning around to face you. When she turned around, you realized that you knew her. Well not really. You’d only seen her at a distance before, her eyes bright and hopeful as Setzer handed her his number.

Her eyes landed on you, and she offered you a friendly smile. Then her eyes slid over to Setzer who didn’t look the least bit panicked to see her, and she scowled – an ugly, nasty expression that didn’t suit her pretty face in the least.

She sauntered over to the two of you, adding a bounce to her step to accentuate the sway of her hips.

“So,” she started, leaning forward once she reached the two of you, “This is what you meant by ‘better plans.’” She added little air quotes to her statement before giving you a once over.

“Is this the tramp you left me for? Another stupid bimbo who thinks she can change you?”

“Unlike you, my dear,” Setzer said, throwing an arm over your shoulders and pulling you in close, “She has made no assumptions about my personality.”

“Yeah,” you agreed, “I know he’s a pompous asshole, and I’ve made no mistake about it. Setzer has got to be the most conceited, most ignoble, most sleazy son of a bitch I’ve ever met.”

“And you love every second of it,” Setzer said, planting a sloppy wet kiss on your cheek. You groaned in displease-ment before wiping your cheek. The bartender didn’t look too pleased about such a gesture. She was obviously not over the breaking off of their not-relationship from this morning.

“Tell me,” she said, suddenly using all too sweet of a voice, “Do you really think he’s going to start a relationship with you just because of a little sex. If he didn’t want me, he’s not gonna want,” pause to look you up and down, “Whatever it is you think you have to offer.”

“Whoa hey!” you interjected, “This shit is prime fuckin’ real estate.” You were unsubtly pointing at your crotch, and Setzer was having a grand old time, laughing his ass off at the exchange.

“Plus,” you added, “He doesn’t call me ‘Plan B.’ I’m Plan Fuckin’ A. I’m what he was doing when he was supposed to be on your little date.”

Her mouth dropped a bit. Setzer’s laughing quieted a bit into snickers.

“You weren’t supposed to tell her, doll,” he laughed a bit, nudging your shoulder just a little.

“Did you come here just to insult me?” she said, finally fixing her fiery gaze on Setzer.

“Hon, I didn’t even know you worked here. But you’re right. You’re obviously not having a great day, so allow me to apologize.”

He gently took her hand, giving her a charming look that mixed just a bit with pleading puppy dog eyes. She was putty in his hands not long after, looking at him with a hopeful gaze that after long last her prince had come.

You almost laughed.

“I’m not the man you deserve,” he said, idly rubbing a thumb over the back of her hand, “You need a man that can love you endlessly and without fault.”

You openly snorted that time, and the bartender gave you a glare.

“I’m sorry, Margaret,” Setzer concluded and moved to place a little peck on her hand, but she snatched her hand out of his grasp. Setzer blinked in surprise, looking up at her furious face.

“My name is Margot,” she hissed, “You didn’t mean any of that shit did you?”

Setzer was fighting off a smile.

“I told you I wasn’t a relationship person.”

“But I thought we could work through it!” she said, slamming her hand on the bar, “You owe me!”

“Wow,” you slurred at her, “That isn’t even how relationships start. And you,” you said turning to Setzer, “You couldn’t at least give her an apology I didn’t drunkenly say to you not even like two hours ago?”

You were laughing at him. He really was the biggest, most insensitive idiot you’d ever met.

“You don’t even know my name!” Margot screeched, ignoring you.

“I mean it’s better than what I’ve been calling you,” you muttered, “Which is Plan B by the way. I’ve just been calling you Plan B.”

“Shut up!” Margot screeched at you.

“Listen, babe,” Setzer said, trying to diffuse the situation, “I get it. You want a relationship, but I’m just not ready for that kind of commitment.”

Margot was tired of responding, simply retreating to a back room in the bar.

“Aww I feel bad,” you said, slumping on the bar, “I think we really hurt her feelings.”

“Eh,” Setzer said with a shrug, reaching behind the bar and grabbing a random bottle. Caramel apple moonshine. He took a swig and passed you the bottle. You drank some too.

“But what if she’s like really sad?” you asked, passing the bottle back to him. That was when the door swung back open, slamming against the wall with a bang that made everyone in the bar – save for a few passed out patrons – jump in their seats. Margot stepped out of the back room with a large, burly man in tow, and he was carrying a shotgun.

His eyes landed on Setzer and you, then focused squarely on Setzer.

“You the man who threatened my niece?” he asked, his voice a low growl.

“That’s him,” Margot confirmed. The man nodded with a grunt and prepared to take aim at Setzer.

You needed to think of something and fast in your haze, so you hopped up from your seat, picked up a chair and threw it at the two of them. They ducked out of the way, and while the attention was on the chair, you punched the nearest patron next to you.

He whirled around to face who did it, but you and Setzer had side-stepped so he was looking at someone else entirely. He started fighting that someone else of course. Now there was a brawl in the middle of the bar, but Margot and her uncle were recovering from the chair stunt and getting ready to refocus on the two of you. This ball wasn’t rolling fast enough, so you grabbed a man’s drink and threw it in his face.

He was three times your size and already moving to hit you, so you dodged it, swinging around him to push him into someone else, his fist colliding with a total stranger. Well the whole table the stranger was sitting at took offense to this – two of the four attacking him and the other two just seeming to not care what happened so long as they got to fuck shit up, picking up anything they could get their hands on and throwing it around, getting several other tables involved in their bullshit.

By this point enough had been done that the whole bar soon ended up in an uproar just from collateral damage being caused by damage you had caused.

At this point you weren’t even sure if there were people who had reasons to be in fights and if they weren’t just fighting for the hell of it. It’d gotten so out of control that even you and Setzer got pulled into your own fights. It wasn’t until Margot and her uncle had managed to get near enough to Setzer to be a problem that you remembered why you started this commotion in the first place.

Her uncle had ditched the shotgun as you’d hoped now that there was too much going on to shoot him without risking someone else’s safety and health in general.

You grabbed Setzer by the collar and yanked him out of the way of the fist he hadn’t even known was coming his way. He stumbled and nearly fell on top of you, pressing you onto a table, and standing over you in what must have looked like a very compromising position. You’d be flustered were it not for the fact that Margot and her uncle were still coming after you.

You grabbed Setzer’s hand and ran, shoving your way through the fray until the two of you were back out in the cool night air. You kept running, dragging him around the back of the building and into the forest.

The two of you tried to quiet your giggles as you stumbled over the uneven terrain, falling more than once as you did. After maybe another ten minutes of drunken walking, you both came back to a road and a sign that said Twilight Town was ten miles away in one direction and the town the two of you had just left one mile in the other direction.

Ugh. This was gonna be a long ass walk because you sure as hell couldn’t fly.

“This is gonna suck,” you whined out. Setzer put a hand on your shoulder, holding up the bottle of alcohol he took from the bar earlier.

“And look what else I got,” he said holding up two wallets. You blinked in confusion until he opened them. One belonged to Margot and the other was her uncle’s – Eddie was his name apparently.

“Pfft,” you snorted, taking whatever money they had out of the wallets and chucking them into the distance, “Fuck those guys!”

“Yeah I did,” Setzer said proudly, “Well one of ‘em anyway.”

You laughed and pushed him, and he promptly fell over, dragging you down with him into the grass next to the road. Setzer lay on his back, gazing up at the stars and you flipped onto your back so you could stare at them too.

The two of you stayed like that for a while, continuously passing the bottle back and forth between the two of you until maybe a little over an hour had gone by.

That was when luck was on your side. A pickup truck with a bed full of hay drove up to the two of you and stopped. You both sat up, looking at the truck as its window rolled down. The driver poked his head out, eyeing the two of you with a worried expression on his face.

“You two alright?”

“No,” you said in as demure a voice you could manage, “We lost our ride, and we’ve got to walk all the way back to Twilight Town’s nearest train station.”

The man gave you a look of sympathy.

“I’m awful sorry to hear that. Why don’t the two of you hop in the back, and I’ll give you a ride.”

“Thank you, mister,” you said, hopping up excitedly. Oof. Bad move. You felt sick, and your vision swam. Setzer steadied you and helped you into the truck.

That was how the two of you wound up looking at the stars as they passed by in the back of a truck full of hay on your way to Twilight Town’s nearest train station feeling a strange feeling of utter bliss now that every other aspect of your life had faded into the background.

Well you were almost there, but then you noticed the tips of your fingers turning black.

“It’s happening again,” you slurred at Setzer, “My eyes fucked up yet?”

Setzer looked at you.

“Hmm nope,” he said, sitting up, eyes raking over your form to see if there were any other abnormalities to be aware of. “You’re pretty normal right now. Think we’ll make it to the station?”

“Mm probably not.” Your hands were almost totally black now, and you could feel the start of your tail wriggling behind you as if it had a mind of its own.

“Why does that happen whenever you get drunk?” Setzer finally asked, “Like why now?”

“I thought about that before actually, like when I was on my way to meet you today. I think it’s because of my id.”

“Is that like a disease?”

You snorted.

“No,” you giggled, “It’s like the Id, Ego, and Superego. The Id are your baser desires. My theory is that when I’m drunk my Id is more out because now I don’t got my ego or superego to keep that shit in check.”

“What do the ego and superego do?”

“Well my superego is my morals. I know I shouldn’t be drunk, but I’m drunk which is my id. Remember that guy cuz I jus’ told you ‘bout that guy. And my ego is me! But not right now cuz I’m drunk. It’s a psych thing my uncle taught me.”

“Your uncle?”

“Yeah, you know the duck! And my little imaginary, purple dragon uncle too.”

“…”

“…”

“So you’re just gonna do this every time you get drunk?”

“I don’t think so. I think it’s only when I’m triggered by like strong emotion or something. Like just now I was really happy. Cuz I like looking at the stars.”

“Well we’re close enough to town now that we don’t have to walk far from the edge to get to the hotel or anything. Wanna bail?” Setzer asked, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. You nodded.

Setzer opened the bed of the trunk before tucking into a little ball and rolling out. You could have just flown the two of you out, but whatever. You tucked and rolled out of the truck.

It hurt. It hurt quite a bit. Why the fuck did you think that would have been a good idea?

You shook your head. You were getting over it quickly, more of that heartless pain tolerance kicking in. You trudged over to Setzer who had resigned to laying on the ground. You reached your hand out to him and he just shook his head.

“Carry me?” he asked, reaching up both of his arms. You just rolled your eyes and picked him up, slinging him over your shoulder and stumbling to town.

~

It was while you were weaving through the back alleys of town so as not be seen and scare the shit out of anyone that Setzer slapped your ass.

“That’s it! You’re walking,” you snapped, dropping him on the ground. He laughed.

“I needed you to put me down,” he said, staggering to his feet.

“So ask, asshole.”

“S’more fun to slap your ass though. But hold on,” he said walking over to the wall of the alley you were currently in, “I gotta pee.”

And then he just whipped it out. No warning or anything. You looked at it.

“Huh,” you said.

He looked at you, narrowing his eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing,” you said quickly, looking away, “S’just skinnier than I thought it’d be.”

“Sorry I can’t be as girthy as your boyfriend,” Setzer snarked, shaking himself out before tucking his dick back into his pants.

The air around you heated at the thought of a naked Axel, but you swiped the memory away before you thought of his genitalia. You were not trying to take that train of thought right now.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” you just mumbled before walking near the wall yourself, “Now turn around I gotta pee too.”

“Why do I have to turn around?”

“Cuz I’m a girl, and it’d be weird for you to watch.”

“You’re naked, ________.”

“That’s beside the point, asshat!”

~

You had been out much longer than intended the previous evening, slumping through the window and into your room sometime around four in the morning.

Demyx showed up roughly three hours later, and you played it off like you were bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to start the day. But honestly you were a still mildly drunk, nauseous mess. But you squeezed in a shower and a good toothbrushing to hide the fact that alcohol had been the main staple of your diet for the past three days and would most likely be the standard for that evening as well.

Today’s journey was odd to say the least, popping in a world with superheroes already in place and fighting alongside a kid who had to be a few years younger than you and wearing a red and blue suit who shot webs like a spider. You’d have thought it were cooler were it not for the fact that you were so out of it and the large number of nobodies present. But you performed well enough for everyone to believe that you were just slightly off your game rather than completely and stupidly fighting through a haze of the previous evening’s adventure.

But a few hours later and you were back in Twilight Town. Demyx said his short goodbye, and you collapsed on your bed to sleep for a few hours, waking up when Setzer personally came to get you another three or so hours later ready to start another night of depravity – or at least as depraved as getting drunk, hustling, and mooning a train as a heartless could be. You didn’t protest, throwing on a dress and following him into the night.

~

You also wound up interrupting a basketball game to dunk on a random kid before flying away and flipping off the stunned parties, and Setzer and you were currently laughing at the video of it he took. There were also quite a few other videos of you scaring the shit out of people for the hell of it and the two of you just being nuisances overall.

When the two of you were finally done, you found yourselves on a rooftop looking up at the moon and stars as they hung over the ocean. It was a serene view.

“I keep thinking about something you said yesterday. So be honest with me, doll,” Setzer said, passing you a bottle, “Why exactly are you getting drunk every night? No offense but you seemed much more well-adjusted before the offer of fun came into the picture.”

You shrugged, taking a long drink from the bottle before passing it back. You were quiet. You didn’t want to think about why you were drunk. You just wanted to look at the stars and the moon.

Setzer didn’t take a drink, just looked at you as you gazed out at the ocean, the light of the moon glinting off the yellow of your eyes and making the dark of your skin almost take on a tinge of bluish-purple hue.

“Are you trying to forget?”

You shook your head. There wasn’t anything to forget.

“So distraction then?”

“Why does it matter?” you snapped at him, and Setzer just looked back at you, forehead wrinkled in mild frustration.

“Because people usually get drunk to have fun. You’ve been getting drunk with me and staying drunk for a grand total of like twelve to fourteen hours out of your day for the past like three days. No one needs to be drunk that bad unless they have something to forget or something to not think about.”

“Are you some sort of psychologist now?”

“I was in love once you know,” he said, taking you off guard and ignoring your question entirely, “That’s why I get drunk and gamble and why there are so many partners in my life which I don’t want to settle down with. They’re a nice distraction.”

“And here I thought it was because your home was gone.”

“You can get a new home. But there’ll never be another person like her.”

“What was her name?”

“Darill. Now she was a woman – always charging ahead and taking risks. She owned an airship too you know. The Falcon.”

“What happened?”

“It crashed. Found it a year later.”

Setzer grew quiet before taking a long drink himself. You had little tears coming out of your eyes. They glistened on your darkened skin in an almost beautiful manner.

“I died,” you said finally after a long moment, and Setzer looked at you with wide eyes that were trying to comprehend what you’d just said. You laughed at his expression. “That’s not even the kicker.”

“So what’s the kicker?”

“I died twice and also had two near-death experiences apart from those two incidences. And these were all within the same month. Before that I had more than a few more brushes with death. And it’s been hounding me for a long time, hurting me or the people around me. For a moment I just wanted to have fun and act like there wasn’t someone always trying to kill me.”

“Can I ask how you died?”

You took the bottle back from him and took another long drink.

“The first time was overexertion. When I fought that one guardian on the hippy planet, I pushed my magic too far. It draws power from my heart and being – practically my very existence. Magic runs out and exhausts you the same way doing anything physical does. It needs to be practiced in order to push it far. I was not ready, and I knew that, but it was the only way to end it.

“The second time was because I pissed off the wrong people, and they sent me over a waterfall in a barrel tied up tight. I was lucky my trainer was there to save me. I kinda had that one comin’ though. And the near-death experiences were all attempts on my life made by the very people who took my home from me and dumb luck. Said experiences include sending me crashing to a planet’s surface either to burn me up in the atmosphere or make a crater in the ground, impaling me on a scythe for foiling plans to kidnap and harm my friends and family, sending a group of dusks to eliminate me and my family while searching for answers as to why my home is gone, and nearly falling to my death while attempting to fight off a malfunctioning, rampaging robot who has kidnapped your friend and preparing to fly off into space and suffocate him.”

“That’s a rough few months,” Setzer said after absorbing this information.

You let out a cynical laugh.

“That’s not even all of them. I have been busting my ass since I was fifteen years old! And I wasn’t strong enough then to protect my friend from harm. Four years later, my world falls, and I can’t protect anyone again! My best friend fell to his death because I couldn’t hold on tight enough,” you were choking out sobs and hiccuping through your sentences, “And here I am almost half a year later and things have only gotten worse!”

“You don’t want to play hero anymore?”

“What? No, i-it’s not that. At the end of the day, knowing that I’ve done some good in the world is the only thing that can even remotely make this worth anything. I’m just… tired.”

There was silence. Then Setzer began chuckling.

“The night started out so fun. How’d we get to this point?”

You started laughing too. It was really kind of funny in a morbidly depressing way.

“I have an idea,” he said suddenly, “And keep in mind that I’m drunk, so it probably sucks.”

“Okay let’s hear it.”

“Let’s drink until we can’t feel feelings!”

You both started laughing again.

But then that’s what you did, drinking until the two of you had passed out so the memories of past loss and failures couldn’t bother you anymore all the while laughing and crying until it felt like the world melted away into nothing with tears on your cheeks and hearts that were long past broken and mending.

Notes:

Hope you enjoyed thus far! I'll be seeing you all next week with another long chapter! Comments and kudos are much appreciated, and I thank you for all your continued support! You guys are the best, and keep me going!

Chapter 43: Green Eyes

Summary:

Axel reminisces about life in Hollow Bastion when it was Radiant Garden.

Note: Remember that this chapter as well as the previous and next one all happen simultaneously over the course of three days!

WARNING: There's a brief masturbation scene with Axel that's written in bold lettering. There's also a large gap after, so if you're uncomfortable with content of this type go ahead and skip past it.

I also threw in a little warning sentence before things get smutty as a last warning type deal. It's in bold and italics!

Notes:

I'd like to apologize for my late posting. I'm sick, and writing takes a bit of energy that I don't have. It's also about 30 pages of content, so it was also a bit of a task for me doing this, but you guys make it all worth it! Again I'm really sorry!

When he was a child, the thought of adventure excited him beyond all hope, but years in the Organization killed a little bit of that adventurous spirit he had in him.

Now his days were going to be predictable and monotonous for as long as he would remain in Hollow Bastion earning his keep. And… he wasn’t repulsed by the idea – a normal lifestyle had eluded him for a good long while, having been plagued with a million and one jobs that were never really simple and only became more complicated when he became the Organization’s resident assassin.

Of course, you made that job even more complicated when he found himself unable to kill you. Then it got even more complex when you became friends. Never mind the fact that he had been harboring a crush on you around the time he turned on the Organization. Then you disappeared, and he realized that crush might have run even deeper than he thought because your disappearance had nearly driven him insane. Then all of the adventures you’d dragged him on even before that point were also a point of stress for him.

Yes, this future monotony was more than welcome. Of course, it’d be better with you in it….

Axel shook the thought from his head. You’d said you consider hanging out with him in the future. That was more than enough for now. Plus the thought that part of you had forgiven him and that you missed him enough to say you wanted to hang out was good. He should be happy.

But he’d be lying if he said he didn’t miss you in the slightest.

His job on the first day was simple. He went to a location he barely remembered and took out the nobodies and waited for Demyx to come back while making as much small talk as he could focus on with Namine – and he couldn’t focus much.

He wasn’t obsessed or anything, but he was worried. Constantly. Vanitas had tracked you down twice, and he was glad he’d managed to get there before anything bad could really happen, but how long before something else went wrong? You were capable, but Vanitas was far out of your league. Hell, Vanitas was just out of his own to the point where the two were almost at a stalemate. But Vanitas had just enough of an edge to beat him. And while you were not yet on Axel’s level, your consistent training was putting you dangerously close to it with the technology the scientists had made to better you.

Axel’s head snapped up as soon as a corridor opened nearby.

Out stepped Demyx, stretching a little bit, and whatever smidgen of Axel’s attention that was on Namine immediately snapped to Demyx.

“How is she?” he asked almost instantly as soon as Demyx was within earshot.

“Oh I’m fine. Thanks for asking,” Demyx said dryly, rolling his eyes. Axel was unamused. Demyx huffed before answering. “She’s fine. The nobodies weren’t a problem. We were in and out in no time, and last I saw she was picking out an outfit for the day and said she was going to visit her mom at the bakery.”

Axel nodded.

“She’s not helpless you know,” Demyx said, though he almost sounded just a bit unsure, but that could have just been that he didn’t know what to say to Axel to make him calm down.

Axel acknowledged his response with a quiet hum before retreating back into his own thoughts while Demyx went over to have a quick chat with Namine.

That was about the time Leon walked up to him.

“Axel, you gotta minute?”

That was a laugh. Once he was done for the day, all he had was time.

“Yeah,” he said simply.

“Good. Von Drake wants a few of Ansem’s journals from the castle, but you know as well as I do it isn’t always safe to be there. I could use the backup.”

“Sure,” he said, pushing himself off of the wall and following Leon outside.

It was a quiet walk between the two of them. And a slightly longer walk. Some of the roads and pathways were currently closed for construction, so a few detours were required, taking Axel through other parts of the town he hadn’t seen in years and barely recognized now – seeing as how they were dilapidated after the fall of the world and in the middle of rebuilding.

Leon looked at Axel briefly and turned back to stare ahead, wondering if he ought to try starting a conversation. They’d never really shared any conversation before – outside of teaching Axel how to protect the town and scolding him when he was being petty about his relationship with you. Leon just wasn’t much for talking when it came to him, and Axel was fine with that. But Leon felt he at least ought to try considering they’d be working together for a while, and Axel was more or less a part of the restoration committee now. But it still felt strange when he actually decided to inquire about something.

Especially something that didn’t inherently involve him.

“How are you and ________?”

Axel blinked in mild surprise, looking over to Leon who was still looking straight ahead.

“We’re alright I guess. She said she might be okay with seeing me again at some point, but I don’t know when that’ll be. I apologized though, and she seemed to appreciate it.”

Leon nodded.

“That’s good. She can’t afford to lose the people who’ll look out for her in her line of work.”

Silence again. Then another question.

“How exactly did the two of you meet?”

“I was supposed to kill her. The Organization didn’t want another troublesome keyblade wielder meddling in their plans, so I was supposed to take care of it.”

They continued walking while Leon mulled this over for a moment. Then Axel stopped walking, staring at an old building he hadn’t seen in roughly a decade.

“How do you go from being her assassin to her boyfriend?” Leon asked after trying to come a conclusion himself but finding no logical route. But Axel wasn’t listening. He was just staring at an old run-down building that was only half-built at this point.

Leon searched his memory of which building this one used to be, but with no signs available and the responsibility of trying to keep up with the reconstruction of every building in the city, he was drawing a blank. He simply could not remember them all.

“You used to live here, right? You know this place?” he finally asked. Axel’s eyes never left the building.

“It’s the orphanage,” Axel said simply, voice void of any sort of strong emotion, “I used to live here.”

“Oh,” Leon said, mildly embarrassed for not having expected such an answer, “I’m sorry.”

Axel just shrugged, uncaring. He’d had a while to get over it.

~

Lea ran a hand over what was left of his hair, just a thin layer of fuzz on his head.

He hated it. He wanted it longer. But his mom wouldn’t let him grow it out. It’s not like he wanted it really, super long or anything. Just an inch or two.

None of the other kids had to have their hair this short, but he wouldn’t have to wait too long. His mom said that if he were good and when he turned ten he could start to grow it out more. That was only four years away. He’d been good for longer than that, so he could manage.

He put his baseball cap back over his head. He had to wear that all the time too. He didn’t mind it so much though. His mom said he could pick out whatever one he wanted and picked one of a cartoon he liked. And every now and again his mom would let pick out a new one as his interest changed.

He flopped back onto the ground where he’d been watching clouds before. He was bored, and his mom didn’t feel like taking him to the park to play with any of the other kids. And his dad wouldn’t take him. He never took him anywhere, just mumbled grumpily all day until he could leave in the evening and come back early in the morning or really late at night.

He wished he would take him though. Just during the daytimes when he didn’t have work and nothing much to do. But he didn’t like to do anything but scowl. Scowl at him; scowl at his mother; scowl at the television; scowl at everything.

Mother just put up with it like it was nothing. Her solution to everything was to sigh. Sigh when she made dinner too late and made father scowl; sigh when he wouldn’t speak to her after a long day; sigh when Lea asked her to play every now and again. He didn’t know why she would sigh at such a thing. It wasn’t like he asked too often, and it wasn’t like she agreed all too often either.

Lea heard the door to the house slam and sat up, turning to look as his father marched out of the house. He was leaving to do who knows what again.

Lea laid back down. Then he let out a sigh of his own.

~

Mother and father were having another argument.

Lea was curled up in bed in his room. The door was closed right now. He usually left it open, not really caring if it were closed or not. But mother had closed it this time, and we she closed it, the shouting was soon to follow after.

He could only ever hear half of the conversation. His father was a pacer, walking up and down the room when he was worked up, so his voice would fade in and out as he came and went. And his mother would usually remain in one spot though when she was truly worked up, she’d pace alongside him, probably in an attempt to look him in the eyes.

His father rarely looked her in the eyes. He rarely looked into Lea’s eyes as well. When he did, he would just scowl as he so often did with a deep bitterness creasing his forehead.

Arguments happened often enough that about a year ago when he was five, he finally heard something that made his little five-year-old heart stop. It was his name.

But what had he done to have made father so angry?

Was it because he kept asking to play with him? Was he really so annoying?

His mother screamed back at him. Though it was more like a wail than anything. He could always hear in her voice when she as crying, her voice choking in and out in hiccups that always wore her throat raw so that she barely spoke the next day – just sighed as she always did.

But more now.

But this argument was different.

They always ended the same way. The argument would be far from over, but father would end it by leaving, slamming the door so hard you could feel the vibrations just about everywhere in their modest home. But this time was different.

There was the slam of the door as normal, but then it slammed back open. And it didn’t close again, but he could hear mother’s voice, pleading and desperate, fading out of the home. This was new. And strange.

Lea debated whether or not he ought to get out of the bed and see what was going on. He’d only done that once before when he could hear his mother loudly sobbing in the next room. He thought that if he were crying, he’d want someone to comfort him.

But when she saw him, her icy blue eyes red and puffy, cheeks stained with tears, her russet hair a mess from running her hands through it, she didn’t sigh and look away as she often did. She frowned at him. Her eyes flicked up to the top of his head to his hair, when it used to be there, then she angrily rebuffed any attempt at comfort he could offer.

She regretted it immediately, telling him it wasn’t his fault but to go back to bed and not to disturb her anymore. Lea obeyed.

But now things felt different, so against his better judgment, Lea hopped out of bed and padded silently out of his room. The house was eerily quiet. The front door was open.

He walked outside into the dark night where he could see father’s truck speeding down the street to wherever it was he went at night. His mother was sitting at the edge of their yard sobbing.

He walked up to her but didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t upset her like it did the first time he had attempted to comfort her. So he just sat down next to her while she cried, not knowing what to do.

When she had finally calmed down enough to look at him, she looked lost and sad and angry. But none of it was directed at him. She let out a long, shuddering sigh and then did something she did not often do.

She ran her hand over his head, feeling the soft fuzz of what little bright red hair remained.

~

Father never came back. But that was okay.

Lea realized that without him, nothing changed anyway.

Mother still sighed a lot and most often did nothing, and he still didn’t get to do much or have many playmates at all. So things were still normal. But now they didn’t have someone to scowl at them so much.

You would think such a change would mean that things would be happier now. But they weren’t.

Mother wouldn’t get up some days to go to work and she would just lay in bed sighing, only getting up to give Lea a sandwich every now and again. She worked long hours, so Lea rarely saw her. But that wasn’t too different from before either.

The only real difference was that she seemed just a tad sadder.

Though Lea couldn’t begin to comprehend why.

Was it because she missed father?

He couldn’t understand why that would be either. Father was never cruel, but he was almost always indifferent during the times he wasn’t angry, so it couldn’t have been his charm or demeanor that drew mother in like a moth to flame. It couldn’t have been his looks. Father may have been handsome once with his thick, black hair and eyes as blue as the ocean, but that had to have been much longer ago. Anyone could look at him and tell he was at least ten years his mother’s senior. By the time Lea was around, his face had many wrinkles etched into it, and he doubted that he had ever seen the man smile to alleviate any of those heavy folds in his face.

But regardless of what made mother love him, the fact of the matter was that she did. And she was miserable now. And Lea didn’t know how to fix it. Because it seemed nothing could make mother happy anymore – if she had ever been.

~

Lea didn’t know what the word on the sign meant or how to pronounce it. He recognized the two words preceding it, as he had seen the words “Radiant Garden” in many places, and long ago had his mother told him how to pronounce them.

But the last word he didn’t know. He knew all the letters. Because he was a smart child. Mother said so.

And she kept saying so as they walked through the small town. She said he would be okay because he was smart, and he’d be fine. He’d be alright.

Lea didn’t know what to make of what she was saying or the strange sign with its large word that he couldn’t pronounce, but mother seemed almost desperate about something – like something long awaited and also long feared were waiting for her inside the building to which that sign belonged.

She brought him inside, and he saw a few other children. They waved to him, and he smiled and waved back. Would he get to play with them?

His mother had him sit on a chair next to an office while she disappeared inside for a while.

The minutes ticked by slowly, and by the time she came out, Lea was so bored he could have sworn that she were in their for years.

Her eyes were brimming with tears as she knelt down to look at him. She took his cap off, running her fingers through hair that was just starting to grow back.

She studied it for a moment before her eyes met his one more time. She smiled then did something he couldn’t ever remember her doing, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead.

Lea was confused, but for one brilliant moment in his life he felt very close to his mother, that after all these years, it turns out that she loved him after all.

He smiled at her, a brilliant, beaming smile.

She ran her hand through his hair again.

“I’ll be back okay?” she said to him in a soft voice. And he nodded, still smiling brightly at her.

Then she stood up straight and began to walk away, down the hall, passed the other children and out of the front door. He watched her go, wondering if things would be different now – if they’d act more like a mother and son now.

He wanted to do something to impress her now.

She said he was smart. He would learn the word on the sign outside and impress her with how quickly he had managed to figure it out when she came back.

He walked to a window where he could see the sign outside, trying to go through all the sounds letters made to try his best to sound out the word.

He furrowed his brow.

What kind of word was “orphanage” anyhow?

~

Lea was such an angry child for the first few years he was at the orphanage, hoping against hope his mother would come back for him.

And the owner of the orphanage tried to break it to him gently that there was the possibility that she would come back, but there was a larger chance that she wouldn’t. He tried to assure Lea that she loved him in her own way, but she just couldn’t afford to take care of him.

But Lea didn’t care.

He was angry. Angrier than he’d ever been in his young life, and he took it out on everyone. The other children, his teachers when he was finally in school, the orphanage owner, parents looking to adopt him – his mother was coming back, so he didn’t want them anyway.

But she never did. When he was nine he finally accepted that fact. That she wasn’t coming back. That she probably forgot about him.

It was a strange kind of hurt. To be forgotten. Forgotten by someone you once held so dear even if they held you at a distance. Just in general to have a mother and father who had forgotten you, their child, in your entirety. Was he not important enough?

He didn’t want to be forgotten. Ever. Not by anyone.

~

Lea had adopted something of a catchphrase by the time he was eleven. He would never be forgotten again. He hoped. His parents may have forgotten him, but no one else ever would. He would live on forever in the memories of everyone else he met.

“Got it memorized?”

It was a strange method to be sure, but it brought something to his life like closure. He would never be forgotten again by anyone, and that made him happy.

That was about the time he started vying for attention as well. He was always first to do the scary dare or the stupid one, trying to make sure all eyes were on him so everyone would remember that Lea did the unthinkable! He did the impossible! And even if he couldn’t do the impossible, he did it when everyone else was too scared to try!

All that positive attention from his peers eventually nursed a rather cocky attitude in him and an inability to admit when he was down for the count. He was resilient if nothing else but remembered and that was above all the most important.

But of course such a goal meant he always had to be at the center of everyone’s attention.

So school was… problematic to say the least.

Lea wasn’t a bad student. He was okay and with a special interest in math – not that he would tell the other kids he was actually pretty good at it. But he was so desperate to be at the center of it all, he made more trouble than he ought to, and it was the knowledge that he was a troubled but decent student that kept him from being expelled all together.

So that meant many, many detentions. But Lea didn’t think this was so bad.

After all that’s where he met Isa.

~

Leon and Axel continued their trek to the castle passing a few more buildings Axel recognized along the way. There was no conversation now, but Axel was fine with this. He now had a million and one thoughts that all had to do with this town and his history wrapped up in it.

Maybe he’d explore it later – walk down a very bittersweet memory lane.

When they got to the castle’s underbelly deep in Ansem’s study, Axel meandered around a bit. Looking around at everything.

This was where it all started after all.

He and Isa had just wanted to help their friend escape the castle. But they didn’t know what that would entail. Couldn’t have known that it would take them on a ten-year journey that would ultimately destroy their friendship and put them on very strained terms in regard to a relationship. He couldn’t have known he would have met Roxas either, a bright spot in all that darkness that had so completely enveloped everything in his life.

But he left too.

Just like mother and father.

And he tried to get him back. He really did. But you happened. And a change happened. And he would still get Roxas back, but now that he was actively treading a path of light, he needed other means with which to do that. Maybe it would be something Ludwig and Dreamfinder would figure out – how to get one of his best friends back without having to destroy another life in the process.

Maybe things would return to a semblance of normal once this was all over. He could have Roxas back and be with you, Namine, and Demyx. That would be nice.

“You never answered my question from earlier,” Leon stated, breaking the silence as he flipped through a journal he had.

“Which was?”

“How do you go from being a killer to an ally of someone who stands against everything you once stood for?”

Axel blinked. It was complicated in a sense.

“She’s… different. Stupid in a weird sense,” he said with a faint chuckle. Leon laughed too. “I guess she just helped me find my way. Made me feel like a person. The Organization says they’ll help you get your heart back, and for a while it feels like they really are in your corner. But then you start to forget, and the longer you’re there the more you feel less like someone. So you stay in the hopes that you’ll feel like somebody again. Then I met Roxas, and he made me feel like I had a heart…,” Axel trailed off.

“Did something happen to him?”

“He was a nobody. Like me. But Sora needed to be recompleted. So he’s gone now. You could say for the greater good, but I still have trouble seeing it.”

“Anyone would,” Leon said somberly, “I’ve lost people too. My sister. It made me feel like I wasn’t a person, and I shut people out. But I guess people have a way of getting to you anyway. There were others. People who made me realize that it didn’t have to be like that. That it was okay to let others in. It feels like it was so long ago. I was a different person then. I even had a different name.”

“What was it?”

“Squall. But I’ve given up that name for the time being. Squall couldn’t defend his home or his loved ones, but I will. So it’s Leon for now.”

“I had a different name too once.”

“So what was it?”

Axel thought it over for a moment, of whether or not he really wanted to divulge information that seemed so trivial. It was just a name. Yet it felt like everything. That was probably why he was given a new one.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said finally, “I was a different person then too. It’s just Axel for now.”

Leon nodded. In a weird way he understood. Some things in life were supposed to stay buried until you were ready to reveal them.

Axel and Leon returned to the others later that afternoon chatting idly about nothing much – small talk mostly, and the evening went on in a calm demeanor as normal.

Then panic set in when your mother called to ask about your whereabouts when you didn’t come home, and it was late. None of them knew where you were, so Axel was internally going crazy again while all of them called and texted you like crazy. He and Demyx searched Twilight Town all over but had just missed you returning with Setzer.

Shortly after they got a call from Namine that you were safe and back at the hotel.

Apparently you had been in the next town over exploring or something….

~

“We gotta start putting a leash on ________,” Demyx said when Axel walked into their room, “We can’t keep doing this whole, ‘she’s missing now we have to send out a search party’ thing.”

“She was just out exploring,” Axel defended, “No big deal.”

Demyx gave Axel a dry look.

“You say that, but I saw you starting to panic when you heard she was missing. I get that she didn’t do anything wrong, but still it’d be nice if she could give everyone a little heads up when she gonna be disappearing for hours on end.”

Axel just shrugged and changed the subject.

“So how’re you and Namine?”

“Me and Namine?” Demyx asked, looking confusedly at Axel, “We’re fine I guess.”

“Have you asked her out yet?” Axel asked with a smirk. Demyx blushed in his confusion.

“Asked her out? But I don’t like her like that!”

Axel was prepared to refute it and say that he did, but… then he continued to look at Demyx’s face. He was serious. He really didn’t like her like that.

“Really?”

“I mean don’t get me wrong,” Demyx said, looking around awkwardly, “She’s cute and all, but I don’t really know her all that well to say that I like her as anything more than a friend.”

“But on the ship when we were coming back from Animal Kingdom, you started blushing when she leaned on you and called me and ________ cute.”

“Well, yeah, you guys kinda put me on the spot. But she was just joking right? She doesn’t actually like me like that right?”

Axel didn’t want to say yes. He didn’t want Demyx to feel he had to return Namine’s affections. But he didn’t want to say no either in case there was a chance Demyx would eventually end up liking Namine. So he just shrugged.

“I don’t know. She may have just been pulling your leg. We changed the subject a little after you left, so I can’t really say. I just thought you liked her was all.”

Demyx seemed to visibly relax a little.

“Nah,” he said with a shrug of his own, “I don’t know that we really have all that much in common, so I can’t say that I would really see her like, you know, that.”

Axel nodded then continued getting ready for bed.

~

The next day Axel had done the same thing he did the day before: barely pay attention to Namine, eagerly await Demyx’s arrival for a status update on you, fuck off somewhere for a bit.

Though this time the fuck offery wasn’t because he was running an errand with Leon. This time it was because he wanted to look at a few places he used to know – see if they were still around or replaced by something else.

He passed a few places.

Like the school….

~

Lea didn’t mind detention provided there were more students than just himself in attendance. But that wasn’t the case for today. So he picked a seat near the back of the room near a window that kept him bathed in sunlight.

He’d start his homework then maybe nap until it was time to go. The teacher was almost never in the room when there were only one or two students to look in on, and she came back every 15 minutes or so to make sure that they didn’t just leave.

It was when he was taking his math book out that another student walked in, a boy that was his age with light blue hair and green eyes. He looked about the room uncertainly until his eyes landed on Lea’s.

“Is this the detention room?” he asked, eyes still glancing around uncertainly.

“Yup,” Lea answered simply, turning pages in his book and realizing that he hadn’t really seen this kid around before. He knew just about everyone. Or at least had seen them around, but he had no memory of this one. “You new?”

The kid looked at him, seeming to study Lea, starting at the top of his wild, incredibly red hair to his ratty old shoes.

“Yeah,” he answered slowly, taking a seat across the room from Lea. Far across the room.

“I’m Lea. Got it memorized?” he said, trying to start conversation. The other kid didn’t really seem to want to, but he didn’t want to be rude either and completely ignore him.

“Isa,” he said simply, taking out his own things to work on.

“So, Isa,” Lea said, testing out the name, “What are you in for?”

“I’m not a troublemaker if that’s what you’re thinking,” Isa grumbled, turning in his seat to look at Lea who looked confused above all else.

“Why would I care about that? Plus it’s like your first day. No one gets a reputation that fast. So what’d you do?”

“It’s not what I did. It’s what the teacher did. He was wrong about something, and I told him about it. But he was so sure he was right, but then I told him again that he was wrong and showed him in the book where he was wrong. Then he called me a ‘troublemaker’ and gave me detention.”

“Oh is that all? I thought you would have like actually done something. But you’re just a know-it-all,” Lea said with a shrug. Isa’s face lit up in an embarrassed blush.

“I am not,” he said with a huff, “What’re you here for anyway?”

“I stole a teacher’s lunch,” he admitted with a cheeky grin. Isa’s brows furrowed.

“So you really are a troublemaker,” he concluded.

“I am not,” Lea defended, “Plus I only did it on a dare.”

“A dare?”

“Yeah,” he said, his chest puffing out proudly, “I’m not afraid to do anything!”

Isa just rolled his eyes.

“Well that’s stupid,” he muttered, turning back around in his seat.

“It is not,” Lea said with a scowl, “I’m gonna go down in history, and have everyone remember who I am.”

“Well not if you can’t finish school because you’re too busy doing stupid stuff,” Isa said with a roll of his eyes.

“Doesn’t matter,” Lea said with a wave of his hand, “As soon as I turn eighteen, I’m leaving this town to go do something great.”

“Once again,” Isa said with a sniff, “Not if you flunk out of school.”

“Know-it-all,” Lea grumbled under his breath.

~

“Hey, Isa, wait up!” Lea called. Isa let out a groan as Lea ran to catch up with him. Why was this kid following him? They just met an hour ago.

“What do you want?” Isa said, barely any patience in his voice.

“I live this way too,” Lea said with a bright smile on his face, “We can walk together.”

Of course. Of course this kid, someone he didn’t really want to associate with, lived near him – or at least in the same direction as him.

Isa didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to be mean and out right tell him to go away, and if he lived this way then he could at least try to make nice. It would be a lot of awkward walks home otherwise with a kid he’d managed to piss off.

Isa just gave a curt nod and silently started off back towards his home with Lea in tow.

“So your family just moved here?” Lea said after a few minutes with Isa making no attempt at starting a conversation.

“Sunday,” Isa said briskly.

“I think you’ll like it here. There’s lots to do, and the people are really friendly.”

“Hmm.”

“There’s this cool arcade not far from the school. We could go there some time. It’s really fun. I know the owner!”

“I’d have to ask my parents.”

Isa had no intention of asking his parents.

“Are they strict or something?”

“They care about my education.”

Lea hummed a response as acknowledgement. He wouldn’t know anything about what it was like to have that. Must be nice.

“Well I mean, every kid’s gotta have fun sometime, right?”

Isa felt relief when they reached his house, and he was thankful he didn’t live too far from the school. His dad was probably making dinner, his sisters probably playing with their toys or watching cartoons. His mom was waiting at the door for him.

“Well, this is my stop,” he said, turning to give Lea a tight smile.

“Cool,” Lea said with a bright grin of his own, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Lea walked off continuing in the same direction he and Isa had been walking in.

“Already making friends, hon?” his mom asked when he approached her, “I’m so proud of you!”

Isa just muttered a greeting before walking into the house. His mother watched after the little redheaded boy as he disappeared around the corner. She smiled. He seemed like a nice boy.

Lea doubled back around where he’d just been before walking back towards the school and in the opposite direction he and Isa left to head towards the orphanage.

~

“Isa aren’t you ever going to introduce me to your little friend?” Isa’s mom asked when Lea saw Isa off again for the fifth time that week. Now he had two glorious Lea-free days to look forward to.

“Doubtful,” Isa grumbled. His mother frowned.

“I know friends have always been a struggle, but hey, here’s one who isn’t put off by your smart mouth and attitude. Maybe give him a chance?”

His mother was one to talk! She was the queen of smart aleck responses! And his father thought so too – not that he’d ever admit it to her face just for her have a quick response and to make him sleep on the couch.

“What’s wrong with him?” she continued pressing, “Is he smarter than you, and you can’t handle it.”

“As if!” Isa snapped, “He’s like a total slacker or something! I met him in detention!”

“If I’m not mistaken, you had detention on your first day,” she said with an amused tone, “That probably says a lot about you too.”

Isa huffed, turning away from his mother.

“Oh I get it,” she said, an amused smile playing over her lips, “You’re scared of how good a friend he’ll be. Or are you just afraid of making friends to begin with?”

“I’m not scared! He’s just a weird kid!”

“I can see I’m bothering you,” she said after a moment, “And I’ll stop if, and only if, you give him a chance. And if he’s really as bad as you say, then you don’t have to do it again. You can even call it off early and come home. But you have to be out for at least an hour though.”

Isa mulled this over in his head. He didn’t want to spend time with Lea. But he did want his mother to stop bothering him about it. Plus she wouldn’t have any proof that he was actually going to hang out with Lea. He could just walk around town for an hour. He’d be living here for a while; he may as well get to know it.

Isa let out a sigh.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” he grumbled to her, and she smiled.

~

Lea was ecstatic to see Isa walking around town. It was something Lea often did after he finished his homework, but he’d never seen Isa out and about. Not once. He figured Isa didn’t like coming out all that much, and that he was one of those school then straight home kinda kids with the strict parents.

“Hey, Isa!” he called, and the little blue-haired boy flinched at the sound of Lea’s voice, “What’re you doing here? I’ve never seen you around town before.”

Isa tried to think up a lie.

“I’m running an errand,” he said quickly, “Mom needs vegetables for dinner tonight.”

“Oh,” Lea said, “I’ll show you where the store is.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Well do you know where it is? You just moved here and you’re never out.”

Isa immediately regretted his lie. Now he had to go somewhere with Lea. Lea was already walking off in another direction, glancing back over his shoulder at Isa.

“You coming or what?”

~

Isa didn’t know what to get when he actually got to the store, so he just picked up a few things – carrots, leeks, some green onions. That was it for what was left of his allowance. He’d hoped to use it for something else – like chocolate. He really loved chocolate. But no. Instead he was here entertaining some kid who wouldn’t leave him alone and all because his mother was insistent he make friends.

He didn’t know why she was like that. He was happy. He didn’t need friends in the last place they lived. True, they didn’t really want to be friends with him anyway, but he didn’t like any of them anyhow.

If only he had that same effect on Lea.

“So how ‘bout it?”

Oh. He had been talking.

“What?” Isa asked, looking over to Lea as he stood in line for the register next.

“I said after you give your mom her stuff, do you want to go over to the arcade? They got a lot of neat games there and stuff.”

“Oh. N-no, my mom will want me to help her with dinner.”

“Aww that stinks. Well if you ever have the time, let me know.”

“Will do,” Isa said dryly as he handed the cashier his money.

They walked together in silence after that. Well Isa was silent. Lea was rambling about a game he was really good at and wondering if Isa were any good at it – Isa had never played – but that was alright because Lea could teach him and maybe one day he’d be as good as Lea – cue snort from Isa.

“Welp! Here we are!” Lea announced. Isa blinked. He’d been lost in thought and the steady drone of Lea talking to him. But sure enough they were at Isa’s house. In front of his door.

.

.

.

And his mother….

“Well hello there!” she said with a cheery smile, “Isa, you’re back sooner than I thought you’d be.”

“Yeah, well I got you the stuff for dinner that you asked for,” Isa said, holding up the bag for his mother and giving her a pleading look to just go with it. She took the hint without missing a beat.

“Oh why aren’t you sweet, my adorable little blueberry muffin,” she said, pinching his cheek and earning a snicker from Lea. No doubt this was punishment for lying – even though she didn’t know the full story. “And who’s this?”

Her attention was on Axel now, looking him up and down from the hair that stuck out wildly in all directions to his bright and cheery smile.

“This is Lea. We go to the same school,” Isa muttered.

“Well it’s nice to meet you, Lea,” she said, extending her hand for him to shake, “I’m Isa’s mother. He hasn’t told me much about you. Are the two of you going to be spending time together?”

“It’s nice to meet you too, ma’am,” Lea said, smile ever brighter, “And Isa said he had to help you make dinner, but he said we’d go to the arcade the next time he had some free time.”

“Did he now? Well dinner won’t take too long to make. It’s just a simple stew. Go be with your friend, Isa,” his mom said with all too broad a smile that was too amused about the situation for Isa’s liking.

“Really? That’s great! C’mon, Isa,” Lea said, grabbing Isa’s hand and all but dragging him away and down the street. Isa looked back to glare at his mother who had an all too mischievous grin on her face.

~

Axel left the school grounds. It was closed for construction just like several other buildings. He kept walking, saw a place that used to sell the best donuts he’d ever had, the park he used to ask his parents to go to, the arcade….

It stood in much the way most else in this town did – which was not very well. It was one of a few dilapidated buildings on this street. There were other whole buildings with power on the street too, but this one in particular stood out as it was a good way away from any of the other broken up buildings. The yellow tape all around the entrance read not to enter and that the building was scheduled for destruction did not help.

Axel could guess that the arcade had fallen out of business sometime before the world actually fell to darkness.

He observed the rest of the damage. The doors, two glass ones, were broken beyond simple repair – so much so that Axel could just duck beneath some of the shards and step inside.

And that’s what he found himself doing, walking into the darkened building.

It was dirty, of course, bits of debris lying everywhere. It was amazing there was still a roof on it. And many of the games, miraculously, were still intact. Axel walked to the back of the arcade behind the prize counter and flipped a switch on a wall.

Nothing.

He walked to the back room and turned on a generator.

He could hear the lights begin their low droning buzz in the other room, and some of the games spring to life with their music playing.

He walked back out to the front and looked around at all of the games.

Then he found an old favorite called “Fix-It Felix Jr.” He and Isa would always compete for top score.

~

Isa was perplexed. The game was simple enough, yet he wasn’t getting any better at it.

This had to have been the third time he lost.

Lea shrugged.

“Don’t feel too bad. It wasn’t easy my first time playing it either. I could give you some pointers if you really want though.”

He knew Lea meant it in a really friendly matter. He just wanted to help. And for some reason that annoyed Isa beyond all belief.

He glared at Lea, who looked back unflinchingly, a happy smile on his face.

“I don’t need any help,” he snapped, turning back to the game and putting in another token, “I know what I’m doing.”

“Know it all,” Lea muttered with a roll of his eyes and a smile. Isa huffed.

“Well why don’t you try it if you’re so great at it!” Isa snapped again, getting a bit red in the face.

“Step aside and let a master show you how it’s done,” Lea said with a smirk.

Isa watched him intently, trying to pick out what his strategy was. It didn’t just look like button mashing, but it didn’t look all too calculated either.

He didn’t want to admit it. But Lea was good. Really good. And he knew a lot of combos that Isa hadn’t had time to learn yet, but they would certainly help.

Grudgingly, Isa asked him how he did them.

~

“Axel?”

Axel jumped, whirling around to see Namine and Demyx standing nearby. They were looking at him and around at the arcade.

“What’re you doing here?” Namine questioned walking up to stand next to him. She looked behind him to the game he had just been staring at.

“Better question is what the hell are you two doing here?” Axel asked with a mildly annoyed tone; he did not appreciate being startled.

“Namine was watching the security screens for the town, and we saw you just walking around. You never doing anything though. You would just stare for a while with this weird look in your eyes and then leave,” Demyx said, coming up to inspect the game as well.

“We were wondering if you were okay,” Namine concluded, “So we came looking for you, and when we caught up, we saw you walking in here.”

“Yeah,” Axel said, turning back to the game, “I’m fine.”

“Well what are you doing here?”

“Well I mean, Hollow Bastion was my home at one point – before the Organization. I was just remembering some things. This arcade is where me and… someone else became close friends. We used to come here every afternoon after school and play this,” he said, pointing to the game.

Demyx eyed the game then smiled.

“Betcha I can get top score,” he boasted, and Axel rolled his eyes.

“Doubt it,” he replied with a smirk.

Axel disappeared behind the prize counter and came back with a roll of tokens. He handed them to Demyx who started the game while Namine watched eagerly.

Axel stepped back, and he felt something like a bittersweet nostalgia wash over him. His heart felt heavy and his chest ached. A few tears actually sprung to his eyes as he heard the familiar sounds of the game.

~

Isa was warming up to him. Lea knew.

He didn’t know why, but he liked Isa. He was mean sometimes and a know-it-all for sure, but Lea knew that underneath it all he was just as average as any other kid. And he didn’t have any friends.

So Lea would be that friend.

They’d been coming to the arcade regularly now to play games in the hopes that maybe one day Isa would beat Lea’s high score. While he wasn’t any where near close to it at the moment, Lea still enjoyed spending the time with him.

And Isa wasn’t so cold towards him anymore, actually responding to questions Lea asked and actually listening to his ramblings about nothing – sometimes even contributing!

But right now Isa was in the zone, concentrating on the game before him. He was trying really hard to get at least another few hundred points. If he managed that, then he’d get an extra life. Which he needed because he was down to his last one and so close to at least having a score that might appear in the top ten.

It was one of the few times Isa actually bothered to smile. He was so serious all the time. Lea could only hope he wouldn’t be like that as an adult.

~

“Are you sure you’re alright, Axel?” Namine asked him quietly. She had walked up to him, looking up at him with worried eyes that vaguely reminded him of you.

He smiled.

“Yeah, But I’m gonna head out. I got a few other places I want to look at. Don’t let him get addicted,” he said, nodding his head in Demyx’s direction. Demyx was getting very into the game at this point.

Namine smiled and nodded while Axel left.

He stepped out of the building and rounded a corner, walking down the street and passing a few stores that he didn’t recognize because they’d replaced ones he used to know.

He turned another corner and saw a convenience store, waltzing inside and looking around.

He remembered this place well enough. He used to come here every now and again to get a soda or a bag of chips. And once, on a dare, he stole an adult magazine from it.

It was a stupid dare that he and the boys who dared him to do it laughed about, and Lea joked about it at the time and had every intention of throwing it away.

But then he didn’t.

In fact he ended up keeping it and using it for what most young hormonal teens do.

Hmm… that led his mind to a dilemma he’d been dealing with in the privacy of his own mind for a while since Animal Kingdom.

You.

You were his dilemma. Specifically involving sexual frustration.

Now normally this wouldn’t be a problem. Axel was a male with a left hand, and he knew how to use it to relieve – if only temporarily – some of that pent-up frustration. But Axel also had a rather unique problem regarding that, and it complicated things beyond all hope for him.

Axel would catch on fire.

He was very skilled at controlling his emotions. He had to be when it came to how it was linked to his own magic, but sometimes he’d lose control. Usually this involved emotions he wasn’t used to dealing with. And it just so happened that dealing with you led to these specific emotions quite often – usually lust and embarrassment. And while he was getting a handle on embarrassment pretty well, lust was a problem he’d always had.

It led to difficulty relieving any form of sexual tension purely because he couldn’t focus enough to keep any of his magic under control. Which meant he was limited to places that were fireproof – usually showers and tubs with lots of water.

And as it so happened he always had housemates that wanted to use the bathroom as much as he did – in the Organization, the Old Mansion, Ludwig’s mansion, and now living in Merlin’s house. It made the community bathroom a place of great annoyance for Axel – especially concerning the lack of privacy.

You’d think with a castle, Xemnas would at least have private bathrooms for all the people under him, but nope.

So Axel experienced many sexually frustrating years in the Organization – which were now worse because he had an object of affection that he simultaneously lusted after.

Axel could feel the air around him heat up a bit. Then he shook thought of you from his head before he caught fire right then and there in the store.

Maybe that was enough exploring for today.

~

Axel returned to a surprisingly quiet house. It was odd. There was almost always someone around. Well it hardly mattered.

He went upstairs to his room and flopped down onto his bed. Today had been more or less emotionally exhausting, and he needed a nap.

He closed his eyes and tried to think of something to focus on until he could drift off.

And then there was you.

On the beach with him. The memory of the first time he took you to the Destiny Islands. The moon was bright that night and made your skin glow. You were excited to be on a beach for the first time. It was cute watching you be fascinated by sand and the thought of seashells.

He remembered taking you to the beach to share a paopu fruit too. But he hardly liked that memory now because it was tainted by his own mistakes shortly after. But it was nice to think that “forever” was an option with you.

He knew he wanted to take you to a beach again, but he wasn’t sure which one.

Then he remembered one more time that the two you had been on the beach. Only this time it was a dream. And he remembered kissing you in that dream. He remembered kissing you a lot.

He remembered being over top of you and at one point almost getting your bra off.

Axel opened his eyes and entered a deep state of focus. His magic was searing beneath his skin and the room was hot, and if he didn’t get off of this bed right now, he would set it on fire.

He stood up.

This is where it starts to get sexual, so skip on down to where the bold ends to move past it. I also put a large gap between the smutty bits and the regular story so you can also look for that if you're scrolling by really fast.

He could already feel his cock growing harder by the second, and just the pressure from that already felt really nice. He let out a little sigh, humming in contentment. Then he let his hand drift down to rub himself through his pants. He let out a soft moan at feeling some contact, already feeling a small drop of precum trail from the tip of his head. He could stand there all day and rub himself, but there was a better way to get some relief.

Axel walked to the bathroom. The house was still quiet. Good. He could at least have a little bit of privacy. He turned on the shower and began taking off his clothes, thoughts of you and all he wanted to do to you in that dream still plaguing his mind as he unzipped his coat. He took off his shirt and thought of when the two of you shared a bed, how close you were. How much closer he wanted you. Spooning you. Dancing with you only moments before and being pressed flush against him. He was surprised he didn’t get a boner right then and there. He’d kill to have you pressed up against him like that again.

His cock throbbed in his pants at the thought of it all, and he let out another soft moan, rubbing himself a bit more and just enjoying the sensation. He was hella sensitive due to lack of being touched almost ever. And even just rubbing himself through his pants might have been enough to get him off. But he’d rather do it right.

His mind drifted to the dream. Specifically, he remembered the end of the dream right as he woke up and you were about to touch him through his pants. He imagined what it would be like if you had, slowly stroking him. His cock throbbed at the thought of you rubbing him through his pants. Wondered what it would be like to have you there with him trying to get him off.

He groaned as he unzipped his pants; He was already tenting his boxers. He was harder than he’d been in a while. He could blame that on the amount of time between the last time he touched himself and now too.

He gave himself a few more strokes before reaching lower and fondling his balls a bit. They were just as sensitive as the rest of him, and he enjoyed the sensation for a minute before taking off his boots.

He slipped his pants and underwear down at once. His cock was a deep red color and already had a bead of precum on the tip. He ran his thumb over it and used it as a bit of lube on the head. Then he gave his now twitching shaft and few more quick pumps before stepping into the shower. The water was already turning into steam on his heated skin.

Axel felt a sense of relief grip him, and he let the hot water run over his body for a moment, just enjoying the sensation. He gripped his cock, and it pulsed in his grasp. Seriously? He hadn’t even started yet and he already felt like he was close to the edge. But he was determined to make this last. He wanted to enjoy it since he got it so very rarely.

He slowly ran his hand up his cock from base to tip, a shuddering breath escaping him. Then he slowly brought it back down, pushing his hips forward a little. He let out a little sigh and grunt every time he rubbed over the head and back down. He was already leaking a steady stream of precum. There normally wouldn’t be so much, but it had been so long. He tried to count the months since the last time he’d done this, but his mind was too muddled – lost in the pleasure he was giving himself.

He let out a soft moan as he sped up his actions, practically fucking his hand at this rate. His moans became more frequent. Fuck he needed this. It was when he felt himself edging just a bit closer to the edge that he stopped, pulling his hand away entirely. He panted a bit, leaning on the shower wall to collect himself. He didn’t want to be done yet.

When he finally felt he wouldn’t cum just from brushing up against it, he gripped his cock once more and gave it a few slow strokes. He paused near the head, massaging the underside of his cock with two of his fingers, letting his thumb rub over the head and smearing precum over it, groaning at the stimulation.

His body temperature started to rise again, the water that pelted him and any sweat he made evaporating almost immediately.

He stopped touching his dick for a moment to play with his balls once again, rubbing and rolling them over his hand for a bit and just enjoying it for a moment. His eyelids drooped until he was gazing down with a half-lidded stare. His mouth opened to pant just lightly alongside his little moans.

He reached past his balls to stimulate just behind them and massage his prostate, and he let out an unrestrained moan at the stimulation, cock throbbing again and letting out a large drop of precum. He massaged the spot for a while with one hand, letting the other continue to stroke and rub him near the head like he liked.

He had a pattern going at that point. He’d pull off every time he got close and then he’d jump into it again and essentially edge himself. But damn if it didn’t feel good.

But the longer he did it, the more he got used to the sensation. Soon he was chasing pleasure he barely felt anymore, and he frustratedly started stroking himself a little faster in the hopes that he could bring it back, but it wasn’t really working out.

He thought he’d have to end this session with a rather disappointing orgasm, but then another thought of you flashed through his mind – with your bright smile and beautiful eyes. Fuck you were so beautiful.

His cock pulsed in his hand, spitting out a little more precum as it did.

That worked.

So he kept thinking of you. But now instead of the dream of you on Animal Kingdom, he began to come up with his own fantasies. He remembered his thoughts of earlier where he imagined you stroking him through his pants. It was a nice thought to be sure, but now he wanted more. A fantasy where you were the one with your hand wrapped around his dick and stroking him and not just through his clothes.

He let out another spurt of precum at the thought of you touching him so intimately – thinking of you staring up at him from beneath your lashes with a coy smile on your face as you slowly brought your hand up and down his shaft, the other one fondling his balls while he thrusted into your grip.

He imagined what it would be like to watch you sink down to your knees, a soft yet seductive smile on your face before you placed your lips on the head of his dick in a soft kiss. You’d tease him like that for a while, pulling off to stroke him then moving back in like you were prepared to take him into your mouth only to place a soft, barely-there kiss on the tip again.

Axel stroked himself faster. This was really doing it for him. You were doing it for him. He teased himself with the thought of you licking him from base to tip and teasing the head; lightly swirling it around the tip and massaging it as best you could with your soft pink tongue. Then you’d lean in and start suckling his tip just a bit and keep stroking him oh so slowly.

Axel let out another groan.

Then you finally, finally, take him into your mouth just letting the first part of the head in and smiling up at him like you weren’t being a tease. He’d try to thrust into your mouth, and you’d pull off. Then you’d try again and slowly, oh so slowly, take the tip in your mouth. Then you would slide down until the head completely disappeared into your mouth. You’d go down as far as you could, stroking with your hand whatever part you couldn’t get into your mouth. Then you’d suck on him gently and pull your head back. Then you’d repeat the process, sucking him off much too slow for him to get off immediately but keeping him right at the edge of pleasure so he couldn’t become accustomed to the situation.

Axel was moaning much more heavily now as he stroked himself and thought of your soft lips wrapped around him. His eyes almost crossed at the pleasure he felt at such a thought.

Then you’d do something that would drive him wild. You’d reach down beneath your dress and pull it up so he could see. Then you’d slip your hand inside your underwear and start touching yourself, rubbing slow circles into your clit and moaning around Axel’s dick.

Axel could feel himself driving ever closer to the edge.

You would speed up your ministrations, taking him deeper and deeper until he could almost reach your throat, all the while moaning around him.

Finally you pulled off with a gasp, still stroking him. You’d throw your head back and let out a loud moan and it would be his name you were moaning as you brought yourself to orgasm.

That was it. It was too much.

Axel came. Hard. He shot spurt after hot spurt of cum, letting out a long, unrestrained moan at finally getting some form of release for everything that had been building up – especially when it had only gotten worse on Animal Kingdom when he hadn’t done anything to alleviate his frustrations then and essentially gave himself blue balls.

Axel sighed in relief when the more powerful part of his orgasm ended, still slowly stroking himself while the last of his cum oozed out of his dick and over his hand. His mind felt clearer now, thoughts of you blowing him still dancing in his mind – a better fantasy than he’d ever had before though.

Axel cleaned himself off and hopped out of the shower to dry off, finally turning off the water and opening the bathroom window to let out all the steam that had built up so it could air out before he left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

~

Axel didn’t wait for Demyx the next day. He was already eager to move through other parts of the town and see what he could find.

Axel’s memories took him through the residential area that day, walking through the neighborhood and bringing with it memories that gave him a strange emotional whiplash.

He walked past Isa’s old house. It didn’t look abandoned, but after his and Isa’s disappearance his family had moved away. He had checked a few years after they joined the Organization. They weren’t supposed to be gone for so long, but they were.

Axel felt a strange sense of sadness overwhelm him.

~

Isa had been tutoring Lea in biology. He had been ever since Lea admitted that it was the one subject he could never really keep up in. It didn’t help that the teacher was a bore. But there it was, and this meant trips to Isa’s house – which Lea loved.

His mother and father were always nice to him, and they always made him a plate for dinner if he and Isa’s study sessions went on longer than normal.

Lea loved it, feeling like part of a family since he didn’t have one of his own. But that changed when they began to inquire about his family, questions that Lea had gotten good at dodging.

But they kept insisting.

What is your mother like? Does your father work downtown? We don’t really see them much; Are they homebodies? Would you like to invite them over for dinner?

Finally they stopped asking after about a month of declinations to meeting or socializing of any sort. They just must not have been the social type.

But then Isa asked questions Lea actually could answer.

“What do they look like?”

“Who?”

“Your parents. Maybe I’ve seen them around.”

Lea decided that such details were vague enough that it didn’t really matter if he answered them. So just gave generic descriptions: Brown haired, blue eyed mother, black haired, blue eyed father, both tall in build but his father was stockier.

“You said they both have blue eyes?” Isa asked with a tilt of his head.

“Well, yeah,” Lea said shifting uncomfortably. Isa laughed.

“Nuh-uh,” he chuckled, “We went over genetics in biology, Lea. Blue eyes are a recessive trait. Your mom or dad probably just has like a weird shade of green for their eyes.”

“There’s no way they could have blue eyes?” Lea asked, voice quiet.

“I mean they can have blue eyes,” Isa said with a smile and roll of his eyes, “But then you couldn’t have green –”

Isa stopped. The gears were finally turning in his own head, what he had said finally registering in his mind. He looked at Lea who had visibly paled.

Isa had never seen Lea look so shocked or upset before. He had only ever seen happy or neutral expressions at the worst on his friends face. So watching little tears spring to his eyes was new and unnerving.

Then he laughed a little bit before wiping away the tears.

“You know it’s funny,” he said, voice breaking on the word funny, “I always blamed myself for my dad leaving. But I get it now.”

“Lea,” Isa began slowly, worried for his friends but curious more than anything now that he divulged that his father was gone, “Where are your parents?”

“My dad left when I was six,” he said, choking back sobs, “And my mom left me at the orphanage a few months later. All this time thinking I was the reason everything went bad, and it was because my father wasn’t my father, and my mother was a slut!”

Isa hugged Lea while he broke down. He didn’t know what else to do.

~

Axel later found out upon inquiring around town that his mother had last been seen leaving with a stranger with hair as suspiciously red as his.

At least he knew why she'd been so intent in hiding it underneath baseball caps.

Isa had confided in him once that if it weren’t for the fact that his family already had three children, and they could afford it, they would’ve adopted him.

But it was fine. Axel had been content with his life and being a close part of Isa’s.

But it hardly mattered now. Isa’s family had moved away and gotten on with their life. And he and Saix weren’t exactly on speaking terms at the moment. And that was really the last tie Axel had had to this place. Outside of you and the restoration committee anyway.

Then he remembered that he hadn’t asked Demyx how you’d been that day. But when he returned to Merlin’s house, Demyx was nowhere to be seen.

Something hadn’t happened had it?

He debated calling him, but Demyx hardly answered his phone. Also if the two of you were still in battle against the dusks, he didn’t want to be a distraction that might cause either of you harm.

He could call your mom.

That wasn’t weird, was it?

He debated it for a while, and came to the conclusion that, yes, it was weird, but he didn’t want to find out that anything had happened to the two of you and he didn’t know and try to do something about it.

He shook his head.

Vanitas and the Organization had his ass on edge.

.

.

.

He called your mom.

“Hello?” she said from the other side of the phone, “Axel? Is something the matter, dear?”

“Ah, no,” he said, already feeling embarrassed about this, “I usually get an update from Demyx, but I don’t know where he is at the moment. So I figured I’d call and see if ________ was okay?”

“Well I’m not sure. I mean I know she’s fine physically, but I am worried about her.”

“Has she been saying something?”

“Well it isn’t what she’s been saying, it’s what she hasn’t said. It’s her birthday soon, and when we lived on Spaceship Earth she used to always talk about how she wanted her party and who was coming and what music she wanted,” your mother said, trailing off in a soft laugh.

Axel smiled.

“She was always such a party girl. Especially when she got to college. Every weekend and some weekdays, she’d head out and come home at two in the morning and still have energy for another party. But she hasn’t said anything about her birthday. She’s so distracted with everything. I don’t even know if she knows it’s around the corner. And usually you’re her main source of comfort when I’m not around, but I understand the two of you are going through something. She wouldn’t tell me what though.”

“Uh, yeah. I want to think we’re past it though.”

“Hmm. Well I appreciate you looking out for her anyhow. I’m glad she has friends like you.”

“Thank you, ma’am. Um, I have to ask though. Do you think she’d be open to a party anyway?”

“Hm? For her birthday? I mean, I don’t see why not. I’m busy with everything going on with the bakery, so I don’t really have time to party plan, but you could if you’re not too busy?”

“I’m not,” Axel said, an idea hatching in his head, “I know she’s been through some rough times lately, and it’d be a nice way to get her mind off of it.”

“It would be. Let me know what you come up with. I have to go back to work,” she said, suddenly sounding hurried.

“Alright, thanks.”

“Anytime, sweetie. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Axel now had a plan. But he’d need help.

He’d ask Ludwig. He was bound to know something about how ________ preferred her parties, being her uncle and all.

~

“What? Parties? Oh sure!” Ludwig said with a big smile, “I know all about parties! Let’s see there’s birthday parties, surprise parties, office parties, tea parties, Republican parties, Mario parties, and let’s not forget about stag parties! Let me know if you’re in the market for one of those,” he said whilst wiggling his eyebrows. Axel rolled his eyes but maintained his patience.

“I understand you know about parties. What I need to know is how to throw one for ________. For her birthday.”

“Is it that time already?” Ludwig asked looking at his watch, “Ah, so it is. Well I have good news and bad news.”

“What’s the good news?”

“The good news is that I know all about parties!”

“And the bad?”

“I have not once been in attendance to any of ________’s parties.”

“What?”

“Well look at me! You don’t look the way I do and walk around casually thinking you can just keep the order!”

Axel let out an exasperated sigh.

“But!” Ludwig continued, “There’s hope! I may not know any of her personal preferences, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t enough knowledge about her between the two of us to not be able to plan one!”

“Okay… so where do we start?”

“Well what do you know about her? What are all your favorite things about her?”

“Well… she’s noble. She’s brave and shows kindness to everyone. Even people she doesn’t know,” Axel said, thinking of all the times you blindly rushed into danger for the sake of others with a mild blush on his face.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, all that mushy stuff is a nice sentiment, but we need something more concrete that we can theme her party on. So what are her likes and dislikes? You know, like favorites.”

Axel thought for a moment. Then he realized as much as he knew about you from observation, he didn’t really know about you on a personal level. Just a few things here and there like your favorite color and flower. But not much else…. He should really get to know you. He knew you but not all of you.

He wondered what you knew about him…

“I know she likes peonies and the color pink,” he said finally after a moment.

“Good! Now that’s something we can work with! Hmm… We’ll also need food, and I know just the duck to help us out with that! You know this would be a great time for ________ to meet her family on my side!”

Ludwig gestured for Axel to follow him.

“I’m actually glad we’re doing this,” Ludwig added as he walked, “Demyx has been dropping off these dusks for me to study and it’s pretty morbid work. And gross. And unnerving. Some of them are off…. Not my work and it shows. But I don’t want to focus on that.”

He and Axel walked to town until they came to another duck – one Axel was surprised to not have seen considering he had been all around town at this point.

He was dressed in blue with glasses and a top hat.

“Scrooge!” Ludwig greeted jovially, running up to hug him.

“Bless me bagpipes! If it isn’t me favorite in-law! How are ye?”

The two shared a long hug as if they hadn’t seen each other in ages, smiles a mile wide.

“Fine, fine,” Ludwig said, brushing a tear away from his eye, “And where are my three adorable nephews?”

“Oh you know how boys are. They’re out and about and running shops to fund some of our little adventures. But what brings you here to Hollow Bastion?”

“You remember the niece I’ve sent letters about?”

“Oh you mean young ________! How is the lass? Is she here? It’s about time I meet her!”

“No, no. She’s not here at the moment, but she’s actually one of the reasons I wanted to see you.”

“Considering all she’s doin’ for the world, the least I can do is extend a friendly family favor.”

“Her birthday is coming up, and I know you have business in ice cream! ________ mentioned an ice cream you told me about in your letters. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind catering the event? At least as far as ice cream goes.”

“It won’t be a problem! I’d be more than happy to help!”

“Thanks. We really appreciate it,” Axel said. Scrooge looked up at him.

“And you are?”

~

They had a supplier for ice cream, and the venue would have to be Merlin’s house. Maybe he could recruit Aerith and Yuffie for decorations? They could order pizza as a main course.

Music was a must. It wouldn’t be a party without dancing, and he knew how much you loved it.

Axel continued letting Ludwig and Scrooge catch up on life while he thought about what he needed to plan next.

That was about when Namine and Demyx walked up, seemingly troubled about something. They hardly noticed Axel until he spoke.

“Hey,” Axel greeted, and the two of them seemed to snap out of a stupor, “Something up?”

“No!” Demyx answered hastily, “Everything’s fine.”

Axel squinted his eyes at them. Namine looked anywhere but at Axel.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, tone more authoritative. Demyx flinched.

“We wanted to surprise you later,” Namine said quietly, giving him a soft smile, “That game you showed us yesterday? Well we brought it home! I mean, the building was going to be torn down anyway. And Demyx thinks we’re gonna get caught. Though we used a corridor so there’s no way anyone would have seen us do it anyhow.”

Demyx visibly relaxed.

“Yeah, that’s all it was,” he said with a mumble and a strained smile. Axel felt more at ease now.

“Aw,” he said, now mildly embarrassed, “You guys didn’t have to do that.”

“Well we know how much it means to you,” Namine said, “Anyway what are you doing? Exploring the town more?”

“No. Actually maybe you guys could help. ________’s birthday is coming up, and her mom thinks she’s stressed beyond belief. I wanted to throw her a party.”

Both of their faces lit up at the prospect of a party.

“Really?” Namine asked excitedly, “That sounds great! What’s the theme? Do you have decorations already?”

“Well, no, not yet –”

“I’ll deejay!” Demyx said excitedly, “I have an idea of what music she likes. You know probably.”

“What are you gonna get her?” Namine asked after. Axel blinked. He hadn’t considered that. Of course, he had to get her something. But what?

Notes:

I hope you all enjoyed the chapter! Let me know what you all think, it's much appreciated! Okay I'll see you all on Tuesday! Hopefully on time this time....

Chapter 44: Making Music

Summary:

Time for Demyx and Namine to have three days as well.

NOTE: Remember that this chapter happens at the same time as the previous two!

Notes:

Well I said I'd try to be on time and 11 o clock on Tuesday is still technically on time. Better late than never anyway. But I'll do better. I promise! Anyway please enjoy!

Namine was bored.

The life of monotony may have been working out for Axel but not her. She would sit at her little computer screens, watching for any form of abnormality or suspicious activity but there was none. The defense system worked well enough and got rid of any heartless that invaded. Apparently they only had real issues with it whenever keyblade wielders drew them in, and those were far and few between.

Axel was nearby but he was… distracted to say the least. Namine tried to make conversation but Axel was hardly a conversationalist at the moment. He was worried about you. One would think it was almost obsessive, but Namine knew it was only because the Organization had managed to track you down twice to make an assassination attempt. She worried too, but she’d rather distract herself more than think about it.

“You would be fine,” she would tell herself. Then she’d find something to do that wasn’t stare at empty screes of the city and try to get Axel to talk to her.

Which is why she found herself lost in a world of music theory. It was a somewhat thick book on the history of music and how it could relate to many aspects of life and was interwoven into just about anything – from art to social sciences and humanities.

The art part especially interested her, and she found herself lost in its many wonderful pages with her wanting to try out a few exercises involving music and visual media.

She retrieved her sketchbook and began to flip through the pages. She started from the beginning, looking at her more crude drawings and watching as they got progressively better as time went on, now looking like something passable. She could at least draw faces accurately with hands still giving her more trouble than she’d like to admit. But recently she discovered she rather liked comic book style art, emulating the styles of many a superhero comic, even going so far as to draw her friends in such a style.

She turned on a bit of music and began to sketch out a few things ranging in subject matter from people to animals to landscapes to even some abstract pieces that were purely based on what she was hearing and feeling in that moment.

That was about the time Demyx arrived, and Axel finally perked up.

“How is she?” he asked immediately.

“Oh I’m fine. Thanks for asking,” Demyx said sarcastically.

Axel wasn’t having it.

“She’s fine. The nobodies weren’t a problem. We were in and out in no time, and last I saw she was picking out an outfit for the day and said she was going to visit her mom at the bakery.”

Axel nodded.

“She’s not helpless you know,” Demyx said, unsure of his own words but needing Axel to calm down if only a little. Axel only gave the barest of responses before leaning on the wall and thinking to himself again.

So Demyx turned to the only other person in the room who might actually be able to carry a conversation.

Namine greeted Demyx with a smile, giving him a little wave.

“So how did it go? Did you run into any trouble?” she asked, at least attempting to be polite where Axel could not be bothered.

Demyx gave a shrug.

“Was alright I guess. There wasn’t any trouble or anything if that’s what you mean. It was a pretty quick job – nothing we couldn’t handle.”

Namine nodded.

“What’d you do all day?” Demyx asked as leaned on a nearby table.

“Mostly just watched the security system for trouble. There wasn’t much going on, so I picked up a book to read while I waited.”

Demyx’s eyes lit up.

“That reminds me,” Demyx said, standing up straight, “There was a book Professor Owl leant to me that I’ve been meaning to read.”

And just like that Demyx walked himself out of the conversation.

Namine let out a huff before turning back to the screens in front of her. Just as boring as they’d been before. So she picked up her book from before and began to reread the chapter on music as a visual media.

At some point Leon came in to ask Axel for a favor, and the two of them left, leaving Namine alone with her book. Just as well, she was content like this.

She was just getting into color theory when Demyx came trudging back into the room and began looking around the room, in desks and on shelves, all the while grumbling to himself. After a few minutes of this, Namine quietly noted the page she was on in her mind before turning her attention to Demyx.

“Something the matter?” she asked as he roughly closed another drawer.

“Yeah, the book Professor Owl leant me is missing, and it’s really important. I was supposed to talk it over with him tomorrow, so we could talk music, but I don’t know where it went?”

Namine blinked.

“Is it called Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom?”

Demyx whirled around to look at her, hope sparkling in his bright eyes. It almost made Namine blush a little bit.

“Yeah, have you seen it?”

“I borrowed it,” she said quietly, an embarrassed blush creeping across her cheeks, “You left it on the coffee table, and I thought it was just out for anyone to read. I didn’t know it was yours specifically. So I’ve just been reading it.”

She handed the book back to Demyx who looked at her then asked, “What did you think?”

Namine thought for a moment.

“Personally I found the book interesting. I especially liked the chapter on art and how there have been many works of art inspired by music, like Jason Pollock who used jazz in his methodology of creating some of his most famous works. In my opinion genres of music can inspire art yet I believe that the instruments used can drastically change what’s then perceived. Like how you can play one song with a brass instrument and it will inspire something bolder than say something played on the strings – even if it’s the same song.”

Demyx blinked. He… wasn’t expecting that answer. He was sure she’d say something along the lines of that it was boring or overly drawn out, or if she did like it, she’d just say she liked parts one, two, or three. He wasn’t expecting a full opinion with her own thoughts on it.

And this was… exciting to Demyx. Here was someone he could actually talk about music to besides Professor Owl. Even when getting along with Xigbar and, to some extent, Axel, he couldn’t really talk about music to anyone.

And here was Namine.

“I have some examples if you want to see them?” she offered.

“Yeah, sure that’d be great!”

Namine smiled brightly, her heart thumping in her chest a bit as she handed Demyx her sketchbook. He opened to the first page and was… disappointed. But he didn’t want to say the art was bad. That would hurt her feelings – and after she was trying so hard to relate music and art.

Namine rolled her eyes.

“That’s my old stuff,” she said, helping him flip to the newer pages with actual decent art on them. She flipped to the more abstract pieces, pointing out what music inspire what, and Demyx studied each piece like he was entranced.

Then he flipped past the last one and saw a drawing of a person. But they resembled someone out of a comic book series, a superhero with a billowing cape in a dynamic pose.

“Who’s this? Someone you met before?”

“Oh, no, no. It’s just an idea for a hero type thing.”

“What like a comic?”

Namine nodded. Demyx let a really bright smile cover his face, and this time Namine did blush while he grabbed her hand and led her up to his room. He then proceeded to reach underneath the bed and pull out a medium-sized box of comics. He showed them to her.

“I’m a bit of a comic connoisseur myself,” he said, puffing out his chest a bit. Namine giggled, flicking through the comics he’d collected. They were all space age and silver age comics. These weren’t really anything she was too in to, but it was something to know that he liked comics at the very least.

“Personally I prefer superhero comics,” Namine as she slowly flipped through one of the comics Demyx handed her. Demyx wrinkled his nose at this.

“Really? But they’re all the same. Some nobody from nowhere gets in a freak accident and now has to save everyone with his powers.”

Namine frowned lightly.

“It’s not all like that. It’s about people who have a special ability then go out of their way to help others. But sometimes their demeanors differ and that changes everything. Like some who act like their powers are a curse or others who act like their powers make them gods among men.”

“Yeah but mine have sci-fi heroes with a strong sense of justice and they kick ass! Plus they always get the girl,” he said while running a hand through his hair.

Namine giggled a little bit.

“And you want to be the hero who gets the girl,” she giggled out. Demyx froze at the thought.

“Well, yes and no?” he said, scratching the back of his head, “I mean, I’d rather be a supporting character. I don’t like fighting, and I like this little gig we got going. I mean, I’d rather not be fighting Marluxia’s nobodies, but I like the lazing around waiting for me at home. But don’t get me wrong, I like the thought of being a hero, but at the end of the day, I’m just not cut out for it.”

Namine let out a little hum of acknowledgement.

“Well I’d like to be a hero,” Namine added, “I’m… jealous of you.”

“Jealous?”

“Well, yeah. You have powers that allow you to fight, but you don’t even want to. I wish I could. I wish I were as useful as you or ________ or Axel. Even Figment can fight in some way.”

“Well you were pretty useful on Animal Kingdom. Remember with the sword? You were useful then. That was pretty cool.”

“I want to do more than that. My friends go out and put their lives on the line for the good of others. I want to do something like that, be something bigger than myself for however long I left. Even if it’s just magic instead of melee combat. Like all the things you do with water. I think that’s amazing. Could you maybe teach me something like that?”

“Hmm. Well I don’t know about all that. My type of magic is directly linked to my musical ability. It’s something I honed during my time in the Organization. I’d never really played much before then, but I found it kept me sane while I was being sent out to strange and stressful new worlds trying to figure out how to get my heart back. Then I started getting into all kinds of instruments, but of course my sitar was my main choice.”

“I understand what you mean,” Namine empathized, “When I was at Castle Oblivion, drawing was the only thing that kept me sane. It was something to focus on between the times I was forced to tamper with the lives and memories of others. It was something that more or less existed outside of everything I was forced to do. Like an escape.”

The mood had shifted between them. It was rather somber now, and Namine looked none too happy at the moment. And Demyx felt bad – felt the need to ensure she didn’t feel bad.

“Hey!” he began suddenly with a bright smile, mildly startling her out of her funk, “Do you wanna see a trick I’ve been working on?”

“Uh? Okay?” Namine said, but all thoughts were forgotten when he grabbed her hand and led her outside. She knew he wasn’t grabbing her hand because of anything more than to lead her somewhere, but it made whatever part of her heart currently existed, thump wildly in her chest.

Demyx instructed Namine to sit, and she did so on a bench, sitting gingerly and crossing her legs as she smiled patiently at him. Demyx stood a good distance away from her and took a deep breath, summoning his sitar.

Demyx plucked a few strings, balls of water of varying sizes took form around the two of them. He plucked out a few more notes and chords and the water bubbles took shape into several instruments. Demyx closed his eyes as he entered a deep concentration while he played, only opening them on occasions to look as his fingers glided over the instrument.

Once the instruments had formed – two violins, a saxophone, two clarinets, and a xylophone – he began to play again, this time implementing the sounds from the instruments he had created. Namine was amazed to say the least. Demyx was creating something of a miniature symphony with the few instruments he had summoned. He would have had to know these instruments inside and out to cause the water form in such a way as to imitate their sounds.

It was really something amazing to her.

Cid, Dreamfinder, and Figment all strolled outside to see where the music was coming from to find Namine bouncing eagerly in her seat as she watched Demyx work and listened to the beautiful music he created. Now she wished she could join in and play something so beautiful.

“Well isn’t that something,” Cid mused.

“It’s a beautiful expression of one’s imagination,” Dreamfinder said with a little clap, Figment clapping along with him.

Demyx played faster and faster as the music grew more complicated and he became more and more lost in the symphony he created. He’d forgotten why he’d started in the first place, completely stuck in his own mind at this point.

But then one of his strings broke.

And so did the symphony. All of the water instruments exploded in a shower of water, soaking everyone nearby. Namine, Cid, and Dreamfinder all blinked in surprise, shaking water from their hair and blinking it from their eyes before bursting into laughter. Figment covered his chest now that his shirt was see-through, blushing furiously.

“Uh, sorry bout that,” Demyx chuckled out, “Guess I got a little carried away and broke a string.”

“Well that’s alright,” Namine laughed out, “It was nice anyway. I’m gonna head inside and dry off though.”

She stood and walked back inside with everyone else trailing behind her.

At least he had gotten her to smile. But that left the matter of the broken string. He needed a replacement, so he turned on his heel and began to head into town in the hopes of getting a new one he could enchant with magic for his sitar.

He was rounding a corner and humming a tune to himself when a familiar voiced drifted into his ears.

“Didn’t expect to see you somewhere the Organization frequents. I’d have thought you’d have run somewhere far away where it wouldn’t be so easy to find you.”

Demyx spun around to look at Xigbar who was leaning against the building he’d been passing. He had the usual smirk on his face, his one good eye glinting at him in a way that made chills run down his back.

It was weird. Xigbar had been someone he almost counted as a friend in the Organization. They had at least been amicable. He never thought there’d be a moment when he’d see him giving him the same look he gave a target.

Oh shit was he a target?

“W-what are you doing here?”

“What? Not gonna ask me how I’m doing? Not wondering how things have been since you left?”

Demyx continued to stare in a scared and shocked silence, so Xigbar continued.

“Yeah, not a real smart move sticking around in Hollow Bastion considering how often we run through here. Especially with what’s about to go down not long from now?”

What? An attack? Were they going to attack Hollow Bastion or the people in it?

“What’s about to go down?” Demyx asked in a low voice.

“Sorry, bud. That’s on a need-to-know basis for Org members only. Speaking of, I’ll never understand why you decided to leave us. It wasn’t like we treated you wrong or anything. I know Axel did it for some ass, but you? You’ve always had a reason to stick around. Especially considering you had most of the easy jobs. Recon? Pfft. I always thought Saix went to easy on you when giving you jobs. Or did Sora scare you off when you handled that one job in the Underworld.

“I… I…,” Demyx was at a loss for words.

“If you want a little friendly advice for old times sake, rejoin with the Organization or skip town and stay out of the way. Far out of the way.”

Xigbar was prepared to leave, darkness already enveloping him.

“Wait!” Demyx called, “You still didn’t tell me why you were here.”

“Just a recon job. Our regular guy couldn’t make it in to work today,” he joked before disappearing into the darkness.

Demyx moved back towards Merlin’s house in a daze.

“Hey, did you get your string?” Namine asked when Demyx walked into the house. She was in a new outfit, a simple t-shirt and shorts.

“What? Uh, no I forgot,” he mumbled, brushing past her and up to his room while Namine stood there, blinking in a confused daze.

~

Demyx hardly registered anything that went on when he was on his little mission with you the next day. Even the pleasant air and laid-back feel of the countryside couldn’t snap him quite out of his paranoid state of mind. Everything Xigbar had said to him played over and over in his head.

He was hardly useful against any of the nobodies that the two of you faced, but it was fine. You could totally handle it.

Demyx just wanted to go home and talk to Professor Owl about the book he’d let him borrow. Music would fix everything like it always did – would provide a way to clear his mind and let him think about his situation and how to get out of it effectively without risking all the people he cares about or himself.

So Demyx didn’t really stick around after he had dropped you off, heading back to Hollow Bastion almost immediately. He brushed past Namine again, hardly acknowledging her as he immediately started his video call with Professor Owl.

“Ah, Demyx,” Professor Owl greeted, “You finished the book then?”

“I did,” he answered eagerly, “I could hardly put it down. Are you ready to discuss it?”

The owl laughed jovially, ecstatic to have a student so eager to learn and gain new knowledge before launching into a lecture on the many uses of music as a practicality as much as a recreational tool in civilization. He eventually turned to the subject of what Demyx and Namine had been speaking about the day prior where you can mix music into visual media to manipulate the tone and message.

“Are you talking about art?” a new voice joined the conversation. It was Namine, standing behind Demyx and looking over his shoulder at Professor Owl who beamed at her. He was always happy to share with others.

“Why yes actually. Specifically the art of the motion picture! Would you happen to know about how music can affect the current emotion evoked in specific scenes?”

“Well,” Namine began, thinking up an answer. Demyx wasn’t sure what she could possibly contribute to this part of the conversation. She wasn’t a movie person – he assumed. Or at least he’d never really seen her watch any. She was good at painting and drawing. And this was kinda his thing, so maybe she ought to stick to that.

“I find,” Namine continued, unaware of any intrusion into Demyx territory, “That the absence of music can be a rather powerful tool to be used.”

Okay, yeah, Demyx was sure this chick had no idea what she was talking about.

“That’s wrong,” he state simply, looking at her while she blinked back at him, “Music is the very thing that carries the emotion over to an audience. If you compose a specific few bars of music and play it during other moments in a movie with a similar tone, then you effectively convince the audience to feel the emotions most strongly linked to it. You need music to properly engage people.”

“Oh,” Namine said quietly. She was… mildly embarrassed, but at least she learned something new?

“Actually you’re both right,” Professor Owl stated, proud of their critical thinking skills in such a regard towards something he loved so dearly.

“She is?” Demyx asked with a bit more astonishment in his tone than necessary. But it was better than the surge of annoyance that he felt in that moment. This was supposed to be for him and for him to get his shit together by being good at the only thing that he knew he actually had some sort of semblance of competence in. He didn’t want someone else barging in and tell him how wrong he was – despite the fact that he had been told he was right.

“Yes, she is,” Professor Owl continued, “As are you. Music can be used to evoke specific emotions, but sometimes the absence of sound let’s the emotional tone of the situation sit heavily on the audience as they’re forced to deal with the current problem and conclude their own feelings on the matter rather than let the music bring out one that is specific to its own tone.”

Namine was pleased at this statement – that she was right and bonding with Demyx over something. But the blush quickly faded as Demyx rolled his eyes. He must have had a rough time when fighting with ________. And Namine knew how much he didn’t like fighting.

She ran through things in her head that might help him out of his funk since this clearly wasn’t a good day for him while Demyx half-listened and half-sulked through the rest of Professor Owl’s lecture. Occasionally Namine would contribute her own thoughts to the lecture and ask questions, but not Demyx. He just wasn’t feeling it today, and if that weren’t bad enough, Figment and Dreamfinder decided to stroll by at that moment.

“Is that everyone’s favorite professor of music I hear?” Dreamfinder asked, poking his head into the room and striding over to the three of them with Figment sitting on his shoulder, also eager to see Professor Owl. “And what lessons are we learning today? The ethics of rock and roll on the young mind? How to cultivate the mind through sound?”

“Well we were having a very intriguing discussion on music in relation to visuals, and as it turns out, Namine has quite a knack for acknowledging such things in visual media. I must ask, Namine,” Professor Owl said, turning his attention back to her, “Do you play an instrument?”

“Me? No. I mean, the thought crossed my mind,” she said with the faintest hint of a blush coloring her cheeks. She could only think of Demyx in that regard really, and the thought of playing music with him was a fun thought on its own.

“Consider it. I don’t doubt you’d have much to gain in doing so,” he says, “But I must go now. I’ve another lecture to teach in a few minutes.”

Already? Demyx felt like he had hardly talked to him. But Namine said plenty. He huffed quietly to himself as everyone bid their goodbyes and he hung up.

“When do you think you’ll want to play that instrument?” Dreamfinder asked, looking at Namine with a bright smile. She almost bounced in her spot at how excited she was.  

“Can we get one now?” she almost shouted, all of her excitement bubbling over in a spray of giggles and barely contained energy.

“Why not?” Dreamfinder said, now purely feeding off of all of the energy she was giving off.

Namine ran upstairs to get some munny before bounding back down the steps to see Dreamfinder and Figment already waiting on her. She looked at Demyx who looked like he wasn’t in a much better mood than before.

“Demyx?” she started, and his blue eyes darted to her, his expression neutral, “Aren’t you coming? You probably know most about music; I could use the help.”

Demyx shrugged. It beat sitting around waiting for things to happen. Plus if talking to Professor Owl didn’t cheer him up, then maybe walking would at least clear his head.

.

.

.

The walk did not clear his head. If anything it made him feel a bit worse to listen to Namine and Dreamfinder prattle on and on about music things and how Namine might have a hidden talent and how Namine might be a prodigy in the making if this were something she were serious about.

Well Demyx was just about sick of Namine.

And Namine wasn’t totally oblivious to it. He would only give short, clipped, one-word answers and roll his eyes every now and again like her, Dreamfinder, and Figment’s very existences were a thorn in his side. But she just kept reminding herself that he had had a bad day, and that he would eventually slip out of it. After all, it was time with his friends that usually got him in a better mood. And now they were involving music which was something else he liked. Now she just needed to wait for all those good vibes to kick in.

So when she didn’t try to talk to Demyx, she would talk to Dreamfinder and Figment.

“You know I play the organ,” he mentioned after discussing potential instruments to play, “I learned after my dear Ludwig taught me all about playing the piano.”

“I didn’t know Ludwig was a musician,” Namine mused.

“Oh, yes, I know. He’s quite the well-rounded fellow. He also plays guitar and has had a hand in most genres of music you can find in Disney Town. He’s had many albums released of him singing or playing guitar or piano! Why he even wrote a song about colors for ________ when she was learning them!”

“He certainly is imaginative,” Namine said, and Dreamfinder swooned just a bit.

“Yes, I’m so very lucky,” he said as they approached the music store.

Demyx mostly hung out near the entrance. He wasn’t interested in looking around at anything. He just wanted to go home now, but he didn’t want to just ditch everyone. That would let everyone know that something was up, and he didn’t want to explain why he was upset anymore than he wanted to be there. So he kept quiet and to himself.

Namine went through several instruments before deciding to settle for a guitar. It was simple enough and easy to move in the event she wanted to take it places – like if they had to pick up and move from Hollow Bastion to some other world.

After that she picked out a few beginners song books and a few more books on music theory just because even when not related to visual art, she still found it highly interesting.

When she brought them to the counter, the cashier looked over her choices before smiling at her with a lopsided grin.

“You’ve got good taste,” he commented, “If you like these you should check out this other store in the next town over called City Beatz. They have some interesting books there too. Good luck with your learning.”

“Thank you!” she said as she paid him, “I hope I know what I’m doing. I don’t really know what would be useful for me or not.”

“What, you? I’m sure you’re a natural. You’ll figure it out easy.”

Demyx scoffed.

“Not knowing how to be useful is about the only thing that comes naturally to –,” Demyx muttered. But his voice carried. And he realized what he said. Realized it as he was about to finish his sentence. He looked at Namine who wasn’t looking at him. “Shit! I’m so sorry!”

Namine didn’t speak. She just finished paying for her things and left without waiting for anyone.

Demyx watched her go before looking back to where she had been at the register. The cashier looked as if they’d rather be anywhere but there at the moment as he shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot before going to straighten up other parts of the store. Dreamfinder and Demyx were just staring at him with expressions that were as annoyed with him as much as concerned.

“What was that?” Dreamfinder finally asked, voice harsher than Demyx had ever heard it before. Figment also looked none too pleased, his own mild glare sharpening just a little.

“I didn’t mean to! I was just annoyed and then it came out and I didn’t mean to!”

“I mean, I get you’re probably having a bad day, but she didn’t do anything to you. And that’s after putting up with your attitude all day. See you at home, I guess, but leave your attitude elsewhere.”

They brushed past him without looking at him, and Demyx felt pretty shitty. It wasn’t enough that he had to be upset with her for basically nothing, but he had to needle her about the one thing she admitted to being insecure about.

He had to go and offend the one person he could talk to about anything that he also recently just learned had an interest in music as deeply as he did to the point where he could hold actual conversations about it. He hadn’t had anyone like that before.

Plus it was Namine of all people. Out of everyone, she had always been the most patient with everyone regardless of how they felt. To piss her off had to be some kind of feat.

Demyx sighed. He did a bad. He did a really bad.

~

Namine dropped her stuff off at Merlin’s house and went back out. She wanted to walk around town and avoid Demyx for a while.

Her face felt hot and she was pissed off. She hadn’t done anything wrong had she? She didn’t think she did. Or did she?

She ran through her day. No, she couldn’t find anything. In fact, she remembered specifically doing things that normally make Demyx happy in an effort to, well, make him happy! He’d had so much fun with her yesterday talking about music and playing that symphony for her….

Maybe she had misread everything. Maybe he was just tolerating her but wasn’t really feeling up to it today. But they had hung out a lot before…. Though that was when you and Axel were there as well. Maybe that was a buffer between them. And now that they didn’t have that, he didn’t really want to put up with her.

Namine shook her head, trying to think of anything else. So she thought of everyone else. Maybe she ought to do something nice for them? They did do her and the rest of her family a favor by taking them in, and in addition to giving them a place to stay for their work, they gave them a little pay – what they could afford to anyhow. They had been more than generous towards them. And maybe she’d get one for Axel too. And maybe Demyx….

Maybe he was sick of her, but she could still be nice to him.

.

.

.

Even if she was pissed off beyond all belief.

Namine shook the thought from her head and began to look for ideas. She started to take in the scenery around her, see what shops were open and which were under construction. Most appeared to open on the street she was on now, and that was where she saw a little T-shirt shop that did custom T-shirts. That could be nice.

They all had little cards that read, “Restoration Committee,” but shirts would be a nice little gift too wouldn’t it?

She stepped inside and looked around at all of the little designs you could add to the shirts and the prices for each design and word placed on them. She picked out dark purple for the shirts and chose the font and picked a yellow to orange gradient for the color of the letters. She got tank tops for Axel and Demyx so they could wear them comfortably beneath their Organization robes.

There. She was done. She had even gotten Demyx something to say, “No hard feelings.”

Though she supposed he ought to be saying that to her. Why was he so harsh on her anyway? Maybe he didn’t like her, and that was fine. But why so mean? Come to think of it… He had been acting strange since the day before when he came back from getting his sitar string….

Though he didn’t bring it back. Maybe she ought to get one for him?

No, no. He didn’t deserve that. But she should really be the bigger person. She’d do it, and then she’d act like he didn’t do anything. And if he didn’t want to be friends anymore, then that was fine.

~

Namine returned home later that afternoon with her bags of things. Everyone greeted her warmly as normal. Except Demyx who stood near the back of the room looking at anywhere but her.

At least he had the decency to look guilty.

Namine promptly announced her gifts and handed them out to everyone… except Demyx. She had fully intended to be friendly with him again as if nothing had happened like she thought she would before when she had time to think. But when she saw him it felt like he said something awful to her all over again, and she didn’t want to be the bigger person.

So she brushed past him without looking at him and went up to her room. Her chest hurt. She felt hurt. She threw the bag with his and Axel’s shirts in them. Axel wasn’t back from wherever he disappeared to, so she’d just give him his later.

A few minutes later of wallowing in some strange sense of self-pity, and there was a knock on her door.

“Come in,” she called softly, sitting on her bed with her knees pulled to her chest. Demyx poked his head in and she frowned at him.

“I know,” he said, stepping in and closing the door behind him, “I fucked up. Really bad. But I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Why did you say it is a better question?” she said with a clipped and icy tone.

“I was annoyed! You’re picking up the whole music thing and that’s my thing, and it made me feel… weird.”

“You’re upset we have something in common?” Namine asked, sounding more annoyed than when the conversation started and Demyx flinched. Namine was something to be feared when angry – mainly because he’d never really seen her angry before.

“No, that’s not why I’m upset. I was upset because music was supposed to calm me down. It always makes everything better, but it felt like something was off, and it wasn’t helping me this time. And I took it out on you because I was annoyed because it was like you were enjoying music in a way I couldn’t. And I shouldn’t have said that.”

Namine wanted to stay mad. Just a little. But she couldn’t. Not when he was giving her those big, blue puppy dog eyes. It wasn’t fair!

She took his shirt out of the bag and threw it at his face, and he let out a noise of surprise that she found herself giggling at.

“I deserved that,” he said, as he took the shirt from his head.

“You did,” she replied with a light lilting laugh to her voice.

Demyx approached her with a nervous smile.

“So you forgive me? We’re friends again right? Because you’re literally the one person I never wanna piss off. You’re like a light to me, and I would die if you never spoke to me again!”

“I forgive you,” Namine mumbled with a light blush on her cheeks, “You don’t have to get all mushy on me.”

Demyx visibly relaxed, breathing a sigh of relief, and sat on the edge of her bed next to her.

“By the way,” Namine said, reaching into the bag she had the shirt in, “I got you this. The guy at the music store helped me pick it out. Is this the string you needed?”

Demyx was surprised… and touched. She had been angry at him and still got him something.

Demyx was overwhelmed. He wasn’t thinking. He grabbed Namine in tight hug, picking her up and spinning her around. Then he stopped and realized what he was doing. But then as he was going to put her down he stopped and looked at her. And she looked back.

He’d never really noticed how blue her eyes were…. Like they were really, really blue.

“Ahem,” Namine said, red-faced and clearing her throat awkwardly.

“Oh, sorry!” he said, finally putting her down and blushing as well.

“Well, uh, I think I’m gonna go check on the security system,” Namine said quickly, “I have to make sure it’s still running smoothly!”

“Uh, yeah, I’ll catch you later,” Demyx said, trying to get his face to not be so warm. He left to go to his own room to fit his new string on his sitar and magic it up a bit.

~

Demyx walked over to check up on Namine. Even though he still felt a little awkward. But Axel wasn’t back yet, and he was bored. Plus Namine was the only person who had an interest that didn’t involve combat or restoration so he could actually start and contribute to a conversation.

“Hey,” he started as he strolled in.

“Huh?” Namine said, snapped out of whatever daze she was stuck in, “Oh, hey.”

“See anything interesting?”

“Well there’s Axel. He’s just been wandering around and staring at stuff with this weird, far away look in his eyes.”

Demyx observed with Namine, and the two of them watched Axel for a few minutes before admitting that maybe they ought to check on him.

That was how they found themselves following him into an abandoned arcade and playing video games for a bit. Axel left, but Demyx and Namine stuck around.

“Hey, Demyx,” Namine began as she watched Demyx finish another round of the game, “You said you needed the music to calm down, but what was wrong to begin with?”

Demyx stiffened in his spot. But if he couldn’t tell Namine who could he tell?

So he told her everything – running into Xigbar, knowing the Organization had something planned, knowing that his only real shot at survival was to abandon them or rejoin (which was basically the same thing). And he was scared, and he didn’t know what to do.

“I’m not a hero,” Demyx said, feeling like he was on the verge of tears, “I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to go back either. And I don’t want to lose anyone.”

“We’ll… figure something out,” Namine said, placing a hand on his shoulder, “Maybe Leon and Axel can –”

“No! Don’t tell them! I don’t want them to try and pick a fight or let the Organization know ahead of time! Just give me some time to figure it out!” Demyx said quickly. But he didn’t know what he what it was he was trying to figure out exactly….

“Okay,” Namine said quietly, “But if things start getting out of hand, we have to tell someone.”

“I know….”

~

The next day was a slow one for Namine. They were usually slow, but today was even worse. So she figured she’d do something with her time.

And that was how she hatched the plan of bringing home the arcade game that Axel showed them. He seemed really happy to have seen it, and the building was going to be torn down soon anyway. She could take it, and it wouldn’t be a big deal.

Just as she was opening her own corridor to get into the arcade, Demyx walked out of his own and into the room.

“Oh, hey,” he said as he spotted her. He felt a bit tired. ________ had been more off her game than normal today, so he’d had to work harder, but all was well and good as far as he could tell, “Heading out?”

Namine smiled and nodded.

“I was thinking about bringing home that arcade game Axel showed us. I think he’d like it, and he’s been really down lately. Plus it’ll give us all a little something to do in out spare time.”

“And you’re just going to go get alone?” he asked as he eyed her. Namine could be tougher than she looked, but she wasn’t that tough, “Maybe I could help? I mean, not to be rude or anything, but you’re pretty small.”

“And I could use a big, strong man to help me out?” she teased. Demyx blushed.

“Heh, well, yeah,” he said, posing with his hands on his hips. Namine giggled, and he followed her into the corridor to move the game.

It took about half an hour and some heavy lifting, but they managed to move the game into the main room, and with an entire afternoon to kill they decided to take a walk.

And it was a calm peaceful walk. They talked about comics and music and art and shared a few laughs here and there.

“Well, well, well,” a voice called that made Demyx’s blood run cold, “And here I was thinking Axel was the only one running off to be with a girl. Must be something in the water.”

“What do you want now?” Demyx almost yelled, standing in front of Namine just in case Xigbar tried anything. Xigbar just smirked.

“Just came to see if you’d grown half a brain and gave any thought to what I’d said. After all you and I both know Xemnas can be rather ruthless when he wants to be. But he’s always been a bit kinder to the people on his side rather than the ones against him. I know you’ll make the right choice.”

And just like that Xigbar left, leaving Demyx practically shaking where he stood.

“What am I gonna do?” he all but whispered. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to fight. He didn’t want to be killed!

“I know you’ll make the right choice too,” Namine said quietly, “You’re a good person, and I trust whatever decision you decide to make.”

“You’re just saying that because you know I’m gonna pick you,” he grumbled. Namine smiled.

They continued their walk, but it was much more somber now. They walked in silence until they ran into Axel who grilled them about their moods until Namine lied to cover for them.

Next thing they knew, they were party planning – a better train of thought than the previous one….

Notes:

Comments and kudos are always welcome! Let me know how I did and what you think of the story! And thank you all so much for all your support!

Obscure-ish References:

Toot, whistle, etc.: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toot,_Whistle,_Plunk_and_Boom

Chapter 45: The Matterhorn

Summary:

The last hero task you must do on your list of hero tasks.

Notes:

Finally a chapter that does not take place within the same three days! This is the day after. So day 4 I guess.

Larxene jumped when Xigbar appeared in front of her. He smirked down at her, happy to have thrown her off her game. He wasn’t as sadistic as Marluxia could be, but he had his moments here and there.

“Easy, darlin’, I don’t bite,” he said smoothly. Larxene scrunched up her face in disgust. “Unless, of course, you want me to.”

She scoffed.

“You’re not the one I want,” she said with a sniff already moving to brush past him, but he stood in her way. He leaned in close, and as much as she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, she backed up anyhow.

“No,” he confirmed, “I’m not. That’s Marluxia, right? You two are close. But I have to wonder how close. Certainly close enough that the two of you wouldn’t divulge your little secrets to anyone else.”

“Whatever secrets you think we have died in Castle Oblivion with us,” she said with a bite of annoyance to her tone.

“Right, right,” Xigbar nodded, “Except, maybe I’m getting old, but I don’t think that’s entirely true. And something tells me – and correct me if I’m wrong here, sweetheart – neither do you.”

“You’re wrong,” Larxene bit out. Xigbar watched her for a moment more. His smile was still easy, still prominent on his face, but his eyes were observing her – every little breath she took or tiny twitch of her eyebrow or darting movement of her eyes.

Finally, Xigbar shrugged, letting all of his easy demeanor roll off of him in a way that told all who saw it to relax. He wasn’t taking anything seriously, and neither should you.

Larxene didn’t buy it. Not for a second. She knew him better than that.

“Well if I’m wrong,” he said after a moment, “Then you can relax. Let some of that tension out of your shoulders. But you should know this. I need to see everything this Organization does through to the end. I’m supposed to assume that if you’re a part of this Organization, then we have that in common. But if for even a moment, I or anyone else thinks you don’t have this Organization’s best interest at heart, you’re gonna need a lot more than a flimsy lie and an obscene dedication to your imaginary boyfriend to deter anyone. Especially Xemnas.”

“I already said that there’s nothing to hide,” Larxene said, wondering why she felt the need to defend herself again when she’d already said it as an absolute truth. One he was willing to believe for now.

Xigbar’s smirk broadened just a bit.

“Then you have absolutely nothing to worry about,” Xigbar said, brushing past her.

Larxene hurried on her way after the talk, taking the long way to Marluxia – partially to calm her nerves and partially to avoid being followed. She felt… nervous… somehow. But Marluxia would make her feel better like he always did. Just seeing him was enough.

Or at least it would have been. But he was in one of his moods.

Axel had been nothing but trouble for him as of late. First there was him helping you escape with your family. Then he found out from Vanitas that his fatal wound didn’t kill you as it should have – even she was annoyed at that one. Then Axel snuck back into the Organization with Demyx to steal the duck’s research back, and with it they took Marluxia’s plans for recruiting and harvesting.

Now apparently Axel was actively intervening in those recruitment and harvesting plans.

So Larxene watched with apprehension as Marluxia paced back and forth, trying to gauge how angry he was at the moment. She approached him, and he stopped his movements to whirl around to look at her, his eyes staring her down with a hot intensity.

“How are you?” she began, watching closely for his reaction. He rolled his eyes none too subtly, and Larxene felt a small sting in her chest.

“How do you think I’m doing? If you have good news, say it. I swear it’s like sometimes you don’t even think before you speak!” Marluxia was angrier than she’d seen him in a while, and she flinched at the tone and volume of his voice.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, feeling equal parts annoyed and hurt that he’d snapped at her for such a simple question. Though she supposed the answer was obvious.

“I don’t care. What did you come here for?”

“I wanted to tell you that the city is done.”

Marluxia froze, and she watched him. It was like a switch had flipped and changed him from head to toe in a quick, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it transformation. His eyebrows raised, his eyes sparkled, and his mouth which had been twisted into a scowl formed the charming smile that was almost always present on his face.

“Why didn’t you say so sooner?” he said, walking closer to her. She didn’t back up. When he was like this he was much more pleasant. He brushed a few stray strands of hair from her face, letting his fingers trace down her jawline while he let out an affectionate little hum.

She felt warmth.

“I’m sorry,” he started, “I shouldn’t have raised my voice at you like I did. I was just so angry about Axel ruining our plans, and I took it out on you – someone I hold so close to me.”

His voice was low and soft, and it sent chills up and down Larxene’s spine.

“So let’s go examine it,” Marluxia stated as Larxene opened a corridor. Larxene nodded mutely in response, a please smile and faint blush on her face.

The only way to access the core of The World That Never Was would be a corridor of darkness. It had no other entry or exit points. And even then you’d have to know to go there to find what lurked beneath the surface. But no one ever went to the core. There was nothing there, merely an empty cavern where the heart of a world had once been when it had been whole.

The two stepped out onto a metal balcony that overlooked the city sprawled out below him. He stood upon a castle of his own making – nowhere near the size or grandeur of The Castle That Never Was but a castle for him, nonetheless. He could see the entrance to the town where the grounds for his castle ended, standing in the gateway were two large statues built in his image.

He swelled with pride. In the grounds beneath his balcony, nobodies cheered for him, singing praises and bowing. He raised his arms in much the same way Xemnas did when regarding Kingdom Hearts, but this was not in reverence of any other being. It was in reverence of himself. He who was a god amongst these people he had raised up against an oppressor.

Yes, he basked in the praise and adoration of his subjects, taking in all that was in his kingdom. A survey would show later that he’d amassed a great 250,000 subjects – all who wanted nothing more than to serve and adore the great Marluxia.

~

You blearily blinked your eyes open. Your head was throbbing, it hurt so much. At least it was dark out. But the fucking moon was still too bright. You rolled onto your side. Ugh. You were not laying anywhere comfortable. You took in the concrete of the roof of the building you had passed out on. Then you took in Setzer who lay there facing you, eyes closed, snoring heavily, and a sizeable puddle of drool collecting around his mouth and chin from his face was smushed into the concrete.

Your limbs felt heavy and sluggish, and you felt very nauseous – like you were going to vomit but your body was keeping you on edge just enough not to.

Stupid body. Doin’ stupid shit like making nausea. Who did it think it was?

What time was it anyway? You’d been asleep for a while, but the consistent darkness of Twilight Town – and the consistent sunset on a normal day – fucked with your sense of time. You pulled out your phone and looked at the screen – wincing at how bright it was. Once you managed through squinted eyes to turn down the brightness, you gazed at the clock on the screen.

Oh shit. Shit! Shit! Shit! You were supposed to meet Demyx in ten minutes, and you were thirty minutes away!

You roughly nudged Setzer to him wake up, and he let out a loud snort before giving you an annoyed glare.

“What?” he rasped out in an annoyed tone that you had no time for.

“We have to go. Now. We fell asleep up here, and I have hero shit to do.”

Setzer then looked a bit concerned.

“Are you sure you can handle that? Like normally I wouldn’t be too worried, but we got drunk enough to pass out. Are you sure you’re, ya know, all there mentally?”

“I’m fine,” you said as you stood up – too quickly. You hunched back over, resting your hands on your knees as your vision swam and your stomach gave a little lurch. You heaved a little, but nothing came up. Setzer watched you.

“Maybe you should call in sick today, doll,” he said as he stood up, much slower than you but just as unsteady on his feet, “Your friends’ll understand, and let’s be honest. Hangovers aren’t the best for hero work.”

“I’ll be fine,” you pushed on, “I can’t just abandon them and let that asshole get away with whatever he plans to do with his little minions. I need to be there, and I need to stop him.”

Setzer protested all the way back to the hotel where he finally let it go once you stumbled inside and told him to fuck off. Not the nicest way to handle things, but you were irritated, and he had been nagging you for much too long.

He seemed hurt, and some part of you buried beneath all the sour bitchiness your hangover inspired felt bad. When all that bitchiness ebbed away, you would make it up to him somehow. But that was not your main concern at the moment. No, that would be climbing the stairs to your hotel room and keeping anything you had eaten from the night before – nothing you could remember – down. Maybe it would just be a disgusting cocktail of all the alcohol you consumed – probably far less good coming back up as it had been going down but no less bitter in aftertaste.

You practically slammed your room’s door open, and Demyx nearly jumped six feet in the air in his shock. You had startled him out of his own thoughts, his mind wrapped around the Xigbar situation as it stood – which was get out of town or die – but you hardly noticed or cared. Your head was pounding at the noise you caused, and you felt you had no form of coherence in the following thirty seconds. So his shock, annoyance, and the next few sentences out of his mouth were lost on you as you tried to re-orient yourself.

Demyx opened a corridor, and you didn’t even ask about what he had said, just went through after summoning your armor, keyblade at the ready for whatever awaited for you on the other side.

SON OF A BITCH IT WAS BRIGHT AS FUCK OUT HERE!

While most places you could have gone would have seemed bright due to going from the current darkness of Twilight Town to practically anywhere with a source of sunlight, it was even brighter when you went from moonlit darkness to a bright sunny day on a mountain with snow as white as white could be. And that bright, white snow reflected the sun very well. So well you had to squint against the harsh sight that made your head scream. Why? Just why? Who was torturing you like this? Was this your punishment for daring to have a little fun? Even if it was more fun that you admittedly should have had?

It didn’t matter. Because the next thing that annoyed you was Demyx.

He was shivering and freezing cold on top of this mountain, rooted in deep snow. It wasn’t like he had armor that was resistant to most forms of extreme weather. He just had his Organization coat and whatever was underneath.

But that wasn’t what was annoying you. After he gave you the rundown of where you were – a mountain called the Matterhorn where Marluxia’s only note on it in the plans they stole was, “Under no circumstances are you to disturb, Harold – he just kept complaining. And it felt as if he would never stop complaining as the two of you combed the mountainside looking for the nobodies Marluxia had sent out. His voice was starting to grate on your nerves, loud in the silence around you and to your sensitive ears – just like the bright light from the snow was annoying you. And that you were out here searching for Marluxia’s lackeys instead of curled up in your bed sleeping off the night before annoyed you even further. And the fact that you had no idea who Harold was and why he was not to be disturbed annoyed you. And the thought of Marluxia annoyed you – pathetic, petty, sadistic asshole that he was. If you ever got your hands on him you’d –

“Why is this taking so long?” Demyx whined between his chattering teeth, and you had enough.

The two of you had only been there for all of ten minutes with him complaining nonstop, and you couldn’t take it anymore. You whirled around to face him, fighting back any nausea and dizziness with sheer willpower.

“Demyx,” you said in as calm as a voice as you could manage – a feat considering your near-furious condition, “Go home. You’re obviously cold and feeling a little out of it, so just head home. I can take care of this.”

Demyx seemed more relieved than anything. If he wasn’t focused on this, he could at least think through his problems with the Organization with more clarity at home. Maybe he could talk it over with Namine, see what his options could be.

“Are you sure?” he asked, but his heart wasn’t totally in it.

“Yes,” you assured, “Go home. I will handle this.”

Demyx was out of there in record time and back at Hollow Bastion where he could think things over and maybe talk to Namine about them.

You continued on your own through the mountainside. A cooling breeze would be welcome, but you knew better than anyone that taking your helmet off at this altitude would be far colder than you’d like. Upon thinking about it, you were amazed Demyx was able to handle going from Twilight Town to such harsh conditions at all. But then it hardly mattered. You found the nobodies you were looking for and huddled close to a rocky outcropping to observe them. They seemed to be discussing something amongst themselves, huddled around two broken and overturned bobsleds that no doubt once held people. There were eight in total, so you needed to be smart about this and think it all through now that you were alone – hangover be damned.

Demyx arrived back at Hollow Bastion just minutes before Axel did. He didn’t have a job to take care of that morning. He’d just been out scouting the town for a gift for you, and he’d had no luck.

He was surprised to come home to Demyx and Namine talking in hushed voices amongst themselves. Never mind what Demyx had said about not liking Namine or that they had nothing in common. The two of them were nearly inseparable as of late. And if he didn’t like her, she was certainly working her way beneath his skin.

“Didn’t expect you back so soon,” Axel began just before he would do his routinely asking of how you were faring.

“Yeah, ________ said she could handle it, so I just let it go,” Demyx said with a shrug. Axel stopped and blinked at him. He was stuck somewhere between befuddlement and anger.

“You left her there alone?”

“Well, yeah, I mean she said she was fine, and she can’t do any worse than she did yesterday.”

“You said she was fine yesterday when I asked you later. What do you mean she can’t do worse?” Axel asked, his voice raising slightly in volume with his frustration.

“I mean. She was little off her game, but she was kinda cranky today. I just assumed she was all business. She told me to go home and that she’d handle it.”

“And you just left her there.”

It was a statement that carried far too much weight to it for Demyx. He didn’t want to think he did anything wrong, but he couldn’t help but feel like he’d abandoned you – despite your explicit instruction to go home.

“Open a corridor where she is,” Axel ordered, and Demyx obeyed. It wasn’t wise to argue with Axel when he was upset. Things tended to get a little more heated than was considered pleasant.

Demyx vaguely remembered the way you had slammed into the room that morning, looking more disheveled and disoriented than normal. It was rather early when he got you. Had you even come home the night before? He’d been so wrapped up in Organization shit and what to do about it, he didn’t notice anything off about you. And he found his memory of you today to be mostly fuzzy. He really hadn’t paid attention.

He just hoped you were okay, and that Axel wouldn’t pose a sooner threat to his health and safety before the Organization had a chance to.

Axel arrived somewhere bright and freezing. The sudden change in air and pressure made him dizzy. He could understand Demyx’s immediate want to go home. But he had something more important to worry about, and he used his heart connection to you to find where you had gone.

It took some walking, but he found you, not far from the nobodies who were huddled around the broken remains of bobsleds. But you weren’t watching them. You were hunched over, holding your stomach.

He thought you might be hurt, but then you ripped your helmet off and began vomiting into the snow. You were right about that cocktail – just as bitter. You heaved only a few times before putting your helmet back on. Axel was already walking over to you, and you were too disoriented to notice him.

“________,” he said, and you jumped, letting out a sharp yelp that you cut off quickly before the nobodies could hear. The two of you froze to see if you’d been found out, but there was no sound of crunching snow as they headed to your location, so you assumed they blamed it on the wind. Or maybe they didn’t hear it over the sound of the rushing wind on the mountain. You could see clouds approaching in the distance that didn’t look all too fair.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” you hissed at Axel. Of all the people you expected to run into at the top of a mountain in the middle of what you assumed must be some freezing tundra…. Wait. You didn’t expect anyone. Let alone Axel. “This had better be good.”

“Demyx said you were feeling out of it.”

Not entirely true, but in the interest of everyone, he believed he was allowed to bend the truth a little in this case.

“I’m fine,” you stressed at him. Axel couldn’t see your eyes beneath your helmet, but he could feel the glare and irritation coming off of you in waves.

“So why the hell are you vomiting into the snow if everything is fine? I don’t know exactly what’s going on with you right now, but I can at least guess that you’re not in the best condition to handle this.”

“It was a one-time thing, and honestly I feel much better after having done it. I can handle this, Axel. Go home.”

“You can’t even admit that there might be something wrong with you when your body just did the universal symbol of showing that something is wrong with it. You know, besides death.”

“Why are you being so difficult right now?”

“I’m trying to help you.”

“Well you’re annoying me!”

“Tough shit because you obviously – oh fuck.”

It was then you realized that the nobodies had approached the two of you and were not quite surrounding you but had certainly covered enough area to make you feel something closer to trapped.

Axel wasted no time. He was attacking as soon as the word fuck had left his mouth, and the nobodies responded in kind. Which in turn meant that you were also fighting. And your body was protesting. It was protesting heavily. It didn’t want to hit anything or right your vision when you so desperately needed it to. As a result you were battered around far more than you would have liked. And your nausea had returned full force, threatening to make you dry heave until you collapsed.

“Show her no mercy!” one of the nobodies yelled, “She is just as our Marluxia said. She will take everything from us! Our lives! Our freewill!”

You were able to fight through your nausea to offer a response.

“And you will kill everyone if no one stops you!”

That seemed to make them all freeze, all of their gazes locked on you as you and Axel stood back to back, not willing to give them the upper hand. They were angry. You could feel the anger radiating off of them in waves. No one made the first move.

“You are so selfish,” one of the nobodies spat, “You see only monsters. We are people! Why do you deserve to live more than us!”

“I don’t! I don’t care that you want to live your lives. I care that you harm others to do it!”

“What? Like you don’t? We’ve never done anything to you that warrants how you’ve treated us! You just show up and attack us like animals.”

“I’ve been attacked by more than my fair share of nobodies!”

“I can’t account for actions of every individual nobody you come across! And you attacked us first!”

“Technically Axel did,” you said, and you could feel Axel toss you an annoyed look.

“But he’s your friend!”

“I can’t account for the actions of every individual nobody you come across,” you threw back at him, “Besides when have any of you decided to be diplomatic? Why now do you decide to use your voices for something besides threats?” your voice started to raise, and you watched the nobody bristle at your tone and words.

“We intended to speak to you from the beginning. But the friend you can’t be held responsible for attacked us. And were we just supposed to stand there while he slaughtered us? You’re so wrapped up in your own self-righteous evil, you can’t even see the good we do,” he yelled back at you. This, of course, prompted you to yell even louder until the two of you were in a screaming match.

“What good do you do? I’ve never had an encounter that didn’t end in death for someone!”

“We are nothing but lesser nobodies. We are just meant to serve. But then Marluxia, our great Marluxia, gave us life again. I have served under Xemnas for so long, going to battle for him, waiting for the day I would die, but Marluxia gave me my mind back.”

“But why is he having you attack people?”

“To gather hearts. For the greater good. As a nobody under Xemnas one nobody would have to kill hundreds – maybe thousands – so Xemnas can have his Kingdom Hearts. But one heart in a nobody ensures that he has his own will, the ability to put an end to the violence once and for all. One heart compared to hundreds is hardly a sacrifice in the long run.”

“So I’m wrong for killing sentient nobodies who take hearts. But you’re not wrong for killing people to take hearts?! Am I hearing you correctly?”

“Not when there are millions more than that are hurt are at stake! We wouldn’t be in this situation if you had not taken from us the one who gave us hearts without harm!”

“That was my family he kidnapped! Marluxia, your Marluxia, is little more than a pompous tyrant who doesn’t care who he hurts to get what he wants, otherwise he wouldn’t still be sending all of you out there to die!”

“It is our choice!”

“To follow a madman who thinks he can kidnap, abuse, and murder whoever he wants?!”

“Do not speak of him like that! He has our best intentions at heart where you would only condemn us to death if given the chance!”

“Like you condemned the people who were up here to death?!” you shrieked, jabbing a finger at the empty bobsleds.

“That was not our doing!”

All that yelling had been bound to have echoed off of the mountains surrounding you all. And part of you had briefly wondered when you first raised your voice if things truly were like they were in the movies where a bit of yelling could topple tons of snow in a deadly avalanche.

It couldn’t. That was a myth – not that you knew that. You’d have to be vastly louder to cause such a heavy fall of snow. But you were at the right volume to disturb Harold.

And he was very, very disturbed.

His footsteps crunched loudly in the snow as he lumbered his way over to the noise that had awoken him from a very peaceful slumber in a very comfortable cave. No one could hear the sound of his footsteps over the sound of the howling wind and their own screaming. No one saw him approach until a large looming shadow hung over them.

They turned to look at the fearsome creature as he eclipsed the sun with his massive size – an abominable snow beast. His face wore a terrifying grimace, and you were able to put two and two together that, undoubtedly, this was the Harold you were not supposed to disturb.

The one you very much disturbed anyway.

You could not wait until this day was over. You were going to go home, sleep, then go get wasted again with the knowledge that you did not have any more hero work the next day. Because that was what you needed – another drink.

Anyone else might think you were addicted, but, no, you felt you deserved that shit.

Though your stomach rolled at the thought of anything going past your lips at the moment – even though it seemed content to force stuff out.

Harold let out a great roar that you were certain would cause an avalanche. But, thankfully, it did not. He charged at all of you, and you all found yourselves fighting amongst each other. It was chaotic, jumping between fighting nobodies and fending off Harold, splashing nobody blood that stained the snow in a stark contrast that looked so wrong. It was no help that in your current state you were practically useless.

If Axel hadn’t shown up uninvited maybe you could have gotten the drop on the nobodies like you were supposed to. Though they wanted to talk their problems out now, so that was a thing. Also apparently they hadn’t been responsible for any deaths on the mountain. You didn’t know if you believed that or not at the time, but after the arrival of Harold, you were certain that he could be the other probable cause of such a tragedy.

You were lost in this reverie. It was as if your body had given up entirely on the thought of existing outside of thought. It didn’t respond physically in any of the ways you wanted, too slow on the swing, too wide a stance to block, not enough grace in rolling out of the way – though you could blame that last one on the uneven snow. You had managed to land one hit since the debacle with Harold had started, cutting a large nasty gash across the nobody who had talked to you previously when he moved to attack you. So much for talking and diplomacy.

Axel saw this, took note of your sluggish movements and the extra seconds you took to orient yourself every time you turned even slightly. You were more than just a little out of it like Demyx had tried to lead him to believe. You were just gone.

So he began picking up the slack despite the strain this area put on his body. Above all else, he had to protect you after all.

So he was swatting away and killing nobodies, avoiding Harold, and occasionally nudging you as subtly as he could like it was just a part of the fight and the two of you were just a bit in each other’s way. It was to get you to move out of the way, and it worked for the most part until your body betrayed you in an attempt to force more of that disgusting cocktail back up your gullet.

Your body lurched forward at the worst possible moment, and you gave a heave. Nothing came out thank goodness as you were still in your helmet and that would have been beyond gross, but there were worse things.

Like that Harold had been approaching you in that moment.

But there were worse things.

Like Axel watching him approach you in that moment and knowing you were going to be hurt.

But there were worse things.

Like watching in horror as the man you’re in love with jumps in the way of Harold’s on coming swing, pushing you out of the way, and screaming in pain at the giant bleeding gash on his side.

If there were any drunkenness left in you, it sobered quickly. You couldn’t feel any of your nausea. You almost felt paralyzed, and the only thing that forced your body to move towards Axel’s was the sheer need to have him be okay.

But you knew he was not okay. And you were not okay. Because Axel was hurt really badly, and you didn’t know how to fix the problem. But you needed to fix the problem.

You needed him to be okay.

Notes:

Hope you all enjoyed! I think I'll be able to go back to regular Tuesday-Thursday updates next week. I'm gonna use this week to catch up on my writing a bit, so yeah!

Comments and kudos are always welcome, and thank you all so much for your support! I really appreciate it!

Obscure-ish References:

Matterhorn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matterhorn_Bobsleds

Harold: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Yeti

Chapter 46: Rose

Summary:

Axel needs help, and you're trying not to lose your mind.

Notes:

I legit almost forgot to upload. lol

You didn’t care about the nobodies anymore… or Harold for that matter. You almost fell over to Axel. He was holding his side, blood pouring everywhere – some his and some of the nobodies he’d attacked.

“Axel! Axel, look at me!” you said, holding his face in your hands. His eyes blinked blearily, but his eyes did finally manage to focus on you. “I need you to open a corridor. We need to get out of here, now.”

Axel could barely understand what you were saying through his own pain, but he heard the panic in your voice and thought that he had to get you somewhere safe. So he opened up a corridor back to Hollow Bastion.

He cried out as you hefted him up to support most of his body weight. Everything hurt, especially movement. But he hobbled with you through the corridor while the nobodies were busy with Harold. You couldn’t care less about any of them. You needed to get Axel help.

You shuffled through to the other side of the corridor as quickly as you could with Axel leaning on you and pushing through his own pain to walk. And as soon as you were on the other side, everyone was in a panic. Axel was a bloody mess.

Leon and Cid helped him on to a bed, Namine went to go get Dreamfinder and Ludwig for aid, Demyx rapidly paced back and forth in a panic babbling about how bad the situation was, and you poured all of your healing magic into that wound. That large gaping wound of four claw marks that stretched from his hip to halfway up his waist.

You did all that your magic would allow, but the wound wouldn’t close. You didn’t understand it. Your magic should have at least been able to do that. You used it on your own wound when you’d been impaled, and it at least helped with the bleeding. But as far as you could tell, the only thing it did was lessen the pain for him so he wouldn’t writhe around so much.

“My goodness!” Dreamfinder exclaimed as he entered the room, Figment and Ludwig at his tail, “What happened?”

Finally everyone looked to you, and you looked back with wide, scared, tear-filled eyes. Then you started sobbing uncontrollably.

It was all your fault!

“W-we had an argument,” you wailed between sobs, “And the nobodies attacked. A-a-and then Harold showed up. And Axel got hurt! And now my magic isn’t working!”

You started crying even harder, some of your sobs morphing into wails of sorrow. If Axel couldn’t be helped, you weren’t sure what you’d do. You couldn’t stand the thought of him dying.

You felt a hand grab yours. It was Axel. He was somehow smiling at you with a somewhat cocky expression that baffled you more than anything – so much so that you stopped crying, only a few left-over tears slipping down your face.

“Oh please, ________,” he said, voice just slightly strained, “It’s gonna take a lot more than that to take me down. Stop crying. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” you insisted, still letting your magic treat the wound, though it still never closed, “You’re hurt.”

“Let us take over, dear,” Dreamfinder said as he laid a gentle hand on your shoulder. You looked up at him, and he gave you a reassuring smile that made you feel a little better. At least you knew he would be in good hands.

You nodded lightly and removed yourself from Axel’s side. Dreamfinder set up a little table of supplies he fetched while you were in the middle of your episode. You watched with wide eyes. Sometimes more tears would slip from your face, but you held on to your sobs. You didn’t want to fall apart again.

Dreamfinder had Axel remove his coat and shirt and administered an anesthetic and called you over to his side.

“Talk to him,” he instructed, and you were taken aback by the instruction. But you saw the disinfectant, needle, and thread he had and understood you were just there to act as a distraction.

You started talking to him, but at first it was all apologies and tears. You had been annoyed at him sure, but you didn’t want him hurt or anything.

It was as Dreamfinder was cleaning out the wound and that Axel was reassuring you while you apologized that he was fine and there was nothing to apologize for, that Dreamfinder noticed something odd. At first it wasn’t too noticeable. There was blood all over, and so things were bound to look wrong, but this looked worse.

There was normal blood sure, but then there was a small barely noticeable distinction in color. Some blood looked a bit darker than the rest, but with the way it was mixing within the wound, you might not notice. But he noticed. It didn’t help that the darker blood was a bit frothier, bubbling up at the slightest movement. It was also lumpy. There were little irregular sized lumps that would cause the skin it flowed beneath to quiver as if separated from the body and having a mind of its own.

Dreamfinder frowned to himself and called Ludwig over. That was when you and Axel stopped talking to see what the problem was.

Ludwig looked at the blood and examined closely before he took on an expression rarely seen on his face but one that meant business. He looked concerned.

“I’ll need to take a sample of this,” he said, before retrieving a couple of syringes to get two samples of blood from Axel. He drew a small amount from the wound and one from the opposite side of his body, and Dreamfinder instructed you to keep healing the wound as best you could. If nothing else, it would just make Axel feel better, but just in case you could stop it from getting worse, you ought to try.

You did as you were told, and Leon approached you.

“You seemed to have calmed down a bit since I first asked. Now can you tell me in full detail what happened?” Leon said, his voice calm and mildly reassuring – as much as he was capable anyway in such a grave situation.

You took a deep breath. After half of the worry had calmed, all you had left was your guilt and it gnawed away at you in the worst way, twisting your stomach in knots and telling you that if Axel died, you only had yourself to blame.

You only had yourself to blame now. Axel was hurt. Because of you.

The thought of this made you tear up a little again.

“It’s my fault,” you admitted quietly, “I wasn’t ready to take this mission on. I wasn’t feeling well, and I knew it. I knew I wasn’t at my best when I went there, but I was stubborn and wanted to get it out of the way. I was so stupid.”

“Why weren’t you feeling well? Were you sick?”

“No,” you whimpered, “I was out late drinking, and I got carried away.”

“That was really irresponsible,” Leon said in clipped tone, “You are a keyblade wielder. You’re supposed to be better than this.”

You bowed your head shamefully.

“I know,” you whispered. Leon didn’t think he needed to remind you that if anything happened to Axel, it was on you. You were already beating yourself up pretty bad about that one.

But honestly what else could be said? You fucked up.

“Why were you out drinking when you knew what you had to do the next day? If you had been out there alone, you could have died!”

“I just wanted to have fun,” you said, weakly. It was not an excuse.

“You have a job to do. Fun,” Leon continued, practically spitting the word, “Isn’t important.”

You just nodded. You felt like a child. Though you acted like one too.

Dreamfinder and Ludwig came back in and were discussing something in hushed voices. They approached you and Axel and Leon, and the three of you waited for a verdict.

“We need you to bring back one of the nobodies,” Ludwig said, “Alive.”

“What? Why?” you asked.

“We think Axel’s blood may have gotten infected,” Dreamfinder answered, “But we need a live specimen to see if we can conclude that this is true. And it has to be one of the nobodies that Ludwig or I or any of the other scientists haven’t touched.”

Well now there was a task. You would need pure luck to be able to find something so specific amongst the millions of nobodies that existed, and good luck was something you had not had too much of recently. Then Ludwig continued his explanation.

“When you’ve been dumping the bodies back here, I’ve been examining them to see how many are those that I and the rest of the scientists worked on and how many were Marluxia’s independent studies to try and figure out how he’s going about the process and to see if it’s safe or ethical. Though from what I’ve examined thus far, I don’t think either of those things is true. The ones I worked on had normal blood. You’d almost never know they weren’t from the average everyday human being. Most of the ones Demyx and Axel brought me were normal. However, I would notice an outlier every now and again with blood that was mis-colored and abnormal. Though I couldn’t deduce what was causing it because they were dead, and there was no heart to study. After reviewing the blood on Axel’s wound and a sample taken from the other part of his body, I’ve concluded that he’s been infected in a sense, and I won’t know how to cure it until I have a live study of the corrupted blood.”

“Which is why you need a live nobody,” you concluded. Ludwig nodded.

“The abnormal blood is also why I assume your magic isn’t healing him,” Dreamfinder pressed on, “You’re using magic to speed up the process of the body mending itself, but the body’s confused in trying to separate Axel’s blood and that of the corrupted nobody. My guess is that your magic is only keeping them from mixing together too well because if left unchecked for too long, Axel’s blood and maybe his heart could be affected by it.”

“What would it do to him?” you whispered.

“I don’t know,” Dreamfinder said gravely.

You stood up, magic fading from your hands. You didn’t know if any of the nobodies on the Matterhorn were still there or alive, but Axel had gotten infected there. So you had an inkling that if whatever one of them was corrupted had survived Harold, then maybe you could bring them back.

“I’m going now,” you announced and looked at Demyx, “I need you. Back to the Matterhorn.”

He simply nodded. He hadn’t said anything, but he felt just as guilty for not picking up on your state of being more quickly. Maybe he could have talked you out of going. But it was too late to dwell on that now.

It was a massacre when you arrived back on the mountain. You couldn’t have been gone for more than half of an hour but that was apparently enough time. Harold was gone. And a trail of blood leading away from where you were told you that he had gone home to lick his wounds, having not left the battle unscathed himself.

There were dead nobodies littering the ground everywhere with blood of both normal and corrupted variety pooling in nearly every inch of snow around you, staining it a mismatch of reds that irritated your senses more than the blinding snow did.

There were six bodies by your count. Which meant that there were two elsewhere. It was unlikely you would find them on that mountain

You and Demyx began to walk around aimlessly in the hopes that the two survivors might still yet live. And maybe there was some being of higher power taking pity on you and your broken heart. Because you found them. One was injured but sitting up. The other was injured far more severely and barely clinging on to life.

Their long, silver fingers were intertwined while the one that sat in the snow gazed intently at the other dying one. Its chest heaved erratically, and you realized with a pang that it was crying. The other just lay there silently, chest slowly and shallowly rising and falling.

Then with another pang and a small moment of dawning horror that it had been the nobody you had argued with. You had done this too. Maybe it wasn’t good luck you had found them. Maybe you were just being reminded of all the death you bring everywhere you go.

You approached them with hesitant steps while Demyx decided to hang back and watch.

How could you ask a favor of them when you had done this? You were a monster. Hardly better than Marluxia. You had never even considered the lives of the sentient nobodies – that while they did attack you, they were following orders. And even when they had willing wanted to do so, it was in the hope that they might have a better future where they no longer needed to kill or fight.

That nobody had been right. You really were selfish. Because you hadn’t even considered such a thought until you were forced to humble yourself and ask them for help – to ask for something you wanted when you obviously didn’t deserve it.

You stopped moving when they looked at you.

You could already feel the hate coming off of the dying one. They were going to say no. They were going to say no to you and Axel was going to die.

Axel was going to die….

Tears brimmed your eyes though they could not see them from beneath your helmet, and you fell to your knees instantly, bowing forward until your head nearly touched the ground.

“What do you want?” the one who was sitting asked. Though her voice did not sound angry or reproachful. Just tired and sad.

You gathered all your strength to speak. You wouldn’t let Axel down because your feelings got in the way.

“I need your help,” you rasped out, “My friend got infected by blood from nobodies, and we don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

The dying nobody began to croak in protest, but he was too weak to make a proper response.

“I know I don’t deserve it,” you said with your voice breaking, “Especially after all I’ve done. But please. He could be in mortal danger. His wound won’t close.”

The two nobodies just sat there and looked at you. You couldn’t read their expressions, and you thought they might say no. Then you glanced at their hands clasped together again and had an idea.

“We’ll save him,” you blurted, looking right at the dying nobody, “Help me, and we’ll save his life.”

“Deal,” the other nobody said, and you scrambled from your position in the snow to pick up the dying nobody gingerly in your arms. He was heavier than he looked, but you could handle it.

Demyx opened a corridor back to Hollow Bastion and you stepped through with the second nobody and Demyx at your heels.

Everyone watched silently, stunned at what they were seeing, as you moved the nobody to a clear table. Nobody said anything, just watched as you retrieved pillows and a blanket to make a makeshift bed for him.

“He needs help,” you said in a commanding tone, breaking the silence and looking at Ludwig and Dreamfinder, your orders heavily implied and easily readable.

They both seemed to snap out of their dazes, scrambling to get supplies together to save the nobody’s life. You also used a bit of healing magic on it, but you could only do so much with your healing magical abilities still not where they needed to be. You needed to practice more.

Your magic managed to stop the bleeding and lessen the wound, but by the time you’d managed to accomplish that, your magic had run out.

You felt the strain it had on your body, and Aerith walked over, having come home and been updated on the situation while you were gone. She gave you a small potion, and you felt mildly rejuvenated. Not as much as you could be, but you felt better than when the exhaustion had been tugging heavily on your being.

“You need to pace yourself until your magic is stronger, ________,” she said, lightly scolding you. You nodded before making your way back over to Axel’s side and giving Dreamfinder and Ludwig space to work.

Ludwig examined the nobody who was still close to death though further from it with your interference. He scratched his head before looking more excited than before.

“I’ve never done surgery on a nobody before,” he admitted, “But I can assure you that the great and powerful Doctor Professor Ludwig von Drake has never lost a patient. This will be my greatest act of genius. Now to administer the anesthetic.”

And with that he took out a mallet. You gasped thinking your uncle was going to screw everyone over, but that’s what Dreamfinder was for – wacky he may be but he’s also much more sensible. Dreamfinder took the mallet before any permanent damage could be done, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, “No, honey, no,” and gave him the proper tools to operate. And you felt the whole room let out a sigh of relief.

With the nobody in good hands, you turned to the other one who had yet to leave your side. You took her hands in yours and began to thank her.

“Thank you,” you said, tears threatening to spill again – how many tears did you even have left? “Thank you so much. I’ll owe you for the rest of my life.”

“That’s good,” she said quietly, “Because my life is what will be at stake for helping you.”

“Marluxia won’t lay a finger on you,” you said with almost a growl in your tone.

“It’s not Marluxia I’m worried about. It’s the other nobodies. They’re fanatical….”

You blinked. You hadn’t expected such an answer.

“I see,” you answered slowly. If her friend had been anything to go by, then you knew this to be true. All you’d done was insult Marluxia, and that had been enough to almost incite another fight before Harold showed up to end it himself.

“I’ll show you to your room,” Namine said lightly, and the nobody looked at you. You gave her a gentle smile and nodded lightly. She hesitantly followed Namine and you went with them to ease some of the nobody’s worries.

“So what’s your name?” Namine said as she led the nobody into her own room. She patted a space on the bed she could sit on, and she obliged.

“Rose,” she said quietly, shyly, “My name is Rose.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Rose. My name is Namine, and the woman you came here with is ________. Thank you for agreeing to help us. I know this must seem like a big change for you.”

“I don’t mind,” Rose said.

The three of you shifted about uncomfortably for a quiet moment, not sure what to say to each other. Rose was the next break the silence.

“What do you need me for exactly?” she asked. She sounded mildly frightened. But such was to be expected. She was in a den of lions as far as she knew. And all she knew was that they had asked for help with no indication how that help might happen.

“We just need to take a small sample of blood to see if it’s corrupted or not,” you explained, “Just a few drops. Nothing crazy or dangerous. You have my word.”

Rose nodded, and some of the tension left her body.

“I’m going to go check on Axel,” you informed the two of them, “Namine will take good care of you, Rose. You can trust her.”

Rose’s posture stiffened when you mentioned leaving, and part of you felt bad about doing so. But she probably felt better here than she did in a room full of people who were consistently suspicious of her intent.

She was in good hands.

You walked back into the room which was deathly quiet. Most of the attention in the room was on Ludwig and Dreamfinder while they operated. They wanted to move closer but knew that they shouldn’t hover too near. Another bed had been brought into the room to accommodate the other nobody when it was time for him to rest.

You approached Axel whose attention shifted from the nobody to you once you came close. He gave you an easy smile like he often did as if nothing were wrong. It made you feel comfort as well as guilt. You weren’t sure you’d ever forgive yourself for this one.

“How are you?” you asked, “Wait, no. Stupid question.”

Axel laughed lightly then winced.

“It hurts to laugh,” he said, reclining a bit more on the bed before wincing again, “And move.”

“I’m so sorry,” you said quietly, “Axel I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.”

“Nothing’s gonna happen to me. You can’t get rid of me that easy.”

His cocky smirk made you let out a laugh that sounded kind of like a cry. You were a mess really. You held his hand. You didn’t care what the state of your relationship had been in before. You needed this. He gripped back just as tightly, seeming to say that the two of you were in it together like you’d been from the beginning.

You sat next to his bed and put your head down on your arm, looking up at him with big, sad eyes. He smiled sadly back.

“Ah, come on. Don’t give me that look.”

“I can’t help it. My best friend is hurt because of me.”

There was a small silence. You obviously weren’t going to be feeling better about his any time soon, regardless of what Axel said to try and cheer you up.

“What happened?”

You looked at him, confused but half sure he meant the drinking.

“You mean the getting drunk?”

He nodded.

“It’s not really like you. I know you can be impulsive, but I’ve never known you to go on drinking benders to try and have fun. And I mean I know I haven’t really known you very long but….”

“No. You’d be right to assume that. I don’t normally do things like that.”

“So what happened? I’m not upset or anything so much as I am confused.”

“I think I’m more upset that you’re not upset. I wish you would get angry with me. Scream, shout, tell me you hate me. It’s better than sitting there and acting like I don’t deserve it.”

“Oh you deserve it,” he said, and you flinched, “But I could never hate you, ________.”

His voice took on a rather soft quality. Not unlike every time the two of you had been having tender or romantic moments. And when you looked up at him, his eyes were just as soft as all those times he gazed at you during those tender and romantic moments. It made your heart happy and hurt at the same time.

There was a long pause as the two of you just gazed at each other for a moment.

“It’s hard, Axel,” you said finally, “Everything is hard, and I know that’s no excuse for how I’ve been acting. And it wasn’t just yesterday evening. It’s been the past three days, and each one was a little worse than the last. I’d been running with this guy I met when I first got to Twilight Town, Setzer. We’d go bar hopping all night until we were stumbling home drunk.”

You collected your thoughts, and Axel patiently waited on you to finish.

“I just wanted to forget for a while,” you continued, “That the fate of an entire world was resting on my shoulders. That the job is dangerous. That I’ve almost died like three times in the past month. Or that there are people hunting me down trying to kill me and harm my friends and family. I just wanted to act like 19-year-old with her whole life ahead of her. Because everything’s changed. Everything’s changed so much, and I don’t know how to handle it.”

You had tears streaming down your face again, but you felt like you had no reason to cry.

“That’s what we’re all here for,” Axel reassured you. He gave your hand a gentle squeeze, but you didn’t look at him. Your eyes drifted down to the bandages on his side and hip.

Your fault.

“I wish you’d stop being so nice to me,” you said quietly, “I wish you’d be as angry with me as I was with you. Tell me you don’t want to see me again. Say I don’t deserve you or something.”

“Yeah, because I’m the first person who should be saying those things after endangering you in the same way. If anything, I’d say we’re even.”

This made you let out a tiny, feather-light laugh. He had you there. Axel smiled.

Silence passed between the two of you outside of you occasionally quietly bursting into tears and apologizing profusely and Axel shushing you and ensuring you that everything was going to be okay. But how could you ever forgive yourself for this?

Roughly half an hour later and Ludwig stepped away from the nobody declaring his surgery a success.

You approached the makeshift operating table. He looked better than he had before, but he would have a very large, very ugly scar where your keyblade had attempted to cut him in half that would stretch from shoulder to hip. It was a miracle he had survived at all with the amount of blood he lost and the damage you’d caused.

Just another thing to be so very proud of on this day where everything has gone so right for you.

You informed Rose and Namine, and they ushered in to see him. He was still unconscious, sleeping soundly while the drugs needed to put him under continued to flow through him. He’d be up soon enough.

Rose watched him closely, almost serenely. She was happy to not have lost him.

Leon approached Rose, and you watched closely and carefully. He cleared his throat and introduced himself. Rose quietly responded, and Leon nodded. He seemed happy formalities were out of the way because then he jumped right into the heart of the problem.

“I have to ask,” he began, “What is it exactly that the Organization is planning?”

Rose lowered her head just a bit.

“Xemnas wants to complete Kingdom Hearts but for what I don’t know. All I know is that he likes that there is a keyblade wielder out there defeating heartless and releasing hearts. A lot of his hopes rely on Sora. He only wants you out of the way,” she said looking at you, “Because he needs your family for something, and you keep interfering. From what I know, he still needs them. But he’s preoccupied which is why he sends others after you instead directly intervening himself. Marluxia, however, has something different planned entirely.”

Her voice took on a grave tone.

“Something to do with liberating nobodies, right?” you asked, and she nodded.

“Marluxia offered us something no one ever had before,” she said, her voice sounding wistful, “Free will. We’d been living as puppets for so long, aware of the world around us and our actions but with no control over what we wanted to do with it so long as they held the reins. If they commanded us, we obeyed, and there was no option to deviate. Everyday is waiting for death at the hands of people or monsters or keyblade wielders. Even other members of the organization when they need to get some training done. What are few nobodies when there are billions at your disposal?

“But then Marluxia made an offer you’d have to be stupid to refuse. The chance to take back our lives. A chance to take vengeance on the man who slaughtered us and live our lives free and happy once he was gone. Marluxia wants to take down Xemnas and the rest of the Organization using the nobodies as his army.”

Her voice was a little less than neutral, and Axel immediately picked up on it.

“You don’t sound like you were as keen as the rest,” he said, his voice carrying over the heavy silence that followed her words. Everyone had been quietly listening, enraptured in her tale.

Rose’s gaze lifted again to look at you once more.

“I was there, you know? The day Marluxia attacked you,” she said, her voice shaking, watching as your eyes widened, “I didn’t have a heart yet, but I had considered it. But there were too many questions I had. Like where did he take those who dared to defy him?

“I watched you follow him into a corridor, and I slipped in just as quietly as you did. You hadn’t even seen me, too focused on your loved ones to notice. I saw what he did to the nobody that spoke against him. Everyone knows that dying at the hands of Specter is a fate worse than death. There’s no hope of recompletion after. You just cease to be.

“I thought he was a monster. How could I follow someone so merciless? I hadn’t said anything on the mountain because those who speak out against Marluxia can die by their hands just as quickly. But I agreed with you. He’s doing the same thing Xemnas is doing to us, and no amount of free will would change that. But what else could I do? Where else could I go? When I thought it was over and everyone on the mountain was dead, I would just leave. Wander. It didn’t matter where I went.”

“I have a question though,” Aerith interrupted, “If you didn’t agree with Marluxia or the way he handles things, why did you get a heart anyway?”

“I didn’t want it,” she choked out, “But I was caught, right after you left. When he impaled you – when I thought he’d killed you – I wanted to run away and never come back. I wanted to take my lover and run. But he caught me. His other followers saw me and kept me from leaving. I’d seen everything, and Marluxia knew. He smiled at me that easy smile he gives to everyone and asked what I was doing there. And I was terrified. There was only one right answer, and that was to throw myself down at his feet and beg to join him. He liked that. He said I’d be the first once he figured out how to give us hearts again. I was his special project.

“He gave me a whole heart. Larger than the fragments nobodies had received previously.”

Rose shivered at that time. Though it wasn’t quite a shiver. Axel recognized it from when he’d seen the nobodies at work in the lab when he went back to the Organization for von Drake’s research. Dreamfinder recognized it from when he was treating Axel and how it affected the singular spot on his body where the wound was.

Her shiver was unnerving to you to say the least. Her body shivered and so did her skin, but they did so as if there were little bubbles moving and milling about beneath the surface of her skin, causing the shiver to look disjointed like her skin wasn’t quite attached and moved of its own accord.

“It’s a side effect I think,” she croaked once she noticed everyone watching her shiver, “But I don’t know why.”

“Perhaps we should start those tests sooner rather than later,” Dreamfinder suggested, and Ludwig nodded in agreement.

“I have one more question,” you said before they could leave to do research, “If Marluxia was so malicious, why didn’t you at least tell your lover about it.”

“We’d been oppressed for so long,” she said in a tired voice, “I couldn’t bring myself to take away the only thing that seemed to give him purpose. And I’d appreciate it if you kept this and what happened to me a secret.”

You nodded, and with that she left, following Dreamfinder and Ludwig out of the room and leaving you with much to think about.

The nobody on the operating table had much to think about too. The drugs had worn off of him just a few minutes ago, in just enough time for him to hear his beloved Rose speak of Marluxia’s actions. He’d been perfectly still, listening to her talk, feeling like part of his world was shattering.

Notes:

Hope you all are doin' good and still enjoyin' the story! See ya real soon!

Chapter 47: Finally!

Summary:

It finally happened!

Notes:

After all this time! It finally happened!

Axel was scrolling through his phone lazily, looking at all of the online things the world had to offer that you could get as a gift. Everything had to be picked up in person which was an issue for him. It’d been a solid week since the injury, and he was doing much better than before, but was still confined to sitting or reclining most of the time.

The bleeding had stopped at least, and the wound had some semblance of being closed. You used your healing magic as often as you were able between him and Thorn – the newly named nobody that had come here with Rose in an arguably worse condition that himself.

But it seemed like everyone was locked in their own version of tension. Demyx and Namine were squirrely messes. But whatever troubled them, they weren’t saying. Leon and the rest of the Restoration Committee were concerned about the state of their progress when lately something had been finnicky with their defense system. So maybe Demyx and Namine were antsy because they couldn’t really leave the house until that was fixed. The whole town had been told to stay indoors unless absolutely necessary, and the parts of the Restoration Committee that could actually brave the outside would provide aid all over the city in order of importance until something could be done.

You seemed to have the worst of it. You were on a never-ending guilt trip against yourself in every regard to him. You would look like you wanted to throw yourself off of the nearest cliff every time you looked at him. And Axel had to admit it that it wasn’t the most flattering reception to receive from someone he was romantically interested in.

So that was why, despite everything else going on around him, he was still planning this party in the hopes that he could see you happy and let you forget, for just a moment, all of your responsibilities for a few hours of sober fun.

They had originally planned to have a little alcohol at the party, but you’d announced that you were never touching the stuff again. Leon thought it was for the best anyway. Who really wanted to monitor how much anyone was drinking when trying to have fun?

Everything was almost ready. There was just the matter of your gift. Never mind the part where he’d have to come pick it up himself, and he could only function on his feet for couple hours at a time. He wasn’t even all that crazy about any of the gifts he was looking at.

It wasn’t like there wasn’t anything good to get you. But he wanted it to be special and personal. Something that every time you looked at it your face would light up.

As far as he knew, everyone else had already chosen their gifts. He was the only one dragging his feet about the matter.

Demyx had said he was being too picky, and maybe he was, but he really wanted this to mean something. Namine chalked it up to Axel still being head over heels for you. She thought it was sweet and volunteered to pick up whatever it was he decided to buy. But that was before they started getting more and more antsy.

That was when you walked through the door, and Axel bookmarked the page he was on so he could keep looking at it later. You walked over to him with that, “I want to kill myself,” expression plastered on your face beneath a genuine but weak, “I’m happy to see you,” smile.

“How are you?” you asked, walking over to his bedside. He sat up a little more, giving you an easy smile as he so often did.

“I’m alright,” he said with a shrug.

“How bad does it hurt?”

“Not too bad.”

It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t the screaming pain he’d been fighting through the day it happened. Now it had eased itself into a steady throbbing pain that he could ignore if he were thoroughly distracted enough. But it hardly mattered how he answered. You would always do your best attempt at healing anyway. And after a solid week of healing every few hours between him and Thorn, you were getting better at it. You still couldn’t do it for very long, but it was just a bit more effective than it had been – however a tiny difference it was.

He adjusted himself properly as you made your way over to his injury to heal it as best you could. And he let you. Despite the circumstance and mood, he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like having your full attention. Though it wouldn’t last long. You were helping the Restoration Committee and would be back out there delivering aid wherever it was needed and fighting any heartless that appeared – whose appearances had seemed to spike recently. Once Axel’s condition had calmed, you began to help out around town as a means of distraction. But the team was happy to have you. Plus it gave him the privacy he needed to plan for your party.

“Has Pops or Dreamfinder said anything yet?” you asked hopefully, eyes lighting up for the barest second.

“Not yet,” Axel said, and he watched that little light in your eyes dim. There were few discoveries made by examining the nobody blood. Rose’s blood was corrupted, but Thorn’s was not. Thorn only had a fragment of a heart that was steadily completing itself as his relationship with Rose progressed. That was good. That was the intended effect Dreamfinder and Ludwig had devised. However, they had no way of knowing why it was that Rose was able to have a fully constructed heart if Marluxia really had managed to duplicate their research.

You finished healing him as best you could.

“Well I have to go. I’m sorry I can’t stay longer,” you mumbled.

“It’s fine,” he said with a shake of his head, “I’ll see you later.”

You nodded, giving him one more longingly, sad look before leaving.

After a few more minutes of deciding he was tired of reclining in bed and staring at his phone and pages of gifts he didn’t like, he decided to shamble over to Ludwig’s place of work.

When he arrived, the lab was in a state of disarray. There were papers everywhere, many piled in comically high stacks on tables and others in large piles of balled up paper that had long since concealed in waste bins there.

Ludwig was frantically scribbling away in a book as his research continued. Dreamfinder was slumped over in his seat at his own desk, snoring and drooling into another book that looked like it talked about hearts and the like. Figment was sitting on the floor next to him with heavy bags under his eyes which had bright, red veins highlighting the yellow of his eyes. He held a coffee much that read, “Mondays, Fundays, what’s the difference?” He sipped from it heavily and gave Axel a small nod of acknowledgement when he entered the room.

Axel nodded back and approached Ludwig.

“Hey, uh, Ludwig,” he started, and Ludwig jumped, letting out a girly scream. Axel flinched back lightly in surprise, just as taken off guard by Ludwig’s reaction as much as Ludwig was at his sudden appearance. He looked frenzied and tired at the same time, heavy bags drooping from under his eyes which looked at him with a wide, owlish look, his eyes slightly unfocused.

Maybe he ought to come back later…

“Uh, never mind,” he said, already turning around to leave.

“No! No!” Ludwig said in a slurred yet happy voice, “I’m so happy to have a little distraction right now! Now tell good old Uncle Ludwig-in-law what ails you.”

He grabbed onto Axel’s arm to keep him from leaving. Axel gently pried his fingers off of him.

“I think you need sleep,” Axel said carefully.

“Whaaat? No! I’m fine! I’m fine! Pfft,” he scoffed before walking over to a coffee machine. He picked up a mug and the pot of fresh coffee before tilting his head back and pouring hot coffee in each of his eyes, all the while screaming.

Then he set the mug and pot down and walked back over to Axel.

“Now how can I help?” he said, red-eyed and crazy looking.

“Well,” Axel said, not sure he wanted to talk about what he just saw, “You know ________’s birthday is in a about a week, and I can’t find anything I want to get her. Nothing feels personal enough.”

“Ah, yes, declarations of love in gift form are always hard.”

“I-I wouldn’t call it that!” Axel said, his face heating up at such a suggestion.

“Whatever you have to tell yourself,” Ludwig said with a wave of his hand, “What have you already shot down?”

“Just about everything. Nothing quite lines up with what I want.”

“How about something homemade?”

“I’m not the best at arts and crafts.”

“Something homegrown?”

“Homegrown?”

Ludwig smiled with a nod.

“Take me back to my home,” he instructed, “We’ll only be there for a short while, but I have just what you need.”

Axel did as he was told, opening a corridor for them to travel through and letting Ludwig borrow his coat temporarily. They stepped through, and Ludwig handed him the coat back before leading him deep into the recesses of the basement of his home.

Finally they reached a room that seemed to stretch on endlessly with tiny little drawers lining the walls from ceiling to floor.

“Behold!” Ludwig said with a grand, sweeping gesture of his hand at the room, “My seed vault! In here is my currently growing collection of seeds and cuttings of every plant in existence! If you know a plant, chances are that I have it!”

“Well she does like nature,” Axel said, looking about at all of the labels. He hadn’t heard of most of the plants that existed in there.

“Indeed she does, and she’ll love this particular bit of nature even more because only you could have done it for her.”

“Why only me?”

“A few years back I developed a plant based on fire. It only grows in certain temperatures, and once its grown it never dies. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to grow it to that point. Too many accidents. Plus it kept burning me. But since you have control over fire, you ought to be able to maintain it with next to no problems. And since a large part of Merlin’s home is made of stone, the chances of you burning the house down in an attempt to grow the plant should be near nonexistent.”

“But won’t it take too long to grow?”

“It shouldn’t. I developed it to have a short growth period, so I wouldn’t have to maintain such temperature for it for so long. The longer it took to grow, the higher the risk of a fire. It ought to take a week. Maybe a week in a half. But the best part is that it’ll be personalized. The petals ought to come out the same color as your fire. And she won’t be able to look at it without thinking of you and doing that really big smile she always tries to hide whenever someone talks about you.”

Axel blushed a little. And his pride swelled quite a bit knowing that you were still just a little bit smitten with him. It helped that he was still quite taken with you as well.

“Here we are!” Ludwig said, pulling out a drawer to reveal a pitch-black seed the size of a walnut. He picked it up and placed it in Axel’s hand. “You’ll have to plant it and maintain it at a temperature of anywhere between 2,000- and 3,000-degrees Fahrenheit. Your fire being red ought to burn at just above 2000 degrees naturally, so I don’t doubt you’ll be able to maintain it.”

Axel looked at the little seed. He’d never been much of a gardener, but he’d grow you an entire forest if he thought it would make you happy.

…Maybe he is in love…?

~

He put the plant out back behind the house where the fire would burn safely away from everything and everyone. Ludwig told him he’d have to make sure it stayed like that, so he would be back every three hours or so to ensure it maintained its temperature.

Then he hobbled back up to his room where he saw Namine and Rose.

“Oh there you are,” Namine greeted. Rose gave a shy nod in his direction.

“Yup,” he said with a happy smile on his face.

“You seem to be in a better mood,” she noted as she watched him sit on the bed and get comfortable. He settled in and hummed.

“I finally know what to get ________. It’s growing out back as we speak.”

“Growing? Will it be done in time for the party?”

Axel shrugged. The party was in a week, and the plant could potentially bloom in that time frame. But, of course, there was the small chance it would happen a few days later.

“It’ll bloom quickly enough,” he finally answered. Namine smiled.

“It must be pretty good if you’re not freaking out about it anymore.”

“I wasn’t freaking out,” Axel said with a roll of his eyes.

The two of the chatted for a while with Rose chiming in every now and again until you returned to ask your usual questions: How are you? How is the pain? Can I get you anything? No? Are you sure? I don’t mind. Here I got you a blanket.

You were still doting on him even ten minutes after.

“Are you absolutely sure there isn’t anything you want?” you said for what had to be the tenth time that night. Even Namine and her unending patience was starting to find it annoying. Rose thought it was cute. You were obviously in love with him.

But Axel just rolled his eyes. Then… he smirked.

“You know what? There actually is something I’d like,” he said, voice smooth and playful. Your face lit up a bit at the chance to help.

“Name it.”

“A foot rub. Hmm and I’d like to be bathed,” he said, reclining with his arms folded behind his head, a smirk on his face as he watched your face switch between confusion and mild annoyance as you tried to figure out if he was serious or not, the air around you heating up at the thought of having to bathe him. His smirk broadened just a bit.

“You’re fucking with me aren’t you?” you said, voice dry and expression just as unamused. Better than that pleadingly sorry look you had been consistently wearing the past week. It was refreshing to say the least. Just about anything would be more welcome than any more of your pity right now.

Axel chuckled, and Namine and Rose joined in with their own laughter.

“Yes. I am fucking with you. You’re too nice to me right now. Remember when I said we were even? I mean it. Stop acting like you killed me. Life’s too short to act like I’m already dead.”

You flinched.

“Poor choice of words,” he said, looking away.

“Yeah,” you sighed, then you absently repeated his words, “Life’s too short.”

Then he looked at you. You probably knew that life was too short all too well considering how close to death you’d been getting lately. He frowned. He didn’t like to think about any of it. Didn’t want to think he was going to lose you – that he could lose you. Especially not with all the things he wanted to try with you. He’d thought about it a lot while he lay in that bed waiting to get better.

Thought about life outside of this grand adventure he’d embarked on with you. What it would be like to just meet up casually to go do something fun with no need of training or missions. What it would be like to just hang out in town and meet up with friends to get ice cream or stare at the sunset. What it would be like to go on a date with you….

It’s true that at one point you’d said you didn’t want to be romantic with him. And you said you wouldn’t be opposed to hanging out. But he still wanted something like romance with you.

And life was too short.

“I know what you can do,” he said finally, sitting up and leaning forward a bit. You assessed him with suspicious eyes, and he just smiled at you.

“…What?” you asked slowly. You hoped whatever it was wouldn’t be too ridiculous. Hearing him say he wanted a foot rub made you want to slap him, and the bathing option made you want to combust on the spot.

“Go out with me,” he said simply. You froze in place. You stopped breathing. And functioning. And you were pretty sure your heart stopped somewhere in this mix as well.

Axel asked you out. Not like when he wanted to take you dancing or to the beach where it was relatively ambiguous whether or not he was into you and asking you out or not. True he’d admitted he was into you just a bit after that second maybe/maybe-not-date, but he hadn’t tried anything after. Though that was because you said you didn’t want to be romantic with him. Which was a damn dirty lie because none of your feelings disappeared because you suddenly decided to be responsible. And it didn’t even make you responsible because here you were staring at the object of your affections who was hurt because of your irresponsibility.

You were staring. Oh gosh. How long have you been staring? Well maybe if he didn’t take you by surprise like he just had and then have the nerve to stare at you with those gorgeous eyes of his so intently maybe you’d have answered already instead of staring like a dumbstruck idiot!

“I think you broke her,” Namine whispered to Axel who was staring and waiting for your response. But you’d been silently staring at him for a solid, uninterrupted 30 seconds without blinking.

Then it hit you. Axel asked you out. You could feel that stupid, goofy, giddy-ass smile spreading on your face already, and you slapped your hands over your mouth, looking away from him and definitely not at Namine and Rose. You could already feel their giddy gazes on you.

Oh fates be damned you were giggling behind your hand as you felt a rush of bubbles and butterflies flitter through your stomach in a happy flurry. Oh gosh the guy your crazy about just asked you out and all you can do is smile and giggle like a moron.

“I think she wants to say yes,” Rose said with amusement lacing her tone.

“Do you?” you could hear Axel’s voice asking now. It was a cocky tone. Though he legitimately thought you might say no after you didn’t answer for a few seconds. He was more relieved than anything at the moment.

You couldn’t stop your giggles, so you just nodded yes. Yes, you would absolutely love to go out with him. You would like that very much. Namine let out a little giddy squeak and clapped her hands. Rose nudged her and gestured to the door.

They were going to give you some privacy with your – giggle – boyfriend.

As soon as they were gone, you were unnecessarily aware of Axel’s presence. Like how much closer he’d gotten to you sitting right next to where you were standing.

What else could you do other than sit down next to your boyfriend? So you did, looking up at him with wide, somewhat unsure eyes. Axel seemed unsure too. He’d only moved closer because he wanted to be near you. His girlfriend.

He smiled brightly. You were his girlfriend. He blushed.

You smiled back, still unsure of what to do but pretty sure you were nailing this girlfriend thing right now because all you felt was giddy warmth spreading through your body, and it was amazing. You let out another giggle, and Axel’s blush deepened just a bit. You could feel the air around you grow warmer and you weren’t sure if it was because of you or him, but regardless, you were feeling the love right now.

“So…,” you began, hints of laughter still ringing in your voice like bells, “I’m your girlfriend.”

Axel put an arm around your shoulders, and you found yourself lightly leaning into him like you had done so many times before whenever he offered comfort. But now it was different. Now it was romantic. Your heart jumped, and Axel’s breath hitched.

“I felt that,” he chuckled, lightly placing a hand over his own heart. You laughed too.

“I forget about that sometimes. How close we are. Do you ever wonder when it was that we started this connection? When it was that we felt such a deep connection to each other that we were practically the same person?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, “Probably every time you ever gave me that look like you pitied me. I hated it so much because I didn’t deserve it. But I love it too. Because it had been so long since anyone had shown me anything resembling empathy.”

“Do you remember that time in the hotel when you brought me a pizza after I got hurt?”

“Yeah,” he said with a wince, “Really thought you mighta been gone after that hit.”

“Pfft. You can’t get rid of me that easy,” you said, mimicking his own words and causing him to laugh a bit, “But I remember we were talking about your friend. Roxas. And then you started crying.”

“And so did you.”

The two of you let the moment sit there. You couldn’t be 100% sure that that was really the moment when it started. The two of you could have just as easily started before then and simply shared your emotions then, but still….

“I love it though,” you admitted, “Sharing something like this with you. I really care about you, Axel. Like, a lot.”

Too soon to say love though.

“I know. You’re my girlfriend.”

You burst out laughing.

“Oh my gosh you are such an asshole!”

“No, I’m your boyfriend,” he said with a cocky smirk that made your heart race more than you wanted to admit, and you prayed desperately that he couldn’t feel that. You didn’t want him to know that his cockiness and that smirk of his kind of did it for you when it came to attractiveness.

It normally didn’t…. It’s just that Axel pulled it off really well.

“Regardless,” he continued, “I really care about you too.”

He pulled you a little closer, and you leaned against him a little more – content with this moment.

~

“How is he feeling?” Namine asked Rose. Her gaze was looking at Thorn who sat by himself in the corner of the room. He often kept to himself. ________ had said that he’d had an especially deep hatred for her, but for as long as he’d been there since he woke up from surgery, he’d been rather docile. Rather somber too.

“I don’t know,” Rose admitted sadly, “He won’t tell me what it is that’s bothering him. Perhaps it is because of the situation we’re in now. He’s only known how to hate everyone here, and now he owes them a life debt. Made worse when ________ vowed to protect the both of us.”

Namine nodded.

“You don’t suppose he’ll want to try to go back anyway do you?”

Rose shook her head.

“He’s not a fool. He knows as well as I do that we were dead to them all the second I accepted help from any of you.”

“How are you doing by the way?” Namine said, redirecting all of her attention back to Rose.

“Fine for the time being. You’ve all been so kind to me.”

“I just want to know that you’re adjusting all right. Have you thought about what you might want to do when Marluxia’s been taken care of and Xemnas is out of the picture?”

Rose thought for a moment. She’d had a life once, but it has been long since dead.

“I think I’ll travel. See what the world has left to offer me.”

Namine smiled. Rose shivered.

Notes:

It finally happened! You're dating! But no kiss yet. *shrug* But soon! Don't worry! Axel can't keep his hands off of you for that long!

Anyway I'm late I know. I'm sorry. But I'll be back on Tuesday as per usual!

Comments and kudos are always super appreciated! Thank you all for supporting all the way up to this point! You are all much loved and appreciated! I hope it finally happening was worth the extra day wait.

Chapter 48: The Birthday Party (Part 1)

Summary:

It's Party Time!

Notes:

Axel says why he feels the way he feels! Also cameos!

You were quite sure you were fine, but Namine insisted. You needed a break. You were going to run yourself ragged at the rate you were going. Heading out, helping the town, coming home, tending to Axel and Thorn, leaving again, helping the town, coming home, more tending to Axel and Thorn. You hardly took a moment to just enjoy yourself. Even with Axel and you now officially dating, his being confined to the house put a damper on your hopes for any attempts at romance outside of the occasional flirting, so even that wasn’t much of a relaxation. At least it wasn’t in Namine’s eyes.

That was why she had dragged you out of the house early that morning before you had a chance to run yourself ragged through town. The two of you had a light breakfast before combing the town for something to do, and after a good amount of time she was ready for some personal talking.

“So,” she said, already giddy with excitement, and you already knew where this talk was headed, “How are you and your boyfriend?”

You burst into a little fit of giggles. That’s all you’d been able to do whenever someone brought it up, a giant smile crossing your face that you always did your very best to hide. Axel had a big head over it, absolutely reveling in how flustered-ly bashful you got whenever anyone – especially the girls – brought up your newly acquired boyfriend.

“It’s fine,” you said, “I mean, it could be better. He still can’t walk for very long, so dates and nights out on the town aren’t really an option, but I’m happy!”

“So have you kissed yet?” she asked with a somewhat devious look about her and a rarely seen smirk on her otherwise innocent face.

Warmth. You felt so much warmth enveloping your body at the thought of Axel’s lips on yours – flashbacks to dancing in the theater where he almost kissed you.

You sighed somewhat sadly.

“No, not yet,” you said, calming all the warmth you felt in that moment, “I think he’s nervous.”

Namine giggled at the thought. Axel was almost always confident in what he did. Thinking of a nervous Axel was certainly something. Though you seemed to inspire new emotions in him. Love and affection in a romantic sense being among them.

“Axel? Nervous?”

“I know. As cocky as he usually is, it’s almost a weird thought. But it’s cute. Sometimes I catch him staring at me, and I’m pretty sure he wants to kiss me. And I wish he would. But then he blushes and looks away and chuckles a little to himself and tries to play it off.”

“So why don’t you just kiss him?”

You could feel that heat building up in you again.

“Honestly? I’m nervous too. I mean it’s not like I’ve never kissed anyone before, but with Axel it’s different. I used to be so flirty, but it’s like with him everything feels new, and I don’t want to mess anything up. I’ve got it bad.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” she said around a fit of giggles.

That was when you two passed a clothing shop, and Namine stopped, peering in through the window and looking at a dress that was on clearance – a deep red sundress.

“Are you thinking about getting it?” you asked as you came to stand next to her. She regarded the dress a little longer.

“Actually I think you should get it,” she said with a smile.

“Me?”

“Yeah! We should get it, and you could wear it out of the shop. Come on! When’s the last time you treated yourself to a nice new outfit?”

It was true you needed a few new outfits. You were running your others ragged with how much you were out training or taking care of citizens in town or fighting heartless and nobodies in general. You hadn’t gotten any new clothes since your stay on Animal Kingdom.

You didn’t have any time to answer though as Namine dragged you into the shop and pointed out the dress to the owner so she could retrieve it from the window.

Namine all but shoved you into the dressing room with the dress pressed tightly in your hands. You looked at the dress again. It was cute with little ribbons to tie it up around your neck.

You slipped it on, the flowy fabric falling a few inches above your knees, the neckline plunging just a bit more than you were used to, showing an amount of cleavage your mother would say toed the line of decent and trashy. But it hugged you quite nicely. You did a little twirl in the mirror, letting the fabric rise a bit and swish about you as it fell.

“Well how does it look?” You heard Namine call from outside the dressing room.

“It’s… really cute actually,” you said, noting that this dress which you weren’t too sure about before was steadily growing on you. You felt… sexy.

You stepped out of the dressing room and Namine gushed about how cute you looked and insisted you buy it. So of course you did, taking her advice and wearing it out of the store. You were glad to have worn shoes that went with it relatively well. But your hair ribbons didn’t quite match, so you took your braids and ribbons down, letting your hair fall around your shoulders and tying the ribbons in Namine’s hair instead.

The two of you continued walking and talking.

“I haven’t heard anything from my uncle yet. I’m kinda worried,” you confessed to Namine. She patted your shoulder in reassurance.

“They’ll be back soon enough. They just need to check in on the lab in Twilight Town, and Demyx went with them to make sure they’d be safe.”

“That’s why I’m worried,” you joked, and the two of you shared a laugh.

It was true your uncle and Dreamfinder had left to check on some of the data left in the lab beneath the Old Mansion. And they’d been gone without checking in on you. And ever since the kidnapping incident, you were worried about Marluxia getting his hands on them again. If he did, you wouldn’t just leave with them. You would slaughter him first then leave.

But Namine and everyone else continued to say that everything was fine, and Demyx would let any of you know if anything went wrong.

The two of you sat near the fountains talking for a moment and letting the time pass until her phone chimed. She glanced at it, eyes widening a bit.

“We’ve gotta go,” she said, standing up suddenly. You stood up too.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” you asked, a fresh wave of panic setting in a bit. She grabbed your hand and began a quickened pace back in the direction of Merlin’s house.

“It’s nothing bad, but Leon said he would explain everything when we got there,” she said, and your panic subsided just a bit as you fast walked back home.

As soon as you could see Merlin’s home, you began fast walking past Namine, or maybe she slowed down a bit. It didn’t matter. You needed to see what was so important.

You opened the door and were met with a chorus of, “Surprise!”

You blinked. Glancing around out all the smiling, expectant faces that were watching for your reaction. Then your eyes landed on the banner overhead that read, “Happy Birthday!” There was also a table lined with food, ice cream and chips and cupcakes adorned with little pink flowers.

It was your birthday? How had you forgotten your own birthday? You covered your mouth, blinking back a few tears. Your friends remembered your birthday and threw you a party. You began laughing and crying a little. And Demyx, Ludwig, and Dreamfinder had returned as well. Then there were also a few faces you’d yet to meet: another duck with glasses, wearing a top hat and spats and a blue suit, as well as three ducklings in red, blue, and green.

“Holy shit,” you said, wiping your face, “You guys. You didn’t have to – have to –”

“Aw don’t cry, babe,” Axel said, walking up and bringing you into a hug. You hugged back, mindful of his injury.

“We know things have been stressful for you,” Aerith said with a gentle smile, “We thought this would be a nice way for you to unwind.”

“You’re all so sweet,” you said, finally getting your tears under control, “I don’t even know how to thank you!”

“Crying already, doll? That’s not even the best part.”

Your eyes widened, and Setzer stepped into view.

“Setzer!” you cried, throwing your arms around him in a hug. You’d missed him during your time away, especially since he was your main source of comfort during those fleeting moments the two of you weren’t drunk together. He hugged back.

“Careful, doll. Don’t want to make your boyfriend jealous now do we? Congrats on the catch by the way.” He’d added that last part under his breath while casting a very appreciative glance in Axel’s direction. Your eyes widened a bit. Were you gonna have to fight him off your boyfriend?

You snorted and pushed him away. He chuckled at your reaction.

“You have as much shot at me as Merlin does,” you said with an eyeroll, “Nothing to be jealous of with you, Setz.” You looked around. Where was Merlin anyway? You wanted to say, “No offense,” but he was nowhere to be seen.

“And to think I flew all the way out here for your birthday, and this is the thanks I get?”

“I hugged you didn’t I? Don’t be greedy.”

Your friends laughed at the banter before Demyx hopped on a deejaying station – where did they get that – and began playing some music. He even had a little tip jar set up.

The mini crowd dispersed to start eating food and talking amongst themselves. That was when the duck and three ducklings as well as Uncle Ludwig approached you.

“________,” Pops began, “Allow me to introduce you to more of your extended family. This is Scrooge McDuck, adventurer, entrepreneur, the richest duck in the multiverse, and your uncle. He provided some of the food for this affair. And these three troublemakers are your cousins, Huey, Dewey, and Louie!”

Scrooge stepped towards you; his hand outstretched to shake your own.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you. Your Uncle von Drake here has sent us letters upon letters of your many deeds and accomplishments. You’ve certainly got the Von Drake-McDuck blood in you – an adventurer to the end, unafraid of any challenge.”

“Well I wouldn’t say ‘unafraid,’” you said with a nervous chuckle as you gently shook his hand. You’d been terrified of just about everything on your journey thus far.

“But you pressed on through it for the greater good regardless. You’re well on your way to learning to become an unstoppable force. And I look forward to hearing more of your feats as you go on.” You felt a little flutter of pride flit through your chest. They were all adventures you wouldn’t exactly be eager to repeat, but you could at least say you’d done them.

You next turned to the three triplets who patiently waited to meet you formally.

“Hi,” you greeted, and they huddled around you, staring up at you with wide eyes.

“Is it true you infiltrated someone’s unconscious mind and stole their secrets from within?!” Huey said, bursting with excitement. His brothers seemed just as eager, and they bombarded you with their own questions.

“And you defeated the evil Martian robot and liberated the planet?!” Dewey chimed in.

“And single-handedly fought a goddess of a whole planet and her heartless army horde?!” Louie finished off the round questions thrown at you. You blinked, shocked at the severe exaggeration.

“Now, now boys,” Ludwig chided, “We’re here to unwind and forget about all that stress we’ve been dealing with these last few months.”

“Yeah,” you agreed, “Plus I assure you that my adventures have been far less extravagant than you’re making them seem.” Though you had to wonder what Ludwig had been saying to all of them exactly.

The boys let out a sad chorus of, “awws,” while you turned to focus on something else – but not before promising to answer a few questions at a later date.

You walked over to Namine who was helping herself to some ice cream. You recognized some of it as sea salt ice cream like you’d seen back in Twilight Town.

“So you were just distracting me the whole time?” you said, and Namine gave you a smile and nod.

“Well yeah. Axel told me to make sure you were distracted enough that you forgot entirely that you were supposed to come home to check on him. So I said you needed a break, like an actual break. Which was true. You really did.”

“So it was Axel’s plan to make it a surprise party?”

“It was Axel’s idea to have the party to begin with. But it was luck that we came across that shop. It made for a nice distraction. And honestly I just thought you’d look nice in it,” she said before she leaned in close with a sly smile on her face, “I think Axel thinks so too.”

You cast a glance at Axel who reddened when you caught him staring before you and Namine let out little streams of giggles. Axel then chuckled to himself before walking over.

“Axel,” Namine said, feigning surprise, “We were just talking about you.”

“Yeah, I gathered,” he said, rubbing the back of his head.

“Namine was just saying you can’t keep your eyes off of me,” you said batting your lashes at him and watching him change a mildly deeper shade of red. You had to admit it was nice having the upper hand when it came to flustering your significant other.

“Well, yeah,” he admitted, “You look nice.”

Then he leaned in really close, so his lips were almost pressed against your ear and his breath was tickling your skin, and in a slightly deeper and huskier voice he added, “Really nice.”

You couldn’t help it. A very noticeable shudder ran up your spine when he did that. Namine giggled at your reaction before giving the two of you a bit of privacy, tossing you a wink as she walked away to speak with Demyx.

“So this party was your idea?” you said, taking a small step back from Axel to get all of your hormones in check, but your voice was a nervous, high pitch. So Axel knew you were still very much affected. And it showed on that smirk on his face that was doing nothing to help your hormones, but you’d be damned before you let on about it.

“Well sorta,” he said. Then he blushed. “I was asking Demyx how you were doing when you were out doing your thing with Marluxia’s nobodies, but one day I didn’t get a chance to ask him. So I may have called your mom to ask.” He mumbled the last part, but you heard it and promptly started giggling. It was sweet that he wanted to make sure you were safe. “Don’t laugh! I just wanted to know you were okay.”

“It’s fine, Axel,” you said, grabbing his hand and letting your fingers lace together. You stepped closer to him once more, “I think it’s sweet.”

“Yeah, well she said your birthday was coming up and that usually you’re super excited for it, but you hadn’t mentioned it at all. So we figured you were really stressed to have not thought about it at all. And I thought a party might be the best thing to get your mind off of things for a while.”

He was looking everywhere but at you as he said this, and when he was finished, you grabbed the chain on his coat and pulled him down. You weren’t bold enough to just kiss him on the lips. No, you were still too nervous for that. But that didn’t stop you from planting one on his cheek and feeling the air grow significantly hotter around you. Not enough to ignite, but pretty damn close.

Axel chuckled, looking away happy but embarrassed. Especially when he could hear Demyx and Cid whooping from somewhere else in the room. You just smiled, happy to take Axel off his cocky pedestal. You squeezed his hand and led him to another part of the party so you could talk with your other friends.

That was when someone knocked on the door, and Ludwig and Dreamfinder answered it, having been talking nearby anyway.

“Delivery,” the boy said. He stood there, tall and slender with dark black hair and bright blue eyes, a bright smile spread on his face.

“Zack?” Leon asked, bewildered as to why he was delivering pizzas.

“Oh hey, Leon! Are you guys having a party?” he asked as he handed the pizzas off to Leon and barged his way into the house. Leon just rolled his eyes and set them down while Zack ran off to mingle.

Ludwig and Dreamfinder peered outside the door after Zack had been let in. And there stood Merlin arguing with Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

“What do you mean not on the list?!” he yelled turning red in the face and stomping his foot on the ground, “It’s my house!”

“Sorry, mister,” Huey said, looking down at a blank piece of paper with absolutely not a damn thing on it, “Your name’s not anywhere on here.”

Merlin glanced up and noticed Ludwig and Dreamfinder looking at the spectacle. Merlin’s face lit up when he saw Dreamfinder.

“Blarion!” he said, using Dreamfinder’s given name, “You’ll help me in won’t you? For, uh, old time’s sake?” he asked raising his eyebrows as Dreamfinder blushed a deep shade of red.

“What’s with you?” Ludwig asked, eyeing Dreamfinder and casting the occasional glance at Merlin, “What’s old time’s sake?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Dreamfinder said with a wave of his hand, trying to quell his blush, “Merlin’s just an old flame of mine from way back when. But it was ages ago back in college.”

Ludwig narrowed his eyes at Merlin.

“If he’s not on the list, keep him out,” Ludwig said to the boys. They gave him a salute.

“Aye, aye Uncle von Drake,” Louie said before turning back Merlin.

“You heard him, bub. Keep it movin’,” Dewey said, waving Merlin off as Ludwig ushered Dreamfinder back into the house and Merlin began shouting curses that Huey, Dewey, and Louie were certain that they were too young to hear.

That was when a young woman in black with long, dark brown hair and rusty, brown eyes walked up to them, offering a polite, “Excuse me,” before entering the home.

Merlin gaped.

“Was she on the list?” he snapped at the ducklings. They shrugged before reminding Merlin that it was he who was definitely not on the list.

Tifa walked into the room and looked around, seeing quite a few unfamiliar faces and reading the banner overhead.

“What goes on here?” she asked, walking up to Leon who was helping himself to some pizza.

“Birthday party,” he said around a full mouth, “For the new keyblade wielder.”

“You’re in the party business now? And where are they? I want to meet them. I’ve heard a little about them, but this would be my first meeting.”

“She’s over there talking to her friends,” Leon said, gesturing to where you stood near the deejay station with Demyx, Namine, and Axel, “She’s the one holding onto the redhead’s hand.”

Tifa nodded before striding over there and tapping you on the shoulder. You turned to her and she gave you a large smile. Then she looked you up and down before offering you her hand.

You gingerly took it, and she gave you a firm handshake.

“Tifa,” she introduced simply, and you offered your own name in reply, “I’ve heard quite a bit about you, keyblade wielder. All your little adventures and such. Is it true you managed to steal away with people in the group you’re working against?”

You giggled.

“You could say that,” you laughed. Axel chuckled as well. Though you both knew that Demyx and Axel had left of their own volition. Tifa looked at Axel and you. Then her smile turned a little mischievous.

“All that world saving, and you still managed to snag yourself a boyfriend,” she teased, and you hid a large smile behind your hand.

“Well he’s from the Organization I’m working against.”

“Well multi-tasking is an important skill to have,” she joked, and you couldn’t help but giggle. Her attention turned fully to Axel in that moment. “So you used to be a bad guy, huh?”

Axel nodded a little sheepishly.

“I wouldn’t call myself the baddest guy,” he said as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“Hm. Well she must be quite something to make you switch sides. How’d you two lovebirds meet? And do tell what made you stick around? What do you absolutely love about each other? I love a good love story!” At this point even Namine and Demyx were listening in.

“Well he was supposed to kill me,” you said dryly but smirking regardless, “But it’s just not in him. He’s just a big, sweet teddy bear who couldn’t bring himself to do me in.”

“But how could I ever bring myself to do it?” Axel said with a roll of his eyes, “She was just so sad. So pathetic. So pitiable it was breaking my heart.”

You shoved Axel while he and the others laughed.

“Oh please. I turned on the charm, and he was putty in my hands afterwards,” you joked with a light flip of your hair and batting of your eyelashes.

“Yeah, right. Like you weren’t falling all over me in training and when we were hanging out. What did you say in Disney Town? That you’d do anything for an A?”

“Don’t get cocky! Demyx told me you almost set everyone on fire after I said that!”

“He did what?!”

“I get it!” Tifa interrupted, “You’re both crazy about each other, but tell me what you love most!”

You sobered up for a minute and took a second to think about it. Why did you love Axel? Well it wasn’t exactly a hard question to answer. You opened your mouth to respond, but, surprisingly, Axel beat you to it.

“She’s like a light in a dark place. She shines brightly, and all you can do is move towards it – like a sexy bug zapper.” You snorted as he continued, “She’s kind, and never hesitates to help others. She sees the best in most everyone she meets. Even when she shouldn’t. And that’s how we met. When she should have been telling me to take a hike, she was making polite conversation. Even when I followed her to a completely different world, she had lunch with me. And the first thing she did when she saw me on another world was ask if I wanted to hang out. She’s kind of an idiot,” he laughed.

“And not even two hours later, you were following me headfirst into danger,” you reminded him. He didn’t have to go with you into the mind, but he did.

“Like I said,” he continued, “All you can do is move towards her light. And she’s the best damn bug zapper I’ve ever dated.”

Tifa swooned a little bit. Then she looked at you expectantly. You smiled, giving Axel’s hand a little squeeze. He waited expectantly. He didn’t know what you were going to say. He was kind of… nervous. How did you feel about him really?

“At first I wasn’t sure why I wasn’t chasing him away,” you began, “I had a million and one alarms ringing in my head telling me to run in the other direction. But there was something about him that felt alright? I can’t quite explain it, but nothing about him ever made me think I was ever in any real danger with him. Then he started protecting me, and he went with me into danger, not knowing what we were going to find. And when I needed him, he was always there. And when I didn’t need him, he was still there. And then there was his light. I saw it. And it was beautiful. I fell for him because of that beautiful light he has inside him, a beacon in a dark place. And every time I’m with him, he shows me a little bit of that light through his actions – whether it’s protecting me or our friends and family or just being a good person.”

Tifa was quiet, smiling silently. You felt too bashful to look at Axel who was looking at you like he absolutely adored you. And he did.

You looked up at him from beneath your lashes, the same look of adoration on your own face. Axel wasn’t sure what he ought to say next. But he knew he wanted to be close to you.

“Do you want to dance?” he finally said. And you blinked up at him in surprise.

“Are you sure you’re good for it?”

He’d been on his feet for a while now, and you didn’t want him to strain himself. But he just scoffed and waved it off before taking your hand and leading you to an empty part of the room. Demyx put on a slow song for the two of you, and Axel led you through a dance.

And, you knew it was cliché, but it felt like everyone in the room melted away. And it was just you and Axel, and you hoped it would always be like this when you and Axel danced.

You leaned into him and he pulled you closer… And it felt like you were heating up, that familiar feeling of warmth escalating into a beautiful crescendo that made you feel like you were alive. Little flickers of red and blue began to dance over your forms until they met in the middle, and brilliant purple began to fan out from where you touched. And it felt like you were floating, and all you could do was gaze into those beautiful green eyes of his while you danced… on… air?

Oh shit. You really were dancing on air. You could feel the heat of your magic press beneath your feet until the two of you had created a heat dense enough to stand on, and you were literally floating and dancing on air.

You let out a little breathless giggle, and Axel laughed too, just as amazed as you were. Your friends just watched, thankful that the two of you weren’t setting the house on fire with your dancing but also a little mesmerized at the display as your flames flickered and cast and amethyst hue in the room.

“Is that a fire in my house?!” Merlin screeched.

“Well I don’t know, mister, but you’re not gonna find out unless you’re on the list.”

Notes:

I'll see you all this Thursday for the second half of the birthday party! Have a great night!

Chapter 49: The Birthday Party (Part 2)

Summary:

The rest of the party. It was originally supposed to end on a sad note, but I'll save that for later.

Notes:

I would have posted sooner, but my hubby (basically my editor) insisted I go over it with him first. So for once it is not my fault that I'm late. Not that I'm blaming him. I'm just upset we're not on schedule. I'm really sorry guys.

Riku wasn’t sure what he was doing there. He had never been one for parties, but with all the effort your uncle had put into tracking him down just to get an invite to him, he figured he should at least make an appearance. If for nothing else then to check up on you and make sure you were doing alright as a keyblade wielder. He did, as your teacher, have a responsibility after all.

He declined taking a ride with your uncle though. He didn’t really want to be stuck on a ship with toons for a few days. They often got grating with all the jokes after a while. Plus he wasn’t sure he was up to dealing with the silver-haired human they’d had with him – not with all the flirtatious looks he was getting.

He guessed he was going to ignore that whole order thing again since they’d gotten someone from another world, but he could guess that he was used to it considering he didn’t seem all too bothered by seeing a cartoon duck fly a ship. Another Organization member was with them too.

But at least he was on their side.

Still. It made him feel just the slightest bit agitated when he walked into Merlin’s home, thoroughly ignoring whatever he and the little ducks outside were arguing about, and seeing you dancing quite literally on air with Axel and burning a brilliant fiery, purple with him. On any other day he might actually find the little display to be something kind of pretty, but he still had a grudge against Axel – good guy now or not.

But then Axel stumbled, holding his side and hissing with pain. The two of you snapped out of whatever lovesick gaze you’d had and immediately landed on the floor, your flames dissipating in a flash of light and cinders. Thankfully, the two of you weren’t so high up so as to cause an injury – only about three feet or so – and were able to land on your feet, with you supporting Axel’s taller frame.

You held Axel up before pressing some healing magic into his side, and his face eased a bit out of his painful expression to one of relief. Then you walked him over to a chair to let him sit.

Riku felt awkward and didn’t know what to do next but inquiring about that as if he cared would probably be a good start. It wouldn’t be so awkward if he knew more people at the party, but he’d been pretty absent from Sora’s and your adventures lately – though he knew both of you had been here quite frequently enough.

He approached the two of you as Axel reassured you that he was fine and felt immensely better. Axel’s eyes darted to him, and Riku felt mildly happy that he at least had the nerve to look guilty. You turned to see what had changed his mood. Riku expected a scowl from you since he had effectively soured Axel’s mood, and he knew how close the two of you were, but instead you greeted him with a smile. And somehow you made Riku feel like an ass for being happy to have ruined Axel’s mood.

“Riku!” you said, actually sounding happy to see him and not forced at all. Which meant you legitimately didn’t bear him any ill will for despising Axel for his misdeeds.

Or he could assume you weren’t stupid and knew Axel deserved that level of guilt. You had been quite cross with him once as well from what he’d learned since your time together at Chikapin Hill as he’d been keeping a few tabs on you.

“I’m glad you could make it!” you said cheerily, still inadvertently needling him about his own animosity towards Axel with your unwavering good will. Though you seemed to be in good spirits in general.

“Yeah,” he said awkwardly, “Uh, what happened to him?”

He gestured towards Axel who was still not looking at him and looking increasingly uncomfortable with each passing second and like being on the surface of the sun was a better alternative to having to act like he wanted to make conversation with someone who wanted to kill him roughly three weeks ago. Again for good reason.

“Oh,” you said, and Riku watched your mood plummet like a stone, “He got hurt when we were fighting some of Marluxia’s nobodies.”

“But it’s not important,” Axel interjected, finally looking at Riku, “We’re here to forget about all that.” He wasn’t putting any emphasis in any of his words, but Riku could pick it up from the look he was getting – a mix of pleading and urging.

“Right,” he spoke slowly, “I mostly just came to check up on you, but the party seemed as good an excuse as any to drop in. Also Yen Sid wants to know how that heart research is coming. I told him about it. But I guess it can wait until the party’s over. I don’t want to put a damper on things with business.”

You nodded, offering a somewhat weak and awkward smile. You’d been grateful to Axel for steering the conversation elsewhere, but you couldn’t ignore the nagging guilt that constantly rolled around in your stomach. But thankfully there was distraction to be had.

That one guy who brought the pizzas and just kind of made himself at home walked up to the three of you rather eagerly, though his eyes were firmly locked on Axel.

“Heya,” he said brightly, and though it was a really weak distraction, Riku used it to wriggle his way away from the conversation that had been taking a turn for the awkward before Zack showed up.

“Uh hi,” you said, still feeling awkward but now because another stranger had invited themselves to your party. Though if he were anything like Tifa, he’d be alright.

“The name’s Zack, and I have been dying to meet you,” he said, jutting his hand out for Axel to shake. Axel took it with mild surprise. “Tifa told me everything! Well not everything. But she told me you used to be one of the bad guys and now you’re traveling world to world with a keyblade wielder being a hero! And I have to say that that is one of the coolest things ever!”

You and Axel both blinked, Axel blushing a bit. He’d never gotten praise like that from anyone. At least not about being a hero. It was odd but not unwelcome.

“Uh, thanks,” he said. You smiled. It was cute. And Zack was practically a puppy dog! He had to be around your age if not a little older, “But, uh, she does most of the work. I’m just the bodyguard.”

Oh no. He wasn’t getting out of hero worship that easy.

“Oh please,” you said, waving off Axel’s comment, “You went to the Organization knowing that they wanted you dead or worse to make sure that people who lost their hearts wouldn’t have to go without them forever. And that worlds wouldn’t fall so quickly to darkness or that it might be stopped altogether. And you’ve been protecting me since the beginning and training me!”

“He trained you too?!” Zack asked, still on the train to “All Hail Axel” town, and you were fully on board to let Axel get all the praise he deserved.

“Yeah, he taught me fire magic!”

“Is that how you two were able to do that purple fire dancing thing?!”

“Oh, uh, no,” you stuttered out, “That’s something we recently learned to do together.”

“Oh,” he said, face getting mischievous, “I see what you did there, you sly dog. So how’d you manage to snag her?”

“She just couldn’t resist me,” Axel said with a smirk, letting an arm drift around your waist and pulling you closer, letting his face rest on your stomach from your awkward heights as you stood next to where he sat.

“Yeah, he calls me his sexy bug zapper,” you said dryly, already done with Axel’s cockiness.

“You love it,” he quipped back.

Namine watched you, Axel, and Zack – but mostly you and Axel – from where she stood. She was happy for you. She really was. But she was also a tad jealous. Love seemed to have come to you so easily despite more recent setbacks to your and Axel’s relationship. Though you made it work anyway.

She and Demyx had been getting along well enough, but she doubted he’d ever see her as more than a friend. A few days ago she had seen a possibility. And when he said she was like a light, she’d been on Cloud 9 for the longest time. And it was so much like what you and Axel had said about each other of how you see each other as lights in the other’s life, and she and even more hope. And they’d been bonding over music and comics for a while now and getting closer. And it’s not like she just expected romance to fall right out of the sky, but….

Namine looked over at Demyx who was currently being charmed by a trio of the newest party crashers – these ones tiny enough to fly through the window. They’d been flirting with him and making her uncomfortable for a while now. And while she was certain they were only interested in Demyx’s tip jar – one of them was always eyeing it while the other two flirted – and she had told him so, he was still content to flirt back. And this forced her to accept that maybe Demyx just wouldn’t ever really like her that way. Enough to flirt with her. Or think that she was pretty enough to be flirted with.

Finally tired of sitting in quiet jealousy, she left to go to the kitchen. Aerith was in there putting the finishing touches on the cake, spelling out your name in pink frosting and adding little peony flowers to the corners of the cake.

“Something on your mind?” she asked as Namine wandered over and absentmindedly started munching on a bowl of pretzels that had yet to be put out.

“Boys,” she said somberly.

“Demyx?” she asked, not looking up from what she was doing.

“Yes,” Namine said, sounding like a kicked puppy. Aerith put her piping bag down and looked up at Namine with sad, sympathetic eyes. “He’s out there flirting right now.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” Aerith said, coming over to stand by Namine and laying a gentle hand on her shoulder, “I’ve watched the two of you now. You’re close. You can talk to him about his interests in a way I’m not sure any of us can. And he cares for you. If it’s meant to be, then it’s meant to be. All you can do until the day you know that is be a good friend to him like you always have. And besides, the best romances bloom from friendships.”

“Are you in love with someone Aerith?” she asked, looking at her with wide eyes. How else could Aerith know so much about love?

“I am,” she confirmed, “I love him so deeply.”

It was then that Figment flew into the room with a bouquet of flowers ready to profess his love to Aerith before he heard the end of their conversation and promptly flew out to meet Dreamfinder and Ludwig.

“So what’d she say?” Dreamfinder asked.

“Did you ask her out?” Ludwig demanded.

Figment just slammed the flowers on the floor and flew away crying with Dreamfinder chasing after him in hopes of consoling him.

“I think he’ll realize in time what an amazing young woman you are,” Aerith concluded. They were nice words, but they didn’t make Namine all too hopeful. So rather than go back out to the party and mingle some more, she grabbed two cupcakes and headed up stairs. There in her room sat Rose and Thorn on her bed, talking quietly to themselves and holding hands.

She smile at them. Rose seemed happy to see her, but Thorn was still cautious with the emotion he shared around them – not that anyone would really blame him.

“Don’t the two of you want to join everyone downstairs?” she asked quietly, “There’s always room for two more.”

“I think we’re fine up here,” Rose said then with a giggle added, “I think big crowds scare him.”

Thorn looked moderately indignant towards the comment but made no move to protest.

“Well you’re always welcome to join us,” she said, handing them the cupcakes and turning to leave.

Meanwhile downstairs Setzer practically knocked you over with how quickly he approached you. You had been getting some ice cream for Axel when he nearly bowled you over. His eyes were sparkling with excitement and he held you half an arm’s length away from you, some of his silver hair falling into his vivid purple eyes.

“________,” he said pulling you just a bit closer, “Please tell me. Is Cid single?”

You blinked at him. Then again. Uh… what?

“Uh…what?” you asked. He rolled his eyes, slinging his arm over your shoulders and pointing to Cid who was having a casual conversation with Leon.

“Is that gorgeously rugged man single?”

“Why? Did he show some interest or something? Ya’ll gonna get a hotel room?”

“Maybe if I’m lucky!” he said, his eyes glittering excitedly, “He said he has an airship, and we got to talking, and I don’t know. I’m a little excited. But I want to know if I have a shot before I embarrass myself.”

“Well you could start with some flirting to make sure he actually swings that way. I’ve never actually seen him be romantic with a man or a woman or person in general so….”

Setzer pouted.

“Fine. I guess I’ll just have to use all my charm and see where things go. Wish me luck.”

“Uh… luck? But don’t do that thing where you love him and leave him!”

Setzer waved you off, and you weren’t sure if that meant he was going to do as you said or not, but it was obviously too late to tell him to pursue other interests. His mind was made up.

You turned towards Axel to give him his ice cream when you flinched away from a white fuzzball in your face. Oh there was more to it than that. It was a white fuzzball with two tiny arms and legs and a head with a big pink nose on it. On top of its little head was a little doodle bopper with a big red ball on the end.

You then noticed that were quite a few of them floating around. Little floating party crashers. Well they were adorable whatever they were.

You set Axel’s ice cream down, staring at the little fuzzy who stared back. Then you reached your finger up and booped it on the nose. It wiggled its nose before booping you back. Then you rubbed its little head and it rubbed yours back. Others floated over and also proceeded to rub you. On your arms and back and tummy. Then they just hugged you all over. There was even one on your head. And you weren’t sure what was going on, but it was warm, fuzzy, and adorable in your book, and you were hugging back.

“Uh.”

You turned your head to see Axel. He was probably waiting on his ice cream, but then noticed you were a little preoccupied. You just gave him a smile.

“Should I feel threatened?” he asked with a light smile on his face. You giggled then moved to hug him. The little floaty, fluffy babies let go as you did. You pressed yourself to him.

“Of course not,” you said with an easy smile, “You know I only got the hots for you, hot stuff.”

“Corny!” Setzer said as he passed by arm in arm with Cid and heading who knows where.

“Fuck you!” you called after him.

“Language!” Dreamfinder reprimanded.

“Presents!” Ludwig announced. Now that had your attention. Even Setzer stopped leading Cid away to gather around with your friends to see what it was you had gotten.

Namine and Demyx had chipped in together to get you a present, a pretty silver bracelet with a charm for each person you were closest too. There was a little dragon for Figment, a water droplet for Demyx, a snowflake for Namine, a duck for Ludwig, a top hat for Dreamfinder, and two little blue and red fire charms right next to each other. You had to hide a pretty big smile at that one.

Leon, Yuffie, and Aerith had gotten you some new dresses to replace the ones getting ripped up and worn down – Aerith had to help Leon pick his out. Cid and Merlin got you shoes – also helped by Aerith. Setzer got you a plushie of Mickey Mouse because you had apparently “met the supposedly fictional Mickey Mouse in person,” despite your insistence that you really had.

Riku said his present wasn’t grilling you about having a birthday party instead of training with your lightning magic like you were supposed to.

And Axel apologized.

“It’s not ready yet. I was growing you something, but it hasn’t quite bloomed yet. Just give it a few days. I promise it’ll be worth it. It’s 100% unique. Just like you.”

“Corny!” called Setzer.

Cue giant eyeroll from you and Axel.

Finally your uncles and cousins came forward with a book. A large powder blue book with gold embroidery across its velvety cover with a square of laminated pink in the middle with your last name written on it.

Everyone crowded around as the book was placed in your lap and you opened it up to the first page. It was three small pictures of your mother in the hospital holding a crying baby you in her arms. Below those pictures was a larger picture with a little play button on it. And that’s when you realized that this picture was a video fitted to the page like any of the other pictures.

Ludwig went on a bit about the technology he and Fenton developed to make such a feat possible and how it was truly another one of his greatest works of genius before you pressed the little play button.

You could hear the sound of a voice behind the camera. It was feminine, and you recognized it as one of your other relatives. She sounded like your aunt, and she was welcoming you into the world while your mom smiled tiredly at the camera. The video was short, closing with a close up on you as your mother moved your hand like you were waving to the camera.

There were a few more pages of pictures of you as a baby then as a toddler running around the house with boundless energy and a picture of your mom celebrating finally putting you down for a nap. There were pictures of you in Ludwig’s lab, meeting you for the first time and a short clip of you pulling his beak off and hitting him with it any time he tried to take it back. There were also a few times where you hit Figment.

There was a video of you talking to Figment and asking to change into all the different kinds of animals that were on your world and Figment complying. You hugged him especially close when he was a chimera. You loved that one.

There were endless clips of you, Figment, your mother, and Ludwig, but as you continued to flip through your old memories, your friends cooing at you and making jokes, Ludwig became a less prominent figure. He’d been your babysitter for most all of your childhood, but then you grew up.

And when you were finally old enough to stay at home without a babysitter, he all but vanished from the album.

There were pictures of you joining a dance team and ballet studio when you were in middle school. There were videos of your recitals, starting as part of the background and eventually working your way up to the star of the recital to getting your own solos and solo recitals.

There were pictures of you in high school when you and Genki were friends, and that brought a few tears to your eyes, and Axel grudgingly admitted that he was as pretty as you’d led him to believe and that he shouldn’t have doubted you. You almost thought you heard some jealousy in that confession, but Axel already knew the main reason that you and Genki had never dated, and was keen to remind you on what he’d said when the two of you first discussed it – and you, in a very worked up and mildly embarrassed state, forbade him from talking to you ever again.

There were videos of you and Genki fencing and you practicing on your own. Videos of you on your high school dance team. Pictures of you in homecoming and prom gowns. Pictures and videos of you graduating high school and even some for the first day of college and walking around the campus.

Ludwig loved all of it. And simultaneously felt left out of it. He’d watched you grow up for a good portion of your life without him. And despite the fact that he’d wanted to go home and experience his own life as well, he, as your uncle, couldn’t help but feel like he’d missed out on some of the best moments with you he could have had.

He was saddened. But at least he had now, watching you do the supposed impossible and being just as proud as he would have been in any moment you’d had in your life lining that scrapbook.

After a few more minutes of flipping through to the end of the scrapbook, Aerith left and came back with your cake.

It looked amazing with the little frosting flowers adorning it.

“It’s your mother’s recipe,” she said, handing you a corner piece per your request, “I hope I made it just like she does.”

She did, and you felt yourself tearing up again. It was nice being surrounded by your friends like this with something that tasted just like home before it had been destroyed.

You felt like you were home.

~

The party wound down some few hours later, and that’s when Riku decided to follow up on learning about the information Ludwig and Dreamfinder had accumulated – including the parts about Axel’s infection and Rose’s condition. So they left the room to discuss it more privately.

Meanwhile the rest of you were on clean up duty. The party hadn’t gotten too crazy or anything, but everyone had left around their fair share of trash.

So you all made light conversation while this went on – Axel contributing when he could in his condition. Everything felt like bliss, and you were so happy.

You told Huey, Dewey, and Louie of one of the stories they’d asked about, and while not as extravagant as they’d imagined, they still proclaimed you on of the cooler cousins they had.

That was when you noticed something. You hadn’t really seen it before amongst all the guests, hubbub, and decorations, but there it stood, bulbous and brightly colored.

“What’s that? When’d you get it?” you asked, kind of excited to see the arcade game in the corner. Axel’s eyes lit up at your acknowledgement of it. He too had forgotten he’d even had it and that Namine and Demyx had gotten it for him.

“Oh that’s an old game I used to play at an arcade. It’s closed down now, so it won’t be missed,” he said, hoping you’d ask to play. Of course you did.

“Can I play?” you asked, looking at him with bright eyes.

“Yeah, I’ll show you how it works,” he said, his eyes lighting up like a kid who just got the best present ever. It was adorable.

So Axel showed you how it worked, and he was pretty damn proud of his prowess at it, bragging that when he was a kid he was really good at the game, and even now after all these years he was still pretty good at it.

You gave it a few tries, the others crowding around to see your progress, and you fumbled a few times, asking Axel how things went again and if he wouldn’t mind taking your hands and showing you – pretty much hamming up the “I’m just not as good as you” angle despite the rather simple mechanics of the game.

Axel gave you some warm encouragement. The same could not be said for your so-called friends.

“Wow,” Demyx said with a light laugh, “You’re really bad at this. Like I thought I was bad, but you make me look like a pro.”

“Oh fuck off, Demyx,” you said with an eyeroll.

“I mean he’s got a point,” Leon said with a chuckle, “You’re pretty bad at it.”

You huffed.

“Don’t let it get to you, babe,” Axel said, and you felt calmer, “You’re still learning, and maybe one day you’ll be passable.”

Et tu, Axel?

You were about to give up on this entirely. No amount of Axel ego stroking was worth the amount of ridicule you were starting to accumulate. You even heard Aerith laughing somewhere off to the side. Then you had an idea. You had a deliciously, awful, wonderful idea.

You played up your annoyance before saying something seemingly impulsive.

“How much you wanna bet, I can get the new high score on my next turn,” you said with as much venom as you could in your voice, crossing your arms and stamping your foot for good measure.

Axel blinked at you and was obviously holding in a laugh. The others were less subtle and started laughing anyway.

“I’ll take that action,” Demyx volunteered before reaching into his pocket and pulling out some munny, “Twenty dollars.”

At a glance you watched Setzer’s eyes light up. He caught your gaze. You looked as mischievous as all the times the two of you had fun together in Twilight Town. He watched as each and everyone of your friends bet against you and contributed a twenty of their own. Even Axel. You were a bit put off by that one, but you supposed you only had yourself to blame for that one with how badly you had been playing.

“I’m for you, doll. You’ve got this,” Setzer said with a wink, placing his own twenty in the pot. You almost smirked but knew better.

In the end only Setzer, Dreamfinder, and Figment hadn’t bet against you. And Dreamfinder and Figment didn’t even bet. Figment had apparently talked him out of it. And you alone knew why.

Oh this was gonna be fun. And it was a bigger haul than what you and Setzer managed to pull in one bar on the nights the two of you hung out.

You cracked your knuckles, facing the game again, finally letting that smirk grace your features as you played as expertly as Axel when he was a kid. And he was shocked. Oh the betrayal! And everyone in the room, save for you and Setzer, shifted uncomfortably as the watched your score climb higher and higher.

Axel was crossed between impressed and annoyed. You knew how to play. But you’d been playing so badly before. What was the endgame? Had you been hustling them all the entire time?

You ended your round with the top score as you said you would. And that was when Ludwig and Riku reentered the room. It was as you were putting your initials in above the other top scorers – one of which read AXE – that Ludwig noticed exactly what it was that you were doing.

“Oh Fix It Felix!” he exclaimed, waddling over to you.

“You know this game?” Axel asked. He wanted answers.

“Oh sure! I had a game like this back in Disney Town. And I had another one placed on Spaceship Earth. ________ and me used to play this game for hours on end! It was one of our favorite bonding experiences! Figment was always upset she was always beating his high scores.”

Everyone turned to you as you were counting the money and splitting it with Setzer. You could feel all of their annoyed gazes eyeing you and their money. And you just smirked.

“Why did you act like you were so bad at it then?” Axel asked, more confused than upset.

“You were so excited to show me how to play, I wanted you to keep being that happy. I like that you were sharing something that meant so much to you with me. It felt like I was getting to know you a bit more. And I want to know more about you and what your life was like.”

Dammit. Axel couldn’t be mad at an answer like that. Especially when you were making an endeavor to get to know him in the same way he said he’d learn about you. The others felt their anger ebb away just slightly, but they were still quite annoyed. Leon muttered something about never betting with you again, and you just shrugged. Demyx muttered something about you being a dirty cheat.

“Don’t hate the player. Hate the game,” you said, repeating Setzer’s words and earning a chuckle from him, “Plus it serves you all right for making fun of me.”

“We were just joking!” Demyx defended, more upset than most everyone else in the room.

“You were assholes!”

“Language!”

Notes:

Drama next chapter! See you on Tuesday!

Chapter 50: Keyblade of Heart

Summary:

Riku slaps you. That's not the main point of this chapter. It's just a thing that happens.

ALSO IT'S A DOUBLE UPLOAD! You know because I was bad and didn't upload like I was supposed to last week....

Notes:

I'm sorry I disappeared on ya'll.

Ludwig and Dreamfinder made a frightening discovery. Rose’s heart was whole, and it was not hers. And bodies that were introduced to foreign things tended to reject them. But Rose was a nobody. She was someone without a signature in her body that inherently made her herself outside of a sense of wanting self. Her heart was someone. Someone with their own signature. It would make sense that Rose would not be able to adapt to this new heart. However, in the case of the heart, it was Rose who was the foreign object.

~

You were causally speaking with Axel after having safely stashed away your money. You just sat in the room on his bed, talking with Demyx and him about how you’d won your money fair and square despite Demyx’s protests. And it was as Demyx was giving up on his argument and you and Axel were settling into some light cuddles and snuggling that the screaming started.

It jolted everyone in the house into a panicked frenzy with how shrill and alarming it was. It ripped through the air in a pained shriek that seemed to have no end and had everyone running to your room where Rose writhed on the floor screaming, her skin moving and shivering more violently now than it ever had, some of the little bubble-like pustules she developed every time she shivered did not disappear beneath her skin this time as they often did, leaving you to wonder if they were ever there at all. They burst on her skin in little explosions of bloody pulp that left her oozing little streams of viscous, lumpy, dark red.

Thorn held her close, and Namine, who’d been in the room with them when Rose collapsed, seemed afraid to approach. She stood nearby, trembling and shaking as she watched the spectacle with wide eyes.

You, Axel, and Demyx reached the room first, bursting through the door to see what was wrong, weapons at the ready in case anyone was in danger, but your weapons disappeared the moment you saw that it was Rose in distress.

“What’s wrong? What happened to her?” you asked in a frenzy as you watched Thorn cradle her screaming form, rocking her back and forth.

“I – I – I don’t know!” Namine yelled back.

But then Rose let out an even more deafening, ear-piercing shriek that seemed to reverberate through your whole being. And all you could was helplessly watch as the heart burst from Rose’s chest and floated up to wherever hearts went, spraying the room, Thorn, you, and Namine with blood.

You wanted to vomit. Not from the blood. But because you were terrified. You had just lost a friend. Quite possibly forever. And there was a very real possibility that could happen to Axel. You felt your knees give out from underneath you and you slumped to the floor, falling forward on your hands and knees and watching the floor blur beneath you as tears filled your eyes.

Axel remained stunned at the door. He was faced with the very real possibility that he was going to die a lot sooner than planned. And he didn’t know how long he had. A few more weeks maybe. That was how long Rose had lasted. Though your healing magic had been keeping a lot of his “infection” at bay. It hadn’t gotten very far. Though it now covered a decent chunk of his side and hurt like a bitch every time his skin would shift and bubble as Rose’s once had. He’d kept a lot of how bad it was becoming from you, content to let you think it hadn’t gotten much worse since the initial incident, but that didn’t appear to be a viable or smart option right now.

Demyx ushered into the room to hold Namine, turning her away from the gore where Thorn still sat, cradling what was left of Rose’s bloody, pulpy corpse, eerily still and silent. Not even crying. Just sitting.

Namine sobbed quietly, shaking into Demyx’s chest while he himself tried to calm his own shaking down. He wasn’t crying, but he’d just watched someone die in a rather gruesome manner. He was holding Namine to comfort her as much as he was using her to ground himself in reality when something so jarring threatened to cause him to fall into a state of shock he wasn’t sure he’d recover from.

Everyone else arrived only seconds after Rose died. They asked what happened, but as it was, all of you were too jarred to speak, just standing, sitting, or shaking quietly, save for the quiet sobs of you and Namine.

Axel eventually sunk to the floor as well, holding you close, needing you as much as you needed him at the moment. You just shook quietly in his arms as grief and nausea passed over you in a never-ending cycle that made you want to wake up from what had to have been a horrible nightmare.

After a moment, you were all ushered downstairs and into the main room – except for Thorn. He wouldn’t move or speak. He just sat there quietly, unmoving.

The rest of you had still yet to respond though. You’d walked into the main room and sat down next to each other, but you didn’t speak. You were vaguely aware of Aerith and Yuffie wiping blood from your face, and they did the same for Namine. But you didn’t speak. You heart thudded heavily in your ears, breaking over and over again as the scene played and replayed in your head – sometimes with Rose and other times with Axel. Tears leaked from your eyes in a steady stream, and your freely flowing emotions caused Axel to cry as well, but, unlike you, he was conscious of the tears and would wipe them away. But he couldn’t distinguish his own emotions from yours anymore. The tears were obviously yours, but the fear and grief and anxiety were as much his as yours.

Ludwig, Dreamfinder, and Riku had not been present during the incident, still deep in the talks of the heart experiments when they’d realized that the heart had been steadily rejecting Rose’s body. They didn’t know how much time they had to work with. They didn’t know it was too late to have saved her.

They came back to see all of you with somber looks on your faces. Though your face, despite your tears, was unnaturally blank, like you’d managed to separate yourself from any and all emotion. Leon explained that they found the four of you and Thorn with Rose’s corpse, covered in blood. Ludwig and Dreamfinder left to investigate the scene.

Riku stood in front of you to ask what happened, but you didn’t respond. He knelt down in front of you to look into your eyes, and they didn’t focus on him. He waved a hand in front of your face. Nothing. He touched your shoulder and shook you gently. Nothing.

Then he slapped you.

“Hey, fuck off, man!” Axel snapped at him, jolted out of his daze by such a response to you. He was out of his seat in a split second, glaring down at Riku from where he was crouched in front of you, and Riku glared back. The air around Axel grew hot as he barely contained his anger and magic, and through your shared connection, you gasped at the sudden onslaught of his emotion. But in your haze you didn’t even know where to direct it, only aware that you had no hold on your fire due to your inattentiveness, and Riku only just barely managed to let go of your shoulder to avoid being burned. You looked around in shock after reigning your magic back in and saw the tense stance of Axel as he glared at Riku and Riku’s harsh glare as he returned it full force.

But now you were back. You could think. You didn’t have the time to wallow in that pit of self-pity anymore. Rose was gone, and you would do all you could to avenge her. But first there was Axel. He was still here, and you would be damned if you let anything happen to him. You would not lose him or anyone else if you could help it.

“You aren’t that bad are you?” you asked him, completely ignoring whatever standoff he was having with Riku. It hardly mattered to you.

Axel finally looked at you, confused initially before he realized you were talking about his infection. Truth time. He said he wouldn’t lie to you anymore, but he didn’t want you all to worry about him while he knew your uncles were doing all they could to find a cure.

You were already up, hand firmly clasped on the zipper of his coat. He stopped your hand from yanking it down, and you glared at him. But it wasn’t harsh so much as it was concern and now fear. He was keeping it from you.

“I’m fine,” he said simply. But he knew you wouldn’t let it go at that. And everyone else in the room was staring so intently at him, he knew they’d also want to be the judges of what was fine and what wasn’t.

As if his luck could not possibly get any worse, his skin started up in its own shivering again. It was painful, and he did his best not to double over in pain, but you noticed the tiny cringe in his face and the small jolt of pain that ran through his body. And you were done being gentle about this, shoving him, in his moment of vulnerability, onto his seat before you yanked the zipper down and opened his coat. You pulled up the shirt he was wearing underneath and saw how deeply red and splotchy his side had become. You didn’t even want to see the cuts beneath his bandages. You could only imagine what they must have looked like if the rest of him looked so disease-ridden.

You watched as the little bubbles moved beneath his skin as he shuddered in pain, while his skin shivered separately from him in that unnatural way you had seen Rose do – like you had seen her do just before she died.

“Axel,” you choked out. It was all you could manage before you were sobbing uncontrollably once more, sinking to the floor. Axel felt shudders rack his own body as your emotions flowed into him at an alarming rate, and it was all he could do to hold back his own sobs. You were broken, and he could feel that, and that hurt him, and then that hurt would flow back into you, and you’d send it back, and you were both stuck in a loop.

“We need to get his heart out of him,” Ludwig said, walking up to the two of you and placing a hand on your back. He began to rub little, soothing circles into it as he had done when you were just a child.

“What?!” you said, looking at him with alarm. It felt wrong to just take Axel’s heart.

“The heart and body will continue to reject each other so long as he has a heart to reject and Rose’s blood is still contaminating his own. That’s how she died. And while it doesn’t seem to be advancing as fast as hers had, I still wouldn’t recommend we let it continue unchecked without some form of intervention.”

“Can you remove his heart, ________?” Dreamfinder asked. You were going to offer to try, but Riku cut you off.

“She can’t,” he answered, “Keyblades that can remove hearts are rare. I only know of two in existence.”

“Please,” you said, voice breaking, “Please tell me you know where to get one.”

Riku nodded, summoning a keyblade with a read handle and black blade.

“It’s a keyblade of heart,” Riku said simply, “It was once forged of the stolen light of six people with a seventh needed to make it complete. It was destroyed shortly after its forging, but then Yen Sid and I sought out people with hearts of pure light in order to recreate it. However, these were people who willing gave of their light to create it. We had it forged to combat Xehanort’s own ability to unlock, release, and steal hearts. But I want you to hang on to it for a while.”

You looked up at Riku with wide eyes.

“How did you managed to get the hearts of seven people?”

“Marluxia actually. He has followers who doubt his ways. People who only wanted to do good but couldn’t do what he asked – deviants who left him and went into hiding. They gave up their hearts so I could recreate this keyblade. So we could continue to do good work in the name of light. But what you’re doing here will mean you’ll probably need it more than me right now. Just take care of it, and use it responsibly, and if I ever need it, I’ll come find you.”

“Can you show me how to unlock hearts?” you asked, blinking a few more tears out of your eyes. Riku shook his head.

“It’ll be something you’ll feel. You’ll know how to do it when you need to. And, ________,” Riku began, looking at Axel who watched him with cautious eyes before looking over back to you, “I’m sorry.”

You couldn’t see the look in his eyes, but you could assume he had something softer in his expression. You could hear it in his voice. Condolences. In the case where you released Axel’s heart and could only put it back far into the future. Because you didn’t know how close or far the day your uncle’s discovered a cure was. Especially since they’d only recently discovered the problem.

“Thank you,” you said quietly, taking the keyblade from him with trembling hands. Riku saw himself out after that. He had other work to do, and he felt like he was intruding after that point. You and Axel had a bit to talk about.

And the two of you knew that.

Axel pulled you outside for a moment, behind the house where you saw a little planter on fire. Your eyes widened at it.

“It’s actually one of the reasons I brought you out here,” Axel said as he ambled over to the plant much too casually for your liking – like there had not just been a heavy conversation regarding the fact that his heart would need to be taken out and that one of yours and his friends had not just died. But that was Axel. Always putting on his brave face. Never letting on how bad or fucked he thought things were for the sake of those around him.

The plant sprouted up from the flames as black as night with three stems that wove around each other like a braid, each having very faint, glowing lines of deep red running up their stems to the blooms that had yet to open. Axel revitalized the flames at the base of the plant, and the little red lines seemed to pulse with fire and magic faintly beneath the surface of the stems.

“You have to keep the flames going. Coming around every three hours or so keeps them going. If it gets too low or too hot, the plant will die. But your fire should be within the range needed to keep it going without too much trouble.”

You grabbed his arm, eyes cast downward. He waited patiently for you to say what you needed, and you just walked a little closer and leaned into him. He embraced you and held you tightly to him. He could hear you quietly sniffling again.

“You’ve been there since the beginning,” you said, voice wavering, “I can’t do this without you.”

“You survived on a world for two months without me or anyone else – half of it by yourself, purely surviving in the wilderness on your wits alone. You fought the guardian of a planet with power and strength that far exceeded your own. You survived a crash landing to a planet and a scythe to the stomach, something that would have killed anyone else. You are one of the strongest people I have ever met, and I fear for anything that stands in your way.”

You actually managed to laugh a little, looking up at him with red, tear-filled eyes and a soft smile. He gently caressed your cheek, and you leaned into his touch.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” he said lowly before leaning his forehead on yours. The two of you stayed like that for a moment, feeling each other through your connection, feeling all the fears and doubts and warmth and comfort and affection.

~

Axel lay on the bed facing the ceiling, and you stood nearby. He looked at you and nodded slightly, signaling he was ready.

You held up the keyblade of heart and pointed it at Axel. Your hands shook but steadied as Axel looked at you, giving you comfort and reassurance through his gaze and your heart. You took a deep breath, calm, slow.

Riku was right. You knew what to do. But it felt so surreal. Because it felt like you were taking your own heart too. You could feel the pull of it inside of Axel and the release once it left his body, his body going slack, his eyes closing, his breathing slow and measured as if asleep.

His heart was fragmented like that of the nobody hearts your uncles had created, but his was larger, almost forming a full shape, nearly complete but not quite there. But still just as beautiful. Dreamfinder caught it in a container before it could leave, and you… didn’t know what to do.

You sat on the edge of Axel’s bed and held his hand, watching him peacefully sleep, never knowing if you’d ever see him awake again. That all depended on how long it would take your uncles to find a cure.

Everyone sat with the two of you for a while, but then quietly filtered out, just leaving you and Axel. And you sat there staring at him for who knew how long, as if you were waiting for him to wake up.

You could still feel your connection, but it felt wrong. Disjointed. Now that there wasn’t a full person on the receiving end and no one to reciprocate. It made you feel hollow, like Axel had taken up a large space in your chest, and now it was just empty.

.

.

.

“Marluxia took something from us.”

It was Thorn. For the first time all evening he’d moved from where he was. And his voice sounded hoarse and venomous. He was angry. And you? You felt nothing.

“I know you probably don’t care about anything right now. But I have to tell you some things. Marluxia has a city. He built it in the heart chamber of the World That Never Was. There he has over a quarter of a million lesser nobodies in his service. And it grows by the day. I was a fool to have followed him – to think that he cared about any of us. How many others are like Rose and just waiting to die?”

You were still silent. Thorn knew you listened though; your eyes trained on him.

“I have to go,” he said simply after, “You’ll probably never see me again. And I’m sorry about Axel. I hope he recovers soon.”

Thorn left through the window. Probably to avoid any questions of his whereabouts from anyone else. You just turned back to Axel, muttering soft apologies. It was all your fault. If you had used any form of judgment, you could have been competent enough to defend yourself. Or better yet, Axel wouldn’t have known anything was wrong and wouldn’t have come out there.

Demyx was the only other person who could possibly understand how you felt. Not the losing someone he loved part, just the guilt. He left you alone on the mountain, and Axel went to defend you, and now Axel was lying on a bed with his heart taken out. Because he could die. Because Demyx didn’t pick up on the fact that you were off your game. Because he was too busy being wrapped up in his own business. And it’s not like his business wasn’t important, but you and Axel needed him, and he felt like he let you down.

Namine told him that it wasn’t his fault.

“There were too many factors at play that caused this to happen,” she said gently.

They were downstairs in the main room. Rose’s remains were still in her room, and she wasn’t sure she could really sleep in there tonight. She’d stay downstairs and sleep in a chair or something – if she could block Rose’s screams from her nightmares that is.

“But I still should have been able to pick up on something. Known something wasn’t right.”

“You had other things on your mind that were just as important. And still are,” Namine said, lowering her voice and leaning in a bit, “Have figured out what we should do about it? I don’t know when they’re going to strike, but I’m getting antsy. I keep waiting for it. And now this happened. Everything feels so….”

Namine wasn’t sure how to finish her sentence, but Demyx understood completely. Everything was fucked up. Demyx’s shoulders slumped, and Namine panicked a bit. She knew there was absolutely nothing about their current situation to be cheerful about, but she couldn’t stand to see him like that. So she hugged him close, and he buried his face in the crook of her shoulder and neck, shutting his eyes tightly and blocking out the world while he held her back tightly.

“We’ll get through this. We’ve all been in tough scrapes before, and we’ll pull together and get through this again. We have to. And we will.”

And she kept repeating this to herself, telling herself that Axel would be okay, that you would bring down Marluxia and right the horrible wrongs done to everyone and avenge Rose’s death, that they would find a way to keep the hearts of world’s from falling. That everything was going to be okay.

Leon watched Demyx and Namine. He was waiting on Aerith with some cleaning supplies. It was a gruesome job, but he could hardly ask you or Namine or Demyx to do it. Someone had to take care of Rose’s corpse, and the people who watched her die hardly seemed like the right crew for the job. They’d preserve the body for a funeral. It seemed like the least they could do considering all she’d done to help them.

He tentatively climbed the stairs to the hallway. The door to your and Namine’s room was closed. The door to Axel and Demyx’s room was cracked. He peaked in it just barely and could see you sitting on the edge of Axel’s bed, still holding his hand.

“How’s she holding up?”

Aerith’s voice was soft, but it still caught Leon by surprise. He jumped, and, under any other circumstances, they both might have found this humorous, but the mood was too heavy – all the emotions too fresh. The loss too new.

“She’s tough. It hurts, but she’ll get through this. She has to.”

Aerith nodded, and a heavy quiet hung over them. Then it was as if she remembered what it was she was doing there, why she had come up in the first place – the objects she was carrying, a mop, a bucket full of water, and several bottles of cleaner tucked under her arms suddenly heavy in her grasp.

“I, um, I’m ready to start cleaning up if you are,” she said quietly, lifting the water bucket lightly, the water sloshing over the side a bit. Leon nodded.

~

Setzer was dropped off by Demyx via corridor. But he felt an odd feeling of wanting to stay behind? Not for Cid though. Though on any other day he would have been all over that. But for you.

He had to admit that the two of you hadn’t really been friends for very long, and he could count literally every time the two of you had hung out on one hand, but he felt… close to you. Closer to you than he had with anyone else in a very long time. He hadn’t really made a habit of planting roots and making close friends. But you were different. You were at the very least much more interesting than the people he often ran into in Twilight Town.

He should probably tell your mother all that had happened, so she could call you later and check up on you. It felt like the right thing to do.

Ugh… He was getting all sentimental again….

Notes:

If you haven't noticed, it's a double upload day so go on to the next chapter. :)

Chapter 51: Distraction

Summary:

IT'S A DOUBLE UPLOAD SO IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER YOU NEED TO GO BACK ONE!

Also Marluxia is power trippin', and you're emotionally trippin'.

Notes:

Everyone's looking for a little something to take their mind off things.

Also a memory from Reader's ancestor! The elf and the orc were supposed to be a one time thing but there's been some worldbuilding going on offscreen.... And some expansion.... It's got like 50 chapter outlines already if I ever decide to publish it. I got excited.

Distraction was key in the days that followed. Any moment you or Namine or Demyx or any of the rest of your friends and family were not wholly distracted by something, thoughts of Rose or Axel would drift to the forefronts of your minds, and functionality became a challenge.

Two weeks had come and gone, and there was no news of a cure yet. Though you knew they were working day and night. You’d tell them to take a break – they were obviously exhausted and crumbling under the strain of their research – but it seemed that it was all they wanted to distract them. Even they, your uncles who had always been so happy and jolly and childlike in behavior, were distraught, and it seemed the only rest they welcomed was passing out amongst their experiments and research. Because then they didn’t have a moment to think about anything else.

And that’s how everybody wanted it.

You, Namine, and Demyx having no research to sink into, found other sources of entertainment. It often came in the form of training. Even Demyx, who often shirked training with you, threw himself into it.

And Namine had recently taken up magic. She’d initially wanted to learn water magic like Demyx, but every attempt at putting her all into it, resulted in nothing. But then one day she accidentally froze the water, and so she delved into the study of ice magic. Merlin gave her a staff that she attuned to her own magic – as new as it was – so she could summon and de-summon it at will as everyone else did their own weapons. Merlin trained her ice magic alongside Demyx – whose own magic wasn’t far from that. And you helped her outfit one end of it with a small blade in the instance she found herself in close combat. And you helped train her in close combat.

As for your own magic, you had gotten the hang of fire very quickly under Axel’s tutelage, and you found that it was no longer a hassle for you, coming as easily as breathing. In fact, the only times you found yourself struggling with it was when it was tied to your emotions. And those were buried deep beneath your distraction at the moment. Which meant that you were content to focus on your lightning magic which Riku had reminded you needed work.

You were still nowhere near adept at it, even after two weeks of almost nonstop training. But you’d finally figured out how to get your chain lightning to strike two separate targets. Any more than that and you’d be back to bouncing it between one target and the next again. So needless to say, you needed work. And that’s all any of you did for that time.

Well there was one break.

You’d all held a funeral for Rose. There wasn’t much to be said about her other than she was a light lost too soon to the darkness. Thorn wasn’t there. True to his word, once he’d left, he didn’t return. And after two weeks had come and gone, you doubted he ever would again.

Leon deduced it was either to get away from the memory of Rose or to exact some sort of revenge on Marluxia. Either way, there was no way to stop him. Not that you inherently tried either, too heartbroken to really do anything at the time.

But everyone reassured you that there was probably nothing that could have been done. He left, and none of them knew to where. Only that he had gone, and who were they, honestly, to stop him?

What you didn’t admit is that you wouldn’t have tried. Not even a little. If he wanted to leave from his broken heart, that was fine. If he wanted to find a way to kill Marluxia that was better. You could empathize. You had taken half of your guilt and started directing it into anger. Axel had only been up on the Matterhorn because of you. You wouldn’t ignore your own part in this. But Axel’s infection was purely on the part of Marluxia’s negligence.

He had stolen hearts from others and jammed them into nobodies. And after a while those hearts would reject those bodies. All those people who died for and from his cause… gone. And now Axel may find himself on that list. And you were caught between distraught and livid.

You hoped Thorn did manage to kill Marluxia, but you knew that was wishful thinking on your part. Marluxia was immensely powerful, and now he had an army to back it up.

So everything was on hold, and this further enraged you. You couldn’t take down Marluxia at your level of strength so long as he had them to help. You would need your own reinforcements. So this meant that your world would wait. Everyone relying on you to bring them back from the dead would have to wait.

And that was the absolute main reason you needed distraction. Because every bone your body, every cell that made you up, every fiber of your very being was screaming at you to kill Marluxia. To find him and kill him, driving your keyblade right through his gut like he had to you with his scythe. But you couldn’t do that, and this fact drove you to the brink of your sanity. And so there was distraction.

~

Xigbar didn’t trust him, and Marluxia knew that was a problem. He had always had his own motivations that no one could really see, but everyone knew they were there. However, unlike Marluxia, he’d never betrayed the Organization, and he always acted in the best interest of Xemnas, Saix, and the Organization as a whole. So it didn’t matter that he had any other motivations. They trusted him. And not Marluxia. So by extension Xigbar also didn’t trust Marluxia.

Because Xigbar knew things. Xigbar knew things that Marluxia felt like he ought to know. Like if Marluxia asked if on any of Xigbar’s reconnaissance trips, did he happen to spot any of the traitors or you. And Xigbar just couldn’t recall seeing any of you, but he said it in such a way that Marluxia began to suspect that there was more to that story. It was such a Xigbar thing to do, and Marluxia hated it.

It didn’t help that Axel had thus far eluded his grasp. Axel had been thwarting him at every turn, and now he’d all but dropped off of the face of the earth. And Xigbar probably knew where to go to find him or Demyx or you even.

You hadn’t been in Twilight Town, and he hated that. You were off on some grand adventure, no doubt, doing whatever you could to help Sora or take down the Organization. Trying to bring your world back. Well wasn’t that just fuckin’ peachy?

It would be better if he just knew how to get to you. Just for a moment. You wouldn’t survive this time. Of that he would be sure. He would just slice you clean through – no sloppy job of leaving you to die like he had done last time or like Vanitas had done the first time he tried to kill you. You would die, and he would be sure of it. Then Axel would know the real price of crossing him when he was left with nothing but your corpse.

Marluxia paced his balcony. It was a quiet place for him to think completely secluded from everything and everyone – except for the two nobodies who stood nearby quietly awaiting instruction, sometimes shivering to themselves.

That was another problem he’d been having. Dying nobodies. He’d curbed the initial accusation that he was somehow the cause. He said that they weren’t resolute enough in their new hearts – that you could only have a heart if you deserved it. It had initially given his recruiting a small lull in its fervor, but it soon picked up again. Dying in the service of helping nobodies gain hearts or with free will in general was still more appealing than dying for Xemnas’s cause.

There was still the occasional murmur of opposition, but they were quelled quietly. But Marluxia began to wonder if that were the problem. That he was only viewed as benevolent. Perhaps in the eyes of revolt, that looked weak. Whispers of opposition could only exist if any fool were really brave enough to openly oppose him – whether it was to his face or talking to others.

But then blessing! Blessings above, some higher entity sent him an answer to his prayers in the form of some lesser, no count nobody who’d gotten too big for his britches.

This nobody tried to attack him – fool that he was. He was angry and spiteful, shouting how Marluxia had taken everything from him, his love, his will, everything. He didn’t even have a hope of dying for a cause to believe in any more than he had a reason to live.

And Marluxia saw this as opportunity. He didn’t use Specter to dispatch of him. No, he locked him away for a while until he could gather an audience.

And when it was time for Marluxia to finally quell those little whispers amongst his people, he approached him, smiling as amicably as he always did when he was either about to get his way or had already gotten it, charming in every sense.

He approached the nobody, chained beneath his quarters. He came with Larxene who was also going to watch his little demonstration upon Marluxia’s insistence. He’d told her something along the lines of, “It’s a show of my power as much yours.” But Larxene hardly had need to show it. Marluxia knew this, but he needed her to see.

Thorn was chained to a wall, his hands rebound in the bindings they’d been in at the beginning of his start as a dusk. His head hung low, and he did not lift it simply because Marluxia approached him.

“She was right about you,” he croaked finally after a moment of Marluxia gazing down at him.

“She?” Marluxia asked, hardly interested in the “she” he referred to but humoring him in his last moments regardless. If there was another nobody talking about him, he ought to know.

“The keyblade wielder. Foiling your plans, killing my kind…. And we deserved it. How had she shown me more humanity than the person who gifted me mine?”

This had Marluxia’s attention. So it had not been Axel running about and foiling his plans. It had been you. He had appreciated that this nobody had landed in his lap for his own personal gain, but now he understood how truly wonderful it had been that the nobody had just wanted to outright kill him rather than spread more unrest in his kingdom.

If word had gone around that you had helped him…. He wasn’t sure what the result would be, but if he had just talked to the right nobodies or endeavored to expose his plans to any of the Organization members, everything he’d been building up to this point all these months would be destroyed within a matter of days. He wouldn’t even see the end of it. Xemnas was not a merciful being. He only existed because Xemnas felt like he needed him. If word got out about a second betrayal. He’d be killed immediately, and his kingdom would burn.

This needed a special form of revenge. Marluxia had just wanted to find you to kill you and emotionally cripple Axel. The reason he left behind everything in his life dead at Marluxia’s hand had been a titillating thought to say the least. But it had been you, so it was only right that he punish you in as devastating a way as he could think of for putting his very kingdom and rule at risk.

But he could handle that a bit later. For now it was time this nobody before him be made an example.

He had four of his nobodies seize him – two dragging him by the arms, the others just an accompaniment. They dragged him behind Marluxia and Larxene up to the balcony where he stood the first time he gazed out at his beautiful city. Below stood thousands of nobodies crowding around who all erupted into rapturous frenzy at his appearance, so joyous to see their Marluxia gracing them with his presence.

He basked in it for a while before holding up his hands to silence them. They all watched eagerly, many shifting in anticipation, several shivering uncontrollably.

“My people,” he addressed them and practically felt their love radiate off of them at being called his, “I have done a great deal for all of you. And I will continue to do so. For as long as I yet live. But there are those who would hinder our progress, the progression of our very lives. As you know, keyblade wielders are among them.”

A series of hisses and protests rose up from the crowd, and Marluxia nodded, letting them spew forth their hate as needed. Then when they calmed down, he continued.

“But what saddens me most,” he said, pausing as if the words he had to speak hurt to say, “Is when those who seek to destroy us exist among our very ranks.”

There was an uncomfortable shift in the crowd, several of them looking around, eyeing each other with distrust. Any one of them could be a traitor.

“Do not worry,” Marluxia continued, “I have quelled the rioters amongst our ranks. No one will take your freedom from you. You have my word.”

Another cheer rose up from the crowd. They emitted their love and adoration with all of their fervor. Some jumped, others bowed, some just reached their hands up in praise, and a chant of Marluxia’s name carried across the horde. Marluxia just stood there and soaked it up like a sponge.

He held his hands up again, and a still quiet went over the crowd.

“There is a dissenter among us now, captured by those loyal to our cause.”

Marluxia gestured for his nobodies to come forth and bring Thorn to the crowd. They lifted him just high enough to be seen over the railing, and the crowd responded with hate.

Thorn looked at them all with pity. He could tell them about you. He could say something about Rose. But none of these nobodies sought to be reasoned with. As far as he was concerned they saw him as disease. Something to be dealt with so they could thrive – a danger, a hazard, no longer a person with thought. Vermin.

“And today,” Marluxia continued, “I would like you all to remember this moment. I want you to tell everyone what you see here today. I want to be benevolent, but those who risk your lives are too much of a danger, and I need those who wish to destroy you to understand that their evils will not be tolerated.”

There were whispers amongst the crowd that rolled through it like waves lapping at a beach before the other two nobodies who had not been holding Thorn grabbed him by his legs.

It wasn’t a quick death. Not at all. How fitting, Thorn thought to himself, that both he and Rose should spend their last moments in agony. He didn’t know if he or her would ever be recompleted or that they might ever meet again. All he knew was that he was going to die and would no longer have to live without her. And that gave him a small comfort, even as he screamed as the nobodies slowly, and agonizingly ripped him apart, blood splattering on the nobodies doing the job, Marluxia, and Larxene.

It took several minutes for this to be accomplished and a few more for Thorn to die. And everyone watched – the crowd, Marluxia, Larxene.

And it was rather gruesome. So much so that when it was all over the crowd had an eerie silence covering it. Marluxia was unfazed. Larxene felt… off. She had seen death too many times to count – had been the cause of so many of them. But watching something so slow and painful was something she was not quite used to. She shook the thoughts off. She had no sympathy to offer.

Marluxia approached the crowd once more. They were silent but gazed up at him. Some with mild fear, others with awe and reverence.

“I don’t take pride in this. I hoped it would never come to this. I see you all as my own. But I need there to be no doubt and no unrest in our empire. Without total cooperation we risk destruction. And I would defend it with my life, no matter what.”

There was more quiet. Then applause. It started slow before it became as raucous and wild as the initial reception he received when he first stepped out on to that balcony.

Marluxia smiled.

~

Dara stood tall, back straight, breathing slow as she aimed her bow at the deer-like creature that stood several feet away grazing at the grass below.

Its pelt was pure white with a few speckles of black dotting its rump, fetlocks and muzzle. It’s antlers were as black as night, little lights glittering on them like the night sky.

“Now be sure in your aim, Dara,” a man whispered. He looked just like her, and she looked up at him with determined eyes as he laid a gentle hand on her back and nodded.

She turned back to the deer and let the arrow fly.

The deer went down in one hit, and her chest swelled with pride. She looked up at her father, searching his face for approval and found it in ample supply.

“You’ll be one of the best keyblade wielders the academy has ever seen,” he said as he approached the deer with her, “Now help me take this home.”

He hefted the deer up with her help before laying it on the back of the unicorn he’d ridden out there.

“You think Alynn will be there?” she asked. Alynn had been the bane of her existence for the longest time, but you’d never know it from watching the two interact. They only acted like bitter rivals half of the time. But then one day she ranted to him about how much she couldn’t stand Alynn sometimes from the way he had to gloat about all of his successes to the way his blonde hair – which he kept immaculate despite all of his rough and tumble training – shone in the sunlight. Her father frowned a bit then decided to tease her. The girl couldn’t help her feelings, whether or not she really wanted to acknowledge that she had the tiniest of crushes on him. Fifteen-year-old hormones were often some of the unruliest after all.

“Why? Do you think he’ll fall madly in love with you because you’re both going to be keyblade wielders?”

Dara bristled at the statement. Alynn was cute and all, but that’s not why she hoped he would be there.

“No,” she said in a clipped tone, “He was a scout, and scouts think they’re so much better than everyone else. I want to show him that I’m just as capable as he is if not more so.”

Her father smiled and picked up the bow she had been using, passing it to her. She concentrated and it shifted back into a keyblade. Then she de-summoned it, hopping on her own unicorn.

“Well you’ve certainly got more useful training from me than any of those scouts could have learned. It helps that you just so happened to be bequeathed a keyblade before any of the recruits you’ll meet in training. But remember –”

“I know, I know. Our secret,” she said as she guided her unicorn into a light trot to keep pace with her father’s. She was supposed to have only received her keyblade upon entering the academy, but her father didn’t see any harm in letting her have it a few months in advance.

~

Your temper was on nothing short of a hair trigger. The longer Axel remained in his sleep and Marluxia remained at large, the more impatient and volatile your feelings became. It had gotten to the point where Merlin was summoning magical practice dummies for you to fight. You’d become to aggressive to train with anyone but Leon, and he couldn’t do it all the time with a town to manage.

But you had a new frustration. If you weren’t struggling with lightning or practicing your basic sword and shield or spear techniques, you were trying to get your keyblade to turn into a bow. You’d had a dream where you grandmother had done such a thing, and now you were eager to learn it as well. But it wasn’t coming along as smoothly as you’d hoped.

And there was no one to calm you down and help you focus like Axel had always done. You also had no keyblade wielder around to teach you to change your keyblade into other weapons. You had gotten purely lucky on Animal Kingdom when you’d changed it out of desperation, but that couldn’t be your go to every time. Specifically because you couldn’t just strand yourself on any planet and hope to starve enough to learn a new method of hunting.

You’d tried concentrating, feeling for the magic, even acting as if your keyblade were already a bow and drawing back an imaginary string to fire and imaginary arrow. Nothing was working.

And then there was the other emotional problem you were having. Anger was a distraction like training was. Because, as you had discovered, when you weren’t angry you were sad. You were very, very sad. And that was the only reason any of your friends or family put up with your aggression. It was better than having to drag you out of bed because you didn’t feel anything. At least now you could half work through your problems, but it was as you were obliterating targets at an alarming rate due to your frustrations of not being able to summon a bow to the point where you were causing too much collateral damage that Leon decided your anger needed to stop.

You looked at him, glaring at him while he gazed back with his own stony glare.

“I think,” he said, voice cool and controlled, “You need to take a break.”

“I can’t. I need to keep training.”

“I know you think that.”

You glared harder at him.

“I don’t just think it. I do. Marluxia is getting stronger every day! If I don’t practice, I can’t fight. If I can’t fight, then he wins.”

“You won’t be ready just because you put in one or two extra hours of training in the day. You need rest as much as you need to practice. Your body’s going to give out.”

“So let it give out! Then I’ll know I pushed myself to my very limits!”

“You’re not even going about this right.” His voice was tight but still controlled. You didn’t know why that pissed you off, but it did. And his insistence that you were not even training correctly made you even angrier.

“I’m hitting the targets right? Seems like I’m doing fine!”

“If Merlin’s house were made of wood, you’d have burned it down with how far your attacks are reaching. Your targets are a set point, yet you have an area of effect that extends much farther than that. I’m going to have to assume you’re not really targeting them anymore as opposed to just letting your magic fall wherever it does with the target in that general area.”

“But I’m hitting the targets.”

Leon rolled his eyes. He was quickly losing his patience with you.

“But you’re angry. You’re just blowing off steam through your magic because it’s the only way to let out any of your frustrations. I’ve been watching you. You’ve put way more power behind your attacks but lost all of your form. You attack with ferocity but leave yourself wide open for counterattack. You’re not training. You’re just upset, and this is the only way you can work through it.”

“So what’s wrong with working through it?”

“You need to take a moment to sit down and actually work through it. Laying in your bed all day isn’t healthy. Attacking with reckless abandon isn’t healthy. You need to channel it. Get a hobby. Talk to someone. Take a walk. But you’re done training for the day. And if you need to train on other days then I’ll help you and tell you when it’s time to stop and make sure you actually know what you’re doing.”

You glared Leon down for a moment more and he returned it. He wasn’t going to budge on this issue, and you hated it. So you stormed off. And your feet carried you right where they always did when you started walking without any particular direction in mind.

Axel.

He lay there, still breathing slowly and quietly – not like the few times you’d seen him in a deep sleep, and he would let out those little snores you thought were adorable. He was peaceful.

You sat on the bed next to him and grabbed his hand, rubbing your thumb over the back of it. He was as warm as he always was. Idly your eyes trailed just below his chin over his skin where the edge of his neck has started taking on the deep patchy color that the rest of his body was, but there were no longer any of the little bubbles that moved around beneath his skin now that there was no heart to conflict with him.

Still, you worked a little of your healing magic over his and watched the redness ease a bit in its color. You could feel the magic draining at your health. You really had put too much into your training. But you hardly cared at the moment. Taking care of yourself hadn’t really been at the forefront of your mind – which is why your friends had started to. It was Leon who decided to be the hard ass and make the tough decision no one really wanted to present to you – that your training was becoming an unhealthy crutch so you wouldn’t have to deal with your emotions properly.

“Leon’s forbidding me to train,” you said. Of course, Axel didn’t respond. But you kept talking anyway. “He basically says I’m a danger to myself and others. Well he didn’t use those words, but I may be capable of burning down Merlin’s house. I’m sure you would be proud though. I’ve been working on some new fire moves. So maybe when you wake up, we can try ‘em out?”

Your vision was blurring. You didn’t really talk much to Axel except to tell him how sorry you were. But you always cried. Always.

“I’m starting to figure out lightning. So that’s good. And I had another dream about my grandmother. She was with her dad and about to learn how to be a keyblade wielder. She was gonna go to an academy and everything. She did this really cool thing with her keyblade where she turned it into a bow. I tried to figure it out, but I can’t.”

You squeezed Axel’s hand a little tighter.

“It was always easier to learn when you were there to help me work through it. Though that may have been because I had a giant crush on you and wanted to impress you so bad.”

You laughed lightly to yourself, tears still dripping from your eyes, but slowly.

“We’ll get through this,” you said quietly.

When Leon told you to talk to someone, you were pretty sure this wasn’t what he had in mind, but oddly enough you felt better. So it became almost routine. You’d train with Leon until he told you that it was enough, then you’d talk to Axel. And this worked for a while, but you still always had that nagging sadness lingering in the back of your mind. And talking to Axel seemed to be the only way to alleviate it.

So steadily that became your new crutch. You’d tell him all the parts about your day, reminisce about all the good times you’d had with him or any of your other friends, tell him stories from your days on Spaceship Earth – anything you could think of.

And, of course, like always you cried.

Everyone else thought this was a much better way to work through your emotions. You were obviously sad and working through that – crying and letting it all out.

But Figment wasn’t so sure. He’d studied the mind, and he wasn’t sure that it was really helping at all. What you needed was a sense of closure and demarcation. You needed to come to grips with the situation and have a clean break between the grief of your loss and building up from it – no more of this muddy mixture of both.

So that was why one day when you fell asleep next to Axel’s bed in your chair, still holding his hand and tears still dripping from your eyes, you awoke to find yourself falling through the sky.

You were disoriented to say the least, looking below you with horror at the clouds that were fast approaching. You were gripped with terror. What had happened? Were you going to die now? Where was everyone else, and were they okay?

All the questions shot through your mind in rapid succession until you were caught in your fall by a boat, and at the helm stood Figment, giving you a small salute and a smile.

“Howdy ho,” he called to you. Your eyes widened. Figment was speaking. Which could only mean that you’d been falling through someone’s preconscious.

Notes:

Remember! If you haven't read the other chapter, then head back one to make sure you get in all the story in!

Chapter 52: Deja Vu

Summary:

You take a stroll down Memory Lane but from Axel's point of view.

Notes:

I'm late. I know. But I think you'll like how this chapter turns out.

“Figment?” you called, feeling more than a little confusion that you were in someone’s mind. Then a mild panic set in. The last time you’d been in someone’s mind and descended beyond the preconscious, you’d been attacked by heartless and then nearly fell to your death – followed by several other close calls involving your life.

“In the imaginative flesh,” Figment said, grabbing a fistful of his side, pulling it out, and letting it snap back into place.

“W-what are we doing here? Where’s here?” your voice was high and panicked, and that was about the time that Figment remembered why it was you may not want to be in someone’s mind. But he had a quick fix for that.

“Relax,” he said with a flippant wave of his hand, “We’re in Axel’s mind.”

“Axel?” you said, feeling a touch calmer but just as confused, “Why would you bring me here?”

“You’ve been…,” Figment paused to find the right words, “Upset.”

That still didn’t seem like quiet the right word to him, but he pressed on anyway.

“You need closure is what I’m getting at, and none of us really know how to give that to you. So I brought you here. Axel can hear you in here. You can say all you need to say to him that’ll make this better for you.”

A low rumbling began to sound, and you knew you had hit the clouds of the preconscious.

“Can he speak to me here?” you asked, sounding hopeful. Why did you have to make Figment’s job harder? He let out a deep, beleaguered sigh.

“No,” he said sadly as he watched your shoulders sag just a bit at his response, “But he will hear you. That’s all I can promise.”

“It’s better than nothing,” you said, “I just need to tell him how sorry I am and that I won’t give up. I know he’ll come back. I just know it. I just need him to hold on for a little longer.”

The two of you were enveloped in cloud for a few moments before descending below them. And you saw Twilight Town and Hollow Bastion, mixed together like a hybrid town. Even the sky on the horizon was bathed in orange and blue as the two lights split down the middle. The town looked, for the most part, normal. You didn’t see any specks of heartless running around, and nothing looked so broken and grayed out that it looked diseased or infected. It was a far cry from what your father’s mind looked like. And for that you were grateful.

It wasn’t enough that if it had looked like that, it would have been a painful reminder of some of your most traumatic events of which you still had the occasional nightmare, but the thought that Axel would have been subjected to a similar fate nearly broke your heart.

That wasn’t to say the town was without flaws though. It had more than its fair share of wear and tear here and there. Many of the buildings had patches of wall or roof missing and cracked windows. Some of the cobblestone roads were missing patches with dirt underneath. It looked something like a ghost town but still with nowhere near the dilapidation you had seen in your father’s mind. Plus it was void of anything alive in it besides you and Figment.

For that you were grateful. You could assume the damage to all of the structures was because of the nobody blood that had conflicted with his heart. You hated to assume what would happen if it had continued, and absolutely refused to think about the end result.

Axel was fine, you reminded yourself. And kept reminding yourself for every misplaced brick or flower that existed in his mind.

For a while, you and Figment just walked around aimlessly. He was letting you take it all in, and you felt closer to Axel now more than you had for the entire time he’d been unconscious. It gave you an odd sense of peace.

You ambled around for about an hour before the two of you took a brief break, sitting on a bench near some potted plants that were stuck between dead and dying with the odd spot of color from a living one here and there.

You wrung your hands in your lap as you debated what to say first to Axel. Figment waited patiently. Then you took a deep breath and decided to say the first thing that came to mind.

“Green,” you finally said. Then you realized what you said and realized how stupid that sounded out of context. Figment even looked at you and raised one of his eyebrows in question.

“Sorry, I’m nervous,” you said to no one in particular. It could have been Figment, Axel, or yourself. It didn’t really matter. Then you explained yourself.

“I miss seeing your eyes. I’d say you don’t know what it’s like to lose something you love ‘til it’s gone, but I already went through this before. You remember Animal Kingdom. I missed seeing your eyes. I’ve always thought that shade of green was really pretty. And always found them fascinating in a weird way. When we first met, they were always hiding something yet always searching. You were always trying to read me. Even at times where you let your guard down or when you’re surprised – like that time when we went into my dad’s head and I said your eyes were pretty. You were trying to read me really, really hard, but then you looked away. You were hiding a blush. I saw, but I didn’t say anything.”

You started giggling. It was the first genuine laugh Figment had heard you do in a while. That was good. This was progress towards something. There wasn’t a guarantee it would completely pull you out of your depression, but this closure would be a good start.

 “And I always thought it was really funny,” you said, still laughing a bit, “Because you were looking for some hidden meaning or agenda behind what I said, but it was just a compliment. And I was like, ‘Man what a dork. Does he not know how to take a compliment? A few days ago he was calling himself sexy!’”

You were full out laughing now.

“But I didn’t laugh at you. I’d embarrassed you enough just by complimenting you,” you said with your laughter easing into lighthearted giggles. Then you were quiet for a moment, composing yourself for what else you had to say.

“But that isn’t really what I wanted to talk to you about. As much as I love your eyes. I wanted to say I’m sorry. Again. I know I keep saying it, but I keep feeling it. I started this chain of events with my bad decisions, and it affected you. And I feel awful, and it feels like this is the ultimate punishment because my bad decisions took away from me the one person who feels like everything to me. You’re everything to me, Axel, and it feels like every moment you’re gone, I can’t even function. I’ve been throwing myself into training just as a distraction because I can’t think about you. I need you, Axel. That’s why I need you to come back.”

You were bawling again. You would think with as much crying as you’d been doing, there wouldn’t be any tears left in your body, but your heart was utterly broken, and you didn’t know what else to do. And sometimes crying about it just made you feel a little better – if providing nothing else other than a small outlet to let your emotions flow.

After a few more moments, Figment patting you on the back and letting you cry it all out, you felt better. Better than you had in a long time, finally saying everything you felt, acknowledging everything that hurt about the situation beyond just saying, “I’m sorry.”

You felt… renewed in a sense.

Figment and you walked around a bit more to let you get all of your nerves under control. And it was as you were walking through a neighborhood that looked like it belonged in Hollow Bastion, you noticed a house at the end of the road. It was a small one-floor house with opaque windows.

That had to be his subconscious.

You stopped walking and eyed the house for a moment until Figment realized you’d stopped walking and turned to look at you.

“________...,” he said warily.

“That’s his subconscious, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes, but –”

“Don’t you wanna go in?” Your eyes were bright and curious, a far cry from the red, puffy state they’d been in. Figment eyed the door. His curiosity wasn’t so great as yours. He could ignore it.

“I don’t know….”

“I just want to see a few memories. Nothing crazy like abstract thought or any of his deepest desires or anything. Plus don’t you wanna see what he thought of you when we first met him?”

Well now Figment was curious. This could be the moment to prove that he’d been right about Axel’s initial character and intentions. True, Axel had already come clean about it, but now he’d have visual proof!

“Why do you want to see his memories?” Figment then asked as he eyed you. It was one thing for him to be on an ego trip, but what could you possibly have to gain from seeing anything?

You looked about somewhat sheepishly.

“I just wanted to get to know him a little better. I mean I know him well enough, everything he’s shown me, but I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. I don’t even know what his favorite color or animal is or anything.”

Figment just rolled his eyes but began flapping his wings in the direction of the subconscious, and you eagerly bounded behind him.

“Okay, we’ll go in, but I’m censoring all the naughty stuff and desires. Because I don’t wanna see any of that shit. And we’re only going in because invasion of privacy always comes after my own self-validation.”

You held up your keyblade, pointing it right at the door, and, as if it were second nature now, you unlocked it, a beam of light connecting your keyblade and the door.

You heard a faint click, and you and Figment ventured inside. It looked like hallways. Just the regular hallways you’d find in a home but with cracks in them here and there, some small and some large. There were a few holes and places where the paint had peeled up, and it looked like the floor had some warping to the wooden planks on it. But it was well lit, unlike the darkness you’d once ventured through the last time you’d done something like this. The walls also moved much more slowly. And there were more screens with memories playing, some with curtains hanging over them that said, “censored.”

It was strange seeing everything from Axel’s perspective, especially whenever he was looking down at you. You also couldn’t help but notice all the lines of words that would appear over the screen, appearing and disappearing just as quick, some lingering though.

“What are these words?” you asked Figment as you tried to read them. Some were easier to read than others. “I didn’t see them in Dad’s mind.”

“They’re his thoughts,” Figment supplied, “Conscious and subconscious. Some he’s actively thinking and others that blow through on instinct that he doesn’t inherently think of himself.”

The first memory you stopped to stare at was from a few months ago when you were on Animal Kingdom. Axel was sad. He was just looking down at his feet and occasionally glancing at you where you stood at the end of the boat. It looked like you were on your way back from the temple. You watched Axel’s thoughts flit over the screen. You focused your attention on the words that lingered for a few seconds longer.

“Why am I like this? I should have told her sooner. What does she think of me now? I’m a monster, but she makes me feel like I’m not. I don’t know what I’ll do if she looks at me like a monster.”

You cringed a bit. You felt bad even though he had every right to think those thoughts about himself considering what he’d done. But at the end of the day, you wouldn’t call him a monster. You vaguely hoped he didn’t still think of himself this way.

You moved on to a little later that evening and saw the moment when you and Axel had danced at the party that night. He was looking down at you, and the screen was flooded with thoughts of how much he’d missed you and how beautiful you looked bathed in the light of your fire and his.

Then it began to rain, and that was when you and Axel had to stop dancing. You watched as he followed you back to the chief’s home, noting that his eyes drifted down to your hips and watched them swish all words on the screen disappearing as he just lingered on the sway of your walk and the way your clothes clung to your body for a moment. Then the words came back.

“She’s your best friend. Stop staring at her ass!”

He quickly looked away from you and tried to look at anything else.

You moved onto the night the two of you watched the aurora borealis together passed the night the two of you spent in bed together. Knowing what you knew now about how fire was related to your emotions, you decided not to explore why Axel really set the bed on fire that night. If he wasn’t ready to tell you, then you’d at least respect that part of his privacy.

You watched the colors dance over the screen and your face as the two of you talked about how he felt in regard to you. But now you were getting a slightly new perspective on how he felt.

“Despite her sheer bullheadedness and impulsivity, she has the most beautiful heart of any person I’ve ever known, and I don’t deserve her. But I want her. But how do I want her? I know what I wanted in that dream. I was going to fully pin her down and ravage her right then and there. But I don’t want to be all there is to it? What if this was just some buildup of sexual tension rather than actual romantic feelings? I still want to be friends with her. I don’t want to ruin that. I need to be sure.

His eyes glanced down at your lips before the two of you wrapped up your conversation to look at the aurora. Then Axel held your hand.

What if I do have feelings for her and it’s more than just a crush? How deep does this go? I knew I was going to go crazy if I never saw her again. But I could say the same about Demyx or Namine. But with her….

You leaned on him at this point, and he leaned back.

“With her I feel right. Like I’m already completed. Even Roxas didn’t make me feel as whole as she does. And that’s something I never want to lose that feels deeper than just what we’ve mentioned to each other about how we feel. Deeper than a crush.”

You laughed, and you and Figment moved on to the next set of memories.

This set was in Disney Town on your first training day. You ignored most of the memories of you training, though you were flattered any time you saw actual pride from Axel when he was observing you. Then you skipped to the one where you had flirted with him.

“Oh I’ll do anything for an A, Teacher,” you said before walking over to Namine, but not before the words “Hot damn!” appeared on the screen as Axel set his cup on fire.

Then other words appeared.

                “What the hell? What was that? She’s getting to you. Get your shit together, Axel. You’re already in this too deep. You really don’t have time to entertain a crush on her. But why not? She obviously likes you. Or maybe I’m being conceited? No. No one says that and doesn’t feel something right? Eh. Maybe I am conceited.”

Then it was quiet for a moment aside from the split-second thoughts that flit across too quickly for you to read.

                “She’s cute though…. Dammit.”

Well Demyx had certainly overexaggerated when he said that Axel nearly set them all on fire, but he reacted. Which was cute and flattering in its own right.

The two of you watched a bit more, and you were happy to see genuine pride when you rescued Demyx. Then you moved back even further.

You recognized this night.

You were bent over a planter, your face practically buried in it. Then there were thoughts.

“The fuck is wrong with this bitch? She’s just… smelling flowers. But like… in the weirdest way possible. Is she nutso after her world fell? I mean I probably would be.”

Then he said the line you remembered about you trying to get a buzz from the flowers followed by a thought of him patting himself on the back at coming up with such a clever ling. He actually did that a lot, you noted as you continued to comb through his memories.

Then you saw something out of the corner of your eye. Movement that made you jump and feel every form of fear and anxiety. The last time you saw movement in the subconscious it haunted you in your dreams for a month – complete with your mother having to wake you up from fits of hysterical screaming and crying.

But it was just Axel. You felt frozen for a moment. He just stood there looking at one of his memories, casually standing there with a neutral expression on his face.

“Axel,” you said in a hoarse whisper, and Axel looked at you, expression still neutral, no semblance of recognition in his face whatsoever.

You reached out to him to grab his hand, and he vanished. Just like that.

Was this some sort of cruel joke? You were dazed and hurt. What was that?

“Those aren’t real,” Figment said, flying up to you and placing a hand on your shoulder, “It’s a part of his consciousness, but you can’t actively interact with it. He’s just dreaming, but right now his dreams are just memories. There’s probably dozens of him walking around right now jumping from one memory to the next. It’s incredible we ran into him at all.”

“I guess,” you said, not as sad as you would have been under normal circumstances but still a little upset.

The two of you continued looking around some of the memories around the first time you met Axel, and Figment was pleased to see that he was very much right when he said Axel was up to absolutely no good. Again, you already knew this, you had just elected to ignore it – as stupid as it sounds in hindsight. Plus he felt bad enough to want to show you a sunrise and look at the moon with you. So he couldn’t have been all bad.

Then the two of you continued on backwards. You were now totally absent from his memories, and they were just filled with days in the Organization. First there was him running around with the plot to turn Sora into a heartless. Then you headed further back where he was with Roxas. They weren’t on the best of terms at the moment, but Axel was more sad than angry. There were also more memories around the time he was with Roxas, but they were just static fuzz. There was absolutely nothing in them that you could see, but you didn’t understand why they were here.

You absently let your fingers brush over the screen.

“Figment,” you said, glancing towards him to see him just as intently staring at the screen, “What kinds of memories are these?”

“Well I’m not sure. They can’t be forgotten necessarily, or they would have been deleted already, having faded out of existence.”

“You don’t think there was any sort of interference do you?” you asked, bristling at the thought that the Organization may have tampered with Axel’s memories.

“I don’t think so. Some part of him must be holding on to these memories, and maybe they’re not supposed to exist.”

“Well… will they ever come back?”

“Possibly. I can’t say because I don’t know what the memory was supposed to be of.”

You nodded before the two of you continued a little way back. But it was after another hour of walking and observing that you realized you weren’t really going to find to many of his buried memories of him revealing anything really personal about him. His thoughts were certainly an insight, but since some of them were subconscious and opinions changed so very often, you weren’t sure how much of it you could really rely on.

It was you were heading back that both you and Figment both came across a memory you were both not too happy about. Far too embarrassing.

And the only thing about this memory that was even remotely tolerable was how it started.

“So do you know where I stand? With ________, I mean,” Axel said, looking away from your mother, and you didn’t need to be able to see his face to know he was blushing.

Your blood froze as you watched your mother give him that knowing smile of hers that she always did when she knew a dirty little secret. She gave you that smile every time Axel had come up in conversation once she’d figured out that you had a crush on him.

“Are you checking out my daughter, Axel?” she asked teasingly. Axel’s thoughts ran across the screen in such rapid succession that the regular thoughts blinked by as quickly as the subconscious ones.

“Well I mean, no ma’am, but it’s not like she’s isn’t pretty or anything, I mean, she is don’t’ get me wrong, at least I think so, but, uh,” Axel stumbled over his words. And your mother laughed at his loss of composure. Which made sense. Every time you talked about him to her, you always mentioned how he was always so cool, calm, and collected. And he’d never given your mother reason to think otherwise until now.

“Relax,” your mom laughed, and Axel looked away, embarrassed. Then the worst happened.

“Now don’t tell her I told you,” your mother said, leaning in just a little bit closer, “But we had breakfast together a few months back, and we were talking about how this whole saving the world business was working out after the two of you left my husband’s mind. And then you came up in conversation.”

“Oh really?”

Axel’s cocky demeanor was back at the thought that you were talking about him again. The words on the screen just jumped around in the same basic thought of, “What did she say?”

“And I asked her how she felt about you, and, of course, she flew off the handle and started defending herself. I asked if she thought you were cute, and she said, ‘I am not having this conversation.’ Well I pressed a little bit more, and she asked that if she gave me her complete honest opinion about you, would I leave her alone. I said yes, and she says, and I’m not making this up, she says, ‘He is by far the most gorgeous person I have ever met.’”

Your mom burst into a fit of laughter, and Axel chuckled a little bit, but he was still obviously embarrassed.

And you just groaned, putting your hands over your face. You wanted to die. You wished you never came here and never saw any of these memories.

“You know,” Figment began, leaning in and pulling out a hammer, “We can get rid of the memory if you really want to.”

It was a tempting thought. Really tempting, but then a thought flit across the screen that you couldn’t ignore.

“Maybe I have a shot?”

“Nah,” you said, eyeing him and the hammer, “I’ll get over it. I shouldn’t have been snooping anyway.”

Figment just shrugged, but then the two of you came across Figment’s embarrassing memory. Axel had walked in on him in the bathroom shaving his legs. Figment didn’t even hesitate. He smashed the memory with the hammer, and you glared at him. He had no right!

“What?” Figment said like he didn’t just erase someone else’s memory, “I retain the right to my privacy in the bathroom in the physical, metaphorical, and subconscious memory sense.”

You just rolled your eyes and kept walking. At least it wasn’t anything important.

The two of you decided to take a short break to rest after all of your walking. You distractedly leaned on one the walls, feeling your hand absentmindedly brushing up against one of the many cracks and chips. You let your finger run along the edges until you felt a tiny movement.

Your first thought was that it was a bug, and you snatched your hand away with a quiet yelp, looking down to see what had touched you. But you just saw the crack you’d been touching. There was nothing there, and for a moment you thought that it had skittered away back to wherever it came from.

Then slowly, ever so slowly, so much so that you almost missed it entirely, you watched the crack begin to repair itself. You watched closely and wondered briefly if you’d had anything to do with it. Then you began to notice that several cracks were repairing themselves. Even the wood of the floor began to unwarp.

“Figment,” you breathed, looking at him. He didn’t need you to continue, he just began to lead you out of the subconscious at a hurried pace, and you were jogging behind him. You practically flew out of the house at the speed you were going, running back into the conscious and through the neighborhood and town, watching as all of the buildings began to patch themselves up until everything was nearly pristine.

You finally stopped in the middle of the town’s square, looking around at all of the repaired and repairing buildings. Then you noticed the hotel from Twilight Town. It had a million and one peonies growing around it and climbing up the side of the building in a thick line that ended at a window. The one you recognized to be your own if this hotel were accurate.

Your heart skipped a few beats. Of course, you knew Axel liked you, but it was nice to know that you held a special place in his conscious if nothing else.

“All aboard!” Figment called from a train like you’d see in a theme park, a broad smile on his face. You hopped onto the train and began to ride it up the air on invisible tracks as Figment escorted you out of the conscious.

And as you were climbing through the sky, an aurora shimmered to life across the sky, as bright and dazzling as the night the two of you looked at it together.

You jolted awake slightly, feeling groggy like you had just woken up. Which technically you did. You could see Dreamfinder and Ludwig standing there and waiting with bated breath, an empty syringe in Ludwig’s hand and a container holding Axel’s heart in Dreamfinder’s hand.

Slowly your other friends trickled into the room. But you weren’t looking at them now. Your focus was solely on Axel, watching as the red patches that had developed around his neck slowly recede beneath his coat. You unzipped it and lifted his shirt and watched as the rest of the redness began to fade away, collecting at the cuts he had on his hip. You lifted the bandages where they still stood out, angry and red and open but not bleeding, the edges so dark it almost looked necrotic. Then you healed it, letting your light magic dance over it until all four of the deep gashes sealed up, leaving behind a rough jagged scar with raised skin.

But it was healed, and that’s all that mattered to you. You pulled his shirt back down as Dreamfinder opened the container. The heart drifted back into Axel’s body, and you gasped, feeling the connection you’d shared become whole again. It was overwhelming, but you held off your own emotion so as not to overwhelm Axel as well.

Your heart beat hard against your chest. It felt like it would jump into your throat at any moment. You needed this to work. You didn’t know what you’d do if it didn’t.

Then slowly you saw Axel’s eyes move just a bit, a tiny lift of the eyelids, but then he set to fluttering them, and you could feel the collective joy and relief that flooded the room. He opened his eyes and immediately they landed on you.

It was a nice sight to see. Axel had no idea how long he’d been out, but he was happy to see your smiling face.

“Axel,” you breathed. But you didn’t have time to say anything else because everyone else rushed into the room for a group hug, dragging you into it as well. Axel laughed, happy to have all of his friends and family surrounding him in a loving embrace. Yep, this was definitely the best way to wake up.

“We’re all so happy you’re back,” Namine said with tears in her eyes.

“What took you so long?” Demyx joked at him.

Axel simply rolled his eyes.

“I needed a vacation from you, Demyx,” he said with a smile. Leon put a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s good to have you back,” he said with a light smile.

Aerith and Yuffie and Cid also wanted to offer their happiness at Axel’s return, but Axel’s gaze returned to you, and the emotion between the two of you, despite not having said anything to each other was palpable.

Axel lifted a hand and gently brushed a tear off your cheek before gently cupping your face. You leaned into the touch, placing your own hand over top of his and giving him a light kiss on his palm.

Everyone exchanged a look. They could talk to Axel later. There were obviously some things the two of you needed to talk about. So they all quietly filed out of the room. As soon as you heard the door shut you began to speak.

“Axel I –”

You didn’t get to finish your sentence. You couldn’t.

Because Axel was kissing you. All you could do was let your eyes flutter closed and kiss back.

Notes:

You and Axel finally kiss! And it only took 52 chapters and almost 300,000 words! Haha.... I'm sorry.

I'll see you all next week! I hope you all are enjoying the story still!

Chapter 53: Suicide Mission

Summary:

The Organization's plans are in effect! Also Sora's back! What's it been? Like 33 chapters?

Notes:

So you and Axel like kissing. And look! I'm on time today! But also difficult times ahead (in the chapter).

Your reunion with Axel was turning out to be a lot steamier than anticipated – if the way his lips were moving against yours was any indication. Your mind had gone blank, and you couldn’t focus on anything other than all the kissing and the growing warmth around you.

You were dazed when he finally pulled away from you, finally registering just how hot the room had gotten. You weren’t sure who was closer to igniting, you or Axel.

You were both panting lightly as you gazed at each other, his eyes half-lidded and darker than they had been a moment ago. He wanted you. If that weren’t enough of a tell, he was practically broadcasting it through your shared connection.

You decided to cut through the hormonal haze hanging over the both of you by talking about literally anything else. Otherwise you weren’t sure where the two of you would be going with this. Well… you had a pretty good idea of where it was going.

“I missed your eyes,” you said. His gaze grew a little warmer but softer.

“Yeah, I heard,” he said with a light smirk, then he grew a bit more serious his voice dropping into a lower volume, letting his hand drift back up to your face, “I heard everything.”

Just from the way he was looking at you, you were compelled to kiss him again.

“I need you too,” he said finally, and you didn’t bother holding back. You kissed him again, and you were locked back into the situation you’d been when this started. The kisses were hungrier now, and he pulled you closer to him, so you were on the bed and practically straddling his lap, one of his hands on the small of your back and the other behind your neck. You couldn’t pull away even if you wanted to, and you most certainly did not want to.

~

Everyone let the two of you continue to have your privacy with Figment standing outside the door to make sure he didn’t hear the removal of any clothes and the subsequent squeaking of the bed. He was still, after all you had been through to prove you were capable of making your own decisions, your babysitter.

Meanwhile Demyx was stuck in his own dilemma. He had a solution to his Organization problem. And it was terrible. There was no way anyone was going to go for it. Except for maybe him. Running was what he did best. And he was sure running was what they ought to do now.

Yet he hadn’t told anyone yet. And time was running out. The previous day he’d run into the Organization again when walking around town. Sort of. They hadn’t seen him, but he saw them, and he heard them.

Sometime this week. It was happening some time this week. And he could only think to get out of dodge. Because nothing else didn’t put somebody in danger. Plus the Organization knew where they were. Or at least Xigbar did. Demyx was certain he didn’t tell because otherwise the Organization would have been here a lot sooner to make sure the traitors didn’t keep interfering in their plans.

He hadn’t yet told Namine what he decided. Everything had been so hectic, and now Axel was back, and you were so happy, and he didn’t want to ruin that by saying it was time to uproot their lives and move on. They would just think he was being a coward again. And maybe he was. But that didn’t make the plan any less valid. It would keep everyone safe. As safe as it could.

But he needed a moment to talk to Axel.

But you and Axel were most likely locked in some form of lovers’ embrace that he’d hate to have to break up. But this was important. So he found himself pacing outside the door to his own room with Figment watching him with wide, yellow eyes.

“Are they done yet?” he finally asked Figment after another ten minutes of pacing outside the door. Figment just shrugged. “What are they even doing in there?”

Figment quirked an eyebrow at him, a skeptical look on his face that said, “You really don’t know?” Demyx just rolled his eyes. It was nice the two of you were finally together and no longer worrying about Axel’s health or your mental health, but they’d have both of those things to deal with again if Demyx didn’t fill Axel in on his plans.

Finally, he’d had enough. He pushed Figment out of the way, gave three loud, sharp knocks to the door, and then proceeded to open it.

You and Axel both looked at him as if you’d been caught doing something wrong before relaxing when you saw that it was just Demyx and not one of your uncles or Figment. The two of you hadn’t been doing anything raunchy, just kissing with you in his lap. With a little tongue. Something you discovered Axel was quite good at if your senses – which had yet to completely return to you – were anything to go by.

You burst into a fit of giggles at having been “caught.” Axel chuckled too, looking at you like a lovestruck idiot. Normally Demyx would have made a quip about sex or privacy or the fact that they were in his room as well and he didn’t want to be left out. But this was serious Demyx – with serious, big boy problems.

“Axel I need to talk to you,” he said in a rush. There. The first part was out. Axel’s hand was still on the small of your back, rubbing little circles with his thumb, and your arms draped over his shoulders while you leaned into him.

“Yeah, sure. ‘Bout what?” he asked, holding you just a little tighter.

“Alone,” Demyx said, tone more serious than either of you had ever heard it. It made you stiffen in Axel’s grip. You looked at him, alarm written all over your face. What could it be now?

Axel also looked uncomfortable but began to nudge you lightly. You took the hint, climbing off of his lap and passing Demyx with a wary glance.

You walked back downstairs to see Namine and a few of your other friends sitting around and talking amongst themselves. Namine smiled when she saw you.

“You were up there for quite a while,” she said with a light laugh and nudge as you sat down next to her. But you didn’t smile back. She frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“It could be nothing,” you said somberly, “Demyx wanted to talk to Axel about something.”

“Well I mean we all want to talk to him,” Namine said, gesturing to everyone in the room, “We all missed him almost as much as you did. Almost.”

She added a wink to the last part, and you smiled just a tiny bit, but it was short-lived.

“I know. He just sounded so serious. I think something might actually be wrong.”

A little color drained from Namine’s face. She had an idea of what you might be referring to even though you had no idea. You watched her try to keep her composure.

“Do you know something?” you asked her, eyes searching. Namine’s own eyes widened.

“N-no! But stop. You’re making me paranoid. Things are fine again. Axel’s back. Let’s enjoy the moment for now and stop worrying for a second.”

You nodded slowly. It could have been nothing. But you had a nagging feeling in your gut that wouldn’t go away because it seemed every time something good came to you, something worse followed. You took a deep breath and told yourself it was nothing.

But it very much was something. And Axel was annoyed. No. More than annoyed. He was actually rather pissed the more he thought about it.

“When exactly did you plan on telling anyone that the Organization had anything planned?” Axel snapped at Demyx while Demyx paced nervously around the room. Axel stood up, angry, green eyes following Demyx around the room.

“I had wanted to say something sooner, but I didn’t even know when it was gonna happen, and there was always something going on. I was hoping to have a plan put together!”

“Well do you?”

“Yes! Well no.”

“Well which is it?!” Axel was out of patience the moment Demyx delivered the news that Organization was going to strike, and he’d kept it from them for a month. Now they knew the Organization was going to do… something this week, and Demyx apparently did or did not have a plan.

“The plan is leaving!” Demyx said, eyes desperate and hopeful that this was a good plan.

“Leaving,” Axel repeated dryly. Demyx visibly deflated. Axel had taken it about as well as he thought he would.

“Well, yeah. They know Namine is here, and they know I’m here. But if we leave, then they won’t have any inkling where any of us are again. We can just go to some far away world they don’t really visit so much anymore and lay low.”

“________ is never going to go for that,” Axel said. He didn’t know the full of it, but he was certain that laying low wouldn’t be possible for you since you were a keyblade wielder and keeping worlds safe and pretty much developing a reputation as a hero wherever you went was a constant.

“Well, I didn’t plan on her coming along,” Demyx muttered, now not meeting Axel’s eyes. Axel blinked at him. Then again. He didn’t even want to entertain the thought.

“Hear me out,” Demyx continued, “She’s a keyblade wielder. Wherever she goes, she’s either getting rid of or, in the case of the bad guys, causing trouble. Flying under the radar was only possible when the Organization thought she was dead. And both times that only lasted like a week or less. Even when she isn’t supposed to exist, she can’t stay out of the spotlight. But that’s not entirely her fault is it? We’re also kind of shining a spotlight on her. Every time the Organization sees us, they’ll assume she’s nearby. But if we’re not there….”

“Then if they find us, she’s no where near us to get caught in the crossfire,” Axel finished for him. He still didn’t want to entertain the idea of being away from you, but that would keep you safe wouldn’t it? It had been luck that Vanitas found you the first time, and that was because he’d been following Axel and got a lead to you somehow. But Axel had inevitably and inadvertently helped him get a little closer to you.

And when he’d gone to the Organization to get Ludwig’s research back, Larxene inquired about your whereabouts, glancing around as if expecting you to pop up somewhere before she realized you weren’t there.

Demyx had a point.

“Plus they know Namine’s here. What if they want to take advantage of her powers again? And this time you won’t be around to let her escape,” Demyx pressed.

“So that’s just it then? We just up and leave?” Axel asked, searching Demyx’s eyes for an alternate solution. Something where he got to keep you close without endangering you.

“Pretty much,” he answered, scratching the back of his head. He wasn’t too happy about it either, but it was a safe bet at least.

“And what about everyone else? Do we just let them deal with the fallout? The Organization is gonna come here whether or not we leave. We should tell them at least.”

“Yeah, we’ll tell them. It’s just I wanted to talk to you about this whole thing first. Namine knows about the attack or whatever it is too, but I asked her to keep quiet about it. So, like, don’t get mad at her, okay? Because at the end of the day, you were the person who was losing the most. I know how you feel about ________, and I was kind of hoping that maybe you could think of something else less depressing but still didn’t involve us fighting.”

Axel should have confirmed that Demyx did indeed have the best idea. But he was also selfish. And despite the fact that the last time he’d been selfish about keeping you safe it backfired horribly, he couldn’t deny that he’d like to at least find some other way to keep you close while keeping everyone else safe as well.

“Give me a few hours to think,” Axel said finally, “It’s a big decision. But maybe you ought to break the news to Namine first about your plan.”

Demyx nodded, wincing a little. You and Namine were best friends. This wouldn’t be easy for her either, but it wouldn’t be right to spring it on her at the last second. He had to at least give her chance to come up with an alternative solution too.

~

Axel, Demyx, and Namine took their time with their little secret despite knowing they had precious little time to act. None of them had any alternative solutions to leaving. But they all continued to procrastinate with their decision. Because they didn’t want to leave. They liked what they were doing. They liked being on the right side and having hearts and being with you and each other and all the other friends they’d made. And leaving was… too painful a decision to decide on so absolutely like they hadn’t all been reunited just three days ago.

You were blissfully unaware, sinking back into your training and Axel’s arms at the end of the day – or whenever the two of you could sneak off from Figment’s gaze to be a bit naughty with each other.

That was another issue. Axel was a bit more attached than the others. Leaving to keep you safe felt like priority. But so did staying. And every time he got to hold you or kiss you or flirt with you, it got a little harder to say goodbye.

And the worst of it was, he wasn’t so sure he should. Even if he did end up leaving, how would he keep you away? If he told you, you were bound to fight tooth and nail to get him to stay.

But he couldn’t just leave without saying goodbye at least.

He and Namine were discussing what they would tell you exactly if they really did decide to leave when you walked into the room. They’d been meeting with Demyx in Axel and Demyx’s room to talk about it, but Demyx said he wanted to take a walk and clear his head and look out for any Organization members.

Axel and Namine jumped, but you didn’t notice. You were on the phone with your mother.

“Yeah, he’s fine now. I meant to call you about it a few days ago, but I’ve been… distracted?” you said into the phone, turning away from the others to hide that smile Axel knew was all over your face. It made him want to smile too.

He relaxed some of the tension from his shoulders, acting like they hadn’t been talking about basically how to ditch you. Namine absent-mindedly picked at a loose thread on the comforter of Demyx’s bed.

“How’s dad?” you asked, mostly as a formality. She said he was fine as she often did. But you wondered that if you had to be in Axel’s head for him to hear you, did the same apply to your father? But his heart was still in his body, so maybe not?

“Okay, mom. I’ll talk to you later,” you said before waiting a few more seconds as your mother responded, “Yes, I’ll call more often… Love you… Bye.”

You hung up the phone before turning around to your friends.

“So,” you began, “What goes on?”

Axel just shrugged casually.

“Just chatting about nothing. We’re kinda bored I guess.”

“Well we could all get Demyx and go do something together,” you suggested, and Namine started listing places you all could go to have a little fun. Then Yuffie burst through the door.

You all jumped at her sudden intrusion.

“Sora’s here,” she said.

~

“Xigbar said you might be here. You never were the brightest of our members, but you would have to be an imbecile to continue existing here when you know the Organization frequents this world.”

It was the absolute last voice Demyx wanted to hear. It was a voice that meant death. He turned to face the figure and could swear he saw a flash of Saix’s golden eyes staring angrily down at him. It was hard to see with the hood covering his head.

“Is Axel and his pet here too?” he asked, voice as cold and monotonous as it had always been.

“N-no. They’re long gone. I’m here by myself,” Demyx lied. And it was almost convincing enough to work.

“Shame. Then they won’t be here to protect you.” Saix was prepared to summon nobodies to attack Demyx in that moment, but then Demyx did something unprecedented.

He dropped to his knees and begged.

“Wait!” he said, clasping his hands together in front of him, and Saix paused. “Let me rejoin the Organization! I’m not with Axel or ________ anymore. I don’t really have anything going on, you know? I’ll do whatever you want!”

Whatever he wanted. Pfft. Saix almost laughed in his face. But then he thought of an idea. The Organization couldn’t really afford to lose nobodies. There was Roxas then Axel then Demyx. And now one was offering to come back. He wasn’t really all that useful. But he might serve as a nice backup. Or at least as good cannon fodder.

“I’ll cut you a deal,” he said coolly, and Demyx looked with scared yet hopeful eyes, “Sora’s passing through here doing who knows what. We’re set to launch an attack very soon. Sora will no doubt interfere. Your job will be to liberate Roxas’s true disposition. Through any means necessary.”

~

Sora was here. So that meant you were all confined to the upstairs until it was confirmed that he had left. You were all a bit anxious. It had been explained to you that Sora didn’t remember any of the Organization members or Namine, but if he was here, the Organization probably wasn’t far behind. This made Namine and Axel more anxious than you. They were out of time to make this decision. They shared a look, understanding they were going to have to tell you now before going to get Demyx – hopefully before any Organization members ran into him.

It was Axel was about to deliver the news that Demyx opened a corridor and practically flew through it with the urgency he sped through. It startled all of you. He was out of breath. Had he been running?

Actually, yes, he had. After a bit more conversation, Saix left, and Demyx ran around like a mad man and jumped in and out of corridors to make sure he lost them before finally opening one back up in Merlin’s home in his room.

“Demyx, are you alright?” you asked, eyeing him warily while Namine walked him over to his bed to sit down. She sat next to him, gently rubbing circles into his back while he caught his breath. He seemed to appreciate the gesture.

“Sora’s here,” he announced, still breathless but calming down a bit.

“We know,” you said, still watching to make sure he didn’t pass out, “Yuffie came in and told us already. Did you run into him or something?”

“Worse,” he said, looking more panicked than before and now a little nauseous, “I ran into Saix.”

Axel stiffened. You looked at him, placing a hand on his arm.

“You alright, Ax?” you asked, worry written all over your features. Axel frowned then looked sad before sighing heavily.

“No,” he answered, “That’s trouble. What did he want with you?”

There had to be something. If Demyx was still alive and had not run into Sora, then Saix spoke to him and informed him of Sora’s whereabouts.

“He was gonna kill me. I need you all to understand that. He was ready to do it. So I told him I’d rejoin the Organization.”

Everyone else flinched at that, and Namine recoiled her touch, looking at him with a cross between horror and confusion.

“I’m not actually gonna do that! But he said that he had use for me. He told me Sora was here, and he would let me rejoin if I, ya know, took care of him.”

“That’s awful!” you said, hand over your mouth.

“No! It’s great!” he said, a giant smile breaking over his face. Well Demyx had obviously had some sort of mental break. Because he was talking crazy now. “I’m gonna fake my death!”

There was silence. And then you broke it.

“Okay, I am like the current reigning queen of impulsive, bad decisions, but you have just stolen the crown. How do you even intend to do that?!”

“I’m gonna fight Sora, let him get a few hits in, and then I’m gonna fake die! And the Organization thinks I’m dead! And the best part is that I told Saix that you guys took off already! They’ll think they won’t have anymore leads, you know, unless you all happen to run into each other after that! It’s the perfect plan!”

“Unless Sora kills you!” Namine snapped at him. He flinched. Namine raising her voice wasn’t really a thing. Even you and Axel jumped a little bit.

“She’s right,” you agreed, “Sora’s not gonna know this is a fight that supposed to get you out of dodge with the Organization. He, Donald, and Goofy are all gonna fight to kill. Suppose the few hits you get in are all fatal. They aren’t gonna beat around the bush with this whole thing.”

“That’s why,” he said, announcing it smugly like he had all the answers and had not just suggested a literal suicide mission, “Axel is gonna keep an eye on me.”

“Absolutely not!” you nearly shouted, pissed beyond all reason. It was bad enough that he wanted to attempt suicide and it seemed none of you could talk him out of it, but to drag Axel into it was too far!

“Think about it for a second! If I’m alive and the Organization knows about it. The hunt for you is on! They’ll keep so many tabs on me, I’ll wind up leading them right back to you! And that’s assuming Xemnas doesn’t kill me outright for double-crossing him again! We’d have to leave!”

“So we’ll leave. This isn’t the first time we’ve had to relocate all of you,” you said with a shrug.

“No, I mean without you. We’d all be a danger to your health and Namine’s – who I should remind everyone was very much abused and take advantage of in regard to her powers. And I don’t think I need to remind you about every far too close to successful attempt on your life,” he added, looking at you as you reflexively moved a hand to your upper abdomen where your scar was.

Oh fuck. That clever little shit. Axel was seething. Now he was using their original plan to coerce you into going with his stupid ass idea. And Axel could already see your inner argument going back and forth between going with a suicide mission and debating never seeing each other again. Namine also looked caught in a trap, having figured out Demyx’s game when Axel did – entirely too late.

“I don’t feel comfortable with either of those options,” you mumbled, hands balled up at your sides. You were glancing around at all of them, dreading that Axel would make you pick the responsible option and subsequently say goodbye for who knew how long – made all the worse by the fact that you had just gotten him back.

“I know,” Demyx said, finally having the decency to look somber about this turn of events, “But if Axel’s there to watch me, we can fake my death with no downside. Axel will make sure I don’t actually die, and you and Namine and me will be safe. And as far as they even know, Axel and you are long gone. I’m the last piece of the puzzle they have!”

The four of you sat there for a moment, Demyx letting you all absorb this. Flying under the Organization’s radar would be a very good thing. And knowing Demyx was somewhere nearby was a very bad thing. And they’d continue looking for him so long as he was alive. But they’d have nothing if he was dead. And that would make things safer for the rest of you – Demyx included.

“Let’s do it,” Namine said finally, though she looked like it was taking all of her willpower to go along with it. It almost looked like it physically hurt her to say it. “I trust Axel. If he agrees to keep Demyx safe, then I’ll go with it. But only if he’s got your back, Demyx. Otherwise I’m out.”

“I’m not on board with it,” you said finally, “Any of it. I don’t want to risk your lives any more than I want to say goodbye. But I’d rather you all alive somewhere than trying to attempt supposedly death-defying stunts like this one.”

It looked like you also had some trouble saying it. Your eyes even teared up a little.

That left it all hinging on Axel who looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there having to make this decision. It was as if Demyx had gone crazy.

“She’ll be safe, Axel,” Demyx said. And that was his greatest weakness. He’d do just about anything to keep you safe. And this, if it worked, would most definitely keep you safe. And, unlike last time, Demyx was a willing volunteer to the risks – unlike your uncles had been. And it was true, if things looked bad, he could step in. He wouldn’t need to fight, just startle them enough to open a corridor and get Demyx out of there.

And maybe he could throw the tiniest wrench in the Organization’s plans. Let Sora know what’s what. If this went smoothly that is. Anything to trip them up would be nice.

“I’ll do it,” he said, purposefully avoiding your, no doubt, panicked gaze, “But the second anything looks like it’s going south. I’m pulling you out of there. Got it?”

Demyx beamed like he won a lottery.

“Yes! Absolutely! So we’re all agreed?”

“No,” you said pointedly, “I’ve just been outvoted.”

~

Axel was going to have to make this up to you big time. He knew you didn’t want him out there risking his neck so Demyx could risk his neck, yet here he was.

Demyx had said something about how he had been planning it on his way back. He even had little note cards for when he asked Saix to go over what his instructions were. He said it was foolproof. Though Axel wasn’t sure how foolproof it could be if he also intended to act scared to “appeal to Sora’s better nature” so maybe he’ll go easy on him.

That line had not won him any favor on your or Namine’s part. And it had only added to Axel’s own skepticism.

Axel could feel his heart racing. Or maybe that was yours he could feel racing. Regardless, you were both nervous about everything going on right now.

Demyx appeared in front of Sora, Donald, and Goofy in a haze of darkness, starting off with a little light humor to brighten the mood. Axel rolled his eyes from where he was hidden.

“Hey! You guys are lookin’ lively!” Demyx said with a grin plastered on his face.

“Scram!” Donald snapped at him.

Sounds like they were already having a rough day and were in no mood to put up with whatever bullshit Demyx had to offer. That was already a bad start. Axel was tempted to pull the plug immediately but held his ground. He said he’d trust Demyx. And if he blew this now, there was no second chance at it.

“Didn’t we catch you messing around in the Underworld? How’d a wimp like you get into Organization XIII?”

Demyx floundered a bit, not sure how to answer that. He couldn’t come out and say he was a good guy now. What if Saix was somewhere watching to make sure he did what he was supposed to? So he jumped to the cowardly thing – er, uh, I mean jumped to appealing to his better nature.

“I bet you can’t even fight!” Sora challenged.

Okay that was good. Axel felt a little better about this. If they thought he was some weakling, even a goodie-two-shoes like Sora would probably feel more inclined to ignore him.

“You shouldn’t judge anyone by appearance!” Demyx countered. Like an idiot.

Axel took a deep calming breath. Demyx could do this. He’d said those words for a reason and not because his male pride was hurt. Because if that was the only reason, Axel would just kill Demyx himself and save both Sora and the Organization the trouble.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy readied themselves for a fight.

Demyx turned away – again like an idiot – to mutter to himself. All he could think about was how dumb it was of the Organization to send him to take care of Sora and bring back Roxas. Before he left, Demyx had tried to convince Saix to go on a less dangerous mission. One where he wouldn’t be fighting. Demyx told them they were sending the wrong guy for the job, but Saix said it was this or dusk. And being a dusk didn’t sound like a very pleasant future.

“Who is this kook?” Demyx heard Sora mutter to one of his friends.

“Remember,” Goofy responded, “The Organization is made up of nobodies.”

“Right – no hearts!” Sora said as if coming to some grand realization. One that Demyx took mild offense to. He had a heart now! Was Sora upset he’d be killing a nobody with a heart? Was it easier to dehumanize him?

“Oh we do to have hearts! Don’t be mad…,” Demyx said, a cocky little smirk playing over his lips. He was very proud of his heart and quite often wore it on his sleeve. Now if only they could see that.

“You can’t trick us!” Donald snapped back at him. Of course, they didn’t believe him. That made sense. They didn’t go on the adventure with you like he had and learned all that he did.

Demyx turned back around briefly, shooting Axel’s hiding spot a quick wink. Axel rolled his eyes again. Not the time Demyx! Then Demyx whirled back around, pointing straight at Sora who was supposed to be Roxas, and announced loudly enough that if Saix really were nearby he’d be able to hear, “Silence, traitor!”

Demyx summoned his weapon in a flourish of light and water – always the showman – before fighting in a style that Axel actually found rather impressive if not a bit excessive. You weren’t kidding when you said that you, Namine, and Demyx were really getting into your training.

The fight went on for a good half an hour or more before Demyx took a dive. He got hit really, really hard, so it was convincing enough – his words sounding pained, and his movements staggered.

He fell to his knee, his sitar disappearing. Then he staggered to a standing position. He had to make this good. Make it believable.

Demyx clutched his head as if he couldn’t believe what was happening before shouting as loud as he could, “No way!”

Then he enveloped himself in light, water, and darkness, concealing the core of the corridor he was surrounding himself with, so it looked like his body was dissipating instead of slipping into the door.

Demyx hopped out of the other side of the corridor near Axel.

“What’d ya think?” he said with a lopsided grin.

“Hamming it up at the end there weren’t you? And why did you drag the fight out so long? If this were a game and I were playing it, fighting you would be very annoying. You just had to take a dive!”

Demyx shrugged, smile still in place, before opening another corridor to his room.

“Let’s go let the girls know the good news,” he said triumphantly.

“You go. I’ll catch up in a bit.”

Axel had something he wanted to take care of first.

~

Axel wanted to be cool, calm, and collected like he had always been. He was just gonna show up, drop a few hints at the Organization’s plans so Sora would be pointed in the right direction, and leave before he was spotted.

But when he saw Sora, despite the demeanor he put up as he leaned against the rough wall of rock, he just felt a cold anger. Because Sora looked so much like Roxas. But Roxas was gone. And it would be so easy to just end it all while Sora had his back turned. But Axel was a different person now, wasn’t he? And he supposed that made him a little bitter. Especially since Sora was doing exactly what the Organization wanted. And that only served to piss him off a little bit more.

“Way to fall right into their trap,” he said, his voice as nonhostile as he could make it – mildly lined with something akin to amusement.

Sora and his friends turned to him, and Axel pushed himself off of the wall to approach them. Not too close though. No need for this to turn into a fight because of their paranoia.

He looked at the three of them. None of them were quite comprehending what he was saying. Maybe saying it was a trap was too vague of a hint.

“It’s a setup by Organization XIII,” he continued. More confusion. Axel did his best not to roll his eyes. He really wanted to get out of here, but he’d come this far. He better make sure they get the message. “Xemnas is using you to destroy the heartless. That’s his big master plan.”

There. It was spelled out for them. Plain and simple. There could be absolutely no questions they would need to ask now.

“Xemnas?” Donald spoke up, squinting at Axel suspiciously. Ah right. No questions except who the hell he was even talking about.

“The guy you just saw. He’s their leader,” he said, getting an oddly surreal feeling at calling his former boss “their leader.” It was an us vs them kind of thing now. Though hadn’t it always been that way at some point? “Got it memorized? X-E-M-N-A-S.”

“Organization XIII wants to get rid of the heartless?” Goofy asked, baffled.

Had he not just said that? Could they not put two and two together? Did they not see every heart they release being enveloped by darkness? If this kid was even half as smart as Roxas he’d have ended it all by now! But he wasn’t Roxas. Why was that still pissing him off? That shouldn’t be his main concern. His main concern was educating these idiots, so they could at least be on par with the Organization instead of always one step behind.

“Man, you’re slow,” he said, this time complete with an eyeroll. Then he continued to explain instead of leaving. Like an idiot. “Every heartless slain with that keyblade releases a captive heart. That is what the Organization is after.”

“So what are those guys gonna do with the hearts?” Donald asked.

Okay. He had said enough. He had explained everything they needed to know. Any questions after that were unnecessary. And honestly he was tired of talking to them and looking at the boy who had inadvertently taken his best friend away.

“I’m not telling,” he said with a smirk. Was being petty the best he could do? If anything it made him feel a little better. Just a tiny smidge.

“Tell us!” Donald demanded, stomping his foot on the ground. Meanwhile Sora was coming to his own conclusions, putting other pieces together.

“You…,” he began, face a mix of hurt and anger, “You’re the one who kidnapped Kairi!”

Ooh. Knowing he felt the same kind of hurt that Axel felt was kind of nice. It was nice to know that he knew what that felt like. And he wanted to rub it in a little.

“Bingo!” he said, smirk broadening just a bit, “The name’s Axel. Got it memorized?”

But Sora didn’t care. He had other things on his mind. Well one thing.

“Where is Kairi?”

Axel paused. His voice. It sounded more desperate than he’d ever heard it. All the anger was gone. Now it was just hurt and sadness. Now it wasn’t like how Axel felt. It wasn’t like that at all. It was supposed to be like when he lost Roxas. But now… it sounded more like when he lost you. When he thought Vanitas may have killed you.

“Please!” Sora pleaded over Axel’s silence, “Just tell me!”

Dammit.

“Look…,” he began with a sigh, leaning his head back and feeling guilt he really didn’t want or need right now, “About Kairi… I’m sorry.”

It was all he could say. And all he could do. He had no more access to Kairi than Sora did. And he felt bad about it. Because if it had been you, Axel would know exactly how he felt. But instead he was the cause of Kairi’s kidnapping, and he couldn’t even relate because he still had you. This had to be some weird sort of Karma shit. But Axel had no time to contemplate it.

“Axel!”

He knew that voice. Shit. He’d been here way too long.

Saix appeared before him, back to Sora, a harsh glare leveled at Axel. It felt like ages since they’d seen each other. And Axel felt a strange kind of hurt that was also affecting him far too much. As much as the guilt.

“Uh-oh.”

It was all he could think to say. Then he left. What else was there for him to do?

Saix watched him go, assuring Sora that Axel would be punished. He had a feeling Demyx was lying, but now he knew for sure. And if Axel was here, then you couldn’t be far behind. Not that it mattered too much. Demyx was dead. And he had more pressing concerns than Axel at the moment.

Notes:

I hope you all enjoyed! See you later!

Chapter 54: Nothing Is Wrong

Summary:

You finally meet Larxene... or something....

Notes:

It's late on a Thursday. But it's still Thursday! Woo!

You all left in a hurry. Axel had been caught, but he was safe, and you were pissed, but what could you do? The Organization would tear up Hollow Bastion looking for him. Though from what you understood, Demyx was as good as dead to them. But after hurriedly talking it over, you decided you weren’t just letting them leave for your sake, and Axel found it hard to argue against it – despite the fact that that was the whole reason Demyx faked his own death.

“What were you thinking?” you said as you brushed by him in a rush, hands full of your uncle’s research as you helped them to empty the lab. Axel kept going with no answer, finally returning as you were on your way back to the house, his own arms full of things.

“I was thinking maybe I fuck the Organization up a little. You know?”

You kept moving grabbing another box that was haphazardly packed in a rush and rushing to the ship just as Axel was rushing back.

“You think you could’ve been more discreet about it?”

He rushed by you, and the two of you continued your exchange much the same way after that, only speaking when passing each other, no time to rest in between boxes with how quickly you needed to be up and out of there.

“Well it’s not like I was trying to flag Saix down and let him know I was here!”

“I know! It’s just now we all have to pack up and leave in a hurry while our other friends are all in fights for their lives. We should be out there helping them!”

Now Axel stopped, putting a hand on your shoulder because your hands were full, and he couldn’t grab them.

“I know. But if we do, we’ll just cause more trouble. We’ll leave a note, but it’s important that we stay out of sight. Let the Organization think we’re here. After Leon and Sora and the rest run them out of here, they’ll discreetly try to comb the area for us. And you haven’t been in Twilight Town in a month. They’re not gonna put too much attention on it for the time being. And all we have to do then is lay low for a few days until we can come back to Hollow Bastion and keep them off our trail.”

You let out a deep sigh. You were more weary than anything else. You couldn’t even have one week where something didn’t happen that either upset you, uprooted you, or upended your entire life anymore it seemed.

“I know,” you conceded, “But I’m still mad at you. You could’ve gotten hurt or worse! And I can’t do that again, Axel! I don’t want to go through that again. But this time, there won’t be a way to save you.”

“I know.” He looked sad that he’d upset you so greatly. But he could understand it – whenever he wasn’t a fan of your impulse decisions. “But we’ll be okay.”

There was silence between the two of you for a moment. You weren’t so sure. It seemed that everything was trying to ensure you never got too happy. You’d learn to move on from it eventually, but he’d also try to think of a way to make it up to you in the meantime to at least alleviate any of your relationship problems.

The two of you parted silently after, continuing to load up the ship.

You went around the back of Merlin’s house to get the gift Axel had gotten you. It stood there in full bloom. This stunned you momentarily. It had been closed only hours ago. It was supposed to have bloomed ages ago, but your uncle said that it must have been a late bloomer. So you’d cared for it up to this point. But now here it was in full bloom.

Axel came around back to see where you’d disappeared off to.

“Hey, ________, we finished loading up if you’re ready to – oh.”

“Yeah,” you said quietly.

The petals weren’t a deep red like Axel’s flames. They hadn’t even taken on your own deep cobalt hue. The stems that braided together pulsed in alternating red and blue as if your fires were still running deep within them, and they led up to the blooms on top which had opened to reveal rich, bright purple petals that matched the fire the two of you made together.

For some reason… this gave you a little hope for your future, especially in regard to Axel – everything that stood in your way be damned.

~

Things were quiet in Twilight Town. You’d think you would have missed the quiet, but you didn’t. You stayed in your room in the hotel mostly, and your friends would visit you or make a corridor to the Old Mansion for a little training. But going into town was a big no.

And your plant, which was kept at the Mansion where there were fewer things to burn down, no longer need your constant care, so it wasn’t an excuse to get out.

So you were bored most of the time.

Even now. You lay on your bed, staring up at the ceiling. You had been reading a few minutes ago, but now you were tired of that and didn’t know what else there was to do. You were… frustrated to say the least. You hadn’t been so still in a long time. The last time you dealt with this was just recovering in the hospital for a bit after you’d woken up after your little misadventure with Marluxia.

What was that bastard up to nowadays anyway? He’d been quiet as far as you knew. You hadn’t seen anything else in his papers or notes about any further plans of attack. Though you had no doubt he was still working on that army or the city he kept in the heart chamber of the world.

Boy would that Xemnas guy lose his shit if he knew what you knew. You’d like to see that actually. You’d like to help. Then you’d give Xemnas a piece of your mind too. And since his nobody and heartless would be dead, you’d hunt down Xehanort and make him wish he’d died for real instead of splitting into two entities.

A wry smile spread on your face, static and cinders sparking at your fingertips.

Then there was a knock at the door. You jumped, startled out of your reverie. Then you rolled over onto your stomach, facing the door.

“Come in,” you called, and the door opened to reveal Axel.

Your heart leapt, but you acted nonchalant. You were still a little mad at him.

“How’re you doing?” he asked, letting himself into the room and closing the door behind him. You shrugged – nonchalant.

“I’ve been better. I’m bored mostly. I don’t know how Namine managed to stay in one area the whole time with so little to do.”

“Yeah….,” he sighed, scratching the back of his head, “You still mad at me?”

“A little.”

“Ugh… What’s it gonna take to get you to forgive me? I’ll do anything.”

You quirked an eyebrow. Already there was a smirk playing across your face.

“Anything?” you said in a suggestive tone. But you should have known better. Axel was much better at this game than you. He crossed the room in a few steps, rolled you over onto your back, and effectively pinned you beneath him.

“Anything,” he said, his voice low and husky. And you couldn’t. You couldn’t compete with that, and you didn’t want to, body lightly flaring at what he was doing to your emotions.

“Okay, okay! I forgive you! Get off!”

Axel blinked down at you with mild surprise written in his face but amusement dancing wildly in his eyes as he gazed down at you. Then he let out a light laugh.

You pushed him off of you, frowning lightly but if only to keep a smile off of your face.

“You are such an ass!” you said, scooting back to recline against the headboard. Axel readjusted himself so he was sitting next to you. He was still laughing.

“Where’s your mom?” he asked after a few minutes, “She doesn’t have work does she?”

“Hm? Oh, no. She always visits dad around this time. She’s out at the mansion. She left a little before you got here, so it makes sense that you missed her. She likes to go and talk to him every day.”

Axel hummed in acknowledgement before settling into a comfortable silence with you, eventually lacing your hands together, with you snuggling into his side. You were drowsy now. Axel was warm and comfy. And cozy.

You let out a small yawn. Axel looked a little sleepy too.

You wondered what your mom would say if she came back to the hotel and saw the two of you snuggled up to each other and asleep. She’d probably make a bunch of jokes at your expense. You wondered if her and your dad did that a lot when they were dating. What would they be like now?

You wondered how much of your father could hear your mother while she spoke to him. Did his having so many hearts affect that? Maybe Axel would know?

 “Hey, Axel, could you ever hear anything I was saying to you before I went in your head?” you asked, interrupting whatever lull he had relaxed himself into.

“Uh, not that I remember. Why?”

“Well my dad has his heart, and I wasn’t sure if him having it or not had anything to do with whether or not he could hear my mom. Since she speaks to him every day. If you had said yes then I would’ve known he could hear her because then having a heart or not wouldn’t make a difference. Though I guess he has thirty-one hearts. Or heart fragments. Would removing those extra thirty affect anything?” you were rambling to yourself now, “I could ask Figment. Of course, I’d have to remove –”

You stopped midsentence. You’d have to remove those thirty extra hearts. But… you could do that now. You could absolutely do that now.

Axel had stopped lulling to sleep to listen to you and watched your face as the gears in your head started turning. Then you let out a mildly hysterical, breathless laugh.

“I can get those extra hearts out of my dad,” you breathed, “I might be able to save my father.”

You were up out of the bed in record time, scrambling over Axel and effectively jolting him out of relaxation mode. You tore out of your room with Axel calling after you. But you didn’t hear him. Your heart was thudding in your ears as you ran as fast as your legs could carry you all the way to the mansion.

You slammed the door open, and Demyx who had been walking by at the time jumped and let out a shriek. Namine, Ludwig, Dreamfinder, and Figment all came out to see the hubbub. But you didn’t respond to any of their questions, just running down to the basement to where your mother stood with… Axel?

“How’d you get here so fast?” you panted, staring at him like he’d grown a second head. He just smirked.

“I took a corridor. Like you should have. But you were in such a rush, I hated to slow you down.”

You could not roll your eyes hard enough to communicate your annoyance with him or your own thoughtlessness.

“________, what’s the matter?” your mother asked, worry written all over her face. And why wouldn’t it be. You ran there in a tank top and short shorts barefoot with your hair a mess and only made worse by the breeze kicked up by your running.

The others had quickly made their way down to the basement as well just in time to hear your mother ask what was wrong.

You just broke out into a smile so wide it threatened to break your face in two, rushing forward and grabbing her by the hands, squeezing them tightly and feeling a million bubbles of giddiness float in your chest that you wished she could feel.

“Nothing is wrong, Mom,” you said, voice light and bubbly, “I might be able to bring Dad back.”

You watched her face carefully as it filtered through every conceivable emotion on the planet. She squeezed your hands, brought them up to her lips to kiss, eyes closed as she pressed back tears.

“Might,” she repeated, though it was for herself and not you. She was telling herself not to get her hopes up. “Please try.”

It was her silently begging, and you summoned your keyblade, walking silently to stand near your father. Then you stilled. This was it. After twenty years. You were finally going to meet your father.

Namine opened the pod and stood by your side. Axel came to stand by the other, and slowly your friends and family surrounded you. You raised your keyblade and called forth your ability to unlock his heart. Your light shone into his own and you watched as thirty fragments of heart floated up and glittered out of this realm and into wherever they should have gone in the first place.

Then there was darkness. The darkness swirled forth and enveloped him.

And standing before you… was the man with no face.

It was much smaller than before. Just as tall as your father was.

It didn’t cry. It just stood there. Doing nothing.

Your keyblade was still pointed at it, but you found you couldn’t move. You were paralyzed, and tears streamed down your face silently and steadily as you couldn’t bring yourself to move purely out of sheer terror. Even Axel was frozen in place.

A moment passed. And then another. You could feel the confusion and uneasiness of your friends and your mother. You could feel the fear that radiated off of Figment and Axel. Your mind flashed with all of your memories in the mind and every nightmare that had plagued you since.

Then there was Dreamfinder. Dreamfinder was the only one able to move, having dealt with the man for no face for too long since his imprisonment in your dad’s mind.

He placed a shaking hand on your shoulder from where he stood behind you. You flinched when he touched you, head whipping around to see him. Though you expected to see some surreal horror of your mind’s own creation leering down at you. But you just saw Dreamfinder’s own tear streaked face staring down at you. But he was smiling. You could do this.

You took a deep, shaky breath then pressed forth your light and restoration magic.

A pulse of light surged through you, out your keyblade and into the man with no face.

It’s form shivered for a bit before dissipating. And left before you was simply a man. Your father. He stumbled forward, and your mother caught him, sobbing wildly about how much she missed him as they both sank to the floor. He blinked his eyes open and stared, wide eyed, at the sobbing woman before him before embracing her.

It felt like the room could breathe again. Namine, Demyx, and Axel all stepped back to let everyone else have their moment. Ludwig, Dreamfinder, and Figment all rushed forward to give him a hug, and he called them all out by name as he cried. He was seeing his friends for the first time in… who knew how far back his memory went. But you were certain that at some point, he believed he was never going to see them or your mother again.

It felt surreal.

You stood further back than everyone – besides your other friends who watched the reunion. You had never even seen your father in person until your first visit to Twilight Town, almost twenty years into your life. And now here he was.

His eyes drifted to everyone, and he had so many questions and he looked back and forth between everyone surrounding him until his eyes finally landed on you.

Your breath hitched. You felt like a deer caught in headlights. He froze, tears coming to his eyes. Then he stood up slowly, aided by the rest of your family as he staggered towards you.

Another surreal feeling hit when you realized that you had never envisioned how tall your dad might be. And he was taller than both you and your mom. He had to have at least been Axel’s height. His hair was lengthy – about to his shoulder – and he sported a full beard and mustache.

When he stood before you, it felt like neither of you knew what to do. He was looking at you like you were a ghost. He knew who you were. Though he’d never actually seen you before now. This was probably as weird for him as it was for you.

“Dad,” you breathed. But then you weren’t sure what else to say. Have any dreams in the last twenty years? Good ones, I hope. The tears in his eyes spilled over when he blinked, placing his hands on your shoulders and looking you up and down as if he couldn’t really believe you could exist like this. Though of course the last time he “saw” you was when your mother was heavily pregnant with you.

“You look so much like your mother,” he said. You laughed a little, feeling a little emotionally overwhelmed. You could feel Axel watching you. No doubt he picked up on your weird feelings.

“Yeah, I get that a lot. Everyone in the family says I have your eyes though.”

He pulled you into a hug, and you hesitated before you hugged back. You felt overwhelmed. In a good way. Your mind still couldn’t seem to shake the fact that your father, as far as you were concerned until only months ago, was dead. Yet here he stood. Hugging you, no less.

That was when he noticed the others in the room.

“Friends of yours?” he asked as his eyes drifted from one to the next.

“Oh! Yes,” you said, excited to have the attention off of you. You gently led him forward, “They’ve been with me from the beginning on this whole crazy journey. You probably have so many questions. Like why I’m all grown up.”

He laughed – a braying, hawing sound that was far too familiar. So that’s where you got it from…

Then your phone began to buzz in your pocket. You were prepared to silence it. There was something very important going on, but you saw you had missed a text from Setzer. And the first word was EMERGENCY. So you answered it.

“Hello? Setzer? I’m kinda busy right now. Can it wait?”

“You’re too busy to be a hero?”

His voice was joking but there was some underlying panic to it that you just faintly picked up on. Here we go again with the good things interrupted by horrible things.

“What is it?”

“You mentioned something about knowing a fellow with bright pink hair and a power complex?”

“Is Marluxia here?!” you said, rage coating your voice. How dare he even exist in the same world as you! Wasn’t it enough he continued living when you didn’t want him to?

“‘Fraid so, doll. And he’s wreaking havoc. He’s attacking the hotel as we speak. I’m helping people evacuate, but it’s hard. He’s got a… thing attacking it.”

“I’m on my way,” you said, “Just hang in there. I’ll be along soon.”

You hung up and turned to your friends.

“I need your help,” you said, turning towards Axel, Demyx, and Namine. Then you turned to Dreamfinder, Figment, and Ludwig, “You too. Bring the ship to the hotel. Marluxia’s attacking. When you get there, get as many people as you can on to the ship and get them to safety. Treat wounded if you have to. And we need to get Marluxia out of here. Permanently if need be.”

Axel was already opening a corridor back into town, and you summoned your armor. Then you turned to your mother and your awestruck father.

“Stay here. I’ll come back for you when it’s safe.”

You, Namine, Demyx, and Axel sped through the corridor and popped out on the other side to be met with a horrifying sight.

Before you was Specter, as large, intimidating, and unnerving as it had always been, towering over the building it was attacking. It’s jaw was opened wide, vines cascading out and wrapping in and out of the hotel. The hotel was on fire and full of holes and covered in damage. You’d never know it wasn’t some abandoned building were it not for the screams you could hear coming from inside. Behind it was a trail of destruction it had left in its attempts to get to the hotel – broken sidewalks, an overturned trolley, shattered glass, and buildings that had their fronts, sides, and backs, dented, pressed, scratched, and sometimes obliterated entirely, leaning dangerously to one side and appearing as if it could topple at any minute.

On top of Specter stood Marluxia, looking neither pleased with his work nor satisfied with life in general despite the gruesome work he’d already accomplished. Below Specter lay several broken and bloodied masses of people on the ground, now dead and their souls lost forever due to Specter’s special brand of ensuring hearts never found any form of afterlife.

You could feel your blood boiling in your veins, blue flames already surrounding you. Though you had no intent of controlling them.

“Namine, Demyx the two of you should start evacuating the building. Be ready when Dreamfinder and Uncle Ludwig get here. Axel, you’re with me.”

He nodded, and Demyx and Namine ran into the hotel, weapons blazing to cut through vines and avoid touching them at all costs.

You and Axel charged at Marluxia. It was just as you were summoning your glider that you were knocked to the side. You tumbled to the ground ungracefully before rolling to your feet and spinning quickly in the direction of your assailant.

Before you stood a young woman – close to your age – with an impish smile on her face, hands adorned with little knives that poked up from between her fingers. She laughed, and you felt your flames grow a bit brighter. You took a fighting stance, sword and shield in hand. If you had to go through her to get to Marluxia, then so be it.

Axel was about to join in on that fight, chakrams blazing and prepared to take her down while her attention was solely focused on you, but his weapon was blocked by a scythe.

Marluxia and Larxene stood back to back, staring down their respective opponents. But you had no time for this. People were being hurt, and they were the cause. Also you just didn’t like them, and they had to go.

You lunged at Larxene, blade at the ready, but she dodged and was fully prepared to strike your side. But your shield came up in time to block it. And this was a lot of the exchange between the two of you, evenly matched for a while, trading blow for blow – neither of you really landing any hits on each other that weren’t dodged or blocked.

Axel and Marluxia fought in much the same way – lunge, block, swing, dodge, lunge again. And all the while Specter continued pressing vines into the hotel.

Inside the hotel, people cowered and hid in rooms, closets, corners, anywhere they could squeeze into to avoid the vines that had already dragged so many people away to die. Demyx used his water like a blade, sending thin slivers of water so quickly it acted like one. Namine had used her staff to freeze and slow vines while shattering and cutting them with the blade on the end. They cleared a path for those who could escape to escape, telling those who couldn’t move due to injury to hold out for help.

Ludwig, Figment, and Dreamfinder finally showed up a few minutes later to the chaos. They immediately ran into the hotel and saw many people already running out. Inside there were many vines that were cut and hung limply. Others were still wriggling about freely, crawling up the sides of the walls and ceiling.

They began to run from room to room, looking for survivors, coming across many empty rooms that had already been evacuated – some with only corpses left in them – and carrying out people and children who needed help leaving.

You began to tire of this bitch you were fighting. Her little giggles were annoying, as well as all of her little snide comments about how she wasn’t sure how you managed to make it this far when you couldn’t even best her. How did you expect to stop Specter and Marluxia if you couldn’t handle yourself now?

“Shut up!” you snapped at her, sending out a wave of blue flame that knocked her back a few feet. She stood up quickly, but you were already on her, sending a kick flying into her side that grounded her and sent her skidding away again.

It was as you were about to strike her again that she sent a bolt of electricity at you. You were stunned, letting out a scream as your body jolted under the strain of the electricity.

“Ha! You have a few tricks up your sleeve, but you’re still no match for me!”

Summoning your own lightning magic, you began directing her lightning back out of your body and into the sky. You were better now, but you were weakened – something that drove you mad with anger.

That was when you and she were enveloped in shadow. She looked up, and you took the opportunity to send your flames at her again, dancing as flame and cinder flew from your toes and fingertips. She was sent flying back again.

The shadow continued to grow, and you were finally compelled to look up. And you saw Setzer on an airship. He landed a good way from the hotel and ran up to join the fight, two large daggers in his hand.

“So who’re we fighting?” he asked, a smirk on his face. You smirked beneath your own helmet before throwing up your shield to block an attack from Larxene who had recovered from your own magic, her little knives deflecting in all directions off of your shield.

“This bitch,” you said, shifting your sword to a spear and letting your shield return as wings on your back, “She knows lightning magic, so be careful.”

You threw your spear at her, and she rolled out of the way. You continued to re-summon it and throw it, alternating with throwing the occasional fireball to keep her busy. Setzer used the opportunity of her dodging to get close to fight her from close range. And once he was close enough to do that, you returned to your sword and shield style of fighting and joined in, using your own lightning magic to deflect hers – something you didn’t know you could do until you did it out of desperation.

And Larxene slowly felt herself being overwhelmed. So she did the only thing she could think to do that would trip you up.

She interrupted Axel’s fight against Marluxia. She jumped away and sent a stray bolt towards Axel, striking him in the side and momentarily stunning him. You saw this. Marluxia was already swinging his scythe to cut Axel down. And you don’t even remember running over there. The next thing you knew and only thing your remembered was that you were standing in front of Axel while he got up, spear locked with Marluxia’s scythe in a battle of endurance.

He smirked though his eyes were full of nothing but pure hatred. He hated you. Hated you so much. You who was always interfering with his plans. You were nothing. A nuisance. A pest. And you needed to be taught a lesson.

You could hear Larxene’s lilting laugh chime through the air as she moved to attack you while you were stuck in a deadlock with Marluxia. But Marluxia, pushed you back with surprising strength, and, with no small amount of force, knocked Larxene away. She was taken by surprise so badly by the sudden turn of events, she completely tumbled to the ground in a heap, vision swimming.

“Get back!” Marluxia hissed before redirecting his heated gaze on you, attacking you with all of his fervor and strength to knock you down and finish you off for good. But Axel had now rejoined the fight, and he was stuck battling the both of you while Larxene was being held off by Setzer in her weakened state.

But the longer he fought, the angrier Marluxia became. Why were you not down yet?! And as the fight carried on, slowly he began to be beat back. He couldn’t keep up with the both of you for very long, but then something he certainly hadn’t seen coming began to happen.

Axel danced with you, and your fires melded together in a blazing heat that he could hardly stand. If the two of you continued with these attacks, he’d be finished. But he had one more ace up his sleeve. Something he didn’t think he’d have to do, yet here he was, backed into a corner.

Namine and Demyx had reached the top floor and were with the last few people in the hotel that they could evacuate. They were fighting off the vines that kept pouring into the room at an alarming rate. Namine’s magic was running low, and she was reduced to cutting through the vines with the other end of her staff. Demyx’s main source of attack was also magic, but he was more practiced in it. Because of this he was holding out longer than she was, slicing down vines with sharp discs of water. But they were getting to be more and more of a hassle.

Then the roof began to crack as vines continued to tear through it, breaking it to pieces and either flinging them away or letting them fall into the room. Now Demyx had a dome of water over them all, using it as a force to press back against the debris while Namine tried to freeze it so he wouldn’t have to exert all of his energy into defense. Because the vines were still coming.

That was about when Dreamfinder, Ludwig, and Figment burst into the room.

“This way! Hurry!” Dreamfinder yelled, ushering the small family out of the room.

Demyx created a hole in his dome to allow them to crawl out without being crushed and they ran from the room.

“I’m gonna let it go,” Demyx said to Namine, “On the count of three, we sprint for safety, okay?”

Namine nodded before repeating a verbal confirmation, preparing to run from the dome they were trying so desperately to maintain.

“One… Two… Shit!”

Vines penetrated the dome, surrounding Namine and Demyx, wrapping them in vines. They were yanked out of the way of the falling debris at the last second and whipped through the air. Figment, Dreamfinder, and Ludwig attempted to grab the vines and cut them with whatever they could, but they were grabbed and hoisted into the air by even more vines.

The vines burned their skin wherever it touched them, and they squirmed uncomfortably against the thorns that pressed into them.

Marluxia had begun fighting dirtier than before. Specter’s vines were whipping at you and Axel as much as he was swinging with his scythe. Setzer was still fighting Larxene, but now he was dealing with vines too, and this meant he was losing the upper hand. It was one thing when Marluxia himself had weakened her, but now with the vines dealing damage to his end as well, he had found himself on equal footing with her and was steadily losing that the longer the fight dragged on.

But then Setzer was yanked away from his fight and into the air by even more vines.

Marluxia began to laugh to himself as he watched you and Axel futilely defend yourselves and each other from the onslaught of vines. They were steadily pushing you back and away from each other, and every time Axel tried to defend you, Marluxia would step in and attack.

Then Marluxia stood back, snapping his fingers and more vines sprung out of Specter’s mouth, wrapping around Axel who attempted to burn them off only for them to be replaced immediately.

Marluxia set out a wave of petals in a blast of magic that knocked you back even farther, and you helplessly watched as Axel was captured and yanked into the sky where you saw he and your other friends captured.

Your mind was in a blind panic. What did you do? You couldn’t let them die! You wouldn’t let them die. You charged forward, slicing vines down that tried to attack or hinder you as you kept your gaze locked on Marluxia. He just smirked and snapped his fingers again.

More vines poured forth and began to wrap around you in a constricting hold. You sliced and burned and electrocuted and fought with everything you had, but more vines were there to take their place, and they wrestled you down to the ground until you were brought to your knees and your face pressed into the ground.

You could hear Marluxia’s laughter break through the air. All had gone quiet now except for the distant sounds of an emergency siren that rang through the town in a state of crisis.

“You really had me going there,” he said, clapping his hands as if he were proud of you. You fought to turn your head and lift your chin so you could look up at him. “I really thought you’d be more of a challenge. Like Sora was. Now he was tough. You? You’re pathetic. For all that power you hold in that blade of yours, you can’t do anything with it.”

Hot tears stung your eyes. You were defeated but looking for a way out of this. A way to get to your friends and get them out of this.

“I know what you’ve been up to by the way. I know it was you that orchestrated the attacks against my nobodies. I thought it was Axel, but one of the nobodies you corrupted and turned against me helped me put all the pieces together.”

“What have you done with him you piece of shit?” you asked, spitting in his direction. He wrinkled his nose in disgust, a rare frown of distaste gracing his features. How primal and undignified.

“Nothing he didn’t deserve. But suffice it to say, he won’t be around to spread unrest anymore.”

He paused, opening a corridor to place himself on top of Specter where he could watch the show from the best seat. Then he smirked.

“You know. I actually came out here for someone else entirely. I didn’t actually intend to find you or any of your friends here at all. But here you all are. Right where I want you. Even though I came out here for your mother.”

Your jaw dropped, your body stilled, and you felt something primal ripping through you. Marluxia continued, ignoring your reaction.

“But I’m not one to waste an opportunity. I’m going to kill you. But before I do that, I’m going to kill all of your friends.”

The vines were straining against your body, snapping in some places, your armor flickering in and out of existence, your eyes a bright, opaque yellow. Not that Marluxia noticed.

“And I’m going to start with your boyfriend. Just think how Xemnas will praise me knowing I got rid of a nuisance to his plans and obliterated the traitor. He’ll drop to his knees for me,” Marluxia purred, tongue darting out to lick his lips. He eyed all of your friends who were staring into the eyes and maw of Specter as it drew them in slowly.

“I’m going to rip your throat out,” you screeched, armor vanishing entirely. Larxene took a step back as she watched you, your teeth sharp and having outgrown your mouth, horns protruding from your head, your tail whipping its axe head about frantically, cutting vines.

Marluxia turned to look at you and paused. You were not you. You were a foot taller, pitch black, and feral, complete with horns, wings and a tail and four eyes all leveled at Marluxia in a hateful glare. You looked like something straight from hell.

You let out a primal yell that sounded much more like a roar, and Marluxia staggered a bit from the shock as you began to charge forward, wings flapping with all of their might and propelling you forward much faster than when you had trained with Riku.

Marluxia was actually scared for a second. All of your friends could not see you, but they heard your roar and wondered what else could have possibly added to this fight.

Marluxia blinked before his smirk returned, albeit a little bit more frazzled than before. Then more vines grabbed you, and despite your consistent ripping of them, they maintained their hold on you. Your friends looked on in horror.

What the fuck was that? It looked like a heartless. But where did come from, and why was it attacking Specter and Marluxia?

“Neat trick,” Marluxia said, his voice its usual purr, “But you’re still not ready to take me on. But you’ll be trouble so long as you’re like that, so I’ll have Specter finish you off first. Pity. I really wanted you watch as your friends and family perished because of your idiocy. But I’m not an idiot. I know trouble when I see it.”

Marluxia snapped his fingers once more, and Specter began to pull you into its mouth, you snarling, ripping, and growling the whole time as you fought like a madwoman. But then you were in the dark abyss of its mouth. The vines continued to pull, but you dug your claws into the roof of its mouth, and you dug the claws of your feet into the bottom of its mouth and held on.

Its mouth was partially open, and you could see the torsos of your friends and family as you struggled not to be swallowed and ripped apart by vines.

You ignited yourself, and the vines began to burn away from you. Then you began to force its mouth open. For all your muscle, you only managed to open it a foot more. Not enough to get out, but you were at least certain it was straining against you. Your tail continued to whip against the vines, and you continued sending out fire in short bursts to conserve your magic and keep the vines at bay.

You couldn’t fail now. You had to make sure your friends and family got out of here alive. And that’s exactly what you planned to do. You summoned all of your inner strength, and something strange began to happen. You sprouted two extra arms from your sides. But you didn’t have any time to think about it. You pressed them to the roof of Specter’s mouth as well and used the extra leverage to open its mouth. Soon enough its jaw was open as wide as it would go, still forcing you into a hunched position. You were too tall for its mouth, you realized. You leaned out, a growl tearing out of your throat.

You could see Larxene below. She looked terrified to see you climbing back out of Specter’s mouth. This was bad. This was very, very bad.

You crouched a little bit more before shooting both your arms and legs back out, so you were standing straight up, taking advantage of Specter’s jaw limitation. You heard a deep satisfying crack of the beast’s jaw breaking before it screamed. It was loud, and you thought you might go deaf with how sensitive your ears were, but you were still far too angry to concentrate on that.

You hooked your claws onto the outside of its mouth, climbing up with ease until you were next to its eye. Then you dug your hand into it, and the beast screamed further as you ripped out anything your hand could grab from it while it spilled out dark red blood from its socket.

But then you heard more screams. These from your friends and family. You turned and saw that Specter had let go of them. You wanted to continue to cripple it, but you cared about them more, your anger dissipating, replaced with worry.

You flew as fast as you could, catching Demyx, Namine, Axel, and Setzer in each one of your arms before flying to the ground. You knew the cartoons would be alright. Dreamfinder held out his hat, and in typical cartoon fashion, it acted like a parachute. He held Figment close while they gently floated to the ground. Ludwig plummeted passed them. Meh… he’d be fine.

It wasn’t a graceful landing on your part either. You were strong, but they were all too heavy for this to have turned out well, and the five of you tumbled rather ungracefully upon landing.

You stood up right after your fall and whirled around to see an angry Marluxia standing on top of a still screaming Specter.

He didn’t say anything. He was beaten this time. He just opened a giant corridor for he and Specter to disappear through.

Your eyes darted to the only other person left on the battlefield. The blonde whose name you had never learned though you were sure Axel could fill you in later.

She looked angry, face flushed red and fists balled to her side as she glared at you defiantly.

“You can’t beat him,” she spat at you. But that wasn’t your main concern. Now that your friends and family were safe, your anger had returned.

“He left you here to die,” you said lowly before charging at her. You watched a deep fear flicker over her face as she was left to face you, but then she surrounded herself in darkness and left, you flying past where she had been standing, an angry snarl ripping out of your throat.

You took a few shaky breaths as you looked at the damage done. This part of the town was trashed – either on fire, broken, or covered in torn vines and debris.

“________?”

You turned towards the voice. It was Axel. And he was looking at you strangely – like he wasn’t really sure if it was you. Then you realized that you looked like a monster, and he had never seen you like that. Had never seen you act so much like one either.

He reached a hand out to you, and you recoiled from his touch. He looked hurt.

“I…,” you started but stopped. Where did you begin? “I hoped you would never see me like this.”

“I mean,” he began awkwardly, scratching the back of his head, “You told me you were part heartless. I guess I just didn’t expect you to be so….”

“Monstrous?”

His eyes widened, and he almost looked offended.

“What? No! You don’t look like a monster. You just look different is all. You aren’t a monster.”

“But I do look like one. I know it’s not ideal, and I’m still learning to control it. And I know I was acting crazy earlier, but you all were in trouble, and I didn’t know what to do, and I’m so sorry you had to see me like this and I –”

Axel kissed you. Then when he pulled away, you just blinked. He took your hands.

“There’s nothing wrong with you, ________. You don’t look like a monster. I just see you. I see the same ________ I see on any regular day.”

You paused at what he said. Then a little eruption of giggles came out of your throat. You were a bit giddy to know he didn’t mind this so much.

“You really don’t mind?”

“Well the height will take some getting used to, but, no, I don’t mind.”

That was about the first time you realized that you were looking him straight in the eye instead of up at him. You let the darkness curl itself up back inside you until you were the you with disheveled hair and a tank top and shorts.

Then you remembered all of the carnage from only moments ago, no longer wrapped up in your selfish desire to be accepted by those closest to you. A lot of people had died today. You turned back to the city. There were police officers and news reporters and what looked like several government officials coming to the scene now that the giant threat had disappeared.

How were you supposed to keep the order this time?

Notes:

I'll see you all next week! Also we're about to get into the longest arc of the story before we head into the endgame! So that's exciting!

Chapter 55: Useless

Summary:

You get another visit from your grandmother. Also new mysterious location awaits you!

Notes:

I know I didn't update last week, but hear me out on this one. This arc is going to be the longest one with like four story lines running simultaneously, and it's hell to organize. I may need a short break to get it started because it is complicated af trying to keep it all together so it runs smoothly. BUT to make it up to you after missing a week I wrote some deleted scenes up and some fun facts! So I hope all is forgiven.

Link to the extras at the bottom!

You had put it off for too long. You had to talk to the growing crowd of people. And just as well there was an officer approaching you now. If there had been any survivors of this attack they’d already been transported via Setzer somewhere safe, and the ones Dreamfinder, Figment, Ludwig, Namine, and Demyx helped were either long gone or resting in the ship. But several ambulances had shown up and could now give proper medical treatment.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” the officer said. You glanced down at his badge which read, “McGregor.”

“Yes, sir,” you said, voice high and nervous. Axel gave your hand a squeeze.

“You were here when that monster attacked the town? I’d like to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind.”

He said, “If you don’t mind,” but his tone read that you would be answering those questions whether you wanted to or not. You glanced behind him where several people were being carried to ambulances, all casting you looks. They’d no doubt seen what you had done when they had escaped the building. Some bystanders seemed more or less okay, and you had to guess that they hadn’t left the area when the battle was going on.

“Um, yes, I was.”

“Right,” he said, pulling out a little note pad and pencil. He flipped to a blank page and let out a long, puff of a sigh. “Now do you have any idea what the creature who attacked the town was? And I’m led to believe it had accomplices controlling it.”

“That’s right. There was a man with long pink hair and a young blonde woman. They were in control of the monster.”

It felt weird calling Specter a monster when you actively knew it had a name, but you weren’t trying to give off that you had tangled with any of these people before. You didn’t want to have to explain that they, and by extension yourself and all of your allies, were from another world. Though it may have been somewhat obvious just by looking at Ludwig, Dreamfinder, or Figment.

“And do you know where any of them went?”

“They disappeared into a portal-looking thing? I don’t know exactly what it was. It was big and black and wispy. Like it was made of smoke or something.”

He wrote that down. He seemed frustrated by your story. None of it was all that believable on its own. But a literal monster had attacked the town, so nothing was really too far-fetched anymore.

“And I also have eyewitness accounts of you,” he looked you up and down somewhat disbelievingly, “Fighting this man, woman, and monster. Is that correct?”

You fidgeted a bit nervously, shuffling from foot to foot.

“Yes,” you admitted. It wasn’t like you could call every single person who saw you crazy. That would be less believable than you, looking as defenseless as you did now, fighting that monster.

“And I’m also to believe that you also turned into a monster to defeat this creature?”

His brow was furrowed as he stared you down, trying to make sense of all the stories he’d heard. The other townsfolk had probably been repeating the same story to them, and he probably knew he couldn’t discount their tales if they were all saying it.

“I’m not a monster,” you said stiffly, “I can just shapeshift is all. And that form is stronger. I don’t get to pick what it looks like. And it was the only way to stop the monster.”

He was looking at you with a sterner gaze now, confusion dancing in his eyes as he continued to look at you. But he wrote it down anyway.

“May I see it?” he finally asked. You were taken aback by this, and you desperately wanted to say no. But he must have picked up on this because he cut off your answer. “I just need to confirm that all of the tall tales I’ve heard today are true. If you really aren’t a monster, and you don’t do anything impulsive or unwise then this should go over fine.”

It wasn’t a threat. But he was ready to attack you if need be. And you supposed you couldn’t really blame him. Monsters were scary. And that’s what you looked like to these people – even if those closest to you said otherwise.

“Okay. But remember that I’m not a monster or anything okay? I just look… like one.”

He gave you a nod and a small grunt of acknowledgement.

You summoned your darkness again, and the next thing you knew, you were looking down at the officer who gazed back up at you with wide, mildly frightened eyes. Your eyes picked up an array of extra movement in the background behind the officer. Your ears were more sensitive now and you could hear the sounds of officers moving about and getting into defensive positions, waiting for you to make any sudden movements.

You could feel the air grow warm around you. Axel’s gaze was trained on every last person that looked like they were going to hurt you, and he was ready to do whatever he had to in order to protect you. You gave his hand a feather light, reassuring squeeze. You wanted to assure him that nothing was going to happen, but you weren’t so sure when some of them were openly glaring at you.

“And this is just something you use to fight monsters?” the officer asked, his voice wavering a bit at the end.

“Yes, and for nothing else. I swear. I just wanted to help people.”

You returned to how you looked before, and the officer looked more at ease but not as much as when he had first began talking to you. He began scribbling on his pad again.

“Yes, well, thank you. From what I understand, you and your friends got most of the people out of the hotel safely. I also heard talk of magic and cartoons, but I think I want to draw the line at giant monsters and young women that transform into superheroes.”

You felt a small amount of reassurance at his words, but your eyes trailed behind him again. There were several bodies being covered, torn into pieces. It was a massacre.

The officer’s eyes trailed to where yours were trained, and he let out a long sigh, shaking his head and muttering about how it was nothing short of a tragedy.

You felt a pang of guilt. If you’d gotten there sooner or if you had been there to begin with…. Maybe you could have headed off Marluxia’s attack. You could have kept so many from dying. But you had rushed off. He had to have shown up right after you left. Why had you let your guard down for even a moment to assume the Organization wouldn’t have tried anything so long as you were out of sight? They didn’t really care who they hurt, and you should have assumed they would have tried something regardless if Marluxia had been targeting you specifically or not.

This was when a man in a suit approached you. The officer straightened up upon seeing him.

“Mayor LeBeau,” he greeted with a nod of his head. But the mayor was hardly focused on him. He was focused on you.

“Who or what are you?” he demanded in what you had to assume was his most commanding voice. Because it was booming and unnecessarily loud to you.

“My name is ________ ________. I’m just a girl with the ability to shapeshift. I used this ability to help people and tried to save as many as I could.” You repeated it robotically

“Not enough,” he sniffed. He sounded snobbish and indignant, but you could see the distraught hurt in his eyes. He was shaken up by this turn of events and probably just as saddened by them as anyone else – yourself included.

“I know,” you said, barely above a whisper. The officer gave you a sympathetic look. You must have looked truly pathetic if only a moment ago he was looking at you like you could snap at any moment and go on a rampage.

“Shapeshifting,” the mayor muttered to himself, shaking his head and no longer looking at you, “Monsters from the abyss. Men with scythes and women throwing lightning.”

He fixed his gaze back on you.

“The body count is up to twenty and counting,” he said, voice quivering even in its boisterous volume, “I need to know that this won’t be a regular occurrence. There won’t be frequent attacks or need for monstrous vigilantes to be able to take it down?”

He was glaring at you mildly when he said the last part. You wanted to say of course not. But weren’t you a beacon for darkness? Hadn’t your world gone down in part because of you? And how many people could you save then? Not even one. You and your family had escaped – plain in simple. You ran. And somehow darkness was still drawn to you.

You had to at least consider Marluxia would know it was you and your friends who were halting his plans. But you hadn’t. You felt your punishment was everything Axel went through. But no. That’s not how people worked. And that hadn’t been a direct result of interfering with Marluxia anyway – just your own bad judgment. You hadn’t considered retaliation from Marluxia at all. And, in hindsight, that was also poor judgment. And how many people had died because of it?

“I didn’t want this,” you said lowly, “It just happened. I don’t know what else will happen. I can just hope to be there to stop it.”

The mayor considered your words. He didn’t look all too satisfied with your answer.

“Useless,” he muttered as he turned away from you in a swift movement and stormed away.

The officer looked a bit annoyed at how the mayor handled you, but there wasn’t much he could do about that. He looked at you.

“There’d be a lot more dead if you hadn’t shown up. It’s still a tragedy, but we at least have you to thank that it wasn’t worse.”

Then he turned and left too.

His words did not reassure you or give you any sort of comfort. Your eyes were homed in on the covered bodies on the ground, surrounded by puddles of deep red that ran through the cracks of the cobblestone pathways surrounding the town.

More emergency vehicles had shown up and were now combing through the hotel and the other nearby buildings that had taken on damage.

“We should leave,” you muttered. Axel began to lead you away and back through the forest towards the mansion. He’d have taken a corridor, but you could use the walk to try and clear your head.  It helped a little, but you were still swimming in your despair.

Your parents were relieved to know you were alright, looking none too beat up or hurt. But they also noted your stoic demeanor. Axel explained that it was a difficult battle that had casualties, and a lot of lives had been lost.

Plans were being made that you were barely aware of. You were all going to head back to Hollow Bastion since a good amount of time had gone by for the Organization to realize that you and everyone else you’d been traveling with had flown the coop. Now that Marluxia had seen you all in Twilight Town, you couldn’t very well stay here. He probably knew that too, so you could assume that he would check to see if you were here at all before launching another attack.

Your mother could no longer live in the hotel, but she’d been saving up money to rent a home out in the farmland. It was a good location too, far away from town and where the Organization wouldn’t think about looking since your hub of operation seemed to be the town itself.

Your father would be put into the hospital temporarily to recover from his weakened state. He had been energized by his friends and family being near, but the exhaustion had finally caught up with him. It was one thing to be stored in a pod for a short period of time – Namine said about five years was supposed to be the limit – but he’d been put away for twenty years. He needed treatment and rest.

The rest of the afternoon was spent packing your belongings up again and thinking up plans for when you got back to Hollow Bastion. Had Marluxia acted purely on his own or was the interfering with his plans with the nobodies a bonus to the Organization ordering him to attack? What was their next plan now that you were back on their radar? Could they expect another visit from Vanitas or anyone else?

Xemnas had seemed more focused on completing Kingdom Hearts. Maybe he was accelerating in his plans sooner than expected and the world was not yet about to collapse. It was already unstable. Would it collapse in time to foil Xemnas and Marluxia’s plans? Or was that wishful thinking?

~

You lay in your bunk, facing the wall. You could just faintly hear your friends and family talking at the front of the ship in hushed voices.

Axel would be with you, but you asked to be alone for a moment.

You curled in on yourself as guilt kept wearing away at your insides like a large ugly crack going up your center, making you feel as you were falling apart and barely holding it together. It seemed that everywhere you went, some form of destruction followed – either from your own mistakes or just because you were who you were.

You think you are more than you are. You are nothing. You and your kind have always put yourselves on pedestals believing yourselves to be guardians. You are an ant defending a mountain from forces that are far beyond your control or comprehension.

That voice was back. It often haunted you at your lowest. You remembered when it first haunted you on the train to Yen Sid’s tower. You had chalked it up to a psychological issue dealing with your own insecurities the more often it happened – usually when you were in the lanes between traveling and left alone with your thoughts but sometimes in the dead of night when your mind was clear as well. But the voice always seemed so detached from your own being.

But was it ever wrong?

Your world fell because of who you were. Your friends had all been in danger at one point or another because of you. Now innocent people who did not even know you were being put in danger because of you. And you couldn’t even protect them all. How were you supposed to be a keyblade wielder and hero if you couldn’t even save everyone you were supposed to?

“I know that feeling,” a new voice said, and you jumped, letting out a little yelp.

Everyone looked to where you were and saw your grandmother’s spirit sitting on the bed at your feet. She waved to them to let them know that there was no danger. You frowned at her. Why now of all times?

“I said I wanted to be alone,” you grumbled, turning away from her and back towards the wall.

“I know,” she said with a smile, “Didn’t care. You need some advice.”

“Isn’t advice usually given by elders? You’re only like thirty.”

“Technically my consciousness has existed for centuries. Even then I died at twenty-five, so still older than you and therefore have a minimum of five years life experience to impart on you. Plus I did a lot in my day. You’ve been through some shit because you’re a keyblade wielder, but I assure you that I know what you’re going through. And I’m going to help.”

“How?”

“I’m going to tell you a little story about me, Thorian, and an old friend of mine. When we went through something similar. Maybe seeing how we dealt with it will help you work through your feelings. Because at the end of the day, you’re going to need to be able to work through them. Or you won’t be able to function.”

You shifted a little in the bed so you could see her from where you lay.

She smiled gently at you.

“You talk different,” you noted, “Normal.”

“Yeah,” she said, rubbing the back of her head sheepishly, “I wanted to sound aged and wise at the time. But if I’m going to be giving you life advice, it’ll get tiring after a while.”

“Did everyone else you mentioned in your story before talk like this too?”

“…Yes. Well, except for Thorian. He wasn’t quite as socially adept in the beginning of our friendship as he was in later years after spending more time around people. But why that is will be a story for another day.”

Your friends and family readjusted themselves so they could listen in on what she had to say. Even Ludwig put the ship on autopilot so he could redirect his attention.

~

Dara ran back into the building for the fourth time. Other keyblade wielders had also been running in and out of the burning building.

It wasn’t enough that the orcs had attacked the town, but they had to be sore losers about it. They made sure to spread as much fire and destruction as they could in their retreat. And now an apartment building was on fire. And most of the residents were trapped inside. The police force as well as fire department and several civilians were running back and forth with water to keep the fire from spreading, but the building was so large, and the fire had spread so deeply into the building’s structure that there was no hope of saving the people’s homes.

But they could save the people.

And so despite her coughing and burning eyes and the intense heat, Dara ran back inside and up the stairs. Thorian passed her, four people in each of his arms, all unconscious.

“There’s more in the room to the right,” he called as he passed. Dara nodded, running into the room to see at least two other unconscious bodies on the floor, huddled in the corner. She picked them up with some difficulty. She may have been muscular, but two grown adults was still a struggle. But she threw her fatigue into the back of her mind. She had no time for it, and people needed her.

She’d been leading a rescue squad in the absence of an incapacitated leader who’d been severely wounded during the initial battle. Everyone was counting on her. But the fire was spreading too quickly. Quicker than any of them could get in and out of the building. They hadn’t even reached the top floor.

And they were all counting on her.

And she needed to do this. She needed everyone to be safe. She couldn’t let them die on her watch.

“Dara!” one of the keyblade wielders under her command called. He glanced between her and the burning building. She only stopped to lay down the people she was carrying, and two healers rushed over to work their magic. “I don’t think we can safely get anyone else out of the building.”

As if on cue the building let out a groan. It wasn’t leaning or showing any obvious signs of ruin, but that sound was enough to alert anyone and everyone to the imminent collapse.

“We keep helping until the last moment,” Dara instructed, and the keyblade wielder glanced behind her nervously. The fire roared intimidatingly. “Go help the healers. Tell the other keyblade wielders if they don’t think they can manage the next few floors to do the same. All others will continue to help with the rescue. There are people counting on us.”

“The building won’t hold for long,” he continued, “It may be a suicide mission to go in there again.”

The building creaked again.

“We knew what we were signing up for when we became keyblade wielders. The light of our world and our people before ourselves. Don’t forget that.”

He gave her a curt nod, worry written all over his face.

Dara turned back to the building and broke into a sprint. She ran through the door, covering her face with her hand as she sprinted up the stairs to the third floor.

Another keyblade wielder, Alynn, caught up to her, kicking through another door that was further down the hall. Flames burst out initially then faded back into the room.

No one inside but a few charred corpses. Too little too late. They needed to work faster.

Then Dara faintly heard screaming coming from the stairs that sounded too high-pitched to be an adult. The building began to creak more steadily.

“Alynn!” she called, “There’s a child on the next floor. Go get them. I’ll clear out the rest of this floor. Start on the next one.”

“Got it!”

“If you see Thorian, tell him to fly people out of the top floor. We won’t make it if it’s just a few of us running back and forth!”

He nodded then continued up to the next floor. Minutes later while Dara was putting out flames with ice and water magic so a small family could run out of the room, Alynn came down the stairs with a coughing child in his arms and four other elves following him. He stopped by Dara.

“The buildings going to collapse. Part of the ceiling is breaking under the weight of the top floor. Part of it as probably already collapsed. We have to go,” he said, burying the child’s face in his shirt so it wouldn’t have to breathe in the smoke.

“Not until I know I’ve gotten everyone I can out of here,” Dara insisted stubbornly, already heading to the next room.

“Dara, we have to go. Now,” he insisted, ducking as a stray piece of ceiling fell nearby. Dara looked at the panic in his face as he gazed back at her pleadingly. But Dara just shook her head.

“Go, Alynn,” she said, “I can’t leave yet.”

“This is suicide,” he argued back, but then the child coughed into his shirt. He couldn’t keep the child here, so he began to run from the building while Dara pressed forward anyway.

The building shuddered.

But Dara pressed forward. There were too many people counting on her, and she couldn’t let them down. Why take up a keyblade if you weren’t going to live up to all that you promised. She’d always been diligent in her duties, and she wasn’t going to lose anyone starting now. Not if she could help it.

It was as she was ushering out a young man who then ran from the building that she could hear the strong bellow of Thorian. He was calling her name, searching for her, flying from room to room looking for her.

He found her as she opened another room of corpses. She felt a deep pang of guilt. Should have been faster. Should have organized her team better.

“We need to go,” he said, latching onto her arm, and she noted that he’d put away his extra two for now. Which meant he had no intent of using them to carry more people to safety. He too had given up on this seemingly hopeless endeavor. She coughed, her eyes burning as she looked up at him, shaking her head.

“I can’t.”

Thorian was about to protest, but that was when she could hear more screams.

“Is anyone out there?” the voice called, a woman, banging on the door. “Please help! Rubble fell in front of the door. I can’t open the window!”

Dara immediately turned towards the voice, but Thorian yanked her back. More debris fell in her path, barring the way to the trapped woman. It would take some time to move it. Then she could hear others banging on other doors and more screams from upstairs.

“We can’t save them, Dara. It’s too late.”

Dara felt her vision cloud. She couldn’t just leave them. In her years of being a keyblade wielder she could at least pride herself on knowing that if there was anyone she could save, she did. Even if they didn’t deserve it. Even when all the odds were stacked against her. Like they were now.

She started to frantically pry at the debris, avoiding the flames as best she could, putting out fires, and the building gave another shudder.

“Dara, come on!”

But she wasn’t listening, still digging at the debris in her path, yelling to the frightened people that she was coming for them. The building shuddered once more but this time much more violently, shaking Dara’s stance so she stumbled. The groans the building had been making began to turn into a low rumbled that grew louder with each half second.

Thorian snatched her up, holding her close to his chest, cradling her with all four of his arms, running into the nearest open room and jumping out of the window back first to shield her from the glass. He flew up and out to avoid the debris, flame, and cloud of dust that kicked up from the building’s collapse. Dara watched through hazy eyes as it crumbled at an alarming speed, settling into a smoldering pile of ash and broken wood in seconds. That they had managed to get out at all had been nothing short of a miracle.

But she couldn’t focus on that. She still heard the sounds of people begging to be let out of the building. They were quiet now, but she could still hear them. They had asked for her help, begged for their lives. And she couldn’t do anything.

Dara curled in on herself, and Thorian held her tightly as he felt her let out little shudders and sobs. She couldn’t save them. And they had been counting on her.

~

“But that’s not your fault!” you argued, sitting up on your bed now to stare down your grandmother, “You didn’t set the building on fire or have anything to do with its structural integrity. You were just one person and the other keyblade wielders couldn’t make it through the rest of the building.”

“You are also just one person,” she countered, “And I’m pretty sure you didn’t tell Marluxia to attack all those innocent people just like I didn’t tell the orcs to set my town on fire.”

“But Marluxia attacked because I directly interfered with his plans.”

“So you’re upset because you did your job against a villain and he retaliated? He is going to attack people with or without provocation. This attack may have been specific to you, but that is because you went out of your way to save lives. These are just the ones you couldn’t save. You cannot hold yourself responsible for every person who falls into the line of fire. That doesn’t mean you cannot mourn them or shouldn’t try to save them, but if they fall and there isn’t anything you can do about it, then there’s nothing you can do about it. You cannot save everyone. And this is one of those things you need to accept.”

“But….”

“But nothing! If you hold yourself accountable for every life you encounter, you won’t be able to function. People are going to die on your watch, and there will be nothing you can do about it except make sure it doesn’t happen again. Do better next time. It sounds harsh, but there is no other way to cope. And now you’ve got an entire world counting on you to bring them back. You can’t stop now because you feel bad you couldn’t save everyone. There are others counting on you, and as long as you do your very best, everything will turn out alright in time. Am I making myself clear?”

You sat there for a moment. You still wanted to save everyone. But now you had a new perspective to think about it from. Your grandmother could not have possibly saved everyone in that scenario. She could not get to them. This was something that was out of her control.

Marluxia showed up to exact revenge on you. This is because you interfered. You couldn’t say you’re upset you did. You know there were lives you saved. And your uncles had information that would continue to save many more lives because of your interference. The deaths of the people in Twilight Town could have been prevented by you if you’d been there to stop him in the beginning.

But you could not have known he was going to attack, and you shouldn’t hold yourself to an impossible standard of knowing what his every next move is going to be.

And you had managed to save as many people as you could.

“I’m not sure I’m still entirely comfortable with it. But I understand what you mean.”

“That’s good,” she said with a warm comforting smile.

“Will I ever be comfortable with it?”

She frowned.

“No. As long as you have your humanity, you’ll never be comfortable with it. But that discomfort will ground you. It will remind you what it is you’re fighting for. And you will become better for it. I know you will. That is why I picked you.”

You gave her a tight smile, and she smiled back.

“I’m going to go now,” she said, placing a hand over yours, “I’ll be with you when you’re at your lowest. I know you’ll make me proud.”

Then she was gone, fading in cascade of light much like she had on Animal Kingdom.

Axel came to sit next to you, putting an arm around you, and you leaned into him. He didn’t say anything. He just wanted to be there for you, and you appreciated it.

The others also came over to give you comfort until all of you were wrapped up in a warm group hug that made you feel warmed from the inside out.

But the peace didn’t last very long.

There was a loud, piercing sound of something briefly scraping metal and a jostling of the ship. It sent everyone flying violently to the side. Ludwig quickly scrambled back into his seat while everyone rushed to stabilize themselves. It was easier said than done as the ship wouldn’t fly right regardless of how much Ludwig turned the wheel. It was as if the ship had a mind of its own.

But that was the least of your worries. You had flown smack into the middle of a meteor shower. Your uncle desperately tried to avoid the larger ones, but you could hear the near-deafening sound of the metal scraping against the hard surfaces of the meteors. Namine and you had been firmly strapped down into the seats with you holding on to Figment while Axel, Demyx, and Dreamfinder braced themselves as best as they could.

But then the worst happened. The ship was hit by a relatively small meteor, but when it hit, the ship wasn’t destroyed. But it may as well have been because of the power cut out. You were all sitting ducks if you couldn’t maneuver your way through the storm, being pelted by meteors that jostled the ship in who knew what direction and just waiting for one large enough to destroy everything.

You couldn’t open a corridor in these conditions when half of you would have no protection against the darkness and leaving anyone behind wasn’t an option.

Ludwig paced back and forth trying to find a solution to the problem. He had very little time. Meanwhile you were trying to think of an escape plan. Everyone else was in a similar state of mind, so the ship was quiet and dark except for the tiny emergency light that barely illuminated anything.

“________!” Ludwig shouted, startling all of you. It wasn’t enough that you could hear the barrage of meteors outside hitting the ship, but he had to yell too?! But he didn’t give you time to respond outside of flinching from his voice. “You have electrical powers!”

He ran to the side of the ship near the door and ripped a panel off of the siding. Beneath it was a mish mash of wires and gadgetry and tiny lights that were dull instead of lit. He rummaged through them all before pulling out another panel, this one lined with wires. He presented it like he wanted to give it to you, smiling like he won an award.

“You can restart the ship! You can use your electricity to charge the battery up and maybe we’ll have just enough juice to get out of the storm. But it has to be precise! If you overcharge it, we’ll be stuck in the same situation we’re in now and completely at the mercy of the storm until it passes.” He took on a very stern look, and you felt your heart racing in your chest. If you couldn’t do this, you may very well doom them all. You got up from your seat and approached him, feeling all eyes on you.

You took the panel and took a deep breath, blocking out all other sounds so you could concentrate. You began to channel your magic. The atmosphere felt alive and smelled like air just before a storm hits. The electricity danced around your fingers and into the panel. Ludwig watched carefully while you steadily let the magic trickle into it.

Then he noticed something very odd in the distance in the window. He almost couldn’t make it out, but then he looked more closely, noticing that there were little streaks of light stretching to a point where they stopped. It looked like a swirl of light that vanished into a single point.

It wasn’t a black hole, but it was something that could be just as dangerous. It was a warp hole, and the ship was getting dangerously close to it, only furthered by the meteor battering the side of the ship.

“I don’t want to rush you, but if you don’t hurry we’re all going to die horribly, slow, agonizing deaths that may or may not have anything to do with that warp hole,” Ludwig said, pointing through the window. Everyone’s eyes widened, but they didn’t say anything. They just continuously glanced between the battery you were charging and the rapidly approaching warp hole.

You pushed more magic through your fingers though it was slightly less concentrated now because of your nerves. Sparks flew from you in time to the erratic beat of your heart, but then the lights on the battery panel began to glow. The lights in the ship flickered briefly, and Ludwig rushed to the steering wheel.

“Keep going,” he instructed, prepping the ship to start, “We’ve almost got it!”

You pressed more magic into it, trying to channel it better so it would stop escaping the battery. And finally, finally, the lights turned on, and the ships engines roared to life. Ludwig wrestled with the steering wheel, trying to maneuver it, but it still fought against his control. Dreamfinder helped him, trying to keep the wheel turned in the right directions, and it seemed like you were all finally going to get out of there.

But then another sizeable meteor hit the ship, this one much larger than previous ones. It didn’t destroy the ship, but a large part of the ship was dented and one of the engines out of commission. And it sent the ship hurtling and spiraling towards the warp hole.

You remembered light and colors flashing in front of your eyes. You remembered hearing screams and Axel calling for you. You remember the blur of the ship as you and everyone else who had not been strapped down flew about the ship being battered around like ragdolls. Then you hit your head and passed out.

~

“________! _________! Please wake up! Please!”

You let out a little groan in acknowledgement. Though you were trying to ask what had happened to put you in such a delirious state that opening your eyes and moving felt like it’s own chore. But the person who had been speaking to you hardly cared about that now, hugging you closely and muttering a low, “Oh thank fuck!”

“Axel,” your brain supplied. That was Axel’s voice. Why was Axel worried? What had happened?

Your mind flickered to the events that previously happened, and you gasped, clutching onto Axel as your eyes flew open. You regretted it. The lights were bright. You snapped your eyes closed again.

“Are you alright?” you asked, cautiously opening your eyes again. “How is everyone? Are they alright?”

Axel held you at arm’s length, looking you over, still worried about your state as opposed to everyone else’s. This would have annoyed you but then a new voice was added to the mix to stop your growing irritation.

“We’re fine,” Namine said, coming over to you, “You were out longer than any of us. And Axel was at your side trying to wake you up as soon as he realized what happened. We didn’t take such quite harsh hits to the head.” She motioned to her temple, and you raised your hand to your head and winced at the bump you felt there. It throbbed painfully, and you could already tell this was going to be one of things that could only be ignored if you slept through the worst of it. But thankfully you had a solution to that.

You began channeling some healing magic into it, and sighed in relief as the pain lessened, and the swelling went down.

Then you looked at Axel. Really looked at him. He had a few bruises on his own face and a cut above his eyebrow that had been steadily dripping down his face.

“Did you even bother to take care of yourself, Axel?” you asked as you moved your hand to his own face and healing him as well.

“We have potions, and I feel fine. But you weren’t moving,” he said, eyes still clouded with worry. He also looked mildly amused at the fact that you felt the need to scold him in this situation.

“Where are we?” Demyx asked, looking out of the window. It looked like the ship had crashed in in a desert or something.

“I don’t know,” Ludwig admitted, “I don’t know what could have landed us here. One moment we’re getting a lecture from ________’s grandmother and the next the ship’s gone haywire and we’re fighting our way through a meteor shower.

“And if I had charged the battery faster, we probably wouldn’t be here right now,” you said, looking down at your lap. Another outfit torn up. And there were little cuts and bruises on your body.

“Now, now,” Ludwig said, already sensing your mood taking a dip, “This is one of those things your grandmother talked about. If it’s out of your control, then it’s out of your control. The most we can do now is move on and make the best of our situation. That being said, we should fix the ship.”

You nodded, still not feeling the best about yourself but there was nothing you could really do about it now.

“Does the planet have oxygen we can breathe?” you asked, looking out of the window to the horizon. It looked pretty barren with the only form of foliage that existed being dried up shrubbery that lingered in place but looked so brittle you’d think a stray wind would blow it to dust.

That is if wind was a thing here.

The other much more notable thing was that you could see multiple planets in the distance. But close. They were there like looming giants, beautiful and surreal in their placement.

Ludwig walked over the ship’s front to read the screens and maybe get an idea of where they were, see if there were any readings about the current planet’s surface. But there was nothing. They’d been damaged and needed to be repaired just like the rest of the ship.

Welp. He should start on the outside and work his way in. None of the readings would mean anything if they couldn’t at least leave should things not turn out to be as serene as they currently appeared. Though looking out at the environment again, you couldn’t imagine anything being able to inhabit this place.

But you’d also been to a world that was entirely animated and acted like it, so this shouldn’t be to much of a stretch to imagine.

“No readings, so it looks like you and I,” Ludwig said pointing to you, “Are going to have to do this alone. Since we don’t know if any of them can breathe the air here. So suit up.”

You summoned your armor, and Ludwig put on a little space suit he kept in the storage space that was just his size. He also picked up a tool kit. The two of you entered the tiny airlock, ensuring the doors closed behind you before stepping outside into the new world. It was bright and mildly looked like sunset, the sky a mix of yellow and orange. The dried-out earth looked almost pink in the hue of the sunlight. It would have been pretty had there been any plant life to give an extra pop as opposed the dry grays and browns of the plants that had once been.

The two of you circled around the ship. It looked like a mess. There were dents and tears everywhere. It was a miracle that the ships controls hadn’t been knocked out sooner. But that wasn’t what really caught your attention. You touched the tail rudder of the ship. There were distinct little dots on it – four in total – that were on one end of the ship where it bent. It was a smooth bend that scraped it over the top of the ship, leaving behind a large scratch in the paint of it.

“Pops, I think something happened here,” you said, trailing your fingers over the paint.

“Yeah, we got caught in a storm. Glad to see you caught up with the rest of us.”

You rolled your eyes.

“No, I mean if the tail had gotten bent by meteors, it would look like it. It’s be all uneven and it would have taken longer for us to lose control the way we did.”

“Are you saying we were sabotaged?”

“Well no.” You thought of Vanitas. “But I wouldn’t toss out the possibility. Because this is like a really smooth bend.” Though it didn’t look as if any hands had gotten a grip on it or left any similarly sized imprints to have been a person. But the little indentations made you think it was done by a machine. Someone else with a ship maybe? Or some sort of drone type object that they could control?

“Well if there really is someone out there trying to sabotage us, we better get this thing up and running as soon as possible.”

“What do you need me to do?” you asked, ready to get everything going as soon as possible.

“I need you to sit there and hand me tools as I need them.”

“Oh.”

Silence as he pulled up his tool kit and opened a panel on the side of the ship. He didn’t really need you for this job. He was perfectly capable of doing it himself.

“Is that really all you called me out here for?” you asked as you sat next to him and watched him work on the ship. He shrugged.

“I thought we could talk. We used to talk all the time. You’d visit me and bring me things from your mother’s bakery, and then you’d sit, and we’d talk for a while.”

“Well we’ve been busy,” you said, kicking a pebble near your foot, “You’ve been working on your research and stuff, and I’ve been training and then there was everything else that happened recently.”

“And then you went and got yourself a boyfriend.”

You smiled. How could you possibly forget?

“And, yes, I got a boyfriend.”

“Feels like you’ve been blowing through life quite a bit lately. I mean just over half a year ago – has really almost been a year since this all started – we were sitting in my lab with your little friend and Figment talking about dinner plans.”

“And my recital.”

“Yes, and your recital. That was going to be the big one wasn’t it? The one where scouts look for young talent to get into their agencies and studios.”

“Yeah, I really wanted you to be there.” It was going to be something big in your life. At the time it seemed like one of the biggest moments your life would ever have. You were going to take off in life if everything had gone the way you wanted it to. But now… Now it was nothing compared to the journey you were on right now – with the people you’ve met and places you seen and things you’ll accomplish.

“I wanted to be there. But, of course, I couldn’t actually go, just make a vague promise that I would attempt to go.”

“Yeah, I didn’t get the whole, ‘keep the order thing,’ until much later.”

“It wasn’t my favorite rule,” he said, reaching into the toolbox and pulling something out. It seems he forgot the entire excuse he fabricated to get you out there in the first place.

“Well, I mean, it makes sense. Can’t have cartoons running around or anything like that.”

“I missed out on so much because of it though. I never got to visit you on your birthdays until the parties were all over. I never got to see you graduate from high school or see any of your school club performances. When you didn’t need a babysitter anymore, we didn’t see each other as much.”

“I missed you though,” you admitted, “I always wished you were there for me. But you are now. And I’m really thankful for that. You helped me realized when I really hated myself in the beginning that I was one of the few things that stood between my world and disaster. You called me a beacon.”

“Yes, yes, I’m very wise.”

You let out a little snort. No matter the mood or topic of conversation, there was always room for Ludwig’s ego as far as he was concerned.

The two of you sat and talked for a while about nothing in particular. He began to ramble on about something regarding the hearts of worlds which you found interesting, but when he somehow jumped to the topic of quantum physics and their affects on balding ducks over the age of 50 you began to lose interest, just letting out the occasional acknowledgement that, yes, you were listening. No, you weren’t just saying that. And totally, you really did believe that quantum physics were screwing him over as opposed to his age was just catching up to him.

But that was when you noticed the slightest hint of movement out of the corner of your eye. You would have chalked it up to the wind of this world blowing – if there was any that you just couldn’t feel because of your armor – but this was closer to a glint, something like a light.

Your head snapped in that direction just in case it was the saboteur or some wild animal or person to worry about, and you’d done so just in time to see it fleeing. But… it didn’t look like an animal or a person. It didn’t look like anything natural at all. But not quite surreal like any of the horrors you’d experienced thus far either.

You jumped up, catching Ludwig’s attention. You looked at him.

“I saw something. I’m going to investigate. I’ll be right back alright?”

You didn’t wait for his answer, jumping on your glider and flying after whatever it was that you’d seen just a second ago.

It ran through the dry brush, obviously trying to get away from you, but you refused to lose it. It could be trouble. It could be nothing, but with your luck as of late, you thought it would be best if you didn’t take any chances.

It was metallic, you deduced, looking at the light that bounced off of its surface. It was conical in build with what looked like lights going all around the top. It’s body led down into a point where it was propelled by either gas or steam as it let out a steady stream of smoke from its bottom. It had two skinny arms that it pumped as if it were really running on two legs like a person in its attempt to get away from you.

It was as you were giving chase that a large shadow was cast over the two of you. But it couldn’t have been trees. All the plants here were dead. You took a quick glance just in case it was something to worry about, and you found that it wasn’t inherently something to worry about. But it was certainly a sight.

Your pursuit slowed as you gazed up at it. What was it?

You looked back to where you’d been looking for the robot-thing whatever it was. It had escaped and vanished into the brush ahead of you. Dammit.

With that gone, you supposed you ought to go back to the ship. But… you wanted to see what this structure was first. You flew up on your glider. It was impossibly tall this whatever it was, and you found yourself flying up for a while. And when you were high enough you could finally see that it was something like a dish structure. A satellite maybe?

You flew over the surface of it, landing on the lip of the dish. What could possibly need something this big to act as a satellite? It was absolutely enormous. Larger than ones you could find on your home world. Or any other world that used satellites for that matter. Weren’t things this big typically floating in orbit or something? Or maybe… that’s what this was doing, and it existed for the other planets you saw in the distance.

Was your standing on it interrupting someone’s programming right now? Or maybe it was used for something besides T.V. Though you doubted your tiny form was enough to prohibit this massive thing from getting anything accomplished.

Then something else caught your attention. For a seemingly abandoned world, there sure was a lot to see. But this was much more concerning. It was a beam of light, a very, very bright beam of light. But it was off in the distance over the horizon where you couldn’t see. But you knew it was in the direction of the ship. You hadn’t realized just how far out you’d flown. You hopped back on your glider and began to fly as fast as you could back to your friends and family, praying they weren’t in trouble.

You raced as fast as your glider would carry you, and you briefly wished that it could fly faster. That would be ideal right now.

As you approached the site where the ship had been you saw it trapped in that beam of light and being lifted from the ground. And it seemed that everything about the ship were frozen in place. You only knew this because your uncle had been in the middle of reentering the ship, and he was stuck, mid-walk into the door of the airlock. You flew around the beam, and you could see that your friends were frozen inside. But you could faintly see their eyes following your movement – it was more obvious on Dreamfinder and Figment whose eyes were wider and more exaggerated in their movements.

But as you circled around to try and figure out how to get them out of the beam, which you realized was coming from one of the other planets, you too were trapped in one.

You struggled against it as best you could, but you couldn’t move. And now you were panicking because what were you going to do now? You just kept fighting until you felt some form of exhaustion creeping over you.

And you could do nothing but wait as you were slowly pulled to the planet’s surface.

Notes:

So you've landed in a new world! Wonder what it's going to be!

 

Bonus scenes: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21496936

Chapter 56: Tomorrowland

Summary:

A formal introduction to the world in which you find yourself.

Notes:

I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH: This Tomorrowland is based on the theme park section in Disney World and not on the movie. Like... we are not taking any real inspiration from the movie at all, so don't expect any non-coincidental references to it.

Also extra long chappie yay!

You were a little more than frantic. You were scared and angry. You didn’t know where your family or friends had been taken. You’d been detained, and no one would answer any of your questions.

Where were you? What place was this? What was going to happen to you? Where are the people you came with? Are they alright? Why won’t you answer any of my questions?

But there were no answers. The soldiers who had taken you in barely even glanced in your direction outside of roughly nudging you along and poking you in the back with a gun to keep you moving.

Now you were sitting in a room that wasn’t unlike police interrogation rooms you’d seen in television. They even had you cuffed to the table. But these cuffs were different. They weren’t made of metal. These were a strange luminescent type of cuffs. They were durable and didn’t have any give, but they didn’t feel uncomfortable. And there was no visible lock that you could see, so using a keyblade was probably out of the question.

Then pain. It felt like you were being electrocuted, and you didn’t know why. Something about you just felt incredibly off. Then the pain stopped, and you felt nauseous. You felt like your body was actively shifting as pain rocked back and forth over your form. And then it stopped. As if it had never happened. You looked up to where the double-sided mirror was, wondering if there were people on the other side getting off to whatever they had done to you, and you swore you saw your mother looking back at you. But then you blinked, and she was gone, and you were your reflection again. But… was your hair longer? No that was a stupid question. It was definitely longer. You couldn’t have missed it if you wanted to with the way it hung now.

You shook your head, feeling it swish about you – well as much as it could now that it wasn’t so short. You’d been growing it out sure, but it hadn’t gone passed your shoulders quite yet. And now you could see it cascading to the floor. That… That wasn’t supposed to happen. You didn’t even know what had happened. What had they done to you? Did they trap you here just to harvest your hair? Did the growth process have to be so painful?

But you had no more time to think about it because two men stormed into the room shortly afterward. They wore bright silver jumpsuit uniforms with dark blue belts hanging from their hips. And in their gun holsters… well they were guns, but… they looked like something out of a cheesy sci-fi movie from the 50s. Were they even real?

“This is one of them?” the first man said, looking you up and down. “She’s just some dame.”

“Yeah, well she was with the rest of them,” the other responded, “And we’ve got to follow protocol.”

“Must have been difficult getting her in here with all that hair she’s got,” he observed, looking at your new growth. If this was new to him… then they didn’t just electrocute you to harvest your hair for some sort of dastardly plan? So what was it? You were half sure being a keyblade wielder wasn’t supposed to affect you like this. Though it did come with a number of other side effects, so who knew? Maybe that’s how Yen Sid got his beard. One day just sitting there at his desk contemplating the many mysteries of the world and BAM! Wizard beard.

“Don’t remember that actually,” the other mumbled, eyeing the hair like it was a second head. Would it be a comfort to say that you too had no idea where it came from? He looked mildly uncomfortable though as if he was embarrassed to have been unobservant about something that would have caught most people’s eye.

Though they had horded you in here in your armor, which always accommodated your hair and clothes – otherwise you’d be severely uncomfortable summoning it at all. And you doubted any of them knew that your armor appeared on you and fit like a glove regardless of what hairstyle or clothing you had.

But you’d gotten rid of your armor a while ago and just sat there trying to look as unintimidating as possible. If these people were far enough in their culture and civilization to have an obvious justice system, then you could follow the rules of this world as best you could. And looking nonthreatening seemed like a good idea.

And based on the reaction of the first guard, that may have been the right strategy.

The first man sat across the table from you, eyeing you warily. You were just a girl with messed up, inexplicably long hair, bruised-up body, and tattered clothes from your rough ride and landing.

“Tell me how you got here,” he started, straightforward and simple right off the bat.

“The ship my companions and I were traveling on crash landed, and I don’t know where ‘here’ is,” you replied. That was vague enough. No other world type stuff or anything. Good job you.

“Hmm,” he hummed, “And how did any of you acquire a ship? Space travel has been impossible for over a decade now.”

Oh fuck. Of course, that’s a thing. What could go right for you? First Marluxia attacks, then you and your family are captured by a strange world, and now you were going to have to stray into, “I’m from another world, so point me to your nearest insane asylum please,” territory.

“We’re… not from around here,” you said, at least trying to keep the order. Though you didn’t know if that was too vague and would make you look suspicious. “My uncle is a scientist and engineer. He built the ship himself.”

“What world are you from?”

You froze. How do you answer a question like that? And also how vague was the word “world” in this situation? Do they mean planet? Or is this one of those worlds where they happen to know that other worlds exist?

“Define world,” you said. Nailed it. The officer looked at you, his expression unamused.

“Right,” he said standing up, “I’ve got better things to do than deal with foolishness. Just take her to the interrogation bubble, and we’ll have our answers.”

“Sir,” the other guard acknowledged, giving a nod.

The first guard left and the second circled around the table to where you were, unlatching your cuffs from the table where they’d been held. He unholstered his gun and nudged you with the tip of it. You got the picture, standing up slowly and carefully, feeling your hair brush against your ankles – at least it wouldn’t be dragging all over the floor. He led you down different hallways than the ones you initially went down. In the beginning they brought you in through a back way, dimly lit and secluded. But now they led you through more crowded hallways with other guards bustling about, all in silver and blue jumpsuits.

Most of them paid you no mind outside of a few lingering, wary looks here and there. You must have truly looked a fright for them to give you such looks. Because it was hard to imagine that you looked threatening standing at your height in a tank top and shorts and still barefoot since Twilight Town.

“Where are you taking me?”

No answer. Just a prod in the back with the gun as the two of you continued down hallway upon hallway in whatever building this was meant to serve as. Police station maybe.

“What did I do wrong? Why am I being held prisoner? Where is my family?”

Your voice was pleading, and you thought you saw the barest flicker of sympathy cross his features before it was gone.

The guard brought you to a large slab of a door before keying in a code on a nearby number pad. The large door slid up and out of the way, revealing a large rectangular room covered wall to wall in metal panels. Even the floor was made up of slick metal tiles that reflected a blurry image back at you.

But your attention was quickly caught by a large, translucent sphere in the center of the room that was steadily floating towards a corner. And in that corner stood your friends and family except for Ludwig. You could only assume they hadn’t thrown him in yet.

But you couldn’t focus on it now. He wasn’t here, but everyone else was. And they looked like they needed you as they were backed into the corner with Axel and Demyx at the forefront trying to defend them and Namine just behind them using what little magic she could.

But their attacks weren’t doing anything. The sphere was completely unphased by water, fire, or ice and only continued its slow path towards them. Axel’s eyes darted around, looking for an opening or an escape of some sort, but then his eyes landed on you just as the guard shoved you into the room with the rest of them. The door shut behind you with a loud thunk as it sealed you in.

“________!” he called. But he didn’t know what to do after. He couldn’t run over to you. Not when all of you were in some sort of danger already. But you could do something. You didn’t waste time. Your armor was on, and your keyblade was out. You were already rushing towards the large sphere. You hurled fire, lightning, and even air at it, but it didn’t relent. Nothing affected it. So you decided that a more direct and physical approach would be necessary.

In a room adjacent to the one you were in, there were several guards watching screens, waiting for the results of the interrogation. They chatted casually amongst each other with a little buzz of excitement that was steadily trilling through the room back and forth. Something this exciting hasn’t happened in a while. Who were these strangers who arrived in their strange ship? Space travel hadn’t been a thing in quite a while. And surely someone would have noticed a ship for space travel being built. So could these truly be otherworldly beings?

A new person entered the screening room, a commanding figure of a middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair, uniform impeccably clean and decorated with medals and badges and patches that indicated his high rank.

Every soldier stood to attention, saluting the commander as he strode into the room. He nodded, a silent acknowledgement of their respect, and the soldiers relaxed as they had been before – though gossip of the newcomers hushed a bit.

He looked at the screens, noting how they had all huddled into a corner just as you were being herded into the room with them. He watched them attack as best they could to no avail.

Then his eyes widened, sparking with interest as you summoned what looked like armor and a blade. But it was a strange sword. Something familiar. But… it couldn’t be.

He watched you attempt to attack head on, swinging your blade at it only to be halted mid-swing. You were jostled a bit by the sudden halt in movement, wincing in mild pain, but you had no time to focus on that. The sphere had yanked you into it, and you floated there in its center.

And it hurt. It hurt quite a lot you found. Your whole body felt like it throbbed with a dull ache that only intensified the longer you were in there. Your head felt like it was splitting open, and your body felt like it was cramping intensely, and all the while you felt like something was tearing at you.

The commander pulled up a screen, eyes watching as your memories passed over the screen. He began to skip forward. No need to look at your childhood. Something more recent would speed this interrogation process along.

He paused though when he saw blueprints of Spaceship Earth. Then he began to search the memories of your time there, skimming so quickly that he missed a good few many things, but pausing at just the right moment to see you with a keyblade. There it was. Completely unmistakable. He continued browsing through, skipping ahead a bit to see if he could find anything else useful.

You cried out, arms circling yourself as if that would protect you, but it didn’t do anything. You were just trapped there in the pain. But you weren’t alone in it.

Axel jumped in as soon as he saw your distress, and, yes, it hurt him too. But he didn’t care, grabbing your hand and pulling you closer to him as if he could rescue you from it. But there was nothing either of you could do. But he was there, and that made you at least feel more hopeful even if the pain never dulled.

The commander swore. The two of you were going to overload it! He was about to give the order to shut it down before they’d have to replace it, but it was too late. The bubble popped, and the two of you fell to the ground.

Dammit. They’d have to send in another one. It wasn’t a problem necessarily – just an annoying inconvenience.

He was already typing in the commands to release a new one when Ludwig and a few guards walked into the room eating Dole whip and laughing.

“And then I says to him I says, ‘If you’re not gonna pay me, then I’m puttin’ my pants back on, Mr. Disney!’”

Ludwig’s joke was met with a round of hardy laughter from the surrounding soldiers, and the commander looked up at him with a bright smile. Here was at least one good thing about today.

“Professor,” he greeted jovially, stepping away from the command console, “I trust you’re enjoying your stay. The boys been showing you a good time?”

Ludwig laughed.

“I haven’t had this much fun since college! I just wish my friends were here to join me. Oh look!” Ludwig said, approaching the screen that showed the room where you all were being held. Axel was helping you to your feet, and you were leaning on him, your armor and keyblade having vanished. Though he was barely holding himself up too. “My friends are here! Now it’s a party!”

“You know them?” the commander asked as he gazed down at the group as the rest of your friends checked you and Axel for any healable injuries.

“Yep! That one there is my niece. Huh. She changed her hair at a time like this? Hardly appropriate. Women and their looks, am I right, guys?”

There was a chorus of understanding responses and laughter in the room.

“And your niece is a keyblade wielder?”

Ludwig blinked. He hardly expected anybody to know about it. It wasn’t that common of an occurrence. And even when he used to go from world to world with Ansem the Wise, there were still so many worlds that didn’t know anything about that. True, you’d had an odd streak of luck where you’d managed to be in or land on worlds that did, but it was still far and few between in regard to being common knowledge.

“Why, yes, she is.”

The commander blinked. This was… odd.

“Well we’ll get them out of there and escort you and them to the empress. She’ll be most pleased to know that the great Professor Ludwig von Drake has arrived and brought a keyblade wielder.”

With that he left the room, ordering some soldiers to escort the prisoners out and to take Ludwig with them, so they knew they were not going to be further hurt or interrogated.

When you saw more soldiers, you almost jumped back into a battle stance. You didn’t intend to take anymore torture from any of them. And you wouldn’t let anyone else have to put up with it. But then you saw your uncle, and you let out a happy yell, throwing your arms around him, happy he was okay. He hugged you back before saying that your hair was getting into his beak.

You held him out at arm’s length to look him over and ensure he was okay.

“Where were you? I didn’t see you with the others, and I had to assume the worst,” you said, voice high and worried. He just gave you a dismissive wave as if your worry were a fly to swat away as opposed to very much warranted concern.

“Relax, they love me here,” he said before tossing a thumbs up to the other soldiers who gave him one back, seeming downright giddy as they did so – a far cry from the icy demeanors you’d been getting from them. “This has all been just some big misunderstanding. We’re gonna head to the palace and meet the empress, and all this will be cleared right up.”

He gestured vaguely around the room as if it contained all of your current problems and he could just wave them away. It was so like him to not make a big deal out of something now that ego had come into play.

One of the soldiers he walked in with cleared his throat. He was the one who had escorted you here in the first place. When you looked at him, stare hard and relatively steely, he blushed in embarrassment. Your ire was more or less deserved, so he didn’t try to return the look. He just looked around and stammered out his next sentence.

“Um, if you’ll come with me, I’ll, uh, I’ll escort you all to the monorail to the palace.” He turned and began slowly walking away. You stood carefully up from where you were kneeling next to your uncle, and you all wordlessly followed the soldier.

It was a quiet walk for the most part, mostly sprinkled with Ludwig and soldiers giving each other friendly greetings that were so friendly in fact, you’d think Ludwig would have known them his whole life.

You passed several more rooms and hallways, and you finally took in the aesthetic of the building. The walls and floors were a pristine white and most of the color accents around were either a dark brown wood or deep blue like that of the belts on their uniforms.

It was strange. But it was no stranger than entering what could only really be described as a lobby and having the room be covered in a haze of smoke. Everyone in the room was holding a cigarette and talking, puffing smoke back out into the air and adding more to the fog.

You covered your nose. The smell of cigarette had never really bothered you before, but you’d never been in a room with so much at once. Smoking indoors had been illegal on Spaceship Earth, and you hadn’t encountered anywhere except a bar here or there since that had allowed it. Well technically the signs had said, “no smoking,” and it’s just that no one in them cared. But it was still nothing compared to the haze here.

You looked around at all of the other soldiers, so much more relaxed than the ones you’d encountered, leaning on walls and desks chatting casually with each other. You passed a receptionist desk that was swarming with soldiers, all flirting with her. She sat and giggled demurely.

“How’s it hanging, toots?” the soldier escorting your group called to her. She blushed.

“Oh you,” she giggled out, batting her lashes and twirling one of her bright red curls around her finger before turning her attention back to the other soldiers surrounding her.

Your group was led out to a train that sat at the end of a large parking lot. Weird there were no tracks. But… it looked so familiar. Then it clicked.

“Wasn’t that your design for the trackless monorail?” you asked your uncle, recalling the prototype that sat in his lab back when it still existed.

“It is,” Ludwig said, puffing out his chest as if he had just built the one in front of you, “You’ll find that my work is something rather prominent here. Try not to be too wowed.”

You rolled your eyes as you stepped onto the monorail. Your friends followed suit, and you all waited for a while before the commander also stepped on. He stood before you all and cleared his throat.

“My apologies for our rough treatment from earlier,” he said, looking at each of you, “We thought you may have been communist spies or some otherworldly threat. We can’t be too careful.”

“Okay,” you said slowly, biting your tongue about how ridiculous that sounded considering that all of you crash landed on a random planet or moon or whatever in a ship that was barely big enough for all of you to fit on that was not even equipped with weapons. Hardly spy material. “But why didn’t you treat my uncle like that? He was with us.”

The monorail began to rise and move.

“Yes, well,” he cleared his throat again, “He was entering the ship when we found him, so we assumed that he was not a part of the initial grouping. Again, you have my apologies.”

“Okay, but why is he so important here, and why are you all using his work?”

You gazed out of the monorail window as you said this, looking at the city down below. You couldn’t mistake the layout of the city. It was exactly like the many EPCOT communities that existed on Spaceship Earth. Of course, the buildings didn’t look exactly as they had on your home, but the layout was precise and exact.

Many of the buildings held the same aesthetic of white, silver, and chrome. It was beautiful in a weird way, but also strange.

“Well everything we have is based on the blueprints and innovations the Great von Drake left behind over two millennia ago.”

You almost choked on your gasp. You turned to your uncle.

“You were here over two thousand years ago?! How old are you?!”

You thought you knew his age, but apparently he was much older than that as well. Ludwig looked mildly offended you would ask his age but huffed and answered anyway.

“My age isn’t anyone’s concern, but that’s not really relevant when it comes to the time of different worlds is it?”

You cocked your head to the side.

“Different world, different times, ________,” Axel supplied. Oh right. But that meant time here moved extremely fast….

“Well when were you here?” you asked, hoping to get some of this cleared up.

“Well the year I visited this world was…,” he thought for a moment, tapping the bottom of his bill as he thought, “The 1950s I believe. Though it’s been two millennia, I was here only twenty years ago in your time. It appears that they used a lot of my work as a base for their creation before advancing at an extremely accelerated rate for the next two thousand years. Though… it appears their society and pop culture aesthetic hasn’t advanced by much.”

“I like it,” Demyx piped up as he gazed out at the city below, “It looks like my old sci-fi comics.”

You turned your gaze up to the sky where you could still see the looming planets in the distance, a pale blue haze fading them into the background just slightly now that you were further away.

“I’ve never seen planets with the naked eye from a planet’s surface like this,” you mused as you continued gazing at them before your eye followed the shapes of a few flying saucers passing by. You blinked. This place was crazy.

“Yes, we’re composed of many worlds,” the commander answered, briefly admiring the planets himself before looking back ahead, “Ah, look. We’re almost there.”

You looked back down to see a palace not too far in the distance. It rested on an island surrounded by a small town. You could see a number of houses, shops, and what looked like a separate gated community. Though that one was unmistakably a military housing area, if the marching soldiers in a formation were anything to go by.

The palace itself was a beautiful sight that had you almost pressing your nose to the glass of the window trying to look at it in all of its glittering splendor. It looked to be made of towering crystals and chrome spires surrounded by luminescent rings that floated around them glowing shades of pearl and electric blues. It was enormous, probably one of the largest structures of architecture you had ever seen.

“Okay, I’ve been quiet about it for long enough,” Axel said, reaching up and lightly grabbing a lock of your hair, “What in the actual hell happened to your hair?”

You… had actually forgotten about it in your whirlwind of emotion regarding this strange new world you found yourself in.

“Yeah, I’ve actually been staring at it for a while now,” Namine said, “It was like the first thing I noticed about you when we were in that room with the giant bubble.”

You lightly tugged your hair out of Axel’s grasp, and he let go. You stood up, gathering it at the back of your head before putting it into a giant braid that still trailed extremely low.

“I don’t know what happened. It felt like I was being electrocuted when it happened and then I felt really sick. I meant to ask,” you then turned to you the commander, “What did you all do to me?”

“Us? When you were in the interrogation room? Nobody should have done anything to you except ask you a few questions. I’ll look into the matter, but I haven’t heard of an electrocution that makes hair grow.”

You unconsciously tugged at a loose strand of hair that hung near your face. So they really may not have had anything to do with it. Your theory about Yen Sid’s beard may not have been too far off then.

“Are you alright?” Axel asked, voice low and gentle. He was eyeing your hair rather warily. You nodded and gave him a gentle, reassuring smile. He looked only a smidge less worried about you though.

“Well it looks nice at least,” Namine said with a supportive smile and shrug, but you could tell there was still a certain uneasiness about her.

The monorail began its descent in the front of the palace, stopping in front of a grand bridge that looked to be made out of marble that crossed over a crystalline pond with large fish swimming in it.

“And you can just take the monorail everywhere?” Dreamfinder asked as he looked back in the distance, Figment also peering over his shoulder. But you couldn’t see any the initial city that you had flown over to get there now that you were all firmly behind the castle town around the front of the palace.

“Yes, however, you’ll have to go through the necessary security checks when arriving here on the island. We took a bit of an express train here to move this process along. Most monorails do not get to come and go as they please. But in the city you may monorail wherever you please without hindrance.”

You all gawked and oohed and aahed at the palace as you approached it, following the commander into a grand foyer that was lined with banners sporting what you could only assume was some sort of royal crest or symbol of the city, kingdom, or world in which you found yourself.

There were guards here and there, spread evenly throughout the room. There were also four standing outside of the palace doors you entered. They all looked less stony than your initial reception – keeping their faces serious but with obvious intrigue flickering over their expressions as they watched your group enter the palace.

“Wait here while I alert the empress to your arrival. She already knew of your forthcoming visit and wanted to make a formal introduction, but when she learned a keyblade wielder would be joining us, she wanted to make herself more presentable.”

You felt a flutter of embarrassment and flattery flit through your stomach.

“She didn’t have to do anything special for me,” you said, wringing your hands together, “She shouldn’t have troubled herself about it.”

“Well you know how you women are,” the commander replied, “Always having to gussy up to make a decent presentation.”

You squinted a bit at the, “you women,” comment but ignored it. He obviously didn’t mean anything by it. But it hardly mattered anyway because he was already walking away to tell the empress about your arrival. Which was a shame, you wanted to ask what this world’s history with keyblade wielders was like as this was the first time you and most of your group was hearing about it.

But that was when a robot walked up to your group, and your curiosity about this world and keyblades was briefly forgotten.

You all blinked at it. You had never seen a robot like this before – non-animated. He looked at your group, a pleasant smile on his face. He stood a bit taller than you, dressed in a red vest, white shirt, white gloves, and black bow tie.

He gave your group a very light bow before speaking.

“Greetings and salutations. I am Robot Butler. I will be your humble servant for the remainder of your stay here in Tomorrowland.”

“Is that the name of this place?” you asked as you carefully studied the robot from where you stood. It was really incredible.

“Indeed it is, and if you have any need of anything, all you need do is ask, and I will do everything within my power to ensure that your every wish is fulfilled.”

“That is very kind of you,” Namine said with a light smile, “Thank you.”

“My,” the robot said, “You’re very, very welcome.”

“The empress will see you now,” the commander said as he re-approached your group. Then he turned to Robot Butler. “She has instructed that you ensure their rooms are properly arranged and ready for them when it is time to rest.”

“Of course, Commander Bog. I will see to it immediately,” he said with a light bow. Then he turned to your group again and gave another bow, “Do let me know if you need anything beforehand.”

Then he turned and left in another direction.

“Come with me,” Commander Bog instructed, and you all followed him into the next room through another set of large ornate doors.

At the end of the room was the throne atop a small set of stairs, and there sat a very beautiful woman. She was pale and tall, slender yet voluptuous with dark eyes that watched as your group approached and black hair, half of which was ornately pulled back into an elegant bun and the rest of which was flowing around her shoulders. On her head sat a crown that vaguely reminded you of antlers, but at the tips of each point was a projection of a planet, and between the two main arches of the crown was a projection of a galaxy.

Next to her stood two soldiers who looked as intimidating as the commander and whose uniforms were also adorned with medals and patches, obviously higher in rank than most of the soldiers you’d encountered but still beneath Commander Bog. They also watched you but with more caution about them.

She sat up straighter as she watched you all approach, her eyes flitting to each of your faces, and offered you a gentle smile, the stark red of her lipstick contrasting against her pale skin and even whiter teeth.

“Welcome to Tomorrowland,” she greeted, nodding her head in acknowledgement, “It is quite an honor to meet you all. It is not every day we receive visitors of such prestige.”

“Thank you,” your highness Ludwig said, stepping ahead of your group and bowing with a grand flourish of his hand. The rest of you were frozen, unsure of whether or not you were also supposed to bow. She didn’t seem to be expecting it.

“You are the Great Professor,” she acknowledged with a pleased tone to her voice, “It is such an honor to meet one of the fathers of Tomorrowland as we know it. Without you we would never have flourished into such a rich and vibrant society.”

“Yes, well, what can I say? I’m nothing if not a great provider,” Ludwig said, standing up straight and puffing his chest out, “And it’s such an honor to see my work so greatly appreciated. Allow me to introduce my travelling companions.”

He introduced you by name one by one.

“The honor is ours. I assure you,” she said, then her eyes flitted over your group again, “And I am to understand that, of this group, you’ve also brought us a great warrior. A keyblade wielder? Would he kindly step forward.”

He?

You watched as they all looked to the men in your group.

“Ah, Empress,” Commander Bog began just as you stepped forward, brandishing your keyblade for them all to see. You watched as their eyes widened.

“A woman,” the empress blurted. You looked to each of them, noting the bewilderment on their faces. Was it so strange you had a keyblade? From what you knew, keyblades didn’t care who they chose – man or woman, light or dark.

“I meant to inform you about it,” Bog said, a blush dusting his cheeks, “The keyblade wielder is a woman.”

“Strange,” said one of the higher-ranking soldiers at the empress’s side. He was tall, as tall as Axel and muscular, a handsome, chiseled face with sharp blue eyes and sandy blonde hair that was immaculately clean cut.

“Captain Atom?” the empress said, addressing him, turning to look at him, “You have something you wish to address?”

“Not quite, your highness,” he said as he looked at you with a hard, critical gaze, “I just didn’t know that keyblades were given to the fairer sex.”

That made three comments thus far that made a commentary on your gender, but this one sounded a little more than offensive to you. But you were going to handle this in a very mature manner.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you said, raising one of your eyebrows at him.

“Nothing,” he said, standing up a little straighter at your tone, “I just didn’t know those with less of a grip on their emotions were trusted with such a responsibility. Picking someone who leans towards the logical side of thinking is typically the preferred choice in regard to warriors. That’s why women aren’t in the military.”

“Do you have a keyblade?” you asked, the smallest hint of bite in your voice. Your companions shifted uncomfortably. You were running away with your mouth again. Being impulsive. Though Namine would be lying if she said she didn’t agree just the tiniest bit with your way of thinking.

“Well, no,” he said, slightly put off, “But I’m pretty sure it’s obvious I’d be a better choice if it had to be between you or I.”

Your jaw dropped slightly, and everyone in the room felt the tension. Ludwig, the empress, and the commander all opened their mouths to say something to dissolve the tension before it could escalate. But then you escalated it. You escalated the hell out of it.

“Fuck you!” you snapped at him, and everyone in the room gasped. There was a small moment of silence before the other soldier on the empress’s other side burst into laughter, doubling over with how hard he was laughing.

He too was a handsome man but with softer features, bronze skin and thick, black curly hair. He had a lither figure than that of Captain Atom, but he was just as fit.

“She speaks with the devil’s tongue,” Captain Atom hissed at the empress, resting a hand on his holstered gun, “Shall I have her removed from the premises?”

“Uh, no, no,” the empress said with a wave of her hand, and Atom relaxed in his posture, no longer ready to attack. The empress turned to the other soldier. “Calm yourself, Captain Eo.”

Eo wiped a stray tear from his eye before gazing down at you with an amused air about him. That was the best laugh he’s had all week.

“My niece doesn’t mean anything by her crude language, your highness,” your uncle said, grabbing you by your shirt and yanking you down so he could slap a hand over your mouth. “She’s so sorry! Apologize now, ________.”

He placed his beak in front of your face and mouthed an apology himself in a high falsetto that sounded nothing like you.

“I’m so sorry, your beautiful highness. Sometimes my stupidity and emotions gets the better of me.”

You frowned and bit down hard on the hand that was still over your mouth, and Ludwig’s beak did its best not to scream, a stray tear running from your uncle’s eye.

“Now, now,” the empress continued, “An apology won’t be necessary. My guard is as much at fault here. These are our guests Atom,” she said, turning to him, a tight smile on her face, “Their… customs… may not be so similar to ours.”

Atom didn’t say anything, just stood there red-faced and embarrassed at having been insulted so by you and then being admonished for it, eyeing you with a light glare that you returned whole-heartedly. You did not like Atom. And you briefly wondered why the empress was so content to let him talk about your gender like that.

Though you did have the bristling feeling of several of your companions eyeing you with less than favorable looks. But you were a little wrapped up in your own stare down with Atom.

“Back to the original topic of conversation,” the empress said as she faced your group again, and the tension broke for a moment as your gaze shifted from Atom to her, “We are surprised that you are a woman, yes. However, that does not make you any less valuable a guest. I know this is sudden, but I would ask a favor of you if that’s alright.”

“Of course,” you replied with a smile, “If I can help, I will. It’s what I do.”

She smiled, pleased at this response. She was certain you would say no – especially considering your less than happy welcome here and subsequent argument with one of her guards.

“That is wonderful news. You see, you’ve arrived at a most fortuitous time for us. The timing could not have been any more perfect. You found yourselves here just as our World’s Fair is beginning – a celebration of the innovations of Tomorrowland and the rest of the world. We are best known throughout our worlds for our exchange of knowledge with the cultures of other planets so as to build a better future for them and ourselves. However, traveling through space has become impossible.”

“Why’s that?” you asked. You remembered when one of the guards told you that it had been out of commission for over a decade now.

“We’ve got,” she paused to find the right words, “A bit of a pest control problem.”

There was snort from the side. However, it was Atom who was laughing now.

“Pest control,” he said, chuckling, “That’s clever.”

The empress sat up a little straighter, a pleased smile on her face and a blush spreading prettily over her features. Oh. That was why she didn’t scold him so harshly.

“Yes, well,” she said, reluctantly redirecting her attention back to you, “It may be a bit more severe than how I’ve said. It’s an alien that’s lived up there for ten years. We had hoped it would die off over time, but it doesn’t show any sign of weakness. And it’s located in our interplanetary space station. It’s the halfway point between all of our worlds, and we haven’t been able to use it since it was shut down. But thankfully, two of my best soldiers – who you see here – have volunteered to defeat the alien and bring back space travel and the free exchange of culture once more. We’re hoping to start something of a renaissance.”

“So where do I come in?” you asked.

“I was curious about that as well,” Atom spoke as he looked at the empress, a small quiver of nervousness curling in his stomach at what she might say.

“Well I thought she could help with the extermination of the alien,” the empress spoke, “She holds a keyblade. She can be of great help.”

“You can’t be serious!” Atom said suddenly, voice jumping in volume, “This mission was supposed to be mine! I was at forefront of the battle during the great animal uprising of 3047. I single-handedly defeated the tentacle king of Zorkulon-9. And boogie-woogied the great Emperor Lindy Hopper into a gory submission during the great dance dance revolution of ‘45! You can’t possibly believe this woman is as capable a soldier as me!”

“Wow, none of that sounds real,” you said, holding in a little giggle. It all sounded so… campy.

“I’ll show you real, you two-cent tomato!” Atom said stepping forward only for Eo to put an arm out in front of him to interrupt his path.

“Wow, look at how red you are,” you said with a light lilt to your voice, “Are you sure I’m the tomato?”

Atom only turned redder, stumbling over his words as he struggled to come back as quickly as you did with an insult before turning to the empress.

“Empress,” he said, voice tight as he tried to maintain his volume, “Please reconsider.”

 “I think she could do it,” Eo said as he coolly eyed Atom with a smirk on his face, “She has a keyblade, Atom. She’s obviously either a warrior or someone in some position of power wherever she’s from. She could be some sort of warrior princess for all you know.”

“A princess is even less fit to be a warrior.”

“I’m not royalty or anything like that where I’m from,” you said, cutting into the conversation before it could turn into a discussion that happened like you weren’t in the room, “But I’ve been fighting since I was fifteen years old. I’ve defeated enemies twenty times my size with powers far beyond my own. I survived an unknown world for over a month with a broken leg, surviving off of nothing but the land around me. I survived my world falling into darkness and have since faced enemy after powerful enemy on a journey to get it back with nothing but this blade and my friends at my side. And one of the things I’ve done along the way was help everyone I could because that is my job. I can fight this alien.”

“I agree that if she really has done all that, then she’s more than capable of making this journey into space,” Eo said, nodding in approval and looking to the empress and Atom. Empress looked to be debating it. One soldier said she was capable, and the other opposed it severely.

“If I may,” Commander Bog intervened, “The arena is always a good idea.”

“The arena!” the empress said, clapping her hands together, “Perfect!”

“Arena?” Axel said, finally chiming into the conversation now that it was taking a strange turn.

“The arena is where we typically hold competitions and sporting events for the soldiers. It’s typically used as a means of entertainment, but we also use it to settle debates on promotional issues – such as becoming a captain or commander or, in this case, a primary warrior for our renaissance.”

“I’m not sure that’s really necessary,” you said, feeling like it was a tad excessive.

“If you can’t handle it, that’s understandable,” Atom said, a smug expression smeared over his face, “We can continue the plan as normal.”

“You know what? Just for that I’ll do the arena,” you bit out then turning to the empress said, “It’ll be MY pleasure.”

“I’ll do it too,” Axel said, coming to stand next to you to your shock and surprise, “________ tends to get in over her head when she’s worked up. I’m doing it to look after her.”

Atom let out a little chuckle, and you did everything within your power to keep your mouth shut. You really weren’t trying to cuss out your boyfriend in front of everyone. But, oh boy, did you ever want to.

“Then it’s decided,” Bog said, “I’ll put the word out: Captain Atom vs. the keyblade! It’ll be the battle of the century! I’ll have the robot butler wake you early tomorrow morning to get ready.”

“I think we could settle it today,” Atom said, “We don’t need the audience, and we can finish it now and then go up as normal.”

“Afraid to let me fight you at my full strength?” you said, a dangerous smirk dancing over your features. Atom’s face lit up in a hot blush.

“Full strength, half strength, it won’t make a difference. To me you’re just a dame who’s in over her head, and it grinds my gears that you haven’t figured that out yet.”

“Careful, Captain,” you spat, “You sound like you’re losing that grip on your emotions you claimed to have.”

“Don’t use my words on me!” he snapped at you, and you heard Eo snickering off to the side, trying so very desperately to keep it together. The empress let out a long sigh.

“Atom, that’s enough,” she said, brow creasing in mild annoyance. She turned back to your group and forced a tight smile. “I’ll have the robot butler escort you all to your rooms. If there are any special accommodations you require, please do not hesitate to voice these concerns, and we’ll have it fixed in absolutely no time at all.”

“Now, Empress,” Atom continued regardless of her wishes, “We don’t know what this Commie spy wants from us. For all we know she wants to rob us of our natural born democracy!”

“I assure you,” you addressed the captain, “I only want to help your beautiful world, ‘comrade.’” And you turned to leave, following Robot Butler once he appeared to escort your group out.

“I KNEW IT!”                                                                                                                                                  

“Yes, I also knew she would help us in our time of need,” the empress continued, blatantly ignoring your jab, a tiny smile on her face.

“No, not that! The c-word!” he yelled, pointing at you.

“Atom!” Eo gasped sarcastically, barely covering up his own laughter at the implication of what he just called you.

“No! I mean she said the c-word! She said the word comrade,” he yelled, angrily pointing at your retreating figure.

“Atom, you just said the c-word,” Eo pointed out.

“OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE?!” he all but screamed, falling to his knees, “She must be stopped before she taints another! I challenge you to a duel in the aren– oh she’s gone.”

You didn’t hear how the rest of the conversation went as you exited the room, but you were quite proud of yourself to have brought him down so easily. Such a fragile ego, that one.

“I like her,” Eo said with a smooth smile, “She was able to bring you to your knees without even lifting a finger.”

“I’d never do such a thing,” Atom sniffed, “That’s the woman’s job – if you know what I mean.” He wiggled his eyebrows a little bit, and both the empress and Eo rolled their eyes.

“You’re literally on your knees right now,” Eo countered, quirking a perfectly plucked eyebrow.

Atom looked down at himself for the first time, since accusing you of communism.

“DAMMIT!” he yelled, banging his fists against the floor, “This is humiliating, and yet… slightly impressive…. No woman has ever spoken to me like that. Most men don’t even speak to me like…. It’s almost like she thinks she’s my equal.”

With that Eo rolled his eyes and left.

~

You were all escorted to the east wing of the castle and shown to your rooms, which were all right next to each other. Robot Butler asked each of you if the accommodations were sufficient then asked you to request what you would like delivered to your rooms for dinner. You all took a moment to look at your rooms and order food before having a few minutes to yourself.

Your room was particularly extravagant with a moderately different aesthetic than the rest of the palace that you’d seen – which was usually silver, blue, and crystal. But your room was crystalline and dark red with silver and gold accents. The bed was enormous. Who even needed a bed this big? You could fit a family in it…. Or roll around in it with Axel….

You shook the thought from your head before looking at other features in the room. A large flat screen T.V. Always a plus. There was a hot tub. Neat. You’d never had one in your room before. You’d definitely be making use of that at some point. There was a large balcony which looked out over the castle town, and it was high enough that you actually see the town from where you were.

There was also a miniature fountain on the balcony with a little waterfall feature and large fish with splotchy patterns on their scales. You’d ask what kind of fish that was later.

There was also a bathroom that was large with a luxury tub and shower, and a small closed off area for the toilet. There were also stacks and stacks of large fluffy towels and a short bathrobe hanging next to the shower and fluffy slippers just below that.

You would have liked to admire your room longer, maybe spend a few naked moments in that hot tub soaking all of your troubles away, but then all of your friends and family barged into the room.

You jumped at the sudden entrance.

“Knock much?” you asked, eyeing Axel who looked none too happy with you.

“Not the time,” he said, “What the hell were you thinking? An arena? Really? We haven’t even been here for a full day, and you’re already fighting?!”

“It’s not like that was my original intention,” you snapped back, “I just wanted to help them out with the whole dangerous threat situation. It’s what I do! I show up, there’s a problem, I fix it!”

“For keyblade stuff! Their random alien problem isn’t a keyblade problem! And did you have to piss off the captain of their guard?! We’re on a strange world! We don’t know that if we had to that we could fight our way out of here! You’re lucky they didn’t want to end you for telling the captain to basically go fuck himself!”

“That guy was an asshole!”

“That’s hardly important! What you did was really stupid!”

You flinched at his tone. You weren’t even sure why you had tried to defend that. It was stupid, and now that you were no longer in the heat of that moment, you realized just how stupid it was. You let out a long sigh.

“You’re right,” you conceded, folding your arms and looking anywhere but at him. But that didn’t stop you from being at least a little upset. Axel let out a long sigh as well, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Now we have the arena to think about,” he grumbled, folding his own arms.

“Well you didn’t have to join in,” you said. It had been him who volunteered himself anyway.

“And let you run headfirst into danger again? Yeah, not happening.”

“I’m not a child, Axel. Yeah, I may have not acted exactly like an adult, but I really did do all those things I said I did as a testament to my strength. And I really didn’t need you to undermine me the way you did when you volunteered.”

“You were acting like a child, so I treated you like one.”

“Still,” Namine said, finally saying something and making her disgruntled attitude known for the first time since Atom had said something about your gender, “That Atom guy was an asshole. I’m not saying I agree with the arena fight, but I almost volunteered after everything he said.”

“Women,” Ludwig said with a roll of his eyes, and you and Namine glared at him hard enough to let him shrink back into the corner.

“Well I mean we could just leave,” Demyx said, “You know using a corridor.”

“No!” Ludwig shouted immediately. It was enough to make everyone jump and look at him in alarm.

“Now normally I wouldn’t have an objection about something like this,” Ludwig said, “Especially since I’m worshipped here, and let me tell you, that’s a real perk. But I have to consider the time of this world we’re currently on. I’ve visited and catalogued many worlds, and I can safely say that I’ve never encountered one with such an accelerated rate of time. Beastly Kingdom and Animal kingdom were one thing. Time there was fast, but it was among the fastest catalogued. I can’t speak for the infinite number of worlds that exists, but I wouldn’t risk using a corridor and jumping between a world where a week there may only equal a few seconds here – if it’s even that much.”

“What are you saying about it?” you asked, wanting a bit more clarification.

“I’m saying if he opens up a corridor directly to another world, and maybe even the lanes between, and we aren’t in a ship equipped to handle that type of travel, he may open up a blackhole. Only we won’t just be battered around, we’ll be crushed flat by the sheer force of the suction. And even if we managed to survive the blackhole, we’d fly through at such an accelerated rate that whatever we hit would kill us instantly.”

You all gulped. Holy shit. Okay, so corridors off world with no ship were a big no-no.

There was a tentative knock on your door.

“Come in,” you called. Robot butler poked his head in.

“Pardon me,” he said, stepping into the room, “But your dinners are ready. Shall I drop them off in your respective rooms?”

Really? Already? You only ordered like ten minutes ago. But… Food did sound nice right now.

Everyone let out little hums of agreement, telling him to do so.

“Not me,” Axel said to him, “Bring mine here.”

You stiffened in your posture. You weren’t sure if it was because he still wanted to talk to you about the whole arena thing or if it was because he wanted your company.

Everyone left just after that, retiring to their own rooms for dinner and leaving you and Axel alone for the evening.

He sat on the bed, and you sat next to him as Robot Butler rolled the trays in front of you.

You had never had filet mignon. But you were tonight. It was something you knew was supposed to be really fancy, but that was the extent of your knowledge about it. But since they said you could have anything you wanted for dinner you were keen to try it out.

But when you lifted the silver lid off of the tray holding your dinner, brought to you by your friendly neighborhood robot butler, you didn’t think you’d have to worry about how good it was going to be. It looked and smelled like a dream.

When Robot Butler left Axel let out another sigh. Your stomach twisted up in a few knots in anticipation of what he was about to say.

“You were right. Sort of. From earlier,” he finally said, and you felt your body relax minutely. “You’re not a child, and you have proven over and over again that you can take care of yourself. You don’t need me or anyone else. I’m just… worried. I need you remember?”

“I remember. And I get it. I know I was being stupid and impulsive again. And I know you’re just looking out for me. And thanks for that by the way. I really do appreciate you. I mean that.”

Axel tilted your chin up and kissed you. Your eyes fluttered shut and you found yourself kissing back. It started out slow and sweet, reaffirming that you cared about each other, and then you felt his tongue swipe just barely over your bottom lip. And you opened your mouth a bit to let him have a bit of access to your mouth. But no. Axel wasn’t that passive when it came to kissing.

You felt him press a hand on your back to pull you a little closer, forcing you to tilt your head back a little more as he plunged his tongue into your mouth. He was in control of this kiss, and it almost felt like he wanted you to know that.

When he finally let you pull away, you were panting and breathless, dazed but happy. Axel smirked at your state, and you not been so out of it, you might have told him to shove that cocky attitude up his ass.

Axel looked around your room. It was similar to his own, but your balcony had a better view. He squinted as looked out of the large glass doors.

“Hey, uh, ________, what did you say your home looked like again? Like the outside?”

“Uh, like a golf ball. Why?” you asked coming out of your daze.

“Is that it?”

Axel pointed out of the window, and sure enough there was a large sphere that resembled the outside of your world, lit up with color-changing lights and smack dab in the middle of what looked like a celebration – the fair most likely.

You rushed over there, and Axel joined you.

“It’s so weird,” you said as you gazed out at it, “I didn’t think I’d ever see home again.”

Axel put an arm around your shoulder, realizing you were feeling a lot of bittersweet, heavy emotion at the moment. And you leaned into him, happy for his company.

~

Ludwig leaned back onto his bed, a monstrosity of a thing that took up half of the extraordinarily large room. He had a toothpick hanging from his bill and a satisfied smile on his face. This was truly a paradise on whatever version of earth this was.

There was a light knock at the door.

“Come in,” he called. Who could it be? More of the little people here to give thanks to his many feats of genius? Pilgrims here on a grand journey of self-discovery that needed to give alms to his majesty the Great Ludwig von Drake?

“Good evening, Luddy,” Dreamfinder chimed as he poked his head in through the door. Figment poked his head in as well.

Well. He supposed a visit from friends was okay too.

“Yes, yes, how can I be of assistance?” he asked, picking at his teeth with the toothpick.

“I just wanted to see how you’re doing,” he said as he gingerly stepped into the room.

“How I’m doing?!” Ludwig said, sitting up straight as a shot and bouncing in his seat, “I’m doing great! I’m finally somewhere where they recognize my genius!”

“But they recognized your genius on Spaceship Earth,” Dreamfinder said as he sat on the edge of the bed next Ludwig.

“No, they recognized Ansem’s genius. No one could really know about me! All my work, all my many accomplishments, all my innovation, all the credit was given to Ansem. And where is he now? He wasn’t even around to appreciate it. He left me working alone on this project for twenty years while he went back to live in the lap of luxury. In his lab surrounded by loyal and completely trustworthy anime pretty boy apprentices who adored him and all of his work and would never ever leave him stranded on another world unable to see his family or unable to return home. And now I’m home where they adore me and recognize me.”

He hopped up from the bed and walked to his own balcony window, gesturing to where you could see the Spaceship Earth replica lit up in the distance.

“Look! They even built a ride housed inside my passion project – the greatest accomplishment of my life. An entire world that was meant house an entire world. Something so selfless that I did to right a great wrong and save the lives of billions, and not once has anyone ever thanked me for it.”

“Well what about ________?” Dreamfinder said as he watched Ludwig gazing wistfully at the monument in the distance.

“That’s just one person out of over seven billion. But now I am appreciated by everyone, but she was my greatest muse when building it.”

“Wasn’t she born after everyone was relocated?”

“Yes, but I knew her parents before then. I knew her mom when she was pregnant with her, and every time I had a moment of doubt or despair, I thought about that little unborn child who was counting on me to have a life. And she’s been my biggest fan ever since.”

“That’s beautiful, Luddy.”

“Yeah, I know. But still, you know you’ve made it big when someone constructs a theme park attraction and testament to your magnum opus. They even called it Spaceship Earth. We should ride it when ________ is done with her battle against the captain of the guard.”

“Yeah,” Dreamfinder agreed, “Now we should end this chapter on a happy note since this probably the most screen time we’re gonna get in this arc.”

“I suppose you’re right. How about a group hug?” he said as he spread his arms out wide, welcoming Dreamfinder and Figment in for a big hug.

Notes:

I hope you all enjoyed reading Captain Atom's meltdown as much as I enjoyed writing it. So next time we'll see how that arena match plays out! We're still in the earliest development of this arc, so please be patient with me. I'll be on a mini holiday this weekend, so a Thursday update is unlikely, but if I can hammer the rest of it out by tomorrow then I'll post it. So check back just in case.

As always, I hope you're enjoying the story, and thank you for all the comments and kudos. They mean a lot guys :)

Obscure-ish References:

Tomorrowland: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrowland?fbclid=IwAR3z74CezdirDOh5wUbT0NvAF2bSRmKj6C5sWtEpWLPBmJGwWrY5heBDpcc

Captain Eo (attraction and character): https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Captain_EO?fbclid=IwAR34RXnSZHUcFkIEdu2qc0uqCqzIZ8J-BM3JonMjDpSyizwidcWuGic9M1A

Robot Butler: https://cdn1.parksmedia.wdprapps.disney.com/media/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/hae220128LARGE.jpg?fbclid=IwAR0Awq4LCXGG5VIKT27kpa_RGmNTvAOe6MGymW8D8vpaELjWyyZrst8wNrc

Chapter 57: It's A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow

Summary:

It's the big arena fight!

Notes:

Okay so one update a week is what it's looking like for a while. I know that's pretty much what I've already been doing, but I really don't see me making these chapters any shorter to communicate all I want in one go being something I can do twice a week. So yeah.... Sorry. But anyway it's an extra long one again! :D

Also if you ever wondered what your current keyblade looks like, this is it: https://www.deviantart.com/magixfire/art/The-Break-of-Dawn-821630457

Marluxia stood at his balcony once more. There wasn’t a horde of nobodies waiting down below to cheer him on or shower him with praise. No. There were just three nobodies. Specter lay there on its side, moaning in pain, blood leaking from its slack jaw and eye, a somewhat lumpy mixture that puddled around it while other nobodies worked to heal it.

With every moan, Marluxia felt his anger flare up just a bit. Useless. He had been so close. It had all been right there within his grasp. Now… now he was back to where he was. It wasn’t the worst position to be in, but he couldn’t see it that way. He could have nothing.

Larxene approached him slowly, the only noise being that of the heel of her boots clicking across the floor as she approached him, uncertainty and apprehension wracking her body. She had questions only he could answer, and she worried what those answers might be.

“I asked to be alone,” Marluxia said in an icy tone that sounded almost dangerous to her.

“Are you alright?” she asked anyway. He had to at least be able to appreciate that she cared.

“The last time you asked me that, I thought it was one of the stupidest questions I could’ve been asked at the time. Why do you assume you’ll get anything resembling a positive answer when you ask me that infuriating question just after we’ve been defeated?”

Larxene didn’t know how to answer. So she just moved on the real reason she had come there. What you said had been itching in the back of her mind.

He left you here to die.

“You left me there. When the battle was over. After the dust settled. You left, and she was going to kill me,” Larxene said, trying to keep her voice even, but it broke on the last part of her sentence when she remembered the murderous look you were giving her. Larxene didn’t know if you’d ever killed a person before or if you had the guts to do it, but in that moment…. She didn’t doubt anything.

Marluxia could hear the trepidation in her voice, the uneasy distrust at the back of her throat.

He held in a sigh. He was annoyed. He didn’t need this as well. He put an easy look on his face, letting a very gentle smile cross his features. He crossed over to her, and Larxene watched him approach carefully. Marluxia was good at hiding his intentions, and with the way his mood was able to swing like a pendulum he was nothing less than unpredictable, moving from one thing to the next.

He placed his hands firmly on her shoulders then let his easy smile fade into something that was akin to sadness. He looked regretful. He let out a sigh, letting his forehead come to rest on hers. She felt herself relax without him even having to say anything to reassure her.

“I’m sorry,” he said lowly, “I knew you could handle yourself. I knew I’d see you again. I never meant to make you feel like you were unimportant. Of everyone in this, you’re the only one who is absolutely irreplaceable.”

He pulled her close, letting her head rest on his chest. She didn’t want to relax into it. She just did. A brief flash of watching you and Axel dance flit through her mind, how he held you, and she imagined it felt something like this.

“Don’t let her words infect your mind,” Marluxia cooed into her hair, and Larxene could already feel herself smiling just a little. “Of course, she’d say that when she was almost beaten. She’ll say anything to make you doubt yourself and me. But you never need doubt me. I need you. Never forget that.”

“What will we do now?” Larxene asked, feeling a warmth spread through her body as she leaned into his embrace. But then he pulled away, lightly pushing her. He re-approached the edge of the balcony and looked down at Specter, no longer bleeding. But there was a large hole where its eye once was. And its jaw was permanently open now.

“She was almost beaten,” he said simply as he gazed down at Specter who looked back, “She had a few tricks up her sleeve, but now we know about them. Specter wasn’t ready yet. I let my need for revenge control me. But I’ll be ready for her next time. We’ll be ready for her.”

~

You were awoken by the gentle ringing of a bell. You blinked your eyes open to see Robot Butler standing near the bed. It was one of the more pleasant wake-up calls you’ve had.

“What time is it?” you mumbled, rubbing sleep from your eyes.

“Four in the morning,” he responded, setting the bell down, “I’ve been instructed to wake you early so you could have a light breakfast and make any necessary preparations for the arena this morning. We will require your presence in the locker room for the arena at 7 ‘o clock sharp. If you have any further need of me all you need do is ask.”

“Thank you very much,” you responded with a sweet smile as he turned to leave.

“You’re quite welcome. I will return in an hour with your breakfast.”

You were grateful to have gone to bed relatively early the night before. After you and Axel had eaten your dinner, you got in the bed to snuggle for a bit, and you were out like a light. After your long day, you hadn’t realized how tired you were until you were snuggled into the embrace of someone so warm with a full tummy.

Axel left some time later that night when he started to doze off himself, placing a little kiss on your forehead before using a corridor to get to his room.

You hopped into the shower and gave yourself a quick wash, realizing as you were rinsing the soap off of your body that you were probably gonna have to do this again later. You were probably going to be sweaty and filthy when you left the arena.

You slipped into a t-shirt and some leggings from the few articles of clothing that could be recovered from the wreck of the ship. You would need to ask around about clothing stores you could browse. Because now you really were short on outfits – even the pretty dress from your birthday party did not make it out unscathed.

When you exited the bathroom, Axel was waiting for you on your bed, reading a pamphlet.

“Morning,” you greeted. He looked up at you and smiled. He looked tired. “Did you not get a lot of sleep last night?”

“Kind of,” he answered, tossing the pamphlet onto the bed in your direction. You picked it up and realized it was a miniature guideline on how arenas worked here.

“You were up all night… studying?” you asked, the faintest hint of amusement in your voice. He rolled his eyes but smiled regardless.

“Yes, because my girlfriend neglected to do any research on the topic. And she’s lucky that the arena isn’t a battle to the death. Because I guarantee she didn’t ask about it.”

You looked away, mildly embarrassed.

“Thanks,” you mumbled out. He was always looking out for you, and you briefly wondered if you were ever going to create situations where he wouldn’t have to.

“No problem,” he said as he stood up, “Do you want me to go over a few of the rules with you?”

“Yeah. I could probably use all the help I can get.”

~

A few hours later, after a quick breakfast, a rundown of the rules, and a reasonably sized warm up, you found yourself entering the locker room, Axel splitting from you to go to the one for men.

Axel walked into the locker room and was met with the sight of Eo in a towel, pulling out a silver jumpsuit from one of the lockers.

“I didn’t know you were competing,” he said as he watched Eo move to one of the benches.

“Yes, well I wanted to keep you out of the way.”

Axel narrowed his eyes at him, and Eo smirked.

“Relax,” Eo said with a hint of laughter in his voice, “I’m only in this so the keyblade wielder can prove herself. I got a good feeling about her. She has… a certain air of determination about her.”

“You don’t know anything about her,” Axel muttered as he moved passed Eo to sit on another bench while he waited for the arena to start.

“Maybe not, but I didn’t doubt her when she mentioned all of those things she did. Did she do all of those things, or was she just saying things.”

“…No, she really did do all of those things,” Axel conceded, “She’s… incredible.”

Eo regarded him quietly for a moment. He had a sneaking suspicion that Axel had feelings for you, but he’d need to observe further to know for sure.

“Like I said, she’ll be fine. Plus even if Atom wins, he won’t go too hard on her. If he could just get her to trip and fall on her face, he’d let it go. It doesn’t take much with him,” Eo said with a roll of his eyes and a smile. Axel found himself letting out a little chuckle as well.

“Making a little locker room chitchat, boys?” Atom said as he strode into the locker room, but unlike Eo he wasn’t in a towel. No, he was completely naked and air drying. Axel looked away, blushing a bit and severely uncomfortable. But Atom was oblivious to the discomfort he was causing and strode over to the two of them, stopping near Axel and furthering his discomfort.

“We weren’t talking about anything important,” Eo said, far too amused at Axel’s uneasiness.

“Well since you two have nothing important to discuss, allow me to show you something really impressive,” he said, resting a leg on the bench next to Axel and effectively shoving his junk near Axel’s face. Axel let out a grunt of discomfort, scooting away from Atom just a bit. Atom pulled out a gun – a relief to Axel who thought he really wanted him to stare at his junk and pass judgment on it. Which he didn’t want to think about. Because it made him… insecure. Atom was pretty well equipped. Like… unnaturally so. Those feelings were only made worse by the fact that Atom had some nicely toned and defined muscle. He wasn’t as big as Laxeus in terms of height, but he was pretty damn close with a similar build and much more handsome face.

“Pretty impressive, huh?” he said wielding the weapon with all the pride of a young father showing off his offspring. “It’s reliable, sturdy, and hard as a rock.”

Eo was desperately trying to hold in his laughter at this point, and Axel glared at him.

“You’re enjoying this aren’t you?” he asked Eo as he scooched away from Atom again.

“Why wouldn’t he?” Atom answered for him, polishing the gun, “Just look at it! Don’t be shy, Axel, you can hold it if you want to. I’ll even let you polish it. But be careful. It’s on a hair trigger, and it’ll blast in your face if you’re not gentle enough with it.”

“No! Please no,” Axel said, scooting even further away. Atom just shrugged, putting the gun away while Eo finally let some of his laughter escape. Axel just rolled his eyes.

“Suit yourself,” Atom said as he moved to get his clothes from his locker, “But you’ll never make any progress in the battlefield by shying away from technology that helps you fight better.”

“Are you trying to make progress in the arena?” Axel inquired as casually as he could, but he was bristling at the thought that Atom would use this as an opportunity to hurt you and further his own career.

“Oh goodness no. No man’s ever gotten ahead by beating a woman at anything. That’d be too easy. But once I’ve defeated her, I’ll move on to the two of you. And beating the two of you will make me a prime candidate for promotion.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure, Atom,” Eo countered, fastening a belt around his waist, a dark blue one with a white and blue insignia of Tomorrowland on the buckle.

“Promotion?” Axel inquired, more at ease now that Atom was wearing clothes.

“For Commander,” Eo replied, “Commander Bog is thinking about retirement, and one of us will be his successor. It’s something we’ve worked towards for a long time, but I don’t think this will be Atom’s crowning achievement. He’s still got ________ to get through, and I think she’ll prove a bigger challenge than he’s accounting for.”

“Well I know you’d like to think so,” Atom said, brushing it off and turning just a bit red at the mention of your name. He was going to make sure you remembered this defeat.

“Axel, you ought to get dressed,” Eo said, tossing him another jumpsuit. Axel eyed the gaudy material. It was much brighter and tackier than he’d like. Silver wasn’t really his color.

“I think I’ll stick to what I’ve got,” he said, setting the outfit to the side.

“You don’t have armor,” Eo pointed out, “And don’t think I won’t know you’ll be fighting tooth and nail to get to her. I’m not holding back just because I’m a distraction. You want the armor.”

Eo nudged the armor back over towards Axel, and Axel reluctantly picked it up before shedding his coat, setting it in a locker. Then he removed his shirt.

“Axel!” Atom exclaimed as he looked at Axel’s torso, “Where did you get those magnificent scars?! I didn’t think someone with your much daintier physique would have such an array of battle trophies.”

Axel froze for a moment, looking at Atom like he’d lost his mind.

“Dainty?” he questioned, a small blush on his face. True he didn’t have such a broad and muscular build as Atom, but he was sculpted enough, years of fighting in the Organization more or less forcing him to have such a build.

“Well, yes, dainty. I thought you were a… Nancy – so to speak. Oh, no offense, Eo. Is that a word I can use – Nancy – I don’t want to offend you people,” Atom continued.

“No,” Eo replied, a very unamused look on his face, “Also I told you to stop saying, ‘you people.’ That’s bad too.”

“Noted, but I digress. You’re rather slender. I’d assumed you weren’t really a fighter, but I can see I was mistaken.”

“Yeah,” Axel said as he slipped into the jumpsuit, “Looks can be deceiving.”

“And I’ll be assuming you’ll need a weapon?” Eo asked, but Axel shook his head.

“I’ve got my own,” Axel replied, slipping on a pair of boots that Eo handed him – white ones. Also not really his color but still better than the silver. And the belt wasn’t awful either.

Axel stood and began to exit the room into the next waiting area where he would be led to the area he would enter from. From what he understood on the pamphlet, he would have his own corner to enter from as would everyone else. Just as he was crossing the threshold of the door, a shot rang out.

Axel looked at the wall next to him and saw a small burn mark where a laser had shot from the gun. He looked back at Atom with a glare, and Atom looked somewhat embarrassed that the gun had gone off while he was trying to holster it.

“I warned ya about that hair trigger,” he said with a sheepish grin. Axel just rolled his eyes and left.

In the meantime you were having your own interesting talk in the locker room.

You strode into the locker room to find it empty initially. You also found the armor they had given you. It was much too skimpy for your liking. It showed way too much chest, didn’t cover any of your legs and hugged your butt in a way that made it feel like you weren’t wearing anything down there at all.

You asked Robot Butler about it, and he showed you that it was indeed armor. Tossing anything at it put up a small shield in that area to deflect harm. It was a neat trick, but you would be damned before you fought in it. How could you expect anyone to take you seriously in that suit? It was… demeaning.

You put your regular clothes back on, and as you finished a group of cheerleaders walked into the locker room, giggling and excited, chattering about the arena.

“Oh, hi!” one of them greeted, a brunette with her hair pulled back into a high ponytail that spiraled down in curls around her shoulders, “Are you one of the new cheerleaders? You’ll have to cut your hair first, doll.”

“Oh, uh, no,” you said, absently tugging on the large braid. You needed to cut that later. “I’m competing in the arena actually.”

There was a quiet beat before a trill of laughter carried across the room. They were… laughing at you. But why? You just watched them with a mix of anger and confusion on your face. It wasn’t until the initial cheerleader who talked to you saw that you weren’t laughing and actually looked as unamused as one could get without looking outright furious that she realized you were serious.

She absently tugged on a lock of her hair, her face dusting pink as she looked down to her feet, digging a toe into the tile.

“I think she’s serious,” she said as the giggles quieted. Suddenly they all looked embarrassed to have laughed at you. Though there was more confusion than anything.

“Wait,” said another, a blonde with straight blonde hair that was so pale it almost looked white under the fluorescent lights, “You’re not that keyblade wielder are you?”

Now there was intrigue in their faces – with mild skepticism here and there.

“I am,” you said and brandished your keyblade for them all to see. There was gasp at the flash of light and murmurs of wonder as they looked at your blade, eyeing the dragon and flame blade and star and moons handle like some strange and foreign artifact of legend. “Is it really that strange that women are warriors or fighters or anything like that here?”

“Well, yeah,” the first cheerleader said as she looked between you and your sword, “But, like, there’s a first time for everything I guess. I mean, I’m not really into the thought of like fighting or nothing like that. But it’s, like, cool that you are. I’ll send out a cheer for you.”

She offered you a kind smile, and you returned it. You could hear a buzzer sound. That was your cue to get to your starting area.

“Well, I’ve gotta go,” you said summoning your armor and feeling a little prideful when the girls let out rather appreciative murmurs at the way it looked. Much better than the armor that they had given you initially.

The arena was a large rectangular structure with a retractable roof. Today, due to the sun and clear sky, the roof was retracted and the sun shining down on the stands that were steadily filling with people who all chattered excitedly about the fight. Arena fights had not been all too common as of late, but this was supposed to be the fight of the century.

Sitting in box seats that overlooked the whole of the arena sat the empress, Commander Bog, Dreamfinder, Demyx, and Namine. Namine and Dreamfinder wrung their hands nervously in their laps. They were worried.

“This isn’t a match, like, to the death is it?” Namine finally asked, leaning over in her seat to ask Commander Bog. He laughed and waved her concern off.

“Of course not,” he said, still laughing a bit, “If we find that any opponent has sustained too much injury and the match is still going on, we send a couple robots out to retrieve them and take them to med. They’ll be given the latest and most technologically advanced treatment in medical care to ensure a quick and speedy recovery. And if they’re feeling up to it, they can come join us here in the viewing area.”

Namine let out a little breath of relief that she hadn’t realized she was holding. At least you and Axel would be safe and cared for if need be.

“Relax,” Demyx said lowly next to her ear, giving her a little nudge with his elbow, “________ will be fine. She’s a total badass. Plus I’d think twice before thinking Axel would ever let anything happen to her and vice versa. They’ve been looking out for each other since the beginning.”

Demyx gave her a large, reassuring smile, and Namine smiled lightly back before reaching over and giving his hand a grateful squeeze and letting go just after to look out at the arena.

“I’ve returned,” Ludwig announced as he entered the viewing area.

“Where’ve you been?” Namine asked, turning to him, “The match is about to begin.”

“Oh just making a few business investments,” he said as he plopped down in a seat next to the empress – a very cushy thing with several pillows to allow him to sit a little taller.

“You were down at the stands betting weren’t you?” Dreamfinder asked in a scolding tone. Then his eyes trailed to Figment. “And you dragged him into your debauchery as well? It’s one thing to make such decision on your own, but to drag Figment into it is going too far, Luddy! He’s not mature enough to gamble! He’s only 41!”

“Relax!” Ludwig said, waving his hand about, “I taught him to only bet on sure things! And ________ is a sure thing.”

Dreamfinder realized there would be no reasoning with him on this one and turned to Figment instead.

“And you ought to know better, mister!” he said, crossing his arms and tapping his foot. Figment just shrugged, pulling out a tiny pair of sunglasses and slipping them on.

“Don’t you sass me, young man! When we get back to the palace, you and I are going to have a serious talk about your attitude!”

Dreamfinder sat down in a huff. Demyx watched the exchange then sent a text to Ludwig.

Demyx: You placed that bet I asked, right?

Ludwig: I put it all on ________.

Demyx: Thanks! :)

It was during this time that the empress stood up and walked to the edge of the viewing area. Robot Butler walked up to her, placing a microphone in front of her and bowing as he backed away. The arena’s stands went quiet as a large screen displayed the empress.

She stood tall and regal in a maroon dress that hugged her curves all the way down from her ample cleavage on display from the low neckline to her slim waist and wide hips. She felt quite beautiful in it with all eyes on her, and she was feeling quite confident that day – and about all the results of this fight could bring her. A new era was beginning, and regardless who won the fight, a renaissance would be born from it.

As she stood there, there was no shortage of cheers from the crowd which she soaked up like a sponge – especially the men from the audience. It felt nice to be beloved. Even Demyx let out a few claps and wolf whistles. Dreamfinder, Figment, and Ludwig looked at him. He looked back and shrugged.

“What?” he asked, not quite understanding why any of them weren’t appreciating her in much the same way that he was. But they didn’t answer, just went back to paying attention to the empress’s words.

Namine shifted a little in her seat, uncomfortable and trying not to appear the least bit jealous about Demyx’s reaction. But for a fleeting moment she did wish that she could command his attention like that.

“Thank you all, my loyal subjects,” she greeted the crowd, “It is with much excitement that I announce this tournament – for it is the first of its kind. Our own Captain Atom Adams and Captain Eo Moonwalker will be competing against an alien keyblade wielder and their companion for the right to begin a new era of travel and exploration.”

The audience went wild with applause. It truly was an exciting day.

“And it is also with great joy that I formally introduce to you the Great Ludwig von Drake, one of the father’s of Tomorrowland, here with us today.”

The crowd was even louder with its praise, a near deafening roar overtaking them all.

“Now let’s see our fighters!” she announced and four doors in four corners of the arena below opened and out stepped each of the fighters in their own corners. “In this corner we have our own Captain Atom!” She gestured to him in the corner he stood, and the crowd and cheerleaders went crazy.

“In the next corner, one of our foreign alien friends: Axel!” The crowd did not go as wild for him as Atom, but he was met with intrigue and applause, nonetheless. “In the next, our own Captain Eo!”

More applause.

“And lastly, but certainly not least, our alien knight in, quite impressive shining armor I must say,” she said, noting that you had forgone the traditional armor in favor of something much more intimidating, “The keyblade-wielding ________!”

There was more applause and intrigue. You were certainly a sight to the crowd, face completely obscured by your helmet and adding an air of mystery to you. You summoned your blade and shield and readied yourself.

“Now before we begin, I’d like to have the Great von Drake say a few words.”

The empress stepped away from the microphone for your uncle to take her place. He readjusted the microphone to his height and cleared his throat. Everyone in the stands leaned forward in anticipation of what words of encouragement and wisdom he could possibly say.

“________, I’ve got a lot riding on this, and I’m counting on you to win! So don’t let me down!”

There was uproarious laughter from everyone in the stands and from Eo an Atom as well. That von Drake! He was such a kidder! But you knew damn well that he actually meant that.

“Now without further ado,” the empress continued once Ludwig had taken his seat, “Let the arena begin!”

Another buzzer sounded, and none of you wasted any time. Despite the large space of the arena, you were halfway across it running towards Atom in no time at all. And so was he.

He was holding a weapon that looked like just a handle with a button on it, but he pressed the button and suddenly that handle was the hilt of a sword that appeared to be made of dull blue light, and he summoned a shield on his other arm that also appeared to be made of the same light.

You briefly wondered how such a sword would react to your own, but as your blades collided, you realized that it was much the same. The two of your blades met with a fierce clash that sent sparks flying between the two. This happened again and again as the two of you tried repeatedly to get the other to move their sword away from their body enough to strike, but you both remained firm in your attacks, always angling it in a defensive position as much as offensive.

Axel had also rushed towards Atom as Eo had predicted. And just like he said he would, Eo was there to stop him, bull rushing him out of the way. Axel tumbled and rolled to his feet, looking up to see Eo smirking at him, his own weapon a double-ended spear like the one you had – without your star, moon, and dragon aesthetic, of course.

His words that you would be fine echoed in his mind, and when he looked over to where you and Atom were fighting, he felt a bit more confident about it. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t kick Eo’s ass and make his way over there anyway.

So Axel picked himself up and charged at Eo, chakrams blazing.

“Whoa!” Eo said as he dodged out of the way, “That’s a neat trick.”

“Yeah, I’m full of ‘em,” Axel countered, throwing as many attacks as he dodged. Eo was fast and light on his feet, but so was he.

On the other end of things, you were giving Atom a run for his money. He didn’t expect you to actually be so… strong…. You were taking his hits like a champion and dishing out quite a few that he wouldn’t be able to ignore if he wanted to. You danced around him in your method of fighting, something he wasn’t entirely used to, but was doing his best to adapt to. But you seemed almost adept to knowing his style of fighting – something more direct and head on as opposed to being as evasive as your own style. Which meant that he had to admit something he’d denied up to this point.

You are a fighter. You fought often enough to recognize how to take on opponents like him. And… this thought didn’t deter him as much as he thought it would. If anything it made him curious to see where this battle would go. Which meant no more going easy on you.

Atom began to attack you with much more fervor than before, and you counted this as a small win. If he was holding back, he wasn’t now, and that meant a chance to really prove yourself. But this also meant that his hits hit harder. So you needed to be faster.

“Getting frustrated, Captain?” you asked, unable to resist a little banter.

“Hardly,” he responded as you blocked a hit with your shield, “But you’ll tire eventually.”

“You’re underestimating my hardheadedness. I’ve fought beyond exhaustion against tougher enemies. I don’t cave so easily.”

“We’ll see about that,” he said, sweeping a leg beneath you and tripping you up and on to your back. He was about to deal a finishing blow, but you used your position on the ground to sweep your legs under him as well, bashing him with your shield as he fell to knock him to the side. You rolled to a new position on your feet and ready for him – which was good because he recovered quickly and was charging you again.

You swung your sword as he approached, and he met it with his shield. You used the momentum of the push back to swing around him and prepare to strike his other side, but he had much the same idea, spinning as you did to meet your sword with his own.

The two of were locked like that for a moment, both of you having temporarily abandon your shields to remain in this deadlock, swords pressed together so tightly that every tiny movement produced a spark. His upper body strength outmatched your own as he pressed his sword down, but years of dancing and now so many months of training and given you a lower body advantage, most of your own strength coming from your stance as you pushed back up with equal force.

The two of you jumped away from each other before meeting again a in harsh clash, separating and meeting again and again seemingly without end. He had to give at some point, and you were just waiting for it to happen. But it was on the next clash that it was you who slipped up as he caught your foot on his own to trip you up much in a similar manner as he had before, but this time you couldn’t so easily counter it with your own.

He was already moving in as you fell to put an end to this fight, so you acted on impulse. You hadn’t really meant to. It was just something that happened nearly by instinct now that you’d been using this magic for so long. And you sent out a small wave of blue fire that knocked Atom back several feet while you rolled to your own.

But then you felt immediate regret.

“Oh my gosh! Are you okay? I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to use that!”

You were… sorry? Atom looked at you. Your voice sounded genuinely concerned for his well-being, and your guard was entirely down in case you needed to help him rather than attack or to expect an attack in return. Well at least he knew you weren’t pulling some random dirty move out of your sleeve in a hope to end this early.

Atom picked himself up and dusted himself off as if it were nothing, not taking on a battle stance. He only wanted to attack you when you were ready. If you weren’t going to fight dirty, then he could return the favor.

“It’s a nifty trick, but I’m afraid it won’t make too much of a difference,” he said, redrawing his weapon and shield. You did the same. “The suit’s flame resistant, so you’re just gonna have to work hard to take me out, doll face.”

“Then I’ll feel better about using it,” you remarked as you dropped into a ready stance just as he launched himself at you.

Axel saw the fire out of the corner of his eye and turned to look at you, narrowly dodging an attack from Eo once he realized that you were okay and not forced into some form of desperation in which you needed to use your magic. He honestly wondered why you hadn’t used that as well as your heartless form to end this fight. You were tough without magic or darkness sure, but you would have matched Atom in strength and battle prowess if you used your darkness – that was assuming you didn’t surpass him altogether. He thought briefly of watching you snap open the jaw of a creature much bigger than yourself and gouging its eye out.

“So you both know that little fire trick,” Eo mused as he continued to strike at Axel.

“I may have taught her a few things,” he said haughtily with a smirk on his face. Eo quirked an eyebrow. This man definitely had a thing for you.

“Well let’s see if she knows how to use it.”

You very much knew how to use it. You hadn’t wanted to make a habit of using your magic, but Atom had forgone sword and shield tactics in favor of dual-wielding methods, abandoning his shield altogether. So you had switched to a flaming, double-ended spear.

“Impressive,” Atom remarked once he saw you were just as adept with that spear as you had been with a sword and shield.

“You don’t get to live this long with the enemies I’ve made without learning a thing or two,” you said as you spun passed him as he twirled his blades in your direction, “Think you can keep up, old man?”

“Old?! I’m not a day over twenty-eight!”

You just giggled at how easily riled up he’d gotten, pole vaulting yourself over him to strike from the other side. He almost laughed too, but held it back, a smile on his face as he turned to block your hit. He hadn’t had a fight like this since… well since he’d been in actual combat. Most soldiers didn’t put up such a fight when training since they didn’t have the same adrenaline and need to survive coursing through them. This was almost refreshing. If you fought like this here, he could only imagine what it would be like to take you on in the field of battle.

“Could’ve fooled me. You’re slowing up,” you remarked, blocking both of his swords with your spear as he brought them down towards you. Atom realized his mistake, leaving everything exposed, and you were not blind to it, bringing up one of your legs and delivering a powerful kick to his middle that sent him skidding back a few feet.

You remained crouched low in your battle stance and waited for him to get up. It would have been the perfect opportunity to strike, but… you weren’t quite ready to end this. It all almost felt… fun. Maybe you were developing a love for battle. You’d ask Axel if you were crazy later.

He got to his feet, vaguely noting that you hadn’t struck when you got the chance. Was it mercy, or were you dragging out this fight?

As he was charging, you decided to bring your fire back up, lifting a wall of it in front of yourself so he’d have to stop short. He couldn’t see beyond that wall, and so rushing into it would be relatively foolhardy. But he had a plan. He pressed the little Tomorrowland insignia displayed on his belt and a jetpack sprouted from it, latching onto his upper back so he could fly over the wall.

Surely you wouldn’t be expecting that. And you weren’t. You weren’t expecting it anymore than he expected to meet you on your glider just at the top of the wall. You still had your shield in hand and shook off the surprise, flinging it at him like a disk and calling it back to your side so it sliced out through the air and retreated like a boomerang.

This proved to be a bit of a challenge for Atom as his weapons were all close range except, he remembered his new gun. He pulled it out and shot at you – with it set to stun, of course – but you pulled in your shield just as the shot reached you. He no longer had the element of surprise regarding this weapon, and now you knew to keep your shield close.

Looks like magics for you. But you needed to be closer to him. None of his weapons worked too well at close range – even swords required a certain amount of space to be effectively used. You could cut anything at close range, but it’s really hard to stab or strike someone when you have no space to aim or maneuver. So you flew close and around him, and he did too, and sky was lit with the two of you practically dancing around each other, flashes of blue fire and red lasers illuminating the stunned and wowed audience.

But then you saw your opening, you flew in close, very, very close, so much so that you caused Atom to falter in his movements, and you grabbed him by the arm and flung him as best you could, swinging him in several circles and disorienting him as you flung him into the sky.

You flew up above him and did it again, but this time you flung him to the ground, flying after him to deliver another blow or to catch him. You weren’t really sure. He was wearing armor, but could he survive a fall like this?

It didn’t matter. Atom reoriented himself, setting his jetpack to fling himself back towards you at full speed. And he knocked you from your glider, pushing you up into the sky and smirking as he let you fall. But you were not to be so easily toppled, re-summoning your glider and entering a nosedive with Atom, propelling yourself forward as best you could with him trying to fight you off – before the two of you could crash. You fought back just as hard. He had strength, but you had speed.

The two of you pulled out of the nosedive at the last second, hovering from each other only two feet apart, panting, hearts beating a million miles a minute, adrenaline coursing through you and making you feel overly exhilarated.

“As frightfully exciting as death-defying stunts are,” the empress interrupted before the two of you could get back into it, “Let’s try and keep this battle on the ground, please. We’d like to keep whatever damage you sustain in the category of, ‘repairable.’”

You and Atom floated back down to the ground, never breaking eye contact.

“You know she only said that so you wouldn’t have to dig yourself out of crater,” you half-joked. He let out a quick chuckle.

“Pretty sure I had you pinned in that last stunt,” he said, rolling one of his shoulders, “You’re not so bad a fighter as I thought.”

“Not for a two-cent tomato, you mean,” you replied with a bit of bite to your voice. Atom flushed a light pink as the two of you circled each other.

“You might be a five-cent tomato at this point.”

You snorted, launching yourself at him. Your swords met in a clash.

“I’m so flattered!”

Axel had only just seen when the two of you had landed. He’d been so immersed in his fight with Eo, he hadn’t even noticed that the two of you weren’t on the ground. Eo was definitely doing his job – or at least the job he’d set for himself to keep Axel out of the way.

“Sounds like things are getting pretty intense over there,” Eo commented, brushing hair and sweat from his face. Axel ran a hand through his hair too.

“Yeah,” he panted, “Almost makes me wish I was there.”

Eo rolled his eyes.

“She’s still standing and you’re still on this?”

“Obviously.”

Eo seemed to ponder something for a moment as the two of them circled each other, waiting for the other to strike first. Then he exited his fighting stance all together.

“Just go,” he said, waving a hand in the direction of you and Atom, “She’s already proven herself capable if she’s lasted this long. If you join in hardly matters now because Atom is going to acknowledge that he couldn’t take her down to by himself.”

Axel seemed to debate this, and against his better judgment, he turned his back and began to run in your direction. It was as he was getting ready to attack that an arm circled around him and pressed the insignia on his belt.

All he heard was Eo’s laughter in his ear before he was launched into the air via jetpack.

Eo could hardly keep his composure, and just a second later, he lost it all together, doubling over with laughter. It was pretty short-lived though. Axel didn’t know how to control his jetpack. So not even a minute later he crashed into Eo. The jetpack gave out from the impact alone, and the two them were knocked unconscious.

Robots wheeled out into the arena, avoiding you and Atom all together so as to not be roped into whatever intense battle the two of you were locked in, and carried Axel and Eo out and to med.

The empress let out an exasperated sigh, rubbing her temples. That was one of the reasons she had said no flying. She supposed she could stop the arena now, seeing as how the only two contestants left had now officially met the requirement for going to the space station and taking care of their little alien problem – which was be the last two standing. But the audience was enjoying the show, so she saw no harm in letting them carry on for a while.

That was a mistake. You and Atom carried on for two hours after that, long past the point of exhaustion for the both of you. But you both had something to prove, and you’d both be damned before you fell before the other.

And now that the novelty of the captain and the keyblade warrior having a showdown had worn off, the audience was getting restless – and a little bored at that. Because the two of you were locked in a stalemate. Neither of you would go down and stay down. You traded even blows, had equal defenses. If there was a way for one to dominate the other, neither of you could see it.

“Empress Nova,” Commander Bog said, leaning over to her highness who was now leaning in her seat, her chin propped in her hand.

“Yes, Commander, what is it?”

“They’ve been going at it for a while now haven’t they? Maybe we ought to make things a bit more…,” Commander Bog pulled out a remote-control console, “Interesting?”

The empress’s eyes lit up. It would end the fight. There was no doubt about that. And it would bring some interest to this otherwise dull turn of events. She gave a small nod towards the commander, giving him permission to make the next move.

That was about when Axel and Eo arrived at the viewing area, standing next to the others.

“Hey, Axel,” Demyx said, a mischievous smile already on his face. Axel frowned lightly at him.

“Not a word,” he ground out. It was already bad enough the humiliation he had to deal with about being tricked out of the arena, but he had to listen to Eo’s snarky comments that he shouldn’t have trusted him or turned his back on him. Eo was just silently smiling. He was still quite content with his accomplishment. And Axel was out of the arena – so no more needing to keep Axel out of your fight. You were going to see this to the end, and Eo wanted to be sure of it.

Bog pressed a button on the control console, and a large door on the far end of the arena opened up. This gave Atom pause. There was a loud intermittent buzzer sounding as the door opened with a large red bulb flashing ominously over the door.

“What’s that?” you asked as the two of you backed away from the door.

“The android,” Atom responded. His attention was no longer on you, solely focused on the door which was now fully open. It was a long, dark hallway filled with the echo of clanging as large metallic footsteps marched towards you and Atom.

“They’re sending out a robot?” you asked, turning your full guard and attention to the robot.

“Probably to hurry the fight along. It’s the ultimate test of strength for any soldier. No one’s ever beaten it before.”

“Not even you?”

“No, but I get a little closer every time.”

The robot was… underwhelming actually. The footsteps had built up to an intimidating crescendo the closer they got, and you could see its eyes glowing a menacing red once it was close enough for the light to cut through the darkness.

It was bigger than Manny, maybe by 6 feet or so – so about double his size. And, like everything in this world you’d experienced so far, it was so… campy! Like a 50s sci-fi movie. It was large and blocky with a rectangular body and head. On its front were little flashing lights blinking different colors. It’s arms and legs were shiny, metallic tubes that looked like they were made out of aluminum foil with large clamps for hands and rectangular metal blocks for feet. Its menacing red eyes were just two red, lightbulbs, and there were two white lightbulbs sticking out of the sides of its head too. On top of its head was a little antenna with little floating rings around it and little flashing light on top. And surrounding its head was a large glass helmet.

“That’s it?” you asked without thinking.

“What is it not enough for you?!” Atom asked as he looked at you like you were the menacing robot rather than this thing straight out of some outdated black and white movie.

“No… he’s just a little bit of a letdown.”

The last large adversary you faced had been Specter. And Specter was as big as a large building. So this… Well this wasn’t much. Never mind the Man with No Face and Uh-Oa who were also as big as buildings.

The mech’s eyes began to glow brighter, and Atom tackled you out of the way of the ensuing laser that shot from them. He rolled off of you, helping you to your feet quickly, and you both readied yourself.

“It’s not sentient, is it?” you asked quickly, thinking of Manny and how you didn’t want to hurt him as well. Now was not much different.

“No. It was built only for combat. No personality of any sort was installed in it. It’s basically a tank to test a soldier’s mettle and battle prowess and is being completely remote-controlled by someone in a different location.”

“Okay, that makes me feel a little better,” you said as it marched towards the both of you, “Well you’ve taken this thing on before, so what’s the best strategy to use?”

“We need to get that helmet off of it,” he said preparing to dodge. The android was already powering up its laser again. “The glass around it’s head amplifies the laser, so it blasts a larger area. If we get rid of that, it’ll have a smaller area of effect.”

“Gotcha,” you said, your keyblade already morphing back into a spear, “I learned this move on Animal Kingdom.”

You chucked your spear at the android, and it broke a large hole into the glass, your spear lodged inside with glass fracturing in all directions from it. Then you channeled your fire magic into it as you did in Animal Kingdom when you destroyed Uh-Oa’s wings. Only now you were much more powerful than you had been then, and you didn’t have the thin air working against you, so your fire would burn brighter and hotter than it had in that split second you had managed it on the Tree of Life.

You summoned the best of your magic in that moment though. Your hands were aflame with your magic, and your spear lit up too, glowing blue then pale blue until it reached a white-hot intensity, letting it combust suddenly in a bright, hot flash. You heard the glass shatter, and it flew in several different directions in hot shards, falling all around you. The robot stumbled backwards, a black scorch mark on part of its face.

Atom let out a low whistle of approval. You summoned your spear back and looked between Atom and the robot which was regaining its composure.

“What next?” you asked, letting him take the reigns on this assignment specifically.

“If we take out those lightbulbs, it won’t have any lasers at all, and then we’ll just have to worry about its strength. Something pretty easy I imagine for you.”

“Oh now you respect me?” you asked as you dodged a laser.

“I may have started respecting you when you refused to go down an hour ago.”

You snorted as Atom brought his jetpack back out.

“Can you distract that thing long enough for me to get the drop on it?” he asked. You nodded.

“I’ll keep its attention and turn it around, you get whatever attack you’ve got planned ready,” you said, summoning your glider and zooming around the robot, striking at its arms.

It began to swat at you, trying to clamp you between its pincer-like hands while you zipped around it. Atom changed the setting on his laser gun, and as you were distracting it flew into the air, taking aim at one of its eyes while it was busy focusing on you. He shot the laser, and it remained in a steady stream, the robot’s eye overheating and bursting. It stumbled again and then stopped moving. You and Atom watched it for a moment, and when it didn’t move again, you both assumed that move had fried its internal circuitry.

You smiled at each other. Well he couldn’t see your smile, but you saw his. Now you could turn your aggression back towards each other. You were already flying at each other when you noticed a sudden movement out of the corner of your eye.

You jolted back out of the way as the robot’s arm came up to swing at you and Atom. You imagined that it was trying to take the two of you out at the same time, but it had missed you at the last second, knocking Atom out of the way.

You rushed to his aid, catching him just barely. He was unconscious and extremely heavy, and you found yourself faltering on the glider as you tried to keep him and yourself steady. What would you do now? You couldn’t very well put Atom down. Not until the robots showed up to take him away. If you took the time to set him down somewhere safe, the android would have you at a moment of weakness and take you out too. And you did not come this far to be taken out like this.

It had been foolish for the two of you to assume that the android was down for the count. But how were you supposed to take it out now?

It continued swinging at you, looking much more menacing now that its eyes weren’t flashing at you to charge up its laser. Now the only flashing light was the one on the top of its head. It was almost distracting how often it did that.

It flashed and swung its arm. It flashed and tried to grab you. It flashed a lot, you noticed. Almost like… the remote-controlled robot… was being given commands via antenna.

Oh sweet fuck you felt so dumb right now. The two of you had spent all this time trying to stop all of its attacks one by one. You could just take them all out at once!

It was as you were unsteadily flying on your glider that you noticed two robots that had wheeled on to the field carrying a stretcher. You zoomed over to them with the robot marching after you, just barely being able to keep up. You had to aim this just right so as not to hurt Atom.

You flew just so, somewhat close to the ground but not too close, zooming over to the robots but not so close as to drag them into the fight. Then with all the strength you could muster, though if you were being honest it was mostly inertia, you flung Atom onto the stretcher. He landed on it haphazardly, with an arm and a leg hanging over the edge.

You had no time to worry about what else was going to happen to him. You had to take out that antenna. You switched out your blade for a spear, flying around the robot and looking for an opening. It swung at you as best it could. It attempted to fire what left of a laser it had, but the damaged eye sparked so violently, and the working eye shot its laser in such an uncontrolled and sporadic manner that it wasn’t used again.

But it hardly mattered. You continued to fly around to search for your opening.

Demyx was on the edge of his seat as he watched what was going on below. He almost cheered when Atom got knocked out. That meant you won by default, but you were still down there taking on that robot.

“You seem enthused,” Namine said as she warily watched you fly around. You didn’t appear to have a plan, and that made her worry just a little bit.

“Are you kidding? This is awesome!” Demyx said as he watched you zoom beneath the robot’s legs. “It’s just like in all those comics I showed you! And ________’s kicking ass out there!”

Namine giggled. She couldn’t be as excited as he was about watching you fight, but at least someone was getting some enjoyment out of it. Axel’s enjoyment of the fight plummeted when Atom was knocked out of the arena because with the two of you down there, maybe you could have taken out the robot. But then Atom was knocked out from a fake out on Commander Bog’s part – something Bog found far too amusing. What a clever trickster he thought he was.

Even Eo, who was more than confident in your capabilities, was feeling a mild form of worry. No one had defeated the android before, and he didn’t doubt your battling capabilities, but this was a tough fight.

You only had one chance to get this right. If you messed up, then whoever was controlling the robot would know what your endgame was, and they wouldn’t let you try again. You continued to circle the robot. You needed an opening. So you were going to fake your goal. You began conjuring your fire magic, flinging balls of fire at its eye and the open wound it was sporting for the other eye.

You kept this pattern up until it was pretty clear that it was expecting your attacks. Then you charged for the still intact eye, and as you had so desperately hoped it moved its hands up to grab you or swat at you. You weren’t sure which because it didn’t matter.

You jumped from your glider using your fire to give you and extra push into the air. As you sailed up and over the robot’s hands and towards the top of it’s head you summoned your spear again, readying it like an axe and swinging the blade like moon towards the robot’s antenna.

“What’d I miss?!” Atom all but screeched, running into the viewing area where your friends, Eo, the empress, and commander all were. Everyone except the commander jumped and turned to look at Atom, annoyed at his sudden appearance and all the yelling. Atom looked disheveled, and his arm was in a sling.

“Captain!” the empress gasped, “You should be in med! What are you doing here?!”

“I woke up, and they told me ________ got me out of the fight, but she was still taking on the robot by herself! Is she insane? I told her no one’s ever beat it!”

“And they won’t start today!” the commander announced rather smugly.

You had managed to swing the blade halfway through the antenna, but half of the robot was still functional. They sudden halt in your momentum caused you to jolt rather painfully against the staff of your spear. You staggered a bit, and by the time you had recovered from the impact, the robot’s clamps were already in your way. You couldn’t escape and fighting your way out was not looking favorable. But you still had one more trick up your sleeve.

Your hands began to spark, and you channeled all of your electricity, pulling your spear back and lighting it with your magic so it sparked and crackled around it, bolts of lightning dancing around it and you.  The you stabbed the star of your spear straight back into the gash you’d initially created, sending thousands of volts of electricity through it.

The robot’s other eye exploded, and you could see smoke coming from the hole of the other as you melted cords and wires inside the robot and set it ablaze from the inside. The robot began jerk and spasm uncontrollably, and you took that as your cue to leave. If movies had taught you anything, an explosion wouldn’t be too far behind.

You took off on your glider in the other direction, and as you predicted, the robot exploded with a deafening boom. You were not far away enough that you could completely avoid the blast, and you were pushed forward from your glider and sent flying to the ground.

Robot parts rained from the sky, and a shield was put up to protect the audience from the shrapnel and debris.

There was a plume of black smoke that covered everyone’s view of you, but as it cleared everyone saw that you lay on the ground. And you weren’t moving. Everyone either pushed to the edge of their seats or stood up in shock, all of your friends and family included.

Everyone waited quietly, and then slowly, you stood up. There was a stunned silence at first, but then Namine let out a whoop of celebration, jumping in her spot cheering. The rest of your friends and family did as well, shouting at how happy they were, clapping, jumping, and hugging each other. The audience was quick to join in on the celebration. Empress wanted to stand as well, but she maintained her regality. She sat, smiling proudly and clapping.

You’d defeated the supposedly undefeatable robot! You were sore but okay for the most part. You pulled the same move you did when you crashed to Animal Kingdom by re-summoning you glider before you could hit the ground and managing to lose your grip on it again. But this time you didn’t roll across the terrain so roughly that you’d broken anything. You were just a bit sore and would probably be sporting some new bruises later. But you were alive.

You let your armor disappear in favor of letting the crowd see your face as the cameras displayed you on the large screen. You had not forgotten why you’d done this. You had a point to prove. To Atom mostly but also to anyone else who would’ve doubted you because you were a woman.

The cheerleaders, true to their words sent out a cheer for you, complete with a backflip and everything.

“Wow. You know I knew she could take Atom on, but I really had my doubts with this one. See now that,” Eo said pointing down to you where you stood smiling and waving at the audience before dipping into a little curtsy, “Is a real woman.”

“…Yeah…,” Atom said lowly as he watched you. You had done… what he had considered to be the impossible for you – something he himself had not even done yet. You were different. So much more so than he had anticipated, and it was as unnerving as it was impressive.

The empress glanced at Atom as he agreed with Eo before looking back down at your slightly disheveled state, your hair in a rather loose braid down your back, wrinkly t-shirt, and old leggings your only attire. Not quite “womanly” if you asked her. She absently tugged down the neckline of her dress, exposing a bit more cleavage as she dismissed Eo’s comment with a sniff. Tough or not, women should always look presentable.

After soaking up the praise for another minute, you retreated to the locker room. You needed to go back to the palace for a good shower and a quick change of clothes. As you had predicted, you were incredibly sweaty. A nap sounded nice too. You’d been fighting for hours, and the use of your magic had drained you further. You were exhausted. And really hungry now too. Was it almost lunch time?

You train of thought was interrupted when the cheerleaders all noisily filed back into the room. They cheered and offered you hugs of congratulations.

“You were really something out there!” the head cheerleader spoke as she released you from a hug, stepping back and looking at you with a new appreciation.

“I just tried my best,” you said, wringing your hands rather nervously. You weren’t sure why now the praise made you so shy. It just felt weird – but appreciated.

“You don’t understand though,” another cheerleader pointed out, this one freckled red head, “And I don’t really know what that means for us specifically either, but it means you’ve shown we’re capable. And somehow I think that you’ve done something amazing.”

 She came up and gave you the tightest hug you received yet. You hugged back almost as tightly.

“Well we’ll let you get back to saving worlds or whatever it is keyblade wielders on your world do exactly,” the head cheerleader said, and you waved goodbye to them as you exited the locker room.

You saw your friends and family all waiting for you, enveloping you in a group hug almost as soon as you stepped out of the locker room.

“You did it!” Namine cheered.

“You kicked ass out there, ________,” Demyx said at the same time.

“I’m rich!” Ludwig cried, tears of happiness pouring from his eyes in a steady stream.

“You were amazing out there,” Axel said, holding you closer than the others could and looking at you in such a tender way, your heart jumped into your throat.

Eo stood off to the side, watching the display before he looked to Figment who was the only one who hadn’t joined in on the group hug. He was resting in a wheelbarrow on a pile of money, reclining with his hands behind his head a pair of sunglasses on.

“Hey, little dragon man,” Eo began, and Figment lifted his glasses and looked up at him, “What’s the relationship between those two?”

He pointed to you and Axel. Even when the two of you were no longer hugging, he still felt like the two of you were close.

Figment fluttered his eyelashes and let out a dreamy sigh, clasping his hands together and letting little hearts float around his head and blowing little kisses from which more hearts were produced.

“Thought so,” he commented. He had already pegged that Axel was probably crazy about you but watching your reaction just to the look he was giving you was all he needed to see to know you were just as loopy in the head for him as he was for you. Cute.

That was when Atom finally walked out of the locker room, arm out of its sling. He took a deep breath and straightened up, approaching your group but standing a few feet from it regardless, feeling somewhat like an outsider.

“________, may I have a word with you,” he said, voice about as stiff as his posture. You looked at him, no mix of emotions on your face. Just blank neutrality. It was still enough for Atom to have to fight off a mildly embarrassed blush. But he had to do this. Needed to give credit where it was due.

“I wanted to talk to you about the fight out there,” he began.

You crossed your arms and cocked your hip. You looked like the epitome of sass at the moment.

“You’re not gonna say that using magic was cheating or a cheap shot were you?”

You legitimately expected him to somehow delegitimize your claim to victory. He’d had such a big ego the day before, and even when the two of you were speaking during the arena, he couldn’t entirely let it go. He said he respected you, but people with fragile egos tended to go back on things they’ve said before to feel better about themselves.

“N-no,” he stammered, turning just the barest shade of pink, “I wanted to say that you were very impressive out there, and I wish we had more soldiers like you fighting for us. You’d be an invaluable asset.”

Your jaw almost dropped, and Atom would be lying if he said he didn’t find your mildly shocked expression the least bit amusing.

“Oh,” you said, at a tiny loss for words, “Thank you. I’m… flattered. Really.”

“Don’t worry I have a match,” he quipped. You tilted your head a bit in confusion. A match? Oh. No wait. That was a fart joke. Pfft. Was he for real? It was a stupid joke, and barely funny, and yet you found yourself laughing anyway. The full-blown braying laugh that sounded much like a wounded animal.

“That’s your laugh?!” he said in what appeared to be shock.

You immediately slapped hand over your mouth, your laugh dying in your throat. Your friends bristled. He wasn’t about to insult you was he? Axel felt himself grow a little warm as he was prepared to defend your laugh – arguably one of the first things about you he actively appreciated because of how different it was.

“My god! It’s beautiful!” Atom continued, much to the shock of yourself and everyone else who could hear it. Then you felt a tiny little, embarrassed but flattered giggle make it’s way up your throat as you kept your hand over your mouth to hide your giant smile.

And Atom… liked that too, that tiny giggle that made him turn just a tiny shade redder.

Axel didn’t like that. He felt a little pang of jealousy in his gut as he watched you giggle at Atom’s compliment; even though he knew you weren’t being flirtatious. It just made him shift uncomfortably. He tried to act like his friends, Ludwig, and Dreamfinder weren’t all looking at him after watching the same exchange he had.

“What?” he snapped at them, and they all looked away like they hadn’t been watching for his reaction. It wasn’t like he planned on flying into a jealous rage over something that was supposed to be so harmless.

Eo found that he also didn’t like it. Mostly because he knew that Atom was a major heartthrob when it came to young women, whether or not he entertained their advances, and he, more often than not, didn’t. Nothing really seemed to catch his eye. But Eo could smell trouble a mile away with this, and he’d be damned before he let Atom have you wrapped around his finger.

He normally wouldn’t care. Who Atom got together with was none of his business, but it couldn’t be you. That would be just too perfect wouldn’t it? The beloved Captain Atom dating the new, mysterious keyblade hero. Bog would be all over it, and he’d hand Atom the position of Commander before Eo had a chance to prove himself further. And wouldn’t he just be the whole package too? Strong and handsome with a beautiful and capable woman at his side – a family man with strong nationalistic values and military history. Nope. Eo wasn’t having it.

Robot Butler appeared as your exchange with Atom was ending. He approached you, offering a little bow before he began to speak.

“The empress would like to speak with you in her private garden after you’ve cleaned yourself up. She’d like to personally address your victory.”

“Oh, uh, okay.”

“Transportation is waiting for you and your friends outside of the building whenever any of you are ready to return to the palace.”

Well with nothing left to do and a shower and food on your mind, you said goodbye to both Atom and Eo, before returning with your friends to the palace.

~

You had lived your whole life around arranged plants, farms, and gardens. It had been the raw beauty of nature that had truly wowed you. You loved how untamed and wild it had been, and yet the empress’s garden was a sight to behold, arranged to perfectly resemble something wild. It was like entering an entirely new world. The garden had a specific layout and color scheme, mostly consisting of a range of dark and vibrant reds and dark and bright blues. Between there were splashes of varying purples. And they were arranged in beautiful gradients and patterns that made it feel like you had gone somewhere entirely different.

“Your garden is very beautiful,” you remarked as you walked through it with the empress. She noted that you had cleaned up since she had last seen you. Your hair was still in a messy braid, dripping water over your shoulder where you had it draped, wetting the dark shirt you wore – also rather plain. Still not quite all that womanly. Maybe she’d give you a few pointers on that. Now that you were a public figure, you’d have to look your very best to continue to represent women, herself, and, of course, you.

She smiled at your compliment regardless.

“Thank you,” she said as she watched you marvel at all of the exotic plants the garden had to offer, “My mother had it commissioned so she could enjoy long walks and time to herself reading. I’m afraid it hasn’t had much use as of late. But that isn’t why I’ve asked you to come talk to me. I only chose this spot because I thought you might enjoy the calming scenery after your rather fast-paced and exciting morning.”

You felt embarrassed. You hoped you hadn’t brought up some painful memory of her mother, but she moved on from the topic before you could apologize.

“I wanted to thank you personally about today’s match before we head to the briefing for your mission. It is… hard… to be a woman in this society – as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Here respect for women comes from beauty or power, and I’m not sure what your home was like, but here women are not seen as fit to hold positions of power. And even then, beauty can only do so much for a person. And today you did the unthinkable. You made them respect you. Every man who strode into that stadium today had no idea that you were a woman, but they watched you. They saw you as capable as someone who considered among the strongest of our military. And then when you took off your armor and revealed your face, you pulled the rug up from beneath them. You had their respect, and they’d be hard-pressed to say you don’t deserve it now just because it turns out you’re a woman. Because none of them can deny what they saw.”

“You’re too kind, empress,” you said, wringing your hands, “No, really. I don’t know what to say to any of that really.”

She smiled at you.

“You don’t need to say anything. You showed everyone what you were capable of today in that ring. I hope that and starting this renaissance is enough for me to net a little approval of my own. You really, really don’t know what a service you’ve done for me and so many others.”

Then she enveloped you in a hug from the side, avoiding your wet hair so it wouldn’t ruin her dress – not that you could blame her. It was cold and uncomfortable but too long for you to find a practical style you really liked.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she let go of you, a wide smile on her face, and you just smiled back bashfully, “We should get going to the briefing. There Commander Bog will tell you everything we need to know about the mission you’ll be going on.”

“Of course, empress.”

“Oh and before I forget. There’ll be a press conference tomorrow afternoon at the World’s Fair. Now that you’ll be going on this mission, they’ll expect you to make an appearance at the conference to say a few things.”

“Things like what? I’ve never had to address a nation or world about something like this.”

She smiled and waved off your concern.

“Oh nothing important really. They’ll just ask you to say how you feel about it. Just say you’re honored and look forward to it, and the press will eat it up. You have a very pretty face, so even if you messed up they wouldn’t be too harsh on you. Remember that it is one of the few perks of being a woman in this society. Now let’s hurry along. The Captain and Commander won’t wait for us forever.”

Her words weren’t all too reassuring, but you just went with it. You could smile and say it was an honor. That wasn’t a problem.

She sensed a bit of your discomfort. That was when a little light blue flower floated by you and around your head before it stuck itself perfectly behind your ear as if placed there by hand. You blinked in confusion, and the empress smiled, amused.

“Did you do that?” you asked, brushing a finger over one of the petals, “How?”

“One of the little tricks the crown can do,” she said gesturing to the grand spectacle that sat atop her head, “Telekinesis. It allows the wearer to move any object they so choose with a simple thought. But I digress. You’ll do fine. Let’s go, dear.”

You followed her noiselessly to the briefing room down several halls. You briefly wondered how she managed to memorize such an expansive palace, though she did live here her whole life. So somewhere around thirty-some years or so if you had to guess.

She led you through a couple large double doors which each held banners with Tomorrowland’s insignia on them. These doors weren’t crystalline like so many others. These were a cold metal. Though if this was where military leaders met, you supposed it was supposed to be more serious or colder in appearance.

Inside both of the captains, the commander, and two new faces were standing around a large circular table. Above the table was a projection of… well you weren’t sure what it was actually. It was a structure of some sort. You could tell that much.

“________, I’d like you to meet our medic and our mechanic,” Atom introduced the two other people in the room, “They’ll be accompanying us to the space station.”

You gave a tentative wave and hello to them before returning your attention to the projected structure before you.

“What’s that?” you asked as you circled around it.

“That would be a hologram,” Eo said with a little chuckle. You rolled your eyes and smiled at his smartassy-ness. You liked him.

“Yeah, I got that. I meant that I don’t know what it’s a hologram of.”

“That would be Space Mountain in the common speak, but its formal name is Star Port 7-5,” Atom supplied, “It’s where we’ll be heading to take care of the alien.”

“And what can you tell me about Space Mountain?” you said as you continued to observe the hologram in front of you.

“Excellent question,” Bog said as he stepped up, “Star Port 7-5 was built with the express purpose of being a halfway point between our planet and all of the other planets of our world. It was like a metaphorical and literal bridge between all of our cultures. Opening a new port to a new planet was always a big to-do. It was the consummation of treaties and peace between worlds. The last world we’d opened a port for was Planet X-S. It was a grand spectacle, something the late emperor, empress, and future emperor all attended. We’d been in peace talks with them for a while after a rather hostile first contact initiated on their part led to a war that raged for several years. Then when all looked bleak, our late Captain Adams Sr. fought them to a standstill, leading the troops in what had been at one point a one-sided battle. Of course, now that we were evenly matched, we needed to come to some sort of agreement so as not to destroy both of our worlds, and about eleven years ago, on the official last day of the war, a treaty was drawn up. And as an added measure, Planet X-S gifted us a technology we’d not yet cracked ourselves. Teleportation! They shared this sample of technology with us, and it was installed in the Star Port. However, on the return trip from their planet, tragedy befell our beloved leaders and their son.”

He bowed his head sadly, and everyone else did as well. Then you heard a tiny sniffle. You turned to the empress who had little tears lining her eyes.

Now you were 80% sure you had accidentally offended her earlier when she had explained a bit about her dead mother’s beloved garden. But your curiosity was itching. You just wanted to know exactly…. What had happened?

Eo seemed to pick up on your curiosity but hesitance to mention something so sensitive in front of the empress. He filled in the blanks for you.

“There were dignitaries who were supposed to teleport to the Space Station, and they and the royals were supposed to present the new technology together to the public, but the signals crossed,” Eo explained, “One minute all is fine, and we’re awaiting their arrival. The next we’re receiving a warning from them that the signals have crossed, and they’ve lost their dignitaries and something entirely different is coming through. Nobody knew what. The guards were on the ready, and the royal family was being moved somewhere safe, but the alien crossed over before anything could be done about it.”

“It was a vicious attack,” Atom continued, more somber than you’d ever seen him, “None of them stood a chance. We’d never seen a creature such as this before, and we were helpless to stop it.”

“So what happened?” you pressed, “Was anyone able to escape?”

The room grew unnaturally quiet, and you felt hairs standing up on the back of your neck. You didn’t like this response.

“No,” the empress finally answered, “My father, brother, and mother had died, so I was acting empress in charge. I’d been thrust onto the throne so suddenly, and I didn’t know what else to do. Suppose that thing got in any of the escape pods or ships? It’s be a massacre. So I had all travel from the space station shut down to prevent further chaos.”

You looked at her. She looked crestfallen having to tell you this story which obviously brought her such shame. And you couldn’t entirely blame her. You’re not sure you would have made the same call. At least some people could have escaped without harm or bringing the alien with them, but… What about the ones who couldn’t? That would be an unnecessary blood bath, wouldn’t it?

“I know you did your best to make the decision you thought was right,” you said, and she gave you a small smile at your sympathy.

“It was indeed a tragic loss,” the Commander spoke, “But we’re going to avenge the deaths of everyone who perished that day and begin a great, big, beautiful tomorrow.”

The commander zoomed in on a part of the hologram to one of the docking bays.

“This is where you’ll be docking. You’ll be using one of our older rockets, but don’t worry she’ll get the job done. We’d use one of the newer ones, but the newer docking areas are in the more alien frequented territories, and we’re trying to minimize contact for the first part of your mission.”

“There are other parts?” you asked.

“A few,” Commander Bog stated as he handed you and Atom two large rolls of paper. You unfurled it to see a detailed blueprint of the star port. Marked on it were two red X’s. “On there you’ll notice two marked spots. One is where you’ll find the generator for the backup power supply the station uses. Since it’s been out of commission for so long, all of its normal stores of energy have been depleted, so you’ll need to do this and your next task manually. The generator will turn on the lights, so you aren’t trying to function in the dark by flashlight. The other spot is where the gravity and extra stores of oxygen are, the beast will have the advantage of being able to climb walls and jump at you, and we don’t want the two of you floundering in midair trying to dodge it because the spaces are too cramped for either of you to safely use your jetpacks. The oxygen is just in case anything happens to your helmets, the station will be full of safe, breathable air. You’ll be expected to study those blueprints a little, so you’ll have a general idea of where to head.”

The commander brought up another image, this one of a very frightening looking alien. It wasn’t the most surreal thing you’d ever seen, but it was freaky, nonetheless. It was a dark green color with bright yellow teeth that lined its mouth, with four very sharp canines protruding from it. It had two large horns and two large wings. It had six arms with large pincers at the end of each one. It’s legs were triple jointed and also seemed to end in a set of pincers. How impractical to use for walking. Though looking at those wings, you doubted it needed to use its legs at all.

“It’s not too much for you is it?” Bog asked, and you realized that everyone in the room was looking at you with mild concern.

“Uh, no,” you said with a vigorous shake of your head, “It’s, um, just weird to look at. I’ve seen weirder though. Trust me.”

He gave a little nod before continuing with his talk.

“Now there isn’t much known about the alien, but we have managed to learn a few things. It has acidic blood which it can spit at you. It sees in infrared. That’s why it’s important for you to get those lights on. You need light to see it, but it certainly doesn’t need it to see you. It can crawl up most any solid surface and has powerful legs that allows it to launch itself at you at high speeds. And, of course, it can fly.”

“We should take out it wings first then,” you mentioned, “We can’t compete with flight. If we can do that, then it might be closer to equal footing with us.”

Bog nodded and smiled. You were already trying to figure things out. That was good.

“Now there is the matter of if the mission fails,” Bog said becoming much more subdued in his mood than he had been just a moment ago, “I need to make this absolutely clear. Failure is an option, and it is completely reasonable. Do not be a hero. I do not want to lose anymore people to this thing. If either of you feels that this fight is too much for you, then you both sound a retreat and go back to the ship. Am I making myself quite clear?”

He leveled a stern glare at the both of you. He meant business.

“Yes, sir,” you responded, and Atom did the same, albeit in a more militaristic style than you.

“Are there any questions?” he asked after receiving your confirmations that you wouldn’t be martyrs for this cause. You raised your hand, and he acknowledged you.

“I can just use my suit and glider to get to the space station,” you began, “Do you really need me on the ship? You can bring someone else along if you want.”

“No can do,” Bog said with a shake of his head, “That station is locked up tight. You wouldn’t be able to enter it without a ship even if you could unlock it.”

“Okay, one more question. Why only two soldiers and the mechanic and medic?”

“That’s because of the size of the ship. The older docking bays are much smaller than the newer and commercial ones. The ship will comfortably fit about four people. Anything else?”

“No, I think that’s all,” you said with a shrug.

You were all dismissed shortly after that, the commander giving you and Atom one more quick rundown of all you were supposed to do, and you were told to go to your room where you could order a nice lunch and rest from your more than a little strenuous morning.

As you entered your room, you found your friends waiting for you, half of them sprawled out on your bed, and the other half either standing or sitting nearby.

“So what’d the empress want to talk to you about?” Namine asked as you took a seat next to her on the edge of your bed. You’d have sat further on it, but Demyx, Ludwig, and Axel were all in the way, laying across it as inconveniently as possible with Figment nestled in the middle, a gold chain around his neck and sunglasses still on.

“Figment take those off. You’re inside. You look like a tool,” you said to him before turning to Namine. Figment just waved you off and threw some money at you, too caught up in whatever high on life vibes he was on. “She wanted to say that I’m a steppingstone in feminism pretty much – like how apparently it’s a widespread thing that men treat women like lesser beings here. But I showed them different in the arena today.”

“Well you did,” she said with a broad smile.

“Then we went to the briefing for the alien mission. We’re going up the day after tomorrow because I have to do a press conference something or other in the afternoon at the fair.”

“What do you think the mission will be like?” Demyx asked.

You leaned back on the bed, reclining over Axel’s legs.

“Business as usual, I guess,” you said with a shrug, “Big bad needs to get taken down, and I’m gonna help do it.”

There was a bit of silence. Then you looked Axel.

“You’re not saying anything,” you said after a moment. He sat up a little to look at you.

“Should I?” he asked.

“I don’t know. You’re usually vying to go with me or in my place.”

He shrugged.

“Eo said something to me. Well more he asked me a question. He asked if you really had done all those things you listed when you were trying to prove to the empress and Atom that you were a capable warrior. And, yeah, you did do all those things and more. You’ve done a lot of things, and you didn’t always need help to do them. I’m going to start trusting you more.”

“Aww, babe,” you cooed, and Namine and Demyx joined in at making little cooing noises to pick on Axel a little. He blushed a little bit then flipped you all off. But you just laughed it off.

Notes:

I hope you all enjoyed. Thank you for all the lovely comments and kudos! They really mean a lot to me!

Obscure-ish References:

Space Mountain: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Space_Mountain_(Magic_Kingdom)?fbclid=IwAR0yu3h4sEoMuu1PNItLW-eWbUhmiKjMP0PwCA_ioc0vqdOMp78gUYTzWJc

Star Port 7-5: https://live.staticflickr.com/4079/4865444611_02d6681433_b.jpg?fbclid=IwAR1D8y57sXkr7Q5cOkCjaLyBlu-1t9LnVaVKi8hoJOrxmMmX73zgT88dc40

The Alien (Ride): https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/ExtraTERRORestrial_Alien_Encounter?fbclid=IwAR14RMP0z3HylsuyLv0_MrCjUQTy1ulETRjQJJlTW19xcfsVJ3iS1eziLQM

The Alien (Picture for Scale): https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/enhanced/webdr01/2013/2/15/19/enhanced-buzz-orig-12702-1360973917-6.jpg?downsize=360&output-quality=auto&output-format=auto&fbclid=IwAR0KrV31d4U0wq1W7xRp5Q24vjrexh_B4LKwGSpFO3SHQK1PNIhqKv8gwU4

The Alien (Picture for clarity): http://www.mastercollector.com/articles/reviews/images/mcalien1.jpg?fbclid=IwAR3dxssjv9mbo8Hy0_oB_kHffBlGDqBx1gbXCzq1gEgwBbg_BVkHlCaWDvc

X-S Tech: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/X-S_Tech?fbclid=IwAR21Wz8fh7Yve2BllFyHGW_IR9ZjnYtTHvQAYGTWXCIUyOMV1fmtk2zYrKU

Chapter 58: The World's Fair

Summary:

I'm late. I know. But I'm here. It took longer than I thought to write the chapter. Strap in cuz it's another long one.

Anyway you and your friends go enjoy the fair. Also you have a press conference.

Notes:

Hi, yeah, so there's a bit of sexual tension in this chapter... twice. They're in bold and I put a little warning before each one, so if anything like that makes you uncomfortable, you can just skip on down past it. It's in bold and italics, so you can tell where it stops.

Also I'm just gonna note that in regards to sexual tension, Axel and Reader will be exploring it quite a bit in this arc. It's not going to dominate the story line or anything like that. They're just going to be exploring a bit more of their physical relationship as well as their emotional one.

“You really are my best friend in the whole world,” you remarked to Namine who stood there covered in hair. You felt bad that you had asked her to do this when you saw how messy it was becoming, but you really couldn’t function with your hair so long. So she had gone and cut at least three feet of it off, so it would only flow as low as the small of your back. Your pajamas were also covered in hair and you began to brush it off of your front.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said annoyed at all the hair but a smile on her face regardless, “I must be. I can’t think of a single person who would get up as early as I did to help you out with this. Now I’m gonna ask Robot Butler for a bag to dump all of this in.”

She dusted more hair off of herself before retreating from the bathroom. You looked at your hair as it fell about your shoulders. You looked cute with long hair. You were already thinking of how your grandmother had her hair braided. You liked it. Maybe you could go into town and buy a few glass beads to decorate them with.

You gasped as a sharp pain ripped through your middle. You hunched over and dry heaved a few times, your body not knowing what to do with itself. Nausea made you let out a little helpless gurgle, and you slumped to the floor amongst all the hair. When it finally stopped, you sat there for a few more minutes before hesitantly getting to your feet. And you almost screamed at what you saw in the mirror. It was you. Just you as a thirteen-year-old. What the fuck!

“What the hell is happening to me?” you whispered, watching as your vision blurred and doubled just as you heard Namine returning. There was a second set of footsteps behind her.

When she walked into the bathroom she stopped short, looking at you in confusion. Robot Butler also walked into the room carrying several bags and a vacuum cleaner.

“It grew back?!” she said as she looked at your hair. You wrinkled your brow in confusion. Was your shrunken height not enough to go off of that more than just your hair was wrong? But then you looked at your reflection in the mirror, and sure enough the only thing different about you now was that your hair had cascaded back down to the floor.

“Wait,” she said walking up to you, “Did that thing happen again? You know the one thing you said happened at the police station? Where you got all this hair in the first place.”

“I don’t know,” you answered, still staring deeply at your reflection to make sure it was really you that you were staring at, “I think so. It felt just as painful and made me feel twice as sick.”

“Do you require any medical aid?” Robot Butler asked, concern showing on his face, “I can alert the proper people, and have you treated immediately.”

“No!” you said suddenly, startling Namine with how fervently you responded, “Don’t tell anyone.” Namine blinked at you.

“Are you crazy?” she asked finally, “This is the second time this has happened! And we don’t know what even is happening! If you don’t see a doctor, then at least tell your uncle or someone!”

“No!” you insisted, “I’ll say something after the mission tomorrow, but I have to do this first. Just cut it off again, and then we’ll figure out what to say after I’m back from the mission.”

Namine debated this. She didn’t like this. She didn’t like it at all. She didn’t like it just like she didn’t like keeping Demyx’s secret about the Organization.

“Just don’t tell anyone. Especially Axel. He can’t know about this,” you pleaded, “He finally trusts me to take care of myself. I don’t need something that’s out of my control ruining that either.”

“Yeah, because when you’re fighting the alien the one thing you want to happen is something that apparently causes you excruciating pain. You don’t need that. You’ll die. I’m telling, ________,” she said, turning to leave.

“No!” you said grabbing her arm to stop her, “Namine, please.”

She turned to look at where your hand was on her wrist, looking almost offended that it was there. You let go immediately. You didn’t know why you were so overcome with… desperation for her not to tell. You just were.

“I’ll wait outside,” Robot Butler said as he turned to give you two some privacy, uncomfortable and sensing an obvious tension between the two of you. He didn’t need to be a supercomputer to know this conversation wasn’t meant for his auditory processing units.

She leveled her gaze at you, blue eyes sterner than you’d ever seen them – especially when being directed at you. She was upset with you. For multiple reasons. Never mind that you were trying to guilt someone who you claimed was your best friend into lying for you. You were being in awful friend, and in that moment she knew you did not care that you were. You only wanted to go on the mission. And she couldn’t understand it.

“Why?” she finally asked, and you just blinked at her. You were pretty sure you knew what it was that she was asking, but just to be sure….

“Why what?” you asked.

“Why do you need to do this? Eo is perfectly capable of doing your mission. He was going to go before you decided to step in. And he still can. Why do you need to do this?”

You paused. You swallowed a lump in your throat. All your pride compelled you not to answer. You didn’t want to. But if you didn’t give an answer she found sufficient, she would be off to tell Axel or Pops or anyone else, and your pride wouldn’t much matter then.

“I have to,” you said. It seemed like the best thing at the time, but her frown deepened. “I need to do this because I just have to.”

Namine’s brow furrowed. That wasn’t a good enough answer.

“Is this because Atom said you couldn’t do it?” she asked, and you flinched. His words that you were incapable still rang far too clearly in your head for someone who had recently gained his respect. “Because if that’s all this is, then you’re being the idiot Axel finally said you weren’t. Only now it’s worse!”

“Worse how? I’m just doing a good thing for people who need help!”

“Not from you! They don’t need you.”

You flinched at her words again, and Namine almost faltered in her stance as she spoke to you. But one of you had to be the good friend, and right now that was her telling you that this was a horrible idea, and you were going to get yourself killed, and you didn’t give a single shit about how that would affect anyone around you that cared about you. Including someone you had just called your best friend only minutes before.

“Do you remember when you and Axel met up in Disney Town for the first time?” she asked, eyes searching your own. You let out a tiny, curt nod. You were upset. She could see that. Though she couldn’t tell how much of it was hurt and how much was anger. “He told me you didn’t even hesitate when you thought something was wrong and people were in trouble.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Because you barely even knew how that world worked. If Axel hadn’t been there you would have died. And you went into your dad’s mind to help people. True, I asked you to do that to help others, but you did it without question. Axel went with you then too, and he told me how you almost drowned trying to keep heartless away! You have a problem!”

“Oh what?” you asked, sarcasm dripping in your voice, “I’m just too damn heroic!”

“Yes! You are! You’re so reckless and so stupid sometimes! You keep taking on these tasks to help people regardless if you’re prepared for them or not! And now you’ve landed on this random world and challenge the captain of the guard to fight for what?! Feminism?! Atom is an asshole, but at no point should that have warranted you getting into a physical altercation with him! And now you’re going to fight some alien you know next to nothing about because why? Because you can? That’s not a reason to throw yourself into danger!”

You were silenced. What could you really say to that?

“People need help. I have a keyblade. I have to help them.”

“If keyblades actually compelled people to do heroic acts, I wouldn’t care so much. Because then it would be just you doing what you have to. But that’s not the case is it? Because then Vanitas would be on our side wouldn’t he? But he’s not, and at no point did that keyblade mandate that you had to throw yourself into danger for the sake of people you don’t know. You have a complex.”

“Am I just supposed to sit back and let people suffer?”

“Of course not. But you could be smarter about it. You could not throw yourself into danger every chance you get. You could act like there are people who care about you who like seeing you not in danger. I mean… What would Axel say if you died? And it would have been completely preventable. You have something wrong with you, and you’re just asking me to ignore it like it’s nothing.”

“Namine you don’t understand,” you said, throat dry, “I have to do this. I can protect them. You don’t know what it’s like to lose everything then learn that you might have been able to do something about it. I know that I can do something to help people now. I have a responsibility to do this.”

You didn’t. And you were too bullheaded to actively listen to reason.

Namine concluded then that she could not talk you out of any of what you were feeling because that would be as crass and baseless as saying that you needed to move on from the death of your world and all of the people that lived there. Because asking you not to save people was asking you not to save your world. It wasn’t really, but that’s how you felt. She got it now. That’s how you felt every time someone was in trouble and there was nothing you could do. That’s why your depression hit so hard when you couldn’t protect Axel and again when you couldn’t save everyone at the hotel despite the fact that the latter’s conclusion was more or less inevitable. You had a hero complex, and it drove you to extreme lengths whether or not you were capable of stretching yourself that thin to do everything you could. And it was going to kill you because you were either too stupid to listen to reason or too stubborn.

All you knew from the moment you learned that you could bring your world back was that you had to do whatever you could to protect. And it never mattered who. You just… had to.

Namine watched you for a moment longer, her heart heavy and her head throbbing with a light headache. She took a deep breath.

“Fine,” she said, “Do what you have to. But if it happens again or gets worse, you have to promise to tell me so we can get you some help or whatever it is you need.”

“I promise,” you agreed, giving her a quick nod and a hug which she hesitantly returned.

Namine was lying of course. But you didn’t know that. She fully intended to go to Ludwig to see if anything could be done about your apparent hair problems – or whatever it was causing you so much pain – and if there was any therapy you could have to alleviate some of that guilt that drove you to act senselessly. And maybe she wasn’t being the best friend for lying directly to your face when she could have just as easily told the truth and suffered whatever wrath or sadness you may feel in that moment, but it had to be better than not doing anything at all and letting you die.

She let out a long sigh, trying to act like nothing was really wrong and that the two of you could continue to function. She picked up the scissors she had been holding before and sat you down. Then she began cutting your hair and trying to make small talk. Something that was strange to you. The two of you had never had to make small talk before. But the two of you had also never been in so heated an argument before.

An hour later the two of you had cooled off a bit and were both covered in hair and had successfully filled one and a half garbage bags with said hair which you had meticulously braided like your grandmother’s.

“Despite how I feel towards you and your decisions right now,” Namine said as she looked at you, “You look cute.”

You smiled.

“Thanks. So… it’s like seven something o clock right now.… You wanna eat breakfast together?”

She nodded and the two of you put in your orders to Robot Butler who scurried off to get them. And only a few minutes later the two of you were eating together. The air still felt mildly tense, and you wondered if the two of you were really cool.

It had also been a while since the two of you had eaten breakfast together. You’d done it every now and again in Twilight Town but when the two of you were restricted to eating at the mansion, it became more difficult to do so. It should feel like a somewhat nostalgic and welcome relief and yet you could tell something was on her mind.

The two of you ate in silence for a while, and you waited for her to say something. But it wasn’t at all what you were expecting.

“Am I pretty?” she asked, throwing you for a loop because you were still certain that she was upset with you about the hair thing.

“What?” you asked, blinking at her as you finished your French toast and moving on to the bacon next – just as drenched in syrup as the toast had been, “Of course, you are, and, no, I’m not just saying that because you’re my best friend. You have a really pretty body and, like, the bluest eyes I have ever seen in my life. Like I thought they were contacts at first.”

She let out a tiny laugh.

“Why do you ask?” you said, tilting your head to the side a little bit.

“It’s just…,” she trailed off, “Nothing, I guess. I just wasn’t sure if, like, I was appealing to look at or anything.”

“Is this about Demyx?” you finally asked. You knew as well as anyone else that she had a very large crush on him. The only person either completely oblivious or ignoring it entirely was Demyx.

“Sort of?” she answered, “But it’s not important. There’s nothing wrong or anything, like, he didn’t say anything. I mean, technically nobody said anything. I just, I mean, I thought –”

She was rambling and looking for an out to the conversation when she was saved by a knock on the door. You both turned towards the sound, and Namine answered for you.

“Come in!” she said, and you gave her a look. You could answer your own damn door! But it didn’t matter any more as Axel strode in and leaned on the doorjamb, looking at you. He saw Namine, but he just kept looking at you with a somewhat mischievous glint in his eyes that kept you from looking away from him.

Namine looked between the two of you and felt awkward, but it was an out, and she wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. She got up from her spot on the bed, collecting yours and her dirty dishes and placing them on a tray for Robot Butler to collect later.

Axel still hadn’t moved or said anything to you, but you were too focused on the look he was giving you and all of the emotions it elicited to care all too much about what would have otherwise been a very creepy entrance to make.

“I’ll, um, give you two some privacy,” she said before she hurried past Axel and into the hallway.

That was when Axel finally stopped leaning, closing the door behind him and making his way over to you with very sure, deliberate steps. He woke up this morning with a certain feeling of want. He just wanted to be with you, and as he got ready to start his day, that feeling never diminished. In fact, leaving it unchecked had made it worse. So he strode over to your room in the hopes of catching you alone.

He hadn’t, but that didn’t deter him. And now he did have you alone.

Your heartbeat picked up with every step he took towards you. You wanted to say something instead of just staring at him with wide eyes like prey staring into the eyes of a predator. And it wasn’t like there wasn’t plenty to talk about. There was your space trip, the fair, the world as a whole, or even that you noticed he wasn’t wearing his Organization coat at the moment, just a t-shirt and black jeans. But you ran out of time to talk before you could decide on a topic.

He sat next to you on the bed, and you could feel your heart hammering against your ribcage as he moved in close to you, looking down at you, his eyes burning with a passion you’d seen in that steamy dream the two of you shared all those months ago.

He kissed you, and it was one of those slow, lingering kisses that made you forget everything.

Warning: Steamy bits ahead.

 

 

His lips moved against yours in a tantalizing way that made you want more, and apparently Axel did too. Because the next thing you knew, he had you pinned to the bed beneath him, his arms and legs on either side of you. Then he proceeded to keep kissing you, and you were lost again, unable to process a thought beyond how nice this felt.

You weren’t sure what had gotten into him, but you weren’t complaining. Then he started peppering your face with tiny kisses, a tender smile on his face as you giggled beneath him, reaching your hands up and running them through his hair. You pressed yourself closer to him, simultaneously pulling him down a little more, desperate to be closer as a heat built up between the two of you. You wrapped your legs around him and hugged him close while he kissed you. Axel held back a groan at your display of sheer want. He liked it, and he like that you were enjoying this as much as he was.

“Axel,” you breathed between kisses, “What’s the endgame here?”

You wanted to know how far he was going to take this. Were you both going to be drifting into some heavy petting territory like in that dream, or were the two of you just having a little bit of fun that you would not be ashamed of anyone walking in on?

“I just want to be with you,” he said. It was still an ambiguous answer – one that left you unsure of exactly what it was he wanted, but if you had to guess, he just wanted to see where it went. And you were actually fine with that. Just being with him sounded really, really nice actually.

He then began to place little kisses down your jawline, stopping just beneath your ear then trailing them down your neck. It tickled a little, but then he reached a certain spot, and you gasped, hands grasping his hair a little tighter. Axel froze above you, lips still in that one spot as he contemplated his next move.

He found a spot that was obviously a sensitive area for you. He could keep going with how things were before – mostly innocent kisses and just enjoying you. Or he could drive you absolutely wild right now. He placed another kiss there and then another and another until you were squirming underneath him a bit, panting but not asking him to stop either. You were enjoying it. And this realization made him realize that you were making him more excited than he had wanted to admit, an erection pressing pretty damn hard against his pants and rubbing against your inner thigh in a way that certainly wasn’t unpleasant to him.

Part of him really, really wanted to make you come undone beneath him like this and drive you mad and see where that would go. Especially when he finally did manage to pull his lips off of you to look down at your face. He had never seen you look so… needy before. And it was… actually doing it for him a little bit. You were usually so headstrong and defiant in how you looked.

But it wasn’t like Axel also didn’t look needy. Being with someone like this was an entirely new experience for him, and it was written all over his face. He looked just as needy as you did, but at the same time predatory. Every part of him looked like he wanted to eat you alive in all the best ways, and you would be damned before you tried to stop him.

 

 

 

He began to lean down again, and you weren’t sure where his goal was, if he was going to kiss your mouth or neck next because your door flew open, and all of your friend strode in.

Axel didn’t get off of you, and you didn’t push him off either. The two of you just glared in annoyance at your family – glares only getting harsher when they didn’t take in the compromising position the two of you were in or the hint to leave.

You looked at Namine, the only one who seemed mildly embarrassed to have seen the two of you like this.

“I tried to stop them,” she said as she looked everywhere but at you and Axel, “But they didn’t listen when I tried to say the two of you were having a moment.”

Axel let out a sigh. It was clear neither of you was going to be able to continue this, so he grabbed a pillow and rolled off of you, covering his boner up with it. Demyx bit his tongue about all the cockblocking jokes he wanted to make. Axel was obviously beyond annoyed, and he didn’t feel like dodging any fire to the face.

You sat up, sitting on your legs and acting like you hadn’t just had them wrapped around someone in an attempt to get a little hot and heavy with them.

“Well we can see someone’s had a busy morning,” Dreamfinder says before adding, “But we wanted to see if you might want to go to the fair. We know you have a press conference there later, but we didn’t see the harm in enjoying the fair beforehand.”

“It’s fine,” you say, acting like you didn’t feel a little more than frustrated at their intrusion, “Seriously it’s all cool. It sounds like fun actually.”

“I don’t know,” Demyx says, eyeing Axel’s disheveled hair from when you’d been running your fingers through it and how you were squirming just slightly to ignore whatever feelings he’d brought up in you, “Can’t be more fun than what the two of you were about to do.” He wiggled his eyebrows at you and gave you a once over before Axel threw the pillow he was holding at his head.

“Aw, c’mon, Axel! Cover yourself!” Ludwig said loudly, and Dreamfinder, Figment, and Demyx all made noises of agreement. Namine, who still hadn’t looked at the two of you absolutely refused to face your direction anymore, turning a bright shade of red while Axel pulled the edge of his shirt down, his face a bright pink as well. Dreamfinder covered Figment’s eyes while Ludwig reached up and covered his.

“Quit overreacting,” Axel snapped, “There’s barely anything there.”

Everyone froze, and Demyx let out a snicker.

“You know that’s not what I meant!” he snapped after he realized what he’d said, turning an even deeper shade of red, but the damage was done, and everyone had already dissolved in a fit of giggles. Even Namine, who you knew was still blushing just by the red tips of her ears, was giggling.

Even you could not resist a tiny giggle that escaped you.

“Just meet us out front in like an hour if you’re coming with us,” Demyx said as they all filed out of the room still laughing. Figment flew up to you and handed you two books before he left. You looked down at the books and read the titles.

The Joys of Life – and How to Avoid Them. And Premarital Pregnancy: The Silent Killer.

You tried to ignore the fact that this was Figment’s way of giving you, “the talk,” a painful experience you’d already gone through with your mother and Ludwig and maybe your father if he felt the need to do so once he learned you had a boyfriend. Something your mother probably had already told him. She’s probably updated him on all of your adventures. The ones she knew of anyway. You should give her a call later. You were sure she was worried about you since none of you contacted her to let her know that you’d arrived on Hollow Bastion safely. Since… you know… you didn’t.

But you could think about that later. You needed to change out of your pajamas and take a proper shower to get any remaining loose hair off of you.

You get up from the bed where you notice Axel is laying down with another pillow covering his head. You giggle a bit at him.

“You know, I’m getting really tired of everyone just walking in here like that?”

“You mean like you?” you countered, another laugh escaping you.

“That’s beside the point.”

You just kept laughing.

“I’m gonna go take a quick shower and get changed,” you say about to duck into the bathroom, but before you do, you pause in the doorway and look back at him, biting your lip. “I, uh, felt you, by the way. When we were, uh, making out. I certainly wouldn’t call it, ‘barely anything.’ I think I’m kind of lucky actually.”

You don’t wait for his reaction. You just slipped into the bathroom hoping it was enough to make him feel less embarrassed about the situation. Plus it wasn’t like you lied. There was definitely something there.

~

There was a limo waiting for you outside of the castle. It was bright white and sleek, hovering above the ground. You had just expected to be taking the monorail, but that was not the case this time.

You just blinked at it. Wasn’t this a bit much for just a trip to the fair? You weren’t really all that much of a celebrity. Though maybe it was for your uncle who was a celebrity. Or were fairs here much more formal than you thought?

You looked down at your little white sundress and sandals – the only thing you could consider even slightly appropriate for a day out considering the only other apparel you had that survived the crash were more t-shirts and one more pair of leggings. Plus you needed to look at least halfway decent for your press conference. Seriously, when you got back from your little mission, you were going shopping.

“Oh, hey,” Axel said, walking up to you, “Glad to see I’m not late. You look cute.”

You smiled broadly. You felt kind of cute, and you felt like your hair was a nice thing to top it all off. It was certainly different than any other styles of hair you’d seen here – everything was a rockabilly 50s style. Except for the empress’s hair which was always styled in a form of low bun that could accommodate her crown.

“You’re not late,” you assured him, “Actually we might be early. I thought they said to meet in an hour?” Though what did you really expect from them though?

“Is everyone late?” Namine asked as she walked up next, Robot Butler at her side. She was in a cute light blue sundress, and you were pretty sure she put a little effort into the high ponytail she wore, having curled it a little. On her ears little light blue earrings sparkled.

“Looks that way,” you mentioned, “You look nice by the way.”

“Thanks,” she said, flushing a light pink, “Ludwig’s probably keeping Dreamfinder busy by asking his opinion on outfits. He wants to make a splash at the fair.”

“What outfits?” you asked, “Everything will look weird on him. Because, you know, he’s a cartoon? Do they have drawn outfits for him?”

“Hmm. I’m not sure,” Namine mentioned. She turned to Robot Butler. “I don’t suppose this world’s discovered how to make live action clothes work on animated characters?”

“Unfortunately not,” he responded with a light chuckle. You smiled. He was a surreal experience. He had a much wider range of emotion and expression than Manny did. It wasn’t that you had a very large patch of memories to go through in regard to robots, but you had seen in most media that they were supposed to be either emotionless or barely grasp the concept of emotion as a whole.

“I have arrived,” Ludwig announced, stepping up to your little group wearing a suit that was tailored to his body size and shape but was not at all drawn and looking very much out of place on him. But you acted like there was no problem.  He also had a cane and top hat. Also not drawn.

Behind him trailed Dreamfinder and Figment. Dreamfinder was dressed in his usual attire – which meant his usual suit. And Figment was naked except for his sunglasses and a new diamond-studded blazer. Well someone was enjoying their gambling winnings.

“How do I look?” Ludwig asked.

“Otherworldly,” you said blatantly when everyone else looked away so they wouldn’t have to answer his question.

“Yes, I look very out of this world,” he said, as he stepped forward towards the limo. This is when Demyx came running up. You’d never seen him out of his Organization coat either now that you thought about it. You found it highly amusing that at least part of the time you knew him, underneath that coat he’d been wearing Hawaiian shirts. The cargo shorts though, you were sure, were fairly new. If memory served right, he was just as into black pants and boots as Axel, who had not abandoned that style yet.

It was weird to think how well they would blend into a crowd now that they weren’t in coats that were essentially acting as flashing neon signs as a testament to how much they did not blend in on a regular basis. Well except for Axel’s hair. It was an unnaturally bright red. But you wouldn’t change that for the world.

“Oh cool are we taking the limo?” Demyx asked as he reached the group.

“Yeah, I meant to ask about that. Don’t you think it’s a bit much?” you said as you turned to Robot Butler, “We could have just taken the monorail. We didn’t need the limo.”

“Nothing is too much for the Queen of the Renaissance,” he said as he held the door open for all of you to pile in. You blinked at the nickname. That title was also entirely too much for you.

“That’s also a bit much for someone who hasn’t even done anything yet,” you said, flustered.

“You haven’t done anything yet. That much is true,” Robot Butler said as he climbed in after your friends, “But you will. From the moment you arrived, from what I know, you tried to help the people of Tomorrowland. As far as anyone in the public is concerned, you’ve already earned the title.”

“The public?” you said, voice rising an octave as the limo began to move, “As in the public is calling me the Queen of the Renaissance?”

“Well, yes. I take it you didn’t watch the news this morning. After they finished commenting on your match with Captain Adams, they mentioned how you would be accompanying him on his mission to defeat the alien, and they dubbed you the Queen of the Renaissance. And it took off after that. Now everyone’s calling you that.”

“And let’s not forget the King of the Renaissance,” Ludwig said, puffing out his chest. You cringed at what he said.

“Ew, Pops, that’s weird and gross,” you said, making a face.

“Yeah, I heard it as it was coming out of my mouth,” he said, cringing a bit as well.

You rolled your eyes and shook your head before turning to look out of the windows. You had seen the city before, sure, but you had been high above it and zooming passed at a speed that made absorbing some details difficult. Now you were lower to the ground and no longer focused on where you were and what your uncle had to do with it. You could take in the things you hadn’t noticed before or missed entirely.

The first thing you noticed were, of course, people. You could see the people of Tomorrowland up close and personal now as opposed to at a distance as they sat in stands cheering at you. They were on moving portions of the sidewalk, going to and fro about their days doing little idle things like checking their watches and fixing their makeup as they waited to step off of the conveyor like sidewalk. They wore attire you had come to recognize as 50s attire, though you had long gotten the picture that they were pretty much stuck in that era of style for the time being. However, their attire also incorporated little extra accessories and details that you could only describe as future aesthetic – where they had little atom symbols or glowing rings around sleeves, shoulder pads, and sometimes boots. There were also jumpsuits, some people forgoing the average dress or suit or shirt and pants entirely in favor of the sleek one piece

There were also robots, some on two legs like Robot Butler, others with three or four legs, some with tread tires or wheels. They came in more varied sizes than people did and were much more varied and stylistic in their appearances, striding or rolling down the stationary parts of the sidewalk.

There were diners and juke joints, the latter of which you’d only ever seen on T.V. before. The smaller buildings were usually what you’d expect a building to look like, average with neon signs on the fronts advertising their names and little signs in the windows that said, “open.” There was also hardly a sign of any sort without the word, “astro,” in it. Astro-pizza, astro-radios, astro-everything.

The other buildings were very… blocky. Was that the way to describe it? They were lots of sharp corners and angles – cubes, square prisms, rectangular prisms, and pretty much any three-dimensional orthotope you could name that appeared to be built on top of and throughout each other. It was skyscrapers that deviated from this rigid look, large, swooping curves making up their sides as they went up to a flat rectangular or squared off tops. Though there were a few large buildings that looked like the average skyscraper to you. Then there were whole clusters of buildings that were beneath large, crystal domes with geometric designs carved over them.

There was the monorail. You could see it high above you, flying between and over several buildings on its way to wherever. There were also several flying saucers that acted like cars for people as much as the cars here hovering near the ground did.

People and robots all gawked at your ride as you all passed, and you were glad the windows were tinted. You felt a little nervous about all this rather undeserved attention. Especially considering your new “nickname.”

Axel gave you a light nudge and asked if you were okay when you continued to warily gaze out at the people stopping to point out the limo. You jumped a little bit.

“Oh, uh, yeah, I’m fine,” you said, turning back around to sit in your seat properly. You looked about the limo, distracting yourself from the world outside and from Axel’s lingering worried gaze. He was too sweet. You should kiss him. But then you also noticed Namine gazing at you out of the corner of her eye, and you were on edge again. She knew your dirty little secret, and she was going to keep it, but would she out you if you thought something was still very wrong?

“This place is like everything I’ve ever wanted to experience in my comics,” Demyx gushed, actively stealing away any attention on you, “It’s like everything is in the atomic age.”

You all took a moment to look at the world around you again, and you noticed a few more things. Like B-movie posters plastered just about everywhere and lots of posters for upcoming movies about Atom or Eo. One such title was Atom and the Beach Blanket Boogaloo. Another was, Atom and the Planet from Outer Space. And finally, there was Atom vs The Labor Unions. Questionable, but this wasn’t your world, so you weren’t sure how much you could really judge. Because women and equality were a bit of a struggle here, and that was something you’d only recently challenged. Who knew what else there was?

You also noticed a lot of Anti-communism propaganda. You almost giggled thinking of how much you calling Atom comrade must have riled him up in that moment if they were taking it so seriously.

“Oh my gosh!” Demyx yelled, causing you all to jump.

“What?! What is it?!” you yelled back. You were all looking around for some sort of threat or problem but there wasn’t anything you could spot.

“His name is Atom! And this is the atomic age!” Demyx said, “I get it now!”

You all just glared at him.

“What?” he asked with a shrug before Namine punched him in the shoulder, “Ow!”

“Don’t scare us like that you jerk!” she snapped, “I mean it’s bad enough we have a knack for running into trouble! Don’t let us think that it found us!”

“Sorry,” Demyx muttered as he rubbed his shoulder, noting that despite her fragile looks, Namine could really pack a punch.

You all slumped back into your seats, content to chat about other things and continue to see the sights until the limo pulled to a stop. You were excited to see all there was at a World’s Fair as you had never been to one before. You were practically wiggling in your seat as Robot Butler opened the door for you all, and Ludwig was the only person more eager than you to get out of the limo.

It was a minor mistake on your part. Outside of the limo, you were met with more gawking and several sets of eyes on you and your uncle, greeting the two of you – but mostly him – with light applause. And now you didn’t have the tinted windows to shield you. He bowed in an exaggerated manner and blew kisses to the crowd. You gave a mildly tentative wave and smile.

“They’ve been waiting for the two of your to make your grand appearance,” Robot Butler informed as he shut the door to the limo, “Especially you, ________. The most people have seen of you was in the arena, but your face isn’t quite as well known yet. You’re a bit of a faceless figure of power to most, and almost myth to those who don’t know what to make of a woman from another world besting their top soldier in combat.”

“I haven’t really even done anything yet,” you muttered quietly to him.

“But you’re a beacon of hope for them. A hope they haven’t had in a long time, and that’s just as important as any good deed you could have done for this world.”

“Thank you,” you said to him with a small smile, standing up a little straighter.

“Now do your best to enjoy the fair,” he instructed, “I must go join the empress and her captains for a short while, but I’ll return later to fetch you for the press conference.”

He gave a bow as he always did and began to walk off into the crowd to wherever the empress was, and you turned from the crowd your uncle was still indulging to your friends to see where they wanted to go first.

There were plenty of rides, attractions, games, and booths to see and try out, several pavilions dedicated to different themes of progress, and the air was filled with so many delicious scents of fried foods that even though you weren’t all too hungry, your mouth watered anyway.

In the center was a giant statue of Ludwig holding up a globe and smiling triumphantly. The plaque at the base had a quote on it that you were more than a little sure wasn’t his: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Yeah, pretty sure that came out of a movie.

“So where to first?” Axel asked, looking at you, and you blinked up at him though his eyes drifted from you to something over your shoulder. You followed his gaze to where you could see the ride modeled after your home sat. It wasn’t like anyone really needed to ask once they saw your face light up, but Axel was polite. You pointed to it eagerly, bouncing a little in your spot, probably appearing overly childlike and giddy in front of those who were rooting for you to go to space, but you didn’t much care right now.

“That one!” you almost squealed, practically bounding off in its direction, your friends close at your heels so as not to lose you in the crowd. It was much larger up close, and you felt some strange bitter sweetness overcome you as you walked into the ride’s queue.

“You alright?” Axel asked again, looking at your mildly conflicted expression as you gazed around you. You nodded, biting your lip. Your chest felt tight, but you still felt a sense of happiness despite how your heart ached.

“I’d seen a million and one pictures of what the outside of my home looked like in history books back home, but… The last time I’d seen my home, it was shattered to pieces. And now I’m just here kind of… looking at it. And I don’t know,” you swiped a stray tear from your face, “I’m happy and a little sad at the same time?”

“Do you need a moment?” he asked, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, asking if you wanted to wait a bit and let it all out if need be, “We could go somewhere a little more private if you need to work through your feelings.”

“You’re sweet, but, no, I’m fine. I’m more happy than I am upset. Besides, I don’t want to bring down the mood or anything. I mean, look at this place. It looks amazing! I want to see absolutely everything! I can cry about it later,” you said waving it off like it was nothing. Axel let out a little chuckle, happy you weren’t overly broken up about your world falling.

“Excuse me?” a voice chimed from behind you. You turned to see two girls close to your age – maybe a year or two younger – behind you, each holding a newspaper that had the headline, “Keyblade Wielder Takes the Prize in Arena!” Just below that it detailed about how you had taken it all by storm like a hurricane.

“Yes?” you said, looking up from the newspapers they held, noting their giddy expressions, grins spread wide across their faces, eyes sparkling in a… starstruck manner?

“You’re that keyblade wielder right? The one they said was traveling with the Great Von Drake right? You look like how they described you kinda. With the hair color and height. Though I thought they said your hair was longer?”

“I cut it this morning,” you said as you absently tugged on one of your braids. They nodded as if this were the most logical thing they’d heard in their lives as opposed to just some random thing about yourself.

“Well we were wondering,” one of the girls began before she brought the paper up to hide her face as she slipped into a fit of giggles. Her other friend finished for her, pulling a red pen from behind her ear that you hadn’t noticed until that moment, “Could we have your autograph?”

You blinked in surprise then looked around as if they had to have been talking to someone else. Axel and Demyx looked on in amusement at your bewildered reaction. Namine was just worried. She hoped that all this “Queen of the Renaissance” business wasn’t fueling you fire when it came to being a hero.

You pointed to yourself as you blinked in bewilderment at the two girls.

“Me?” you questioned, “You want my autograph?”

“Well, yeah,” the first girl said, having recovered from her giggling fit, “You’re the Queen of the Renaissance. You’re a really big thing. Like this fair may as well have been thrown in honor of you and the Great Von Drake for all you’re doing.”

“Oh, uh, thank you?” you said, still getting over the shock. You’d never been asked for an autograph before. You took the red pen and scribbled out your name your best cursive which left a little to be desired but was good enough.

“And I suppose you’ll be wanting my autograph as well?” your uncle asked, ever the humble one to stay out of the spotlight just because of how damn humble he was.

The two of them blinked as if just noticing him for the first time before the starstruck expressions returned to their face and shoving their newspapers and pen at him as well. He scribble his name just below yours with a flourish and a message to stay in school.

“Thank you so much!” they said as he handed them their papers back. Then they looked to you.

“And good luck on your fight with the alien,” said the first girl.

“Yeah, give ‘em heck!” the other said, and then they both ran off into the crowd and back to whatever their day was, squealing about how they got your autograph and that of the great Ludwig.

“That was weird,” you said as you turned back to your friends.

“I think they aren’t the only ones either,” Demyx noted as he looked over your shoulder. You looked too, and sure enough you were getting a few more looks than you had been before, and a few of them were holding pads of paper and various pieces of merchandise and pens. And shortly after acknowledging them, they began to approach you and your uncle. Most asked for his autograph, and almost as many asked for yours as you moved through the line, and you found yourself having to alternate between that and trying to manage to hold a conversation for longer than just a few sentences with your friends. You didn’t get a break from the autographs until your group had reached a mid-point further down the line’s winding pathway and the crowds could no longer reach you.

“You’ll remember us little people when you’re all big and famous, right?” Demyx teased.

“Ugh. This is weird,” you groaned, “I haven’t even done anything yet.”

“What’s so weird about it? Weren’t you, like, worshipped on Animal Kingdom too?” Demyx said with a shrug. As far as he was concerned, you ought to be used to this in some form.

“No,” you stressed, “They treated me a little different, sure, but I was still just a part of the village. The most special treatment I got was kids asking about my adventures. I still worked along side them to earn my stay there and trained like the soldiers there. I was only special in that I had a keyblade, but no one asked for my autograph or treated me like a celebrity. It was, for the most part, normal. And they didn’t treat me like a hero until after I had actually come back and had, you know, done the thing.”

“Well, I’d love it,” Demyx said, “Being some crazy sci-fi action hero like out of a movie is crazy cool. Plus you’ve got all the fame that comes with it, and you haven’t even had to do the dangerous part yet.”

“I think they’ll let you go in my place if you really want to, Demyx,” you teased, and he paled a little at the thought.

“Ha! As if! I’m more than content to just stay here and live it up at the palace. I’ll leave all that heavy lifting to you.”

You rolled your eyes and turned to Axel.

“Was he this lazy in the Organization too?” you asked, and Axel chuckled.

“Yeah, but there was usually someone around to kick his ass if he didn’t do his job,” Axel said, and you laughed, “So basically we just have to beat him up if we want him to do things.”

“That sounds like fun,” Namine chimed in.

“You guys are dicks,” Demyx grumbled with a half-hearted glare and a smile on his face.

The ride as it turned out was an omni mover*. And all of you paired off, two to a cart – in obvious parings of you and Axel, Demyx and Namine, and Ludwig and Dreamfinder with Figment sitting in his lap.

As soon as the two of you were in the darker part of the ride and away from curious eyes who wanted to see the mysterious keyblade wielder and her great uncle, you snuggled up close to Axel who put an arm around and put a little kiss on your forehead. You let out a little giggle and felt him heat up a little. Your heart was pulsing out a happy little hum of contentment. Somehow the moment felt a little perfect.

The ride was, as you soon found out, dedicated to the history of Tomorrowland and multiple animatronics began to act out different parts of the worlds history.

The first one was a man dressed in a suit holding a large book with several other books of similar sizes stacked near his foot.

“Greetings and welcome to all!” he announced, “My name is Tom Morrow, the founder of Tomorrowland. On this ride we’ll learn of the great history of our mighty empire Tomorrowland and how all it took was a dream, a little innovation, and the brilliant genius of the Great Ludwig von Drake!” He gestured to the next part of the ride that you rode through and there was an animatronic of your uncle alternating between posing heroically and waving to the riders.

And his voice was a riot. An absolute riot. He didn’t have his Austrian accent or any age to his voice. The voice of the animatronic was deep and manly, something you’d expect from a superhero in a movie, and you found yourself holding back a laugh. You also felt a little shaking next to you. You glanced up at Axel who was biting his lip holding back his own laughter as well.

“Remember,” the animatronic boomed, “Adventure is out there!”

You buried your face in Axel’s side to conceal your laughter. You weren’t sure how well the other carts could hear the two of you, but you didn’t want your uncle to hear you laughing. You’d never hear the end of it later if he ever found out. That didn’t stop Demyx and Namine from laughing very loudly of course. They did not care.

“Tomorrowland has a long history of the progression of humanity,” Tom Morrow continued in the next scene, “And the start of that is with the discovery of the Great Ludwig von Drake’s journals. It was his brilliant ideas that inspired me to build a better tomorrow today for Tomorrowland… Today… For the people of tomorrow! Today??? Of course!”

In the next scene Tom points to a backdrop which is a picture of a long line of people that extends into the background until you can’t see them anymore.

“Spreading the innovation of these ideas were a long line of dedicated and wise emperors who not only pushed us further into the future but were the main perpetuators to the expansion of culture and knowledge among other worlds.”

The scene then changes to show Tom Morrow alongside eight other people.

“Now it is well known that all of our great leaders have been wielders of the powerful and mystical keyblade,” he continued, and you gasped. So that’s how they knew about them. You’d meant to ask but had been far too busy to do so. “Each emperor before you now has added to our rich and vibrant society, integrating other worlds into our own and joining our cultures in a way that furthered our progress as a whole, adding new and brilliant originations that make us the great empire we are today.”

“Is the empress a keyblade wielder too?” Axel asked, “Why didn’t she volunteer to take out the alien?”

“I’m not so sure,” you replied, “Maybe she wasn’t trained in combat. Women aren’t fighters here, remember? It could be only the men had them.”

The scene next went to a small family which depicted one of the eight men from the previous scene, a woman who resembled empress but older, a young teenager who couldn’t have been more than about sixteen, and a woman who couldn’t have been anyone but empress but perhaps in her twenties or so.

“And of course it was our last emperor, the late Emperor Gregor who welcomed the last planet into our mighty empire. We will never forget his contributions to Tomorrowland before his untimely demise. Nor shall we forget the death of the last keyblade wielder of the empire, his son, Prince Orion.”

“I guess the empress really doesn’t have a keyblade,” you muttered to Axel. You felt bad for her. It wasn’t enough to be a woman in power which was already something not seen as a precedent in line with their culture, but she was the only ruler without a keyblade. That couldn’t look too good.

“You alright?” Axel asked you again. You frowned.

“Are you going to be asking me that all day? It feels like since we got here, all you can do is worry about me.”

“Oh I’m sorry for giving a shit about my girlfriend’s well-being.”

You heart jumped a little. Then he smirked. He felt that. It was written all over his face.

“What was that?” he said, amusement lacing his voice. Your heart began to beat noisily in your ears, and you prayed he couldn’t feel that too. You swallowed your pride.

“I like hearing you call me your girlfriend. Is that so wrong?”

He chuckled, pulling you a little closer, and you snuggled happily into his side.

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” he assured you, “I like thinking about the fact that I’m your boyfriend. Feels like it took forever though.” That piqued your interest.

“How long had you been waiting for it to happen exactly?” you asked, smirking up at him. He was glad you couldn’t see his blush in the dim lighting. He was just vaguely aware of the ride talking about more of the innovations of Tomorrowland – things like the monorail and hover cars – behind the sound of his own heart thudding in his ears.

“Well... I kinda realized I may have been crushing on you when we were in Disney Town to train. And on the way down the mountain in Animal Kingdom I may have come to the conclusion when I was worried about your survival that I did indeed have feelings for you that I wanted to pursue,” he said, looking away, face turning a slightly deeper shade of red. It only darkened when he remembered the exact conversation about it that he’d had with Demyx and how he set the bed on fire and that you were kind of everything to him. Then he decided to turn the tables. “How long did you wait for it to happen?”

Your heart jumped nervously.

“I mean I liked you before Disney Town, but I had no idea you felt anything for me until we were on Animal Kingdom and on our way down the river to the temple. Then I was just thinking to myself, ‘When this is all over I should ask him out.’ And then we got back home, and you beat me to it. I think.”

“What do you mean, ‘you think?’”

“I was debating that time you took me to the theater to go dancing if it was a date or not, but, like, I couldn’t tell. And then you were going to kiss me, and I was like, ‘Holy shit it really is a date!’ Then we got interrupted and the nobodies attacked, and it was just a disaster after that. Except for the kiss on the cheek,” you said as your hand absently rubbed the spot where he’d placed a quick peck on your face, “I nearly died on the spot when you did that.”

“I may have that effect on women,” he said, a broad smirk on his face.

“So you were a womanizer in a past life? Should I be worried about my poor heart?” you teased, “Or have I successfully tamed the wild stallion that is your wandering passion?”

He let out a little snort.

“If I’m being totally honest,” he began honestly before looking away from you again, “You’re actually my first girlfriend. I mean, when I was, alive – if that’s what you want to call the time before I was a nobody – I had a crush on people every now and again, but never a serious committed relationship. I mean, I had been in the Organization since I was fifteen, and lacking a heart kind of made forming meaningful relationships difficult.”

“But then there was Roxas,” you pointed out. He smiled.

“Yeah, then there was Roxas,” he continued, “And I guess that’s where I started forming a heart. Now I could actually, you know, start having them again I guess. And then there was you, someone that I not only managed to form a relationship with but someone who I became actively romantically interested in. But what about you? Lots of relationships?”

“Uh, no, not a lot. A few. You would be number four in my list of partners. I started dating when I was 16, and my first relationship was extremely short lived. It didn’t last two months. The second one lasted a year. Then my last one was also short – only a few months. Then I was single for a few months. Then I met you.”

“I hope I meet all your expectations.”

“Oh you’re already leagues better than all of my exes. And cuter too,” you said with a quick wink. You felt the air grow warm. He liked that, and you could tell. “But there is one thing I wanted to talk to you about. We’ve been together for almost a year now, and then we started dating recently. But I have to say that I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t know much about you. I mean, I know your personality and all, but I don’t even know all of your favorite things. We’ll have been together for like a month in a week, and I don’t even know what to get you as a little present.”

“Has it really been a month already?” he asked incredulously, eyebrows raising in surprise.

“Well kinda. You were unconscious for two weeks after you asked me to be your girlfriend, so I didn’t count them. If I do, then we’re almost at the two-month mark.”

“Huh,” Axel mused, “It feels like hardly any time has gone by at all. Everything feels like it’s been rushing by with us. I need to take you on a date.”

Your heart began to beat happily, and you didn’t care how well he could feel it. You let him feel all that excitement and happiness and love you felt. He felt it hit him like a train too. It made his own heart jump, but he liked it.

You both liked the thought of a proper date.

“You wanna talk details on the way to the next ride?” you asked as the current ride you were on reached the area to let you out, and the two of you hopped out.

“That sounds like a plan,” he said, and the two of you were about to hold hands before you were bombarded by people, all of them asking for you and Ludwig’s autograph as he hopped off of the ride as well. Then came the cameras. There were paparazzi here now as well. They’d had no idea the famed keyblade wielder and Great von Drake were going to be appearing at the fair before the press conference, but once word had gotten out, they rushed to the World’s Fair in hopes of getting to you.

You waved and smiled and signed autographs. But it was becoming more than a little tiresome as you had to stop every few minutes between walking to the next ride to pacify at least some of the people following you and your little group. Your uncle, however, was more than happy to continue signing and posing for pictures. He even decided not to ride the next ride so he could continue to sign autographs.

The next ride was a gentle boat ride in which you rode passed several little animatronics that looked like children from all over the world and rode through different countries and environments and cultures. It was cute and gentle but not overly exciting – especially by Axel’s standards. A few minutes into the ride, you felt a weight on you, and you realized that Axel had fallen asleep on you. You giggled a bit before waking him up.

On the way to the next ride you were once again bombarded with people asking for pictures and autographs. They wanted you to sign anything and everything: clothes, books, shoes, socks, toys, balloons, anything they could get their hands on. And several people stopped you for pictures. Your friends helped you out though whenever they saw someone about to grab you to pull you in for a picture, always conveniently in the way of their touchy hands. You would never be able to thank them enough for that.

The next ride was the, “Hall of Emperors.” It wasn’t really a ride so much as an attraction that showcased emperors of Tomorrowland’s history. Though of course they couldn’t show all of them, so they showed all of the ones who made significant contributions to society, including the eight you saw on the Spaceship Earth ride who had each added a world to Tomorrowland’s empire. And you were not overly enthused while sitting in on this one, and you nodded off, leaning into Axel’s side the same way he had done to you.

He nudged you awake and smirked, having caught you in a similar position like he had been.

You rolled your eyes and attempted to pay attention for the rest of the attraction’s duration before you noticed that, out of all the animatronics, the empress didn’t have one. You winced. They really didn’t give the woman enough credit. Hadn’t she been on the throne for eleven years? She had to have done at least something small of note that warranted at least some sort of acknowledgement here.

The next thing you all rode were roller coasters, a luxury you had not been able to enjoy in quite some time. You remembered planning a trip to a theme park with Genki to enjoy during your summer vacation, but, of course, that wasn’t looking like too much of a thing right now. But you loved them just the same. You and Namine could agree that it was your favorite thing thus far. You needed a little something with more excitement after the other rides had been so mellow.

Namine had to practically drag Demyx on though. But he toughened up for her when he realized how much she wanted to ride it with him. It was cute.

You all stopped for a lunch of corndogs, and the person who was running the booth you all stopped at insisted it was on the house for the Queen of the Renaissance. You held in your cringe and thanked him with a blindingly radiant smile before trying to find a place to sit to eat. But as you all realized you were going to be watched so intently, you all thought it best to walk and eat.

It was as you all were finally just focused more on yourselves and not having to sign autographs or pose for pictures that you could look more at other booths that existed. Most of the non-food and non-game booths were used for merchandise, and they were packed to the brim with plushies, dolls, action figures, t-shirts, and balloons of Ludwig, Atom, and Eo. It was weirdly surreal to see. Sure you had a DVD that Setzer had given you of cartoon characters you actually knew and associated with, but to see something of your uncle that was mass produced and well-beloved – especially by children – was weird to say the least.

The last thing you got to ride was the Ferris wheel. These ones were different from the ones you were used to. Unfortunately, this time you could not get away from people who wanted your autograph. The Ferris wheel didn’t have cute little carts that were small and intimate enough for your little group to squeeze into. They were large boxes with large windows and could fit somewhere between thirty and forty people it them. So this meant that people were still coming over to you and your uncle for autographs and pictures, but at least this time it wasn’t never ending.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” you muttered to Axel, “At first it was kind of weird, and then it was a little flattering. Now it’s just kind of annoying.”

He chuckled a little.

“Well I expect nothing less for the Queen of the Renaissance,” he said with a smirk. You rolled your eyes and let out a groan, nudging him and looking out of the large windows and down at the fairgrounds below.

~

You were nervous to say the least. You were behind a stage, in a small curtained off section where the public couldn’t see you or Atom. You had been told that you would be announced to say your pieces as needed, but you weren’t really sure you could do this now that you were here.

The empress had gone out there only a minute ago, greeted with raucous applause, accompanied by Captain Eo who was acting as secret service to her because, of course, you can’t have your sole monarch enter a public area with absolutely no protection. Your uncle had also joined him, but since this press conference was about you and Atom, he was only really there to make the appearance as opposed to appeal to the masses like you were expected to do. Now you were just waiting for your announcement.

You looked up at one of the screens in the little backstage area, a sizeable flat screen television that depicted everything that was going on onstage. And, like all of the T.V.s you’d come across on this world, it was in black and white.

“Atom,” you said, catching his attention. Well not really. You already had his attention. He’d been watching you pace a bit around the little area, eyes quietly following you while he tried to think of something to say to put your nerves at ease. “Why are all of the televisions in black and white?”

Atom blinked at you before laughing a little. He thought you were joking?

“As opposed to what? Is it supposed to do more?” he chuckled out. You blinked but smile regardless. It was almost adorable that he didn’t know about this thing that, to you, was a simple and common commodity where you were from.

“Well I’m accustomed to them being in full color where I’m from,” you said with a shrug.

“I assure you that all of Tomorrowland’s televisions are the most technologically advanced models we can offer you. Look,” he said gesturing to one of the T.V.s, “We have dials.”

Sure enough there were little old-timey dials along the bottom. You didn’t want to laugh, but it was kind of funny to you that they had managed flat screens but not buttons or remotes.

“We use remote controls on my home,” you said as you turned your eyes away from the screen to look at Atom. Atom blinked at you from this revelation.

“That’s incredible,” he said, mildly in awe, “I’ll alert our top scientist as soon as possible.”

You finally let that little giggle escape you as you turned back to the screen to look at the empress. Atom did as well, glancing at you every so often.

“It gives me great pleasure to announce,” the empress continued whatever speech you hadn’t entirely been listening to due to your nerves, “That one of the people who will be heading the mission is a very peculiar but miraculous being not of our world. We have a keyblade wielder here, after a decade, to help lead us into a new era of progress. It is with greatest pride that I introduce one of our young saviors.” She swept her arm out to where you would be walking from, and you readied yourself, “Here is the young hero, ________ ________!”

There was a large applause and you walked out on to the stage looking every bit like a somewhat shy and fragile doe walking into a lodge of hunters. You looked out at the crowd and could spot your friends in the back of the crowd of reporters, they and the reporters standing inside a roped off area for the media and people you were close to. Behind them there was the crowd of people who had all come out to enjoy the fair, now crowding here to see you and listen to whatever heroic words would come out of your mouth.

You stepped up to the podium, the empress giving you a kind smile and standing off to the side as you took your place. The applause died down, and then there was a hush that felt like a weight on your shoulders. But you straightened your back. You could do this. You’d danced for crowds before – not as large as this one which stretch so unbelievably far but even so – you could do this.

“Thank you,” you said, your voice smooth and even. That was a good sign. It meant that you could at least keep your nerves in check. “You’ve all been so welcoming and accommodating to my friends, family, and I. Your world is very beautiful, and I must admit that I’ve never quite experienced anything like it.”

There was a murmur of approval among the crowd, pride on the face of every person who gazed back at you. You smiled a little wider.

“It is a great honor that you would allow me to do this service for you in your strive for greatness and progress. I plan to do you all proud.”

You stepped down from the podium and took a seat next to your uncle who was seated in little chairs for you, Ludwig, Eo, and Atom to sit in while the empress wrapped up the rest of the press conference.

“Now allow me to introduce our other hero of Tomorrowland,” the empress said as she returned to the podium, “Tomorrowland’s very own Captain Atom Adams!”

There was uproarious applause complete with a standing ovation. Atom was clearly a well-known figure among the public and very much beloved. You guessed that all those accomplishments he listed had netted him quite a bit of notoriety. Though you supposed there had to be some reason he had so much merchandise everywhere – being only just behind your own uncle in terms of quantity of product. You’d have to ask Eo what he’d done to also be so very beloved.

Atom swaggered up to the podium with the very confidence you had lacked in that moment, appearing much cockier and imposing as opposed to your demure and delicate entrance. You hoped it didn’t put any doubt into how the people felt about you.

“Our mission won’t be easy,” Atom began, voice deep and imposing as he addressed the crowd whose attention was focused on him so intently, you doubted they’d look away if you started stripping immediately and flashed them all. “But I’ll tell you this: we don’t care how easy it will be. We will do this great empire proud and bring space travel back no matter the cost.”

“No pressure,” you muttered under your breath and heard a tiny snicker from Eo.

“Atom! Atom!” one of the reporters said, eagerly waving a pad of paper in the air to get his attention. Atom nodded at him to give him the go ahead to speak.

“What can you tell us about how this mission will go?”

“There isn’t much I can say specifically, but if I can help it,” he replied, “Once we get there, we’ll be in and out within a matter of hours.”

Other reporters began vying for his attention, and he indulged another one.

“Has there been anymore information discovered about the alien’s history?”

“Nothing has come to light as of yet. We’re still in the dark about it, but an extensive study on the creature may take place once the threat has been neutralized.”

One more question then he’d step down. He picked one near the front.

“Do you have any qualms about the fact that you’ll be taking a woman with you?” the reporter asked, and you stiffened in your seat, biting your tongue.

“Excuse me?” Atom responded, blinking bewilderedly at the reporter. People glanced between the three of you, waiting for a response.

“Do you think having a woman along will hinder the operation?” the reporter continued as he glanced at you and your stern gaze and back to Atom. Atom cleared his throat before opening his mouth to respond.

“Many may have heard if you did not get to watch about the arena fight that took place yesterday morning. In that battle not only had she held her own in combat against me, she defeated the android which I myself had not yet been able to do. She’s a warrior where she comes from, and she has more than proven her capabilities. She has my full confidence and respect as a soldier. If anything, this mission is almost a guaranteed success with her aid. I’ve never met a woman so remarkable.”

There were more reporters who attempted to question him, but Atom finally stepped down from the podium to take his seat next to you. You gave him a small, grateful smile to have actively defended you.

Empress returned to the podium, her mouth pressed into a hard line, her face a bit sterner as she continued on with the press conference to wrap things up.

“Thank you,” you whispered to Atom as he passed you, and he smiled back.

Eo shifted uncomfortably in his seat as he watched the little exchange. Then you all say quietly, politely smiling at the crowd in front of you as the empress wrapped things up.

It was after the press conference, that your little group, Robot Butler, the captains, and the empress all decided that the day had been long enough, and it was time to head home. Besides. You had a big day tomorrow – what with you embarking on a journey to fight a deadly alien and all.

You all shared the same limo, this one a bit grander and larger in size, so you assumed it was personally made for empress. She was sitting between Atom and Eo, both looking anywhere out the window as their town passed by. Your friends were still reeling from the fair and were talking about it amongst themselves. And the empress kept glancing at Atom, a conflicted look about her. You pretended not to notice. How could Atom not know she very obviously wanted to talk to him? Unless he did know? Maybe he wasn’t interested and that was his way of letting her down gently.

“I do hope you’ll be careful tomorrow, Atom,” she said as she laid a gentle hand on his forearm. He looked from the window to her.

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” he said, puffing out his chest a little, “I didn’t get to where I am today by being weak.”

“I know,” she said, turning the lightest, almost unnoticeable shade of pink, “I’ll just miss you is all. I mean, who’ll protect me while you’re gone?”

“We have a whole army of soldiers at your disposal. I’m sure one of them can keep you safe,” Atom said, looking at her like she was odd. You know, maybe he really didn’t know she had a thing for him. He seemed so… oblivious to it. Maybe he just wasn’t good with women – sexism aside.

“But you know I only want the best,” she pouted, batting her lashes at them.

“I could understand that concern,” he said then tapped his chin, thinking about who he could put into his position. You almost slapped your forehead with how stupid he was being at the moment, and you felt some small amount of second-hand embarrassment for the empress having to deal with her obvious flirting as a serious subject matter.

“I know!” Atom said, snapping his fingers before his gaze went to Axel, “Axel!”

Axel stopped listening to Ludwig yammer on about how his statue made him look fat to look over at Atom.

“How would you like to be the empress’s personal guard?”

You blinked. Axel blinked. Everyone stopped talking and blinked for a moment. Axel a guard? It was a strange thought. From what little you knew about his life before and in the Organization, Organization work was the closest he’d ever been to being a soldier.

The empress looked mortified to have dragged anyone else into this already embarrassing conversation, and you winced from the sympathy you felt alone.

“Uh,” the empress stammered in a rare moment of being completely thrown off guard, “I mean, yes, of course, why not?”

She threw on a strained smile. She was embarrassed, and Atom was making it worse. You snapped your head in Axel’s direction, and he looked at the sudden movement. You tried to give him the subtlest nod you could, silently pleading for him to take the hint. He frowned a little.

“Alright, why not?” he said. Though his tone said that he would rather not. You just wanted the conversation to be over, and for her to be off the hook. The empress seemed to want the same thing and relaxed a bit. Then she looked Axel over. He could be a decent personal guard. Sure. Why not?

“See?” Atom said like he was some great genius and not the most oblivious idiot in the world, “Crisis averted. Eo and Axel will keep the empress company; ________ and I can defeat the alien menace.”

“What do you think we ought to do while they’re all busy?” Namine asked, looking to Demyx, Dreamfinder, Ludwig, and Figment.

“I’ve been scheduled to give lectures on my many feats of genius,” Ludwig said. He was prepared to launch on another monologue about how great he’s made things around the world, but he was cut off by Dreamfinder.

“I’ll be accompanying him for the time being,” he said, “They’ve decided to have a few courses on the inner workings of the mind while we’re here and the effect it has on one’s drive and inspiration. It’s been so long since I’ve been back in the classroom. I’m very much looking forward to it.”

“And since Axel’s the lucky guy on guard duty,” Demyx said, casting a very, very brief glance at Axel and the empress, “I guess you and I can hang out,” he said as he looked at Namine.

You had never wanted to hurt Demyx as badly as you did now. Why did he say that? Why did he have to say it like that? Now you knew why Namine had asked if she was pretty. Because apparently at some point, Demyx had openly checked the empress out. And, sure, she was pretty, but did he have to be so open about it in front of Namine? And, sure, maybe he didn’t actually know how Namine felt, but still….

Namine, however, ever patient and passive-aggressive just smiled a tight smile and let it go.

“I suppose so,” she said, “I don’t know what there is to do around here though.”

Eo intervened at that moment.

“That reminds me,” he said, “When we get back to the palace, we’ll be giving you credit cards. You are guests here on Tomorrowland, and our gracious empress has decided to let you all have a little fun on her dime.”

There was a chorus of “thank you” from around the limo as all your friends got excited about being able to go out on the town. Now you’d have money for your little shopping spree when you got back from the mission! Yay!

“And,” Eo continued, “If you all would like to explore the town, I’m sure Robot Butler would be happy to give you a grand tour.”

“I’d be more than delighted,” Robot Butler chimed.

“Well what about the empress?” Namine asked, “Won’t she want Robot Butler’s company at some point during her day?”

“Oh I’m sure she’ll have someone to preoccupy her,” Atom said in a slick tone. It made Eo bristle at the way he said it. He didn’t like the implication.

~

“Ludwig,” Namine said as she tentatively knocked on the door to his room, “Could I speak to you for a moment? It’ll only take a minute.”

“Yes, come in,” he said waving her over as his eyes remained glued to the T.V. he was flipping channels on. Everything on the news seemed to be either about him or you or Atom, and he was looking for more about him.

“I wanted to talk about ________,” she said as she wrung her hands. Her heart was thudding rapidly against her ribcage. She didn’t want to do this, but she needed to. You were in danger. She was sure of it, and she needed to know that it wasn’t too late to help.

And, sure, you might be mad at her, but at least you would be safe.

“What about her?”

“We, um, were cutting her hair this morning, and I left for a minute to get some stuff to clean up all the hair, but when I came back her hair was long again, and she had this look on her face like she was going to be sick, and I thought to myself, ‘oh no it happened again,’ – you know that thing that she said happened at the police station the when we first got here and her hair got really long the first time – and I said that we needed to tell someone because she’s going to be going on this giant mission to save the world, you know, again, and I said she couldn’t because she’s having these weird pain and hair problems, and she’s all, like, ‘no, Namine, it’s my duty to go,’ but it’s not, and I don’t know what’s going on with her other than that every time someone’s in trouble she thinks she needs to step in and save the day, and now she’s going off to space with no one who even knows what’s going on with her going with her, and I just don’t know what to do or if she can even be saved at this point,” Namine said in a rush, her breath all but gone by the time she finished her sentence.

“Oh the hair thing,” Ludwig said almost nonchalantly, “I need you to listen close.”

Namine leaned in.

“There’s nothing we can do except let her ride it out.”

“What?!”

That was not the answer she wanted. She wanted him to tell her how to fix everything!

“I had a few theories about this when she mentioned it the first time. Hair growth is an odd thing, and it doesn’t just happen over the course of a few seconds no matter where it grows. Or, at least, it doesn’t happen on so rapid a timeline. So I could only assume that time was the problem. Her time is messed up.”

“Her… time…,” Namine trailed off, bewildered to say the least.

“You see, ________ was born outside of time. Her world fell, and she and any other children born after its fall technically were born in the lanes between where Spaceship Earth existed. And the lanes between do not exist in time. So the universe is very confused. And take the amount of times she’s used a corridor to hop between worlds, and you’ve got more messed up time. The universe doesn’t know how old she is or where in time she should be. Now take this place. If it really is multiple worlds joined by keyblade wielders, then it isn’t just one time she’s functioning on anymore. This world’s time is trying to compensate for the different rates the heart of each world is moving at no matter how fast or slow they moved originally. And the universe can’t pinpoint which one ________ is supposed to be in. So, in conclusion, she’s glitching.”

“Glitching,” Namine said flatly.

“Yup. She’s rapidly aging and de-aging in an attempt for the universe to understand when she should be. And so long as we’re here, she’s going to be doing that. But she’ll be fine. She won’t die or age so far back she’ll revert to a fetus or so far forward that she’ll turn to dust. She’s going to be just fine. And when we leave, I theorize she’ll go back to normal as she should. She’ll just have to deal with it for a while. I imagine each glitch won’t last very long. The universe will say, ‘no, that’s not right’ and plop her back right where she was before – a plucky, young twenty-year-old.”

“And… you’re sure she won’t be hurt by it? You know, permanently?”

“You have my solemn vow.”

“Okay,” Namine said, a bit dejected that you were going to just have to suffer on the occasion, but relieved it wasn’t a fatal issue, “Oh and one more thing? Don’t tell ________ that we had this conversation. She really didn’t want me to tell anyone because she wants to go on that mission, but I was worried.”

“Worry not, young one. Worry not,” he said, reclining back on his bed and crossing his legs, “Just enjoy your time here while you can.”

Namine just nodded. There wasn’t really much else she could do.

~

“I know you asked earlier if all I was going to do was worry, but…,” Axel began as he sat next to you on the bed. You let out a deep sigh from where you were laying and rolled onto your stomach to look up at him. You had a rather dreamy look on your face as opposed to annoyed though. It threw Axel for a loop, but he was happy, nonetheless.

“Something on your mind?” you asked as you looked up at him. Axel wanted to tell you to be careful, but he was looking at that look in your eyes, and he was relatively distracted by the way you were looking at him.

You let a slow sensual smile spread over your face, batting your lashes up at him.

“I… can’t remember,” he said finally, and you giggled, “You’re distracting me.”

“I’m not even doing anything,” you laughed out as you sat up and scooted closer to him.

“You’re looking cute,” he countered with a smirk, his eyes slowly going up your body. You bit your lip. You liked the way he was looking at you. A lot.

“What’s been up with you today?” you asked, “I mean, I don’t mind.”

“I can’t find my girlfriend sexy?” His eyes finally trailed up to your own, and you were hooked on his gaze. How was he doing that?

“You think I’m sexy?” you asked, looking up at him from beneath your lashes, feeling a little warmth building up around you.

“Well, yeah. You’re the sexiest girlfriend I’ve ever had,” he said with a wink. You were definitely getting warmer. Maybe he was too. You scooted a little closer. You pressed yourself into his side – breasts first to make a point. He was definitely heating up.

Then… he looked a little unsure. Were you moving too fast?

“Uh, sorry,” you said, backing off and feeling more than a little embarrassed about it, “That was really forward of me. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“No! No, that’s not it!” he reassured you, grabbing your hand and blushing furiously, “I just felt a little nervous. I mean, you’re the sexiest girlfriend I’ve had, sure. And not just because you’re the only one. Trust me,” he said, eyeing your chest for a second before his eyes glanced back up to your own.

“So what’s wrong?”

“Well, you’ve had three other partners. I guess I’m just… not sure I could live up to your expectations.”

“Well I mean that’s what communication is for. Plus you are probably way better than any of them anyway. The first two were hardly anything, and we never really moved passed kissing and a little over the clothes touching.”

“And the last partner you had?”

“She was the worst. I don’t think she ever really considered what I really wanted when it came to being, you know, intimate with each other.”

Axel blinked.

“She?” he asked.

“Yeah, what?” you asked with a slight tilt of your head.

“Nothing!” he said quickly, “I just didn’t know you were, you know, bi. Guess I’m lucky you didn’t go for Namine then.”

You were quiet.

“You… you considered it?” he asked after a second, though he sounded more amused than anything. You giggled a little bit.

“Well, I mean, I thought she was cute, and we were hanging out, and we got along well enough. But it just never took off. Plus I’m not sure she really sees me in that way. That and… there was a red-headed someone else who was catching my eye so….”

You let the implication hang in the air.

“So you’re saying I’m definitely at least better than your last partner, right?” Axel asked with a chuckle. You scooted back over to him, but this time you didn’t press your breasts to him so you could take it a little slower.

“Just knowing you want to go out of your way to please me, makes you infinitely better than all of my past partners.”

Axel got closer almost looming over you.

“I would love to please you.”

You felt searing heat as a shudder ran through your body. Axel could be… really, really sexy when he wanted to be. And you were pretty sure he knew that.

You pressed against him again, breasts and all, running a hand up his arm.

“What do you want to do to me?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking what you want done?”

“Well, yes, but you said you’ve never really done anything with anyone before. I want to see what you do and what you want. And if you’re really concerned with what I want, just know I’ll be fine with anything. Even if you don’t want to do anything to me.”

Warning: steamy bits ahead.

 

 

 

Axel bit his lip had as he debated, looking you over. His eyes lingered on every part of you. Then he let out a slow, shaky breath.

“I want to touch you,” he breathed, voice a little huskier.

“Touch me,” you replied, leaning back a little so he could do whatever he wanted to you. First he put a hand on your arm then trailed it up, stopping at your shoulder and then moving it to the back of your neck. He brought you into a kiss, and you let him move his lips against your own for a bit before he broke away. Then he just looked over before trailing his hands over other parts of your body.

He started with just your arms before trailing down to your hands. Then he brought them up to his lips to kiss, and your heart raced. It felt like it was swelling and overflowing with adoration for him in that moment. Then he let his hands trail over your stomach then parts of your legs then your back. He felt the smooth curve of muscle beneath soft skin and all of scars that had accumulated up to this point.

He ran his hands up your sides, but never over your butt, breasts, or any of your more intimate areas to touch, and you wondered about it. He seemed to be enjoying himself, and all of the kisses he gave you let you know that he was enjoying it.

Then you glanced down to notice a rather sizeable bulge in his pants.

“Axel,” you panted after he started kissing you again and making your head swim in a very pleasant haze, “Don’t you wanna take care of that?”

You pressed your hand to his thigh, close to the bulge but not quite touching it, and he shuddered in response. He wanted to pin you down. And yet… he was satisfied like this.

“No,” he said before he pulled you close and laid down next to you. You cuddled up to him. “This is enough. I like this. I like you.”

You kissed him.

“I like you too.”

Notes:

Alright! So I'll see you all next week. It's late, and I've got work in the morning. I'll try to be on time next time though, but I won't lie, the outline for it isn't totally done yet, so it might be a Thursday update instead of Tuesday. But check just in case I manage to actually pull it off!

Thanks for the comments and kudos guys!

Obscure-ish References:

* Omni mover: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnimover?fbclid=IwAR14yqiholHGrjWcoebkMKPQxFOcnPlCvS83Ogv1m8UTIvUlQODLbiHz7eo

Hall of Presidents (Emperors): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hall_of_Presidents?fbclid=IwAR06WVG0JoRpowA25Y_Jfi74zYiqQR5OV7WGyQCsHyQIDhlrz8G1CqM0kAQ

Small World: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_a_Small_World?fbclid=IwAR1umkEpGY0-DSuHAFaoj9YXgxLWasdCjnesAlvVn047gmGHdA7HMBQ9Tqg

Chapter 59: The Horizons Project

Summary:

You go into space with Atom. Axel spends a day as a guard. Namine and Demyx hit the town.

Notes:

I'm a few hours late, but here it is. So these chapters take a long time to write, so I'm not gonna guarantee that the update will be on Tuesdays. BUT you will always get an update at the latest by Friday and at the earliest being the usual Tuesday. That's a promise. So check back everyday to see if I've updated if I miss a Tuesday.

Axel visited you early the next morning. He stuck around pretty late the previous evening after your little moment of intimacy and some cuddling, but he knew he had to go to his room at some point. But here he was again. You were in your pajamas – which was just one of your old t-shirts at this point – and still rubbing sleep out of your eyes when he walked in.

You let out a big yawn, and he placed a little kiss on your forehead.

“I’d kiss you properly,” you said, stretching, “But I still have morning breath.”

That was when you noticed he was in the guard uniform he’d had to wear when he was in the arena. It wasn’t his color, but he didn’t look awful in it. Nothing really flattered him like black did.

“Quit staring,” he said, “I know it looks bad, and I’m not enthused about wearing it.”

“I actually think you look kinda handsome,” you half-lied, but Axel could see right through that. He’d been reading you since the beginning, and you’d gotten no better at lying – at least not to him.

“Don’t try to make me feel better,” he said with a roll of his eyes, “It’s your fault I have to wear this gaudy thing in the first place. Why’d you want me to play guard for the empress anyway? You gettin’ off to the thought of me being a soldier? Because if you are…,” he trailed off but was smirking at you. You just laughed, giving him a little shove.

“It’s a nice thought,” you said flirtatiously, “But I did it because she was trying to flirt with Atom by saying she wished he were there to protect her, but he took it seriously and volunteered you. I felt so bad for her at that point I tried to tell you to just go along with it so she wouldn’t be so embarrassed.”

Axel let out a snort.

“That’s, uh, yeah, that’s pretty embarrassing. But I don’t think it’ll really be an issue or anything. But that’s not why I came to talk to you.”

“So what are you here for?”

“Well last night I had wanted to tell you to be careful. You know, before you ‘distracted’ me. I don’t know how dangerous the mission is going to be, but I trust you to be able to take care of yourself. But I wouldn’t feel right if at least once I didn’t express my concern with you going up there.”

“I’ll be fine,” you said with a gentle smile, “It’s business as usual. And I’ll come back to you. Like I always do.”

“Yeah, when I don’t have to save your ass,” he said with a smirk and an eyeroll. You laughed and pushed him.

“Get out before I break up with you,” you giggled, and he chuckled too. Then he placed a somewhat lingering kiss on your lips, not caring if you had morning breath or not. It wouldn’t feel right if he didn’t. Not to with you heading into a dangerous situation.

“This isn’t gonna turn into what started last night is it?” you said with a wink.

“I’ll see you when you get back,” he said, “And when you get back, maybe we’ll finish what we started yesterday.” You both let out a laugh before he left to let you get started with your day.

You went through your morning routine though this time with a sense of light nervousness. You didn’t know what was going to be waiting for you on that space station other than an alien that you had next to no information on.

There was a knock on the door. You were in a robe tugging a brush through your hair, so rather than instructing anyone to come in, you darted over there and cracked the door, poking your head out. There stood Robot Butler with a neatly folded bundle of silver fabric, a belt, and a pair of boots in his arms.

“It is my understanding that you do not have a space suit, and I thought this would be more comfortable than your armor for your long trip,” he said as he offered the clothes to you.

“Oh, thank you,” you said, honestly kind of relieved you wouldn’t be using your last pair of clean leggings on this journey and pretending they were a new or different pair every day.

“It is my pleasure,” he said with a bow, turning away and walking back down the hall.

Everything about the outfit seemed impractical but given that you’d only be wearing it for the trip, fully intending to ditch it for your armor once you arrived, it wasn’t too much of a burden for you.

It was a fitted body suit that stretched to fit your proportions. And while you weren’t crazy about the bright color, it looked rather nice on you. And the belt accentuated your hips in a flattering way. The thigh-high boots however were just cute. And you were glad they fit your legs without being too tight around the ankles or too wide at the top. Overall you had a sci-fi chicness about you that you were kind of loving right now.

You wished Axel could see you. But you were certain he was off playing guard duty or whatever that was supposed to mean. You kind of guessed it would mean some form of training. You weren’t sure.

When you were done dressing and left your room, you were mildly surprised to see Atom and the empress waiting for you at the entrance to the grand palace. Axel and Eo were also there, and you couldn’t help but notice Axel’s eyes dart up and down your body, a light pink rising to his cheeks. You sent him a discreet wink just as Atom and the empress turned to see you.

“There you are,” the empress said, a warm smile adorning her features.

“I didn’t keep you waiting too long I hope,” you said sheepishly.

“Of course not. We’ve only just arrived. Our adoring public, however,” she said with a nod to the grand palace doors that two soldiers were poised to open, “Has been awaiting this moment since the beginning.”

The soldiers then opened the door, and you were met with a large crowd of people that seemed to stretch on forever off of the island. Many of them had cameras, and you could deduce that a lot of them were press snapping pictures of the future conquering heroes.

If you thought the fanfare from the previous day was excessive – what with the limo and your new title and all – it was nothing compared to this day.

As soon as you stepped outside you were bombarded with questions from reporters, but the empress nudged you on subtly so you wouldn’t be held up. You had a rocket launch to make after all.

You’d only seen moments like this in old documentaries that talked about events and settings that took place in a time that… well it looked like this one. You’d also never been a part of a parade before. A large marching band stepped in time in front of the car you were supposed to get in – a vehicle with no roof so the masses could see you that had banners and flowers adorning the sides – playing what you assumed was the anthem of Tomorrowland if the crowds of people singing along were any indication.

You timidly waved to the crowd, as you stepped into the car with Atom next to you. Atom waved back with more confidence. Eo and Axel sat behind the you, and they remained stoically seated, not waving at all, but looking like they had all the confidence of soldiers on guard. The empress sat on your other side, and she waved with great confidence. Then she noticed your shy smiles and tiny waves.

“You’ll have to do much better than that, my dear,” she said, smiling gently at you.

“I’m not really used to this,” you muttered back as you looked out at the cheering masses. They were waving flags about and throwing little handfuls of confetti. Many of them were wearing Tomorrowland t-shirts and Atom Adams t-shirts while they clapped and whistled.

“Well you ought to get used to it,” she said, her smile broadening a bit, “You are an icon now. You represent all of the women of Tomorrowland as I do. You can be quite influential. And now you’re going to help me restart the renaissance to end all renaissances. And when you come back, all this pomp and splendor won’t simply disappear. In fact, it ought to boost it.”

“You don’t say,” you said with a timid smile that communicated just how nervous about all that you were, “I’ve never been an icon before.”

“Well you are now, dear. Soak it up. I know I will. I haven’t had this much attention since my official coronation,” she said, absolutely giddy about the thought. You felt a small pang. This woman really hadn’t been given any due for eleven years? Ouch.

“Okay,” you said, “For you, your highness.”

She smiled, and you put on your most charming smile, something you used when you danced and put on a performance and began to give a graceful wave of your hand as you did when bowing on a stage. And you found that the crowds extended off of the island where the palace and Castletown were. People lined the streets of the city as well.

So you maintained your performance until you got to the ship that was awaiting you at the end of your journey. Of course, the crowds ended much, much farther back than that as a safety precaution for when the ship took off. And the empress, Axel, and Eo all exited the car at that point as well. You’d never seen a ship like this up close before. It looked like the rockets you’d seen in books and movies. Of course, you knew rocket ships existed. You just have never seen one in person. You were a little wowed, and Atom looked at you, seeing all the wonder on your face, your eyes bright and inquisitive taking it all in.

“First time?” he joked. You’d obviously been in space before. He just kind of wanted to hear you laughing again.

“In a ship like this?” you said, “Yeah, actually. I mean I’ve only traveled in the ship my uncle built. So I’ve only seen ships like this in books and movies – never in person.”

“Well I’m sure it’s nothing to sneeze at in the face of the Great Ludwig von Drake’s genius. I’m sure his ship makes ours look like, well, nothing special.”

“Oh I wouldn’t say that,” you mentioned as the two of you boarded the elevator that would take you to where you would be sitting and spending most of your time. “I almost wish I could watch it taking off to say that I’ve seen it in person. But I suppose actually participating in it will have to do.”

Atom let out a little chuckle. There was that wit of yours again.

Atom hoped this trip would go smooth. He wanted the two of you to be able to get along well enough for it to do so. And the two of you had not yet gotten into an argument thus far. Which was good. All was going well and according to plan.

Well except for your obvious discomfort during takeoff. You were not reacting like you ought to be, and it caused Atom some mild concern but not as much as it did amusement. He knew you would be fine. But he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t kind of funny to watch you get nauseous from the force of takeoff.

“I thought your frequent space travel would have prepared you for takeoff,” he said, trying to keep all laughter from his voice. But you were slumped in your seat, looking as unintimidating as you’ve probably ever looked. A far cry from the warrior he faced two days ago.

“No ship should take off like this. And my uncle’s never did. Who would allow this?”

Now he laughed, but it wasn’t mean-spirited.

“We just assumed you’d had some form of space training to prepare you for this. It’s why we didn’t put you through any impromptu training. Is it really so bad?”

“Are you kidding me?” you said, giving him a dry stare, “I have crash landed on a planet without a ship, and it was smoother than what I just went through.”

Well that caught his attention. It was true you had mentioned your previous adventures, but now he’d have time to discuss in detail exactly what those adventures might be. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t the least bit curious. He turned on the autopilot as soon as the ship hit the exosphere and turned to you.

“Tell me about this crash landing,” he said, and you, feeling a bit better now that you weren’t feeling the full force of leaving the atmosphere, obliged.

~

Namine and Demyx were bored. Namine thought it might be interesting to sit in on one of Ludwig’s lectures for a bit, and Demyx, taking it as a form of worldbuilding for his comics thought it could be an interesting thing. But it was just a bunch of people presenting their projects and inventions and blueprints to Ludwig. And he was happy that they were coming to him for advice. So happy in fact he began to sob uncontrollably. And it was as he was sobbing all over himself he mentioned how proud he was, but that there was always room for guidance and improvement. Then he started in on his lecture which was mostly just him talking about how to improve their ideas while simultaneously breaking down into fits of hysteria. So it wasn’t as charged and exciting as Demyx and Namine were hoping it would be. Especially when they got lost in all of the science and math jargon they weren’t accustomed to.

“Psst,” Demyx whispered despite the fact that he was sitting right next to Namine. On her other side sat Robot Butler. She looked at him. “Let’s get outta here.”

She smiled and nodded before nudging Robot Butler, so he’d know they were leaving. He followed quietly behind them.

“I thought he’d talk about something a bit more exciting. I also didn’t expect so many tears,” Namine said once they were all the way out of the lecture hall and out of earshot.

Demyx let out a snort, and that made Namine smile a little broader.

“Let’s go see a movie or something,” Demyx said, already taking the lead to exit the university building, “Anything’s better than this.”

They walked in silence for a minute, taking in the scenery of the world around them as they exited the campus and walked out into the city. It was a nice day, not overly warm or cool, a few clouds in the sky but none that threatened rain.

“This city is really amazing,” Namine marveled as she turned about to look at all of the architecture around her. She should try to sketch out a few of the buildings later. There was already a long list of the different robots and people she wanted to sketch. She had already started a sketch of Eo and finished one of Robot Butler.

“Yeah, all we need now is the music to go with it,” he said as they neared one of the moving sidewalks and hopped on.

“If you’d like,” Robot Butler began, “I can name a few areas that feature or sell music for you to visit and explore. Is there a particular genre you are inter –”

“Out of my way,” a man huffed as he shoved passed Robot Butler, knocking him from the conveyor as he passed. Namine gasped as she watched Robot Butler fall to the ground.

“Watch it, asshole,” Demyx called after the man, but he was already long gone. All that did was net him a few dirty looks for his use of foul language. Though that was hardly his concern.

Namine was already helping Robot Butler to his feet.

“Are you alright?” she asked as she helped to dust him off. And oddly enough, Robot Butler started laughing. Demyx and Namine wondered if he’d knocked a screw loose in his fall, but then he began to explain himself.

“Forgive my laughter,” he said, “You asked if I was alright. I assure you that I feel no pain.”

Demyx and Namine caught on to what he meant and laughed a little too. They’d forgotten he was a robot. To be installed with nerve endings would be quite strange.

“Well, your feelings aren’t hurt I hope,” Namine said after, serious once more. Robot Butler blinked at her as if trying to fully comprehend what she’s said.

“I’m fine. I have a personality with a variety of emotions installed, but I assure you that I lack the sentience necessary to communicate negative feelings towards my treatment.”

Namine frowned a little bit as the trio continued walking.

“Are you sure?” she asked, “You are capable of recognizing the irony of my statement from earlier, so you must feel even if you are only programmed to be able to.”

“Unfortunately,” Robot Butler insisted, “You are incorrect. I will never have the same complex mental capacity for a personality as you do.”

“But don’t you have wants and aspirations? What more do you need to be a person?”

“You are kind to assume such. But I don’t really have wants, and my only aspiration is what I was built to do. I’m simply made to resemble the human consciousness as best I can.”

Namine nodded, but she wasn’t quite so sure. She had been more than a little sure he was an AI as opposed to just simulated or virtual intelligence. But it hardly mattered now. She didn’t really know anything about robotics anyway.

They went into a few stores here and there that they passed that looked interesting. Most of it was just looking around though Demyx did find a few pieces of music he liked, and Namine bought a new sketchbook since her old one was filling up.

And it was as her mind was still filling up with all the different things she wanted to draw that she finally decided that she wouldn’t be able to remember them all and began to take out her phone to take pictures. She took a few selfies too to show you later, and Demyx, of course, wanted to join in a little. And naturally they included Robot Butler.

“Why are you taking pictures of buildings?” Demyx asked as they passed a diner advertising their new tropical astro-burgers.

“I’m going to try and sketch them out later. Maybe paint a few if I see an art store around.”

“How many things have you drawn since we got here? Any of the people we met?”

“Yeah, a few,” she said, happy he was taking an interest in her hobbies, “I did one of Eo, and I was thinking of doing one of Atom if he ever cools off from that man-good, woman-bad kick. I had wanted to do one of empress, but I jUst CaN’T BRinG mySeLf To WaNt tO AnYMoRe.”

“Really? Cuz she’s pretty hot. I’d thought it would be easy,” Demyx said with a casual shrug. Namine glared at him lightly, not enough to tip him off that it wasn’t at all what she wanted to hear.

“Does she even know your name, Demyx?”

Demyx blushed. The previous evening when everyone was going their separate ways to bed, he’d said goodbye to her, and she called him Danny. But it was close right?

“Thought not,” Namine said, feeling just a tiny smug sense of satisfaction. Then she turned to Robot Butler. “Do you know of any art supply stores nearby?”

“Of course,” he said with a smile before proceeding to lead them in the direction of the nearest art supply store. That was about when Namine noticed that he wasn’t using the conveyor sidewalk.

“Don’t you want to stand on here?” she asked, “I don’t know if robots get tired, but it’s got to be better than walking. Don’t you think?”

Robot Butler smiled at her.

“Thank you, but, no, thank you,” he said, “The moving sidewalks are permitted for non-robots. I erred earlier when I rode one with you and that gentleman moved me out of the way.”

Namine blinked then frowned.

“Okay, first of all, he wasn’t a gentleman, and, secondly, he didn’t move you out of the way. He pushed you, and no matter where you’re supposed to be, that’s not a reason to be a jerk to anyone.”

“It’s quite alright, Miss Namine,” he assured her with a smile that irked Namine more than it ought to have. He was just trying to reassure her, but she just couldn’t shake the fact that whether or not he could feel, he had been mistreated. Namine then opted to step off of the conveyor and walk next to him.

Namine’s sense that there was more to him than what he led others to believe was only strengthened in the art store. She only picked out a few pencils and a little paint set that wasn’t too pricey. Demyx just idly walked around the store, and she motioned to him that she was ready to go, but they needed to find Robot Butler first.

They went up and down the aisles, passing yarn, fabric, paint, and various other tools for crafting before they turned down an aisle lined with paintings, and there, standing stock still and staring very hard at a painting of what looked to be another world was Robot Butler.

“There you are,” Namine said, “We were looking for you. Are you ready to go?”

He didn’t respond. He just stood there. Staring.

Namine looked at the painting. It was a small landscape colored with mix of oranges and blues with plants that looked otherworldly and a sun that looked bright and ominous looming on the horizon.

Namine gently laid a hand on Robot Butler’s shoulder and he was startled out of his trance, turning to face her worried eyes.

“My apologies,” he said with a smile, “Do you have need of me?”

Namine wasn’t sure what to say. He’d just been staring at the painting. But something didn’t sit quite right with her about it. But there wasn’t inherently anything wrong. So she just put on a sweet smile.

“Do you want it?” she asked, and Robot Butler blinked at her.

“Want it?” he asked, and she nodded.

“You seem fond of it. Do you want me to get it for you?”

“Oh no,” he said, putting his hands up and waving them frantically, “I couldn’t ask you to do anything for me, much less ask you to buy me anything.”

“I insist,” Namine pressed, “Consider it a thank you for showing us the town.”

Namine took the painting down from the wall and began walking towards the checkout counter. She was more than certain now that there was more to Robot Butler than he seemed to be convinced of. You couldn’t want and not have some semblance of sentience even if it were artificial. Desires don’t just happen or get programmed. She would know. She didn’t study abroad at a school about the heart and mind for nothing.

“Have our things brought to the palace,” Robot Butler said to the robot manning the cashier as he input a code on the card reader. The robot behind the counter nodded and took their things to the back to be shipped out.

“Wow. That’s convenient,” Namine muttered, kind of relieved she wouldn’t be carrying around bags of supplies and music all day. “What should we do next?”

“Lunch,” Demyx said eagerly, “I’m starving.”

“May I recommend one of the nearby juke joints. They feature music as well as a pleasant dining experience,” Robot Butler said as the trio exited the shop.

“Lead the way, RB” Demyx said. Robot Butler chuckled. RB? How amusing.

They stopped at one of the nearby malt shops. It had black and white checkered floors, blue wallpaper, and flashing neon everywhere. There were several black and white pictures of people out and about enjoying the sun and dancing and a guitar that hung over the main attraction – a bright, flashy jukebox that was pumping out tunes that had half of the patrons dancing. The other half sat about mingling and talking, munching on burgers and fries and sipping milkshakes and soda pop out of tall glasses through red and white striped straws.

They sat at the little bar and ordered a few burgers to eat and chatted it up with Robot Butler about what they might want to do or explore next before Namine and Demyx got into a heated conversation about the music that was playing and how it would sound if the swing met a little more old school R&B.

And it was in the middle of this conversation that the jukebox began to skip on its record before it sputtered and died. The dancers on the floor who had long stopped dancing since the jukebox began its little tantrum let out a sad chorus of, “Aww.”

“Well there goes my theory on the blues in swing,” Namine muttered, but Demyx wasn’t so sure. Then he looked at her, a twinkle in his eye.

“I mean it doesn’t have to end there,” he said, summoning his sitar in a flash of light. Namine’s eyes widened, but she was quickly becoming excited at the prospect. Demyx strummed a few notes, creating a few water instruments, and he began playing a bit, matching the style and rhythm of the music before.

People were hesitant at first, but then started to get into the groove of his music. Namine grabbed the guitar off of the wall and began to play along, adding her sway of blues to the mix in a new fusion of music. She’d been spot on in her theory that the two weren’t so different in their genre and would meld together quite nicely.

It wasn’t long before they weren’t even paying attention to the people dancing to their music. They were just living in and enjoying the moment together like they did on Hollow Bastion for the few days of downtime they’d had. And Demyx would be lying if he said he didn’t miss playing music with her and talking about it.

It wasn’t until they had strummed the last few notes of their songs that they even acknowledged the crowd of people they’d been entertaining. The crowd met them with applause, and they took a bow. It was then that the music on the jukebox started up again, and an older gentleman walked up to them.

“Listen, kids,” he said, a gentle smile on his face, “I can’t thank you enough for keeping the music going while I got the jukebox up and running again.”

“Oh, you’re the owner?” Namine questioned.

“You bet I am. And as a thank you, how about you two share a milkshake on the house?”

Namine was about to protest, her face turning red at the prospect of sharing a milkshake with Demyx. Wasn’t that a bit romantic? And they weren’t a couple…. Not that she didn’t want to be, but still….

“That’d be great! Chocolate please!” Demyx cut in, already on board with the thought of dessert. The owner nodded before heading behind the bar to start making the shake. Namine looked at him with a look of surprise and light agitation.

“What?” Demyx shrugged, “Free dessert.”

That was really his only reason? Regardless, Namine took her seat at the bar next to him again and waited for the milkshake. A chocolate shake did sound nice. And it wasn’t like they had to drink out of it at the same time and gaze longingly into each other’s eyes. Maybe she was just overreacting.

The owner pushed a large shake with two striped straws sticking out on opposite sides between the two of them, and they resumed their conversation about music before it transitioned to art and Namine talking about how she could give Demyx a few lessons since he’d been dutifully teaching her guitar. And they spent the next ten minutes or so just talking about that, alternating between sipping the milkshake between them.

Then Namine included Robot Butler in their conversation, turning away from Demyx to look at him as she spoke. It felt like she had all but forgotten he was there for a moment, so absorbed in the topic of conversation she had just been having. She began to speak to him about art and art history since he’d seemed to enthralled by the painting in the store earlier.

She turned back to the milkshake briefly to take a sip, not realizing until her lips were already pursed around the straw that Demyx was in a similar position on the opposite side. She blushed prettily as she tried to casually sip at the milkshake since the sharing of this milkshake was not supposed to be awkward in any way given that Demyx didn’t know how she felt about him. But she found herself glancing around at anything that wasn’t him while she tried to be oh so casual about this thing that made her heart race.

And Demyx was kind of transfixed on her eyes again. He’d noticed the first time he’d been really, really close to her, when he’d hugged her back when she had given him a replacement sitar string, how blue her eyes were. And he was noticing it now. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t noticed ever again between then and now. Her eyes were always so blue. But especially when she talked about music and art and the mind and creativity and funny jokes she’d heard that she thought he might like to hear and now when the blue stood in stark contrast to her pink face.

Namine pulled away after a second that felt like an eternity, turning back to Robot Butler to try and remember where the conversation had left off. And Demyx blinked, no longer looking at the blue of her eyes. Was it warm in here?

The jukebox switched to some slower doowop songs for all the couples to slow dance to, and a strange feeling of being out of place amongst all the intimacy set in, and Demyx concluded that, yes, it was definitely too warm in here. He asked Namine if she was ready to head out, and she nodded eagerly, hopping out of her seat and leaving this moment and the nearly finished milkshake behind.

~

Axel’s day wasn’t quite so dramatic as yours or that of Namine or Demyx. It was pretty mellow actually. Eo wouldn’t be accompanying him for a good part of the day with the empress who had a press conference that afternoon. Most of his day was spent standing outside of her room as a guard while she prepared for said conference. So it was to say that his day was relatively dull.

All this because you wanted to help the empress save face in front of her crush. Next time he’d just tell you that she was a grown woman and could take her embarrassment on the chin like everyone else.

He hadn’t gone through any special training. Eo said that since this was only for about two or three days, he wouldn’t need it. And Axel had decided to forgo any training with a gun in favor of using his own weapons which he was just as skilled at using as any soldier was with a gun. He was also given two different communicators. One resembled a standard walkie-talkie that was only for hearing and relaying information verbally. The other resembled a small, compact disc that projected a hologram when communicating.

Eo radioed him twice that day via walkie-talkie to ensure things were still running smoothly. They were, and it was boring. He reported that she had yet to leave her room, and Eo said that it was to be expected. Whatever that meant.

When the empress finally emerged she as in a very fitted dress, lowcut like all of the dresses she wore had been. Her crown sat atop her head projecting the stars and planets as it had always done, and her hair was immaculately styled in a low bun so not a single strand was out of place.

She emerged quite confidently, her head held high, and she motioned for Axel to follow her. Unlike the press conference that had been held at the fair, this one would be held in the town square of the Castletown. It would be a short limo ride there.

But it was still an awkward ride.

Axel shifted in his seat, looking out of the window because he didn’t even know what to say to this woman. She seemed to be at a loss for words too. But she had to at least attempt didn’t she? A lady could only glance in her makeup compact to check her lipstick but so many times without saying anything to someone who was a close personal friend of the keyblade wielder helping her get her project off of the ground.

Cordiality was key.

“I trust you’re enjoying your stay here in Tomorrowland?” she said finally. Axel almost jumped at the sudden noise on the otherwise quiet ride to the town square.

“Oh, uh, yes, your highness,” he said stiffly, “The fair was fun.”

“Well I’m glad everything has met your standards. Your friends are also comfortable I trust? No complaints that they’re too nervous to voice, yes?”

Outside of Demyx’s obvious need to get close to the empress, Axel couldn’t think of anything.

“Nope. We’re all as content as can be,” he said, looking back out of the window, watching the houses pass by.

“Good. I’m glad to hear it,” she said, looking out of the window herself.

They both breathed a mild sigh of relief when the limo finally pulled to a stop. The reporters were already crowded around the podium where the empress was set to give her speech. Commander Bog was already awaiting them.

Axel stepped out of the limo first and saw the reporters all turning towards the vehicle. The empress stepped out of the limo just after him in time to see the herd of reporters practically stampeding towards her. She gasped.

Axel lifted a hand and snapped his fingers, and a small wall of fire appeared between the reporters who all stopped before they could reach the wall, Axel, and the empress. Once he was sure the reporters had stopped, he let the wall lower a bit. The reporters all stood stock still as they watched the wall recede just a bit.

“Let’s not act like wild animals,” Axel said in a cocky manner, a smirk on his face, “You’ll all get your turn to take a picture of the empress. Let’s all calmly walk to where the press conference is supposed to happen, yeah?”

Axel let the wall dissipate, and the empress giggled at the reporters’ stunned expressions as she followed Axel to the podium. Axel let a little fire trail next to them so the reporters wouldn’t get too bold until they were both safely behind the podium for the conference to begin.

The empress felt quite regal at such a display. She knew Axel was a decent soldier to have held his own against Captain Eo, but to have such a soldier directly protect her was a rather impressive show of power on her part and his. Maybe this wasn’t such a disastrous arrangement after all.

She stood straight as a rod, puffing out her chest, lifting her chin – the picture of stately and imperial beauty. She nodded for them to start the conference, and instantly there was clamoring for her to pick one of their raised hands, the sounds of clicking cameras the only other thing to be heard.

She picked one of the reporters in the front.

“Empress Nova, what can you tell us about the Horizons project?”

“Well,” she began, voice clear and strong, “Most of it is on a need-to-know basis that is strictly between myself and the military. All you need to know is that I have every confidence in my plan that this will work for the benefit of our people.”

She pointed to the next reporter.

“Empress, aren’t you nervous that only two people are able to go up there to take care of the alien problem when only eleven years ago, every guard up there was slaughtered?”

Axel felt himself close to flaring up at the mention of carnage and knowing you were up there about to face whatever beast had caused such chaos, but relaxed when he remembered that you were capable, and he was just a worry wart. Not that anyone could blame him considering the amount of trouble his friends usually found themselves in.

“Those guards, bless their poor souls and may they rest peacefully, didn’t have any of the proper training to handle the threat. But we have our esteemed captain of the guard – a well-known war hero – and a keyblade wielder who has matched him in combat on the job. I have no worries.”

Another reporter stepped forward, this one without waiting to be called on.

“Is this in part to avenge the family you lost that day?” he asked.

Empress paused a moment, and tears welled up in her eyes. She sniffled a little before answering, her voice wavering slightly.

“I can only pray their spirits find peace when that menace that took them from me is butchered the same way my family was.”

There were more reporters clambering over each other to be heard, but one caught her attention the best.

“Who are you wearing?” a reporter asked, taking note of her velvet, dark blue dress.

“DeBris by Roger Elizabeth,” she said, her tears drying rather quickly as she flashed a dazzling smile at the reporter who snapped a few pictures of her. And she stepped from behind the podium to be better photographed.

Axel quirked an eyebrow. Her tears had dried rather quickly for someone who was praying for the thing that killed her family to be butchered. But then again, she’d had eleven years to get over it. Even he didn’t feel quite so hurt thinking of the parents who’d abandoned him.

“Are you nervous the keyblade wielder has no experience?” another reporter asked, shouting to be heard over all the others.

“I have every confidence in her,” the empress said raising her head, “She bested our best soldier, but I knew she’d be perfect for the job the moment I saw her.”

“What else can you tell us about the keyblade wielder?”

Nova blinked. About you? She stammered just a bit.

“Uh, we don’t really know each other all that well, having met only a few days ago. But she and I are both attempting to be an example to women everywhere.”

“That would be quite the example,” another reporter remarked, “A rare balance of beauty and power that’s sure to shake things up.” He was scribbling something furiously on a notepad.

“That being said,” another reported interjected, “Do you think she’d be Future Time’s Magazine’s Woman of the Year?”

Nova let out a rather breathless laugh as she smiled, her eyes frantically darting around at the reporters who were all talking over each other.

“I can’t say for sure whether or not she’d be a candidate for Woman of the Year,” she replied, “I, myself, have never won, so I can’t even say I really know what the criteria for such a title would be.”

Reporters kept talking over each other in a haze that was beginning to overwhelm her until she couldn’t even tell where one reporters question began and another ended. And the only word she could ever pick out was your name. They were all asking about you, and she didn’t even know how to answer half of the questions. And the more they talked over each other, the more overwhelmed she became.

It was annoying.

Her mouth pressed into a hard line, her cold gaze flitting over the crowd as she tried to decide what to do next. But Commander Bog could see she was getting a little flustered and decided to take over, stepping up to the podium.

“Alright, folks,” he said, “That’s enough pestering the empress. From here on out, all further questions will be answered by me.”

The reporters took this in stride, switching their questions to him as the empress stormed off passed Axel, snapping out, “We’re leaving.” Axel followed after her and back into the limo.

They got back into the limo, Axel holding the door open for her. She plopped into a far seat, and he sat across from her, opting to look out the window again since she seemed a little too worked up to speak.

“I must apologize for my behavior,” she sighed after a few minutes of silence, “I was so overwhelmed by all of the questions. I hadn’t expected the reporters to be so… lively.”

“Uh, no, it’s fine. I get it,” Axel said back awkwardly. Though he wasn’t sure if she were listening. She still looked rather annoyed and was staring hard out the window. But he was content to pass the ride in silence.

~

You and Atom had been talking for hours. It had to be late at night, but, of course, you couldn’t tell from where you were in the dark of deep space on your way to Space Mountain.

You had to admit, as fake as they sounded, his stories and feats of heroism were no doubt impressive. It wasn’t a wonder why the empress would have wanted him to go on this mission considering. But then he mentioned something that seemed off.

“This is going to secure me the position of commander,” he said, a starry-eyed gaze on his face. You furrowed your brow in mild confusion.

“Wasn’t everything else you did a viable reason to make you commander?” you asked. If he was so impressive and had done so much for Tomorrowland, wouldn’t it make sense that he was pretty much destined to be the next commander?

“I know that I’m incredible,” he said, and you rolled your eyes but continued to listen anyway, “But Eo is also a viable candidate for the position. He’s just as beloved by the people as I am and just as capable a leader. When I was on the front lines, Eo was leading the troops back at home and acting as a center of morale for the people living there.”

“And the people on other worlds as well?” you asked, “It’s weird to think that you have to fight wars on other planets. I mean, your own between countries sure, but it must be a hassle to have to travel to another world entirely to fight a war.”

“We do what needs to be done for the good of the empire,” Atom said, brushing off the thought that it was a struggle or burden in any sense, “And when you’ve got multiple planets to protect, you do what needs to be done there as well. It’s hardly a hassle.”

“It’s also weird to think about having multiple worlds as one world. I’ve heard of binary worlds, but to have – how many is it – eight worlds joined to your own? It’s strange.”

“But wonderful,” Atom defended, “There such a wide exchange of culture, knowledge, and technology. Reaching out to other worlds to join our kingdoms and expand the empire is something we’ve done for the greater good.”

You vaguely remembered all you learned from the Hall of Emperors and the Spaceship Earth ride about keyblade wielders joining the worlds together. Then you thought of empress and how unappreciated she seemed to be.

“Atom can I ask you something about the empress?” you began. He nodded and waited for your question. A little flurry of emotion flickered over your face as you thought of how to word your inquiry.

“Do the people of Tomorrowland like the empress?”

“She’s a respected figure,” he said, blinking at her. It was not the direction he expected the conversation to go in. Then again, he wasn’t sure what she was going to ask about her. “Why do you ask?”

“Well because you’d never know she was a respected figure. She doesn’t seem to get much credit for leading the empire. When I was at the fair, I rode a ride and sat in on an attraction that didn’t really have much to say about her. I mean the ride showed her with her family, but there was no mention of her again after that. She didn’t even have an animatronic in the Hall of Emperors. And I have to know, is it because she’s a woman?”

Atom blinked. That’s what you thought. Then again… you weren’t from around there. You wouldn’t know.

“No, it has nothing to do with that. If the people had a problem with that, they would’ve had an uprising ages ago. No, it’s because she doesn’t do anything.”

“She doesn’t… do anything?” you asked. You weren’t sure you understood. Wasn’t she a ruler? She had to have done something. She’s been on the throne for well over ten years. She had to have done something in that time.

“Well not until now. Starting this renaissance was her idea, and it would be the first thing she’s actually done as the empress.”

You were still confused, but you felt for her. Maybe there just wasn’t much she could do?

“Well what does she do if not rule?” you asked with a light lilt to your voice. It was honestly a strange thought to think you sat on a throne that was in charge of nine worlds full of people to rule and you had absolutely nothing to do.”

“She sits on her throne all day and pampers herself,” Atom said with a shrug as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “She hasn’t signed off on any edicts or laws. She hardly has any political or military stances at all.”

“Well maybe it’s because she doesn’t have any training?” you offered, “I saw that she wasn’t the next keyblade wielder after her father. It was a younger brother wasn’t it?”

“It was. And maybe that is the reason she doesn’t do much, but she could have at least made a token attempt at being a ruler. She just puts all of her efforts into her looks. She behaves like a celebrity as opposed to a leader. With her it’s always about makeup, wardrobe, her figure. She even had some work done,” Atom says, placing his hands under his chest as if he was holding up a pair of breasts. You blinked, trying not to acknowledge that it was odd to think she was only concerned about her looks and not respect with the way she had spoken to you. It was stranger to think she’d needed to get implants and actually prioritized it over the welfare of her empire. But maybe she was trying to turn things around now since she was heading this mission. Atom continued.

“And don’t get me wrong,” he said, “She’s beautiful, but it’s hardly anything noteworthy when you consider what she could have been doing instead of focusing on herself. And I’m not having it.”

“Not even a little?” you asked, lightly teasing him, “I mean, you said she was beautiful.”

Atom blushed a little.

“Okay I’m gonna let you in on a little secret,” he said leaning in, and you leaned in a bit as well until the two of you were only a few inches apart from each other, “I think she might have a thing for me.”

You almost rolled your eyes at this. He wasn’t as oblivious as you’d previously thought, but he still wasn’t quite the sharpest knife in the drawer. You let him continue.

“But every time I think she might be getting a little flirtatious, I try to deflect it. I’m just not into that kind of woman.”

“Really? If not the beautiful, rich, powerful, and really nice, then what kind of woman would you be into? I mean, isn’t that like the criteria of everyone?”

Because she was still a nice person deep down from what you knew, even if she was a little into herself. She’d done nothing if not made a case for you to continue to represent what all women were capable of.

“I want someone who’s a bit more… assertive.”

Oh boy. You’d had this conversation before. You remembered talking to Axel about why you couldn’t really return Genki’s feelings despite knowing how he was in love with you. And so, you completely understood how Atom felt in that moment.

“I get that,” you said, “I’ve turned down a relationship for that reason. I had a friend on my home world who just wasn’t assertive enough for me, and so we never went passed being friends. I just need someone who’s a bit more self-assured and confident in themselves.”

Atom let out a little chuckle.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less from the Queen of the Horizons Project,” he said, voice warm as if your behavior were expected and like he had been familiar with you for more than a few days. It was almost a welcome tone were it not for what was apparently another nickname that you had netted before you had done anything to deserve it.

“Oh not you too,” you groaned, “I haven’t even finished the mission. We don’t even know if we can yet. Where’d this nickname come from?”

Atom just laughed at your exasperation.

“Do you not like the name?”

“I don’t even know what it’s supposed to mean. The Queen of the Renaissance sure, but the Horizons Project? What even is that?”

“It’s what we’ve titled the little mission. It also carries the double meaning of the potential expansion of the empire. We intend to explore other worlds once more, and, luck permitting, intend to continue our expansion of the empire and share and exchange cultures. You’ll have to forgive the nickname though. The soldiers were the ones who came up with that one when they realized how quickly your popularity was spreading. But shouldn’t you be used to this kind of treatment by now? I mean, look at all you’ve done.”

“Well I mean, I wasn’t praised for my accomplishments like I am here,” you noted, “But I’ve never done it for the titles or the accolades. I never needed any of that to do what I do.”

“You seem troubled,” Atom said when he noted that you looked conflicted about knowing this about yourself. You nodded a bit.

“One of my friends thinks I have a hero complex. She says that because I couldn’t save my world, I try to save everyone else. But that’s not wrong, is it?”

“Of course not! Why it’s something to be proud of if you ask me! You’re noble and brave! You should wear it like a badge of honor!” he said, “People have accused me of having a similar problem, but it isn’t so. My father was a great hero, and I want to be like him! And if that’s wrong then gosh darn it! I don’t want to be right! Pardon my use of the Lord’s name in vain.”

You blinked and giggled at his outburst. Was he so morally upright that saying gosh darn it was akin to swearing? He was ridiculous.

Atom blushed a bit, but he smiled at your laughter. You didn’t look quite so troubled now.

“But are you really sure you don’t have a problem with it?” you asked. If he could function properly with this complex, then maybe it wasn’t so bad. Maybe you could just tell Namine that she was being paranoid. You were fine. And this was fine.

“What? Am I too damn heroic?” he asked with a laugh, and you forced out a very strained laugh as well. Because it was not fine to hear your own words thrown back at you. But… he hadn’t said anything worrisome yet, so maybe it was just nothing. “Let me tell you something, ________. There are going to be people who say you have a problem, but you don’t listen to them. They don’t know what needs to be done, and you do. If you have to, then just push them out of your life, so you can focus on your goals.”

Okay that might be problematic.

“You just pushed away everyone who ever said something like that to you?” you asked, thinking that you didn’t want to push away any of your friends or family.

“I had to. I had goals in life, and when they didn’t want to support them, I had to let them go. You have to be ready to make sacrifices to achieve your dreams, ________.”

You nodded but shifted uncomfortably in your seat. You didn’t want to push your friends and family away. They were all you had at the end of the day. Maybe you did have a problem.

You then steered the conversation to less bothersome topics – anything and everything that didn’t allow you to think your apparently problematic complex would do. And the two of you continued talking for a few more hours until you got a call from Eo.

The phone used for calls was a curious thing. It sat among the command console like any other device, but it looked like a rotary phone. But the outdated design wasn’t the only oddity about it. No the strangest thing was that it had speakerphone available and projected holograms. It made you question why it was designed that way at all.

Eo’s visage stood before you in full uniform. He looked tired. It must have been late back on Tomorrowland. You would send Axel a text later to apologize for not giving him an update all day on how you were doing. He said he wouldn’t worry, but he probably was.

“Just calling in for an update and to make sure the two of you haven’t killed each other,” he said flashing the two of you a tired smile. You smiled back. “How’s the mission going?”

“It’s going as smooth as butter,” Atom said, feeling quite pleased with how well the two of you had managed to get along thus far considering your more than rocky start. Eo didn’t like that. He didn’t need you and Atom finding some strange common ground that he could woo you on.

“Actually I was talking to the Queen of all this,” Eo said with a smirk in your direction, knowing just how to push Atom’s buttons, “She is after all the leader of this mission.”

That was something Atom wasn’t having. He’d been gunning for this trip for the longest time, and it was going to push him forward in his goals. And he wouldn’t have you stepping all over that.

You waved him off with a dry smile, and Atom snorted. You were happy to think Atom was taking it all in good humor. But you were wrong, and he opened his mouth to prove it.

“Eo, not to point out the obvious, but she’s a girl,” he said, jabbing a thumb in your direction, not even noticing the frown that crossed your features, “She couldn’t lead her way out of a paper bag.”

Eo could not have planned out a better phrase to come out of Atom’s mouth if he tried. He gave a lightly disapproving look to Atom to keep up appearances.

“I don’t think she liked that,” Eo said, nodding his head in your direction. Atom took a glance at you. You were clearly displeased with his statement. But instead of backtracking like he ought to have, he took one look at your so very feminine emotional display and doubled down on his jack-assery.

“It’s probably because it’s that time of the month,” Atom said with a smug grin. There. Masculinity re-established, and you were firmly put into your place as the second in command. Eo’s eyebrows went up. He didn’t think Atom would go that far.

You stood from your seat, approaching him, and as he turned to look at you, your brought your hand firmly across his face in a very firm, very loud slap that could probably be heard in other parts of the ship where the mechanic and medic were located. Eo cringed at the sight. It looked like it hurt. A lot. And Atom turned a deep red, half from embarrassment and half from anger.

He spoke through clenched teeth.

“I would return the favor,” he said, “But I usually make it a point to not hit girls.”

“I wish you would have,” you snapped back, “If you had, then at least I’d know that despite your asinine remarks regarding my gender, you would have respected me enough to treat me as an equal.”

“I treated you like an equal in the arena!” he snapped back, standing from his seat and looming over you, but you were not intimidated. Atom would have been one of the shorter of your opponents, and you had every confidence that if it came to it, you could kick his ass.

“You didn’t see me as an equal, you bastard,” you retorted, “You wanted to teach me a lesson. And you couldn’t even do that! Because I won! And despite that, you can’t pull your head out of your ass far enough to show me some fucking respect!”

You didn’t wait for a response, because if he said one more stupid thing, you were going to hit him again – this time with your knee and in his balls – so you went to your designated room to cool off and ignore him for the rest of the evening or day or whatever time it was.

Atom watched you leave, face burning more with embarrassment than anything else now – especially since Eo had witnessed all of that.

“You may have crossed a line,” Eo said, feeling like he’d reached his goal but with more explosive results than intended. Atom was quiet for a moment before he let out a deep, beleaguered sigh and sunk into his seat.

“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, Eo,” Atom admitted, “Because I do respect her. I don’t think I’ve ever held this much respect for any woman before.”

Uh-oh. Eo didn’t like where this was going, but he let Atom continue regardless.

“She brings out feelings in me that I don’t fully understand.”

“You mean respect, right?” Eo guessed, not liking at all what he may actually be implying that he feels. Atom shook his head.

“No, well, yes but, I mean she’s so strong and self-reliant. And, if I’m being honest, she’s easy on the eyes too. She acts timid and girly at times, sure, but that’s not all there is to her. Not like with most of the women I’ve met. When she wants respect, she doesn’t just earn it. She commands it. And I’ve never met a single woman like that before.”

“What are you saying?” Eo asked, feeling a little sick to his stomach about where this was going.

“I’m saying I’m… infatuated with her,” Atom said, his blush now entirely because of how thinking of you made his heart race in a way he was not used to, “To the Nth degree.”

“Right,” Eo said, cringing just a bit at the admittance that his friend had developed a rather large crush on you, “Well I’ll tell the Commander that everything is going well. I’ve got to go.”

And with that Eo hung up. He’d wanted so badly for Atom not to wrap you around his finger that he hadn’t even considered the possibility that you might captivate Atom nearly as badly as he might have captivated you. That was bad.

Atom stared out at the space before him for a few quiet moments before he called someone he thought might be able to help him.

Axel blinked blearily into the darkness when he heard the phone next to his bed ringing at – what time was it? He looked at the clock. Three a.m. in the fucking morning. He picked up the phone. It was the military one he’d been issued, not his.

He answered and next to his bed appeared a hologram of Atom in a chair. He seemed to want to appear cool, calm, and collected, but he dropped the act upon seeing a shirtless Axel in bed.

“Good heavens, man!” Atom said, turning away from him, “Put a shirt on!”

Axel felt his annoyance flare up. It was late, and he wanted to go back to sleep. It was bad enough he hadn’t heard from you all day; he didn’t need the added stress of being woken up in the middle of the night to deal with Atom’s bullshit-ery.

“I’m in my room in my bed. I’ll dress how I want,” he retorted, “And I don’t want to hear it from the guy who was shoving his junk in my face in the locker room the other day.”

“Being in the locker room is different, and I didn’t shove anything in your face! Besides, in the bedroom it’s…,” Atom blushed, “Scandalous.”

Axel rolled his eyes. He did not have time for this.

“What do you want?” he asked bluntly.

“Someone’s cranky,” Atom sniffed.

“It’s three in the morning!”

“Really?” Atom said with a light laugh, “I can see the sun from where I am.”

“What do you want?” Axel snapped again, fully intending to hang up if he didn’t get on with it.

“It’s about ________,” he said finally. That got Axel’s attention. Were you alright? Hurt? You hadn’t talked to him all day. Maybe something was wrong. So wrong you couldn’t come tell him yourself because you were just so hurt or unconscious or disabled in some way, shape, or form.

“I need to know what makes her tick,” Atom finished.

Axel blinked.

“Uh, what?”

“What makes her tick? I keep sticking my foot in my mouth when it comes to her, and for the sake of this mission going smoothly, I need to know what goes on in that head of hers. And I figured if anyone would know something about her, it would be one of her friends.”

Well Axel could suppose that them getting along for the sake of the mission would be important too. He wanted the two of you to get along well enough to have each other’s back. Especially on Atom’s end. He didn’t want to know what kind of trouble you might get into if Atom wasn’t there looking out for you.

“Well she’s pretty bullheaded,” Axel admitted sheepishly, thinking back to his first real opinion of you and how much it hadn’t really changed since then. Now he just thought you were amazing and bullheaded.

“Yeah,” Atom said with a dry chuckle, “She sure is a spitfire.”

“Right,” Axel said slowly, “Just treat her like an equal, and you ought to be fine.”

“I understand that, but what is she like? Anything that will help smooth over any tension will do. For the sake of the mission of course.”

Axel thought for a moment. What were you like?

“She’s sweet,” Axel said after a moment, his face getting a little softer as he thought about you, “She’s usually nice to people right off the bat, but only if you respect her in turn. She gives what she gets. She’s fair. She carries a strong sense of nobility and justice – more often than not to a fault.”

“A fault?”

“She will run headfirst into danger without a second thought, and I’m only telling you that in the hopes that you’ll keep her from doing things without thinking.”

“Any interests we might be able to discuss casually?”

“Uh,” Axel began, thinking it a little odd, but not seeing any harm in small talk, “She loves to laugh, and she likes sweets. Music is always a plus, and I think that’s in part because she’s a dancer. So I don’t know. You could talk about music she might be into that exists on this world. Or maybe recommend a dessert store or something. Can I go to bed now?”

“But I thought we were bonding,” Atom whined, wanting to weasel just a bit more information out of him before he had to confront you tomorrow.

Axel just gave him a dry look and hung up on him.

“Rude,” Atom muttered before he got up and trudged to his own room to get some rest. It was late. He hadn’t even realized how much time had gone by when he was talking to you. Your stories were just so fascinating to him, and you were enraptured by his own tales as well – something that stroked his ego to no end.

He sat on his bed and gazed out of his window to where he could see in the distance, the sun peeking around the planet he called home. And it… reminded him of you.

He took out a tiny black notebook, filled to the brim with his writing, all a half-neat, half-messy scrawl of cursive. He flipped through page after page of poetry before he reached a blank one. Then he began to write. About how you were like the sun on the horizon. You’d given him a new perspective and shed new light on his world. You were luminous.

Axel also had you on his mind, but he preferred to be a little more personal than just writing poetry secretly in the comfort of his own room.

Your own little personal holo-phone began to ring, and you answered only to be met with the image of a shirtless Axel in bed. So basically it was nothing but a pleasant surprise.

“To what,” you purred, “Do I owe the pleasure?”

Axel felt a light blush rise to his cheeks but smirked back at her anyway. He was up for a little flirting if you were. He was exhausted, but he would be lying if he said, he wasn’t a little energized by your presence.

“You didn’t call or text today. I was a little worried.”

Your eyes widened in surprise.

“I’m sorry,” you said, “I meant to send you a text to let you know I was okay so far, but I forgot. Atom and I were talking all day, and I lost track of time.”

Axel tried not to let it grate on his nerves that you and Atom had been so wrapped up in each other getting along that you could talk all day with him and lose track of time. He tried not to think of the way Atom made you giggle after the arena battle. He didn’t want to be that jealous boyfriend.

Then again Atom had to call to ask how to not be on your bad side because apparently.

“So Atom get on your bad side today?” he asked, and you flinched.

“Did Eo tell you about that?” you asked.

“Actually,” Axel began, “Atom called me. He wanted to know what made you tick so he could stop getting on your bad side.”

“He could just show me a little respect and not call attention to my gender, and then maybe we could get along a little better.”

“What’d he say?”

“He said I couldn’t lead because I’m a girl then when I got upset about it, he said it was because it was that time of the month.”

Axel cringed, simultaneously feeling himself get a little angry. It was actually starting to grate on him how much Atom felt the need to drag you down. Not just because you were a female but because you were you, and Axel thought you were amazing.

“So what’d you do?” he asked.

“What do you mean what’d I do?” you asked, slightly defensive. Axel gave you a dry look.

“The last time he said you weren’t a capable warrior, you got into an arena battle with him. So what’d you do this time.”

You shrunk back a little, looking around at anywhere but Axel.

“I slapped him,” you admitted. Axel’s eyebrows rose up as he looked at you, but then he laughed a little bit.

“You’re… not mad?”

“Well, I mean I’m a little upset you have once again gotten into a physical altercation with the captain of the guard, but… I think he kind of had it coming this time.”

You laughed a little too. Then Axel looked you up and down. You were still in your silver jumpsuit and boots.

“So, uh, that outfit looks kinda nice on you. You wanna do a little dance for me?” he said with that cocky-ass, sexy-ass smirk you love-hated.

“Go to bed you horny asshole,” you laughed. He laughed too.

“Goodnight, ________,” he said, and you let out a little yawn.

“Goodnight, Axel. I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”

You both blew each other little kisses and hung up. You drifted off to bed not long after.

Notes:

See you all next week! Hopefully on Tuesday, but at the latest on Friday! But regardless you WILL be getting a chapter every week! Thanks to all those who gave kudos! They are much appreciated!

Obscure-ish References:

Horizons: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizons_(Epcot)?fbclid=IwAR02SiUg3oHyAALrmPHOm7LMUjq8cjQq9QUTtbbeyD3UP7hQGt-iXI5S6yc

Chapter 60: Alien Encounter

Summary:

You and Atom arrive at the station, and Axel, Eo, Bog, and the empress monitor your progress from Tomorrowland.

Notes:

It's a little late, but it's only a few minutes past Tuesday! So I don't feel so guilty! Huzzah! Even though I know I said Tuesday wouldn't be a guarantee in this arc. But have no fear if you look forward to updates. Because I'm still going to update at least once a week. I was just lucky to get this done before Christmas tomorrow because I'm gonna be swept in family time!

“Come here often, Beautiful?”

You jumped, turning to see a familiar face. Axel was leaning on the doorway of your mother’s shop on Spaceship Earth smirking at you.

You giggled before approaching him.

“I used to come here a lot actually,” you said, taking his hand, “This was my mother’s shop. Also didn’t I just see you? I could have sworn that I just got off of the phone with you,” you said with a laugh.

“I don’t know,” Axel said with a shrug, “I’m dreaming. For all I know, you’re just a made-up dream version of you.”

“I’ll text you and ask when I wake up then,” you said with a shrug.

“That sounds like a plan,” he said, looking around, “So you gonna show me around or what? This is your home isn’t it?”

Suddenly your face lit up, and you were overcome with a large wave of giddy emotion that Axel could still feel through you. And it, in turn, made him feel some excitement – albeit not as deeply as you felt it, but there was still the ghost of a feeling still there. You led him outside of your mother’s shop and turned him to look at it.

“My mom owns this store. She sells baked goods here, and I would sometimes deliver them for a little extra cash,” you said, “You will never find better muffins than what my mom bakes.”

Then you grabbed his hand and began to excitedly lead him down the street toward the park, weaving in and out of people milling about. You were practically running there with Axel trailing just behind you, chuckling to himself at how excited you were – kind of like a puppy.

You let go of his hand, stopping in the center of the park to look around at the trees all lining the walkways perfectly, sporting tiny white blossoms on their branches. You stood up on the lip of the fountain as you had always done when you were there and began to walk it as you looked around the park. Axel walked next to you, looking up at you now that you were up on the fountain’s edge.

“I used to come here with Genki a lot,” you said as you did a little twirl on the edge, “And I used to dance around the fountain. Sometimes Genki would have a hat, and we’d get little tips and get ice cream with it after. And over there,” you pointed to a spot in the distance, hopping down from the fountain and walking towards it, “Was where we would lay down and stare at the sky – well sky screens.”

“You know I got my keyblade in this park. And I had my first kiss over here,” you said as you continued to look around at this park you spent so much time in. Then you frowned. “That memory was kind of ruined though. We got attacked by heartless not long after that. This is all so weird.”

“What’s so weird about it?” Axel asked as he looked about the park.

“Well I never thought you’d get to see my home. Much less like this. I don’t dream of this place too much, and when I do,” you said, tone turning a bit sad and worried, “It’s usually the end of it all. And I’m never able to do anything about it.”

Axel could sense your worry, watching fear flit over your face.

“Hey,” he said before pulling you close into a comforting hug, “Don’t think about that okay? Everything’s fine. Let’s just keep enjoying the moment and talk about anything else.”

“Like what?” you said, holding him closer and feeling all warmth around you.

“Anything,” he said as he led you to one of the park benches, “Like… what’s your favorite thing to do when you’re bored?”

“Dance, of course,” you said with a light giggle. As if he didn’t know that about you.

“Yeah, I could have guessed,” he said, letting out a small laugh of his own, “How about a hobby besides dancing? Is there anything else you’re into?”

“Well I like watching bad movies and making fun of them. But especially with a friend. I used to have this ginormous collection of really bad b-movies back at home. And, of course, you know I like Fix-it Felix Jr. And, of course, I love waffles.”

“You’ve never said anything about waffles before,” Axel laughed.

“Oh. Well I should have because I really fucking love me some waffles. What about you? I don’t really know what you were like outside of the Organization stuff.”

“Well you know that I like Fix-it Felix Jr. But I like more arcade games than that. I used to go to the arcade everyday after school to play.”

“With your friends?”

“Well I didn’t really have too many friends. Most of them were people I’d hang around on occasion, but I was mostly with this one kid who I actually did call a friend. His name was Isa, and we were pretty close. Inseparable actually.”

“What happened? The Organization?”

“No, actually. And well yeah kinda. There was that castle back in Hollow Bastion that belonged to Ansem the Wise, and I told you I used to sneak in there. Well Isa used to sneak in with me, and we met this girl. She was trapped below the castle. We befriended her, and we were going to try and help get her out. So we were going to become Ansem the Wise’s apprentices to be able to get to her. But… we didn’t know what we were getting into. Next thing we know, we don’t have hearts and have been in the Organization trying to get them back for ten years.”

“Oh, Axel,” you said, placing a hand over his. He smiled at you. You were giving him that look he’d become so accustomed to in the beginning of your friendship.

“It’s not so bad. I know that things will go back to the way they were. Somehow. Someday. I just hope it doesn’t kill him before it does.”

“Tell me more about your home. You never told me much about your life in Hollow Bastion.”

“Well it isn’t the happiest story. Promise me you won’t stop to ask if I’m alright. Because I have come to grips with my past a long time ago, so I’m not bothered by talking by it.”

You pursed your lips, but if he was really alright with it…. You nodded.

“Okay,” he said, “I was an orphan.”

He heard your sharp intake of breath, and almost chuckled at the deep regret you held in your face now that you could not comfort him about his past.

“My father left, but as it turns out, he wasn’t really my dad. So I guess I can’t really blame him for leaving when he knew I wasn’t his kid. The hair and the eyes didn’t match up. I didn’t look anything like him or my mother. Mom dropped me off at the orphanage not long after, and I haven’t seen or heard from her since. But I’m over it. I don’t care anymore.”

“Axel,” you whined out.

“Nope. You said you wouldn’t do it.” He smirked at the mildly indignant look you gave him. You were really adorable to him sometimes. “So if you want to focus on something that isn’t my tragic backstory, then that’s fine. But I won’t be taking any questions about the sad parts of my life.”

You huffed, and Axel chuckled at you.

“Fine then,” you said then thought for a moment, “What’s your favorite animal?”

“Pandas,” he said. You blinked. You had seen those before. They were carved on the Tree of Life in animal kingdom and closely resembled a bear that existed in your world – thought your version had tiny horns on its head.

“Really?’ you asked.

“What’s wrong with that?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow at you.

“Nothing,” you said quickly, “It’s just… they’re so cute! I thought you were going to pick something different like a lizard or snakes or spiders.”

“I like cute things, so sue me,” he said with a smirk and a roll of his eyes. You giggled. “I do like tarantulas though. Those are pretty cool.” You wrinkled your nose.

“Ugh, no gross,” you refuted, and he laughed. Tarantulas were a spider on your world as well, and you were not fond of them at all. They freaked you out a little actually – but a lot of insects and arachnids were not your favorites.

“And you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you,” he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “What’s your favorite animal?”

“A chimera,” you said proudly, “It’s a mix of a few animals on other worlds. Do you remember me asking about the animals on Animal Kingdom when we were going up the tree? It’s a combo of a lion, snake, and goat. But they look so cool! It’s like really intimidating until the goat bleats for any reason. I don’t care who you are, you will not be intimidated if you hear a badass roar, a menacing hiss, and then a goat scream.”

“That…,” Axel was perplexed but amused, “That sounds highly impractical.”

“Actually it’s a pretty efficient animal though. It produces milk, eggs, and meat. It tastes really good actually. I have never had bacon from any animal except giant boars that tastes so good.”

“I forgot none of the animals on your world are real,” he said, laughing when you frowned at him and his dismissal of your world which, to anyone else, would seem entirely fictional.

“You know your animals don’t entirely make sense to me either. None of your unicorns have horns, and your griffins are two separate animals.” Axel just laughed, and you giggled along with him.

Then you leaned on him and he wrapped his arm around you.

“I want to keep getting to know you,” you said after a moment, “I want to know just about everything about you.”

“Like what?”

“Nope. It’s my turn to ask you a question,” you said, reaching up and booping him on the nose. He frowned a little, and you just giggled. “What is…,” you thought for a moment, “Your favorite –”

~

“________,” Atom said, giving your shoulder a light shake, “Up and Atom as they say.”

Oh yes, Atom felt very clever for that little joke. You grumbled in your sleep, snuggling deeper into the covers so you could stay in your dream just a little longer and be with Axel.

“We’re almost to the station, ________,” Atom said as he continued to give you little nudges. You cracked an eye open to glare at him. You may have just woken up, but you had not forgotten what your last interaction had been like.

Atom felt a little like he was looking into the eyes of a lion in that moment as you turned to look at him, finally sitting up in your bed. He swallowed a lump in his throat.

“I, um,” he stammered as you continued to look at him with cold, calculative eyes. What were you calculating? A plan of attack? A snarky remark? Both? “I wanted to apologize for my behavior yesterday.”

Your eyebrows rose, and that alone took away some of the edge of your gaze, but you were still watching him closely and carefully, and it made Atom feel just a tad vulnerable.

“You were right. You are just as capable a warrior and leader as any man. You have more than proven yourself. I let my ego get in the way of the mission, and by extension, offended you. I do hold respect for you, and I will attempt to my best effort to remember to show that to you.”

Your gaze had been softening as he spoke until you were looking at him rather neutrally. But it was a much more welcome expression.

“And I brought you this,” he said holding out two little packets in his hand, “A dehydrated donut. I figured you might like sweets. Not because you’re a girl! I just, I, uh –,” Atom stammered for an explanation that wasn’t, “I spoke to your friend to get a read on you.”

But then you laughed, and he blushed. You were laughing that’s good.

“I also got you dehydrated milk product,” he said as you took the packets from him.

“Refreshing,” you said sarcastically.

“I’m glad you think so,” Atom said, and you let out another little trill of laughter. He smiled, pleased. That was when the speaker overhead made the announcement, the mechanic’s voice filling the room.

“We’ll be docking in the loading bay soon,” he said, “I suggest if there are any other preparations that need to be made, you do them now, and you do them quick.”

The announcement ended with a beep, and it was just you and Atom again. He cleared his throat as you began to get up from the bed.

“I’ll leave you to your morning preparations,” he said as he left your room. He paused outside your door once it had shut behind him to calm his nerves. He liked your laugh more than he wanted to admit. It almost made him… giddy.

Meanwhile back in Tomorrowland, Axel also had to wake up. Though he wondered what it was you were going to ask him. He sent you a quick text. And if you really were dreaming with him, then you’d know what he was talking about.

Axel: My favorite what?

He made quick work of his morning routine before meeting up with Eo who was waiting outside of Empress Nova’s room. He nodded at him, looking a tad tired.

“Long night?” Axel asked.

“I had to stay up to ask for an update on Atom and ________’s mission. It’s going alright from what I know, but I think Atom pissed her off again,” he said around a yawn.

“Oh, yeah, I know about that,” Axel said as he walked up to him.

“________ called you?” Eo asked, thinking it would be ideal if Atom just further drove you into the arms of your boyfriend.

“Actually Atom did,” he said, “He wanted to know how not to get on her bad side.”

Eo stiffened. He didn’t think Atom would actually try hard to smooth things over with you. In the past whenever he made a mistake, he would double down on it, trying to find any solution other than backtracking to fix the mistake that might temporarily patch things up. He was stubborn like that.

“What’d you tell him?” Eo asked, eyeing Axel who wasn’t oblivious to the fact that he was being observed at the moment. After all, reading people was his own specialty.

“Just to treat her nice, and if they really need to have a conversation that music is a safe topic. Why?” he asked slowly as he closely watched for any changes in Eo’s expression.

“Oh, no reason,” he said with a shrug, “I’m just a bit nosy is all. Atom usually doesn’t have problems with women, so this must be a rather frustrating moment in his life.”

“Frustrating?” Axel asked, picking up exactly where Eo wanted him too. Eo was also very good at reading people. And getting them to respond and react.

“Something of a challenge. I don’t know if you noticed,” Eo said with a light smile as if talking to an old friend, “But ________ doesn’t exactly match the normal standard of women around here. She’s a bit….”

“Headstrong?”

“Something like that. Atom might describe it as being something else. Maybe… that she’s….”

“A spitfire?” Axel guessed, using Atom’s word from the previous evening and feeling a weird creeping sensation go up his spine. He really didn’t want to be a jealous boyfriend who flew off the handle at every potential man that may or may not show interest in you. But Eo had just described Atom as having no trouble with women and you as something that would be… intriguing to Atom as much as frustrating.

“Yeah, that’d be one way to describe her, I suppose.”

That was about when the empress emerged from her chambers, dressed as impeccably as she was the day before, and Axel and Eo dropped their conversation to follow her silently as she got into the limo to be driven to the military base.

One could tell she was rather on edge, and, honestly, so was Axel. It wasn’t just from his conversation with Eo, though that certainly wasn’t helping. You were supposed to reach the space station today. That meant the moment of truth was almost at hand.

They entered the base, and Commander Bog was there to meet them.

“Been waiting for you a bit,” he commented as he began to lead them down the halls.

“Yes, well, I’m a bit on edge this morning,” Nova replied, “Everything is riding on them being able to complete this mission.”

“Well I’ve every confidence in them,” Bog replied, “They’re capable. I’d like to think that our worst-case scenario is just them coming back with their tails tucked between their legs. And, of course, our best case is that they succeed with little to no injury sustained.”

“The latter is preferable,” she remarked as they entered a room that was full of people. There were rows upon rows of computers and screens, all of them manned with people working on this mission. In the center of the room was a raised platform with a seating area that was obviously for the people in charge and a small panel with only a few buttons on it and a microphone. At the front of the room was a large cluster of screens, all of them displaying different areas in the space station. A lot of them were shrouded in darkness because the power was out, but aside from that, it was still and eerie.

They walked up to the raised platform, and Nova and Bog took a seat while Eo and Atom stood nearby on the platform. It was just as well; Axel couldn’t sit while he felt unease. It was better now that he knew there was a whole team monitoring the mission, but he still has his own anxieties. And more than anything, he wished he could pace the room to work off some of the energy and distract himself a bit.

“At ease, son,” Bog said as he looked up at Axel, “I know you’re worried about your friend. She’ll be just fine. We’ve got a whole team of people here who will make sure she and Atom come home safe.”

Axel gave a quick, short nod. The words didn’t put him at ease, but the reassurance was nice to hear anyway. He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.

That was when Atom’s voice buzzed into the room via radio. He was calling from the ship.

“This is Captain Atom to Mission Control,” he spoke, “Come in Mission Control.”

Bog stood from his seat, approaching the microphone and pressing a button as he spoke.

“This is Commander Bog in Mission Control. We hear you loud and clear.”

“Understood, Commander. We are preparing to dock at Star Port 7-5, Loading Bay WEDway*. We have visual of the station. All clear.”

“Understood. Proceed to dock, and report on findings upon boarding.”

“Yes, sir, Commander Bog. Have there been any readings on the station or signs of life?”

Bog looked to one of the scientists sitting at his computer, sweating as he carefully monitored the screen in front of him, flipping through several other screens every few seconds or so.

“Mr. Briggs,” he said, tone authoritative, and the young man jumped, having been snapped out of his concentration before his pale, gray eyes looked up at the commander

“Yes, sir,” he responded, dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief.

“Have you seen anything on the screens or received word from anyone else about the alien’s whereabouts?”

“We’ve been monitoring the station for a few days now. We’ve picked up no heat signatures for it or seen any movement yet. We assume that it’s either died already or in some sort of hibernation.”

The commander gave a brief nod before he went back to the microphone to respond to Atom.

“That’s a negative, Captain. No signs of life have made themselves apparent. We may be looking at a sleeping or dead alien at this rate.”

“Good, then I’ll be home in time for dinner,” Atom quipped, and a small round of laughter went around the room, “We’re prepared to dock. Updates are soon to come, sir.”

The Commander sat back down after a moment when it was clear nothing else was going to be said, and they waited patiently to hear when the ship had docked and the two of you had finally entered the space station. You had donned your armor, and Atom was still wearing his jumpsuit version of armor though this time complete with a glass helmet attached to a small oxygen tank. And the both of you had on a small earpiece so the two of you could hear each other and communicate with the base if need be in the vacuum of space. You both also had a small clip attached to your hips with a button that allowed you to switch between communicating with each other and with the base.

With no gravity, you were using your glider and Atom his jet pack to move around the station. At first you weren’t really sure there would be room for your glider and that you’d be bouncing from wall to wall to move, but the station was absolutely enormous. You had room for ten gliders. Though you wouldn’t be going very fast. It was much too dark here. There were only a few emergency lights that still miraculously worked, and you had to wonder how energy efficient bulbs had to be to be able to run for years.

What met you in the first room was a horrifying sight. There were only a few bodies there that you could see. They were perfectly preserved, starved to death it look like. Some of the corpses looked to be half eaten. Had these people really been driven to cannibalism to survive?

Well they couldn’t leave. And you had to assume the large metal door separating this room from the next was the only reason the alien hadn’t gotten to them. But the order to shut down the station had ensured that they wouldn’t survive.

You hadn’t even realized that you were frozen in your spot, staring at them until Atom came over to you.

“If it’s too much,” he began, placing a hand gently on your shoulder, “Then you don’t have to come with me.”

At first you thought he might be slipping back into that women are weaker mentality, but then you looked at him and saw genuine concern in his eyes. He wasn’t making a jab at you or your emotions.

“I’m fine,” you said. Then you let out a breathless, humorless laugh, “You would think I’d be used to this kind of thing by now with all the death I’ve seen in life.”

“It’s not supposed to get easier,” Atom soothed, “Death happens, but no one with a heart as noble as yours would ever get used to it. It’s that little bit of a heroic complex you’ve got.”

You nodded silently, opting not to linger on any more bodies you would find inside. The two of you pressed on after manually opening the sliding metal doors and proceeding down a long hallway.

There were more bodies. They floated around – empty husks suspended in the space in front of you, all perfectly preserved in the vacuum of space, eyes wide with horror but unseeing. They looked drained with a single hole puncture that was usually located around the neck, but you saw it a few other places as well. You could assume that was the alien’s handiwork.

You weren’t sure how worried that made you. You were wearing armor, but how strong was the alien? Did it matter? You weren’t going to take any chances with it, that was for damn sure.

After the loading bay was a common area you assumed was for people and passengers waiting to board the area you just left. More bodies suspended in space.

“This is where we’ll have to split up,” Atom said, turning to you.

“Split up?” you asked as you turned to face him.

“Yeah, that always works out in the movies,” a new voice said that caused the two of you to jump and turn, weapons at the ready towards… a robot? He was a red color with the top of his head resembling something like a bike helmet. He was also bolted to the floor. Hardly a threat. You both lowered your weapons.

“I beg your pardon?” Atom said to him.

“Oh you know in the movies,” the robot continued in a sarcastic tone of voice, “When the people split up, everyone lives to see the next day perfectly happy and intact and not a victim of some horrible attack. You should totally do that. Best plan. Ten out of ten. Would try it myself.”

You shuffled from foot to foot. He had a point. You couldn’t remember a single movie that started off like this one where splitting up ended up well for everyone involved.

You took a few tentative steps towards the robot.

“Who are you?” you asked as you observed him, and he looked back at you with dimly lit eyes.

“I am a techno-botic oratorical mechanism called Simulated Intelligence Robotics. You may call me, S.I.R. Tell me, sweetheart,” he said, looking at you critically, “Did it really only take them eleven years to remember old S.I.R. was still up here?”

“To be completely honest,” you said, feeling guilty over this situation of which you had no control, “I didn’t even know there was anybody here at all. I’m sorry.”

He frowned at you, looking angry. Then he looked put off, like he realized anger at you was no good. There was no point to it.

“Figures,” he said, throwing his hands up, “Humans don’t give a rat’s ass about a robot. You’re all too caught up in your own dramas aren’t you?”

“Watch it,” Atom warned, not liking at all how the robot was speaking to you. But you felt empathy of all things. You yourself had been stranded in a strange environment. True you’d only been isolated for a month with a dragon who couldn’t speak for company, but you understood crippling loneliness. You couldn’t imagine what it would have been like if you hadn’t had Figment to keep you sane. Now imagine being trapped in the quiet of space for eleven years with your only company being a hostile alien and your last memories of any contact with other forms of life were everyone in the space station dying.

“I’m sorry they forgot about you,” you said lowly, “That must have been awful.”

“Oh I don’t know,” he said, “The alien was great company for a while. All the hissing and skittering along the walls. We had great fun together. It would enter the room, and I’d go quiet so it wouldn’t spit its powerful acids at me and destroy any semblance of consciousness I had. We had a great working relationship, I think.”

“________, we have a mission to complete,” Atom said, regaining your attention. You looked back at him then back to S.I.R.

“Excuse me,” you said before you went back over to Atom. S.I.R. almost laughed. Why did you feel the need to excuse yourself? So you wouldn’t offend him? Stupid girl.

“Now when I mentioned splitting up, I said it because once the generator is on, we’ll only have a about an hour maybe two if we’re lucky before it shuts down again. It’s pretty old, and it was only meant to sustain the station long enough to empty it out if anything were to happen because something like that runs on a lot of power. So once it’s on, we have a minimum of an hour to find the alien and take it out before we’re running blind. I’m going to set an alarm for when the generator is running. If we can’t beat the alien ten minutes before the power is about to go, we’re doing a full retreat. No pausing. No heroics. Retreat.”

You nodded. Understanding.

“You think it’s still alive?” S.I.R. asked, and you turned back towards him.

“You don’t? I thought you said it would skitter around a lot,” you replied, raising your eyebrows, “Has it died? Do you think it escaped?”

“Escaped? No,” S.I.R. replied, “Nothing can get in or out of here without some semblance of intelligence, which appears you two have if you’ve managed to get this far. But died of starvation? Maybe. It was much more active the first few months it was here, but I haven’t seen it since.”

“As in you can’t see it? Or it just hasn’t been around?” you pressed.

“Can’t see it. My batteries have been slowly dying over the course of the years. I had to adapt to survive. Though only God would know why, being up here with nothing but that thing for comfort.”

“You should come back with us,” you said.

“Sweetheart, I understand that humans may not be so advanced as machines, but, surely, you must have noticed that I’m bolted to the floor.”

You furrowed your brow.

“We’ll figure something out,” you said soundly, absolutely sounding like you were not budging on this decision. But what else could you do?

“If we have time,” Atom interjected, and you frowned just a bit. You very well could have time. Even if it were just going back to Tomorrowland and saying to send someone to get him, that would have been preferable.

“We’ll figure something out,” you repeated, and Atom gave you a stern look but said nothing. He let out a little a short sigh then nodded.

“Fine,” he said, “But we have to move. Now. Don’t forget that’s there’s a whole world waiting for us to complete this mission.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” you replied with a clipped tone, “But eleven years in isolation is a different form of torture don’t you think?”

“No, I understand that. You’re being a hero again.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with that!”

“Well you’re getting too distracted by a robot!”

“It’s a person!”

“It’s simulated intelligence!”

“It has enough intelligence to be bitter about being abandoned, and that’s enough for me!”

“Just kiss already!” S.I.R. snapped. Atom turned the deepest shade of red you’d seen yet – which had to have been pretty damn red for you to be able to see it in such dim lighting – and you quickly turned from Atom to face S.I.R. He wasn’t smiling, but you could feel the amusement rolling off of him in waves.

You opened then closed your mouth then opened and closed it again, and you were thankful S.I.R. couldn’t see your floundering from beneath the helmet of your armor. You didn’t know what to say. So you huffed, crossing your arms and feeling a bit put off, before deciding your next move.

“Wait here,” you bit out, “We’ll figure out what to do when we come back. But I don’t want to leave you behind.”

S.I.R. didn’t say anything. He just watched as you turned back to Atom.

“Where are we going first?” you said, noticing that Atom’s face was still rather red. He cleared his throat, trying to compose himself, and you tried not to be so amused that he was this flustered.

“You can take on the gravity and the lights. I imagine it won’t take you too long to find those. I’ll find the generator and the oxygen. They’re on opposite sides of the station, so it’ll take us half the time to activate them all than it would if we had gone together. If anything happens don’t hesitate to radio me.”

You nodded before turning to go your separate ways. You gave one last look towards S.I.R. before moving into the next room.

You were unnerved to say the least, having to maneuver between floating corpses in almost complete darkness. It was akin to some of the nightmares you’d had, only they had the extra terror of being faces of people you knew. These were strangers. But that didn’t make you feel any less bad about what had become of them.

“You know, I was being sarcastic when I said splitting up was a good idea,” S.I.R. said, effectively startling you nearly to the point of screaming. Too many of your nightmares also featured the corpses looking at you or speaking to you, blaming you for something, accusing you of failure. True, nothing that S.I.R. had said was something that they would say, but the voice out of nowhere was certainly a shock.

You turned to face him, but, of course, he couldn’t see your anger beneath your helmet.

“What are you doing here?” you questioned, as you regained your composure, your heart still beating a mile a minute, “I thought you were bolted to the floor!”

“Funny thing about that,” he said gesturing down to his body, which you realized was still bolted to the floor, “There are multiple robots of me all over the space station. After all, my primary function was to be a well of information for the weary traveler having trouble navigating the station. And there was a time where I could transfer all of my consciousness to each one at the exact same time and be everywhere at once. But, once again, in the effort of conserving energy, I’ve limited myself to just one at a time.”

“That must be pretty frustrating.”

“Oh you have no idea,” he said with a flippant wave of his hand, “But it isn’t like there’s anything to keep tabs on anymore. These aren’t exactly a lively bunch.” He gestured to the floating corpses.

“You’re kinda dark,” you said, feeling mildly put off by his disregard of the dead.

“I’ve been in this accursed space station for over a decade with nothing but them and their killer. I don’t care. I will voice my opinion however I please.”

“How are you even speaking to me anyway?” you asked, “My earpiece should only be able to pick up on Atom’s and the base back in Tomorrowland.”

“Yes, but it’s still a radio. That means it has a signal I can reach to communicate with you. Moving my mouth is just a formality. It’d be much creepier otherwise.”

“Am I supposed to flattered you’ve opted not to be creepy about it? You’ve obviously got no qualms about disregarding life and the emotions of someone who isn’t a robot.”

He let out a single, sarcastic laugh.

“Be flattered if you want,” he said, “I don’t care how you take it, but it isn’t like I bear you any ill will. And me going out of my way not to frighten you too much doesn’t need to be taken as a gesture of good will.”

You paused.

“Is that you being nice?”

“No, honey. I’m not being nice.”

You smiled. He couldn’t see it though.

“I think you’re lonely, and you want a little company. But you don’t know how to be nice anymore. And this is you being nice.”

S.I.R. folded his arms, rolling the dim lights of his eyes in annoyance at your behavior.

“Take it how you want,” he said, seeming to dismiss you with his hand. You shrugged. That was about as much of a confession as you were going to get out of him. He was kind of an ass, but you were going to chalk it up to crippling loneliness. From what you knew, it could change a person. And he was at least trying to make an effort to be nice to you in his own ass-y way.

You looked around at the station, noticing that there were torn and tattered decorations everywhere. You remember Commander Bog had mentioned that there was always some form of celebration when a new world was getting its own section of space station, so you had to assume that these were the remains of that celebration.

There were a multitude of banners labeled, “X-S Tech,” lying all over the place. You paused every now and again to assess your surroundings. It was different to look at a blueprint that was a decent map of the overhead view, but it was a bit more confusing to actually be in the building where so many things that were not on the map now were. It made it a bit difficult to navigate. Though you had gone over that blueprint quite a few times. You wondered if Atom was having as much trouble as you.

“There was a lot of hubbub over this X-S place, huh?” you asked S.I.R. There was a brief silence as you waited for a reply. Or maybe he didn’t want to talk to you?

“Well it was the first world Tomorrowland had encountered with just as much advanced technology as their own,” he finally replied, “Even down to the simulated intelligence. I was one of theirs.”

“You’re from Planet X-S?” you asked as you moved to the next room. S.I.R. popped up in the next robot of himself.

“More or less,” he answered, “I was designed and created by them, but my active existence began here on the station. As you can imagine, I was a bit more optimistic back then – caught up in the fun and happiness of the moment I guess. So as you can imagine, that didn’t last long.”

“So you only got to exist for like a few hours?”

“A few days actually,” he said, glancing around at the room like it’s been a while since he’d been there, “I was installed about two days before the royal family went to Planet X-S to sign the last of the treaty papers. And everything was a wonderfully joyous celebration – all rainbows and kitten kisses. Then, as I’m sure you know, things went south on the royal family’s return trip. Things were a bit more somber after that.”

“Those must be a rather jarring first few moments of life,” you remarked, imagining how someone’s worldview can come crashing down around them within a matter of days.

“It’s not as jarring as you might think. I don’t have much life to really compare these few events to. My first few days of life were spent serving man and watching them celebrate, ignored for the most part outside of doing my job but content. There wasn’t much to my life to appreciate. Of course, then I learned the true meaning of the word: alone. And for a while, being ignored outside of answering a few questions seemed like a very good thing to me. Then when I realized no one was coming to get me, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to see you people again. It wasn’t like your kind ever did me any favors.”

“My kind?”

“You know. Organic, carbon-based lifeforms. You flesh-ies.”

“That’s kind of racist.”

“And yet none of you has given me a reason to put more faith in you. They left me here knowing full well what was going on and that I was alone and in danger.”

“I’m not sure that’s a fair point,” you defended, “They left everyone here. You were just the only one not killed in the chaos. And I’m not saying that makes your situation any better. But give them more credit. They did what they believed they had to.”

“Would you have done the same thing?” he asked, the lights of his eyes narrowing as they watched you carefully for an answer. His gaze made you feel like he could see through your armor, and you felt like a child lying to a parent – despite the fact that you had no intention of lying to him.

“I don’t know what I would have done. If they had let people go, the alien might have gotten to some other planet. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to get everyone safely off of the station. If they had known you were here, I’m sure they would have tried to get here and take care of the alien sooner.”

S.I.R. believed you, but he couldn’t kick the feeling that they not likely would have come back just for him. He was pretty sure humans didn’t function on that level of dedication. Funding an entire space mission for one person was a bit much for anyone. Even him. But that didn’t quell his cynicism.

He moved on to another topic.

“If you’re looking for the gravity,” he began, looking around the room but not at you, “It’ll be quicker if you take the hall on the left. It’ll still take a while to get there, but it ought to cut about ten minutes out of your trip.”

“Thank you,” you said, blinking in mild surprise. This was a much nicer version of S.I.R.

The two of you continued from room to room with S.I.R. occasionally giving you directions to keep you on the shortest path to the gravity. You’d been flying for close to thirty minutes before you heard from Atom. His voice caused you to jump, and S.I.R. would be lying if he said that he didn’t get the slightest bit startled, a bit of annoyance coursing through his circuits.

“________, I found the generator. This is Atom by the way,” he said directly into your earpiece.

“Well that’s a relief,” you said, “I thought it might of have been the other person who sounds just like you who happened to be looking for the generator in the station. Thanks for clearing that up for me.”

Atom let out a snort. Funny. He usually reacted to your wit with fluster-ment. But maybe he was getting used to you. S.I.R. also found your comment amusing, that it didn’t annoy Atom, not so much.

He wasn’t as fond of him as of you. You were at least bearable and not too horribly dull for the first contact with sentience he’s had in over a decade.

Had there been air for the sound to travel through, there would have been a low hum you could hear through the station as the power began to flow back through it. You could, however, hear the smallest amount of static in your earpiece now. Something on the station must have been causing some form of interference.

A few more emergency lights turned on, and the ones that had already been on, brightened just a bit. But it was still incredibly dim in the room with large patches of shadow still coating many areas of the station you were in.

You continued flying, now with more urgency now that you knew you only had about an hour to reach your destination and find the alien. Where would you and Atom meet anyway when you had done your job? Were the two of you going to remain separate or meet up to find the alien yourselves?

“So how long have the two of you been an item?” S.I.R. asked, breaking your train of thought, “I know my contact with flesh-ies is limited, but I’m certain you could do better. Though I suppose in the looks department, he’s not terribly off-putting.”

“You don’t even know him,” you defended, “And we’re not together! I barely know him.”

“But you’re on a dangerous mission to defeat an alien together? Seems like something you’d trust to two people with a strong sense of comraderie. Not strangers.”

“Well we’re not total strangers,” you said, “I mean, we met a few days ago. I’m not from this world. I’m from a totally different one.”

“Just passing through when all of a sudden you decided to join their military?”

You let out a tiny laugh.

“I may have a problem with trying to solve everyone’s problems. I wasn’t even their first choice. Oddly enough, they were going to pick someone who was actually in their military until I volunteered my own personal services.”

Back in the military base, the scientists were working on the connection to both Atom and your earpieces. There was a small amount of static heard over the speakers, and they needed to ensure this wouldn’t get any worse if they needed to communicate. It wasn’t quite a reason to panic just yet, but it was worrisome, nonetheless.

It set Axel just a bit more on edge. It didn’t help that for all of the screens before them, their black and white pictures meant that things that were dim for you were even dimmer for those viewing the screens in the base. And large patches of shadow that even you couldn’t see in may as well have been holes in reality for how dark they appeared on the screen.

You reached the gravity only a few minutes later in a smaller maintenance area before radioing Atom that you had found it so he wouldn’t be falling from the ceiling or wherever he was when you turned it back on – it did provide an amusing thought though. One S.I.R. may have voiced himself before you waved him off with a giggle.

You were grateful, however, when you couldn’t hear the thud of all of the bodies hitting the floor. Though you could certainly feel the vibration through the floor as they did. You hopped off of your glider.

“Why are these controls on different sides of the station anyway?” you asked as you began to walk over to the light switch – it ought to have been in the next room over if you remembered the blueprints correctly – and noting that the static in your ear was only growing stronger, “And why are they paired off? Why gravity and light on one end and the generator and oxygen on the other?”

“From what little I know about the station’s construction,” S.I.R. replied, “The oxygen and generator were an added failsafe. There’s always the chance that air could run out if the power goes out, so it was a later addition to the station to ensure everyone’s safety. Not that it mattered in the end considering what the actual problem was that ended up killing everyone.”

“Oxygen is back online,” Atom said after a moment, “How are the lights coming along?”

You flipped the large switch for the lights, but nothing happened.

“I think the lights are down for the count,” you replied, “I flipped the switch, but nothing happened.”

“Hmm. The switch may be disconnected from some of the lights in the station. We’ll just have to turn them on manually in the rooms they aren’t on in,” he replied, “Start looking for the alien. If you don’t have to directly engage it, then don’t. I want to be there to back you up. Understood?”

“Understood,” you said with a nod. So you guessed now all that was left was to go through the station and figure out where the alien was. You began to walk into a new room, and you could hear the static in your ear growing.

“Well that’s annoying,” S.I.R. said, “I absolutely hate the sound of static, droning and obnoxious white noise.”

“Well at least we can still hear,” you said. You were actually pretty thankful for that. S.I.R. may have been a bit of an ass, but he had calmed a bit since your initial meeting. And, honestly, you didn’t want to be stuck in the dark and silence with the dead. Something about S.I.R. speaking to you kept within the realm of sanity.

Even the sound of your footfalls now echoing in the empty space was foreign and unnerving when previously there had only been the sound of you and S.I.R. making light conversation since no other sound could be produced.

"Can I ask a quick question?" you said as you continued on.

"It's not like I'm in any position to stop you."

"How do you know enough about pop culture to be able to reference horror movies, but you were only alive for a few days prior to the alien shutting down everything?"

"There used to be a television that showed movies for passengers waiting for their ships. A lot of dreadful b-movies with predictable endings. And, of course, a book here and there. Though most of them have been tattered and torn up through the years. And naturally when the station's power supply died, so did the television."

"And you watched it a lot since there weren't other people around?"

"Yes. Many reports about the attack. All hope lost for survivors. No one that cared enough to come and get me."

You bit your lip.

"I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing."

~

Meanwhile Commander Bog was snapping at the scientists to get your earpiece back online. You absolutely could not hear them, though they’d been trying to contact both you and Atom. Atom could only very faintly hear them, but you were beyond hope of reaching. And now that the two of you had successfully done your other jobs, finding the alien was all that was left. And they needed to be able to talk to you in case things started to go south.

“Captain Atom,” Bog said into the microphone, watching Atom on one of the many screens before them. Atom halted in his gait before responding.

“Yes, Commander.”

“________’s earpiece isn’t getting any of our messages. I need you to find her and stick close in case anything goes wrong.”

“Repeat?” Atom said, “There’s a lot of interference.”

“Shit,” Bog swore before talking back into the microphone, “Find the keyblade wielder! Find ________! She can’t hear us! She’s in the east wing of the station. Near the teleporters.”

“Yes, sir,” Atom responded before starting off at a light jog towards your location. Axel was even more on edge now, but he felt better knowing that Atom was on his way to your location. If there were any danger, you had a better chance of facing it together.

The next room you entered was still dimly lit, only two little emergency lights on at all. One loomed over a large machine with a large control panel. On either side of it were several glass cylinders, each large enough to fit at least three people inside comfortably – five or six if you wanted to push your luck. On the panel was a man slumped over the it in an odd position. He’d fallen next to some wires in the open panel. They’d been cut. A clean slice through them.

Above the machine was a banner, still intact. It read, “The wave of the future: Teleportation!”

So this was the teleporter you’d heard so much about. You looked back down at the wires.

“Did someone cut the power?” you asked. No pun intended.

“They had to be sure no other aliens were getting through,” S.I.R. responded, “But the controls were going haywire. So someone had to take more drastic measures.” You began to walk again when your foot nudged something that scraped along the ground. You nearly shrieked before you realized that you had just kicked something. Looking down you saw something that was actually in a very familiar shape. Well sort of. It was galaxy themed with planets and stars on the end of it, and the hilt was made of two moons and the keychain that hung from the end was a line of stars. But you knew a keyblade when you saw one as it still had the familiar vague shape of a key.

Clutching the key was a young boy. He couldn’t have been any older than fifteen. You almost would not have been able to recognize him in this dried out, husk like form were it not for the fact that you had seen the animatronic version of him on the Spaceship Earth ride. He was more regally dressed as well, despite that the clothes no longer did him any justice now that they hung on limply on what could have been a skeleton for all the meat he had on his bones.

He had been the one to cut the wires. He should have been running. Trying to get out. The alien would have been right there in the room with him. And he stayed to make sure no other danger would reach everyone.

It made you… really, really sad. He was so young. He probably wasn’t even remotely ready to fight anyone or try to protect them. And he stayed anyway.

You kneeled next to the young prince, feeling a bit overwhelmed. It was such a waste of life. You felt incredibly bad for Empress Nova to have lost her brother this way – especially because he had decided to risk his own life for others before he was ready.

You gently pried the keyblade out of his hand.

“What are you going to do with that?” S.I.R. asked as he watched you carefully extract it.

“I’m going to bring it back to Tomorrowland,” you replied, “Maybe they can make a memorial out of it. Or something. He was a hero. He at least deserves to be remembered for his sacrifice. And he was so young.”

You could feel a lump in your throat.

“No time to mourn now,” S.I.R. said in what you imagined was his most soothing voice, “You still have a job to do if you’re going to finish the job by the time the generator cuts off.”

You nodded.

“Right,” you said, standing up, keyblade still clutched tightly in your hand. You looked back at the teleporter as you began to search the walls for a light switch. “So where does it lead?”

“The teleporter?” S.I.R. asked, and you nodded. “Well to wherever you tell it to go. It hardly matters so long as someone is working on the other end to make sure you’ve made it through to the other side.”

“Well what happens if there isn’t anyone on the other side?”

“My best guess? Your atoms which are disassembled and transferred to be reassembled on the other end don’t reach the other end and remain in some strange limbo as a mesh of disintegrated particles indefinitely. Or at least until someone finishes transferring you to wherever you were supposed to go originally.”

“That’s unnerving,” you thought with a shudder as you finally find the switch. You felt relieved. Finally having some light would do you good.

Commander Bog was at his wit’s end with frustration, and the empress, Eo, and Axel were doing no better. They could not communicate with you, and while you were in no immediate danger, you were walking around with no one on the ground able to help you if you needed it. And what if Atom needed help? How could they tell you to go to him? Sure he was on his way, but what if there was a snag between then and now?

“Is it back online yet?” Bog bit out to a rather nervous man working at one of the screens frantically, trying everything he could to break through the interference, even attempting to remotely change the frequency of your earpiece so you could better reach them. But nothing had been working so far.

“No, sir, Commander. Not yet!”

“Well fix it! We need to be able to communicate! Without it we –”

The Commander stopped short in his sentence. Everyone in the room quieted, stock still in shock, the only noise being the gasp of Axel and the empress as they watched you flick on the light in the room you were in. And behind you and S.I.R. loomed an alien that stood at roughly twenty feet in height looming over the two of you.

“________! ________! Behind you! Turn around, woman!” the commander shouted into the microphone, but you were still so blissfully unaware of everything.

That is until the alien let out a terrifying screech. You screamed as you turned to face it, S.I.R. whipping his head around as well in shock and fear at the sudden and very loud noise.

You had no time to react as the alien lunged at you, swinging one of its arms and flinging you clear across the room.

“Atom! Atom! Dammit, man! Answer me!” Bog shouted into the microphone.

“Commander?” Atom spoke, “You’re coming in fuzzy. Repeat.”

“The alien!” he nearly yelled into the microphone, “The alien is in the room with the teleporters! ________ is in there with the alien!”

Atom could only pick up a few words. Thankfully, they were all the right ones: teleporters, ________, and alien. And the urgency he could hear in the words told him all he needed to know. He took off in a sprint to get to you, praying he wouldn’t be too late to help you or that you would be able to finish it off by the time he got there. Anything so long as you were safe.

Bog whipped around to the scientist who told him earlier that there had been no readings that the alien was even alive on the station.

“You said there were no heat signatures!” he snapped, practically foaming at the mouth in anger. The scientist didn’t look away from the screen where you were.

“There weren’t!” he answered anyway, “The alien must be coldblooded to a point we can’t detect! He’d blend in with the rest of the bodies with the temperatures the stations kept after being in the cold of space for so long!”

You barely have time to recover before the alien is about to attack again. You weren’t even coherent enough to acknowledge your surroundings in full. You only knew that it would attack you regardless of if you were ready or not, and so you needed to move out of the way.

You dove to the side just as the alien lunged at you, landing where you had just been. You were a bit more aware now, spinning to face the alien just as it did to face you. It let out another loud screech before spitting acid at you, and you instinctively brought up your shield.

It didn’t melt against the acid, so you were thankful for that, stepping around the spot where the acid dripped off of your shield and began to eat through the floor. You weren’t about to push your luck and find out if the acid ate through your armor or not – if you could help it.

You summoned your keyblade and jumped out of the way as it began to stab at you with its large pincer like claws. Each place it stabbed left a large hole where you had once been – definitely something that would kill you.

You couldn’t dodge this thing forever. The fact that it was so fast already kept you from giving Atom a message that would alert him to your current predicament, and you could only hope that he would show up anyway. It was time to go on the offensive.

You summoned your fire and began to throw blue fireballs at it. It barely dodged them, scuttling around in a frantic manner. Once it had had enough, it jumped to a nearby wall, hissing at you and dripping acid from its mandibles.

You continued to throw fire at it, but it was just a bit too fast for you. Then it snapped in your direction, jumping at you as you brought your shield up to block more incoming acid. Your only indication that it was even coming towards you was the loud hum of its wings as it flew at you.

You barely dodged out of the way, swinging your sword and cutting one of the joints of its arms. But it was one of the smaller of its arms. It wouldn’t cripple the beast, and your attack just pissed it off even more as it roared first in pain then anger, a steady stream of acid leaking from the arm you just amputated. Unfortunately, not enough to allow it to bleed to death very quickly considering its size.

You summoned your spear. You weren’t sure how this battle was going to go down for you, but one thing you were sure of: You needed to be able to attack at a distance, and you spear allowed for that more than your sword did.

It hissed then began a slow skittering crawl around you. You didn’t break eye contact with it once as it circled you, looking for an opening, and you knew better than to make too sudden a movement. You needed a plan.

Like knowing that those wings had to go. You had a glider sure, but you didn’t have the reflexes to compete with its speed. Every time you had dodged it had all been by the skin of your teeth. And you couldn’t afford to fall from your glider.

You began to shoot fire at it again as it lunged at you. This time it had a harder time dodging since it had been coming at you. You had only just gotten out of the way in time for it skim passed you, screeching as part of your fire seared it. And as it was going by you took the star point of your spear and stabbed through its wing, letting it tear as the alien soared passed you.

It landed not far from you, however, swinging out a leg, and kicking you right in the thigh. The force alone was enough for you to go flying, but it wasn’t your deepest concern.

Your deepest concern was the light cracking sound and sharp pain you felt as it hit you. You rolled across the room, back slamming into the base of the teleporter on the other side.

Your eyes were watering with pain. It was the same fucking leg you broke last time. Though this time the break was in your thigh as opposed to your calf. You needed to get up. The alien wasn’t going to wait around for you. You could already hear its feet scuttling over towards you, a long hissing sound passing over its teeth, acid dripping down its jaw and from its arm.

It’s feet were picking up speed, and you were still struggling to get up. It reared up just as you were finally halfway to standing up, using your spear as a sort of cane. You clenched your eyes shut. You couldn’t get out of the way quickly enough, and whatever it did to you was no doubt going to hurt, assuming it didn’t just kill you.

It was already lunging toward you when a stray piece of metal hit the back of its head. It halted in its attack to see who else would dare challenge it.

And S.I.R. felt in that moment that if he had bowels to release, he most certainly would have. He didn’t know why he did what he did. Didn’t know why he felt the need to get involved with this fight. It wasn’t like he could run. He was bolted to the floor. And now this alien, this thing, was looking at him like the biggest nuisance on the universe.

It let out a shriek, and S.I.R. flinched, cowering behind his hands as the alien spit acid at his base. S.I.R. felt his world turning sideways before he landed on the floor with a thunk. His vision was sputtering. The acid had melted through his wiring. He was no longer connected to any of his other bodies or his battery. He was going to die. But he had bought you some time. He was scared. It was going dark. Were you going to be okay?

You had hobbled over a little way away from the alien while it’s attention had been diverted. In your hand was a cable, stretching from you to the control panel of the teleporter.

You had one shot at this. If it didn’t work, then you could only pray that Atom would show up before you died. And then maybe he could finish off the alien himself since you will have failed so spectacularly.

You only knew that you were able to power your uncle’s ship with this method, and you prayed you could work this on a similar level.

You watched as the alien turned to look where you had once been. Then when it realized you were not there it snapped its head this way and that to find you until it’s eyes, glossy and unnerving, landed on you.

It let out a low, chittering growl and hiss before slowly turning its large body toward you. You stood your ground, unmoving. Not that you had much choice. It was this or nothing. You never would have been able to run from this thing with your leg the way it was.

You let your electricity crackle and spark along your fingers, already brimming with magic that sparked nervously as your heart raced. This was a do or die. And this time, there wasn’t anyone around to revive you like Uh-Oa or Riku had done before. And, if any of the corpses around you were any indication, there wouldn’t be much of you to save if Atom didn’t get there in time.

You could hear a low hum. The teleportation tubes were beginning to glow behind you. They crackled to life, letting out a distorted and garbled noise as they forced themselves to work now that the power had been restored to them.

You only had one shot at this.

“Come on already!” you shouted, and the alien reared up to its full height, letting out a piercing shriek that nearly forced you to curl into yourself. But you maintained your stance, half leaning on your spear, power cable clutched tightly in your other hand with your magic running through it. The tubes behind you began to glow brighter and brighter as you continued to funnel your magic into it.

The alien launched itself at you at full speed. It was a blur that you almost couldn’t see with your eyes. It let out another piercing shriek, and you dove out of the way, sending another nervous burst of electricity into the teleporter and overloading it. But you had done what you needed to.

The alien had launched itself at you, and as you had dodged out of the way, went crashing headfirst into the teleporter, smashing into it, particles disintegrating into nothingness. That is until you had overloaded the machine. The tubes glowed an even brighter light that you couldn’t look at if you tried until they exploded in a spray of glass fragments and smoke, leaving behind what part of the alien didn’t go through – a steaming husk of its thorax and abdomen, leaking acid onto the floor that it slowly ate away at.

You waved your hand in the thick smoke before using a little bit of your air magic, still as untamed as the day you learned it, and blew it away from you. You were lucky a fire didn’t start, and the teleporter just let out the occasional spark or two.

But it hardly mattered to you now. You were tired. And your leg hurt like a bitch. You let out a low, pained groan.

That was when Atom came charging in like a rhino, sweating, panting, gun at the ready. But he was too late. You almost laughed at the panicked expression on his face, but you felt too tired. You hadn’t fought for very long, but your magic had drained you. You overexerted again. You needed a nap. And a doctor. At least you weren’t going to be tasked with survival on a broken leg this time. And you were far too tired and your magic too drained to heal yourself.

Atom’s eyes finally landed on you and where you lay. Once he’d seen that there was no other threat in the room, he approached you, kneeling down next to you.

“Are you alright, ________?” he said, voice low and gentle. He gently took your helmet off.

“I’m fine,” you said lowly. Then you grimaced. “Okay, no. I think that alien broke my leg.”

“Where did it go?” he asked, his brows lowering to frown in a determined stare. You pointed over to where the leftover steaming husk lay.

“How did you…?”

“Teleporter. I turned it on, and the alien jumped in trying to get to me. But the teleporter, uh, broke when it was halfway through. Either way it’s dead.”

“Clever,” Atom said, impressed with your cunning, “Come on. Let’s get that leg patched up.”

He lifted you up, bridal style, and you grit your teeth against the pain in your leg, clinging to him as he hefted you up. He began to carry you away, but then you jolted – which sucked because your leg still hurt.

“Wait!” you said, looking at the remains of S.I.R. lying on the floor. Maybe he could be fixed. Maybe even with his memories and everything still intact. You weren’t sure, but you wouldn’t feel right if you didn’t at least try to bring him back with you. “Atom, we can’t just leave him here.”

“We can talk about sending a small team back for him when we get back to Tomorrowland,” he said as he began to carry you away.

“Atom, he saved my life,” you said, and Atom paused. Then he let out a sigh. He, in good conscious, couldn’t abandon him after doing such a great service. “And also that keyblade,” you said, pointing over Atom’s shoulder to where you had dropped the young prince’s keyblade.

“What do you want with that?”

“It belonged to Empress Nova’s brother didn’t it? He cut the wires on the teleporter to stop any more threats from coming through. And he died because of it. He might have been able to escape otherwise. Or something. I thought the keyblade could be made into a memorial.”

Atom sighed.

“Alright. That’s fine. Let’s get you back to the ship first, and I promise I’ll come back for them. Alright?”

“Thank you, Atom,” you said with a gentle smile, relaxing into his hold as he began to carry you back to the ship.

You don’t remember much of anything after that. You fell asleep because of the gentle rocking motion and your exhaustion. It was just enough for you to ignore the pain in your leg.

Meanwhile the base was opening bottles of champagne and celebrating your victory. You had pulled out something they didn’t think you’d be able to do. It looked like it was all over when the alien had hit you, and you had struggled to get up.

Eo nearly died watching the alien charge at you at the last second, and Axel nearly ignited in a hazy mix of fear and anger when the alien had broken your leg. But despite that, despite everything, you managed to pull a win out of nowhere. It was incredibly risky, and those who realized what you were doing weren’t sure you’d be able to do it successfully, but somehow you’d managed.

And Axel was proud…. He’d seen you pull out wins before, but there was something about watching you defy the odds that made him feel… glad to know you.

“So what’s next now that the alien’s been defeated?” he asked the commander and Eo.

“Well now we start phase two,” Bog replied, “We’ll clean up the place, and Empress Nova will reinstate interplanetary travel. But in the meantime: Champagne,” he said as he lifted a glass.

~

You awoke in the med bay of the ship, the medic shining a blue light on your leg and an x-ray of your leg on a screen in front of you. The break was not so dramatic as you thought. It was a small, somewhat jagged line going halfway across your femur.

And you watched as, miraculously, the bone began to mend itself.

“That’s incredible,” you murmured groggily as you watched the bone finish healing itself.

“You’re lucky it was just a hairline fracture,” she said, giving you a gentle smile, “Any worse than that and we’d have to set it. Maybe resort to surgery. And we’re not quite equipped for that. Surgery, I mean. We could handle stopping an emergency or keeping a bad situation from getting worse.”

“Are we heading home?” you asked as you watched her continue to work on your leg.

“No, not quite yet,” she responded, “Captain Atom said he needed to take care of a few errands. He took the mechanic with him. I suspect he needed a little help with whatever he was doing.”

You smiled. He was keeping his promise. That was good. You relaxed into the bed you were resting in, content to let your eyes fall closed once more.

Notes:

Hope you're having a nice winter and holiday if you're celebrating and just a nice day in general if your're not! I'll be back next week as per my usual promise!

Obscure-ish References:

WEDway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WEDway

Chapter 61: Seven Minutes In Heaven

Summary:

Embarrassing press conference, shopping trip with your bestie, real talk with Demyx, and closet time with Axel!

Notes:

There's a little steamy bit in here, everyone! But as always, I separated it by a little gap, added a warning just before it hits, and it's in bold and italics if you want to know where it begins and ends! Happy new year everyone!

Rockets reentering the atmosphere were just as bumpy as exiting. But they were more on fire this way. It was strange. You didn’t remember burning up in the atmosphere like the ship you were currently in was doing. Then again, you were unconscious during your fall to a planet’s surface, and you had enough control of your glider that when you did visit a world, coming in too hot was never an issue.

So it had been surreal watching the little pod that the rocket had morphed into catch fire as you descended. It was normal – so you were told.

But it wasn’t something the held your attention for too long. Once you had gotten close enough you began to observe the city below. Of course, that wasn’t where you were landing. You were set to crash into the ocean and be rescued by a team set to retrieve you upon landing. No, what captured your attention was that you could see everything. All of the city of Tomorrowland and the empress’s grand palace on the island just off from the mainland. It was the first time you could really see the beach, and you were wowed to realize that it had black sand. You’d never seen something like that, and you made a mental note to tell Axel so the two of you could go and explore it later.

Though your awe slowly ebbed away as the pod got closer to the ocean. It began to turn into a light fear. And the only thing that kept it at bay was knowing that you were in something specifically made to be able to keep the water out, and you weren’t alone, the medic, the mechanic, Atom, and S.I.R.’s unresponsive husk sitting in the pod with you.

But that didn’t stop you from clenching your eyes shut once you hit the ocean before bobbing back up to the surface as floatation devices inflated to lift the little pod. It didn’t stop you from feeling a very sharp unease as the pod opened and you were greeted with several hover boats – some of which held people with cameras taking several pictures – here to move you and the rest of the crew back to the mainland. And it didn’t stop you from being the only person who hesitated with getting onto one of those boats.

The mechanic made the little jump from pod to boat, and he and Atom maneuvered S.I.R. into another of the little boats. The medic jumped into the boat with the mechanic, and they sped off into the distance. The boat holding S.I.R. also sped off. Now all that as left was you who stood on the edge of the exit, clutching the young prince’s keyblade to you, looking nervously between where you stood, the hover boat where Atom and the driver waited for you, and the ocean that waited beneath you.

You were almost shaking as the light fear you felt began to turn into flashes of memory of going over a waterfall or falling into water with thousands of heartless eyes looking at you. You tried to give yourself a pep talk, reminding yourself that you had had to face this fear to survive when you were stranded and needed to bathe or fish, but that wasn’t an ocean. And you never had to do more than wade up to your waist in that water.

If you fell here, rescuing you would be harder wouldn’t it? And the ocean was so large. And you still couldn’t swim.

You looked at the water below you. You couldn’t see below its surface and that also terrified you to some extent.

“________?” Atom’s voice snapped you out of your daze. He was looking at you inquisitively, wondering if anything were wrong.

“I can’t swim,” you said, sounding vulnerable but also slightly pleading, asking him for a little bit of help in your words and your gaze. It was weirdly endearing to see and hear. This tough warrior who over the last few days had fought an alien, broken her leg, and braved an android robot was nervous about falling into the ocean when she only had to make a jump of about three feet to get into the boat.

Atom stood from his seat, walking to the edge of the boat, and reached up, offering you his hand. You took in a small, sharp breath. You were going to have to do this at some point, but Atom’s help made you feel a bit better about it. If you fell, he could pull you up.

You gingerly put your hand in his, gripping tightly once your palm firmly rested over his own, and then you jumped, leaping into Atom who caught you with little to no effort. And you clung to him with one arm, the other firmly gripping the keyblade, your heart racing from the fear that you maybe could have fallen into the ocean. Atom set you down in the boat, and you had a seat, your legs shaky.

“Thank you,” you said quietly as he sat next to you. He gave you a reassuring smile as the boat started on its way, all the while being followed by the other boats full of photographers trying to capture more pictures of you and Atom as you sped away towards land.

You didn’t have to worry about hopping over water to get out of the boat as you reached land, as the little hover boat just drove onto the land. But you hardly noticed. Because there was another parade waiting for you when you arrived, with a large red and white banner that read, “Welcome, Conquering Heroes!”

“What’s all this?” you asked, blinking at all the floats that were adorned with flashing lights of every color, lighting and flashing in every pattern, “They aren’t celebrating us are they? We just got back.”

“First time?” Atom said with a somewhat cocky smile. Though at least this time it wasn’t him being condescending so much as it was him enjoying your surprise at the praise and awe being directed at you. “There’s always a celebration waiting for you when you return from a successful mission.”

There was another banner that read, “Main Street Electrical Parade,” also adorned with flashy lights and dancers holding it as they twirled batons.

“There’s our ride,” Atom said as the boat pulled up to a convertible that was much like the one you’d ridden in when going to the rocket to begin your mission. This was all so surreal.

Atom held open the door for you, and you slid into your seat. He slid in next to you, already waving to the crowd just as the convertible pulled off down the street, following a marching band and several floats.

You put on your little performance mask as you had the last time you had to do this, giving light waves to the cheering masses as the car glided by at an easy pace.

Waiting for you at the end of the parade were several familiar faces – one of which you were ecstatic to see. There was a grand stage also adorned with twinkling lights, and on it stood the commander, the empress, Eo, and Axel – who tossed you a discreet wink when he caught your eye.

There was applause all around you, and as you and Atom approached the stage, the empress made a gesture behind her to where the two of you could sit as she made her own statements to the crowd and the reporters before her – of which there were many.

“My people,” she began, and a hush fell over the crowd as they all listened to what it was she was going to say next, “We’ve done it.”

There as a loud roar of applause that swept over everyone, hats were thrown into the air, children jumped, women waved little handkerchiefs.

“I am pleased to announce,” she continued, and the crowd hushed again, “That we may now move into a new era of science and technology. Of culture and growth. Of innovation and progress. And for that we must give thanks to our conquering heroes: Captain Atom Adams and Lady ________ _________.”

She swept her arm out in a grand gesture to you and Atom, and Atom stood to his feet, motioning for you to do so as well. The two of you approached the front of the stage, standing on either side of the empress. You basked in the glow of the people’s praise. It was nice after a while – still strange but nice.

“Now if there are any questions to be asked, you may proceed to ask them,” she continued, and this time it was only the reporters who clamored to make noise. She pointed to one.

“My question is for Captain Atom,” he said, pointing at him with a pen and pad, “Did you have any doubts about how the mission would go?”

“Of course not,” Atom said with every ounce of confidence he had. It wasn’t entirely true. When he knew you were fighting the alien by yourself and heard all the urgency of the Commander’s voice, he was very much worried that everything was going wrong, and you were going to die. Which wasn’t entirely untrue. Because everything did go wrong and you were going to die were it not for the interference of S.I.R. and your quick thinking. “There was never any doubt of our success.”

Many of the following questions went in much the same way. They were all for Atom. They were all about his beliefs on the mission and the trip there and what plans there were to defeat the alien that were devised before leaving. But then there came a question that changed the direction of it all entirely just when it seemed that the press was content to ignore you and the empress for the rest of the interview.

“Atom, what was the alien like when you finally got to the station and saw it up close and personal?” Everyone seemed to lean in at that. And you looked at him, wondering what he could possibly say to answer it when he’d never seen it in person.

“Actually,” Atom began, “I didn’t get to meet the fellow myself.” There was a murmur that ran through the crowd. “________ fought and defeated the alien single-handedly.”

You could hear several gasps in the crowd. And if you thought you were getting used to the attention before, all your confidence went out of the window when you felt ever set of eyes in the crowd slowly shift over to you. And you felt trapped beneath their gaze.

“Well?” the reporter pressed, eagerly looking at you, intrigue written all over his face, “What was the alien really like?”

You leaned towards the microphone to give a clear answer. Though you weren’t really sure what to say. Bigger than you thought? Full of acid?

“He was big and ugly,” you replied with a smile and a light shrug. There was a little bit of laughter that ran through the crowd at your statement. “And it was a tough fight, but I think I did alright.”

Now there were appreciative murmurs among the barest hint of more laughter at your statement. The next reporter spoke up.

“How long will you be staying in Tomorrowland, Lady ________? I imagine the empress isn’t likely to let you go now that you’ve done such a huge favor for the empire. Do you and the Great von Drake intend to entertain her for just a bit longer?”

More laughter including a light trill of a laugh from the empress herself. You smiled and let out a little giggle despite your nerves, hiding behind your hand.

“Of course, we’ll be here for a little while, but we do have families to return to. And I’ve got a job to do outside of this world. So once we have our ride out of here, my friends, family, and I will be taking our leave.”

“Lady ________!” Another reporter called to you, “What’s next for you while you’re here?”

“I suppose I’ll just stick around for a bit, and if you need my help, all you need to do is ask,” you replied, reflexively thinking about how Namine said you volunteered for that too much. Damn. You hadn’t even thought about your answer before you said it. But it wouldn’t be life-threatening most likely whatever they had you do, right? That first time was the only time.

Empress Nova, ready to say her own piece, stepped forward.

“If there are any more questions regarding Project Horizons, I will be more than happy to answer them for you,” she said, flashing a radiant smile at the audience.

“Empress, what’s next for planet travel?” a young reporter spoke, jumping to be seen amongst the other reporters in the crowd.

“We first plan to renovate and repair the station before we reinstate travel between our planets.”

“And other worlds? What of travel to planets outside of our own universe?”

“We’ll attempt to make first contact with other worlds shortly after interplanetary travel has been reinstated and all necessary equipment and requirements of inter-worldly travel have been met. This is the true beginning of our glorious renaissance.”

“Piggybacking off of that statement,” another reporter said as he pushed himself to the front of the crowd, “Captain Atom, Lady ________, the world wants to know: What’s it like being the Emperor and Empress of the renaissance?”

You blinked, all too flustered once more at the mention of yet another title. It made you shy, shrinking back just a bit before you answered.

“I can hardly accept that title,” you said, “I haven’t started anything. It was a group effort that I was just happy to say I was a part of.”

“Lady ________! Lady ________!” a reporter shouted as she too forced herself into the front, “Future Times Magazine wants to make you Woman of the Year! How do you feel?”

“Uh, what?” you asked, “I haven’t even been here for a week. How can you make me Woman of the Year? I’ve hardly done anything.”

“Oh but you have, my dear,” she said, snapping a picture of you, “And you are a picture of what every woman should aspire to be! Strong! Beautiful! You’re unstoppable!”

“I have another question,” a reporter says, his eyes very intently focused on you, “You been holding that keyblade this entire time. You’re not expecting more aliens to drop from the sky are you? Or is that a new model you were eager to show off?”

There was a small wave of laughter, and you offered a small, awkward smile before stepping forward. You began quietly telling the story of how you came across that blade – about how the young prince was a hero.

“I thought I could bring it back to the empress, and maybe it could be made into a memorial of the young prince’s sacrifice and as remembrance to that family.”

“Oh, ________,” the empress said, tears already brimming in her eyes, “You have no idea what this means to me.” She pressed you into a hug much to your surprise, and you hugged back slowly. “Thank you so very much.” She pulled back and opened her hands toward you for you to hand her the keyblade. You smiled as you turned to her, gingerly placing the key in her hand.

It was almost as soon as you had placed the key in her hands and took a step back that the key reappeared in your own hands in a flash of light. And there was just a small moment of shock that stilled everyone in the crowd and on stage.

“Uh,” you stammered before empress let out a small little giggle, a light pink dusting her cheeks.

“Your humor is as charming as ever,” she said, “But if you don’t mind, I’d like to hold my brother’s keyblade – one of the few things I have to remember him by.”

“I didn’t do that,” you said to her, “Honestly. I don’t know what happened. I mean….”

You handed it back to her, and she gripped it tightly as if she could keep it there just by her grip alone, but it snapped back into your hands as if you had called it yourself.

“What’s the problem?” Commander Bog asked, as he stepped forward, “Is it broken?”

“Uh, no,” you said, “Um. Keyblades can be bequeathed to anyone. But… at the end of the day, it’s the keyblade that says for certain who wields it. And there’s nothing that truly dictates what they deem acceptable or not. I’m sorry, Empress Nova,” you said, a deep hurt settling into your voice.

She just gave you a gentle, sad smile.

“It’s quite alright, my dear,” she said with all the grace and humility she could muster, “I appreciate the gesture regardless.”

“I do believe that’s enough questions for now,” the commander said into the microphone, “I’m sure Lady ________ and Captain Atom would like to return home and rest after their long and exhausting journey.”

You were incredibly thankful to him for having said that. You didn’t want to stand in front of any more reporters shoving questions and titles at you – especially in light of the keyblade incident. It was… embarrassing to say the least. But you had no control over it, and neither did anyone else.

Regardless, it still made for a very awkward car ride back to the palace. It was the one thing on everyone’s mind no matter how hard they tried to ignore it.

“So,” Axel began, trying desperately to get off of that train of thought, “Can I know how long it’ll take to get our ship back?” He was directing the question at Bog, and you found it to be a nice distraction. Because you also had no idea how long you were going to be staying.

“Yes, about that,” Commander Bog began, blushing lightly and chuckling, “We may have dismantled your ship upon your capture to better learn about the ‘invaders’ we thought you were. It might be a good while before it’s reassembled.”

“Oh, great well if that’s all there is,” Axel said with a light roll of his eyes, and you giggled just a bit, nudging him in the side, causing Axel to shrug and laugh as well and Atom to bristle a bit in jealousy.

~

Demyx had been watching Namine. They’d been sitting in her room watching the news for any information about your return as they’d been giving live updates on watching for your return. And it was roughly an hour ago that you had arrived back on world and made your way to the press conference waiting for you and Atom.

And Demyx had been watching her draw it all: floats in the parade she thought were interesting, robots of fascinating shapes and sizes, people wearing extravagant outfits, and finally the press conference where you and Atom and the empress stood. She still hadn’t drawn in empress, but he hardly noticed, just focused on how into her drawing she was getting.

But that had been before she had stopped drawing to look at the keyblade incident – a truly cringe-worthy incident that gave both of them a large sense of second-hand embarrassment.

Demyx got up and changed the channel to something else – a channel showing antiques on display and giving estimates on their worth.

“That was…,” Namine began, not sure where to really go with it.

“Bad,” Demyx finished, “It was really bad. But it’s not like they knew it was going to do that.”

Namine just shrugged. She was sort of ready to put the incident from her mind. She may not have liked Empress Nova all too much, but she didn’t think she deserved to be embarrassed so wholly on national television.

“Mister Demyx,” Robot Butler said, knocking on the doorway as he entered, “I’ve brought that cocoa you requested.”

“Thanks,” he said, taking the cup. Namine’s eyes lit up.

“That actually sounds really good,” she said, “Do you think I could have a cup?”

“Of course, but I must alert you that it will be a ten-minute wait before it’s ready.”

“That’s fine,” she said with a nod. She didn’t mind too much. She just wanted some yummy cocoa before her day was over. Robot Butler left to go make it.

“You can have mine,” Demyx said, handing her the cup. She blinked and pushed it back towards him with a shake of her head.

“It’s fine, Demyx,” she said, pressing the cup back into his hands, “I can just wait.”

“Namine, it’s fine,” he said, handing it back to her. Namine didn’t want this to turn into a little argument where it just got cold between the two of them because they were going to go back and forth for a while, so she just graciously accepted the cup finally, brushing a few strands of hair behind her ear as she did.

“Thanks,” she said with a pretty smile as she looked up from beneath her thick lashes at him, “That’s really sweet of you.” She took a small sip, letting out a little hum of contentment, a happy smile spreading from cheek to cheek and a pretty pink dusting each one.

“It’s nothing,” he said, noting that he felt… a little nervous. Which was weird. Because this was a normal situation with nothing weird about it. It was just him and Namine. Something he was very used to. Because this was normal. And it was just Namine here.

Robot Butler returned a few minutes later with a new cup of cocoa for Demyx and a small pot of it for refills if they needed any. Namine helped herself to one.

“Did you hang up your painting?” Namine asked Robot Butler as he set down the little pot on a small side table.

“Oh, yes,” he replied, “It was a wonderful addition to my collection. Thank you for such a wonderful gift.”

“It was no problem,” she replied, “You’ve done so much for us. It was the least I could do considering you’re always helping us when I’m sure you have more important work to do.”

“Well I absolutely love it.”

“You know Namine is quite the accomplished artist. She could probably paint you something if you like,” Demyx said as he nudged Namine. She blushed again.

“Shut up,” she said lightheartedly with a nudge back.

“Would you as a connoisseur of the arts, like to see my paintings?”

“I mean, I, uh,” Namine stuttered, “I wouldn’t call myself a connoisseur, but I’d love to see your collection. I like art so….”

“Right this way,” he directed before leading them from her room and down a series of hallways to a small room in a corner of the palace. He pushed open a small wooden door that led to his room, and Namine and Demyx were fairly wowed. Every wall was covered from top to bottom with paintings of landscapes that were very similar to the one Namine had gotten for Robot Butler right down to the color scheme. And every now and again there would be a picture of a flying saucer with a similar palette.

“Is this type of art your… aesthetic?” Namine asked as she stepped further into the room to examine some of the paintings. She was trying to figure it out. How could he claim not to have sentience when he had obvious preferences and likes and dislikes?

“Oh, yes,” he replied, “Paintings of this variant are among my favorite.”

Namine nodded, lost in thought. They examined the paintings for a little longer talking about how at some point maybe they should visit an art museum, and how Namine would love for Robot Butler to come along with them. A few minutes after they excused themselves so Robot Butler could continue his work. You and the empress would be home soon, and he needed to ensure the empress had everything she needed upon arrival, but, of course, to let him know if they needed anything.

They were walking back towards their rooms, and it was when they reached the hallway that all of their rooms were in that Namine finally voiced her opinion, stopping in her tracks and turning to look at him.

“I think he’s an AI and just doesn’t know it. He’s got all the telltale signs of it. He can perceive, reason, and think. He has wants and desires. Even when he was saying he deserved to be pushed out of the way, he was expressing regret at what he believed was a mistake. And now the paintings! He obviously has a sense of favorites and desires.”

“They, uh, really taught you well at that institute, didn’t they?” Demyx asked, watching Namine’s face light up as she talked about this thing she was obviously pretty passionate about. It was kind of like watching her draw or paint. She blinked at him, a little flattered.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, nervously brushing some of her hair behind her ear, “It’s interesting to put them into practice in real life as opposed to just learning them. I really enjoyed learning about it all.”

“It’s nothing. I mean, you don’t have to thank me for noticing you’ve got a skill. You’re good at it, you know? Using lessons, I mean. You know with life stuff and also like how you are with art and music,” Demyx stammered over his words, causing Namine to giggle a bit. “What’s so funny?”

Demyx was blushing now, nervous under Namine’s gaze despite the fact that it wasn’t a harsh gaze at all – just playful and amused.

“Nothing,” she said with a little wave of her hand, “You never really stutter all that much because you like to act like you’re the coolest thing ever.”

“Hey! I am the coolest thing ever,” he said, puffing out his chest a bit. Namine laughed again.

“And I’m not saying you’re not. It’s just that the stuttering was cute was all.”

Demyx could feel all of his nervousness from before return. And he felt warm. And he was blushing, he could feel it. And he needed to go because he was nervous, and he didn’t like being so nervous all too much.

“I’m tired,” he blurted, and Namine blinked at him then smiled.

“Maybe you should go take a nap then,” she suggested, and Demyx nodded.

“Yeah, a nap. That’s a good idea. I’ll see you later, okay?”

Namine nodded, giving him a little wave before going towards her room. And Demyx went to his own room to try and figure out why he was so nervous.

It was maybe twenty minutes or so later that Namine got a knock on her door.

“Come in,” she called from where she lay sprawled out on her bed and flipping through channels on the television. She was rather bored now that Demyx wasn’t around to keep her company.

You poked your head into the doorway, a bright smile on your face.

“Finally!” Namine nearly yelled, hopping up from the bed and running over to give you a hug. You gave her one right back, giggling all the while and happy to be home from your trip.

“I thought Axel would be the person you’d go have a reunion with first,” Namine said with mild confusion, “After how we caught you the day before you left, I would think you’d be picking up from where you left off.”

You laughed, slapping her lightly on the arm while she gave you a mischievous wink.

“He’s still on guard duty while Atom rests up for the rest of the day, so we’ll just have to see each other later. But I don’t want to rest. I was resting on the entire trip back from the station. I want to go out and have fun and spend time with my bestie!”

“Well, sure. What did you have planned?”

“Well you know how most of our clothes were destroyed when the ship crashed? Well since we have little cards that the empress gave us that let’s buy whatever, I was thinking we go get a few outfits? It can be a little girl’s day out for us.”

“That sounds great! I’ll go get my card, oh, but there is one thing I wanted to mention, and I want you to not get mad,” Namine said, looking somber.

“What is it?” you asked slowly, eyeing her warily. What could she possibly say to upset you?

“It’s about your little hair problem thing? I want to know if, like, anything happened. Or if it got worse? I’m just… worried is all.”

“I know,” you said, not feeling mad so much as uncomfortable.

“Because we don’t know what it is,” she lied, “And I don’t want this to be a thing that ends up hurting you in the long run, and you’re done with your mission, so, like, do you want to at least speak to your uncle about it? Just to know that maybe if it can be fixed, you’ll know what to do?”

You mulled it over. Namine, of course, knew what was wrong. She just wanted you to at least check up on it or follow up on it so she could know that your reckless behavior was at least contained in your hero complex and not bleeding into other parts of your life – like self-care and knowing when you need help. Because she’d certainly put her foot down if she thought you were going to ignore your health.

“Okay,” you said simply, “You kept your promise and didn’t do anything or tell anyone. I’ll at least ask my uncle about it and see if he knows anything about it. But then if all is well, I want to go shopping and forget all about it.”

“That sounds fair,” Namine breathed, relieved you were taking it so well.

Meanwhile in Ludwig’s chambers, he and Dreamfinder were talking a bit. They had been discussing Dreamfinder’s worry over Figment’s behavior – he’d been going out at all hours of the night and coming home much too late – when they saw the press conference and the incident with the keyblade, watching you panic and explain that you had nothing to do with the key’s disappearance and reappearance and Empress Nova’s subsequent embarrassment that she was, in fact, unable to wield one. It was a painful sight to see.

They changed the channel like Demyx had, not really wanting to see it anymore and continued to talk about other things, plans for the future and their intentions for the rest of their stay on Tomorrowland, when Dreamfinder brought it up again. Something about it just gnawed away deep within him and made him question it.

“It’s odd though, don’t you think?” Dreamfinder asked as he turned to Ludwig, “Keyblades can go to just about anyone regardless of if they’re good or bad. Why, of all people, would it not allow the empress to wield one?”

“As you know I’ve studied keyblades and hearts in the past, I can safely say that you’re correct to believe it has nothing to do with her moral alignment. Keyblades stay with those with strong hearts. If I had to guess, the empress is relatively insecure about something – something that makes her heart falter enough that a keyblade does see her as a suitable partner.”

“The poor dear,” Dreamfinder said with a shake of his head, “Though I’ve no idea what she could have to be insecure about. You would think she has everything she could possibly need, but I suppose that doesn’t always guarantee the mental stability of the individual.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Ludwig called, and you and Namine shuffled in, leaving the door open behind you. This wouldn’t take too long, you hoped. “What can I do for you, my dears?”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the hair thing that happened at the police station,” you began, looking around nervously, “It happened again the day before I went up into space.”

“________!” Dreamfinder said in a scolding tone, “Why didn’t you say anything? That was incredibly dangerous! What if something had happened when you were gone? We wouldn’t have been able to do anything!”

“I know! I know!” you said, “I should have said something. But… I wanted to do the mission, and I know that’s not an excuse, but I did it anyway. I’m sorry. But I just wanted to know what you thought about it?”

“Well I’ve got a few theories about this problem I didn’t know you were dealing with after the initial incident where it first happened,” Ludwig said very casually. You were too nervous about the verdict to pick up on the fact that he had nearly given Namine away. And Namine breathed a sigh of relief that she had not been outed about her little confession.

And Ludwig sat you down and explained your time problem to you. A very strange thing that you weren’t sure you could say much about. How does one not have time?

“And you’re sure it’s not deadly or anything?” you asked, eyeing him a bit worriedly. Ludwig nodded, and you breathed a small sigh of relief.

“Uh, knock, knock?” you heard Axel call from the doorway. He was standing there looking somewhat worriedly at you.

“You heard all that, didn’t you?” you asked, not wanting to face his wrath about the fact that you didn’t tell him you had been “glitching” before your big mission.

“Just the ending explanation,” he replied, “I’m relieved I guess. That thing that happened to you back at the station was actually something I’d been thinking about for a while, but I’m glad it isn’t something to be too worried about.”

You nearly deflated with how thankful you were that he hadn’t heard your admission of it happening again, and Axel took your expression to mean you were glad he wasn’t worried. And Dreamfinder had yet to say anything, so you supposed he was willing to keep your little secret from earlier, and for that you would be eternally grateful.

“What are you doing here?” you finally asked, “I thought you still had guard duty?”

“I may have snuck away,” he said, “Eo said he would cover for me, so I’m only going to be here for a few minutes before I go back. My shift ends in like an hour.”

“Well me and Namine are gonna head into town to do a little shopping. Did you want us to wait for you since you’ll be free in an hour?”

“Nah, shopping isn’t really my thing. I’ll hang with Demyx until you get back. Then I’m stealing you away for the rest of the evening,” he said with a smirk, and you giggled. Namine just stood there awkwardly trying to act like she wasn’t there. So did Dreamfinder. Ludwig was less subtle.

“Flirt in your own rooms,” he said, and you laughed before standing and walking out of the room with Namine and Axel.

“I’ll see you tonight. Text me when you get back,” Axel said before he walked off to go back to “work.” You turned to Namine with a bright smile on your face.

“Let me change out of this suit, and I’ll meet you at the front entrance okay?” you said as you began to walk back to your room, still in the space suit Robot Butler had provided you the day you left.

You were at the front of the palace a few minutes later in your last remaining pair of leggings and a tank top, and Namine was there waiting for you with Robot Butler who greeted you with a light bow and a hello – calling you by your new title of Lady ________. Joy of joys.

“Honestly,” you began, “Just ________ is fine.”

“If you prefer that, then that is what I shall call you, Miss ________.” Eh. Close enough. “Miss Namine has asked if I knew any good places for you to get clothes, and I know just the area. I go there quite a bit and would be delighted to escort you personally.”

“The empress won’t need any of your services?” you inquired, not wanting to impose on someone who you were pretty sure was having a rough day.

“She has elected to have some time to herself, and as such I am free to serve – and happy to might I add,” he said with his ever-present gentle smile. You tried not to cringe considering that it was probably embarrassment that drove her to want to be alone and forced a smile on your face instead.

“Well then,” you continued, “Let’s go.”

It was a fairly easy trip. You took the monorail to the edge of town. The public was still learning your face, so you got quite a few looks, but no one was as bold as they were at the fair to ask for your autograph or to take a few pictures with you. You supposed that was because you were no longer traveling with your uncle who had a much more recognizable face and otherworldly look about him given that he was literally animated. And you were grateful for it. After two days of nonstop prodding and stares and praise, you were tired of it, and the two days you were away from it all to fight an alien were not so relaxing as you might have wanted them to be despite the fact that you were sitting down for most of your trip there and back.

But you were happy to have at least a somewhat normal day with your friend – despite the stares you still got here and there. The two of you talked animatedly about your trip since she said that her days while you were away were, for the most part, uneventful. Though you did tease her a little bit about sharing a milkshake with Demyx. And she sided with you on your slapping of Atom but eased up when she realized he apologized and then did you a favor later of retrieving a keyblade and a friend.

It was a nice way to pass the time, and Robot Butler seemed to enjoy your tale of going to and from the space station, and before you knew it, the three of you had reached the end of the line for the monorail, hopping off at the last stop and walking into the next part of town.

The buildings were a bit different, not as extravagant or fancy. It was much more subdued. There wasn’t a surplus of chrome or crystal on everything, and there were no large domes housing skyscrapers and buildings. It was still a very nice section of town, but it was just different. There were also no moving sidewalks to be seen.

But what really caught one’s eye was that there weren’t nearly as many people. You could assume that was because you moved out of the more metropolitan area of the city to something that appeared to be a bit more laid back in its structure.

However, there were just as many robots in this area of the city as there were in the others – if not more so.

The store that Robot Butler led you into could only be described as organized chaos. There were piles of clothes and fabric everywhere. But they were obviously organized. But… you’d never know it from the first glance you take.

“Giovanni?” Robot Butler called, and a pile of fabric next to you began to shake aggressively before a robot’s head popped out. He looked around bewilderedly until his eyes landed on Robot Butler standing just next to you.

“Robot Butler!” he exclaimed in a heavy Italian accent, waddling his way out of the pile to embrace Robot Butler in a hug, “It’s been a while. Does the empress need a new order of clothes already? I’ve hardly finished my new line. I’m going in a different style this time. I’m thinking exoticism!”

Robot Butler turned to you and Namine.

“This is where I would typically order the empress’s clothes,” he explained, “There’s no finer tailor in my opinion.” Then he turned back to Giovanni. “Giovanni, this is Miss Namine and Miss ________, the visitors from another world.”

“Ah so this is the young keyblade wielder and one of her friends. There’s been quite a bit of talk about you around town. Tell, Giovanni, how he can be of service,” he said as he shook both of your hands. You both smiled politely.

“We actually had a rather rough landing when we first got here,” you said as you glanced around the shop at several outfits on mannequins, “Most of our clothes were destroyed, so we need something of a new wardrobe. Is that alright? I don’t want to overwhelm you or anything.”

“It would be my greatest pleasure to serve the Empress of the Renaissance and any of her friends. You’ve done the world a service!”

“Thank you,” you said, fidgeting on the spot, “But it was nothing really.”

“Nothing, she says. Pfft. Nothing is what’s happened these past few years. You,” he said placing a finger square on your nose, “Are a sensation. As is your friend there. I imagine she does a lot of hero work alongside you.”

He took out a few sewing tools and began to take your measurements.

“Oh, yes,” you said eagerly, happy to take the attention off of you, “Namine has been a great help to people everywhere since the beginning. And she’s a capable fighter.”

“________,” Namine said, nudging you with a blush on her face. Then she changed the subject, not ready to be in the spotlight anymore than you were, “So, Robot Butler said you make the empress’s clothing? That must be nice to be the first person she goes to when she needs clothing.”

“Oh no,” Giovanni said, “She doesn’t come down here personally. That’s where Robot Butler comes in. He puts in her orders personally and we have them delivered to the palace. If people even know it’s my designs she’s wearing, I’m not even sure.”

“I saw an interview the other day that she did,” Namine mentioned, thinking of how she watched the news of a press conference the empress had hosted while she and Demyx were out on the town, “I think she said the name was Roger something.”

“Figures,” Giovanni shrugged, “He hasn’t designed a damned thing in months, and she’s giving him credit for my work.”

“I’m sure it was an honest mistake,” Namine soothed, not really sure if it was or not, “Maybe she just wasn’t thinking at the time. From what I saw during the conference, she was pretty overwhelmed by questions and the reporters.”

“Maybe,” he said as he began to take her measurements, “But it’s in the past now. What are you two ladies looking for anyway? Do you want something like what empress wears?”

You both wrinkled your noses.

“I’m not so sure it’s our style,” you replied, “Don’t get me wrong, she looks great in all of the outfits you’ve made for her, but I’m not sure I want something so… tight? Flattering, sure, but I don’t really need plunging necklines or to have my hips hugged so close. But you’re the designer, so I guess whatever you think would look best on us?”

Namine nodded.

“I mean,” Namine continued, “If you think we’d look best in those designs then I guess that’s fine, but I don’t want to put a damper on your creative freedom or anything.”

Giovanni regarded the two of you silently for a moment, his eyes trailing up and down your forms with a close concentration.

“I’ll be back. I must create,” he said before retreating to the back room of his store, picking up various types of fabric along the way as he did so.

The next few minutes were filled with idle chatter, prospects of things you could do out and about on the town later or on another day – trying to get together plans for hanging out in a finally stress-free environment and maybe a few ideas for a first date with Axel.

That was when an older gentleman walked into the store – he looked to be in about his mid-fifties or so, dressed in a dress shirt, tie, and khakis. He gave you and Namine a courteous nod before standing off to the side. You both smiled and waved politely before continuing your conversation about a potential day at the beach some time in the near future when the man huffed rather loudly.

You looked. He was frowning but not at you or Namine. He was staring directly at Robot Butler who still had his attention on the two of you until he noticed your prolonged gazes at the man. Then his gaze finally shifted to him.

“Could I please get some service?” he asked in a rather terse manner. Robot Butler seemed to jump into service mode automatically, but you placed a hand in front of him to stop him.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Namine said firmly, but her voice was still light and friendly so as not to be rude, “But he doesn’t work here.”

The man blushed.

“Oh my,” he said, “I’m sorry. I just assumed he worked here because only robots work in this district.” It was as he was explaining himself that the owner came back out into the main room, holding sewing materials and swaths of fabric and ribbon.

“Good afternoon, sir,” Giovanni said, turning to the customer as he held up different colors of fabric to you and Namine, “How may I serve you?”

“Uh, yes,” the man said, clearing his throat, his frown reappearing on his face though not as harsh as before, “My wife made an order to this store about two weeks ago, and we’ve been waiting for it to arrive.”

“Ah, and you’re here to find out the status of your delivery,” Giovanni finished for him. He nodded, and Giovanni stopped holding up fabrics to walk to a computer at the front desk where the register was located. He typed in a few things, and the man waited nearby.

You and Namine exchanged a look.

“I apologize sir,” Giovanni said, “But neither your wife nor you put in for the order to be delivered. It’s been at the shop waiting to be picked up for a week now.”

“But the wife has every order delivered. How could you not know she would want to have it delivered? Machines,” the man huffed, shaking his head as he retrieved his wallet and paid, “You really ought to have known this by now.”

As he finished paying for his order, Giovanni went to the back to retrieve it.

The man turned back to the two of you, but at this point you really wished he wouldn’t speak to you. You felt awkward and so did Namine, and you really didn’t want to have to comment on this exchange.

“You know,” he said to the two of you, “My wife only insists on this place because it’s fast, but I’ve never been much of a fan. Plus you would think with all that wiring, he could recognize patterns and know to have our things delivered.”

You and Namine just gave the barest hints of acknowledgement of his statements. He continued despite your obvious discomfort with his behavior.

“Maybe this’ll finally convince her to let us take our business elsewhere. It’d be more convenient anyway. No one want to come to the edge of town just for a few clothes when there are plenty of other businesses that are closer by in nicer parts of town. And actual people are much easier to work with anyhow.”

Giovanni returned with a fairly large package, and the man took it from him, giving a quick and curt, “Thank you,” as he turned to leave. And it was as he was leaving that he stopped and looked closely at you.

“Do I know you from somewhere? Seen you around before or anything?” he asked, squinting at you as he leaned in slightly.

“I just have one of those faces,” you shrugged, heartrate picking up just a bit. The man shrugged as best he could with the large package in his arms and left the store.

Giovanni continued to work with you and Namine, not once mentioning anything that had happened. And it didn’t sit right with either of you. Was he not going to complain? Did Robot Butler not see anything wrong with this behavior? But no one mentioned it. The two robots just kept chatting amicably with the two of you while your clothes were being made.

~

“And so after the voice actors record their dialogue, a team of highly skilled animators then draw us over previously recorded live-action footage. Then we are digitally painted and given special effects such as shadows and highlights which gives us the illusion of animated characters being able to exist and interact with people in the real world. And this process is what allows me to be here and speak with you all today,” Ludwig concluded. The students before him ooh-ed and ahh-ed in wonder as they took notes, furious scribbling or typing away. Ludwig smiled, happy to have managed to get through another lecture.

It had taken Ludwig quite a while to get through it too. Though for once it wasn’t because he was on one of his long-winded explanations about the mechanics of whatever it was he was talking about. It was because he kept finding himself distracted. By you. He remembered explaining this very thing to you when you were about six and asked why he looked so different and if there were many ducks who looked like him.

And he kept remembering you staring up at him with wide eyes and constantly interrupting him with questions about words you didn’t understand – which at the time was quite a few. But that didn’t happen this time around in a group of adults. They just sat and watched with the same rapt attention you had at six. And even now it distracted him.

He had been staring at them unblinking for a solid minute before Dreamfinder tapped him on the shoulder. Ludwig flinched, entering a defensive fighting position before he realized it was just Dreamfinder.

“Luddy,” he said quietly, “They’re waiting for you to continue.”

“Oh, uh, right,” he said as he turned back to the students. What was it that had he been talking about again? Something about a pencil? “Uh, how about we take a quick ten-minute break and meet back here?”

The students let out little groans of disappointment but dispersed regardless.

Ludwig retreated to an office in the back that was typically reserved for the professor and hopped into the chair behind the desk, letting a long, low sigh as he did and sinking into the seat. Dreamfinder followed him into the office, gingerly closing the door behind him before sitting on the edge of the desk and looking worriedly at Ludwig.

“You haven’t been yourself today,” he said to him while Ludwig closed his eyes, “Is there something on your mind?”

“It’s ________,” he muttered, looking at Dreamfinder with a tired gaze, “You know I gave this very lecture to her when she was a child. And I can’t for the life of me stop thinking about it.”

“Oh,” Dreamfinder said with a sympathetic smile, “I know what this is about. You’re worried about her and you love her. Luddy, that’s nothing to be upset about. Looks like underneath all that puffed up conceit, you care about your niece.”

“Of course I’m not upset about that. I know I love her. I’ve cared for her since she was a baby. Of course that all stopped when she started getting older.”

Dreamfinder nodded.

“And now she’s growing up fast,” Dreamfinder continued, “What with the keyblade wielding responsibilities she’s taken on. Then there’s the fact that it seems every moment she isn’t training is filled with some death-defying task or mission she has to take on – doing important work and saving worlds. Then there’s also the fact that she’s got a boyfriend now, and they’ve been getting serious.”

Ludwig sat up in his chair, frowning just a bit.

“Wait, how serious are we talking here?” he said, just a bit protective of you. Axel was fine by him. He’d never had a real problem until you or your feelings were involved, but something about the way Dreamfinder said the word, “serious,” was getting to him.

“Well have you looked at them?” Dreamfinder said with a wave of his hand like it was obvious, “The way they look at each other? I know a thing or two about emotion and expression, and I would be so bold as to say that ________ just might be in love with him.”

“Well, no, I wouldn’t know that! I wouldn’t know what look she’s been giving him or the other way around because I never get to be there! I’m always working to bring the world back or she’s always off training or saving people or hanging out with her friends! And isn’t that just the story of my life!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the first time in a long time I had gotten to sit down with my niece and talk to her was when we crash landed on that tiny planet and she and I were the only people who could step outside the ship. It’s just like on Spaceship Earth where she didn’t need me or see me anymore once she was old enough to go off on her own.”

Ludwig took out his wallet, flipping down to the picture of you on a unicorn, smiling at the camera. He couldn’t even be there for that photo. It was something your mom had given to him, and he’d had it ever since. Your mom even mentioned that you had been asking for him.

“Are you going to be okay, Luddy?” Dreamfinder asked, looking at Ludwig who just continued to gaze at the picture in his hand with a sad smile on his face. Ludwig didn’t answer, just let the gears in his head turn as he tried to think of a way to stay at least somewhat present in your life. If nothing else he could at least monitor it from the outside as he had done before – when he hadn’t been so thoroughly kicked from it once you now had the job of being a world’s savior.

Then an idea struck, a little lightbulb appearing over his head. Ludwig perked up at his idea.

Dreamfinder, seeing this, reached over and plucked the lightbulb from over his head, putting it in his breast pocket for later and giving it a light pat.

“What are you doing with my idea?” Ludwig asked as he watched him.

“Oh I just like to collect them,” Dreamfinder answered, “I have a bag of them back home.”

Ludwig was prepared to follow up that statement with a, “Why?” when Figment burst into the room. More or less. He didn’t really burst into the room so much as arrive rather abruptly with a small entourage of three women and two men, all of whom were dressed rather fancily – including Figment who was still wearing sunglasses indoors, gold chains, and his diamond-studded blazer. One of the women carried Figment while the other two cooed over him and complimented him. The men seemed to only be there for the sake of rounding out his little posse and looking cool and striking the occasional pose.

Dreamfinder crossed his arms, a frown creasing his face.

“Figment,” he said sternly, “I’ve been lenient with you before, but I have to say it. That money is going to your head.”

Figment just waved him off before throwing some money at him, which at the distance he was at, just fluttered to the ground. A few of the people in his entourage were already on the ground picking it up and placing it in their pockets.

“You can’t just buy the love and approval of others,” Dreamfinder continued, and Figment just threw more money at him.

“But dammit keep trying it Figment, and maybe one day you will succeed,” Ludwig said on the ground where he too was now picking up money to place in his pockets.

“Ludwig!” Dreamfinder scolded. Ludwig seemed to remember himself, stuffing the money in his hands into his pockets and recomposing himself.

“Oh, right, right,” he said, clearing his throat, “My apologies, but now I must act on my idea. Dreamfinder, if you don’t mind, would you finish up my lecture for me?”

Dreamfinder seemed to perk up at this.

“Oh why I’d be delighted!” he said, following Ludwig back out of the office to the lecture room where many of the students had filed back, the break almost over.

Dreamfinder stood at the front of the room while Ludwig continued out of it, making his way to the limo and back to the palace.

“Now class we’re going to continue on our previous topic. Starting with digital shadows and highlights and how they are implemented into the real world.”

~

Axel wound up shopping anyway and returning to the palace later in the early evening. He hadn’t intended to, but when he left guard duty to see Demyx, Demyx pointed out that a lot of their own clothes had also been destroyed in the crash, and it would be a good idea to get some new ones.

Now they were just relaxing in Demyx’s room while Demyx tried on several different outfits to see if they still looked as good as they had in the store. He was especially focused on his swim trunks. He didn’t even know when he’d be swimming, but he was insistent they both get some.

“Hey, Axel, do these look alright?” Demyx asked for what had to be his fourth costume change. Axel barely glanced away from the television he was watching.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” he said quickly, looking back at the T.V.

“You barely looked,” Demyx snapped, turning from the mirror to face Axel. Axel just rolled his eyes. He’d been doing this for almost an hour, constantly asking if it was okay or not. Axel was about sick of it.

“Who are you trying to impress?” Axel finally asked, catching Demyx off guard. Originally he would have said it was the empress he wanted to impress, but when Axel asked him that, it wasn’t the empress he immediately thought of. And it made him feel… off. He didn’t know who he was doing this for. But maybe he did. But he wasn’t really sure.

“Hey, I’ve got a serious question, and I need you to not ask any follow up questions about why I’m asking this particular question, okay?”

Axel quirked an eyebrow at him then nodded.

“How did you know you had feelings for ________? Like really know you were feeling it.”

Axel blinked. Well he hadn’t been expecting that of all things to come out of Demyx’s mouth. Then he thought about it for a moment. When had he realized that he really liked you?

“Do you remember that day in Disney Town that I trained her?” he began, and Demyx nodded, “It was the night before. But I ignored it. I kept getting excited at the thought of seeing her again, and I wrote it off as the fact that I was happy to see my friend. Then the day we went to Disney Town and we were all hanging out before we went to go train, her uncles were teasing her about her crush on me. And I didn’t mind it. I liked that she was so flustered by it. I liked that she liked me. And I was still too stubborn to admit to myself it was because I wanted her. Because I wasn’t supposed to.”

“But you knew you liked her?”

“I was trying to fight off the fact that I was crazy about her. I admit, my feelings got a little confused when we were on Animal Kingdom because I wasn’t sure if it was just lust or more than that, but I was more than sure not long after. But I knew even before I was willing to admit it even to her that I liked her.”

“Just like?” Demyx questioned, one of his eyebrows raising.

“Well I like her a lot.”

.

.

.

“You were willing to die for her at one point, and you only like her?” Demyx replied with a highly amused smirk on his face.

Axel felt himself warming up. He’d actively been debating the fact recently if he had passed the threshold of just liking you. Because his feelings were very strong. And he went out of his way to do just about anything to see you safe and happy if he could.

Even to the point of taking a hit from a yeti that very much should have killed him just to keep you safe. And the thought had crossed his mind once before when he was trying to get a gift for you for your birthday party. A gift which required constant maintenance. But he did it anyway. And then there was that moment where he didn’t sleep for several days looking for you when you didn’t come back from your visit to Yen Sid’s tower.

Then there were the more recent moments when the two of you had decided to be intimate, and you were willing to share your body with him. And it made him feel closer to you on a level he’d never felt with anyone else before. And he felt a similar form of intimacy when the two of you just sat down in your dream and talked to each other about your likes and dislikes where the most touching you did was just holding hands.

And then there was the connection between your hearts. Something he had formed with you during one moment of complete understanding. He wanted more moments like that one. But he’d never been in love before, and he wouldn’t even know what it felt like. But if he had to guess….

Even though the two of you hadn’t known each other for a very long time – what was it eight months now? He might just be falling in love with you….

“I might like her a whole lot,” Axel said sheepishly as he looked away, his face darkening.

 “Yeah, uh huh, Axel just be a man and admit that you love her.”

“Well why don’t you be a man and tell me why you’re asking all these questions about feelings, Mr. Don’t-Ask-Any-Follow-Up-Questions. But anyway I gotta go,” Axel said, standing up abruptly so he could go to his room and not think about his feelings and wait for a text from you that you were back.

“You can’t run from your feelings Axel!”

“Shut the fuck up, Faux-hawk!”

Demyx shrugged, not put off by his comment and walked to his bathroom to take a shower. And Ludwig, who had been hiding in the koi pond, slowly lifted up, one of the koi fish stuck to his head and gently sucking on his feathers.

“Interesting,” he said, scribbling something down on a soaked pad of paper before slowly lowering back into the pond.

Axel was distracted in his thoughts. He didn’t notice you in the hall where he was or that you were waving. He also didn’t notice you dart into the closet across from Ludwig’s room, so he really wasn’t expecting you to pull him into that closet, letting out a somewhat startled yelp that you were nearly doubled over laughing at.

“Oh ha ha,” he said sarcastically, thankful it was hard to see his blush in the dark closet. Well it wasn’t totally dark. You left the door slightly cracked to let some light in. “What are you doing in here anyway?”

“I don’t know,” you said with a smile and shrug, “Being spontaneous, I guess.”

“Spontaneous?”

“And maybe a little naughty?” you said with a mischievous smile. Axel quirked an eyebrow at you, his heart jumping a little. He shook his talk with Demyx from his mind. He could sort out his feelings a little later. Living in the moment sounded much better right now.

You pressed yourself to him, your smile broadening just a bit as you looked up at him, and you felt his arms snake around your waist.

You pulled him down to you in a kiss that he happily returned, and you found yourselves just in the closet. Making out. Like a couple of teenagers. And it gave you weird a giddy sense of being bad, knowing that you could be caught at any moment – that anyone could just walk in there and see the two of you all over each other.

Warning: Steamy bits ahead!

 

 

 

Maybe Axel was feeling it too, because next thing you knew, he was pressing you up against the wall of the closet, and you gasped. He took the opportunity to put his tongue in your mouth, and you felt a whimper escape you. And this seemed to push Axel over the edge as he let a hand brush beneath your shirt and it inched a little higher, but then he stopped just shy of your breasts. And it… frustrated you. You pushed him away a bit.

“You know you can,” you said, and he blushed a bit.

“I know,” he said, eyes glancing away for a second. Then he added quietly, “I’m nervous. I’ve never really done this before.”

You giggled a little bit, and he let out a breathless, embarrassed laugh.

“If you’re not comfortable with it, then that’s fine. I don’t want to rush into anything you don’t want to do,” you said with a gentle smile.

“No, it’s not that. It’s not that at all. You have no idea how much it isn’t that,” he said, eyes trailing over your body, “I just don’t want to disappoint you. I don’t know what you like.”

You bit your lip.

“Is it weird that hearing you say that was even more of a turn on? I mean, I’ve never had a partner admit when they don’t know what to do, but the fact that you’re willing to figure it out is actually doing it for me.”

“Yeah. It’s only weird because it’s weird to think absolutely none of your partners would have wanted to figure you out. I mean. Look at you.”

“Okay I know we’re having a serious talk about this, but, like, do you want to fool around a bit? I’m kinda feeling it, and you’re really attractive, and I really, really like you.”

“Yes,” Axel said quickly and was about to press his lips back to yours, but you stopped him again.

“And,” you added, searching his eyes for approval, nervousness dotting your own expression, “I want to touch you back. But only if you’re okay with it.”

“O-oh,” Axel stuttered, his heartrate picking up, “Yeah, yeah, that’s fine. I mean,” he gulped, “If you really want to.”

“I want you to feel good too,” you said as you pressed yourself to him, “I want to feel you too.”

Axel pressed his lips back to yours, and your hands pressed to his chest, gripping his shirt in your fists as you tried to pull him closer. You could feel Axel’s hands trail to your ass and begin to knead it pressing his hips closer to your own. You practically moaned into his mouth as you felt his erection pressed against you.

You slipped your hand down and rubbed him through his pants, and Axel gasped against your mouth before slipping one of his hands off of your ass and over your shirt and squeezing your breast – not quite ready to slip it underneath as he had been before. He still wanted to take things a little slow.

You could feel him growing harder against your hand, and this alone was driving you crazy, purely feeding off of his own horniness. Was it getting hot in here? You were pretty sure the two of you were functioning at a highly elevated temperature, and only now did you think to quell your magic a bit so you wouldn’t set the tiny closet on fire.

And with your magic under control, you decided to be a bit bold, getting back into your groove, placing your arms around Axel’s neck and leaning back into the wall he pressed you against to insure you’d have a sturdy support and lifting one of your legs and wrapping it around his hip. Axel groaned, pressing his hips harder against you and grinding himself against you repeatedly until the two of you were dry humping and moaning and gasping in each other’s mouths.

Axel trailed kisses down your jaw and to your neck where he remembered you were a bit vulnerable, and you gasped, clinging to him. He kept kissing and licking that spot, loving every gasp and every moan you let out – it was absolutely driving him crazy – and all the while he kept grinding against you, rubbing his hard-on against your core and effectively turning your mind to nothing.

“Axel,” you moaned out, and Axel had to break away from you. It was too much. Hearing you moan was already driving him mad, but hearing you moan his name was actively something he’d only fantasized about. Hearing it in real life was… unreal and downright orgasmic.

“Say it again,” he growled out as he gave a particularly hard thrust against you, “Say my name.”

You didn’t know what had gotten into Axel, but you fucking loved it.

“Axel,” you breathed/moaned out, pressing yourself against him as he ground into you, “Axel, Axel, Axel.” You repeated it like a mantra, loving how he responded to it. Because it felt amazing, and you felt amazing, and you could feel attraction and lust flowing through the two of you in a loop that only made you want more. Add that to the fact that you could feel Axel’s dick throbbing against you, and you were lost in haze of pleasure.

Axel’s hands went back to your ass, and he pressed into it, pulling your hips forward as he thrust his own forward so the two of you could grind into each other even more, and you let out a desperate keening noise at the same time he let out a low groan. You were so unbelievably turned on.

 

 

 

Axel was prepared to give you more reasons to say his name, but then he just barely, over the sound of both of your heavy breathing, heard voices.

“Shh!” he said, halting all movement. You let out a small whine of protest, but he shushed you again. You huffed, listening with him.

“But that’ll be the least of our worries,” Bog said as he, Eo, Atom, and a few other soldiers walked by, finishing some other conversation that you had no interest in because you could be getting intimate with your boyfriend right now, but you didn’t quite want to be caught with all the noise the two of you had been making either.

“How’s she been holding up?” Bog asked, looking to Eo and Atom, and Eo let out a groan.

“About as well as you expect her to,” he said with an eye roll, “She’s all in a tizzy because the keyblade didn’t want her. But, hey, ________ said there’s nothing to be done about it.”

You cringed. If there was ever a way to get you un-horny as quick as possible, it was remembering that little incident. You let out a quiet groan, and Axel placed a hand on your shoulder. You already felt bad enough that the empress had trouble netting respect as it was, but now you couldn’t imagine how this might reflect on her. If you had known it would have done that, you would have left the key in the car and brought it up later.

They stopped outside of your uncle’s door, directly across from where you and Axel were, and knocked on it lightly before waiting, continuing their talk as they did.

“She’ll press on,” Bog reassured them, “She’s a bright and shining product of our great empire – proud, steadfast, indominable. And our empire only builds the strong – one of the reasons I love it so much.”

“Here we go,” Atom jabbed with an eyeroll.

“What?” Bog said, quirking an eyebrow, “You know there’s nothing I love more than our beloved empire.”

“Except the empress,” Eo noted, “I don’t know what the fuck you see in her.”

“You watch your language when you talk about her!” Bog snapped at him, going a bit red in the face. And you briefly wondered if he was going to try and fight him, but Eo didn’t flinch.

“He speaks with the devil’s tongue,” you whispered to Axel, calling back to what Atom had said to you the first time you dropped the f-bomb around him. Axel put a hand over your mouth to keep you quiet as you giggled, but he bit his lip to hold in his own laugh as well.

“Well I might if she did anything respectable,” Eo grumbled.

“Was starting the renaissance not respectable enough for you?” Bog countered.

“I’m pretty sure it was the Great von Drake, ________, and I who started the renaissance,” Atom replied, as he gave another firm knock to your uncles door.

You leaned in a bit to be able to hear better as they spoke, but you leaned a little against the door, and it let out a little creak. Your breath hitched, but none of them turned to acknowledge the noise, too absorbed in what they had already been talking about.

Axel pulled you back against him so you wouldn’t lean on it again. You tried to not let him being so close distract you from the scene unfolding before you.

“And one action does not a respectable person make,” Eo continued, “This Horizons Project is her bread and butter because she refuses to do anything else. And she could do something. Start charities, volunteer to help the homeless, visit the sick and needy. The list goes on.”

“Well she’d make a nice figurehead if nothing else,” Bog said with a shrug. As much as he defended her, he couldn’t deny that she hadn’t done anything, “And I’d be more than happy to run the country properly by her side if she’d have me.”

Eo rolled his eyes again, and so did Atom this time.

“Have you heard anything about getting some ships out to the other planets?” Atom asked, changing the subject.

“Not much,” Bog replied, “But I know all the military personnel who have been stranded out there are excited to see their families again. This Horizons Project is already opening doors for everyone.”

They knocked on the door one more time, but there was no answer. Finally they gave up, walking onward and wondering where your uncle had gone.

As soon as they were out of earshot, you and Axel turned to each other.

“What did they mean she doesn’t do anything?” Axel questioned, and you bit your lip. You felt bad speaking bad about the empress, especially considering her rotten day, but she wasn’t exactly here to overhear you so….

“Well Atom said that she doesn’t really involve herself in political affairs,” you answered. Axel blinked at you.

“She’s the empress. How is she not involved?”

“That’s what I thought! But apparently she just doesn’t do anything. Atom said she acts more like a celebrity than anything else, but I figured if she was doing this whole renaissance thing, then she was making a turnaround or something.”

Axel shrugged. It was quiet for a moment for you two since your horniness had been effectively killed by distraction. So you let out a little sigh. It was just as well. You didn’t quite want to lose your virginity in a closet anyway.

“Do you wanna head back to my room?” you asked, smiling up at him, “The night’s still young, so you and I can watch some T.V. and cuddle.”

“I’d like to,” he said, “But I need to calm down first. All our friends saw me with a boner already, and I would like to not repeat the incident. But I’ll see you in a bit?”

You giggled and nodded, peeking out of the closet to make sure the coast was clear before you left to slip into your room. That was when your uncle rounded the corner. You were going to tell him that Atom, Eo, and Bog were looking for him when you noticed he was completely soaked.

“Why are you wet?” you asked him.

“Why are you wet?” he asked, and you looked absolutely horrified as he went into his room. Did he know what you had been up to with Axel? You tossed a glance at the closet and could hear Axel laughing quietly.

“What?” you snapped at him.

“I think he was being sarcastic,” Axel explained, poking his head out of the door. You felt mild embarrassment before insisting you totally knew that and scurrying off to your room.

Notes:

Thank you to those who gave kudos this week! It really means a lot to me! I'll see you all next week as usual with the next chapter!

Obscure-ish References:

Main Street Electrical Parade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Street_Electrical_Parade

Chapter 62: Beach Day

Summary:

You train with the soldiers and Axel. You head to the beach with your friends. You have a late night movie night with your friends and family. Empress Nova sets her sights on a new goal. This chapter is WAY longer than normal. Which is why it didn't get here sooner. Sorry. :(

Notes:

Okay so there IS mention of masturbation in this chapter, BUT it's actively kind of plot relevant as it's an important point of character for... well a character. So yeah... It's not graphic or anything like that, so don't think I'm going into all the little details of how it works, so it's not in bold or italics. I'm just letting you know now.

You were up relatively early despite a late-night cuddling session with Axel. You had kept your evening after your romp in the closet G-rated. Just as well, having to relive the embarrassment of the press conference and then mistaking your uncle for knowing what you’d been up to in that closet had effectively killed any mood you might have been in.

And now you were just wandering the palace in a shirt, shorts, and some tennis shoes, wondering if they had anything akin to a gym in this place. Or was this something you’d have to leave for? Regardless, you needed to train. You missed the vigorous training sessions you’d had in Disney Town with the simulator and the hardcore training you’d pushed yourself through while distracting yourself on Hollow Bastion, and while you didn’t hold out any hope for finding something similar in Tomorrowland, you could at least exercise and maybe ask one of your friends to fight you in a field.

You rounded a corner, pretty much just wandering around at this point, when you ran into Eo. He was on his way to guard the empress, as was expected of him and taking a more scenic route to take his time to get there but running into you was a nice distraction.

“You look lost,” he said, quirking an eyebrow at you. You smiled and nodded.

“A bit, yes, I don’t know exactly what it is I’m looking for. A place to train, I guess. I would train at least every other day back at home, and I didn’t know if there was something like that here?”

Eo assessed you for a moment before he gestured for you to follow him.

“So is that a yes?” you asked as you trailed behind him. He chuckled as he led you out of the palace and to a limo.

“You wanted a place to train,” he said as he hopped in, “And I think you’d fit right in at the military base. The soldiers ought to be running some drills, and I’m sure they wouldn’t mind having one more train alongside them.”

“With the soldiers?” you asked with mild alarm in your voice. He laughed a bit at your reaction.

“You’re a mighty warrior. Don’t tell me you’re intimidated by a few men now – especially after that spectacle with the alien.”

“I’m not intimidated,” you said with an edge of bite in your voice. Eo was unfazed, maintaining his amused air and expression. It didn’t grate on you as much it ought to, but you assumed that was because you knew he didn’t mean anything by his little jabs at your femininity.

You arrived at the base only a few moments later – it wasn’t very far from the palace at all. You were led through the main building and out to the back where it looked like a number of soldiers were getting ready to start their training.

Eo led you over to a man in uniform who looked to be in charge just based on what you could tell from looking at him.

“Drill Sergeant,” Eo addressed. The man snapped to attention.

“Yes, sir, Captain Eo,” he said. Due to his casual nature, you briefly forgot the level of authority that Eo commanded. He wasn’t so stern as Atom whose personality seemed almost melded to his job. But you had a feeling that Eo drew a very distinct line between the two that he had no trouble crossing when the moment called for it.

“I’m sure you know of Lady ________, the young keyblade wielder who helped start the renaissance,” Eo said, not waiting for a response, “Well, as you know from personal experience, young warriors need to train, and she was hoping to join in on your little session to keep her skills in top condition.”

“Of course, sir, I’d be honored,” he replied formally. It almost made you feel awkward to be so casually dressed among two military officers.

“He’ll take care of you,” Eo said as he walked away, leaving you with the drill sergeant.

“Uh, thanks for this,” you said awkwardly. He nodded at you.

“It’s an honor,” he replied, further making you feel awkward, but you forced a smile anyway.

~

Training was not so awkward as you feared it would be. The soldiers did stare for a bit, but the drill sergeant snapped them to attention, and soon you were as every other soldier out there – not better, no more special, no more skilled. Just another soldier – something you wholeheartedly welcomed. It almost reminded you of your time on Animal Kingdom and training with their soldiers.

You went through all the basic exercises in a field: sit-ups, push-ups, jumping jacks, etc. Then you ran the obstacle course next to the field with them a few times, and you found that you had a little too much fun on that one. It was the closest thing to the simulator you had back at Disney Town – minus the being able to fight simulated heartless and your own doppelganger.

You managed to keep up with them, which you were proud of – honestly afraid that you were going to drag behind them. A few hours later you were sweating and tired but satisfied. Your muscles ached in a way that was familiar to you but not unwelcome. You kind of missed your strenuous training sessions. It made you feel like you were getting better – like you weren’t some weakling who could barely take on basic heartless like you used to be.

“There you are,” you heard Axel call, and you turned to face him. He was dressed in his usual Organization attire which was odd. You knew he had new clothes now. He’d told you the previous evening when you were talking and cuddling.

“Hey,” you said, wiping sweat from your forehead, “What are you doing here? And why are you wearing your old coat?”

“Eo said you came here to train, and I was half sure they don’t train magic. So that’s why I showed up, hence the old fighting outfit. Of course, if you suddenly don’t think you can take me…,” he trailed off with a smirk. You answered that challenge.

“Oh you’re on,” you said as you walked to the field you’d previously been training in. Some of the soldiers overheard this little exchange, pausing in their walk from the training grounds to look at the two of you walk over to the field where you’d be sparring.

Others asked why they’d stopped walking and they told them that you and Axel would be sparring using magic, and, of course, as word of that spread, more walked over to watch the two of you. Because it was a fucking magic fight. They didn’t get front row seats to something like that every day, so, naturally, they wanted to watch.

Eo stopped by at about that time with the empress and Atom in tow. Bog had also opted to tag along with them back to the palace. They’d all been in the base discussing their next moves with the Horizons Project when Eo mentioned that he had dropped you off here to train with the soldiers a while ago. He just wanted to check up on you before heading back to the palace. And Commander Bog had opted to go with them.

Empress Nova personally wasn’t so enthused to watch you training, but she relented anyway. She didn’t have the energy to protest. It was still morning, and already her day had been long and boring and full of meetings she could hardly concentrate on.

When they arrived, they already saw a small audience of soldiers watching something in the field where they did some of their training. Once they moved passed them, they could see you and Axel circling each other in the field. You both looked determined, and already the air around the two of you appeared to wriggle and warp with the heat the two of you had been emitting.

“What’s going on here?” Eo asked, his eyes never breaking from you or Axel.

“Magic fight, sir,” one of the soldiers said, hardly paying attention to Eo but respectful enough to reply to him. Eo didn’t mind the casualness of his statement, it was bound to be interesting whatever happened here.

Atom was also brimming with anticipation. He liked watching you fight, and while he’d only had one other occasion to watch it, it had still been rather exhilarating.

Axel made the first move, starting with something basic. He threw a small fireball at you which you matched with your own, moving into a defensive position to ready yourself for his next attack. The two fireballs collided in a flash of purple, dissipating in a flurry of cinder and smoke. And the two of you traded fireballs for a while, just warming up. Though Axel did have to note one thing.

“You’re getting faster,” he said as you met him blow for blow.

“Having trouble keeping up?” you countered with a smirk.

“No, it just means I can finally stop going easy on you,” he said letting out little waves of fire that cut across the air in thin arcs. You countered them with your own as you had with the fireballs, watching as they collided in the air. But wasn’t it time you got off of the defensive?

You sent out a wave of fire to meet his attack, you began to send out more in a flurry of spins and kicks that allowed the flames to arc from your fingertips and the point of your feet, and Axel found himself dodging most as opposed to meeting them as the two of you had before. He looked at you with a tiny hint of surprise on his face. You had been practicing. He had to assume it had been when you were all on Hollow Bastion and he was unable to do anything – maybe even when he was unconscious.

So he needed to step up his game as well. He began to send out more than one wave of fire as you had, only he sent them all at once as opposed to one right after the other in rapid succession as you had – forcing you to dodge more than deflect. You knew you couldn’t do that too often. If all you did was dodge, you wouldn’t get any hits in, and Axel was efficient enough to know how to not leave you an opening for attack.

So you began to dodge around them as well as block in a manner that made appear as if you were dancing towards him. Axel would be lying if he said he didn’t like seeing it – Atom would too.

But while their eyes were on you, Empress Nova was taking note of the challenge Axel presented you. You who had been considered the strongest among them was actively struggling to take him on. And Axel had lost the arena because Eo had tricked him hadn’t he? How would the arena have turned out had Axel had a chance to take either you or Atom on?

She briefly remembered the small show of power Axel had shown during that first press conference he had accompanied her to – putting a barrier between herself and the reporters. He had been so confident in his abilities then. Was it because of all the power he had?

Her face felt a bit warm.

Meanwhile you had turned the tides again. Now that you were closer to Axel, sending waves of fire was more of a challenge. He didn’t have as much time to form them as he had before, giving you more time to attack as well as counter them, and you were a bit lighter on your feet than he was provided your history as a dancer. This gave you the opportunity show of one of the few things you had developed on Hollow Bastion which involved sending up a sheet of fire into the air that then broke apart like fireworks then fell around him in little balls of fire, keeping him in a constant state of having to dodge them, splitting his attention between you and the fire coming towards him. This made for a nice distraction, and Axel realized he was going to have to keep you still if he wanted you to stop dancing and attacking during the moments when he was too focused on dodging the fire raining down on him; or at least he had to confine your movements so he could give you his full attention.

So he used one of his own moves where he effectively erected a ring of fire around you that stretched from the ground to high above you. Of course, it had long been established between the two of you that his fire didn’t burn you, but if you had to act like he was the enemy, you had to act like you couldn’t just waltz right out of his little trap. So you were vulnerable as he jumped out of the ring. And you couldn’t see through the thick fire, so you were left blind and waiting for Axel to show himself.

You were not fast enough to dodge him and he knocked you to the ground with a small wave of fire to your front. You fell on you back with an, “oof,” blinking up at a smirking Axel who pinned you beneath him afterward and placed a kiss firmly on your lips. You were stunned, and he jumped out of the ring once more before you had time to recover.

You wondered what the little audience that had accumulated to watch the fight would have said if they could have seen that little display through the wall of fire.

You jumped back to your feet, but by the time you had managed to get passed your daze of being effectively knocked down and kissed, Axel was already back, pressing himself to your back and placing a kiss on your neck in that one spot that made you weak in the knees. He hardly had to push you to knock you down at that point, just letting go and watching you stumble forward.

Now was not the time to go all weak in the knees and crazy for him! Which you were very much doing right now.

The next time Axel jumped back into the ring, launching himself at you, you grabbed him by the front of his coat, brining him down for a deep kiss and using his momentum to fall back onto the ground. Axel was so thrown by it, that he didn’t even notice the shift of his weight changing until you had broken the kiss and were almost to the ground. But by then it was too late. You had curled your knees up to your chest, pressing your feet to his middle and launching him over your head and back out of the ring, your laugh sounding in his ears as he flew through the wall of the ring.

He supposed he had that one coming. But it wasn’t all too unpleasant. But now you were more aware of him. He needed to think about where he was going to attack next. He rolled to his feet after he hit the ground, thinking about his next move. But he wouldn’t need to do that. You had two other moves you had taught yourself – one you implemented from Demyx when he mentioned how he could use water to form a bubble of a shield around himself. You formed a bubble of fire around you, desperately trying to maintain its shape as it was one of your less practiced moves, before you launched it out in all directions. You smiled with satisfaction as it pressed against the ring Axel had trapped you in, turning purple and dissipating as your own fire destroyed his.

You turned to face Axel who looked surprised you had managed to disable it. You just smirked in return, entering a defensive position, ready for whatever he tried next. The two of you returned to launching fireballs at each other, getting more aggressive in your attacks as you danced around each other.

But you had briefly forgotten that you had an audience as you were fighting, launching a fireball in Axel’s direction that was not as controlled as the others, and it went sailing right passed him and towards the empress.

“Shit! Axel!” you called, but he was already on it, jumping in front of the empress, summoning his chakrams to effectively block the fireball from reaching her. He looked back at her, and she blinked up at him.

“You alright?” he asked, green eyes laced with light worry.

“Y-yes,” she stammered, going red in the face. He nodded then jumped back into the fight. She was barely even aware of your call of, “Sorry!” She was… distracted.

“You think you can keep everybody else out of the fight?” Axel quipped, smirk on his face, poking a little fun at your embarrassment. You rolled your eyes, getting just a bit riled up.

“Put up or shut up!” you shouted back bringing out your keyblade and changing it to a spear.

The next part of the fight was effectively magicless as the two of you focused on using your weapons. You both needed to recharge your magic a bit as you’d been trading blows for a little over and hour now, and it was starting to wear on both of you. The two of you continued doing so for at least another half hour or so before you were locked in a stalemate, his chakrams locked on your spear, both of you in the perfect position to strike if only you could get the other to give.

“How’d you take out that ring of fire from earlier?” Axel asked. You smirked at him.

“I learned to make a shield out of fire. Then I blew it up to take out your cage. And you never told me you could even make something like that.”

“Oh I’ve got a lot of tricks I’ve picked up over ten years that you haven’t seen yet,” he said. Your eyes widened just slightly as you searched his expression for some hidden meaning.

“Like what?” you asked cautiously, understanding that this could mean trouble for you but too curious to pass up the opportunity to see it in action.

“Like this,” he said jumping away from you. Then he charged at you, and you were prepared to meet him halfway, already running at him as well, but then he jumped. And he… disappeared? In a small flash of fire, and you couldn’t see him. You turned this way in that in the span of the half of a second he was gone, and he reappeared behind you, kicking your legs from underneath you.

“Impressed?” he asked from where he stood above you. You kicked his own legs from underneath him, and he rolled to his feet as you got to your own.

“Very,” you replied. He repeated the trick a few more times, and you found yourself struggling to dodge attacks from him at that rate. Though pulling it off did seem to take a lot out of him. So if you managed to throw him off just enough once he was visible again, you might be able to stagger him enough to get a few hits in.

You were not the only one impressed. Even Eo found himself lucky that Axel had not used such a move against him during the arena. Though maybe Axel preferred not to fight dirty.

“It’s quite a spectacle isn’t it?” Bog asked, as he eyed Empress Nova out of the corner of his eye, “It’s almost beautiful.” She didn’t respond. He actively turned his head to face her. She was entranced. It appeared that she hadn’t even heard him. He looked back out at the fight and back at her, following her eyes. She was distracted.

She was too busy staring at Axel to notice Bog.

You dodged another attack and he flashed out of sight again, you began forming your shield again, wrapping yourself in the light blue flames, and waiting for the sound of his own fire to woosh and crackle as he jumped back into visibility.

He was going to attack your shield in an obvious attempt to break through it to get to you. What else could he do? And as soon as you heard him pop back into visibility, you pushed out the force of your shield, and it threw Axel for a loop. You’d explicitly told him about it, but he hadn’t accounted for you to implement it now as you had then. Clever.

He didn’t fly too far away from the force of your shield. Fire was still a gas, and pressing it out as a force of palpable almost solid air was still a struggle for you. How had you and Axel even managed to dance on it at your birthday party? Why was is so easy when it was just the two of you being intimate instead of when you wanted to use it to fight?

It hardly mattered now. You were straining to use your magic at this point. That shield took too much magic and concentration to form, never mind making sure that when you expanded it or sent it out as a wave you had to pour more magic into it just to make sure it didn’t dissipate too soon.

But at least you could say that Axel was also beginning to wear down. One thing was clear: One of you needed to end this fight now before the other got the upper hand in your weakened states and finished it themselves.

Axel began to attack you with all he had left, his chakrams flying around you in dangerous patterns almost consistently with the urgency with which he threw them. You were really struggling to dodge now – your magic reserves were low, and you were tired from your previous training. But you had one last trick up your sleeve – a move a bit more practiced than your shield or your fire rain. Something that was right up your alley in terms of use.

You reeled your arms back and snapped them forward like cracking a whip, and two thin ribbons of fire appeared. Then you began to dance with them like dancer’s ribbons, whipping at the chakrams and Axel who found himself dodging them as much as you were dodging his own attacks. It was funny how much it looked like the two of you were dancing as opposed to fighting.

And you would have loved to continue this little dance were it not for the fact that maintaining the fire ribbons was a taxing hassle. You needed to end this. You snapped the ribbons at Axel’s chakrams as they flew at you, letting out a happy laugh as they wound themselves around them. Then you swung them around at the ends of your ribbons, swinging them at Axel who was so caught off guard that he almost got taken out. But he recovered, re-summoning his weapons into his hands before you could take him out with them. You were mildly thrown off balance by the sudden shift in weight and momentum now that you were no longer dancing based on the weight of his weapons, and Axel wasted no time.

He struck you in the back. Hard. And you went down, rolling across the field. You took a second to catch your breath, noting that he had stopped attacking. You could fight back if you wanted. But now that you were lying on the ground and finally still, your body protested. You were in pain and tired and could hardly move, and you didn’t even want to stand. Everyone watched quietly as you began to hoist yourself up. You got halfway up before your arms gave out and you fell back down. You were even more exhausted than you thought.

Axel, seeing your defeat, finally let himself relax, resting his hands on his knees. He was also exhausted and needed a moment to catch his breath. You were better than the last time the two of you trained.

He walked over to you and helped you up after a moment. You took his hand and pulsed your healing magic between the two of you, healing any injuries and making you feel just a bit more energized. Of course, that was the last of your magic, but you felt better anyway.

“You’re getting better at that,” Axel noted, “You’re getting better at magic period.”

“Had a lot of time to practice on Hollow Bastion,” you said, and he nodded.

“Yeah, I figured as much. I was actually debating if you might figure out how to beat me,” he quipped as the two of you walked towards the little audience, ready to leave, “But everyone already saw me lose the arena. I had to reclaim my dignity.”

You let out a snort.

“Don’t get too comfortable. I’ll be kicking your ass next time we fight. And I’ll have a few more tricks up my sleeve by that point.”

“Speaking of,” Axel said as he eyed you, “Do you maybe wanna train that second form a bit? I’ve only seen it in action once and I won’t know how to train it if I don’t know what I’m working with.”

“Second form?” Atom said once the two of you were close enough to be heard. You flinched. You didn’t like to think about it too much. It wasn’t exactly where all your self-esteem was.

“Uh, yeah,” you said, thinking up a lie, “It’s an alien thing that people on my planet can do.”

You didn’t necessarily want to lie, but you didn’t want them to think that for one reason or another you were just tied to darkness – although you knew it was just the lingering effect of having a heartless in your lineage.

“I don’t typically bring it out on other worlds,” you said, sheepishly looking away, “It can be kind of unnerving and a little scary anywhere that isn’t home.”

“Oh please,” Atom said, waving off your statement, “Every soldier here was trained to be prepared for any and all horrors one might face on other worlds. I guarantee you nothing you throw at us will be so jarring.”

You blinked at him. You think he kind of insulted you a little bit. But he was also trying to reassure you, so you couldn’t really be too mad.

You just gave him a shrug, letting your darkness slowly envelop you until you were a full heartless, staring directly into his eyes and down at a few of the other soldiers. You crossed your arms over your chest and wrapped your tail around your hips. True, you didn’t’ have nipples, and you couldn’t see anything on your crotch because your body was literally the color of the void, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t try to be decent.

They all blinked back at you in surprise, and you were uncomfortable, but at least they didn’t look scared or wary of you. And after a few moments they began to look you up and down in interest.

“Too scary?” you asked Atom.

“N-No!” he stammered, then he kept looking at your face, “You’re actually kinda pretty.”

And he meant that. He wasn’t put off by this from at all. But there was something that was bothering him quite a bit. You quirked a brow at him but heard no active doubt in his voice. He really believed that you looked pretty. He was blushing a bit, and his face only grew redder the longer he looked at you.

“You’re naked,” he stated, and you realized his blush was because he realized that you weren’t wearing any clothes. Many of the other soldiers blushed and quickly looked away, including Eo, Bog, and the empress. You draped your hair over your breasts to cover them a bit more.

“We should go,” Eo finally said and everyone muttered their agreements and shuffled away awkwardly. Once they were away, you and Axel burst into laughter at how much they didn’t know how to handle you.

You turned to him.

“So are we really training like this? Because I’m gonna let you know now, I’ve got like no magic left in me and need to recharge.”

“Well I mostly just want to see what you’re capable of. This’ll be quick. Promise.”

You nodded and entered a defensive fighting position a few feet from him. He did the same, summoning his chakrams and attacking you with pretty basic moves. One thing he was not expecting was for you to be able to take his attacks directly. He was much more used to you dodging them, but you were meeting them now. But he also noticed you were slower than before and not nearly as graceful on your now large feet.

Some of his attacks you were even deflecting with just your hands. It had been something you noticed about yourself when fighting off the vines that grabbed you during the Specter attack. You were much more durable against pain now. And you could push through it easier.

And now you were meeting all of Axel close range attacks with your hands along, veering his momentum in the other direction. He would always recover quickly and be ready to send another attack flying your way. And it was getting intense. More intense than either of you had intended for just, “seeing what you could do.” But the two of you fought faster and closer, practically dancing in each other’s arms if you’d only wrap them around each other.

“I have to admit,” Axel said as he continued to attack and dodge, “This is a bit different than what I’m used to from you.”

“Does that intimidate you?” you asked with a smirk. Axel returned the smirk, catching one of your hands and pulling you off balance while his other hand went to the small of your back, effectively pulling you against him until he tilted you back in a dip as if the two of you really were dancing.

It was so unexpected and honestly a turn on to have him do this to the point where whatever part of your magic had recovered vanished instantly when you found yourself igniting in surprise and swooning just a bit. He just continued to smirk at you.

“No,” he finally responded to your question, “You could never intimidate me. I know you. Who you are, how you fight. Even your looks don’t change anything.”

“This form really doesn’t bother you?” you asked as he lifted you out of the dip.

“I’ve already told you. It’s just you. It doesn’t matter what you look like, and to be honest, I find the way you look now just as beautiful as the way you look normally.”

You felt a flutter in your chest. This man was saying all the right things to you right now.

“Stop it,” you said, flustered, “Let’s keep training. You can flirt with me later.”

He chuckled at your response before continuing your training. The two of you kept at it for about another hour or so before he decided to call it a day on combat.

“I feel like I can take on the world,” you said as you stretched your arms above your head, “I almost had you in that fight earlier. And I don’t wanna toot my own horn, but I almost beat you now.”

“Pfft. Yeah,” Axel said with a roll of his eyes, “The key word is, ‘almost.’ As in you did not beat me then. You did not beat me now. You’ve still got a long way to go.”

“Well when will I be ready? I’m way stronger than I used to be.”

“You’re getting too cocky,” Axel warned, “You need to be on par with Sora at least, and you’re not. Even I couldn’t beat him, so you’re nowhere near good enough to go up against Marluxia, let alone Xemnas.”

You rolled your eyes and pouted. You didn’t want to admit he was right. So you wouldn’t.

“Moving on,” Axel said, changing the subject, “Let’s take a look at some of your other features.”

“Like what?” you grumbled, still mildly put off. Axel ignored it.

“Can you do that arm thing from before when Specter tried to eat you? Like where you have four arms instead of two?”

“Uh, no,” you said, “I didn’t know I could do that, and I’m pretty sure I was only able to do it out of desperation because I would have died otherwise.”

“Well… can you do anything else?”

You swung your tail at him, letting the axe cut cleanly across the air, and Axel jumped out of the way in shock, having almost gotten hit.

“Were you gonna kill me? Is this because I said you weren’t stronger?”

“Of course not. I’m not petty enough to kill somebody over that. And I’m plenty strong thank you very much! I just need to get stronger. Though I have to admit that this form is a nice improvement,” you said as you flexed your arms, seeing the muscles there. Axel looked as well.

“How much stronger are you?” he asked, getting a little idea, “Punch me in the shoulder.”

You blinked at him like he was crazy.

“Uh, no,” you said plainly, “I may not have strategy down very well in order to beat you, but I can guarantee that I am physically stronger. Much stronger.”

“Just punch me,” he said, rolling his eyes. You rolled your own though you weren’t sure how well he could tell since you had no pupils and your eyes were just an opaque yellow. You approached him, and Axel braced himself to be punched, but you just picked him up in your arms and lifted him over your head. Then you threw him up in the air lightly and caught him with ease. You did this a few times.

“You barely weigh anything to me when I’m like this,” you said, looking at his mildly embarrassed and surprised face, “If I punch you, you might not recover so easily as you think you will.”

You put him back down, and he mutters out an agreement about punching having been a bad idea, and he was glad you didn’t listen to him. Which was probably the only time you were ever going to hear him say that.

“Do you want to test your magic again?” he asked after a moment, “We don’t know how this form affects it. Might be nice to know if it’s stronger this way or not.”

You shrugged, taking a stance. Axel did the same, and the two of you were locked in a battle similar to your first one. And if there was ever a moment you where you despised how slow and clumsy you were now, it was this one where you could deflect attacks, sure, but you weren’t nearly competent enough when stumbling around to be able to send any of your own attacks out efficiently. And Axel was taking advantage of it, as if hammering the point home that you were not yet strong enough.

Though it was as he was about to land a finishing blow on you that you, out of pure desperation, discovered another little trick you could do. As he was about to strike you with magic, a glow emanated from the heart-shaped hole in your abdomen, and a silvery beam of light shot out, and knocked Axel clear across the field and onto his ass.

He lay on the ground, blinking up at the sky in bewilderment, wincing when he tried to sit up.

“Well, if there were ever anything you could do to beat Sora,” he said as he sat up, “That might be it. Holy shit that hurt,” he said as he grabbed his middle. You were stunned. You hadn’t even known you could do that.

“I am so sorry,” you said, flying over to his side, flapping your wings as fast as possible, and resting next to him before healing him with your magic. He stood up, and you did as well. Then he looked you over.

“I think it’s enough for today but,” he said and hesitated, “Can I, like, check you out? Not sexually or anything. I mean just looking at you. I’ve never really gotten to see you in a non-battle setting.”

You nodded slowly, watching as he walked around you.

“Do you think you can take hearts?” he asked as he circled you. You shrugged.

“Well I’m not about to try and find out.”

He let out a little hum of acknowledgement as he continued to observe. Then he paused in front of you, eyes drifting up to your horns. He reached up and touched them. They were smooth, and there was a very tiny, almost invisible fine layer of fuzz coating them. It made them feel rather velvety.

And then… you began to purr….

Axel blinked at you, and you stopped purely out of shock and embarrassment.

“I, uh, didn’t know I could do that,” you stammered.

“Does it feel nice?” he asked as he continued to rub them. Your purring resumed.

“Yeah, actually. It feels really nice,” you said, feeling more relaxed now.

“They’re warm,” he noted. And they continued to get a little warm as he rubbed them. Then he removed his hands, and you almost asked him to put them back and keep going. But he couldn’t very well do it all day.

He moved his hands down to the heart-shaped hole in your middle, and he brushed his hand along the edge before tracing a finger on the inside. Your breath hitched. When Setzer had done it, it just felt raw and weird. When Axel did it… It made you feel a little tingly. But… in a really intimate way.

“That, uh, feels really nice,” you breathed. Axel eyes snapped from where he was exploring to your eyes, noting they were half-lidded and that you were biting your lip. He put two and two together and concluded that he ought to stop before you both found yourselves in a situation similar to the previous evening – only you’d be in an open field instead of a closet. Your horns which had warmed before were starting to glow red at the tips.

He moved on, touching near the base of your tail and making his way down to the heart shaped axe on the tip. You felt pretty neutral towards the sensation until he reached the axe. It felt nice – just like your horns – but you were still working off of your previous feelings, and you could steadily feel yourself slipping into a light state of arousal.

Axel noted that the blade of your tail was starting to warm and glow red as well and was steadily getting hotter.

“Axel,” you breathed, and he looked up at you. The look on your face made him want to kiss you, but he knew that the two of you shouldn’t be making out in public. At least, not when he knew it would lead into something steamier.

Your horns were much redder now, emanating heat off of them. He could assume you were close to igniting – only now you had a visible sign of it.

“Feeling some type of way, babe?” he asked as he let his finger trace the inside of your axe before he let go. You shuddered.

“Yes,” you said sternly, well aware that he was being a tease now, “Horny. So cut it out.”

“I’ll remember that for later,” he noted, voice dropping a little. You didn’t know what he was planning but you’d figure that out later.

The two of you left the base shortly after with you shifting back into your natural form and both of you chatting about how you wanted to spend your day now that you were completely free and didn’t have anything scheduled.

As you left, the two of you passed a water cooler on a table that was left out for the soldiers.

The lid of the cooler lifted once the two of you had gone passed, and Ludwig lifted his head out, observing the two of you and scribbling something on a pad of paper.

“Interesting,” he muttered before slowly sinking back into the cooler.

You and Axel discussed a few potential date ideas on the way back to the palace since the two of you hadn’t really had time to be together outside of the few times you’d met up to share kisses. Then the topic of conversation shifted to having all of you together for a bit since it had been a while since everyone had spent time together in a setting that wasn’t stressful in one way or the other.

“I was thinking about the beach,” you said to Axel as the two of you walked through the palace. You’d tossed around a few ideas like the movies or the park, but then you remembered the beach, and you’d thrown the idea at Namine before and she seemed on board. You’d still have to ask Demyx, but you didn’t see why you couldn’t suggest it to Axel now. Maybe the beach would be a nice place to hang out.

“The beach?” he repeated, and you nodded.

“The beach?” a new voice chimed. You both turned to see the empress standing there, looking highly intrigued, Eo and Atom at her sides. You gave her a bright smile of greeting.

“Yeah, I was thinking we could visit the beach,” you explained, “I’ve never been to one with black sand before. I thought it might be neat.”

“Well I think it’s a marvelous idea,” she said, “A perfect way to unwind after our busy week. I have a mind to join you. I could use the fresh air. There’s a private beach behind the palace for soldiers and their families. I’m sure they won’t mind if we use it for the day.”

“Sounds like fun,” you replied, smile brightening, “We can all meet up there later.”

“What time?”

You shrugged. Did you really need a time for the beach?

“Any time I guess. I was hoping to spend most of my day there. But I need to get cleaned up a bit before I can meet anyone down there though. I’m a mess,” you said, as you tugged at your shirt. It, as well as your shorts, were dirty after your fight with Axel. “Plus I need to get out my swimsuit.”

“Well then I suppose I’ll see you when you arrive,” she said with a gentle smile before casting a quick glance at Axel. And with that you all dispersed to get ready for your beach day with you sending a text to the rest of your friends and family who hadn’t been present for the conversation that you would be hitting the beach later and they were welcome to join.

It was another perfect day again, bright sun and clear skies. It made you giddy, and all that giddiness was rubbing off on Namine.

“What are you so excited about?” she asked, “I know you haven’t been to many beaches, but you’ve been before. So why all the excitement? Is it the sand?”

“Well, no,” you replied, “I’m just happy I guess. This is the first time in a long time we’ve all gotten to hang out casually right? The last time we were all together was when we were laying low in Twilight Town. And before that was laying low in Hollow Bastion. And even before the laying low we were just around waiting for Axel to wake up. And before that he was hurt and confined to his room. And before that we all weren’t even in the same world because I was partying in Twilight Town while the everyone else was in Hollow Bastion.”

“Well when you put it that way…,” Namine said, trailing off and realizing that you had a point, “Okay my swimsuit’s on. Ready to show each other?”

“Yes!” you practically squealed. Your orders had arrived that morning while you were training with Axel, and you were stunned at all of the beautiful garments Giovanni had designed, created and delivered for you. That disgruntled customer wasn’t kidding when he said that Giovanni worked fast. You supposed it had something to do with the efficiency of being a robot.

“Namine!” you gasped, and she blushed immediately.

“Does it look bad?!” she said, already in a panic.

“No! It’s just… well usually you’re cute and pretty,” you said, “But, Namine… you look like a total dish right now. Like you look really sexy!”

Her blush deepened as she went to look at herself in the mirror, finally getting a clear look and thinking that she really did look nice. It was a pretty bikini in black, a color she didn’t often wear, with a embroidery of pale blue roses lining one of the straps that tied around her neck and down the center of the bikini, between her breasts and down her waist on a thin ribbon of fabric that wrapped around and down to her bikini bottom. The roses ended at her hip. Overall it was a very nice trail for the eye to follow. It was sensual without being too in your face with the sensuality of it all. You were also pretty sure that this was the most skin she’d ever shown.

“You look nice too,” she said with a smirk, “Axel won’t be able to keep his hands off of you.”

You giggled. You kind of hoped so. You kept thinking about the previous night and how much you liked being that close to him. And while it had been primarily sexual, you couldn’t ignore that there was an underlying passion and affection just beneath the surface.

Your own bikini was silver with a fabric that looked like scales with glass beads that shimmered when the light shown on them lining the straps the tied around your neck and the hip ties your bottoms. On the hips also dangled little charms the size of your thumbnail in the shape of hearts. The also shimmered in the light but in different colors, drawing attention to the curve and swish of your hips and your toned legs when you walked. All those years of dancing really paid off for you.

You opted to have your hair loose for the most part, leaving one or two strands braided so you could weave glass beads into the braids. You looked a tiny bit exotic.

Of course, you also had a myriad of scars over your body that you’d accumulated, the most prominent one being on your stomach where Marluxia’s scythe had gone through. On your back was the exit wound but it wasn’t quite as prominent as the one on the front. But you, oddly enough, didn’t feel bad about any of them. You felt like they were a testament to your strength, and, honestly, you felt pretty badass.

“Well let’s get going,” you said before a small wave of pain and nausea hit you.

Meanwhile Demyx and Axel had already made their way to the beach. They weren’t so obsessed with their swimsuits as you or Namine, then again they’d had plenty of time to do it when Demyx was fretting over his looks the other night.

Axel was sitting on a log, looking out at the ocean and listening to seagulls crying overhead. It was a nice day, but it’d be nicer once you and Namine showed up. Demyx, however, had found a way to entertain himself. He was playing music on his sitar, doing tricks with the ocean water, much to the delight and entertainment of several other soldiers and families that had shown up to the private beach.

Some of the nearby soldiers with significant others to speak of were dancing with their wives and girlfriends, and this kept them entertained for a while. Then the empress strode onto the scene with Eo and Atom in tow. She was in a rather revealing bikini which covered enough to just barely be considered decent. A few of the wives and girlfriends at the beach found they didn’t appreciate it quite so much – particularly because their significant others had wandering eyes. This, of course, was fixed with a few quick slaps to the backs of their heads, but that didn’t stop them for throwing a quick glance every now and again. The single soldiers just gawked openly, letting out a few wolf whistles here and there.

But those that were really eating up her presence was the paparazzi which had miraculously found its way to the beach. And now they were snapping pictures of her as she strode over the sand with long, graceful strides, stopping to pose every now and again with an umbrella or as if she were admiring the scenery.

And Demyx wasn’t even looking. Axel was surprised that he wasn’t. That was honestly the first thing he expected him to do, but he seemed lost in thought, still staring out at the ocean as he played his sitar. But that’s not where it remained. Soon your voice carried over to them both as you called their names and waved with Namine next to you waving as well.

Demyx finally turned from what he was doing to look at the two of you as you walked up to them, and his jaw dropped just a bit when he saw Namine. Axel had had his suspicions that Demyx might have actually been starting to feel something for Namine, but he hadn’t confirmed it until this moment. He couldn’t help but notice that you had noticed too, giving Demyx an amused look before whispering something to Namine that made her blush and giggle just a bit.

But then Axel took note of how you looked. Axel had never seen you in a bikini before. Axel had never seen so much of you before, and he felt himself growing warmer than he wanted to, but he tried to get himself and his magic under control before he set the air around him on fire. But you looked nice. Really nice.

Then he noticed that your hair was longer by just a little bit, and he felt mild worry. Then he reminded himself that Ludwig had said it was fine and you were in no danger. And you weren’t looking at him like you were in excruciating pain, so he supposed he could put the worst of his worries to bed.

Empress Nova in the meantime had been enjoying all of the attention she’d been getting, but then she noticed something rather odd. There was a slow shift beginning. And just as surely as she had had the attention, it was slowly slipping away. She looked to see what had been netting such attention and she saw you and Namine walking down the beach towards Axel and your other friend – whose name always seemed to escape her. And it appeared that the two of you did know how to dress in things that weren’t t-shirts and shorts and the occasional sundress. And you were in two very nice swimsuits that were drawing the attention of the soldiers and the media.

She eyed you up and down before putting on a sweet smile and strutting over to your little group, adding a little extra sway to her hips as she did so. Atom and Eo follow dutifully though they were at least a little happier to be able to speak with your group as opposed to just standing off to the side while the empress posed for the cameras.

“There you all are,” she called as she walked up to you all. You turned to her and gave her your brightest smile, all your giddiness at being on a black sand beach absolutely beaming from your face.

“Someone’s excited,” Eo noted as he noted your giddy and somewhat restless nature.

“Sorry,” you apologized reflexively with a light giggle, “I’ve only been to the beach like twice before now. We didn’t have them on my world. And I’ve never seen a beach with black sand before. It’s gorgeous.”

“Well I’m happy to see you enjoying it, dear,” Nova said with a smile, folding her arms beneath her breasts, “Though I have to wonder. There are cameras here. Are you certain you want to showcase all of your scars like that? They’re a bit unsightly don’t you think?”

“Oh no,” you said waving her off, “I love them.”

“Is that the one you got from fighting the world guardian?” Atom asked, eyeing the large scar on your stomach. Your smile broadened.

“Nah,” you said, running a finger over it, “I got this from a guy working for the man who destroyed my home. And I fully intend to return the favor.”

“Looks like it hurt,” Eo commented as he leaned in closer to look at it. Atom did the same.

“Oh not really,” you said, “I was in such a state of shock I couldn’t even register it when it happened. But when I was in the hospital, before it got healed completely, it hurt like a bitch.”

“May I?” Atom asked, looking up at you for approval. He was pointing to your scar. Did he want to touch it? Well… it was odd, but okay you supposed.

“Sure,” you said with a shrug, “I can’t feel anything there anymore anyway. All the nerves are dead now.”

He ran a finger down the scar tentatively, feeling the rough texture of the skin. It was remarkable. You didn’t have as many scars as Axel did, but you’d obviously seen your fair share of warfare and combat.

“You know I was also admiring many of Axel’s scars the other day,” he noted, “You’ve obviously got quite a few stories to tell.”

“We didn’t come here to discuss war, Captain Atom,” Nova interrupted, “We came here to relax. Now I don’t want to hear anymore about anyone’s great battle accomplishments while we’re here. Let’s just enjoy our time off. I, for one, am going to get soaked for a bit and cool off from this hot, hot sun. If anyone cares to join me, they may.”

Then she walked away to wade a bit in the water, some of the cameras following her movements while the rest lingered on you and your friends. Eo and Atom followed her as they were supposed to.

“Speaking of,” Axel started, turning to look at you, “Do you want to learn how to swim?”

You stiffened before casting a wary glance out at the ocean.

“I don’t know,” you said slowly. It’s not like past experiences didn’t prove you needed them. Because damn near all of your last experiences with large bodies of water were unpleasant. But that was just it. They were all unpleasant and terrifying and you weren’t sure you were ready to face that.

“I’ll teach you,” Axel offered, placing a reassuring hand on your shoulder, and you tore your eyes from the ocean to look at him. His gaze was firm and encouraging, and maybe you could maybe just for a second try to attempt to learn to swim. “You trust me, don’t you? I won’t let anything happen to you.”

You nodded a little and he began to walk towards the ocean. You followed with smaller, tentative steps. Namine and Demyx stayed behind to talk about their day and make some potential plans to hang out for later before moving closer to the water so Demyx could continue making music and doing tricks with the water. He also gave Namine a quick compliment, saying she looked nice. She blushed and remarked that he too looked very nice in his swim trunks, and Demyx was glad that he’d spent so much time picking them out.

When you reached the edge of the sand where the water stopped rolling in and began to ebb away, you stopped, eyeing it with more caution. Your heart was pounding in your chest, and you wanted to back out of it, but then Axel grabbed your hand, leading you forward.

The cool water brushed your toes as you trudged forward, and your grip on Axel’s hand tightened, but he was patient with you as the water finally brushed your ankles and steadily began to creep up your leg the deeper you went. Finally, when the water was up to your hips, you stopped walking. You were now gripping Axel’s hand with one of your own and gripping his wrist with your other hand, all the while glancing between him, the water, and the shore where your friends were. At least the waters weren’t overly rough today, so the waves would be gentle and not push and pull the two of you in and out to sea while he taught you.

“I’ve got you,” Axel reassured you, not minding how tightly you were gripping him. You were scared, and that was okay. He was just happy to have gotten you out there in the first place considering you looked like even being in shallow water was freaking you out.

Nova narrowed her eyes at you, gaze trailing to where you had a death grip on Axel’s arm which only got worse when you abandoned keeping him at arm’s length to pull yourself to him entirely, wrapping your arms around his arm and keeping close. It made him laugh a little. Her eyes narrowed further before she tore her gaze away to look out at the beach. There was a camera here and there still snapping pictures of her, but for the most part it seemed that the cameras were occupied getting pictures of you and your friends. Even the soldiers, the main group of people who seemed to have the most trouble not looking at her, had their gazes firmly glued to you or your female friend.

“The two of you can take a break for the time being,” she said to Atom and Eo who were still following dutifully at her side but hanging back by about three feet so they wouldn’t block her shots. They almost let out sighs of relief as they departed. Eo went to go watch the show of you and Axel out on the water, and Atom went to go sit on a towel beneath an umbrella.

Nova pranced out of the ocean, making her way back over to Demyx and Namine. She arched her back a bit, pushing her chest out as she approached the two. She placed a gentle hand on Demyx’s shoulder, and he looked up at her. But Nova was still looking at Namine with a sweet smile who gazed back with a less sweet smile but sweet all the same.

“You don’t mind if I borrow him for a bit, do you?” Nova purred at Namine, and Namine felt a heat creeping across her cheeks before silently shaking her head and walking a way a bit dejectedly. Nova’s smile broadened before turning her head back to Demyx who was still waiting on her to say something. Nova straightened her back a little hoping to elicit a small reaction from him – a quick glance down maybe – but he just held his gaze at her eyes without faltering.

“You’re good at doing tricks with this aren’t you?” she asked, running a finger across his sitar and pressing herself to him just a bit to get a bit more contact between them.

“Yeah, I guess I’m pretty good,” he said finally responding to the ego stroking regarding his skill with instruments. Though… he didn’t seem to be reacting too much to her at all. He even took a small step back so that she wasn’t pressed so close to him – their only remaining contact being where she had placed her hand on his shoulder.

“I’m looking to have a little bit of fun,” she purred as she rubbed his shoulder a bit, “Do you think you could make a diving tower for me? Something I can ride to the top and dive from?”

“Oh, yeah, sure that’ll be easy,” he assured her, already plucking out the notes to do so, still maintaining a few of the other shapes in the water he’d created. Her smile broadened.

“Thank you, dear,” she said, but his attention was already back on everything else he’d been creating with his sitar and the music he made. Nova walked away, huffing to herself about his behavior. But it didn’t matter. If she didn’t have any attention on her before, she would soon enough.

Commander Bog was the last person to show up at the beach. He strode over the sand, looking around at everyone having a good time. His gaze, of course, went to the empress more than anyone else, but she was busy, so he’d chat it up with someone else for a while.

He saw Demyx doing his little water shenanigans, and decided he’d ask about it and the tower that the empress was currently going up in.

“Afternoon, son,” he greeted and Demyx glanced up from what he was doing to give him a smile and a, “Hey, what’s up?” Bog responded with what you’d expect before asking about the tower.

“She said she wanted to go diving,” Demyx answered with a shrug, “I didn’t see why not, so I made one. I didn’t even know she was diver or anything.”

“Oh, yes,” Bog gushed, “She’s quite talented in addition to being gorgeous, a source of inspiration for the people, and the face of our proud empire. I’m surprised she doesn’t have more admirers.”

“Oh really?” Demyx asked to be polite, though he couldn’t say that he cared about the subject matter all too much. He’d been having a nice conversation with Namine until the empress walked over to ask him a favor. He’d never really spoken much on the effect music had on one’s mental stability and thought process, but Namine had a treasure trove of information on the subject.

“Naturally,” Bog assured despite Demyx’s somewhat obvious disinterest, “But it looks like the soldiers a more interested in ________ and her other little girlfriend.”

Now that had Demyx’s attention. He kept playing, some of his fingers stumbling over the strings and dissipating a few of the things in the water he’d created but the tower still maintaining its shape. He looked around, and sure enough a lot of the soldiers had their gazes glued to Namine, her graceful lope and light swish of her hips, their eyes trailing the line of pale roses that lined her bikini the same way his had when he first saw her in it. And it made him uncomfortable. Did they even know her name?

“Why?” Demyx blurted. It wasn’t like he didn’t know why they were staring, but why were they staring and at Namine of all people? “I mean, there’s a woman in a way more revealing bikini right there.” Demyx pointed at the empress as she pulled off a dive, looking like an elegant picture of grace and beauty as she did so, netting the attention of several people but not enough for her liking.

“Well it’s like this,” Bog explained, “You see the empress is quite beautiful. And to you, someone who’s only known her for a week, that’s something to notice and gawk at because you’re not in close contact with her on a regular basis like many of the people who are here today are. But your friends are new. And, yes, they are also quite beautiful despite not being quite as large in the chest or wide in the hips, but the novelty is what draws the men in. Two beautiful alien warriors from another world are exotic, exciting and new. So, of course, every man within a ten-mile radius is staring at them. Never mind the fact that they’re in their swimsuits right now which is only making it worse.”

Demyx frowned as he watched Namine walk the beach and subsequently watched several other soldiers follow her with their eyes.

“Aw, don’t look so put off, son,” Bog said, giving him a firm pat on the back, “I’m sure she likes you just fine. I mean, you’re no soldier, but you’re friends, so you’ve already got a leg up on everyone else.”

“But I don’t…,” Demyx’s sentence died in his throat for two reason. The first reason was that Bog had already started walking away to go ogle the empress better. And the second reason was because Demyx didn’t like Namine. Or at least up until recently, he had been sure that he didn’t. But lately he had been noticing that she was smart and that she was pretty and that she shared quite a few interests with him, and he was becoming relatively engaged with her own as well. And he knew he liked Namine, but what kind of snuck up on him was the thought that he liked Namine.

He turned back to the water, face turning red as he thought about Commander Bog’s words.

Namine didn’t really know what to do with her time now. Demyx was busy, and Axel was teaching ________ how to swim. Eo seemed to be overly relaxed, lying in the shade of an umbrella with a pair of sunglasses on his face.

But Atom was scribbling something hastily in a little book in his hands. Namine made her way over to him to ask if he was really doing work when he had a beautiful beach to relax on, but then she halted her words as she read over his shoulder. It wasn’t work.

It was poetry. And it was good. Really good.

“That’s beautiful, Atom,” she remarked, effectively causing him to jump and let out a little girlish yelp that had Namine giggling behind her hand.

“I, uh,” he stumbled for an excuse for what he was doing, but he couldn’t think of one. She’d obviously seen what he was writing. “Don’t tell anyone.”

His voice was low and mildly pleading. Namine blinked, mildly confused.

“Why not?” she asked, “You’ve clearly got some talent. You ought to explore it.”

“Well, it’s not that I don’t enjoy it enough to do so. I own several books on poetry that I like to read from and sometimes get a little inspiration from. But… I, uh… Look it just doesn’t look good for someone of my… standing to write poetry. I don’t need anyone thinking I’m,” he lowered his voice to a whisper like this was the secret to end all secrets, “A pansy.”

Namine blinked at him then dissolved into another fit of giggles.

“You have really got to get over yourself,” she laughed out but in a friendly manner despite her harsh words, “Own up to your likes despite how it makes you look. I assure you, there is nothing more manly. But I’ll keep your secret.”

“Much obliged,” Atom muttered, an embarrassed blush lighting his face up as Namine walked away.

Axel had started you off with a few basic floating lessons and how to tread water – easier said than done. When it came to floating you were fine when you could feel his hands on your back as he told you how to lay your body out and to keep your chin up and point your toes, but when he wanted to remove them, you entered panic mode and lost all form to throw your arms around him in an attempt at safety – despite the fact that the two of you remained in shallow water. It had taken a full half of an hour just to get you to float where Axel wasn’t supporting you. But he was patient. He knew your experiences with water were not the best – ranging from unpleasant to terrifying. And it was uncomfortable every time you panicked because you would latch on to his arm, and press it between your breasts, and he would find himself desperately trying not to lose control of his magic. And he didn’t ignite and draw attention to himself, but the water around the two of you would sometimes boil a little bit. And you’d make a “warm spot” joke that he would roll his eyes at, but at least it took you out of your panic. Learning to tread water was met with similar issues, especially when he had to take you out a little bit further to do so.

But you had finally trusted him enough to float on your own, and he was happy to graduate you up to basic breathing exercises and a front stroke. You seemed to get more at ease with water when you were learning your breathing exercises, taking his hands and submerging yourself completely in the water. He even saw you bounce down to your butt and pop back up with a giggle. That was a good sign. If he could get you comfortable in the water, then he wouldn’t have to worry about you going into a panic instead of swimming if you ever found yourself in trouble.

Now he was supporting your stomach as you did your front stroke and breathing exercises, gently keeping you in place as you tried to get the basic stroke down. He would occasionally give you an instruction – keep your legs straight, don’t splay your fingers. But you were coming along relatively quickly.

“You’re doing great,” he said, “Now I’m going to move my hand, alright? And you’re going to swim.” As he expected, you immediately lost your form, and curled in on yourself, clinging to his arm as soon as it felt like you were about to sink. Though admittedly your panic wasn’t as so grand as when the two of you had started. And you at least seemed fine with standing in the water so long as he was nearby. There were even times when you didn’t cling to him while standing in the water – a big step considering you were holding onto him for dear life when the water had brushed against your toes alone.

“Oh come on,” he said lightheartedly, “You know I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

“I know,” you muttered from where your face was pressed into the side of his arm, “I’m just nervous. I’m still new to all of this.”

“And like everything else, you’ll get better at it. Now let’s try again so the press can see you swimming on your own.”

“What are they doing here anyway? Isn’t this a private beach?” you asked as you looked back out at the beach where there were still quite a few paparazzi there snapping pictures of you and Axel out in the water and Demyx and Namine on the beach. It looked like Namine had started building sandcastles made of ice and little miniature sculptures, staff in hand. A few soldiers were also watching her. Axel just shrugged at your question.

“I don’t know, but I want you to be able to show off your skills sooner rather than later. Also it’ll give me some peace of mind knowing you’ll be okay if you ever land in water.”

“How long before you think I’ll be out in the deep water?” you half-joked. He chuckled.

“Well you picked it up pretty quick. If you keep practicing, you’ll be out there in no time. Oh,” he stopped, “That reminds me. This is the ocean. If you ever get pulled out by a riptide, and no one who can help is with you, swim parallel to the shore. It’ll get you out. Once you’re out of the current, you need to swim diagonally to the shore.”

“That doesn’t happen often does it?” you asked, a tinge of panic in your voice.

“No, but I’d rather you know than not. But you’ve got a glider. You could just hop on and be on your merry way now that I think about it.”

You felt immense relief thinking about that. It was good to know.

Ludwig watched the exchange and tried his best to listen to the dialogue. But he was underwater in a vintage swimsuit and snorkel. Regardless, he scribbled something on the pad of paper he’d brought with him, muttering, “Interesting,” to himself.

Empress Nova was disgruntled to say the least. She wasn’t getting any of the particular attention she wanted. She had managed to steal at least half of the press back and a few of the soldiers, but Axel was still firmly fixated on you, and you were making a show of being so helpless and clinging to him. And the other one with the fauxhawk was hardly paying attention to her at all, constantly looking off into the distance and barely holding together his other creations as he played. Hadn’t he had trouble not looking at her just a few days ago?

Was she losing her touch? It didn’t matter. She kept diving, adding poses and extra bounce to her jumps as she gracefully sailed into the water. After all, she still had some attention on her, and she’d keep it.

Maybe an hour two later, Axel concluded your lesson, and he and you returned to the beach to chat with Namine, complimenting her sculptures, and Demyx, noting that he seemed a little out of it. But he was back to normal once the three of you were back by his side and talking to him. And you all were content to do that, discussing potential dinner plans – did you all want to eat in your rooms as per the norm or should you head out on the town for the evening? Maybe you could all even stop by the fair. It was still going, and maybe you all could enjoy a night out there, eating and riding all the rides you hadn’t had a chance to experience the first time you went.

“I saw you out there by the way,” Namine mentioned to you once the topic had changed, nodding her head towards the ocean, “Think you’ve got swimming down to a science?”

“Well I wouldn’t say all that,” you laughed, “But I’m at least certain I won’t drown anymore.”

“In that case, you wanna go out there with me for a bit? It’s kind of hot, and I want to cool off a little,” she said, fanning herself a bit. You nodded. So long as someone was out there with you, you didn’t see any harm in being in the water.

The two of you waded out to where the water was up to your waists – a bit deeper than where Axel had taken you, but not so much that it made you uncomfortable.

“I already feel loads better,” Namine said as she bent her knees to get more of herself in the water. You followed suit. At this point, you could safely say that the feeling of water didn’t freak you out like it had before. It even felt nice. You closed your eyes and let out a little hum of contentment.

“Bleurgh!!” you sputtered, standing up abruptly and spitting water from your face. Your eyes met Namine’s. She was desperately trying to hold in her laughter after having splashed you so thoroughly. You blinked in astonishment… and betrayal.

“You bitch!” you yelled at her, already scooping up water to splash at her too. She just laughed, dodging out of the way as you threw water at her. The two of you continued this for a while, throwing water at each other, and running – as best you could considering the water resistance – around each other to get a clean shot that the other would have trouble blocking.

Better believe the press was eating this cute moment up. It was especially cute when you managed to trip and splash into the water. Namine was doubled over with laughter. It made her cheeks turn pink, also cute. You not coming up for a bit wasn’t nearly so cute.

Axel froze, watching for you to pop up at some point, a deep-seated panic settling in his lower stomach. Eo, who had been watching you and Namine act like clowns, also froze. And Atom, who for most of this trip had been looking at you and writing, stood up warily, watching. The press also froze, waiting for you to reappear above the water. Demyx’s playing slowed. He couldn’t very well let the tower fall while the empress was on it but watched for you carefully.

.

.

.

Everyone finally took in a deep breath when you popped up above the water a little way away from where you had initially been. And then another wave of worry set in when they watched the water carry you much further away as you managed to stay above the water just barely, remembering that Axel told you to keep your legs straight.

It had been the strangest feeling. You fell in the water and then you were met with the familiar sound of water in your ears, and you could feel it going by you as if you were moving, and all you could think about was being in the river so close to death and nearly giving into it since you’d been tied up and helpless. You felt a lot like that now. But then you had a dull realization that you were not tied up right now. And you didn’t have to give into it. You could fight it now like you had fought your fear on Animal Kingdom just to be able to bathe, drink, and fish. You noted where all the light was coming from and began to paddle, stroking your arms as you had learned and kicking your legs to get to the surface.

You surfaced in the nick of time, gasping for air as you watched everyone begin to drift further and further away. Was this the current Axel had told you about? You could feel its somewhat gentle pull as you floated further away. Okay so all you had to do was take out your glider and just fly back to shore. Simple and easy.

Or… you could implement what Axel had taught you. You weren’t that strong a swimmer, and it would take you a while to be one, but if it proved too difficult, then there was always your glider. And there was no shame in that.

You eyed the shore then began to swim parallel to it, working on your breathing, mostly just remembering to take your breaths instead of solely focusing on your legs and if they were straight or not. When you tired a bit, you went back to floating. You noted that you were being closely watched, but no one was helping you. But they must have thought you were okay. But you could still see the faint tenseness in your friends’ stances. They were ready to help you if you needed.

You continued swimming after a minute of floating, and soon enough you didn’t feel the water moving passed you in a pull away from shore. It felt as normal as it had when you’d been playing around in it with Namine. You floated for a bit more to take another quick break. But you were doing fine as far as you could tell. Your friends had followed you on shore parallel to you to watch your progress.

Breath caught once more – though your body was saying it was tired – you began to swim diagonally towards the shore. You were so close to your goal. It already felt like a victory. It felt like you were proving something to yourself – the you that froze up in the lake of heartless and the you that nearly gave into starvation on Animal Kingdom and the you that was willing to let go of everything because it seemed like she’d been bested on Chikapin Hill. This was a different you. And it made you proud. And that pride swelled in your chest. It swelled even more when you realized you could now stand, and the water only came up to your chest. From there you half-swam half-walked to shore. Once the water was to your knees, you stopped, panting and looking back out at the ocean you felt you conquered. You felt amazing. Your muscles ached, and you were tired as hell, but you felt absolutely amazing.

A surprised yelp tore it’s way out of your throat when you were picked up from behind and spun around rapidly, your surprise turning into giddy excitement as you realized Axel was twirling you around.

“I did it!” you cheered, jumping up and down once he put you down.

“You really did,” he breathed, “And nearly scared the hell out of me doing it too.”

“And as usual,” you said, nudging him, “I owe it to my amazing teacher.” Axel blushed and let out a mildly embarrassed chuckle, and you giggled at his reaction.

Somehow despite her best efforts to ensure it didn’t happen, Nova had lost the attention of damn near everyone. And they were all focused on you. All you did was swim. She was up on a tower, diving like a professional and they were happy you managed to doggy paddle to shore.

Nova swam to shore herself, walking up to Demyx in a light huff before putting on a sweet smile.

“Excuse me, dear,” she said, and he tore his eyes from you, Axel, and your little blonde friend to look at her, “I was hoping to get a little bit more excitement out of this. Could you possibly make the tower bigger? I mean, it’s wonderful the way you’ve made it, but I want to challenge myself.”

“Are you sure?” Demyx asked, looking passed her where the current tower stood. She just nodded at him, a tight smile on her face. Demyx made the tower bigger with a flourish and flash of light. Of course, this got the attention of several bystanders who watched her ascend to the top of it.

She peered down to the beach. She had most of their attention again, and she was very happy about that, a smug smile spreading on her face. Especially since you were now doing nothing special, sitting down with your friends next to Demyx, thoroughly tired and officially done with water for the day. But Axel still wasn’t looking… just laughing and talking with you and the rest of your little friends.

She dove from her tower into the water below. There was applause like there had been the first few times she’d done it. She went back to the top of the tower to repeat the process, wondering if she’d have to fake falling just to get the conquering “heroes” to look at her for a second.

She upped the complexity of her dives.

Meanwhile on the shore, you were talking about how all you wanted to do now was relax. The day had been absolutely exhausting and so had your swim. You lay back on the warm sand, feeling it cling to your wet skin, and Axel laid down next to you. He was tired as well. Namine was prepared to do the same, but then she was approached by one of the soldiers.

He was young, close to her age with bright, green eyes and dark brown hair that was a bit shaggy from his running around on the beach. He was tall and handsome with a lanky, muscular build and a kind smile.

“Excuse me, miss,” he started, clearing his throat nervously, and looking into Namine’s impossibly blue eyes. Actually… he looked rather nervous all over. And that was when you and Axel realized that he was about to ask Namine something that would no doubt be about a potential date.

You got up and excused yourself, Axel following suit. The two of you moved to Demyx’s other side, pretending to hold a conversation while glancing over to see how it was going.

“What’s going on guys?” Demyx asked as he was getting back into his usual groove, composing a symphony of blues and swing while maintaining the empress’s tower.

“I think Namine’s about to get a date,” you blurted with absolutely no tact whatsoever.

Demyx didn’t say anything, just letting out a sharp gasp as he pulled his string too tight on that last note in reaction to what you said, the string snapping under the strain. All of his water creations collapsed, falling back into the ocean as water. But what really caught everyone’s attention was the scream.

Nova had been about to position herself for her next dive when the water gave way beneath her, and she was in no position to catch herself properly and she was struggling to maneuver herself in a way that would allow her to dive properly.

Now she had everybody’s attention.

But she wasn’t in danger. As soon as you saw what was happening, you were already on your glider, catching her halfway through her fall. She was heavier than she looked, and you let out a little grunt when she landed in your arms, but you were able to bear the sudden extra weight. It wasn’t much worse than catching Demyx when he’d been falling to his death.

“Are you alright, your Highness?” you asked with a gentle smile as you began to fly the two of you back to shore. She forced a tight smile on her face.

“Yes, dear, thank you so much. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

You helped her back onto the ground, feeling awkward at the applause that followed your rescue of the empress. You had been content to ignore all the cameras that were around, and they’d kept their distance from you, which was nice, but now you were back in the spotlight and it seemed that they were forgetting their boundaries a bit.

“Thank you so very much,” Nova stated, smiling broadly, “I don’t know how I’d be able to repay you, but allow me to start by inviting you and your friends to dine with me personally this evening. We can all get to know each other better and have a splendid time.”

“Thank you so much,” you said bashfully, missing the way she looked to Axel when she mentioned getting to know each other.

“Of course, my dear. After all, it is the least I can do,” she said before turning towards Eo and Atom who had walked up as soon as you brought Nova to shore, “Let’s go, gentlemen. I’m tired of the beach.”

~

You and Namine were back in your room, freshly showered and dressed. You were pulling her hair back and running a brush through it, weaving little glass beads through her golden hair and pulling it back into an elegant bun.

“So what’d you say to that soldier?” you asked as you twisted the strands around. Her eyebrows rose and a light pink went over her cheeks.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not dumb,” you remarked with a roll of your eyes, “He was definitely gonna ask you out.”

Namine turned an even deeper shade of red that reached the tips of her ears.

“I said no,” she muttered, “I mean, don’t get me wrong. He seemed nice and all, but you know that I kind of have a thing for Demyx. It wouldn’t be fair to say yes while staying with the guy I’m drooling over.”

“No, I get it. It’s fine,” you said, “Plus we aren’t going to be here forever anyway. Probably best to not put down roots. But while we’re on the topic…. Have you and Demyx been getting close?”

“Ugh, ________, don’t,” she said with a little smile and roll of her eyes. You giggled a little bit. She’d only briefly caught you up to what happened in the juke joint the other day, but the blush on her face when she’d said it implied that she felt something had happened. Unfortunately, Namine didn’t want to be wrong, so she wasn’t holding out too much hope for it though – especially not when the empress was hanging around.

“Okay, you’re all done,” you said, sliding a little hairpin in place, “You look great!”

“Thanks! You too,” she said, giving you a once over. You’d both opted for simple black dresses – hers which showed off her curves, hugging her hips and waist tightly and yours which was backless and sported two slits running up the sides so you could showcase your legs.

You had opted to put your hair in a braid that ran over your shoulder and down to your hip, you had pinned little pale pink flowers to it. Elegant yet sexy would be the best way to describe the two of you.

You both exited your room to see Axel and Demyx already waiting for you along with your uncles – Figment excluded. You bit your lip. Axel was only in a simple button up dark red shirt and black pants, but it still looked really good on him. There was always something about a man dressing up that just looked really nice to you. He felt himself warm up when he spotted you.

“You look beautiful,” he said to you as you walked up to him, and you felt your heart going crazy. He’d said that you looked nice and cute before, and those compliments always made you feel nice, but to be called beautiful felt like something else entirely. Then you felt an odd sense of smugness, and then you realized that it wasn’t your own. Another quick glance at Axel and you realized he was smirking at you. Then you realized you’d been sending all your flustered feelings his way, and he was enjoying it. You huffed a bit, swallowing your pride.

“You look really handsome,” you said to him with a smile despite your mild embarrassment. You could feel his heart flutter a bit and smiled. At least you weren’t the only one affected by compliments. Demyx didn’t compliment Namine, and she didn’t compliment him. They just kind of stood there awkwardly casting glances at each other and blushing whenever they made eye contact.

You briefly wondered if watching yourself and Axel dance around your feelings was as blatantly obvious as it was for them. You had suspicions that Demyx may have felt something for Namine before, but now… Could you even question it?

“Is everybody ready to be escorted to the dining hall?” Robot Butler asked as he walked up to your group a minute later. “I do hope I didn’t keep you all waiting too long.”

“No, you’re fine,” Namine reassured him as she and your little group began to follow him.

The dining hall was large and grand just like every other room in the palace. In the center was a marble table much too long for your tiny group and the empress. Above hung a large and extravagant glass, gold, and crystal chandelier that cast little rivulets of rainbows around the room. The chair at the head of the table was larger than the others surrounding it, so you assumed that was the empress’s seat. Each seat also appeared to be cushioned with velvet. How luxurious!

At each chair was a plate and silverware and two glasses, one a regular glass filled with water and the other a champagne flute with champagne bubbling in them. Ugh… you’d be avoiding that. Alcohol only reminded you of your three-day bender with Setzer and the subsequent consequences that had screwed Axel over.

“Welcome! Welcome!” the empress called, entering the grand hall from the other end dressed all in white and silver and diamonds, her dress as tight as it always was with a plunging neckline that stopped just before her belly button.  Her hair was completely down this time, flowing just below her shoulder blades. “Please sit down. Don’t you all look lovely.”

Behind her trailed Eo, looking as if he wanted to be anywhere else at the moment.

You all began to take your seats, Demyx and Axel taking the seats nearest to the empress, causing a smile to spread across her face. You sat next to Axel, and Namine took a seat next to Demyx. Dreamfinder took the next seat next to her, and Ludwig took a seat next to him.

“Thank you all for coming,” she said as she took her seat, being pushed in by Robot Butler who then scurried off to the kitchen to get the food.

You felt something brush your hand beneath the table and realized it was Axel’s hand. You twined your fingers with his, smiling broadly but not looking at him – as if the two of you were doing something naughty – and he was doing the same.

“I’m sorry!” Demyx blurted next, causing everyone to look at him, “About the tower collapsing. I’m really sorry about that!” You had forgotten about that briefly. Nova turned a light shade of embarrassed pink before smiling.

“I assure you, it’s fine,” she said, “I understand it was an accident, and I’ve already forgotten about it. I suggest you do the same.”

Demyx visibly relaxed, letting out a breath and smiling before he turned his attention to Namine. You quirked an eyebrow at her, and she pretended not to notice your amused gaze.

There. Now that that was over, Nova could focus on one of the reasons she called this dinner. She turned to Axel. She wanted to get to know him just a bit better.

“You know you were my personal guard for two days having to follow me everywhere, and I don’t think I’ve learned a single thing about you other than that you travel with ________. I learned more about Eo by the end of his first day as my guard than I have about you.”

You could faintly hear Eo let out a little snort of a laugh, and you cast a glance at him. He just shook his head to tell you not to worry about it, but you made a mental note to ask him about it later.

“Well there’s not really much to say about me,” Axel said with a shrug. Of course this wasn’t true. You knew as well as anybody that like everyone else sitting at the table, he had a very interesting and compelling history – right down to the tragic backstory you weren’t allowed to pity him about.

“Nonsense,” Nova pressed, leaning forward just a bit, “I saw you out there today training. You’re quite the warrior yourself. _________ is very lucky to have you fight at her side. If I were a gambling woman, after what I’d seen today, I’d have placed a bet or two on you in the arena.”

Axel chuckled a bit.

“Well I might have won if I’d had a fair shot at it. I don’t tend to like to fight dirty, unlike my opponent,” Axel said, looking passed the empress and at Eo who didn’t meet his eyes but smirked and held in another laugh.

“I’d be inclined to agree,” you said, giving Axel a little nudge on the arm, “He’s the most powerful person I know. For now”

“And what’s that mean?” Axel asked as he turned to you, quirking an eyebrow. You smirked and quirked one right back.

“I’ll kick your ass eventually,” you quipped. Nova almost flinched. She forgot your little habit of foul language. Was this really what passed for womanly where you were from?

“Oh you think so,” Axel fired back, “We can always have a rematch if you really need to be put back in your place again.”

You were prepared to schedule for the same time next morning, but a knock sounded on one of the doors in the grand hall, and it captured everyone’s attention. Atom stepped in through the door, keeping it cracked just a bit before clearing his throat, his eyes instantly going to yours.

“Captain Atom,” Nova called coolly, “It’s about time you arrived. When you said you needed to run a quick personal errand, I expected you back minutes later – not an hour.”

“My apologies, your Highness,” he said, his eyes only just briefly glancing up to hers.

She hummed an acknowledgement of his apology, expecting him to take his spot next to Eo and for her to able to steer the conversation back to her before you’d gotten involved, but Atom continued.

“________,” he called, and you looked at him once more as he gave you a perfectly charming smile, “I have a little surprise gift for you.”

“For me?” you asked, furrowing your brows in confusion. Axel tried not to frown at the thought that Atom was apparently giving you gifts now! Eo also wasn’t too fond of the thought, and neither was Nova. In all her years of working with him, he’d never once just surprised her with a gift for no reason.

Atom nodded at you, his smile broadening just a bit as he stepped from in front of the door to allow something else into the room.

And in a wheelchair, rolled in S.I.R. You gasped, standing up so fast your chair almost toppled backwards. You rushed over to him and enveloped him in a hug which you felt him hesitantly return.

“You’re okay!” you squealed, happy he’d made it back alright, “I won’t lie. After the alien had melted your wires, I wondered if brining your body back at all would be enough to fix you.”

“Well worry no more, sweet little flesh bag. I’m alright. The legs are still a work in progress, but I’ll be up and dancing around soon enough. And,” he paused somewhat awkwardly, looking as if he wasn’t sure how to say his next words, the lights of his eyes dancing around and squinting and un-squinting, “I suppose I ought to thank you. I have to admit I didn’t expect to be coming back when the world went dark for me, and I’m actually quite surprised you did what you said you’d do. So… thank you.”

“Thank Atom too,” you said, beaming at the captain next to you and causing him to blush, “He carried you back when I couldn’t.”

“Hmm. I think one ‘thank you’ for today is enough. I still recall him vying to leave me behind.”

“Oh don’t be so dramatic,” you said with an eyeroll, “He didn’t vie to leave you behind. He just didn’t want to talk about it at the time.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot that my life wasn’t important enough to discuss at the time. How could I have missed such an important detail?”

You rolled your eyes again. He was content to be difficult, but you didn’t have to entertain it, so you changed the subject.

“Do you want to have dinner with us?” you asked him with a sweet smile. S.I.R. seemed taken aback by your question before his eyes slid over to the table behind you where your friends and the empress sat watching your little exchange. His eyes held on empress before he looked back to you.

“You sweet, simple child,” he said while patting your head. You frowned a bit but ignored it. He was just a difficult person, but you’d lay down some boundaries later. His eyes slid back over to the empress before he continued speaking. “Robots do not eat, but I would never turn down the opportunity to keep your company. I’d be delighted.”

He wheeled around you to take a place where the empty chair next to where your seat was. Axel moved the chair out of the way for him so he could get placed easily.

You turned to Atom quickly before going to your seat and threw your arms around his neck in a hug. He was taken by surprise so much that he forgot to hug back. But it didn’t matter, the hug was very brief.

“Thank you so much, Atom,” you said before returning to your seat. Atom was trying to get his blush to go away as he went to stand next to Eo behind the empress.

“Everyone,” you stated as you sat in your seat, “This is S.I.R. I met him on Space Mountain. He was stranded there for a while, but now he’s back!”

“That must be an exciting experience for you to be back here after so long,” Namine said, intrigue written all over her face.

“Oh you can’t possibly imagine,” S.I.R. said with a wave of his hand, “Once a lowly service droid, and now I’m free to do whatever I want.”

“What do you think you’ll do now that you’re free?” Dreamfinder asked.

“Well I’ve had eleven long and lonely years to dream about what I’d do if I ever got out of there. For now I’ll just recover – waiting for my legs to come in and all that, but who knows where I’ll start? Maybe I’ll travel the world. All I know is I have this great and powerful woman to thank for freeing me,” S.I.R. said, laying the syrup on his words a little thick. It was… unlike him. But you weren’t going to point it out on the off chance he was sincerely in a better mood.

“Oh stop,” you said, waving off his words, “I wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t stepped in for the alien fight. Thank you for that by the way. I owe you big time.”

“Oh think nothing of it. Bringing me back was more than I could have possibly asked for. Don’t you think so, empress? Wasn’t bringing me back a nice gesture for someone who ensured she could be here today?”

You looked at her.

“I didn’t know you two knew each other,” you remarked. S.I.R. patted your hand.

“Hardly,” he said, “I’d only known her via transmission before disaster struck the space station. It was on her family’s trip to Planet X-S I believe when we more or less met, but I wouldn’t say we know each other.”

“Regardless,” Nova said, grabbing her champagne glass, “I’m happy to know at least someone survived that tragic day. In fact, I’d like propose a toast.”

Your friends and family all picked up their champagne glasses, and Nova briefly noticed that you grabbed your water glass.

“To the future,” she announced, “And may your –”

There was the distant sound of crashing and rapidly approaching metallic footsteps. Robot Butler burst into the room looking alarmed.

“If I may,” he said in a hurried and panicky tone of voice, “Robot Chef is malfunctioning, and I require the assistance of the Great von Drake and his niece!”

You and your uncle shared a look before hurriedly following Robot Butler into the kitchen.

“I supposed we should wait until she returns to finish your toast,” S.I.R. said as he looked at the empress who sat down rather abruptly. Her mouth felt dry. Idle chatter picked back up amongst everyone, mostly everyone just asking S.I.R. about what he wanted out of life now, what was it like before the alien how ever short that time was, etc.

Then they heard another crash and Ludwig’s scream echoing through the halls. This time you came running in, a panicked look on your face.

“I need help! From everyone!” you said in a rush. Your friends were up in an instant along with Atom and Eo who all rushed after you towards the kitchen.

They were met with the Robot Chef, a wide robot with an oval-shaped body and a cylindrical head with a chef’s hat on. He had two legs and six arms, and all of his arms were flailing about, one of which was holding your uncle and swinging him around and slamming him into various surfaces – tables, counters, walls. And his head was spinning around rapidly while he let out little blorps and bleeps that you assumed were supposed to be words.

“I need you all to grab his arms,” you instructed, and everyone did so – Dreamfinder grabbing an arm, Namine and Demyx sharing an arm, Axel holding one, and Atom and Eo each grabbing one. You grabbed the last one and pried open the hand at the end so your uncle could be let go.

“Now fix him!” you ordered Ludwig as you struggled to keep the arm within your grasp still.

Ludwig shook his head and climbed on top of the robot, flipping its head open and crawling inside. You heard several noises which just sounded like various foley effects if you were being honest, but soon after, your uncle climbed out with a fairly large turkey leg.

“Well here’s your problem!” he said as he climbed out of the robot and snapped its head back into place. Sure enough, you felt the arm in your arms go slack, and everyone else also appeared to have stopped struggling as well.

You all let go of the arms, watching cautiously to see what the robot’s next move would be. He looked around at the mess that was the kitchen he was supposed to have been preparing food in.

“Oh dear,” he said, seeming embarrassed, “What happened?”

“You had a turkey leg stuck in your wiring,” Ludwig said, waving the leg at the robot who took it tentatively. He looked at it for a moment before addressing you all.

“I must apologize profusely,” he said, “I… I wanted to save it for later. To experience it. I hadn’t meant to cause all of you any trouble. Please forgive my poor judgment.”

He almost seemed scared with the way he said it.

“It’s fine,” you and Namine said simultaneously. Then she continued. “No one got hurt. We’re all fine, and you didn’t do anything wrong. It was just an accident.” Ludwig gave her a look once she had mentioned no one got hurt but didn’t say anything.

The chef seemed to calm, and you all dusted yourselves off before exiting the messy kitchen, with the robot telling you that a proper dinner would be out shortly.

Meanwhile, from the moment you left, tensions rose between S.I.R. and Nova. They sat in silence for a short moment, S.I.R. picking up your champagne glass. You had no intention to use it if he had observed you correctly during Nova’s impromptu toast.

He lifted up like he was going to drink it.

“You don’t drink,” Nova said dryly, watching him with a flurry of emotions running through her.

“No,” S.I.R. agreed, “Unfortunately technology hasn’t come far enough to allow it yet. But, like you, I like to keep up appearances.” His eyes flicked down to her chest. “Those are new.”

There was another moment of quiet, S.I.R. swirling the champagne in the glass around.

“It’s good to see you again,” Nova tried again, and S.I.R. just gave her a dry look.

“The feeling isn’t mutual.”

“Oh don’t give me that,” Nova said, an edge to her voice, “I’ve had a very long week.”

“Oh I know how that goes. Eleven years is hell, so I can only imagine what a week living in the lap of luxury must be for you, surrounded by your people and servants who would fulfil your every desire and guards who live to die for you.”

“I know you’re mad at me,” she bit out in a clipped tone, “But wouldn’t your anger be just as good directed at your own people. If I remember correctly, Planet X-S didn’t come for you any quicker than I did.”

“Oh, honey, I’m well aware, but Planet X-S isn’t here, are they? Oh, but, you are.”

“It was because of me that you got to come back at all. Project Horizons is my work. Be grateful for it.”

“Cut the bullshit, Nova,” S.I.R. said, looking at her with narrowed eyes, watching as she flinched at his words, her crown beginning to faintly glow, and noting a tiny crack on the champagne glass he held, “Your people didn’t even know I was still up there. No, it was the keyblade wielder who ensured I got to come back.”

More silence. Nova was quietly fuming, an angry blush bright on her face.

“Speaking of,” S.I.R. continued, “I’ve been catching up on the news, seeing what’s been going on that I’ve been missing. And I saw that press conference. You know the one with the keyblade. You’ve got some nice acting skills. You almost had me fooled, standing up there acting like you really give a damn. You should get an award, maybe just change careers entirely. Let’s be honest, leadership was never your forte, was it? No that was your brother – from what I understand he was young but with a good head on his shoulders. Shame what happened to him.”

“Do you have a point, robot?” she spat at him. Her crown began to glow just a tiny bit brighter. The crack in his glass deepened just a bit, enough that a tiny drop of champagne was able to squeeze through.

“Just making idle chitchat,” S.I.R. said with a wave of his free hand, “It is a shame though. Not just about your brother but the whole embarrassing incident that occurred. Imagine being the only ruler without a keyblade and then when you finally have one in your grasp, you cannot even wield it. Though I suppose this isn’t too much of a stretch of the imagination for you, is it?”

“Shut up!” Nova snapped, her crown flashing as she slammed her hands on the table harshly. The glass in S.I.R.’s hand shattered, spraying him with champagne. The other glasses on the table rattled but did not crack or shatter.

S.I.R. calmly and quietly picked up a napkin on the table and wiped the champagne off of him.

“Careful, your Highness,” he said as he placed the napkin back on the table, “You almost showed your true colors. And we both know how we like to keep up appearances.”

Nothing more was said as everyone returned in that moment. Nova didn’t continue her toast, but it was forgotten anyway in the rush of events that had occurred. Dinner went on as planned with Nova quietly withdrawing into herself while everyone talked around her.

~

Dinner was delicious as usual – and once again brought out relatively quickly considering only a few minutes had passed between fixing Robot Chef and returning to the table. It ended with everyone talking about how it was the best they had eaten in a long time, thanking the empress, and dispersing. You bid S.I.R. goodbye as he went away to “recover” as he put it and walked back to the hall with your rooms with your friends in tow.

Though you felt quite gorgeous in your outfit, you were quite ready to slip into a set of cozy PJs and relax. Maybe you’d ask Axel if he wanted to watch T.V. and cuddle again or if Namine or Demyx wanted to chill for a bit.

But once you all reached your rooms, everyone muttered something about being tired and ready for bed, so you all went your separate ways. You weren’t too off put by this. You could understand. You, too, had had a long day. But that didn’t stop you from wishing you could have a little company. So you stood out on your balcony near the koi pond in a tank top and a pair of fluffy short shorts, staring at the Spaceship Earth ride in the distance and enjoying the warm air and cool breeze of the clear night. It was beautiful.

Your phone started vibrating faintly, and you cast one more glance out into Tomorrowland as it was lit up in an almost entrancing manner before going to look at your phone.

You had a text from Namine.

Namine: Can you come to my room for a minute? I promise it’ll be quick.

You shrugged, wondering what she could want before slipping on a pair of fuzzy slippers and walking next door to her room and giving it a quick little knock.

“Come in!” you heard her muffled call, and you poked your head into the door.

“Surprise!” your friends and family (minus Figment) said in a happy manner. You blinked at them, noticing that they were all in their pajamas and surrounded by popcorn, candy, and soda. You stepped into the room all the way.

“What’s all this?” you asked.

“Axel planned it,” Namine said with a bright smile. Your eyes slid to Axel.

“I remembered you said that you liked making fun of bad movies with friends, and this era is ripe with them. Believe me. I thought we could have a little fun with it?”

You practically jumped into his arms, hugging him tight and feeling a rush of nostalgic emotions making you want to both laugh and cry.

“Thank you!” you said, moving to each of your friends and family to give them all big hugs. “But where’s Figment? He used to love this kind of thing.”

“He said he was going out, and I haven’t seen him since,” Dreamfinder said in a huff. Ludwig made a cutting motion over his throat at you. An obvious, “Don’t mention Figment,” gesture, and you nodded.

“Well it’s his loss,” you said as you plopped down on the bed next to Namine. Axel and Demyx sat in front of the bed, and Dreamfinder and Ludwig each sat in a chair. Namine picked up a remote and turned on the T.V.

You blinked.

“Where’d you get that?” you asked, “I thought all the televisions didn’t have remotes.”

“You didn’t see a note on your bed?” Namine asked, “There was one on mine saying that the T.V. had been updated by top scientists or something and now had remotes.”

You hadn’t noticed it at all because you hadn’t looked at your bed. You’d just slipped into some jammies and stood out on the balcony. You shook your head at her.

“I guess I hadn’t noticed,” you said, thinking how strange it was that Atom had taken note of your comments on T.V.s in Tomorrowland and had actually followed through on his statement to notify someone about it.

“Miss Namine,” Robot Butler said with a light knock at the door, “Do you require anything else of me? More snacks perhaps?”

“No, thank you,” Namine said as she flipped through a few channels, “But you’re welcome to join us if you like. The more the merrier.”

“Thank you,” Robot Butler replied, “But I must humbly decline. There are other things about the palace to be done, but I appreciate the offer. You’re too kind.”

You all bid goodnight to him before turning your attention back to the T.V.

Namine flipped through the channels trying to find a movie, and as she did so, she came across several news channels, and all of them were reporting about you. She slowed her flipping, earning an embarrassed groan from you.

There was a channel showing you fighting the alien and saying you were powerful. There was a channel talking about how you were to be “Woman of the Year.” There was a channel showcasing you learning to swim and how precious it was – that one you felt like it was condescending despite the sincere nature of what was being reported. There was a channel reporting on you and Namine splashing around in the water. You had trouble believing that one even counted as news.

Then there was the channel that said there was, “Romance on the Horizons Project.” And the first pictures to pop up were of you and Atom. You flinched, and Axel felt a ton of heat rush to the surface, but he’d staved it off before he could ignite. He really didn’t want to be the jealous boyfriend, but now someone was saying there was a potential romance between you and someone else.

Demyx flinched away from him when he felt the amount of heat rolling off of him, and you wrinkled your nose at the presumptions of the news casters. Though S.I.R. had made similar assumptions when you and Atom were bickering.

“Ugh,” you groaned, “I don’t even really know him. Why would they say that?”

A picture of Atom carrying you away from where you fought the alien and one of where he helped you into the hover boat when you came back from your space trip popped up on screen. The female newscaster gushed about the two of you being a match made in the heavens.

Axel huffed. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at you, and you smiled at him.

“Relax,” you said, rubbing his shoulder, “There is absolutely nothing there. I promise. Plus I feel like he’d just stick his foot in his mouth as soon as he tries to make a move. Your biggest worry is if I end up in a fist fight with him.”

This made Axel feel a little better.

But as Namine was prepared to flip the channel again, one of the other newscasters, a male, brought up a picture of Axel teaching you to swim and picking you up from behind, smiles bright on your faces. He stated that Atom had some competition from someone she was obviously friends with. He mentioned not knowing your history but implying that sparks could fly with Axel as well. They also mentioned knowing he also fought in the arena and that he stood in as the empress’s personal guard, showing off a rather interesting display of power when guarding her.

“See?” you said, gesturing to the T.V., “They’ll put anyone together without knowing anything about them. Though….”

“Something wrong?” Axel asked, eyeing you with worry in his gaze. You made this man too nervous. You shook your head.

“Not quite,” you said, looking as Namine continued flipping through the channels and coming across more news channels showing pictures of you – some of them up close with you entirely unaware of them existing. You could have sworn you also saw one of you as you were walking out of the palace. And there was definitely one of you and Axel training from that morning. How?!

“It’s just,” you continued, “I don’t even know how they got the footage of me and Atom in Space Mountain. That place was closed off, and only the military had access to it. It had to be leaked somehow. And I saw a clip that was playing from this morning.”

“Yeah, and?” Demyx pressed.

“I don’t want every aspect of my life on the news. They had a clip from this morning in there! Imagine if it had been me as a heartless? Or what if someone sees me during a private moment?”

“You don’t want our relationship to be in the front and center for the news?” Axel concluded, and you nodded your head. That was exactly what you didn’t want. “Me neither.”

You were a bit surprised. You’d have thought that since the news was pressing you and Atom as a couple as much as you and Axel that he’d want to make it clear. But Axel valued his privacy a bit more than that. He didn’t want the two of you to be found out to have a relationship then having people knocking down the door or hounding the two of you every time you wanted to have a moment together – especially if there were people in the palace and on the military base who were sending the footage and pictures in.

You let out a sigh of relief.

“I thought you’d be upset with me for a second,” you breathed.

“Nah,” he said with a smile and shrug, “My personal business is mine, and I’d like to keep it that way. Now let’s watch movies. The news is starting to get on my nerves.”

You all muttered out an agreement and flipped to a movie channel featuring a very badly put together set, flashy and strange costumes, and a plot that a monkey could have written. And two other movies followed after that, all of you laughing at how bad they were and making endless jokes. It felt amazing.

Meanwhile in the empress’s chambers, Nova was also watching the news. She’d been flipping through channel after channel, and all of them for one reason or another were talking about you. How powerful you were. How beautiful you were. How you were the best damn thing since sliced fucking bread. How they were calling you the empress of the renaissance like she wasn’t the one who had gotten the ball rolling. Everything you were and everything you had was because of her! Where was her fucking medal?

She stopped on a channel reporting on you and Axel during your swimming lesson. They were showing a picture of the two of you, with you holding onto his arm. It was sickeningly sweet.

She paused it and stared at the two of you for a moment. Then just Axel. It brought a smile to her face. He was powerful. And she liked that. She liked that a lot. She wanted him, but he had been to busy focusing on your little publicity stunt of needing to learn to swim. And oh wasn’t it just wonderful how you had saved her as she was falling from her diving tower.

She pressed a few buttons on her remote, zooming in until only Axel was in the frame.

He was powerful, and she wanted him, and she wanted to feel powerful. She had so much power, and where was her respect?

She needed her crown. She got up from her bed and strode over to her vanity where it sat perched upon a stand specifically made for it. Then she placed it atop her head already feeling more powerful now than she had before.

As she walked back over to her bed, she let her eyes remain glued to the screen…. She reached into her nightstand and pulled out a silver handle that looked just like the ones soldiers used to create swords and spears. However, when she pressed the button to summon the weapon instead what formed was a dildo.

She crawled back into the bed, eyes still fixated on Axel before she shoved it into herself with an angry grunt, her crown glowing faintly.

And that’s all she did, letting out snarls and animalistic grunts and swearing mildly as she pleasured herself, all the while her crown began to glow brighter, her eyes also glowing, and objects in the room beginning to levitate. The glass in the windows rattled, and the lights of her wing of the palace dimmed and brightened intermittently – the intervals at which it happened growing closer the closer she came to orgasm.

Finally, when she finished with a scream that sounded like something beastly, the power of the palace blew out. The things in her room floated back down to where they were before, and she sat there panting and feeling much more powerful now but also angry and with a new sense of determination.

On the other side of the castle, you and your friends let out groans of frustration when the power went out. The movie was just getting worse – which was good. And everyone’s jokes were getting bad – which was also good.

“Guess the party’s over,” you mutter, and everyone else voices some form of agreement. After all, it was pushing three in the morning now. You let out a big yawn, and it spread across the room. Namine was already practically falling asleep now that none of you had anything to occupy your minds and distract you from your sleepiness.

There was a knock on the door. You all looked at each other before Namine called to allow them inside the room. Atom and Eo holding flashlights poked their heads in.

“We just came to check in on everyone and make sure you all were alright. Robot Butler told us you all were in here having a movie night,” Eo explained.

“It’s a standard power outage. Happens every now and again,” Atom said with a wave of his hand, “Have a nice night everyone.”

They left right after – having ensured that everyone was okay before they began their trek back to guard the outside of the empress’s chambers.

“‘Happens every now and again,’” Eo repeated with a light chuckle, “Closer to every week.”

“If you want to explain her temper tantrums to everyone, be my guest.”

“She’d have less tantrums if you just said yes every time she opened her legs,” Eo jabbed.

“Me and every other soldier she opens her legs to. You know as well as I do how she is with every new soldier she adds to her collection.”

“Makes the big reason I said no all the sweeter,” Eo laughed and Atom joined in.

Back in Namine’s room everyone got up and said their goodnights, and you hugged them all again as well as giving Axel a few kisses to say goodnight. Then you trudged back over to your own room. As Axel was leaving, Ludwig flagged him down.

Axel let out a yawn as he approached him.

“You need me?” he asked as he looked down at Ludwig. Ludwig looked around shiftily as if making sure no one would overhear them. The hallway was empty.

“Follow me,” he said as he led Axel to his room which was just a bit further from everyone else’s – probably because of who he was.

“I’ve been watching you with ________,” Ludwig said, “And I couldn’t help but notice how… close… the two of you have been getting. And I’ve got a few thoughts about that.”

“You’ve been watching us?”

“Yes, yes,” Ludwig said with a wave of his hand as he reached for the doorknob with the other, “With the talk with your friend about love, the training, the swimming lessons, and the fingering thing you did to her.”

“The what?!” Axel yelped, nearly choking on air at the accusation.

“You know,” Ludwig clarified, “With you looking at her horns and tail and when you were touching that little heart-shaped hole she has.”

“O-oh.”

Ludwig entered his room, and Axel followed, turning to see Ludwig brandishing a mallet as if he was going to hit him. Axel’s eyes widened. Then Ludwig put the mallet with another small set of tools. Axel let out a breath and rolled his eyes.

Toons.

“You’ve changed. And I feel like you have everyone you’ve been around lately to thank for that – especially ________. I, too, am going through a little character development. And after watching this development in you, I’ve decided that, despite your previous run with the Organization, the fact that the only reason you met my niece is because you were supposed to kill her, and the fact that your selfish negligence endangered the life of my colleagues, my Dreamfinder, and myself, I think you’re actually good for her.”

Axel winced as if he’d been punched in the gut with each thing Ludwig mentioned as he continued to organize his tools.

“And I believe that you are the only person who could ever come close to loving ________ as much as I do.”

“I mean I wouldn’t say if it’s love yet, but I –”

“Oh shut up, be a man, and admit you love her.”

“Don’t her parents love her as much as you do?”

“I said shut up! And didn’t you very nearly die for her?”

Axel huffed but went quiet, trying not to think about the fact that he might be in love with you because… Well he wasn’t sure why that thought unnerved him so much. It wasn’t like there wasn’t so much to love about you, but wasn’t it too soon to be feeling this way about you? Wouldn’t it scare you off if he just openly said it now? And he didn’t want that.

“Now the reason I called you in here is because I’d like a little help on a project. But all the lectures and appearances I have scheduled keep me from getting out much. Even observing you and ________ was a hassle just because it was always when I was supposed to be doing something else. Thankfully Dreamfinder has a knack for teaching and could take my place during lectures.”

“What’s the project?”

Ludwig took out one of his old journals that he’d brought that was salvaged in the crash and flipped to a page near the middle. He showed it to Axel. Over some of the formulas and diagrams were crayon drawings.

“________ scribbled all over some of my journals when she as young. She would get bored in the lab sometimes and start coloring on everything. Don’t ask me how hard it is to scrub red crayon out of dark matter. But this drawing right here is a music box she drew when she was six. And I thought, what better way to show my niece we care than to make it for her.”

“I don’t know anything about building music boxes,” Axel said, somewhat dismayed he wasn’t really going to be much help.

“No, I didn’t think you did, but you have the time and resources to go out and buy the materials I need for it, and that’ll be your contribution to it. She’ll love it. I just know it. So what do you say?”

Axel didn’t really have to think about it long. He’d do anything if it meant you’d be happy.

.

.

.

Okay so he was in love with you. There. He finally admitted it to himself. He would just wait for the right moment to actually tell you. But he could think it at least.

“I’ll do it,” he said, and Ludwig smiled. But then a somber look crossed his features.

“There is one more thing,” Ludwig said, all seriousness now. Axel waited patiently for him to continue his next line of thinking. “That day we found out she had been drinking her problems away…. I’ve never seen her like that. And she didn’t tell anyone. She didn’t even want to tell me about her time glitching. Namine had to talk her into it. And she has complex. A hero complex. She doesn’t crave fame or adoration, but she’s constantly trying to make up for what happened to her world. And that’s no excuse for her actions – jumping into every situation in an attempt to fix everyone’s problems is a very stupid and irrational line of action to take.”

He looked up at Axel.

“That’s why you’re good for her, Axel. Even when she fights you on something, she would be willing to listen to you. You’ve both made mistakes and grown together. You’re her greatest strength when she’s facing down any adversary – concrete or idealistic. And I need you to keep her out of her depression. Because I don’t want her falling back into alcohol as a means to cope. You have a special bond with her.”

“I won’t let that happen,” Axel reassured him, “I love her. If I can help it, I won’t let anything happen to her.”

Ludwig smiled.

“Thank you, Axel.”

Notes:

Okay I'll see you all next week! Thanks to those of you who gave kudos or left a comment! They mean the world to me!

Obscure-Ish References

Robot Chef (doesn't have a wiki page, so heres a photo): http://www.lostepcot.com/images/horizonschef.jpg

Chapter 63: Soarin'

Summary:

Namine and Demyx delve into the mind of a robot. You and Axel get to know each other better. S.I.R. pays a visit to the empress.

Notes:

I know I missed my update last week. Things in my life have just been hectic lately. I haven't even gotten the outline down for the next chapter started yet. So I'm not gonna promise an update for next week, BUT if I do it'll probably be on Friday, so check back then just in case.

Demyx and Namine had decided to go out on the town together. They didn’t really have anything better to do. You and Axel were busy having your first official date. So, having enjoyed each other’s company so much previously, they decided to go out and see what else Tomorrowland had to offer. Robot Butler suggested a museum on Tomorrowland’s history that was located not too far from other tourist attractions and restaurants so they could fully enjoy themselves.

It was more interesting than Namine had thought it was going to be. History, ironically considering her connection to memories, was never really her favorite thing to learn about. Though learning about the assimilation of worlds into one functioning empire and society was undoubtedly interesting.

She moved over to a small display case with a plaque in front of it. Inside of the display case was a miniature town replica with the back wall of the case painted to look like a beautiful sunset. Though… this town didn’t look like Tomorrowland. Neither did the landscape. This must have been one of the other planets of the empire.

The town was made up of your typical city buildings – several businesses, apartment complexes, subways, and busy roads, skyscrapers dominating a majority of the architecture. And there were people, tiny little things that you’d have to lean in close and squint to see any of the details painted on them. But the main draw of the display were the machines that towered over the people, standing as tall as skyscrapers. Large pods that stood on three legs that walked through the town while the people pointed and smiled at them.

Namine read the plaque below.

The tripods were implemented during the rule of Emperor Apollo, the first ruler to invite another world into our own! Built with the ability to traverse the lanes between and travel to other worlds, the tripods were a means of first contact with those of other realms.

Demyx made a noise of discomfort, and Namine looked up at him from where he stood next to her. She took in his expression, one of vague uneasiness, his nose wrinkled in distaste.

“What’s wrong?” she asked with a little tilt of her head, a few blonde strands of hair falling into her face. Demyx resisted the urge to brush them away, blushing lightly and turning to look back at the display.

“Nothing,” he said, “It’s just… creepy.” Namine’s brow furrowed as she pushed her hair back behind her ear and turned to look at the display once more.

“The display is creepy?”

“The tripods are creepy,” he said as he leaned in closer to look at them. Namine did the same.

“Well the people are smiling and pointing at them,” she said with a shrug, “Maybe they’re not so creepy in person? I mean, we’ve never seen one.”

“Namine, it’s as tall as a skyscraper. Now imagine seeing that and having no idea what it is other than that it landed on your world and is now marching towards you or standing off in the distance. It’s really, really creepy. I don’t care how many smiles you paint on those people.”

Namine shrugged. She supposed he had a point.

They continued to walk around for a bit, talking about various pieces of history throughout the museum when they realized that Robot Butler was missing. Demyx made a joke about how he probably had to go to the Little Robot’s room, and Namine giggled a little bit before suggesting in all seriousness that they should probably go look for him.

They found him in a wing of the museum they’d already gone through, a hallway of paintings that displayed various landscapes. They hadn’t payed too much attention to it when passing through as they had rushed off excitedly to look at one of the demonstrations of Tomorrowland holographic technology.

He was staring at one that was just like the ones he had plastered all over his room.

“He’s doing it again,” Namine said with a light furrow to her brow. Demyx looked at her.

“This whole robot thing has you all worked up, huh?” he asked as he turned back to Robot Butler. Namine nodded then looked at him with mild worry on her face.

“You don’t understand,” she said, lowering her voice so Robot Butler could not hear, though they were standing a good distance from him. And even if he was close enough to hear her, he was so caught up in staring at the painting, she doubted he would hear her anyway. “I tried looking through his memories. You know? I just got curious and I wanted to test my theory. And Demyx, they’re there.”

“What’s there?” he said, leaning in close to hear her better.

“Memories. But if he really doesn’t have a heart or artificial intelligence, then I shouldn’t be able to see them. But it’s weird. I can never see passed the current day. That doesn’t make any sense. Because if he doesn’t have any memories except what’s happened in that day, then he shouldn’t remember who you are. Or who I am. Or even who he is.”

“Did you try asking Dreamfinder for help finding a solution?” Demyx asked, casting a wary glance towards Robot Butler who was still staring at the painting just as hard as he had been before.

“Not yet,” Namine muttered also casting a glance at Robot Butler, “I was just gonna ask Figment to take me directly in there as a final test. If he really doesn’t have a heart and mind, then we shouldn’t be able to enter at all.”

Namine held her gaze on Robot Butler before it slid over to the painting he was looking at – similar landscape, similar color palette, similar subject matter. Except… this time you could see a tripod looming faintly in the distance.

Namine was too determined after that to want to spend more time out on the town – though she promised Demyx she’d make it up to him since she was cutting their “out and about” time short and he seemed disappointed enough.

They returned to the palace and found Dreamfinder in his room watching television and asked if Figment were around. Dreamfinder huffed about Figment doing whatever he wanted as of late, but if he remembered correctly, the last time he saw him was on the beach. So that was where Demyx and Namine were headed next.

Thankfully, Figment hadn’t left yet when they’d arrived. He was reclined on a Figment-sized lounger still adorned with his over the top attire of a blazer and gold chains – hardly appropriate for the beach. His entourage was reclining in the sand next to him dressed no more appropriately than he was. They walked up to them with determined steps. Well Namine’s steps were determined, Demyx’s steps were more hurried as he tried to keep up with her march through the dark sand.

“Figment,” she said, her eyes sparkling with determination as she stood in front of them. He looked at her over his sunglasses with an expression that said, “I have much more important things to worry about, but what is it you wish of me, peasant?”

“I need your help with something,” she replied, hoping that was enough for him to want to help her with whatever it was she intended to do. But Figment was still in the mentality that he could buy his problems out, so he reached into his jacket and just threw money at her.

“Not that kind of help,” she huffed, swatting at the bills that fluttered by her face. Demyx grabbed one and looked at it.

“Wait,” he said, “This isn’t real money.”

Everyone froze, and Figment could feel sweat beading on his brow. Namine looked at the bill Demyx had in his hand, and sure enough, it had the color and feel of regular money, but it had a picture of Figment on it instead of a world leader of some sort. Namine and Demyx gave Figment a dry look, and Figment’s entourage looked at him with disbelief and annoyance all over their faces.

Demyx flipped the bill to the other side to read the tiny print at the bottom no one had seemed to notice.

“Figment Fun Bucks: Legal tender at any participating Figment. Good for one free Figment. Sale items excluded. No trades or exchanges. Collect ‘em all. Warning: Has absolutely no monetary value. Cannot be traded for real money. Go ahead. Try it. See what happens.”

“Figment that doesn’t even make sense,” Namine said, wrinkling her nose at the bill before looking back at him, “Your money ran out a while ago, didn’t it?”

Figment hesitantly nodded, and his entourage stood up quickly, muttering that he’d better send their last checks in the mail and they’d send a dry-cleaning bill as they ditched him, brushing sand from their clothes.

Figment huffed out a dejected sigh, shedding his blazer and glasses, approaching them and waiting for whatever it was Namine had wanted to say initially.

“Um,” Namine began again, though now it was painfully awkward, “I, uh, had a few theories about Robot Butler that I thought you might be able to, uh, help with?”

Figment, still looking mildly annoyed and dejected raised an eyebrow. At least he wasn’t refusing outright since she and Demyx had more or less ended his fun prematurely – though his entourage was bound to find out about the fake money eventually.

“I think he’s artificially intelligent,” Namine said before rushing her next words, “I just need proof. So I just want to take a quick trip into his head. Nothing crazy! Just a quick pop in and out to see if he has a mind and heart.”

Figment looked skeptical. He wasn’t sure he ought to do this, and even Namine, in the back of her head, was a bit doubtful. But she had seen memories, and she wasn’t doubting her abilities just yet.

Then he gave her a look that was asking exactly why she needed to know this.

“Because,” she paused and thought for a moment, “Because if he is, then he’s alive. You know? He’s acting like being a robot warrants different treatment because he thinks it’s all in his programming to just accept it. But if he’s an A.I., then he deserves the same treatment as anyone else. I just need to know that someone who thinks being knocked to the ground is okay is programmed to think that way and isn’t just told to believe that.”

“It’s a matter of justice,” Demyx interjected and Namine threw him a grateful smile before turning back to Figment with big, pleading eyes.

“Please, Figment,” she begged, “Do it in the name of scientific and psychological study if nothing else! We could discover something incredible!”

Figment let out a long, low sigh, and Namine was certain he was going to turn her down. But then he gave a tiny half-nod that he would go along with it, and Namine, wasting no time, snatched him up and began to powerwalk back to the palace.

She was finally going to get some answers.

They found Robot Butler in his room, thankfully. Namine’s biggest worry was that in the time they had left him, he would be busy, and she’d have to wait for her answers, and she was already fit to explode from the anticipation alone.

He was staring at one of his many paintings when he was snapped out of his stupor by the sound of their knocking on his door. And when he told them that this was what he’d been doing the whole time they were gone, it had only fueled her fire more.

“Okay, so you know I’ve an interest in the mind and all of its innerworkings as well as matters regarding the heart and any memories, yes?” Namine began in her most professional voice.

“Yes, I am aware,” Robot Butler responded patiently.

“Well I’ve recently taken a particular interest in you as you act and respond as an artificially intelligent robot as opposed to a simulated one, and I was curious about the programming behind it. So I was wondering if I might ask a favor?”

“How may I be of service?”

“I’d like to explore your mind to test a theory. Figment,” Namine gestured to the dragon nearby, “Has the ability to enter the mind and the various areas located within. I would just like to reconfirm before I continue on with my research that you are in fact artificially intelligent.”

“And what would going into my innerworkings prove?”

“Well if your intelligence really is simulated, then I shouldn’t be able to enter at all. But if you were artificially intelligent, then my consciousness should be able to enter your mind and look at the structure within it.”

“If you’re certain that this will help your research, then I would be more than happy to lend my services,” Robot Butler said with a tiny bow, ever the polite and subservient robot.

“Okay,” Namine said with a giddy smile before turning to Demyx, “Demyx would you be okay with looking at my body?”

“W-what?!” Demyx yelped, his face turning a deep shade of red to Namine’s confusion. Maybe he was deep in thought and she’d caught him not listening to her? Well whatever. She didn’t have time to focus on it.

“Well my body is going to be unconscious, so I was hoping you could stand guard like last time we did this. I don’t want anyone to wander by and think something’s wrong.”

“O-oh, yeah, sure,” he said, rubbing the back of his head, thankful that he’d misunderstood and that his friend was not asking him to ogle her.

“Thanks,” she said with a smile before laying down on the floor and looking up at Figment. “Ready whenever you are.”

Namine closed her eyes and waited. Robot Butler waited too – certain that nothing was going to happen, but happy to help anyway.

~

The preconscious was a void. And that alone was strange to Namine as she floated through it, parachute on her back and already deployed. It was all the thought that could be, and from what she understood was supposed to be something even if it was abstract. Even a spec of something, a dot, a random splotch of color, anything would have been better and easier to explain than this blank, white nothingness.

Figment zipped passed her screaming, his own parachute having never deployed as he plummeted below towards a box. That was also odd. She knew there was supposed to be a barrier between the preconscious and the conscious, but shouldn’t it have been more than that box? Was there really nothing? But there had to be. She shouldn’t have even been able to get in here if there were no heart or mind to access.

Moments later she floated through the top of the box and dropped into the conscious. There were filing cabinets everywhere in the small area. It was much too small to be someone’s mind…. It was just a room. It should look like something else entirely – a world from what Figment and Dreamfinder told her and what she’d learned at the institute.

Her feet finally touched the ground – if you could call the white floor that matched the white walls ground. You’d think it was also a void with how blank it was if you hadn’t seen that Robot Butler’s whole consciousness was just the small black cube she’d just floated into.

Figment was on the ground nearby, little birds circling his head. Then his parachute finally deployed, launching out a cement block rather than a sheet of fabric. It landed on top of him and his circling birds.

Namine blinked.

“Figment,” she began, unsure if he could hear her from where he had been crushed, “You created that parachute. Wouldn’t you have had to caused it to not work? And then also put a cement block in it? And caused it to work after you hit the ground? Why did you do that to yourself?”

She could just barely make out him muttering from beneath the block about her and Axel having no imagination – whatever that was supposed to mean. She didn’t really have time for it though.

“Figment, please,” she started, “I really need to know what’s going on here. No one’s mind should look like this should it? It should look like what the person most cares about. But it’s nothing. And I know he has to care about something. He acts like it!”

“Look,” Figment said, crawling out from under the cement, “I’ve never been in a robot’s mind before. I don’t actually know what it should look like. However, you weren’t wrong in your assumption that he had a heart and mind. That was on the money. Or, you know, we wouldn’t be here.”

“But why can I only access the day’s memories? Where are the rest of them?” Namine asked as she opened one of the filing cabinets. There had to be at least twenty or so and all of them marked with a number. Namine looked at the files inside one of the cabinets – the one marked with a four.

And it was just accounts of things that had happened that day. But the other drawers of this filing cabinet held personal thoughts about said events both conscious and unconscious as well as potential actions to be taken and the actual action that was taken. But this couldn’t have been the whole day. She checked other filing cabinets, always placing things exactly as she had found them and realized that the cabinets went up to the number 24, and there were several cabinets that were currently empty. She realized that there was a cabinet for every hour of the day. So where did the previous days actions, thoughts, and events go?

They both heard a faint click and walked around a filing cabinet to find a door. To where? They’d entered a cube. And this room looked to be about the size of that cube. Where could this door have led?

Namine jiggled the doorknob. It was locked.

“Is this the subconscious?” she asked as she looked at it. If he had a heart and mind, he was bound to have one. If this was it was the question though. Figment shrugged at her question.

“The subconscious typically looks like a home. But nothing has been conventional thus far, so your guess is as good as mine. For all we know, everything we expect to find out here could just be locked away in there,” he said, jerking a thumb in the direction of the door, “But it’s locked anyway. I’m pretty sure we’re not getting in there any time soon.”

Just as soon as Figment said that, the door flew open, nearly hitting the both of them and instead only hitting one of them and sending Figment flying to the other side of the room.

Several of the drawers of the filing cabinets opened, and a few sheets of paper flew out of each, all heading towards the door in a neat line. Namine grabbed one of the sheets, reading it. It was one of his thoughts on the day. She then peered into the doorway and saw nothing. It was a pitch-black void that she couldn’t see anything in. That was also unusual.

She let the sheet go, watching it flutter into the darkness with the rest of the papers before the door clicked closed once more. She supposed this was something like the subconscious – long term memory maybe or where things went to get deleted or maybe repressed. She couldn’t be sure. She needed more information. But she’d also need to be able to traverse it without getting locked in. And she’d need a keyblade to do that….

Figment dizzily fluttered back over to her, asking if she was ready to go yet. Namine informed him that she was as she didn’t see how she could gain any more information from what little existed in that room and with no way to move forward in the mind.

“Oh but before we go,” she said before Figment began to transport them out, “I wanted to mention to you that Dreamfinder has been worried about you quite a bit. You could be little nicer to him.”

“What?”

“He’s concerned about you,” Namine repeated as if it were obvious why it was.

“Why?” Figment stressed, “Because of the money? I’m having fun! I was allowed to go to two places on Spaceship Earth! The lab and ________’s home. And then when we left, when I wasn’t helping with research or your studies, I was babysitting ________.”

“But that’s not really a reason to act like Dreamfinder is being over-dramatic.”

“He is being over-dramatic. He’s treating me like a child! I’m a grown man!”

“Well you could at least tell him that instead of letting him worry,” Namine said with folded arms and a light glower on her face. This was the second time she’d had to parent one of her friends on this trip, and she couldn’t help but think of when you were drunk and called her Mom-ine.

Figment rolled his eyes at her statement.

“Fine,” he conceded before he proceeded to fly them out of Robot Butler’s mind.

Namine fluttered her eyes open to be met with Demyx and Robot Butler looming over her, Figment floated nearby, flapping his tiny wings.

“Well?” Demyx asked. Though he was certain he knew the answer. Robot Butler was eerily still in these few moments. Namine had only been out for a few minutes as far as they were concerned, but it was just long enough for them to wonder if it had really worked – not like your trip into Axel’s mind or your fathers where all those long, long hours obviously meant that it had worked. After all, time moved faster in the mind. She supposed the half hour she was in there very well may have been all of five minutes or so outside of the mind.

“You’ve got a mind,” Namine said as she stood up and dusted herself off. Robot Butler was stunned, and it showed on his face, his ever-present smile dropping from his face as he stilled, unmoving and holding a blank expression.

He was sentient. A sapient being.

Namine also looked troubled. Why didn’t they tell him? He had had sentience all this time, and no one had told him. Robot Butler snapped his smile back on to his face.

“Well this has certainly been an enlightening experience,” Robot Butler stated.

“Aren’t you… I don’t know…,” Namine fumbled to find the right words, “Upset? Or happy? Or curious about it? You’re artificially intelligent.”

“I know,” Robot Butler said, his smile almost faltering, “But I am content with who I am and what it is I do. The way I view it, I’m fine knowing this and continuing on as I always have.”

“But you could…,” Namine trailed off. He could what? Demand to be treated differently? Would that even really work out? She only had this small amount of proof, and there were still too many questions regarding how his mind worked. There was still too much to learn about A.I.s. She didn’t even know who made them. And how many were even A.I.s? He could very well be the only one. She had nothing to really work with, and it seemed as if Robot Butler had already come to this conclusion, content to act as if nothing had changed.

There was a soft knock at the slightly ajar door of Robot Butler’s room. They all jumped in the silence and turned to look to see S.I.R. sitting there in his little wheelchair, a newspaper in his lap.

“Artificial intelligence, huh?” he said, wheeling himself in before anyone told him to, “That’s a neat little thing to learn.”

There was a brief pause.

“It could change things,” Namine said lowly, feeling oddly vulnerable underneath S.I.R.’s gaze. He was very observant, his eyes unwavering and very clearly reading her expressions with a startling amount of focus, noting every little twitch of her facial muscles.

“It could change everything,” S.I.R. said before his tone took on a more humorous and amused tone, “I was never into robotics myself. Ironic, I know. But I’d pursue it if I were you. After all, the theme of Tomorrowland is perseverance and the pursuit of knowledge for a better future – or something along those lines.”

Namine nodded numbly. Something about his tone made her wonder if he too were artificially intelligent. If nothing else, his words may have implied that he would like to know as well. And that was enough to fuel another fire – how to pursue this now that she knew that artificial intelligence was, in fact, a thing here.

“I’d love to stay and chat more about it, but I’ve got some current events to catch up on,” he said, gesturing to the newspaper in his lap before he rolled himself out of the room and down the hall.

Meanwhile all of the gears in Namine’s head were turning. Where could she find information about robotics that would be easily accessible to her?

Well… libraries were always a good place to start.

~

Axel had wanted everything to be perfect but considering the run of luck everyone of your friends, yourself included, of course that wasn’t going to be the case. It wasn’t a major inconvenience because the two of you had decided that you’d start off simple. It would be a simple date with no grand romantic gestures or large declarations of adoration. Just a quick breakfast at a little diner where the two of you could keep getting to know each other. And maybe after, the two of you would decide on an activity to do. So that was where the two of you found yourselves that morning – at about the time Demyx and Namine were exploring the museum.

And that was fine.

But the waitress wasn’t. She was a sweet girl, you thought, with a bubbly disposition. Everything about her was perky from her bright pink, cat-eye glasses and curly blonde ponytail down to her pristine white flats on her feet, the toes of which she kept bouncing on. But she could talk. And this too wouldn’t have been such an inconvenience were she not a smoker. And it seemed her somewhat ditzy nature kept her from realizing that Axel clearly wanted her to not be interrupting your date and that he even more clearly wanted her to stop blowing smoke in your face and his.

Honestly you found it cute how desperately he wanted this very simple date to be perfect, so his annoyance at your waitress was actually kind of adorable in a sense. You were also impressed at the level of energy the waitress had – you were not necessarily a morning person and you had Axel as the sole reason you were in such a peppy mood at all.

The first time she came by was to take your drink orders, and she kept swearing up and down that she knew you from somewhere but couldn’t quite place it. That was about when she lit her first cigarette and spent about ten minutes standing there blowing smoke and guessing which one of her college courses she had seen you in – much to your amusement and relief that she had not realized that most likely she had just seen you on the news. You were wearing a simple outfit that looked incredibly adorable on you but blended in with the style of Tomorrowland so you wouldn’t stand out too much. And you were happy it kept your identity, for the most part, a secret. You were just another citizen as far as most people could tell, and that’s how you wanted to keep it. You blended well enough that not too many people had recognized you on the monorail when you and Axel had gone out in the first place.

But it was still amusing to think that here was someone who did recognize you but couldn’t place it. Plus you’d only had one year of college, and you knew for a fact that it certainly wasn’t here or with her.

She gave up after a while after for the third time you reassured her that you were certain you weren’t in her biology lab. Axel asked if that was as annoying for you as it was for him, and you just giggled and said it was alright.

She came back with your drinks – orange juice for Axel and a water for you – and then she asked for your orders. Axel got something simple – two eggs, two slices of bacon, and a short stack of pancakes. You wanted the Belgian waffles and asked if they’d be okay with heating up the syrup for you. Nothing was better on waffles or pancakes than warm syrup.

This time the topic of conversation was how much she also loved warm syrup and how she’d put it on everything if she could, followed by a short-ish anecdote on the one time her dog got into the pantry and bit a bottle of syrup and ran with it all over the house and how she and her family spent hours trying to scrub it out of the carpet – complete with another cigarette that she puffed on intermittently as she told her tale. You didn’t mind. You liked dogs. They were the best. Therefore stories about dogs are the best stories. Axel just sat through it as annoyed as he had been before but at least he got to see you chatter excitedly about dogs once she left and you talked about how much you freaking loved dogs.

Because what’s better than seeing your face light up when you talked about something you loved?

Thankfully, for Axel, you had a longer wait for the waitress to come back, so the two of you continued to talk – mostly about life before all the adventure kicked in and who you were as people now. Like what either of you would have done had your lives not been upended so completely. Axel wasn’t entirely sure. He’d have wanted to finish school, but he also knew that he used to want to travel a bit. Of course, he’s been so many places now that he’s not sure he wants it anymore. If he had to say what he wanted to do now, a GED would probably be a good place to start. Then he wasn’t sure what he’d want to study in college. Maybe he’d learn a trade instead – something that made money but with classes that weren’t so expensive.

You had told him that you had been majoring in business so you could start your own dance studio someday, but you had also been pretty all over the active performance scene as well. So the potential to get picked up by a big-name studio was also a possibility for you. You certainly wouldn’t have turned down the chance to become a professional dancer straight out of college or even before you’d finished. Though now that you were a keyblade wielder, you weren’t even sure if that were an option. You couldn’t just stop once your world had been righted, could you?

And now…. Things were so different for the two of you. And what about the two of you. You were from two completely different worlds. Literally. When your world came back and the Organization was no more… What did that mean for the two of you? Would he want to go back home to Hollow Bastion? Would he maybe… want to come to Beastly Kingdom and be with you? Or would you abandon the home you had technically never known to be with him… away from the rest of your friends and family?

You could both feel the tension of all of the unasked questions when the two of you actually thought about what you might do when it was all over. The only answer either of you knew was that you wanted to be with each other. But that was enough for now.

The waitress came back with your orders roughly twenty minutes later. She then continued with her guessing game of, “Where Have I Seen You Before?” This time only for five minutes but with the cigarette and smoke still included. You wondered how many packs a day she had to go through just to maintain her habit considering in the short time you’d been there – which was barely an hour of your day thus far – you’d watched her smoke four.

But it didn’t last all too long. The two of you got through your meal with minimal interference from the waitress and learned a bit more about each other. You apparently didn’t have a favorite genre of music, liking everything relatively equally except for polka. Axel’s favorite genre was jazz oddly enough. You pegged him for rock or heavy metal kind of guy – which he mentioned he wasn’t opposed to because he liked that music too. It’s just if he had to have a favorite, then jazz would win it out.

You both like crime shows, and comedy was your genre of choice when it came to film as well as his. Axel also apparently used to like people watching – it’s how he got good at reading people. Axel was apparently good at math, and you mentioned that you had more of an interest in world history that was grounded mostly in the world’s visual and performing arts. He learned that you liked the occasional trip to an art museum – especially when there were performance pieces to be seen.

To unwind Axel preferred to go see a movie on a world and eat an entire bucket of large popcorn – though that was before he had started a tradition of getting sea salt ice cream and looking at Twilight Town’s sunset. But when hanging out with Roxas it was cheaper to get two ice creams and talk rather than go to the movies anyway. You danced to unwind, of course, though if you weren’t feeling up to that you preferred snuggling under a blanket and watching criminal investigation shows with a plate of brownies. Axel mentioned that that sounded nice and he’d like to try it with you sometime.

You told him it’d be a date. Just the two of you snuggling and eating brownies. And maybe sharing a few kisses and naughty touches under that blanket.

You whispered that last part so only he could hear and were rewarded by a hot blush spreading across his cheeks.

“Aw, come on, babe. Don’t tease me in public.”

You just giggled and winked back at him.

“Besides I thought you said watching B-movies was your thing,” he continued.

You shrugged.

“It’s only fun with someone. Making fun of a movie by yourself is nowhere near as fun as it is with friends. So when I’m alone brownies and crime shows for me!”

The two of you kept talking until your breakfast was done. The waitress spent another ten minutes talking to the two of you when she brought your check. Axel paid and tipped, and the two of you made your way out of the diner.

It was just as you were leaving that the waitress ran up to catch the two of you at the door.

“Thanks for the tip!” she said with a bright smile and little bounce to her step, “I usually just get dimes! Have a nice day!”

With that she waved and went back to work.

“How much did you tip?” you asked, looking at Axel. He just shrugged.

“I just gave her a five. I guess money here is still the way it would have been in the 50s.”

The two of you shrugged the moment off and continued on your way, stopping every now and again when someone might recognize you and ask for an autograph. You tried to maintain a low profile though, asking them not to shout it so loud when they recognized you. You didn’t want to have your day overhauled by excited people, especially not while on your first official date with your boyfriend – something you have waited entirely too long for.

Eventually the two of you wandered back over to the fair and found it easier to navigate and manage now that no one was expecting your arrival – also you didn’t have a limo or your uncle drawing attention to you upon arriving.

The two of you redid a few of the roller coasters you’d enjoyed the last time you were able to visit, and you tried out the Ferris wheel again, gazing down at the city with Axel with wonder. Then you both decided to check out a few attractions, revisiting the Spaceship Earth ride but this time using the dark to snuggle and share a few kisses while you continued to talk about yourselves and learn about each other more than listen to Tom Morrow ramble on about the history of the world again.

The last ride the two of you went on before deciding you’d go check out other parts of the city was called Soarin’. It was a simple ride that suspended you in the air and blew wind and smells in your faces while a large immersive screen “flew” you over various locations in the world. It was interesting no doubt and a nice way to relax. The first and last place flown through was Tomorrowland. And it was nice… It was about what you’d see if you rode the monorail. But you’d seen it as you were reentering the atmosphere, knew what it could look like from just a bit higher than the monorail.

The two of you exited the ride, and Axel stretched.

“Well that was nice,” he said, “One of the better rides, I think.”

Was he really downplaying this? Or does he really think this is better than a roller coaster. Because the rollercoasters here were trackless – you wouldn’t even know which direction its going to whip you in next, so you get all the thrill and anticipation.

“It was fine,” you said, not wanting to be the Debbie Downer of the day.

“Just fine?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow at you. Oh he was getting that look. That Axel look you had come to know that said, “I’m reading you like a book, so give me your honest opinions.” You gave a little shrug.

“Yeah, it was fine,” you said. Then you got an idea, a smile curling up on your face in excitement and a bit of anticipation. “But there’s something better we could try.”

“Like what?” he asked, eyes leaving you to scan the nearby attractions and rides as he tried to pick out which one you wanted to try most.

“We could go ‘soarin’ for real,” you said, adding little air quotes. Axel turned his head back to you quickly to see what you meant. You continued to elaborate. “Seriously. I’ve got a glider. It can fit two people. We could… fly around Tomorrowland for a bit.”

You tried to read Axel like he did you, but you had to imagine that you were nowhere near as subtle about it as he could be. But you managed, and you had to admit… Seeing Axel contain his excitement was kind of cute. Because his eyes lit up, and his smile would broaden just a tiny bit as he attempted to keep his facial expression under control. He was very obviously excited from what you could tell, and that was without the obvious feelings of, “Yes! Yes! We should absolutely do that now!” rushing at you from the connection your hearts shared. You were pretty sure he wasn’t even aware that he was sharing his feelings so explicitly – probably because he was trying so hard to look composed on the outside.

“You could do that?” he asked, and you heard just the barest hint of eagerness in his voice.

“Totally,” you said, “It’ll be fun. We can see everything or go anywhere you want.”

“Okay,” he said casually – too casually.

You grabbed his hand and led him around the back of one of the attractions so no one would see you summon your glider. You’d been keeping it all a secret this long, and you weren’t about to blow it all so casually.

You and Axel hopped on, and he put his arms around you and muttered something into your ear, his lips pressed to you and voice low.

“I think I like holding you like this,” he said, tightening his arms around your waist. Your heart jumped, and you shook it off.

“Just try not to fall off while you attempt to seduce me,” you said with a roll of your eyes, trying to ignore the little chuckle he let out that also made your heart do little flips. You might crash if he did things like this to you while the two of you were flying.

You took off relatively slowly, but Axel still reflexively held on a little tighter – not that you minded all too much. You zipped out of the fairgrounds though, not keen on being spotted too quickly. You and Axel wanted to keep your relationship out of the spotlight, and this in no way was the best way to do that. But it was too much fun not to do it. So the least you could do was be a passing blur to any nearby people.

But you slowed once the two of you were a decent distance above it all. You could faintly hear Axel let out a little breath of disbelief at seeing the world from so high up. And you were thrilled to show it to him – happy you could give him something beautiful to look at like he had done when he showed you your first sunrise.

You flew around the buildings and several UFOs and the monorail, not lingering too long next to the people, but thinking it was cute to see astonished children try to get the mothers and fathers who were busy speaking with other passengers or reading the paper to notice you as you were flying away.

You could hear Axel’s breathless laugh as you raced passed cars and buildings, only subtly noticing people walking or running over to their windows to see what had passed them so quickly.

It was a gloriously beautiful day, and it was perfect for flying, and you were enjoying it with your boyfriend whom you loved so dearly. Never mind how annoyed Axel had been with the waitress, this was by far one of the best dates you had ever been on. Plus you could certainly say you’d never been flying on a date before, so this was also a nice first.

The two of you landed on the private beach behind the palace after a few more minutes of flying. The beach didn’t have quite so many people on it as the day before. It was almost empty. That didn’t stop you from picking a secluded little spot away from everyone and a fair amount of distance from the palace.

Axel, seeing how empty the spot you picked was, saw no harm in displaying the tiniest amount of PDA and laced his fingers with yours. You smiled up at him, feeling giddy.

“So how’d you like it? Flying, I mean,” you asked as the two of you began to stroll down the beach. You took off your flats to feel the sand between your toes. It was toasty and inviting – almost relaxing in the way it warmed your feet.

“That was,” Axel paused to find the right word, his excitement barely hidden this time around, “Incredible. We should definitely do it again some time.”

“Anytime,” you confirmed, “Just say the word. You know I love spending time with you.”

The tiniest blush spread over Axel’s face. He thought you were going to say you loved him. Which he would not be prepared for. He wouldn’t mind it either, but it would certainly catch him off guard.

You both looked out at the ocean, gazing at the line where the dark blue see met the bright blue sky, talking still about yourselves. You wanted to know absolutely everything about him. And he seemed to have taken a similar interest in you.

His favorite dessert was sea salt ice cream, but funfetti cake was a close second, and yours was any variation of cake and ice cream – though you had a particular fondness for it if both flavors of cake and ice cream were chocolate. He absolutely hated dancing as a child and growing up, but he actually took an interest in it when you were involved and admitted to actually having fun. This, of course, made you ecstatic. You apparently hated potted plants – but only when you’re tasked with taking care of them. You were too forgetful and often forgot to water them. Why this spurred a hatred for potted plants? You’d never know.

Axel also liked reading. He liked mystery novels. You were not as avid a reader, but you would occasionally pick up a horror novel here and there – and sometimes YA fiction if you were feeling it. Axel preferred spring and summer because he liked sleeping with the windows open at night so he could hear crickets chirping. You also liked the warmth – though your experience with seasons was limited to the tepid weather you’d experienced on Hollow Bastion and Twilight Town, the humidity and warmth of Animal Kingdom, and the bitter chill of being on top of the Matterhorn. But between the four, it was no contest for you. And you hadn’t stayed on any other world long enough to say whether you really liked it or not – except for on the Matterhorn where you wanted to nope the fuck right out of there as soon as you had stepped into it.

You also both liked the meal lunch the best. You’d already had breakfast and there was still dinner to look forward to. You both liked food. A lot. Though you’d never know it from his extremely lean physique. Meanwhile, dancing was the only thing that kept all that cake and ice cream from coming back to haunt you. You had to assume training was what kept everything else you ate away.

Now it was your turn to ask a question.

“Hmmm,” you thought, “If you could change anything about the past, what would it be?”

Axel seemed surprised by this question. He thought for a moment.

“Nothing,” he finally answered, “I lost a lot of people in my past, but I know I’ll get them back someday. And knowing that, I can come to terms with everything.”

“That’s good,” you said, smiling warmly. You were happy that all of the horrible things that had happened to him hadn’t hurt him beyond repair.

“Besides,” he said, turning to face you, “I wouldn’t want to risk this.”

He took your other hand in his free hand.

“Or you,” he said, pulling you closer. You let go of his hands to slide them up to his shoulders just as you felt one of his hands rest on the small of your back, the other tilting your chin up. And he kissed you. It was slow and deep and passionate, and it made you feel drunk with all the adoration and affection you felt behind it. You could turn right into a puddle. You felt so heated, you thought you might. And you were certain that if you didn’t melt into the sand, you were going to float away. At the very least you were close to igniting.

“Aww,” you both heard a voice say, and the two of you jumped apart. You were supposed to be hiding your relationship, and that was a pretty hard thing to do if you were openly making out on the beach.

You both looked in the direction of the voice, and you froze.

Standing, well floating, in front of you, partially obscured by a bush of tall beach grass, was the exact same robot you chased on the tiny planet the ship had crashed on. The lights on its head, you realized, were more than just lights. They were eyes. And they were creepy. And blinking at different times. You instantly took a step away from it and towards Axel who held you a bit protectively. You’d have swooned if you hadn’t been so freaked out.

The robot, realizing that it had been spotted, took off in the opposite direction with a little yelp.

“What was…,” Axel began before you cut him off.

“That’s what I saw the day we crash landed,” you said, holding on tighter to him, “It was a robot just like that one. I chased after it but stopped when I saw something happening to you all in the distance.”

Axel relaxed a little bit.

“That’s alright then,” he reassured you, still looking in the direction the robot left in.

“No, it’s not,” you said, “It’s creepy.”

“Yeah, it certainly isn’t pretty. But it’s probably just a drone or something. You saw one on one of the other planets. There could be hundreds of them around that we just haven’t noticed. I mean, there are robots everywhere.”

You relaxed a little bit. Still… you didn’t like it.

“I guess,” you muttered, finally detaching yourself from Axel and taking a tiny step back. Hopefully it didn’t have anything to do with the news. You really didn’t want to see a picture or video of you and Axel kissing plastered all over Tomorrowland.

“How about this,” Axel said, resting his hands on your shoulders, “We’ll end the date here and just hang out for a bit. We can go back to your room or mine and unwind with a plate of brownies and whatever qualifies as a criminal investigation show here. Or make fun of more movies if that doesn’t work out.”

You smiled a bit and nodded. That did sound nice. Axel smiled back.

The two of you began to walk back towards the palace, picking your conversation from before back up, laughing and joking all the way back.

~

It was late in the morning when Nova woke up – about the time when Namine and Demyx were about to leave the museum and you and Axel were leaving the fair. And that was how she liked it. No press conferences. No meetings about the Horizons Project. No annoying keyblade wielders to stand next to in order to get a little fucking attention.

She let out a yawn and stretched her arms high above her head. Then there was a knock at her door. She didn’t feel like entertaining guests for the time being and ignored it, stepping out of her bed and putting on a short robe to cover her nightie as she strutted to her vanity mirror to clean and ready her face and hair for the day.

She took a moment to admire her crown where it rested. The knocking at her door persisted, and she rolled her eyes and scowled. Could they not tell when they were not welcome? She continued to prepare herself in the mirror, frowning at the reflection a bit. Was the stress of this whole ordeal going to age her? She was only thirty-four, but she’d be damned if she was going to be like her father and graying early and wrinkling over the sake of her rule.

The knocking continued, and she continued to ignore it. She went to her shower and took and extra long wash, reveling in the calming feeling of the hot water as it ran over her, ignoring the knock on the door she just barely heard over the shower running. She dried off, patted her hair dry, slipped back into her robe, and returned to her vanity. She looked much livelier than before.

And then there was another knock on the door!

“What?!” she screeched at the door, slamming a hand down on the surface of her vanity. The door creaked open and in rolled S.I.R. She scowled. She would have preferred assassins, tabloid reporters that took unflattering pictures, maybe even you. But he was a particularly different type of annoying to her right now.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he purred at her, as he wheeled himself farther into the room. He was in a suspiciously good mood for someone who was so bitter towards her.

“What do you want?” she asked slowly, feeling not entirely authoritative when he was looking at her before her face was on. But her voice still held a touch of ice due to her annoyance.

“I just wanted to make sure you were alright after that big power outage last night. You wouldn’t believe what some of the soldiers are saying they think caused it,” he said, casting her a sly look, “And I even brought you the morning paper.”

She snatched it from him, gazing at the headline: Empress saves the Empress!!

Her eyes slide down to the rest of the article.

Beloved keyblade wielder and recently named Woman of the Year Lady ________ ________ decided to enjoy the beautiful Tomorrowland weather at the beach with her friends, a few soldiers, and our dear leader Empress Nova. And amid the fun and sun, tragedy struck as the empress’s diving tower collapsed. But not to worry! No injuries were sustained as our very own Empress of the Renaissance leapt in to save the day once again, catching her before she had a chance to be harmed.

Below that was a picture of you on your glider flying into action, a determined look on your face. The picture next to it was of you catching Nova, and the look on Nova’s face – screaming in terror – was none too flattering – her mouth wide and gaping, eyes bulging and hair a mess.

She roughly threw the paper back into S.I.R.’s face. He was still amused but acted annoyed by her behavior regardless.

“Rude,” he commented, gently folding the paper back up properly and setting it in his lap.

“Even when I’m the victim, somehow, somehow she stays in the spotlight,” Nova fumed, fully ignoring his comment of her behavior and content to focus on her own predicament, “Calling her an empress even! And the empress of the renaissance I started!”

“Well what are you going to do about it?” S.I.R. said, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. He took a puff on his artificial lungs. This truly was for appearances. He could smoke, but it had no effect on his robotics. It just looked nice to him – a little addition he asked the scientists fixing him to throw in.

The empress lit her own cigarette, taking a long, low drag, content to ignore his question.

“And you can’t just get rid of her,” S.I.R. said, taking another puff of his cigarette, “It won’t give you anything you want. Your little plot got rid of your family and netted you a pretty crown, but somehow I don’t see murder getting you a keyblade this time around.”

“I know that,” she spat at him, exhaling smoke and walking to a window to look down at the scenery. She could see the beach, and she could see something else that made her blood boil. S.I.R. noticed the stiffness in her posture and wheeled over to see what it was she was looking at.

It was you and Axel laughing as you walked down the beach on your way back to the castle. That was all she saw the two of you doing, but the way the two of you were enjoying each other’s company wasn’t sitting quite right with her.

S.I.R. also observed carefully. He had been mistaken in assuming there was something between you and Atom. No, how you acted then was nothing compared to how you were looking at this redhead you were with now. And the way he was looking at you communicated that it was mutual. It was so sweet it was sickening and made him roll his eyes.

However… seeing you happy wasn’t totally appalling to him….

“How sweet,” S.I.R. said dryly, “Love on the horizon for the little rising star?”

“No,” Nova snapped, “Not with him. She doesn’t deserve him.”

If S.I.R. had eyebrows to raise, he would’ve have raised one. He could smell trouble. Like Nova not seeing what he so clearly saw was that, even if you didn’t want the redhead, he was already yours. But he had always been good at reading people despite his limited contact with them. Maybe she wasn’t.

“And what,” he responded carefully, trying to read her, “Pray tell, dictates who deserves him and who doesn’t? I mean they seem to be close friends at the very least. Isn’t that usually grounds for a relationship for you fleshies?”

“He’s powerful,” she said, taking another drag on her cigarette, “Power attracts power. I’m powerful. …And I want him. And I could be more powerful with him. I could finally get the respect I deserve.”

“Deserve,” S.I.R. said, his tone far too amused, “Respect is rarely deserved, but you speak of it like you’ve earned it.”

“I’m the empress,” she snapped at him, “I’ve always deserved it regardless of if it’s earned or not. The people look to me for guidance and leadership.”

“I honestly think you forgot how you got that title. You deserved to be empress just like your family deserved to be murdered.”

She paused, eyeing him rather angrily before deciding to ignore his statements altogether. S.I.R. continued despite her silence.

“Let’s say you did have to earn the title and that it couldn’t just be inherited. What could you say you’ve done? I may not have caught up on every current even that took place over the course of these past eleven years, but I have to say that most of the news on you was how you were in mourning and how you had been coronated. And then… you just peter out of the public eye. At least you do on the serious side of news. You’re everywhere in fashion magazines and tabloids.”

“I’ve done the Horizon’s Project,” she said, “I started this. None of this would be possible if not for me. Space travel is to be reinstated.”

“And you’re sure it wasn’t ________ who started all this?”

“No!” she snapped, whirling around to face him. Her hand was raised as if she were going to slap him but thought better of it. Nothing good could have come from hitting metal at full force.

“You’re right,” he said calmly, “You started this. You let that alien run rampant in that station, locked everyone in there to die, made sure no one could escape – not that you were thinking of anyone other than your family. Everyone else was just collateral damage. You created the perfect scenario. A tragic event that cripples the growth of your empire that you can fix by sending someone else up to clean up your mess.”

“Are you saying I did this to myself?” she said, nostrils flaring with how angry she felt.

“I’m not saying that. I’m saying that if you had wanted a way to stay in the spotlight, causing a tragedy and making someone else fix it eleven years later after you’ve fallen out of the favorable light of the public eye may not have been the best way to do it.”

Nova huffed.

“If you ever speak a word of that to anyone else, I’ll have you dismantled.”

“I’m in no hurry to reveal my own part in your actions. Though I have to admit that it is fun just knowing it. And knowing that you know that I’m the only other person on this who knows what you did.”

S.I.R. finally turned to leave, rolling up to the door and stopping.

“You really believe everything you have is deserved and that alone is enough to get you a man?”

“I’m beautiful. I have money, power, an entire empire at my command.”

“And yet you’re threatened by someone you said doesn’t even deserve him.” S.I.R. shook his head and left the room. This would not end well. And, though he’d never admit it if anyone asked, he worried for you just a bit.

Notes:

Thank you to all those of you who commented and all of those wonderful kudos I got! You guys really made my week!

Obscure-ish References:

Soarin': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soarin%27

Chapter 64: The Hall of Emperors

Summary:

S.I.R. pays Nova a visit. Again. Namine and Demyx continue their investigation. And a little update on Marluxia and Vanitas.

Notes:

Sorry about my prolonged absence. Things have been kicking up in my life, but hopefully it'll be smooth sailing from here on out. As a little apology I wrote a few more of those deleted scenes up, and as a fair warning one of them is explicit and sexual BUT it's at the bottom so it's totally skippable if that isn't your deal.

Here's the link to the deleted scenes: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21496936/chapters/54261370

It was a rather gloomy day in Tomorrowland the next day. Rainy and gray but still warm. The city was still bustling and beautiful. Not that S.I.R. really much cared. He had bigger plans than going out on the town. Though he’d watched you excitedly bound out of the palace babbling something about the weather with Axel hot on your trail to follow you.

Cute kids. Better try and keep that relationship under wraps though.

He arrived at his intended destination early that morning and gave a steady knock on the door, knocking, knocking, knocking until a voice yelled from the other side in annoyance and frustration. Then he rolled in with a smug expression on his face which only got smugger when he saw the unkempt state of the empress who had yet to roll out of bed – her hair flying in several directions and flopping into her face and very light, almost unnoticeable circles under her eyes. Perhaps this whole keyblade ordeal was getting under skin more than she even let on to him.

“What is so important that you couldn’t wait until I was up and out of my chambers to address?”

“I know it seems like I only came here to bother you, but I assure you, what I have to say is of the utmost importance. Information that you will find most valuable,” he said. He was sincere, but he said it such a tone that she wasn’t sure if she really ought to take him seriously. She doubted whatever he had to say could be so important.

“Why,” she began as she massaged her temple, a headache already threatening to ruin her day, “Do you insist on returning here? I hate you. You hate me. But you seem to be too stupid to understand what that means.”

“I thought we had a nice relationship,” S.I.R. said with mock hurt in his voice, “I mean, I know better than anyone what you’re going through. We are both murderers after all. We have a nice thing going.”

Nova glowered at him.

“I could send you back to your world, you know,” she lightly threatened, “And you can tell them all about the little murder you helped with.”

“Oh! Gasp! No! You wouldn’t,” S.I.R. said, dramatically flailing his arms in false panic, “Don’t send me back to them! The world who conspired with you to orchestrate murder! I can’t imagine a worse form of punishment than to be home!”

Nova’s scowl deepened, but S.I.R. ignored it.

“I do have one little question about that actually,” S.I.R. said casually as he dropped his little act, “What exactly did you get out of that deal? I know my reward for my participation was isolation in the deep of space, but what about you?”

“I became a ruler, of course,” she said. The answer was obvious, but she would never pass up an opportunity to speak well of herself. “And in this act of treachery, I did the empire a service.”

S.I.R. looked back at her skeptically.

“A service,” he repeated with a careful, measured tone. Surely she saw the irony in her statement. She could not possibly believe her actions were justified.

“A service,” she repeated, brushing her hair back out of her face with her fingers and sitting up a little straighter, puffing her chest out against her nightgown which threatened to let her breasts spill out. “If I hadn’t done what I had, the war may have continued. It would plague Tomorrowland even if by some chance my family had died of natural causes rather than by my own actions.”

“You didn’t do your family or this world a service,” S.I.R. said bluntly, eliciting a frown from Nova. “I wish I’d have gotten here sooner to act as someone to keep you grounded. Maybe then you wouldn’t be as delusional as you are now. I am, after all, the only one who knows your dirty little secret – your sole confidant.”

“Your point? How do you not see the good in my actions?”

“Because the war was over. You know that as well as I do. The war was over the moment both sides called a, ‘cease fire,’ and it was time to talk peace. And it was more than over when your parents went to Planet X-S to sign the treaties.”

Nova remained silent, quietly fuming. S.I.R. continued.

“But that isn’t where the story ends, is it? There’s still the little matter of the planet’s forced annexation. And no world, no matter how non-hostile you make your takeover, enjoys being conquered. So naturally Planet X-S had to go out with a bang – one last middle finger to Tomorrowland before they quietly slip into subservience. But you shared that sentiment, didn’t you? You couldn’t quietly slip into your role as the princess in the background while your younger brother stood in the spotlight, wielding a keyblade and poised to take the throne in three years. Because where did that leave you? Nowhere. You also wanted to give the empire a middle finger.”

“If things had gone as smoothly as they did,” Nova said with clipped words and barely controlled volume, trying very much to justify actions she wasn’t even sorry for, “There would have been constant tension bubbling beneath the surface. The empire would barely hold itself together. But they just needed a little release. A discreet way to get rid of that anger. And they wanted my mother and father. And that’s what they got. I’m just the lucky woman who got the crown afterward.”

S.I.R. nodded.

“Yes, Nova. You sure did,” he said, his tone toeing the line between sarcasm and seriousness. His next words made it clear though that despite how they sounded, they were all very much sarcastic. “You murdered hundreds of innocent people like any good person would in a bid for power.”

A cruel smile slipped over his face.

“Let’s say,” he began, pacing the room as well as he could when rolling, “That you’re right. Let’s say they really did need that little outlet for their anger. They wanted your parents, and that’s exactly who they got. But they got a little bonus, didn’t they? Your little brother. I believe the news had you on record bawling your eyes out how it was your fault that he suffered the same fate they did. Something about how you had ‘only wanted him to be the best ruler he could be.’ And so you insisted he go along with them to learn about times of duress and peace between worlds. You said he would learn about what it truly took to be a ruler. Well I can see what that means in your eyes. He certainly learned a very powerful lesson that day. One I’m sure he took with him to the grave.”

“Why do you care?” Nova said lowly, “You don’t even like people.”

“It’s true I don’t,” he said with a flippant wave of his hand, “I’m not very discrete about my special brand of racism. And I find that there are very few of you I can tolerate. But I like to annoy you. Consider it a payment for my elven years of loneliness. I believe I will have paid you back in full within the next 4,012 days. Plus I must say that I find it rather entertaining how easily my talking about your ill-gotten reward gets under your skin. It’s even more amusing that my teasing gets under your skin more than the thought that you murdered your own family does.”

Nova was silent, eyes dark and dangerous. S.I.R. did not doubt that if she had been wearing her crown, he’d be in trouble for certain. Or maybe the windows and mirrors would have shattered if she didn’t direct her anger at him. He decided to push his luck a little more.

“You know,” he began, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’d thought about getting rid of your family before.”

Silence.

After another moment of quiet, the two eyeing each other from across the room, she finally spoke.

“If you’re done here,” she said sounding as tired as she did angry, “I have things I need to take care of. You can see yourself out.”

“Now that you mention it,” S.I.R. said wheeling further into the room rather than inching towards the door like she’d hoped he would, “I just wanted to remind you of a little detail I hope hasn’t slipped your mind. It’s that thing I told you was so important when I first came in.”

“What?” she bit out as she trudged out of bed and towards her vanity, sitting in the chair and scowling at her reflection, tracing her fingers under her eyes.

“Your little assets that keep you from fading into obscurity. Well I’m afraid to say that eventually you won’t have them anymore, and you’ll soon be back on your throne yearning for attention and soundly ignored.”

“What are you on about now?” she snapped, whirling around to look at him.

“Well the duck – von Drake was it? He’s going to leave. And so is the keyblade wielder. And her friends. And by extension so is ‘your man.’ Because when ________ leaves, they all follow. And I know you want to be remembered as the ruler who brought back someone who is practically revered as a god, but you should be aware that when he’s gone, all that pomp you’ve built up is going to vanish.”

Nova just let an easy smile spread over her features, and, not that he was showing it, it worried S.I.R. just a bit. He’d only brought it up to watch her squirm. But she wasn’t squirming. Maybe he ought to bring up the murder again. That had worked.

“It is sweet that you would show some concern for my well-being,” she said as she slowly turned back around, “But I’ve already thought about this. I know how to take care that little problem. I’m simply going to have the Great von Drake get whatever he wants. No matter the cost.”

“And you think he’s just going to abandon her like that,” S.I.R. said wheeling up to her and taking out a pack of cigarettes.

“Everyone has a price, and it just so happens that I’m the only person in the empire that can pay it no matter how high that cost might be. Axel is bound to be similar,” she purred, taking a cigarette as he offered one to her. S.I.R. watched her amicably take the cigarette as if he were an old friend rather than the nuisance that had almost put her in a murderous rage only a minute ago.

“Hm,” he said in response to her statement, “You know I meant it earlier when I said we had a little bond going. You even took a cigarette from me just now despite claiming you hate me.”

“Oh I do hate you,” she said as she lit the cigarette and took a long drag from it, “But I need this.”

“The cigarette? Or our little chats?” Nova didn’t respond. “You don’t hate me as much as you act. But I know that’s because of that little secret we share. You don’t have anyone you can talk to about it. No one but me. And I think you’re just a little bit grateful for that.”

“Are you saying we’re friends now?” she scoffed. S.I.R. also scoffed.

“No. I still hate you. And I will hate you long after you’re gray and your tits have sagged down to your feet and long after they throw you into a grave marked with all one of your accomplishments and long after every part of me has rusted into dust. But something about you makes me a little sad. Not in a way that makes me express pity. It’s just that I find you kind of pathetic. But regardless we’re in this together – us being accomplices in the murder of Tomorrowland’s rulers. Treasonous troublemakers or whatever this is.”

“I hate you too, and every moment you speak to me you grow just a tad closer to being dismantled. You’d be wise to remember that the next time you get a little too mouthy,” Nova said, putting her cigarette out on his shoulder before getting up and walking to her bathroom.

“If I may ask before you go, your highness,” S.I.R. said, biting out her title in a way that conveyed absolutely no respect, “How do you intend to carry out this little plan of yours to keep your guests around?”

“Nothing complicated,” she said, undoing her nightgown – common decency be damned. “Atom is going to handle a few diplomatic matters on one of the other worlds. While he’s away, Axel will resume his position as my personal guard. After a little time, he’ll be as wrapped around my finger as any other man I’ve wanted.”

“Except Atom,” S.I.R. couldn’t help but remind her. She paused in her undressing, sending him a glare but proceeding anyway.

“Except for Atom,” she agreed, “But he doesn’t want anyone. He’s worked for me for years and he’s not once ever showed explicit interest in anyone. But it hardly matters. I don’t need him anymore.”

“And ________? I know you prefer to keep her out of the spotlight and away from Axel.”

“She’ll be joining Atom. Though for her it’ll just be a vacation. I’m not involving her in any of the politics of my empire. I just need her to be out of the way for a bit.”

“Oh, yes, keep her out of the politics,” S.I.R. said with a roll of his eyes, “If she even so much as read a document there, she’d be more involved in the progress and development of the empire than you are.”

“You’re wearing my patience thin, and I don’t need an ear to complain to as much as you think I do. I was fine with no one to talk to for eleven years. But you’re a bit bent out of shape.”

“No, you don’t need an ear, but you like it. But I will be going now. Places to see and life to live and all that.”

S.I.R. turned and rolled himself out of the room. He admittedly felt a little worried when Nova had said that she had a plan, but he relaxed once he’d heard it. She severely underestimated everything that bonded you to your friends and family. But then again… family was never really something she ever understood or cared for – considering how she treated her own.

~

Demyx. Was. Bored.

At first this whole potential robot conspiracy thing sound like it was gonna be the adventure of a lifetime. But, as he quickly found out the more the minutes ticked by – eventually turning into hours – research was boring. Reading the same thing over and over again was boring.

And he distracted himself with whatever he could. And at this moment included making different shapes out of water. Eventually that attention turned to Namine who was still hunched over multiple books, a tiny crease between her eyebrows as she frowned in concentration, blue eyes boring into the book in her hands.

She actually looked kind of cute. Demyx made little water bubbles that began to circle her head. Namine just barely glanced up at them before waving them away. He tried again, this time he made them little cubes instead of bubbles.

She let out a sigh, pushing the book away from her but keeping her hands on it as if she weren’t quite sure she were really ready to let it go.

“Demyx, I need you to take this seriously. We could be on the verge of a breakthrough,” Namine said, looking over at him with pleading eyes. This made Demyx feel the least bit guilty for distracting her. “I know you’re bored, but it’ll go faster if you help me.”

Demyx considered this for a moment before asking her what her favorite animal was.

Namine just blinked at him, eyes searching his face for the meaning and point of the question.

“Elephants,” she answered finally. And the next thing you know, the little cubes circling her head were now little elephants marching around her head. Namine let out another sigh which sounded annoyed and a tad exasperated, but there was a smile on her face regardless. She wanted to be annoyed. She really did. But sometimes… Demyx just knew how to get her to relax.

“You’re working too hard,” Demyx said as he leaned back a little in his chair, an easy and relaxed smile spreading over his features. Namine’s smile didn’t falter. She wanted to stop smiling. She wanted Demyx to stop making her smile.

But she wasn’t going to stop smiling so long as she was staring at his stupid, cute face. So she turned back to her books. The smile faded easily then.

“I can’t find anything really useful,” she sighed out, and Demyx frowned as she fell back into her work pattern. She was stressing herself out. “They all just say the same thing. Emperor Saturn was the first to introduce the concept of simulated intelligence in service droids, and the programming was so on point within the first few attempts of creation, the robots were able to seamlessly mimic human interaction. And then basically nothing! How do you come up with a breakthrough that is so phenomenal that it can’t be improved upon and not have a detailed methodology of how it works written anywhere? It just skips to how the robotics era ended after the addition of Planet G-9. And it never picks up again after that despite Planet X-S being the next world added and having even more technology to work with.”

“Maybe they didn’t know how long they’d be using it?” Demyx suggested, “I mean most kinds of technology gets improved upon, right? So maybe they thought they’d improve it and just record the better version, but then it turns out they never did.”

Namine shook her head.

“It’s a nice enough theory, but even old inventions have at least some written record of them somewhere even if they’re obsolete. I mean Ludwig left his journals here millennia ago, and they still have them as well as a recording of every improvement made upon his designs since then. But with this,” she said, frustratedly gesturing over to the books in front of her, “They just keep saying the same thing over and over again! Like it wasn’t important!”

Demyx’s eyes sparkled and he leaned forward – so much so that there were only a few inches of space between his face and Namine’s. She felt her breath hitch and her heart rate picked up. Her face felt a bit warm.

“What if,” Demyx said lowly, leaning forward just a tiny bit more, “It’s all a giant conspiracy?”

Namine blinked. Her thoughts that Demyx was far too close and yet not close enough for her liking flew out of the window at his statement.

“Another nice theory,” she said, leaning back a bit, “But still probably not on the right track.”

Namine stood up, closing the book she was reading before and shaking her head. But Demyx didn’t let up. Instead he stood up too.

“Well I mean it would be just like in those comics I like to read,” he said, getting a bit more excited now that this investigation now had the prospect of being interesting again.

“Demyx,” Namine began patiently, “Even if it were a conspiracy, we don’t even know where to start looking or what they’d be trying to cover up. It could be that there’s not even a widespread number of sentient robots. As far as we know, Robot Butler is the only case we know of, and he could be the only one.”

Demyx considered this for a moment before his shoulders slumped. Namine was right. Of course. Still. It would have made for an interesting story. And he would have loved to have been part of an investigating team that discovered a sinister robot conspiracy. But he could deal for now.

“Figment,” Namine called, looking across the table they’d been sitting at to acknowledge the third member of their little team. He’d been buried in books about robotics at the start of their research, but they’d all given up quickly on account of how none of them had any knowledge of how robotics worked and therefore could not understand most of the information provided to them as well as that none of the books on robotics offered much if any of the history on them that they were seeking. “Have you found anything?”

Figment shook his head. He looked as bored and tired as Demyx felt, picking himself up from where he sat and walking over to where they were standing. Namine swore quietly under her breath. Then she paced. While Figment put away the books they’d pulled, she paced, and Demyx watched. She was really worked up about this.

“The museum!” she finally said loudly, earning a few harsh looks from nearby library-goers. She ignored them for the most part but lowered her volume to something more acceptable. “We could go back to the museum. We didn’t finish looking around because Robot Butler was distracted, and I wanted to see if he had a mind or not. But we’re bound to have missed something.”

Demyx shrugged as he stood up.

“Maybe,” he said, but Namine was already setting a fast pace towards the door.

And she kept that pace, practically bulldozing crowds on her own with her tiny frame in a desperate bid to find a lead. Something. Anything. That told her something about why no one would have told her friend why he was sentient.

She didn’t even lose her steam when she was in the museum, keeping her pace through the whole thing just lower than a jog and only because there was no running permitted in the museum.

In fact, she didn’t lose any steam until she realized there was nothing there either. And then it was as if all the life had gone out of her. Her shoulders slumped and her pace dragged to almost a crawl. She really thought she might have been on to something. But there was nothing. Again.

Demyx and Figment had barely been able to keep up with her. Figment had latched on to her shoulder at some point and had fallen off before being picked up by Demyx who was almost out of breath following her. He was finally relieved when she stopped, and he was able to catch his breath.

But then he saw her face. She was sad. And more than a little disappointed. He let out a deep, heavy sigh then put on his best smile.

“Hey, cheer up,” he said, “We tried our best. And, hey, maybe we haven’t gotten all the clues yet, but we can try again tomorrow. I’ll even read more than two books this time. Sound good?”

He lifted Namine’s chin to look up at him and his crooked smile, and despite her rather dismayed state, she still felt her heart do a little flip. The tiniest of smiles broke on her face, and she gave a light nod.

Demyx let his smile broaden, happy that he had at least gotten her to stop frowning. But he felt like there was more he could do to really make her happy. But for now he suggested heading back to the palace and watching a few movies.

She agreed, happy to spend more time with him, and they trudged back to the palace. But on the way there, Demyx couldn’t help but notice that Namine was starting to slip back into her sad state. He had to think quick!

He looked around at his surroundings. Then he noticed that they weren’t too far from the fairgrounds again. That was something! They hadn’t experienced everything they could the first time they went. They could go back and ride a few different rides and try out some new attractions, maybe grab a bite to eat.

“Hey!” he said, stopping in front of her, another bright, heart-stopping smile on his face, “Let’s hit the fair! We could have a little fun and maybe put some fun back into the day. What do you say?”

Namine had to admit that his attitude was somewhat infectious – though that could have just been attributed to the fact that she had a giant crush on him. She felt her bad mood slipping away again just for a second.

“We can get back on the roller coasters,” he said, nodding his head in the direction of the fair where you could see the roller coaster trains racing down trackless hills and doing loop-de-loops. He hated them. He really did. But he would not rest until she was full on smiling again – not that he’d admit to himself the real reason why it was he wouldn’t. But… you know… her smile was nice. She ought to do it more often.

“That does sound nice,” she said as she watched the roller coaster dip down again then back up.

“So let’s go,” he said, grabbing her hand and quickly leading her to the fair, and making her blush as red as a tomato, not that he saw it from where he was leading in front of her. And she missed the somewhat pink tinge that creeped up his neck and to his ears.

The fair wasn’t as crowded as the first time they’d been. It was probably because of all the rain from earlier which had since let up and vanished though the gloomy clouds remained in place. And now that you and Ludwig weren’t around, no one was hounding them for attention or autographs or pictures. Demyx didn’t lose any speed as he began to walk Namine over to a roller coaster. It was one he truly hated. More so than any of the other coasters. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster.

But Namine ground to a halt, almost yanking Demyx back with the force from her stop alone. Before her stood an attraction that they had already tried out when they first came to Tomorrowland: The Hall of Emperors. Demyx turned to see what she was looking at and wrinkled his nose at the attraction.

It had been boring in his opinion. In fact, he remembered making jokes throughout the whole thing just to keep Namine laughing. There hadn’t been many people in there then, and there wasn’t even a line now. It was probably just as boring to everyone else as it had been to them.

“You want to go in there?” he asked, looking at her. And she had that determined look on her face again that said she thought she might be on to something. And it made Demyx worry just a bit. He didn’t want her to wind up disappointed and sad again.

“Yes,” she said, turning that gaze on him. It was more than determined now. It was hopeful, and…. He really wanted to tell her that she just might end up disappointed again, but… when she was looking at him like that….

“Alright,” he said with a shrug that was all too causal. He’d just figure something else out to cheer her up later if this didn’t work out.

They were the only people in the attraction when they entered and took their seats. Just as Demyx had suspected, it was one of the less-loved attractions to visit at the fair. He imagined that parents forced their kids through it just to learn something, but even they had to admit that this wasn’t the most entertaining thing to visit.

But he endured. Namine sat ramrod straight in her seat, listening closely to the animatronics speak of each emperor and their reign and their major contributions to the development of Tomorrowland. Then she managed to stiffen in her seat even more when it was time for the emperor she’d been waiting for to speak.

And he just said the same exact thing they had read over and over and over again in the books in the library and then again on little plaques in the museum beneath the statue of the emperor.

Namine heaved a sigh, slumping back into her seat. Demyx also let out a sigh as the very thing he didn’t want to happen happened, and she was back in her funk. Figment also felt a little disappointed with a twinge of sympathy for Namine.

Then he got an idea, fluttering up on stage, front and center, in front of the animatronics. Then he began to do a little jazz and tap routine to the background music playing as the animatronics talked, complete with cane and top hat. It wasn’t as if there were other people in the attraction trying to enjoy it, and it made Namine smile just a tad.

Then her smile faded, and her eyes widened as she realized something shocking. Well it wasn’t really shocking so much as it was really, really creepy. Demyx noticed too. All of the animatronics had stopped talking to look down at Figment.

Demyx motioned to Figment to look behind him, and Figment stopped his little dance to slowly turn around. His little heart pounded as he looked up at the discontented faces of the animatronics surrounding him.

“Sir,” one of the animatronics spoke in a deep and imposing voice, “We understand that this isn’t everyone’s favorite attraction, but it is very rude to interrupt the show. We are trying to educate the guests, and we’d appreciate it if you took your seat.”

Figment gulped, gave a quick nod, and flapped back over to Namine and Demyx. But then something in Namine’s head clicked as the animatronics started their speeches back up again.

“Wait!” she called, and they stopped again, “You’re not animatronics!”

“No, ma’am,” one of the other emperors replied, “We’re simulated intelligence.”

We’ll see buddy, Namine thought. Because Robot Butler thought the same thing.

“So you could answer a question if I had one, right? About the emperors in history?”

“Well,” another emperor said, looking around at the empty seats, “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. We have about ten minutes of show left before they let in the next group. If there is one. We could answer your questions.”

“Thank you so much!” Namine said. Finally! Progress! “I’m most interested in Emperor Saturn and his robotics advancement.”

“Alright,” the robot of Emperor Saturn replied, focusing his attention on her, “What exactly would you like to know?”

“He developed simulated intelligence yet no matter how much research I do, I can never find any information on how he managed to do it. It’s just generic information saying that he did it but never how he did it. And there aren’t any new developments on it because simulated intelligence stopped being produced ages ago shortly after the addition of Planet G-9 which was the last world added to the empire during the robotics era. And they never continued after Planet X-S was added despite having access to new technologies.”

The emperor blinked at her. She certainly knew her stuff. But spending a few hours reading the same information over and over again would definitely ingrain it into anyone’s memories – not that the emperor knew anything about that.

“Well, I’m afraid I can’t really say,” he replied, “I have all the written knowledge on the emperor stored in my data, but mostly on his life and death as opposed to the specifics of his accomplishments. The specific information you’re looking for would best be answered by someone who better understands the methodologies of robotics as opposed to the history of the man who created them.”

“Well who do we go to?” Demyx chimed in. If there was someone else who would know about this kind of thing, that would be great! They’d have a new lead, and Namine would be all happy again.

“I’d ask Tom Morrow,” he replied, and the other robots let out little murmurs of agreement, “Since he’s the figure that knows more about the technology of Tomorrowland, he ought to know more about what went into the robotics Emperor Saturn created. Does that help?”

“It really does,” Namine breathed, relieved to be back on the trail. She and Demyx waited out the remaining few minutes of the attraction before bounding towards the only place they knew they’d find a Tom Morrow animatronic. But as they were approaching the line for Spaceship Earth, Namine stopped again.

She put a hand lightly on Demyx’s arm to stop his stride, and stopped too, turning to look at her with a somewhat worried expression on his face.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as he searched her expression for an answer.

“If we get on that ride, we’ll be moving the whole time. It doesn’t stop. We won’t have time to ask him a single thing. We need to get to him some other way,” she said, tapping her chin as she thought of alternative ways to get to Tom Morrow.

“Well,” Demyx said, eyeing the ride, specifically watching some of the people who worked at the fair walk out of a backdoor, “We could always sneak in.”

His eyes were glinting with something like mischief, something she didn’t often see or feel on her own – only knowing you or Axel to feel it when either of you was feeling particularly rambunctious or witty. But she felt it now, a tiny thrill running through her.

“How are we going to do that?” she asked, pointedly trying to ignore the fact that Demyx had grabbed her by the hand again and was leading her around the other side of the ride. He kept her close as they rounded the corner of its base and saw a door that said, “Authorized Personnel Only,” in big, red lettering.

“First,” he began, “We let Figment sneak in and see if the coast is clear.”

They looked to Figment who stood there with his arms crossed and a skeptical look on his face. They were taking pages out of your book from when this whole adventure had first started. He had agreed to research at the library, a trip to the museum, and stopping in at an attraction at the fair. He had not signed up for breaking and entering a closed off area that very well might be closed off because it could be dangerous.

Figment pointed to the sign on the door. Demyx rolled his eyes, and Namine let out a huff.

“Figment, this is important,” she said sternly. She was so close to another lead. She didn’t have time for this. Plus they weren’t going to do anything crazy – just ask a few questions.

Figment remained unmoved.

“Figment, I get it,” Demyx said, jumping in to vouch for Namine, “You didn’t sign up for all this. And now we’re asking you to bend a few rules. BUT in the interest of science, I think you can overlook it just one time. Don’t forget, this could be the sentience and free-will of possibly every robot in the empire. You can’t look the other way for that when you know it could be the case, could you?”

Dammit. Figment hadn’t counted on the fact they would have an actual point and method to their madness. Not like you where you had asked him to trust you just so you could run off and spend time with Axel. He hefted a sigh. He didn’t want to have to regret this.

He shrunk down in size and slipped beneath the door.

It was dim inside, but he could see well enough in the lighting. It looked like the only person currently back there was a security guard who was slumped over in a chair asleep. He flew around a bit more, buzzing about like a bee. But he didn’t see anything unusual or out of the ordinary and there weren’t a lot of people there – in fact, it was just the one security guard. The other people must have been on a break. Or maybe they had that much confidence in their ride not breaking down.

Regardless, Figment flew back to the door, pushing on its handle to open it to Namine and Demyx who posed casually nearby so no one would suspect anything was up. Figment waved them in, and they cast one more quick survey glance around them before scurrying inside.

Aside from the one security guard who continued to snore soundly, the only things that could be considered people back there were several abandoned animatronics. All of them were of Tom Morrow. Some of them were missing parts and were obviously turned off. Some were whole, but after a little poking and prodding it was obvious that they were also inactive.

“We’re going to have to talk to the one speaking on the ride,” Namine whispered to Demyx and Figment. Figment flew ahead of her and held up a stop sign – the same one he smacked you with when you tried to speak to Axel on your first visit to Twilight Town. But Namine was a bit more assertive than you were in that moment. And she simply pushed Figment and his sign out of the way and made her way to the inner workings of the ride. Demyx held Figment captive as best he could while following slowly behind her to make sure she wouldn’t get hurt.

There were clear areas where people could step, and she assumed it was for maintenance workers whenever they needed to fix a specific part of the ride. Regardless, she continued onward until she reached the first animatronic of Tom Morrow. She was low, below the stage he stood on, but she could peer up and see him and the carts going by in front of him. The area she was in was dimly lit enough that none of the guests could see her in the back.

“Psst,” Namine hissed quietly at the back of the animatronic, trying to be heard while not totally alerting everyone to her presence, “Excuse me! Excuse me!”

The animatronic stopped mid-sentence, looking around him before turning to see Namine’s head just barely peeking over the stage.

“Are you,” he pointed to her, speaking in a low tone, “Talking to me?”

“Yes,” Namine said with a polite smile, “I was hoping to find information on Tom Morrow.”

“And you didn’t go to the library because…?”

“Because none of the information I want is there. I need to know something that seems to be buried deep in history, and who better to ask than the one who was there for it all?”

“Well while it is true that I was made for the quest of knowledge, I have an audience to talk to, one that happens to be in the other direction so if you don’t mind…,” he said, turning back to the guests as they slowly drifted by him. He picked up his spiel from before.

“Could you maybe answer my questions phrased as information for the audience. It has to be more interesting than repeating the same sentences day in and day out,” Namine tried to persuade him. Tom seemed to think about this for a brief moment.

“Well it’s not written that I can’t say different information than what I’ve been saying. And I have to admit, saying the same thing over and over again can get a bit monotonous. What would you like to know? And make it quick. The last few carts of people have no idea what I’m talking about, and I don’t doubt they’ll say something and have maintenance down here within a matter of minutes.”

Namine felt a surge of excitement. It wasn’t the smoothest plan ever devised, but it was working! She smiled and thought up her first question.

“I was told you would know something about the inner workings of robotics.”

“Of course!” Tom said with the zeal he delivered his usual lines with, acting as if this were all a part of the act, “I was around during some of the most ambitious strides in the development in robotics. Including, but not limited to, what we know today as simulated intelligence – the ever-learning and adapting robot that can flawlessly imitate human nature.”

“I know about all that,” Namine continued, “But what do you know about his studies of it.

“I, myself, studied robotics, even going so far as to use myself as a means of experimentation.”

Namine’s brow creased. Tom Morrow used robotics… on himself?

“I know I look like your average flesh and blood human,” he continued, gesturing to his look which was just of a regular man with regular parts and clothes, “But as time moved on, I sustained my body using the robotics heavily studied at the time to steadily transition from human to cyborg. I lived for hundreds of years afterward. This allowed me the pleasure of seeing the creation of the tripods and shortly after the simulated intelligence that was implemented upon the assimilation of the first world added to the empire.”

What?

What did those two things have to do with each other?

“Um,” she began again, “Is there any relation between the two? Or did they just happen to come about around the same time?”

“These were technologies that were developed very closely to each other. It could be said that Emperor Saturn got the idea to implement this technology upon his return from the first world added to the empire. Was it inspired by the people of that world? Or did he simply have a stroke of genius on his return trip? Not much can be said about it! All we know is: We are better off for it.”

So he didn’t really know much either. Damn. But there was a lead. A small one. But something. Those tripods came about just a little before simulated intelligence and the addition of a new world. Maybe she’d been barking up the wrong tree and needed to look more into tripods, Tom Morrow, and the first world to properly gauge where this investigation was going.

But she was out of time for questions anyway. Maintenance workers would probably be there soon to see why earlier he’d gone off script. So she thanked him quickly and crept away.

And within the hour they were back in the library – only now instead of pulling books on Emperor Saturn they were looking into Tom Morrow and the tripods and the first world.

But there was a problem. Tom Morrow’s life ended. Or rather the records of his life ended. But there was no mention of his death or that he left the world. He was just gone. And all records of him stops at that point. Like he vanished from the world.

“This doesn’t make any sense…,” Namine mumbled to herself. She looked up at Demyx and he had a stern look of concentration on his face. It was a far cry from what he had been like earlier that day – now he was serious.

“Does your book mention how he died?” Demyx asked without looking up, eyes still avidly scanning the words in front of him. Namine shook her head as she pulled over another book Figment had fetched them from the shelves of Tomorrowland’s history.

“No,” she answered out loud, “Just one moment he exists, and the next he doesn’t. And no one ever mentions him passed that. If you didn’t read beyond a certain point, you’d never even know he existed.”

“Do you know what that means?” Demyx asked as he looked up, a broad grin on his face and eyes sparkling with a certain mischief.

“What?” Namine asked.

“I was right!” he said rather loudly, earning a, “Shh,” from the next table over. Demyx opted to ignore them but lowered his voice anyway. “It is a conspiracy! Just like in my comics.”

“I still find that pretty far-fetched,” Namine said, “But I can’t ignore that there is something extremely weird about someone all but vanishing from history despite being such a prominent figure in it – to the point of being called the Father of Tomorrowland.”

Overhead a bell chimed to signify that the library was about to close, so Namine and Demyx hurriedly looked through the last of their information before hastily putting the books away.

They returned to the palace shortly afterwards. They had had a productive search, and sure it died a little in the middle, but they had managed to pick something up. And even though their search on Tom Morrow ended in even more questions than answers, they couldn’t deny that they felt like they were on to something now.

They were discussing it on the way back to Namine’s room where they fully intended to keep talking about the subject and maybe watch a few movies and hang out with you and Axel if the two of you weren’t all over each other.

“I say the next thing we research is the first world and what the emperor had to do with it,” Namine said as they turned a corner and ran right into Atom.

“Oh excuse me,” he said, ensuring he didn’t bulldoze them over with his larger frame, “And did I hear you say you’re doing research?”

“Oh,” Namine said with a light, embarrassed blush on her cheeks, “Yes. We’re rather fascinated by the history of Tomorrowland, but we wished we had more in-depth sources.”

“Yes, what you find in libraries may be a bit underwhelming, but the two of you are in luck,” he said with a rather proud smile on his face.

“Why’s that?” Demyx asked with a shrug.

“Well you’re at the palace. We have an archive of every moment in history detailed right under this roof. If someone so much as sneezed, it’s written in the royal archives.”

“A-and we can just go in there and read them?” Namine asked, voice jumping up in pitch due to her excitement, “Like right now?”

“Well I don’t see why not,” Atom said, “You’re guests of the palace and allowed to do a little learning of our history and culture. It’s right down that hall,” he said pointing down the way, “Make a right, go all the way to the end and make a left. The archives will be down a set of stairs and the third door on your right will have them. I’d take you there myself, but the empress has requested my presence for a special assignment.”

“It’s no problem,” Namine said, already inching down the hallway, gripping Demyx’s hand, “We’ll find it! Go to your meeting. And thank you!”

Atom gave an acknowledgement of her thanks as he watched the two and Figment dart down the hall to get to the archives. He was always happy to see new people take an interest in his world.

~

Namine reached a startling conclusion in the archives. It wasn’t the connection between tripods and simulated intelligence. Nor was it the missing parts of Tom Morrow’s life. It wasn’t even that Emperor Saturn’s life, or rather the details there of, still did not yield the answers she was looking for.

But those all contributed to her revelation.

What she had found was a library of everything involving everything in regard to all of the major and somewhat minor events of Tomorrowland’s development, dating back as far as science could carbon date. And every emperor had not only one volume as thick as her head detailing their lives, no, they had several volumes the size of her head detailing their lives. The shortest one was of Empress Nova’s younger brother who died before his reign – not that that had stopped anyone from beginning the biography of his life – and he still had at least ten volumes on his life alone.

So it was incredibly infuriating and confusing to find even one moment cut short – one moment in history that lacked any detail on what she was looking for. She nearly screamed with frustration upon reading the same paragraphs detailing Emperor Saturn’s contributions to simulated intelligence that she found in a basic encyclopedia at the library. It didn’t add up. Every single moment of his life had been detailed to the letter except for this one thing that meant so much to the robots and people of this world. And Tom Morrow’s life was still cut short. Just ending like taking a sprinting start with the intent to jog to the ends of the earth only to fall into a canyon part of the way through.

Even mentioning the sequence of events in which simulated intelligence became more widespread was a strange and mind-boggling thing to ponder. Because the tripods were always mentioned then the annexation of the first world then the introduction of simulated intelligence. But there were no lines connecting any of these dots. And that these archives which were supposed to have every complete detail down to even what seemed to be the most insignificant detail did not have anything on the one subject that they came up dry on in every means of learning about it meant one thing. It really was a conspiracy. And that led Namine to her startling conclusion:

Demyx was right.

~

Vanitas. Was. Pissed.

He had been given a job. Kill someone. Some nobody. Some nobody that was proving to be a thorn in the side of Xemnas, Saix, Marluxia, and himself. Some nobody that the first time they faced him couldn’t even begin to put up a fight and was quickly falling to their death. They had caught him off guard the second time with their little magic trick. But he wouldn’t be falling for that again.

He tore through another corridor. You were no where to be found. Nowhere on new worlds he visited. Nowhere where they expected you to be or on any of the worlds you usually frequented. He didn’t know where you were. You were some nobody coward that was hiding from him and everyone else in the Organization.

He knew you were a coward. He remembered the fear you felt the last time the two of you had encountered each other. He remembered that tremor in your voice, remembered running his hand down your chest and over your heart where it thudded roughly. But you thought he was going to touch you more intimately. He didn’t tend to feel such ways. Though the thought was tempting with how deeply it affected you. And there was something else there. Something that writhed beneath the surface that felt too familiar to him and almost drew him to you in an alluring way. Not that he was attracted to you in a traditional sense. No. He was more likely to fuck your corpse than you. But the fact remained that you had darkness brewing beneath all that uselessness and light you emanated.

And he wanted to do was to tear it from you in the most painful way possible and make you scream. And he wanted to do it alone.

He knew Marluxia had a personal stake in your demise as well, and he’d almost succeeded from what he heard him telling Saix and Xemnas – not that they cared. A failure was a failure no matter how close to success one came. But he had almost killed you.

And Vanitas wanted to do it. He had tried to kill you twice now, and still you lived. And that pissed him off. He was going to hunt you down. He was going to put out that light of yours. He was going to rip the darkness out of you and absorb it as his own. And he was going to revel in the destruction he left behind doing it.

~

Marluxia stood on the balcony overlooking his city. Below him Specter sat, absorbing hearts. Normally, he would be deeply engrossed in watching such a display. But he couldn’t think about it right now. Something else was nagging in the forefront of his mind.

He had messed up. He knew Xemnas had all the information Xehanort once knew when he was whole and had asked a question. And now Xemnas was intrigued.

This had been when he told Xemnas and a hovering nearby Saix about his fight with you. He said that he’d found you and the duck, and that he had engaged you in a battle in an attempt to retrieve the duck for Xemnas’s personal use – although he knew this was a lie and he’d gone there to kill your mother and emotionally cripple you. After all, if Kingdom Hearts could not be completed in time, they would need the duck to temporarily stabilize the world until it could be completed.

But they had asked what went wrong. They had expected you to become stronger, of course. However, you had apparently increased your strength and ability by a fair amount since the last time any of them had encountered you – almost as if each near death experience brought you back even stronger. And he had to admit that you had done something completely unexpected. Normally, nothing he said would have been a viable excuse for what had happened i.e. his failure. But this was a special case as far as either Xemnas or Saix were concerned. And right now it was the only thing keeping him from being labeled as incompetent and better off dead as opposed to having the misfortune of being overpowered.

And he’d had to admit to them that you had turned into a heartless. This was something they’d known Sora could do, but they brushed it off as a channeling of darkness by suppressing his light. But then he clarified that you were an actual heartless, having changed everything about your physical makeup to become something entirely new despite it still being you – while Sora still looked like himself but with dark skin and glowing eyes.

And so Marluxia asked if it were possible for a person to be more than just a person and actively be part heartless or if it were possible to channel your darkness to become a heartless. Xemnas had no journals on the subject, and he had no memory of such an occurrence that he could conjure. But he was intrigued.

And that was a problem.

Because now you were a subject of intrigue as much as ire. And that meant you were off limits until he figured out what he wanted to do with you. And that could mean anything. Though this could mean that he wanted what he had originally wanted for you – for you to be a nobody. But he needed to gauge what that would even mean for you. Would you still be part heartless when a nobody? Would the body split and your heartless body be your heartless and the rest of you be a nobody? Would you form a nobody at all? It was possible that you would just be a heartless and nothing more.

He wasn’t sure. All that meant for Marluxia was that if he was going to make future attempts on your life, he needed to be more discrete about it.

But you were not his main concern. You had been off the radar since his little trip to Twilight Town. He could at least know that you were hiding. That meant you weren’t likely to interfere in his plans in the future. And he could focus on Specter.

Specter, in his opinion, had not been strong enough the last time you had faced them. So he needed more hearts. And he needed to get his plan to overthrow Xemnas underway soon. The nobodies were dying at a slower rate than they had been, but he didn’t know how long he’d have before it picked up again. Thankfully, there were still those who would rather die this way than in service to Xemnas. He needed more hearts for them too.

But Specter was his main focus. Specter would be stronger than they were before. They were healed now, eye repaired but jaw permanently unhinged. And they were absorbing hearts at an alarmingly fast rate now. But Marluxia didn’t care. They needed them. They would be the key to him bringing down Xemnas, and you when he had completed his goal here.

Larxene strode up to him as he lingered on his balcony. She had been mildly wary ever since the battle in Twilight Town. Marluxia told her that he trusted her to be able to handle herself. And, of course, she could. She did.

He had called her irreplaceable. But she wondered….

No matter how she tried to put them from her mind, your words always rang in her head.

He left you here to die.

“Have you heard any news about where she disappeared to?” she asked, keeping her voice steady despite now having a small moment of uncertainty every time she was with him.

“Nothing yet. ________ has managed to fly below everyone’s radar thus far,” he responded before going back into his head to mull over his current predicament. But then a low growl emanated from below where Specter was.

Marluxia and Larxene looked down to where Specter sat, having halted in its heart absorption, several of the glittering lights in its vines lingering in the air where it held them.

“________,” it croaked out in a dry, raspy voice, having never spoken before. It repeated your name again, voice laced with malice.

Marluxia’s eyes widened. More surprising than its sudden gift of speech, it was… feeling.

Notes:

I hope you all enjoyed! I'll try to be here at the latest by the end of next week, but hopefully sooner than that! Thank you for all those lovely comments and kudos! You all have really made my life a little brighter!

Chapter 65: The Resort

Summary:

Musings with grandma, progress of Ludwig's character arc, and free vacation!

Notes:

Sorry I've been absent. Things are kinda hectic at home. But I'm not gone. I will update sooner than I did this time. Sorry I was gone for so long. I never intended for that to happen. I love you all so much for sticking with me for this long despite my inconsistencies.

You were staring up at the ceiling of the ship that would be taking you back to Space Mountain. Only this time you were not on business so much as pleasure. Empress Nova had said in thanks for all of your hard work and dedication to the people of Tomorrowland, she would be personally seeing to it that you got an all-expenses paid vacation on two of the most luxurious worlds held within the empire.

You were ecstatic, of course, thinking this would a lovely romantic getaway for you and Axel – not that you mentioned this little fact. So you much more subtly asked if any of your friends would be accompanying you. But she’d stated that it was specifically for you and you alone. Atom would be accompanying you on the trip there, but he was to be strictly on business. But it was only about a week or so that you’d be gone. You could handle that much on your own.

Not that you intended to. Axel could very easily use corridors to sneak aboard the ship or even to the other planets – the corridors were safe provided he didn’t try to actually leave the universe the worlds were located in. But then she did kind of throw a small wrench into your plans. She stated that Axel would be busy anyway. Since Atom was leaving and Axel had done such a good job of being a guard last time, she’d be employing him once more until Atom returned. Damn.

Demyx and Namine both said they were busy. Doing what? You could not possibly imagine, so, naturally, you assumed that maybe they were trying to feel out a relationship and wanted the alone time. You couldn’t have been the only one to have noticed that they seemed really close lately and that they’d been spending a lot of time together.

You still asked Axel to see if he’d want to sneak out there on occasion, and, of course, he said he’d visit you when his shift ended.

“Nothing could keep me from you,” he’d said in a low voice in your ear that made you tremble all over. He loved getting under your skin like that, you’d realized. And you weren’t sure you minded it either.

And you kept thinking about it and the way he’d said it, and it drove you absolutely insane all day. So much so that you were alerting your grandmother to your constant shift in mood.

Her ethereal presence popped up on your bed not too long after Axel had left your room after a relatively long session of cuddling and watching black and white murder mysteries. She had a broad, knowing smile on her face that was similar to the one your mother always wore whenever she suspected you had a crush on someone.

“What wisdom do have for me today oh wise one?” you said, scooting a bit closer to her. She rolled her eyes but continued smiling.

“I don’t necessarily have any wisdom for you today, dear grandchild, but I could feel your heart resonating strongly just now. And through a good part of the day, and I just wanted to congratulate you.”

“Congratulate?”

“Yes, of course. On being in love. It is very powerful thing that will carry you and those closest to you far. Hold on to it. You’ll find yourself all the stronger because of it.”

“Does this lesson come with a story?”

“Not quite. I like your hair by the way,” she said, nodding at the intricate braids you’d worn that day which closely resembled her own. You gingerly touched one, smiling bashfully while you waited for her to elaborate. “I just wanted to talk to you about your future with him.”

“What about it?” you said with a tiny tilt of your head.

“Well. That’s the thing. There’s always this small pang of indecision and worry your heart gives off when you think too hard about what the future means for you and Axel. You’re feeling indecisive.”

“It’s not an easy decision to make,” you mumbled. She smiled a little sadly.

“It’s not,” she agreed. There was a beat of silence before you remembered about the story she’d told you of her and her lover.

“What did you and Grandpa Thorian do?” you asked, “The two of you couldn’t have known where the future was going to take you. Your people didn’t even want to accept you anymore just because you showed him kindness.”

“That’s true. For a long time we didn’t know what we wanted to do. Where could you go where an orc would be treated as an equal? There were very few places that allowed such things, and even then our relationship would still have been considered very taboo. But love makes things bearable. We stayed in my town because we found we didn’t need anything but each other to be alright.”

“But that doesn’t exactly help with my decision-making. I love Axel. I have no question about that, and our relationship isn’t exactly taboo. At least not now that he isn’t in the Organization anymore. But I don’t know where to go. I can’t take him from his home. And I haven’t even gotten a chance to see mine. But I can’t just leave my family either.”

“Doesn’t it help though? What does it matter where you end up so long as you have your love? Because I promise you, that love will transcend every distance, every obstacle, and every trial you face. It is boundless and powerful and beautiful. The two of you will have the rest of your lives to figure out where that love will take you.”

“But we only have until Kelewenya is back to figure out where it should take us!”

“Who said it’ll take you there? You may not even stick around there. Your parents are probably settling down nicely in Twilight Town. Your mother has made friends there and has a nice home and a job. Once your father recovers I imagine he might do something similar. Your mother is perfectly content with her life right now because she has the love of everyone she’s close to, and that’s knowing that her original home is gone. Even as much as she misses you, she knows her love keeps her connected to you.”

You briefly remembered that your mom would have been content at the beginning of your journey to not have you be a keyblade wielder provided the two of you were safe and happy.

“You and Axel,” she stated again, “Have the rest of your lives to figure out where your love will take you. You may travel to the ends of every known universe together, never once going back home. You might settle down at your home or his and never leave again. It won’t matter because you’ll have each other to go on. And I assure you that you won’t need anything else.”

It was weird, but it kind of made sense to you. You knew you would need to talk to Axel about it, but you weren’t sure now was the right time. The two of you had only really recently started dating. But you did like the thought of just being with him – no matter where that meant.

She left not too long after that to let you think. And you’d been thinking about it a lot. And that conversation had been all of two days ago.

~

Axel hadn’t wanted to leave you so soon that night your grandmother had visited. He really wanted to keep watching T.V. with you. The detective shows of this time were actually starting to grow on him a bit. And watching them with you was all the better. But you had to get ready for the impromptu trip you would be taking, and he had a few errands to run anyhow.

He’d been going out the past few nights all over Tomorrowland looking for all of the parts on Ludwig’s list. A good few places had what he was looking for, but as he worked his way down the list, he found some of the other parts were a little harder to locate.

But you were worth it.

He was maybe out for two or three hours that night – not unusual for this task. He had to admit that the first night he’d had to do this, it was relatively annoying. But he remembered what it was for, and it made it at the very least bearable.

He was back in the palace that night roughly around ten at night. You might be done packing, and maybe he could give you a few goodnight kisses before bed.

“I got some more stuff for you,” he said to Ludwig as he stepped directly into his room from an alley way via corridor. Ludwig jumped a little bit.

Ludwig was mildly shaken. But he was happy. He was confident. He was proud.

He threw away the opportunity of a lifetime.

And he found that he didn’t regret it even a little.

“You okay?” Axel asked as he eyed Ludwig. Ludwig simply smiled.

“I’m just fine,” he said, taking the bag from Axel that contained the materials gained that night. He looked into the bag. Perfect. He could begin work on the next part of the music box. He’d been working tirelessly each night since Axel brought him the first bunch of supplies he needed. “Now run along and go spend time with your girlfriend. I know the two of you have been keeping each other up late these past few nights.”

Axel blushed.

“I mean we’re not doing anything,” he said, looking away, not sure why he felt the need to explain that you and he hadn’t moved too far down the line of intimacy outside of some over-the-clothes touching.

“Yes, yes,” Ludwig said with a flippant wave of his hand, “I know. Figment’s been keeping a close eye on the two of you.” Ludwig turned to the desk in his room which held the project he’d been working on.

Axel’s blushed deepened. How much had Figment seen? The night in the closet had been the most intimate the two of you had been thus far, and he was certain that only the two of you had been in there. But still. He wasn’t sure he was too keen on the dragon watching him shove his tongue down your throat.

Axel wanted to say something to further put himself in the clear but wasn’t sure what to say. So instead he just went to your room to relax for a bit. And maybe put a hold on the making out for a little bit. And maybe tell you that the two of you were apparently under constant surveillance.

Ludwig smiled to himself as he tightened a tiny screw that he needed a large magnifying glass to see. Figment wasn’t watching the two of you. He just wanted to mess with Axel a little bit. …And maybe keep him from getting a little too bold too fast. He may have been a duck, but he was a male and knew what it was like to be young and in love and heavily attracted to someone you found extremely wonderful. And you were his niece. What kind of uncle would he be if he didn’t at least try to pseudo-parent you and get Axel to keep his hands to himself?

He chuckled to himself, thinking himself oh so clever, before he gave his full attention back to the project at hand.

It’d been a while since he’d worked on something like this. Probably the last time he’d done anything similar was designing a toy that could walk, talk, dance, and eat. And that was ages ago when you were young and still played with dolls.

What he was working on now was no doll, but he was certain you’d appreciate it as much as you had the dolls he’d made you when you were a child. And it was this feeling of wanting to be there for you that caused him to turn down his opportunity of a lifetime.

He could have been something like a king. Well only in power. He wasn’t going to have the title of emperor, but he wasn’t sure Nova would have said no if he had asked for it.

She’d called him into her wing of the castle earlier – maybe an hour or so before Axel had shown up with more supplies for your music box. He’d never been to her chambers before, but he’d dressed up for the occasion in one of the many suits that had been tailored for him – looking just as off putting as every other non-drawn article of clothing he wore.

She was waiting in a parlor dressed in one of her tightest dresses with a decently low plunge that cleaved nearly to her belly button. Ludwig briefly wondered how she was keeping her breasts inside of such a dress when it obviously was trying to squeeze her out of it with how snug it was.

She crossed her legs, her hips and the movement of her leg defined further by the way the dress hugged her. He swallowed a lump in his throat. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t find her the least bit attractive – even if it wasn’t currently what he was trying to pursue.

“Thank you for joining me,” she purred with a pleasant smile on her face. She gestured to a seat that was nearby. She sat in an armchair next to a little table that held a silver tray of cheese and crackers and a bottle of wine. There were two glasses, one of which already had a little bit of wine in it. On the other side of that table was the chair she had gestured to.

He sat down across from her, twiddling his thumbs as he gazed up at her. She smiled a little more broadly as she looked down at him, trying to read him before she offered the food.

“Please,” she said placing her hands just in front of her to point at the food on the tray, “Enjoy.”

Ludwig did not miss that the placement of her arms and hands framed her bosom as she said this. Somehow he wasn’t sure it wasn’t intentional. He took a few crackers and cheese. Robot Butler approached them, a tight, somewhat vacant expression on his face. He’d been so silent, not even offering a greeting, that Ludwig had not even noticed him until he walked up to them.

Robot Butler took the bottle of wine and poured some out for Ludwig. Then he continued to stand there seeming to stare through everyone and everything until the empress waved him away with a dismissive hand gesture. He placed the bottle down and stepped back to his previous corner in the room.

“I do hope you’ve been enjoying your stay here. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if the Great Ludwig von Drake, Father of the Future, were displeased.”

“No, everything’s great,” he said around a mouth full of cheese and crackers, spitting out a few crumbs. Nova resisted the urge to wrinkle her nose in disgust, flicking a crumb from her collarbone before she noticed Ludwig’s eyes follow the movement of her hand. She trailed it down, leaning forward a little bit. But Ludwig’s eyes flicked up and away before she could attempt to further entice him.

“That’s nice to know,” she said with a pleasant smile, “But I do have to wonder.”

“About what?” he said as he gulped down some of his wine.

“Well it’s just that you’ve done so much for us. And you could do so much more. You’d be worshipped. Imagine the era you could lead us into if you could continue to work with us.”

“Yes, I imagine my many lectures have been doing wonders for your up and coming inventors and scientists. It’s a pleasure to help really.”

“Yes, but you’ll be leaving soon.”

“All good things have to come to an end eventually don’t they? But I’ll be sure to visit within the next millennia or two.”

“Well what if you didn’t have to do that?” she said looking at him with a pleading, sad expression that softened Ludwig’s heart just a bit, “What if you were to stay here in Tomorrowland? It could be everything you want it to be. You would be our leading scientist – Dr. Ludwig von Drake, Head of Science, Math, and Technologies. And it wouldn’t just be Tomorrowland. It would be every world the empire encompasses and even more so once the empire begins expanding again.”

Ludwig’s jaw dropped to the floor, and Nova made a point of not looking at the half-chewed food that plopped out of his mouth.

The leading scientist of an entire empire? One that could span an entire solar system? Maybe even a galaxy? It was more recognition than he even knew what to do with. It wouldn’t be like on Spaceship Earth where all of his hard work would need to be passed off as someone else’s to keep the order.

Nova reached across the space between the two of them, placing a soft hand over Ludwig’s and letting her fingers stroke the feathers there. She found him surprisingly soft but firm, and it was odd to see her hand over something that was animated. But he felt as real as she was – if not with a slightly more malleable form than her own.

“You could lead us, Ludwig,” she said lowly, locking her eyes with his as he pulled his jaw back up and placed his tongue back in his mouth. He then proceeded to babble rather incoherently before he responded.

“I-I-I could be the –,” he began to stutter out.

“You could be the greatest mind to have ever lived on Tomorrowland.”

She smiled. She had him. He needed this.

He splashed wine into his face while breathing heavily and blinking the drink from his now bloodshot eyes. He wiped his brow with the edge of his shirt, and Nova let go of his hand so he could more thoroughly clean himself up.

“This is b-by far the g-greatest honor I’ve ever received,” he stuttered, pouring himself more wine with shaky hands. Nova frowned before looking at Robot Butler.

“Butler,” she snapped, and he appeared to be broken out of a trance. He hastened over to pour the wine for Ludwig. “Pay attention.”

Robot Butler apologized lowly, entering a deep bow before backing into his corner and reentering his trance, almost as if he’d never broken from it.

Nova turned her attention back to Ludwig who was sipping his wine with still shaking hands. She smiled, taking her own glass and raising it just a bit.

“To our new beginnings,” she toasted, “And to your new life here in Tomorrowland.”

She raised the glass to her lips.

“I can’t,” Ludwig finally blurted. The wine stopped just short of her mouth. The tiniest fragment of a crack appeared on the lip of the glass she held. She put the glass back down, expression neutral for a split second before she let a gracious smile settle onto her features.

“I thought you said it would be a great honor,” she said, voice wavering slightly. Her mind flit back to the conversation she and S.I.R. had.

When he’s gone, all that pomp you’ve built up is going to vanish.

She took in a deep inhale through her nose. Calm. Deep. Soothing. Breath.

“Oh it is,” Ludwig hurried to reassure, “It’s all I had ever dreamed of at one point. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

“And I would ensure that you’d never have to,” Nova pressed, “Your every need will be met, your every wish granted, your every whim catered to. You could have any position of power you wanted. Any position,” she said, grabbing his hand again and leaning forward, smiling when she watched his eyes flick down to her chest for the briefest second and his face turn red.

He placed his other hand over top of hers, patting it softly, and Nova’s smile broadened. It wasn’t her preferred method of keeping him around, but she could work around it, and him, without too much trouble.

“But I’m needed elsewhere,” Ludwig continued, pulling his hands away, and Nova felt that perfect smile of hers crack just for a fraction of a second. She brought it back up in a flash.

“Elsewhere?” she questioned.

“________,” he said, and a fond, faraway look crossed his face. Nova did her best not to let her face crack again. The weight of her crown felt heavy on her head, and she took another deep breath, careful not to let the crack in her glass grow further than it already had. It was almost noticeable.

“You’re not her father,” Nova said in an understanding yet inquisitive tone, “Surely she knows you have to move on to other projects.”

“Oh but ________ isn’t a project,” Ludwig replied, still smiling fondly, “She’s my niece. We started this journey together, and I could no more abandon her than I could the entirety of this mission.”

“But you could have anything. ________ wouldn’t want you to give up something like that, would she? She’d want you to be happy here in Tomorrowland where you’ll be loved and adored and worshipped by everyone. Your name will be spoken in the household of every family in existence. Your reach would extend farther than any name to exist in this world and the next.”

“I know,” he said, “But I need to see this through to the end. Thank you for everything though,” Ludwig said, prepared to take his leave but not before he stuffed his pockets with crackers and cheese.

Nova watched as he left in stunned silence.

He said no.

Nova took a sip of her wine. Then Robot Butler approached, beginning to clear away the tray and wine. The bottle was nearly empty, but the empress seemed to be in the process of still drinking.

“Shall I clear the rest of the wine, your highness?” he asked. She looked at him as if seeing him there for the first time and frowned.

“Get out,” she said lowly, throwing her own glass at him. The little wine that was left in it splattered on his clothes and on a part of the rug.

He silently picked up the glass and the rest of the dishes and food and walked out of the room, thinking about the spot on the rug she’d created. He’d have to clean that up later. He looked at the spot on his uniform.

She’d thrown a glass at him like a pest. A nuisance.

Was he not a person?

Was he not worthy of respect?

~

You left the ship in which you’d traveled to this new planet in much the same way that you left the one on your return trip from Space Mountain after you fought the alien. Only this time you were on vacation as opposed to returning from a dangerous space mission. Just like last time, there was a car waiting for you to transport you and Atom to your next destination – but this time instead of a conference it would be a hotel room. And there was no parade. But you were pretty okay with that. You were looking forward to just going to the hotel and resting up. You didn’t know why but something about the trip exhausted you just a bit, and you wanted a little nap to get through the rest of the day.

You were thoroughly wowed upon leaving the base that housed all of their means of interplanetary travel. You couldn’t see anything passed the large cement brick walls that surrounded it, so you weren’t sure what to expect on this visit.

You were escorted to a limo that was inside the gated area you landed in and were to be driven to the resort. But it wasn’t so much the manner of leaving that wowed you. And you weren’t wowed so much as a little shocked.

As soon as the limo left the walled off area, you were met with nothingness. Well there was something there. It wasn’t some dark and blank void of nothingness – and goodness knew you’d seen enough of those to last you a lifetime. It was a wasteland. It was barren and dry and unending. It wasn’t unlike the planet you and your friends had crashed on. Just an empty desert.

“Atom?” you asked, breaking the silence of the limo ride.

Atom, who had been sitting quietly in the limo going over some papers he’d brought with him, looked up at you, eyes bright and inquisitive.

“Why does the world look like this?” you said, putting the tip of your finger on the window as you watched the flatlands roll by.

Atom looked out at the landscape.

“Well it’s a desert,” he said, quirking an eyebrow at you. Did you not have deserts where you were from? Then again you were from an artificial world entirely. Maybe you hadn’t seen one since then on all of the worlds you’d been on.

“Well I can see that,” you noted, eyes not leaving the landscape, “It’s just I’ve seen pictures of deserts, but aren’t they supposed to be… I don’t know. Different? It’s so flat. There aren’t even any, like, plants. And I know there are plants that can grow in dry environments. But it’s just… nothing….”

“Well it’s not all nothing,” Atom said with a shrug, shuffling around his papers, eyes darting back down towards them, “Where we’re going there’ll be plenty of vegetation.

“Like an oasis?”

“Something like that,” he said as he reached into a briefcase he brought into the limo and brought out a folder that he began to place half of the papers into.

“Will you show me around?” you asked, taking a last lingering look at the desert before you before turning from the window to look at him. You missed light blush that warmed his face. He would love to show you around.

“If I can get through my work for the day,” he said. He’d been busy practically since the two of you left. You weren’t sure exactly what it was that Empress Nova had him doing, but you were half sure he was going to work himself to death. He’d been making nonstop phone calls and writing and scribbling and typing up notes and papers and graphs and charts of all sorts, pacing the ship from room to room as he continued on in his conversation. Of course, you only knew this from the few times you actually left your room to eat or use the bathroom and had a moment to observe him deep in his own business. He was much more serious than when you first met him, and although he wasn’t quite a goof or un-serious when you met, his tendency to push the boundaries of normalcy and over-dramatic did tend to make him come off as sillier than he was.

You let out a little hum of acknowledgement at his statement. If the way he’d been working up to this point were any indication, you doubted he’d have any time to do anything. But that wasn’t so bad. You could just go out and explore the world yourself just like when you first landed in Twilight Town on the hunt for Sora and your mind consistently wandered to everything but what you were supposed to do.

Your gaze turned back to the land before you. In the distance you could see a structure. It was far away, but you could see it was very large.

“Is that where we’re going?” you asked, pointing to it. Atom glanced up.

“Yep. The city of Manasses. It’s beautiful.”

“You’ve been here before then?” you asked, turning back to him. Maybe he could at least suggest a few things to do since he would not be able to accompany you.

“A few times back when I was young, but those were so long ago when I was a child traveling with my father and mother,” he said, “Things have probably changed since then, and I rarely have time for vacations. And more often than not I prefer to spend my free time back in Tomorrowland in case I’m needed.”

This man needed to get out more and relax, you though to yourself. You didn’t know how anyone could not want to leave their own world to explore some place new. He apparently didn’t even explore the other areas of his own planet.

After roughly another half hour of travel the limo finally pulled up the great structure in the distance, and you discovered that it was, in fact, a wall. The two of you were stopped at a checkpoint which went smoothly, no one needing to peer into the limo to ensure there was no trouble afoot once they realized exactly who it was inside of the limousine.

And what greeted you inside also wowed you – only this time it was actual awe as opposed to shock. Inside it was much brighter and more colorful in stark contrast to what you’d seen outside of the wall. It was a tropical environment not unlike what you had seen on Animal Kingdom. But this one wasn’t a “living with the land” kind of society. Buildings and electricity and technology were all too prominent. So much so that all the tropical foliage, colors, and, well, anything that stood out as part of a tropical environment or culture looked like theming rather than as a natural aspect of the city. But that made it no less beautiful.

Awaiting your arrival, just like when you entered town after returning from fighting the alien, was a crowd of people all waiting to welcome you, wearing shirts with Atom’s face printed on it and signs with, “Thank you, ________!” printed on them. You initially felt the same unease you had previously felt when you saw some signs that were a bit different from the others, and all that unease was replaced with a warm feeling telling you that you had done a good thing.

The signs read, “I can see my family again!” and “I’m finally going home!” and “My children are going to meet their father!” And you felt happy seeing these things. It opened up a well of emotions in you that made you want to cry, but you held back the tears. But not your smile. That was beaming full force on your face as you looked out at the crowd before you.

Atom smiled at the sight.

“Get used to it, hero,” he said, looking up to see some of the adoring crowd that had arrived to greet you, “It’s no less than what you deserve.”

You couldn’t help but giggle and pressed yourself back into your seat. Flattered as you were by all of it, it was still minorly overwhelming, and you didn’t want to be so close pressed to the glass. But you did take out your phone and film some of it as you went by, taking a few pictures of the city as well in all of its beauty. The crowd never diminished even as you reached the hotel another ten minutes later, and you saw security surrounding the outside of the resort, keeping out the people who weren’t guests at the resort.

But that didn’t mean there wasn’t a crowd of people inside the resort too. Albeit it was much, much smaller than the one outside, but it was still a crowd. They were also cheering for you and Atom, their cries of joy becoming nearly deafening when it was time for the two of you to step out of the limo.

Atom stepped out first, pausing just outside the door to wave to the crowd before turning back towards you and offering his hand to help you out of the limo. You could feel your heart thump nervously now that you had to actually face the crowd, and you were grateful you had decided that morning to put on one of the outfits Giovanni had made you as opposed to a t-shirt and a set of leggings that you knew would be more comfortable to travel in. But that was when you were certain the first thing you would want to do would be to explore before you decided you wanted to take a nap first instead. It’s not that you necessarily wanted to look your best for the crowd, but you were glad not to look disheveled and unkempt. Especially since Atom was still in his uniform which he always kept immaculate.

Atom offered you his arm, and you took it, letting him escort you through the crowd which seemed to swarm around the two of you as if to engulf you the second you were in view. You waved politely and smiled at them while Atom, with his taller and more imposing presence lightly pressed through the people to allow you both a path to walk through them.

“Welcome, welcome!” Someone from the front of the crowd greeted. It wasn’t until you finally broke through the crowd that you saw it was a robot dressed in a dark green suit embroidered with gold. He wore a nametag on the breast of his suit, and you assumed he was the manager of the resort. He ushered the two of you inside while security blocked the crowd from reentering the hotel until you’d both been checked in and escorted to your rooms.

That was where you and Atom parted ways, going into your separate rooms.

And it was upon entering the rooms that you realized the word, “room,” was an understatement. Even the word, “suite” might have been too basic an answer. It was absolutely huge like the room back at the palace. Though here there was obviously a gold, red, and dark wood aesthetic, looking as warm and regal as the city had felt when you entered it.

You were currently standing in the front room of your accommodations, complete with a full kitchen and dining area and a living room section of the room. You walked over to the kitchen, looking at the granite counter tops and marveling at the hardwood floors that had been cleaned and polished so thoroughly you could almost see your reflection staring back at you. The living area was nice too with a regal, decorative couch and a few chairs to match and a television looming in the front of the room. The dining area was a little breakfast nook with a bay window you could see all of the little tropical paradise you’d be staying in from. On the table sat a large gift basket with various chocolates and candies and stuffed animals inside that were too cute to ignore. You picked up the fluffy stuffed dog and held it close. It was absolutely adorable. You continued to look about, noting the décor. There were several colorful potted plants that made you feel as if you stepped into some surreal luxury jungle with their large blooms and giant leaves. Even the occasional painting hung on the wall were of tropical birds, plants, and bowls of exotic fruits.

You walked into the next room to see your luggage – which you had not seen since you boarded the ship to leave Tomorrowland – next to your bed. Though you quickly realized that they had all already been unpacked as when you opened the closet, you saw your outfits hanging inside. The bed was a large canopy bed with curtains you could draw open and closed around it. The dresser matched the bed and was also full of your undergarments, but the dresser was so large they only took up one drawer. There was a vanity nearby with a mirror that had all those circular little lights around it that you’d seen movie stars use. True you’d only seen that in movies, but it was still a surreal yet nice thing to have. It made you feel something like a celebrity, which upon further thought, you supposed you were now. There was a T.V. built into the wall and just as large as the one at the palace. You wonder if they’d had an opportunity to convert it to color yet.

You supposed so because on your pillow was the remote, a mint, and a little note reading: Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to make your stay more enjoyable.

What else could you possibly need? You really had no idea what to expect when you got here, but it certainly wasn’t all this. But you had to thoroughly thank Empress Nova for giving you such accommodations. They were gorgeous to say the least.

You took out your phone and snapped a few pictures before laying on the bed, tousling your hair, tugging down the front of your dress, sending a flirty look to your camera and ensuring that you could see clearly that you were on a bed and that a decent amount of cleavage was showing – but not too much – before snapping a picture.

You sent the video of the crowd, the pictures of the city, and pictures of the hotel room to Axel before sending the last one of you with the caption, “Wish you were here.”

You weren’t sure when his shift for guard duty would be ending, but you hoped he would take the message and come for a visit if he wasn’t too tired or too busy to do so.

But in the meantime, all that excitement was finally starting to ebb away, and you felt the urge for a nap take you over again. And all you wanted to do was curl up in this bed that was so soft it felt like sleeping on a cloud.

You slipped into a pair of pajamas then into the silken sheets of the bed and were out like a light before you knew what hit you.

…

Ugh. Why did people take naps? You never quite felt that great after one though the initial falling asleep and subsequent sleep always felt nice. But you always felt so groggy, sweaty, and dehydrated whenever you woke up from one.

You blinked blearily. It was still daylight out. You hadn’t been under for too long. You looked at a clock. A little past midafternoon – just after 4 o clock. You dragged yourself out of the bed and to the bathroom which you had yet to look at, feeling yourself wake up a bit more with each step you took.

It was bright with marble floors, a large mirror with lightbulbs similar to those on your vanity, a shower that had one of those rainfall features for if you didn’t feel like using the showerhead. You would making full use of that. Or maybe you’d soak in the separate tub which had several jets for relaxation and several bottles of bubble bath in several different scents lined up for you. In a separate little water closet was the toilet. All of your toiletries were lined neatly on the counter next to the sink or in little drawers below the sink.

You looked at yourself in the mirror and winced. You were absolutely the most un-luxurious thing in the room without a doubt. Your hair had fallen out of its braid and was sticking up and about wildly. You must have been having crazy dreams you couldn’t remember to have tossed and turned so thoroughly. You also had a bit of drool on your lip. Ick. You quickly began to splash water in your face from the sink, wiping it with one of the little hand towels neatly folded nearby on the counter.

Then you grabbed your comb, hairbrush, and some leave-in conditioner that worked as a miracle detangler for you and set to work fixing your hair – a rather tiresome task now that there was so much of it. And only more to come, you realized as you felt a familiar bout of nausea and a sharp pain rip through your body. You remembered that your uncle had said that you were just going to have to ride these moments out. You wondered what age you were this time.

You looked in the mirror. Younger again, almost too short to see over the counter and much too small to fill out your pajamas – the bottoms of which had already slipped from your hips. You stepped out of your pants and toddled around the bathroom for a moment. It had been a long time since you’d seen common household things so much bigger than you.

But it didn’t last too long. Guess the universe couldn’t tell that you’d aged normally despite your time being fubar. Your hair was trailing behind you when you were standing in your twenty-year-old body once more. You let out a hefty sigh. You’d just detangled it, and you didn’t really feel like adding a trim to the list of things you had to do before exploring. But you couldn’t very well let it drag on the ground or pay people to carry it for you. So you bucked up trimmed it down until it reached your ankles. Why your ankles? You were too lazy to measure it shorter. Then you braided part of it before slinging it all up into a high ponytail to keep it further away from the ground. It was casual but elegant in a sense – even more so when you added a few glass beads to it.

You then promptly brushed your teeth and hopped in and out of the shower – not willing to spend time in the tub now that you had used up so much time with your hair. You got dressed, simply slipping back into your outfit from earlier so as not to dirty a second one. You’d only brought so much with you on this trip. Then you considered what it was you wanted to do next.

You wanted to get out and explore the town, but you also wanted to have a look around the resort. It was relatively large, and you wanted to see what it had to offer.

As soon as you stepped out of the bedroom and back into the living room, you were met with a very pleasant surprise. It seemed every available surface of the living room and the kitchen area was lined with gifts. Gift baskets, boxes wrapped in shiny gift wrap, stuffed animals, boxes of chocolate, and several garment bags likely holding clothes lined your room. You blinked at it all, taking it in with a shocked expression. You weren’t really sure how to respond. Was it all from the hotel?

There was a light knock at your door.

“Uh, come in,” you called, maneuvering around several of the larger gift baskets on the floor, nudging them out of the way as you made your way over to the door.

The door opened to reveal a robot – this one appearing to be female in appearance – wearing a maid’s uniform. She was holding several more gifts for you.

“Are these all from the hotel?” you asked as you finally reached her, holding the door open for her so she could have an easier time entering the room.

“Thank you, my lady ________,” she said as she stepped in, “And, no, ma’am. You’ve gotten several gifts from several grateful parties wishing to express their thanks for your service to Tomorrowland. A few are gifts from businesses pushing perfumes, shoes, and garments – hoping for an endorsement I’d imagine – and a few from the odd secret admirer or two.”

“Oh,” you said, feeling a mix of happiness at the first part of the statement and mild embarrassment at the last part. Admirers? These people hardly knew you. How could any of them claim to be a secret admirer?

“You were asleep or so we assumed when you first hadn’t answered the door, so we didn’t want to bother you. We were prepared to hold all of the gifts downstairs in the front office, but so many began coming in, we had to move them to your room. All of them have been inspected for any potential dangers.”

“You think people want to hurt me?” you asked with mild alarm, already thinking of people who might be Vanitas-like in nature and eager to just cause harm.

“Oh, no, my good lady,” she answered in a soothing and gentle tone as she looked for any available space to place the new gifts. There was a tiny space on the coffee table. The rest she’d have to stack neatly on the floor yet leaving a clear path to walk through. “It’s just a precaution. Better safe than sorry and all that. But I assure you that no one wants to cause the Empress of the Renaissance any harm.”

“Well that’s good to know,” you muttered, as she began to leave. She turned to you as she reached the doorway. “Is there anything I can get you, my lady?”

“Um,” you thought for a moment, “Well there’s nothing I need, but I would like something to do. Could you tell me what the resort has to offer?”

“I’d be more than happy to offer you a tour,” she said with a kind smile. You smiled back.

“That would be wonderful. Thank you,” you offered politely, grabbing your room key and following her out of the room.

She led you through the resort. And it was huge. The tour alone must have taken close to an hour. Though you saw several places that you would definitely be revisiting. You made a mental note of where the gym, pool, and one of their many dining establishments were. Maybe you’d look into that spa they had. As luxurious as the tub in your own room seemed, it didn’t come with masseuses ready to massage all of your troubles away. You’d be sure to check them out tomorrow.

Your tour ended when the maid had escorted you back to your room, and upon arrival you saw another robot carrying a large gift basket to your room, knocking on the door just as you walked up to it.

You let him into the room and took the basket for him, certain he had better things to do than try to find a spot among your already stuffed quarters.

You checked the time. It was a little after five. You wondered when it was Axel’s guard shift would end, taking your phone out to see if he’d responded to any of the pictures you’d sent him. Then you heard it. You heard it before you saw it, recognizing all too well the sound of a corridor of darkness opening. You turned towards it to greet Axel, but before you could even say anything, in a flash of red and black his lips were on yours, pulling you flush against him, taking you completely off guard.

It was not, however, an unwelcome surprise.

Your arms wrapped around his neck as tightly as his were around your waist. And that’s how the two of you stayed for a good minute.

When you finally parted, you were panting. This man was going to end you. You put a hand on your chest to steady your heartbeat before you looked up at his face and immediately regretted being so flustered. He was wearing a cocky-ass smirk on his face while he watched you compose yourself.

Damn. You really wished that smirk wasn’t doing it for you.

“Can I know the reason for the warm and,” you looked him up and down, “Rushed welcome?”

You only figured it were rushed because upon closer observation, you saw that Axel wasn’t in the uniform provided to him, his Organization coat was draped over him haphazardly and unzipped, and his hair was wet. He must have taken a shower before throwing on his clothes and rushing over to you – which was pretty flattering in its own right. At least you weren’t the only person over excited by the presence of the other.

Axel pulled up his phone and showed you what was on the screen. It was the picture you took while posing on the bed. You felt a small rush of embarrassment. What was it that had spurred such a bold act from you? And this was his reaction? It sent a thrill through you that quelled your mild embarrassment. And it was replaced with a deep wanting.

“You don’t get to just tease me halfway across a solar system and expect no response,” he said, smirk still on his face, eyes trailing all over you. You suppressed a shudder.

“Well then I suppose I deserved that,” you said, glancing away but hoping he’d pin you to the bed within the next second. But instead he strolled passed you to look around the room, letting out a low whistle as he looked at your more than fancy accommodations. He looked at all the gift baskets around the room and complimentary items that were strewn about.

“This all from the hotel?” he questioned, “They sure go above and beyond for their guests.”

You let out a little snort.

“No. Just one is from the hotel. The rest are from businesses and gifts from people who’ll be going home soon when the space station opens up for everyone else to be able to travel.”

“Look at you being a celebrity,” he said as he looked at and started rummaging through one of the baskets, moving aside cards to get a little heart-shaped box further back.

“Uh, those aren’t yours,” you said, throwing a teddy bear at him. He caught it and threw it back at you. You just barely managed to catch it as it hit you in the face with its incredibly soft fur.

“Boyfriend privileges,” he said, taking out some chocolate and eating it. It was white chocolate anyway, so you weren’t really all that put off. White chocolate is not chocolate. It is a lie you tell people who don’t know what good quality chocolate is. People like Axel apparently.

“That attitude coupled with the fact you like white chocolate might actually be reasonable grounds to break up with you,” you said in a teasing tone. He shrugged.

“You’re stuck with me whether or not we’re dating, so I’m still gonna take your stuff.”

“Ok, wow, rude,” you said with a light laugh, “And don’t act like it’s not you who wants me.”

“Who said I want you?” he said with a smirk, taking another bite of chocolate.

“You did,” you said, striding up to him, “When you told me – not asked, told me – to go out with you. And that was when I felt really bad for you too. And I’m no expert on reading people but taking advantage of a young girl’s generosity to get a date out of it probably means you want her.”

“And I recall around that time, not too long after in fact, that you said you needed me,” he replied, walking up to you until the two of you were close again.

“And I recall you saying that you needed me too,” you said, voice lowering a bit as you leaned into him. Was there some tension building here? You couldn’t tell exactly what kind – be it romantic or sexual, but it felt intimate all the same.

His arm looped around your waist, hand coming to rest on the small of your back, thumb rubbing idle circles there.

“And I meant it,” he said lowly. He leaned his forehead on yours, and you felt that intimacy between the two of you increase.

“So you do want me,” you said, only half-heartedly feeling the jokey mood the two of you had been in just a moment ago.

“Well need and want are two different things. Like I need to eat more vegetables, but, just like you, I don’t want them,” he said with a laugh as you pushed him away, picking up another teddy bear and throwing it – and any other stuffed things you could find – at him.

Notes:

I stand by my statements. White chocolate isn't chocolate. Fight me.

I'll see you all soon! Sooner than I did this time!

Chapter 66: Eo's

Summary:

Ironically, Eo is not even in this chapter. But Atom is. And so are you. And there's a little bit of Axel at the end. So yeah. Even Namine and Demyx have speaking parts. And Figment and Ludwig get a mention. So pretty much everyone except Eo. And... you know... Dreamfinder.

Notes:

Hey all! I'm still here! I'm just a tad lazy. Also things have been hectic in the world as I'm sure you all know. I hope you're all safe and cautious and doing well.

The day was perfect. Most days as of late were perfect to you, but there was just something about the sun and a light breeze and lounging by the pool that just made everything in that moment seem even more perfect. The only thing that was missing was a certain redhead who you would love to see swim up to you – probably with a smirk on his handsome face and a glint in his oh-so-green-you-could-die eyes – and ask if you’d like to spend some quality time together.

But alas. Axel was back in Tomorrowland doing whatever it was guards did. But you’d see him some time that evening, so you weren’t too perturbed by his absence.

You stretched your arms above your head, leaning your head back and arching your back as you reclined in a lounge chair by the pool. Your muscles were a tad sore and appreciated the extra stretch. You’d gone to the gym that morning and pushed yourself as best you could with the equipment they had seeing as how you wouldn’t be training with the soldiers that morning.

You’d also done a little swimming practice afterward just to keep the lessons in your mind and to give you just a bit more of workout. You felt grand. You felt strong af. You felt like you could take on the world. And you would.

You had been content to spend your time in the hotel the day before, but today was your last day on this planet before you moved to a resort on the next one, and you were determined to take it all in as best you could.

You’d already picked out some brochures of nearby attractions and places to visit. You’d also scoped out a few stores listed on some of the little pamphlets, determined to bring back some souvenirs for your friends and family since they couldn’t join you.

You spent maybe another few minutes on the lounger before you finally swung your legs off and standing up and stretching again, raising your arms high above your head and lifting up to the very tips of your toes, doing a graceful little turn before picking up your towel and strutting back into the hotel.

You got stopped on your way to your room every now and again by the occasional guest, asking for a picture or an autograph. You didn’t mind it too much. There weren’t too many people around. Well there were. But the hotel was large enough that you hardly if ever ran into too many of them at once.

You had a quick shower and got dressed, throwing your hair into a messy high ponytail so it could dry out on its own. No way were you going to put up with it again this morning and waste time on it like you did yesterday.

You picked up the brochures you had previously grabbed, flipping through them to see which one you wanted to try first. Some of the brochures were also advertising the other resort planets, each presenting a view of the world from space in their varying shades of color.

…Weird.

There were more resort planets than just regular planets in the empire. Of the eight planets there were, five of them were resort planets. You shrugged, putting them into a purse and deciding to ignore it for now.

Rather than walk all the way back downstairs, you opened one of the large windows in your bedroom and hopped your glider and flew out, zipping out into the rest of the town.

You looked down at one of the brochures in your hand, noting that it said there were a few good shops in the area to find clothing and already thinking about a dress for Namine and maybe a t-shirt for Demyx with something cheesy written on it. You weren’t exactly sure how he’d feel about it but after seeing him in a shirt covered in pineapple print, you doubted he’d mind too much what you’d got him.

As you flew, you could see over the wall in the distance the barren wasteland that stretched into the horizon. You flew up higher. It seemed never-ending. Which was weird. There had to have been something out there, but the land was so flat that there would be no doubt that if there were something, no matter how far away, you’d be able to see it. But there was just… nothing.

You’d have to ask Atom about that later if you ever saw him. He’d been hard at work, as far as you knew, this whole time.

You looked at the address of the first place you wanted to visit, gliding around until you found it and landing nearby. It was when you were back on the ground that you noticed a strange shift in population compared to what you’d seen both the day before when you arrived and back in Tomorrowland as a whole.

There weren’t so many people. Of course there were a lot – everywhere you looked. It was an entire city after all. But, unlike Tomorrowland, the people seemed to be outnumbered by the number of robots. But yesterday when you were riding through town on the way to the hotel, all you could see were people with the odd robot here and there.

And now that you were thinking about it… You don’t remember seeing one single human working in the hotel. Even now as you looked around at vendors, stalls, restaurants, and stores, the primary species working there were robots. How odd.

You shook the thought from your mind, resuming with your original task which was to find souvenirs for your friends.

Your stomach let out a rumble. Hmm. And maybe find someplace to have breakfast.

~

It was late in the afternoon when you finally returned to the hotel. You’d gone a little crazy with the shopping, picking out several things for all of your friends and family and skipping breakfast entirely. It had been at the forefront of your mind when you had started, but as you scouted the area for a place to grab something quick to eat, you spotted the prettiest sundress in a store’s window and your mind immediately went to Namine.

You were lost in shopping after that point, picking out several things you thought everyone would like, sticking to just souvenirs and no clothes for the animated members of your party. You also picked out a cord necklace and two little blue and red fire charms similar to the ones on the charm bracelet Demyx and Namine had gotten you. You were going to give that one to Axel.

So you returned burdened with bags and starving and determined to go out and eat this time. And it was just as you were reaching your room that you noticed Atom was also about to enter his own room. It had only been a day, and yet it felt like you hadn’t seen him in so long.

“Atom,” you called out, face bright and happy, legitimately excited to see him, “Hey! How’s your vacation been?”

He looked at you and then took some of the bags from your arm with you panting out a light thank you. You’d insisted to the hotel staff that you needed no help carrying them and that they could go about their business but jogging up to Atom seemed to take a bit out of you. It didn’t help that you were running on empty and had been out all day thus far.

“It’s not quite a vacation,” he said as you opened the door to your room and the two of you stepped in. He looked around the room, letting out a low whistle as he looked at all of the gift baskets and freebies around your room. You’d insisted Axel take back a few with him for everyone back home when he left the previous night, but he couldn’t carry more than three large ones. So you were left trying to figure out what to do with the leftovers. Though you’d already come up with a few ideas.

“You too, huh?” he asked as he looked at a few of the baskets.

“Too? You mean your room is stuffed like this too?”

“Comes with the hero title. Not too shabby though if you ask me.”

“Well I’d like it more if I could actually appreciate all of this, but I don’t even have a place to keep all of this stuff. And, honestly, I was thinking of donating a lot of it. I mean, some kid is going to appreciate some of these sweets and stuffed animals more than I could. I don’t even think I could eat all the stuff they sent me. Though it isn’t for lack of trying.”

You and Axel had eaten quite a bit of chocolate the night before, and while you weren’t going to say that it was what had caused the ensuing nightmares – as they came and went as they pleased – you told yourself to maybe not eat so much of it before bed next time.

Atom chuckled at your statement. It was then you noticed that his smile changed his face a little bit, made it livelier. But it was as it was fading that you realized why that was. He looked a little stressed to say the least. And you thought back to his words where he had said that it wasn’t quite a vacation. And you remembered that he had been there for work. You frowned a bit. He’d admitted to you before that he didn’t really vacation, but he could at least enjoy some things about this beautiful city you were in.

“Atom, have you had a chance to relax since you’ve been here? You’ve been working since we got on the spaceship to come out here.”

“Well I’ve a lot to do. I’m lucky I finished when I did.”

“I hope they haven’t been working you too hard?” you asked as you set some of the bags down in the small space you and Axel had cleared the night before and took the remaining bags from him.

“It’s nothing too taxing. It’s more tedious than anything. Busy work. They could have sent anyone to do it, so I’m not sure why she picked me.”

You shrugged.

“Maybe the empress knew you could handle it quickly so that way you could get out of the palace for a bit without having to call it a vacation. Maybe she knows how you feel about vacations.”

“Hm,” he hummed, considering it for a moment, “I suppose it was a nice gesture, but I’d really rather have stayed at home. There’s so much to do in the coming weeks.”

“Well at least you’ve been able to relax in your breaks and downtime.”

“Downtime?”

You fixed him with an incredulous look, and he met your gaze steadily.

“You know. Like a break?”

He rolled his eyes.

“I know what downtime is. I just haven’t really had any. I wasn’t even sure what I was going to do once I got out of the office. Watch some T.V. maybe. Read a little.”

You fixed him with another look, taking a deep breath in through your nose and exhaling slowly out of your mouth before setting your hands on your hips in a comically sassy pose – well comically sassy in his eyes. As well as a little endearing.

“You’re staying at a luxury resort in the middle of a tropical paradise and all you can think to do when you’re done working is to watch T.V. or read?”

“Yes,” Atom said slowly, quirking an eyebrow at you, “Is that a problem?”

“Yes! It’s a problem! You could do those things at your own home. Vacation is to do things that you don’t normally get to enjoy. You even said the last time you’d been here was when you were a kid. Well you’re back now, and you can enjoy it all again like you did then.”

“I really don’t see how it’s a big deal.”

“Are you kidding me? When I learned how much of a world there was to see, all I wanted to do was see more of it. Living in Spaceship Earth, I knew what to expect, the E.P.C.O.T.s were all the same, and cultures were more widespread between the different kinds of elves. You never needed to go far to find out more about each other. But here? You’ve got so many planets to visit, and soon entire other universes to explore. You really don’t want to see any of it?”

“I’m sorry did you just say elves?”

You blinked at him. He blinked back.

“It’s just…,” he continued, “You look so normal.”

“What is normal?!” you screeched, “I am so sick and tired of everyone acting like elves are – no! You know what! I’m not doing this again! Back to the topic at hand! Do you or do you not want to see more of this world and the next?”

Atom elected to ignore your initial outburst for now.

“Well…,” Atom rubbed the back of his neck, considering your words and still kind of wanting to turn the notion down.

“Let’s go have fun,” you blurted, bounding up to him as you darted around the many gifts still sitting on your floor.

“Fun? You and me?” he asked, fighting off a blush. You were inviting him out? To spend time with you? Just the two of you? Alone?

“Yeah, why not? We’re friends aren’t we?” you asked, eyes wide and your head tilted just a bit. Atom felt his heart jump a little.

“Yes! Friends! Of course!” he said rather enthusiastically and trying desperately to play off his own feelings as just a need to get out of the hotel, “Where would you like to go?”

Your stomach let out a low growl like it had that morning.

“Let’s go look around and maybe find something to eat. You haven’t eaten already have you?”

“Oh, no, I was just going to order room service at the time. Should I call a cab or the limo? Where do you feel like eating?”

You shrugged, smile bright on your face.

“I don’t know. Let’s just walk and see where our feet take us. I’ll let you change out of your uniform and I’m going to go wash up a little bit.”

“Great. I’ll meet you in the lobby in ten?”

“Sounds great! See you then!”

Atom stepped out of your room, and you turned towards your bedroom, pulling your phone out of the little purse you’d strapped across your torso and sending a quick text to Axel. He replied a second later.

***: Going out for a bit. Might be back a little late.

Axel: Working late anyway. Someone called out sick and their looking for a quick replacement, so I don’t have to cover two shifts. But I’ll still see you later.

***: Looking forward to it ;)

You put your phone back into your purse before walking into your bathroom and yanking a brush through your hair and washing your face and reapplying your deodorant. All that walking in the sun had caused you to build up a little bit of sweat on your brow, and you just wanted to be sure you wouldn’t be dropping birds out of the sky every time you lifted your arms.

You met up with Atom, and the two of you strolled into town at a leisurely pace, looking around for a decent place to find a meal.

An hour later you pointed out a coffee shop. It was small and quaint, made up of a pretty red brick with a slanted brown roof with a flashing neon sign that read: Tropical Astro Coffee. A little on the nose, but it looked nice.

“How about there?” you suggested, already imagining warm hot chocolate and fresh croissants that may have also been filled with chocolate. Through the large window you could see a little display case full of pastries.

Atom, on the other hand, hadn’t noticed the pastries, eyes glued to the few people hanging around the front. Artsy types wearing turtleneck sweaters despite the pleasant outside temperature and berets. One even had a bongo tucked under his arm.

“No, thank you,” he said as he began to stride off, turning his nose up at them as the two of you passed. You looked longingly at the croissants but followed him regardless.

“What was wrong with it? It seemed nice. And there was a poster out front advertising poetry night. It could have been a new experience for you.”

Atom did not want to mention that he was well-acquainted with poetry.

“Beatniks,” he huffed simply, “Not the kind of people you want to be around. Ill-mannered and undisciplined. And a little too free-spirited if you know what I mean.”

You didn’t know what he meant but chalked it up to one of those mannerisms of the 50s you didn’t quite understand. They were simply ahead of their time – before any of their knowledge of urban literary works would be popular or their cause understood.

Another hour had passed, and the sun was sinking down in the sky, casting it in a mix of reds and purples. You pointed to another restaurant. This one quite a bit fancier than the last, decorated in climbing ivy and wrought iron. You could see passed the golden typography on the window to see dark red walls and dimly lit candles and chandeliers. There was a small quartet of a band playing, no doubt something classical and light with the violin being the lead instrument.

“That place looks nice.”

Atom looked at it and wrinkled his nose.

“A bit posh for my taste. I’m not into stuffy places with too much silverware on the table.”

You gaped at him as he kept walking.

“You work in a palace. What’s stuffier than that?”

“I’m in the military, ________. It’s just a part of my job that puts me in the palace, but I don’t live there. I could if I wanted to, but I prefer my own home in the Castletown. Much homier.”

You huffed, trotting a little bit to catch up with him. You were too hungry for this BS.

Another thirty minutes give or take, and you were ready to collapse on the ground and beg Atom to pick anywhere. Anywhere at all. You’d be content picking garbage out of a dumpster and eating it on a trashcan lid as a plate at this point. But then you spotted a place that couldn’t have been too bad. The people milling about the outside didn’t seem to fall into the “unsavory” crowd that Atom would like to avoid, nor did they look “over-puffed” and fancy. They were just normal.

And the restaurant’s name was Eo’s Bar and Grill, flashing brightly in cursive and brilliant electric blue and hot pink. Perfect. From what you gathered from Axel, he knew Atom and Eo to be something like friends. Surely he wouldn’t object to eating there. Just as well, you weren’t about to take any more objections, fully prepared to drag him in there kicking and screaming if need be.

It was a funny image in your head, but wholly unrealistic. You wouldn’t be able to drag him in there even if he weren’t going to be fighting you tooth and nail. Better to just take him by surprise and knock him through the window with your keyblade.

“See something?”

He came up to stand next to you, and you pointed a finger across the street toward Eo’s. Atom’s face paled and he winced. You could already see the protests forming on his lips even before he’d taken a breath to say them. A brief image of you with your keyblade in full swing passed through your mind and you shook it away. You would try to handle this civilly before resorting to physical violence and property damage.

“Please,” he strained, “No.”

He liked Eo and all, but their bonding stopped at the military and love for their country. They had next to nothing in common outside of it. Especially not when it came to how they would choose to run a restaurant. And true Eo wasn’t directly running the restaurant, but he was the influence behind the themes, music, and food, and at least two out of three of those things they never compromised on.

“Oh come on, Atom. You have had something to say for every single place we’ve come across, and we’ve been at this for almost three hours. You mean to tell me there hasn’t been one place we passed that you’ve liked? Nothing?”

“That’s not true,” he demurred with a sniff, “We stopped at that public restroom an hour ago. Now that was nice. Well lit, clean, and so practical! Truly one of the greatest feats of engineering in our day.”

You blinked at him, your face clearly unamused.

“That would’ve have been great if for one it weren’t a bathroom and two if I was interested in eating in bathrooms, but I’m not, Atom.”

Your voice held a certain amount of venom that said your stomach was talking and your brain had fully exited the building. And your stomach was far less merciful than your brain – considering you’d already contemplated yeeting him into the building. Atom, finally able to read your emotions to some degree or maybe a certain survival instinct kicking in, finally relented, shoulders slumped.

“Okay fine,” he muttered, only feeling slightly better when your face lit up in a smile, the angry she-beast at rest for the time being.

“Let’s go,” you yipped, grabbing his hand and practically skipping into the restaurant.

You paused once you were through the doorway, dropping Atom’s hand.

You liked this restaurant so far better than any other place you’d been to in Tomorrowland. It was dimly lit except for the low blue lighting that illuminated the area just enough. There was lots of black and silver all over, and the music blared overhead. But it was different from what you’d come accustomed to hearing in this world. It wasn’t really all that 50s. It made Atom cringe. He wasn’t really a fan. It wasn’t bad, and there was always a moment every now and again that he could recall Eo playing music and he actually kind of – kind of – liked it. This particular song was not one of those “kind of liked” songs.

“The music’s different,” you said somewhat dazedly as a hostess led the two of you to a table.

“It’s Eo’s particular genre,” Atom explained, “It’s experimental. It’s been picking up a little traction here and there, but it isn’t everyone’s beat.”

You slid into the booth.

“It sounds like it’s from the 70s or 80s. Not the 50s.”

“Pardon?”

“Oh well. Culturally, the people of my world moved passed both the usual style of music here and this one. We’re currently in the 2000s, but these styles of music were around the 50s – for the usual style – and 70s and 80s for this style. Does Eo dabble in music often?”

“It’s one of his hobbies outside of his work in the military.”

“It’s ahead of its time.”

Atom let out a tiny huff. He didn’t really want to talk about Eo or his questionable taste in music. But it looked like you were enjoying it – shimmying in your seat to the music – so he supposed it wasn’t all bad.

You ordered drinks – him a water and you a chocolate milkshake and were content to chat about nothing really important while waiting on food. You both went for the burgers and fries. Nothing exotic that you probably should have ordered considering you were on a new planet but a tried and true meal you knew you would love all the same, so who cared?

The burger was the size of your head and the fries came in generous helpings as did the drinks, and you wolfed down most of it without batting an eye, leaving behind only a fourth of your milkshake and maybe a third of your fries. Atom had finished his meal off entirely, but he had to admit, he was impressed to see a woman eat that way. Or maybe that was a you-thing and not a woman v man thing.

“Hungry?” he asked when you finally wiped your mouth.

“I was starving. Why?”

“No reason,” he said with a flush, “I just don’t know many women who eat like that. Not that it’s a bad thing! I-I-I just couldn’t help but notice.”

You eyed him for a moment, watching him sweat under your gaze before you threw your head back in laughter. Atom visibly relaxed, and it sent you into another fit of giggles.

“Relax, Atom. I get it. Society is different here. I’m not gonna bite your head off for every difference you notice. It’s when you tell me I’m not allowed to do something or unable to do it that we have a problem. Plus with all the training I’ve been doing, I deserve to eat whatever the hell I want.”

Atom let out a light chuckle as the two of you settled back in a relaxed manner into your seats. A moment of comfortable silence passed over the two of you as you both sat, letting your food settle and taking in the scenery and music surrounding you. It was nice.

“What was your life like before you joined the military?” you asked after a moment, leaning forward just a bit.

“It wasn’t much,” he replied with a light shrug, “I joined right out of high school.”

“You didn’t want to do anything else? No major you wanted to study?”

“Nope. I wanted to join the military like my father and his father and so on. The Adams family is a long proud line of military men. I didn’t want to do anything else but do the good work they did and make my family proud.”

“You didn’t at least have any previous interests outside of warfare?”

“Well I was on the football team when I was in high school. Star quarterback. I could’ve taken it to college, gone pro, but it wasn’t for me. I enjoyed it. Don’t get me wrong, but I knew what I wanted more than that.”

“It’s not all too surprising you were star quarterback. You look like the type.”

Atom blushed, but you couldn’t see it too well in the low lighting of the restaurant. But he really did look it. He was tall, muscular, blonde hair, blue eyes, outspoken and well-liked. What one might call an all-American hero if either of you had known that America existed. But he fit the archetype at the very least.

“What about you? Somehow I don’t think you fell out of the womb with your keyblade swinging. What were you before you were the keyblade wielder of today?”

“A dancer actually. Mom signed me up for dance classes when I was young as a means to get rid of all my excess energy. And I liked it. So much so I fell in love with it. It was all I wanted to do. I wanted to be a famous dancer and if not that, to own my own dance studio and teach classes there. But when I was fifteen I got my keyblade and the course of my life changed just a bit. Not too drastically, but I knew I had some vague form of responsibility. Then just four years after that… Everything changed. Now my home is gone, and I’m the only one who may be able to bring it back.”

You began to get a little misty eyed, and Atom didn’t need clear lighting to see that the conversation had taken a turn for the morbid and depressing. So he pressed forward.

“Well we know you will, so what will you do once you’ve accomplished this feat?”

You blinked. You had thought about it in passing several times – usually in regard to what would become of you and Axel. But, of course, he wasn’t interested in your love life. And you offered up a shrug.

“I guess I have to keep being a hero. Problems don’t just go away. You solve one, and there are always others. I want to go to the home I never had. I feel like I want to exist there for a while to know what my life was supposed to be before the fall of the world. And I’d like to go back to dancing, but now…. I have to admit, it’ll be harder to settle into that life when I know how much exists in the world now. You know?”

“Say no more. I gave a little thought to what you’d said earlier about wanting to see it all, and I have to admit that the more I thought about it, the more appealing the idea became. I think I want to be something like an ambassador for Tomorrowland and its military – seeing new worlds to discover and spreading our influence and technologies to new and exciting horizons as well as learning about new cultures.”

Not exactly what you’d meant when you had said it, but it was close enough. And at least he wanted to see more of the world.

“What about life outside of the military? Are you doing anything now? Have any hobbies or aspirations?”

Atom did not mention his poetry or his extensive library holding many, many books from several famous poets and authors throughout history.

“Oh no, nothing really.”

You frowned up a little but more out of confusion than anything else.

“You don’t want to do anything? What about family life? Are you ever gonna settle down? You can’t be in the military forever, and won’t it be nice to retire to a quiet life at home with your significant other?”

“Well, the thought used to cross my mind and has been again lately, but I have to meet the right girl before I decide to settle down.”

He didn’t look directly at you as he said this. He even avoided your gaze if only to keep himself from blushing again. Though he did cast you a quick, somewhat longing glance when he noticed you turn your head out of the corner of his eye.

But you kept your head turned looking out at the hardwood patch of floor that the tables, booths, and bar surrounded. A dance floor with numerous people dancing on it, all doing moves that were modified versions of anything typical of this era of swing and the lindy hop. It was interesting to watch, and it made you tap your foot in some form of anticipation as an itch to join them began building. What kind of dance could you do like them? Or would you pull directly from the eras you knew this music to be from? Or both? A fusion would be odd but not impossible.

You were already choreographing things in your head to play around with later if you decided you wanted to come up with a dance in your room. It’d been a while since you had choreographed anything yourself.

But right now you would be content to join them, and let come what come when you would sway to the music. But you weren’t rude. You turned to Atom who had turned his head to follow your gaze when he noticed your prolonged stare.

“Wanna dance?” you asked with a polite smile. His eyes widened as he looked at you. Your face was pleasantly neutral enough in its smile, but your eyes were raw and energized; your foot was tapping; your breathing had even picked up a little – though he doubted you were hardly aware of your body language shouting out him what he already knew: you were going to dance with or without him.

He was reluctant to be honest. But… something about the way you looked at him made him want to. Like you knew something about dancing that he didn’t that somehow made it more than just a rhythmic movement. Though that may have been because you were a dancer in love with your art, and to you it very much is something that is more than rhythmic movement.

“Sure,” he said with a light sigh, still stuck in some of his reluctance.

You were out of your seat in the blink of an eye already taking one graceful step after the other towards the other dancers, light on your toes before you were even off of the tile and onto the hardwood.

Atom followed quickly after, falling into step and then into beat next to you as your hips began to sway and you began to turn.

It was actually easier than you thought to mix the styles of dance, throwing in a little bit of jazz into your step – with mixed opinions on your dancing. You were graceful to be certain and sure and confident in your steps and movements, making things you made up seem like something popular you’d picked up on.

But it wasn’t your successful dance fusion that surprised you that night. It was that Atom was actually a very good dancer. He was agile and smooth. You knew he was a decent fighter and that that could have a bearing on his dancing, but it was rather far removed from how he fought. He was just good at it.

“Atom?” you spoke trying to be heard over the pulsing sound of pop and disco. He leaned in closer as the two of you calmed into dancing that allowed you to be nearer to be heard. “Are you a dancer? Or were you ever one?”

He smirked, and it took you by surprise just a bit. He was cocky, you knew that much, but a smirk didn’t quite seem to fit his face like a smile did. It was weird to think of him having a mischievous or devious side. Not like Axel….

“Nope. ‘Fraid not, doll. But I hope I’m not too disappointing?”

“Disappointing?”

“Well I don’t want to make you look bad.” His smirk broadened just a bit, and you could see the challenge in his eyes. It made a laugh bubble up in your throat.

“Keep dreaming,” you shot back as you resumed your dancing, moving back into your more complex moves for him to compete with. He was matching you rather well actually, complementing some of your moves with his own as you did for some of his. He was a natural.

It was something Atom could see in you as well. He could always see the dancer in you when you were fighting or training, but here it was raw and uninhibited dancing. There was still a ferocity behind your moves like when you fought but now mixed with a raw passion for dancing that showed itself on your face in the form of absolute bliss when you executed a perfect turn or roll of your hips or flutter of fingers.

Though your dancing, he had to admit, was odd. But beautiful. Though he couldn’t place it. Perhaps it was popular wherever you were from. Or maybe you were making it up. He couldn’t tell. It was familiar in a few aspects but not all of them.

“That’s a little odd don’t you think?” someone said, a young man probably about your age said as he eyed your moves, shimmying in his spot instead of outright dancing in order to speak and be heard more clearly.

“What, my dancing?” you asked, not subduing your dancing even a bit to be heard. You were in love with the song currently playing and you would not be losing a single beat of it to conversation.

“Well, yeah,” he said, quirking an eyebrow as if he were amused by your reaction. Or maybe he was amused that you were unaware some people found you so odd.

You looked around and noticed there were more than a few pairs of eyes on you. Some appreciative. Some disapproving. Some undecided. You shrugged. You were here to have fun and to make sure Atom had fun. None of their opinions mattered.

“So what’s the issue?” you said as you looked back at the young man. A gentle smile still played on your face. You weren’t offended. Not in the least.

“Well, I mean,” he fumbled for a word, “I just thought you’d like to know that it makes you look odd was all.”

“And who are you?”

He had almost stopped dancing by that point but had abruptly stopped at you rather blunt question, said in such a tone that said you were still not offended but rather unconcerned with the opinions of others, and you were unsure why anyone felt the need to alert you to said opinions.

He didn’t answer you but rather shuffled off in another direction. You stopped paying attention to him, turning back to Atom who was looking at you with his own amused expression. You didn’t bother asking, just falling back into the music as you had been before, completely content.

Atom had been ready to defend you from what he’d said, ready to say that he thought you looked quite beautiful despite your odd gyrations. But you’d beat him to the punch with your quick wit. And he felt a vague sense of relief you’d directed it at someone else this time.

~

The two of you took the monorail back to the hotel, gliding through the air over the city below which you could see through the windows was lit up prettily with bunches of twinkling lights. Your muscles which had ached pleasantly that morning were aching a bit less pleasantly now. You and Atom had torn up the dance floor for hours before either of you decided to call it an evening. But you’d had fun.

You let out a little hum of contentment, smiling and letting out a happy sigh as you leaned back in your seat, the gentle movement of the monorail lulling you into a more relaxed state.

Then your eyes drifted to the wall in the distance and flat land you could just barely see beyond it. It now looked like a yawning abyss in the dark with nothing on it to light the ground which that morning had look like dusty red clay like you’d find on a riverbank.

“Atom?” you called to him. He jumped a little bit as your voice in the dim quiet startled him a little. The two of you were the ones in this particular segment of the monorail. There had not been many passengers out as late as the two of you. His reaction brought a slow, amused smile to your face.

“Yes, ________?” he replied, his own voice a low tired rumble. You’d exhausted him on the dance floor. Well not you exactly. Trying to keep up with you had been what had exhausted him. You seemed to have never-ending stores of energy for dance, but eventually you began to slow up. Not that it wasn’t fun for him. He’d dare to say it was some of the most fun he’d had casually. And it had been quite a while since he’d had any casual fun.

You pointed a finger outside the window at the desert in the distance.

“Why does the desert look like that? Shouldn’t there be dunes of sand or something? Why is it just this one city in a vast nothing? Or are there others like this?”

“Well there are other cities like this one – other resorts in other climates. It all depends on what you’re looking for: skiing in the mountains, hiking through the woods, or laying by the pool in a tropical paradise like this one.”

“So the world is really just one big desert except for the resorts? There are no bodies of water or anything? No natural wildlife or plants?”

Atom shook his head.

“The planet is a desert until it’s been terraformed using our satellite technology on the moons near the planets. But rather than terraform the whole thing, only a few spots are made into resorts.”

“Terraformed? Like terraformed into a desert and reverted in certain areas? Or was it always a desert? Because, like, most of the planets in the empire are resort planets. And Tomorrowland has supposedly been collecting and sharing cultures with people of all of these worlds. Weren’t there ever any people on the resort planets? Or were these brought in as deserts only for the purpose of resort life?”

“On a few of them, yes, there were people. But from what I understand, some plague or another ravaged the land and wiped out most of the population. If there was anything left, they eventually migrated to either the home planet or one of the other non-resort planets in the empire.”

That was a sad story. And rather odd.

“Do you know what this one was like before it was altered? What were the people like? How many different cultures were there? Are there any cultures that migrated to Tomorrowland?”

“To be perfectly honest, I’m not quite sure. The history of the people who may or may not have lived here wasn’t taught when I was in school.”

“Well I’m sure they have history books somewhere of things that went on here.”

“I’m sure there are. It’s just I haven’t read any.”

You blinked, finding that odd as well. You supposed there was no real purpose in teaching in schools the histories of worlds that pretty much no longer existed, but… Something about it just didn’t sit right with you. You’d learned of civilizations long dead before your own, and they were considered important. Why not say the same for these planets? But who were you to judge their culture and what they deemed essential for education. After all, outside of social culture, their own technological and economical advancements far surpassed that of any world you had known yet. So maybe it really didn’t matter.

~

When you entered your room, Axel was already waiting for you, and he was a very welcome surprise. You practically fell into his arms and he hugged you tightly, placing a kiss on your forehead.

“I missed you,” you mumbled into his chest.

“Missed you too,” he replied giving you another kiss, this time on your lips and lingering there just a bit longer. “So what’ve you been up to?”

“Oh I was just out seeing the town. I didn’t keep you long, did I?”

Axel shook his head, leaning against the couch.

“Nah, I just got here myself. See anything worth checking out?”

You shrugged.

“The world is beautiful. There’s no mistaking that. But it’s so weird here.”

“Weird how?” Axel asked, quirking an eyebrow and watching closely as you began to pace back and forth, listing your findings.

“Most of the people here are robots. It’s weird. I mean, I knew robots were a large part of the population considering what we’ve seen in Tomorrowland, but here it was more robot than people. And it wasn’t one of those subtle things you pick up on. It was noticeable. And there is nothing outside of this city. It’s just flat desert, but you’d never know it wasn’t always like that. It just looks like a flat field. Because apparently a few of the resort planets used to have people on them and life, you know?”

Axel nodded silently and let you continue.

“But there was a plague or something that wiped out most of the people, so the rest of the people left to live on one of the other planets, and they repurposed this one and a few others as resorts. And the really weird part is that most of the planets in the empire are resorts.”

“That is weird.”

“Right?” you said with a light lilt of a laugh in your voice. You were about to go on about how strange it was about the history when your phone rang. You looked at the screen and saw it was Namine.

You moved to Axel’s side, so he’d be in the camera too and hit, “Talk.”

“Hey!” you said as soon as you saw her happy, smiling face. And Demyx’s – who was with her apparently. You looked between the two of them and quirked an eyebrow at Namine. She blushed a bit but ignored your silent accusation.

“It’s good to see you,” she said instead.

“I’ve only been gone for, like, what is it now? Four days?”

“That’s enough time for someone to miss you. I mean, look at Axel. He missed you so much he’s visiting you. And I know for a fact he visited you yesterday,” Namine said with her own quirk of an eyebrow.

“I mean, I guess I would miss me too.” You flipped a bit of hair over your shoulder. “So how’s life in the palace? Not too boring without me I hope.”

Namine rolled her eyes.

“Demyx and I have been getting a bit into the spirit of Tomorrowland as of late. The history is really interesting, but I don’t want to bore you with the details.”

“I could actually use a few details. There’s not really anything about any of the resort planets as far as history goes. Or at least as far as I know. Atom says they didn’t teach about what these planets were like in school.”

“How do you mean?” Namine asked with a furrow to her brow and a light, determined frown on her face. You recounted all of the things you’d told Axel, including the lack of a history on the part of the planets.

“That is weird,” Demyx muttered, though he looked more troubled about it than you felt at the moment. That was because you had inadvertently given he and Namine another piece to the puzzle they had been trying to piece together.

“It’s not a big deal, so don’t trouble yourself about it,” you said with a wave of your hand, not wanting to get her worked up over your little request. It really wasn’t that big of a deal, and it wouldn’t kill you not to know.

“No, it’s fine. I’ll let you know if I find anything,” Namine said, “But I think for now I’m gonna turn in. I wasn’t even sure you’d be up right now, but Axel wasn’t here, so I figured the two of you would be together, and I just wanted to say hi and to let you know you were missed.”

“Well I miss you too, and I’ll see you in a few days. We can hang out a bit then.”

“Of course! Don’t stay up too late, and don’t do anything Figment wouldn’t approve of,” Namine said with a teasing glance between you and Axel.

“I could say the same of you,” you said with a wink, hanging up just as you saw both her and Demyx’s face turn red.

You turned to Axel to see him smirking at you.

“You don’t have to tease them,” he scolded, though you could tell he didn’t really mean it. You just shrugged with a light smile on your face.

“She said it first. And fair is fair.”

Axel just rolled his eyes before taking your hand.

“I have a surprise for you,” he said as he led you into your bedroom where you saw a dark wooden box sitting in the middle of your bed. “It’s more from your uncle than me though. He put it all together and it was his idea to begin with. I just got the parts for him while he was busy with his lectures.”

You picked up the box, looking it over and seeing the light engravings of several chimera on each side in different poses, one standing, one crouching and others sitting, laying, stalking, and running. You loved it. You loved chimeras.

When you opened it a tinkling little song began to play, and you felt like you recognized it a little, but you couldn’t remember where exactly. Inside the box was a little crystalline statuette of the flower you and Axel grew together.

“You remember that song on Animal Kingdom that we danced to?” Axel asked, taking the box from your hands and pressing you close to him, leading you into the dance the two of you had done that night, rocking slowly in a circle pressed close and intimately like you’d been that night.

“I remember,” you said lowly as you swayed in a natural rhythm with him. You’d thought all your dancing would be done by now considering all the exercise you’d gotten in that day, but you’d always have energy for Axel.

“I hummed it for Ludwig, so he could use it for the music box. It’s pretty much my only contribution.”

You pressed closer to him.

“I love it,” you said, feeling a quiet intimacy fall over the two of you.

“I hear it every time I see you and every time I hear your voice and every time I think of you.”

Something swelled up within you and pushed itself out in the form of little tears in the corners of your eyes. You were so happy. And you felt so close to him. And you felt so much love for him. You loved this man beyond all hope and with every bit of your heart.

“This is the most amazing gift I’ve ever gotten,” you said in a whisper, “Thank you. I’ll be sure to thank Pops too. But thank you for this Axel.”

You swiped at the tears on your face and parted from him as the song’s first loop ended.

“I got something for you too, but it doesn’t even begin to compare to this.” You walked over to where you had set your shopping bags from the day and pulled out the little necklace with the matching blue and red fire charms on it. “I got it, so we’d have matching jewelry. Every time I look at the bracelet Namine and Demyx gave me, ironically, I can only think of you. I hope you’ll do the same with this.”

“It’s perfect,” he said, already clasping it around his neck. It rested just below his collarbone, falling below the neckline of his shirt. He said it was perfect, but still you were trying to think of other things you could do for him.

“It’s not, but I swear I’ll find something better.”

He laughed before pulling you close again to fall into another dance as your music box continued to play.

Notes:

I'm gonna get to work outlining the next chapter and I'll try to be productive enough to have this next chapter out soon. I'm gonna see the story through to the end, so don't worry. I'm not gonna abandon it.

Chapter 67: Fireworks

Summary:

Axel feels insecure and decides to play hooky for the day with you. Demyx and Namine see one of Tomorrowland's innovations up close and personal. You and Axel get a little hot and heavy.

There's some smut in this chapter, and as always I've put some spaces, a warning, and bold text so you know what to look out for whether you're looking for it or avoiding it.

Notes:

I know I've been gone for far longer than normal. Everything has been hectic. My country has exploded into chaos. And nothing feels right. But I'm still here. Still writing. Please enjoy this extra long chapter for your extra long wait.

Eo watched as Nova paced frantically about her room in a huff. This was not worrisome behavior as Eo had watched her do this for a good few years any time she was mildly put off by something. And frankly he had become used to her relatively bratty behavior. She was upset about the fact that somehow you were still in her spotlight – a small thing Eo normally would have delighted in were it not for the fact that he knew you were sharing the spotlight with Atom, and he didn’t need any of that press pushing Atom ahead in the race for the spot of Commander simply because he’d become a fan favorite as opposed to Eo who was only able to work hard and hope for the best.

“She’s on another planet, so how is she still managing to make the front page?” Nova seethed, tossing the newspaper idly at the floor, coincidentally landing at Eo’s feet. He picked it up, scowling a bit himself at the look Atom was giving you, challenging and somewhat flirtatious. Though he could have been imagining that expression on him.

The picture was rather grainy seeing as how someone had snapped it as discretely as possible. There were other pictures of you on your little vacation – one of you with numerous shopping bags as you walked the town and another of you in a bathing suit lounging by the pool, completely unaware that you were even being watched, recorded, or having your picture taken.

Nova hissed something under her breath as she sat down at her vanity that sounded to Eo almost like a swear and maybe your name, but he wasn’t quite so sure. Nova was a brat who was easily worked up, but he doubted her capable of such rage towards any one person on such a level. She’d just get herself worked into a frenzy and likely cause a power outage sometime later that evening like she often did when working off her stress.

“You’re excused,” she said to Eo, not even turning to look at him, and flicking her wrist in a dismissive gesture as she peered at her reflection in the mirror with angry, narrowed eyes. Eo gave a curt nod of acknowledgement – not that Nova saw it and turned to leave the room.

He exited it, looking to his right where Axel stood near the door, where he’d been assigned to guard until Nova was ready to leave her room. He looked bored. Good. Then what Eo said next would send an appropriate amount of shock into his system.

“You can relax a bit. She’ll be in there for a while contemplating her next move,” Eo said, and Axel gave a little bored nod of acknowledgement. Eo made a show of unfurling the newspaper in his hands before letting out an incredulous chuckle.

“Your little friend just can’t seem to stay out of the spotlight,” he said as he gazed down at the picture of you and Atom with mock fondness, “She’s on an entirely different planet and she’s still frontpage news on this one.”

Eo held up the paper, making sure his thumb was on the page just so it pointed right at you and Atom as he held it out to Axel who looked mildly intrigued initially then a bit perturbed. Eo withheld a smile. Axel was relatively level-headed from what he’d gathered working with him these past few days, and it was hard to get under his skin regarding most things. He was cocky, sarcastic, and calculating to the point where no one quite new exactly what he was thinking at all times. He reminded Eo of himself more often than not. But when it came to you, Axel could be putty in his hands as you were the only thing Axel showed open unambiguous feelings for – at least that Eo could tell.

“Something wrong?” Eo said as Axel’s eyes never left the picture of you and Atom, never once trailing to either of the other pictures or to the words detailing your vacation which off-handedly mentioned sparks flying between you and Atom.

Axel didn’t answer, just looked up at Eo with a surprisingly calculated look on his face. Eo quietly regarded him, gauging his next response. When no obvious one came up, Eo took the lead.

“It’s her, isn’t it?” he asked, pointing a slender finger at your smiling face, “You’ve got a thing for her. I kind of suspected.”

“What’s it to you?” Axel asked, a cool edge to his voice. He was on the defensive. Eo just let a smooth smile spread over his features despite Axel’s reaction.

“Nothing. I just had a hunch you and she were something of an item. It may not be obvious to everyone. But I can see it every time either of you looks at each other.”

“Yeah, well, it’s private. We don’t want the news in our business, so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t go telling this to everyone who’ll listen.”

Axel’s words were as much a threat as a request. He was telling Eo not to blab as much as asking that he didn’t. But Eo wasn’t put off by it. Eo shrugged at him.

“I understand that. I don’t want the news to know everything about my love life either or the alternative choices I make in it. I was just trying to get your goat a little bit – bust your chops. Warn you a little as well.”

“Warn me?” Axel said, crossing his arms and leaning on the wall, his eyes skeptical and his tone sarcastic to say the least.

“Well Atom has always been a favorite among the women,” Eo said, looking back down at the picture of you and Atom dancing together for further emphasis. He could see Axel bristle at that, taking mild offense at the implication, so Eo backtracked his statement a little. “Not that ________ strikes me as the type of woman to have wandering eyes or desires. She’s a good girl. But it never hurts to remind her why she likes you so much, yes?”

“What do you mean?”

Eo tried not to let his delight at hooking Axel into the conversation show on his face as he straightened up.

“You know,” he said with a light twirling gesture of his hands, “Grand romantic gestures.”

“I assure you; I’ve done plenty of grand romantic gestures.”

“I know. But you wanna make sure it’s you she’s thinking of while it’s Atom she’s dancing with. All I’m saying is that it doesn’t hurt to remind her that you love her.”

“I gave her a gift recently. She is well aware of how I feel about her.”

Eo made a show of rolling his eyes.

“I don’t mean with gifts. Any idiot can give a woman a gift, and you should hope that that isn’t all it takes to win her over.”

Axel could feel himself grow warm all over. He wanted to take a quick walk to cool off. He did say Nova would be busy for a while. He could be back before she knew he was gone.

“Well this talk has been just exhilarating,” he said as he pushed himself from the wall, his voice laced with acid as he spoke, “But I frankly don’t remember asking you about my relationship. But, hey, if I want advice, you can rest easy knowing that I’ll ask for it.”

“That’s true,” Eo said as Axel moved to go past him, “You didn’t ask, and I don’t know anything about you or your relationship. But I know Atom. And he often doesn’t stop until he gets what he wants. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think he’d taken a recent interest in _________ lately.”

“What makes you so damn sure?” Axel asked as he turned his head to look at Eo, stopping next to him as he had been walking away.

Eo held up the paper again, pointing at Atom, his face seeming much too flirtatious for Axel’s liking. It made his blood boil and the air around him grow warm.

“Atom doesn’t dance. Ever. It’s beneath him, too feminine he says. And I don’t think I need to remind you of how Atom feels when it comes to his image and appearing manly.”

Axel’s eyes held on the image again, Atom’s face seeming even more smug and flirtatious as he looked at you and your bright and smiling face – a smile that Atom of all people had put there.

Axel shook the thought from his head. He didn’t want to think about that.

“I’m not worried,” he said as he continued his walk.

And he wasn’t worried.

He wasn’t.

Really.

But, hey, you know, it wouldn’t hurt to check up on you and see how you were doing and see all of the reasons he wasn’t at all worried.

And so he focused on the feeling of your heart, opened up a corridor, and stepped through to the other side finding you in your mirror, putting the finishing touches on your hair.

You jumped a little bit when you heard the corridor, not expecting Axel for another few hours – at least five or so as it was only about two in the afternoon. But he was always a welcome surprise.

“Axel!” you called as you turned to face him, already hugging him close, your heart thumping happily, “You’re here early. Did you get an extended break or something?”

“Well not exactly,” he said with a mischievous glint in his cat-like eyes and a feigned air of guilt about him.

“So you are supposed to be working. What gives? You got bored or something? I don’t think they’d like that all too much.”

Axel fixed you with a deadpan look of absolute not-giving-a-shit-ness.

“What are they gonna do? Fire me?”

You opened your mouth to say that, yes, that probably was what they were gonna do. But then you remembered. Axel didn’t actually work for them. He was just a stand-in for Atom, and from what he’d told you, his job was standing around and following Nova to various press conferences or meetings about plans moving forward, most of which she seemed as uninterested in as he was – especially the meetings. You closed your mouth, thought for a moment, then responded.

“Well, ya got me there. But what if something happens to the empress?”

“In a fortified palace on a private island crawling with guards and the military? Somehow I don’t even think she’ll notice I’m missing.” Which may not have been true given he was supposed to be her personal guard, but considering how many she had, Axel doubted he much mattered – especially since he was the only guard there with no formal training via their military.

“Well not that I’m disappointed, but what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to know if you’d be up for a date later.”

“With you? Always. What’s the occasion?”

“Can’t I just like you enough to want to go on a date? Damn. You know what?” Axel said, putting his hands up in a surrendering gesture, “This is too much. This relationship is over. I’m out.”

You couldn’t help but giggle a bit at his theatrics as he opened another corridor and walked through. It was as that one was closing that another opened behind you.

Axel picked you up from behind and spun you around, and you couldn’t help the peal of laughter that escaped you. You felt so light and happy and in love. You could hear Axel laughing too as he threw you on the bed. You landed with a soft grunt, still giggling to yourself as you stared up at the ceiling, conscious of Axel watching you.

It was as you were finally about to sit up, that you were suddenly unable to move. Axel had pinned you to that bed. The laughter died in your throat as new more heated emotions bubbled up to the surface, the carefree mood the two of you had only moments ago shifting into something more intimate.

You could feel your heartbeat pick up, thumping in anticipation, excitement, and pure affection, all of which you let flow from you to him, and you could feel it from him in return. And you just stared into each other’s eyes for a moment, letting the feeling between you ebb and flow from heart to heart, letting your unseen bond say more in that moment than you felt you could voice.

Then he kissed you. And you kissed back as heatedly, feeling all your passion practically boiling around you – so much so that you could almost feel your magic getting away from you.

You don’t know how long the two of you were on the bed kissing before there was a knock at the door. It ripped the emotional haze off your head like getting blanket pulled from your body on a cold morning, and you were aware that you were going to have to get up and get that.

You tried to pry yourself from Axel who either had not heard the knocking at the door and was therefore still stuck in the moment of passion, or he heard it and did not care.

“Axel,” you muttered against his lips, trying to break the kiss but finding that you were more hesitant to do so than originally thought. He just felt so good. And this moment felt so good. But the knocking persisted. “I have to get the door.”

Axel let out a disappointed groan and pulled you closer, muttering to let it go to voicemail. You found yourself giggling into the next kiss but remained firm in your stance – more or less considering your lips were still pressed to his.

“Axel,” you said in as much a warning tone as you could manage while still kissing back. He let out another disgruntled groan before letting you go, rolling off of you, and getting up from the bed. He began to walk towards the door before you stopped him.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting the door?” he said as he began to reach for the knob. You jumped up and stopped him.

“Axel, you’re not even supposed to be here. What if it’s Atom?”

Axel bristled a bit at the thought of Atom coming to visit you, but hid it from you. Plus you had a point. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He let out a defeated sigh then walked past you and flopped back on to the bed.

“Fine,” he relented, “Get the door, but we’re picking up where we left off when Atom or whoever it is leaves.”

You rolled your eyes, letting out a tiny giggle before repositioning yourself in front of the door. This hotel’s suite didn’t have two rooms like the one on the previous planet had, so you had to put yourself in such a position that you wouldn’t have to open the door very wide and let Atom or whoever get a view of Axel sprawled out on your bed.

As it turns out, it was Atom at the door. He was holding a tray with a small porcelain plate on it and a single little pill on it and a glass of water. You recognized the food as something that they had on the rockets you took from place to place – dehydrated food pills. You just add water, and it instantly pops into whatever meal it was before it was dehydrated. It made you smile. Not because Atom brought you lunch but because the other day while on the rocket that took you to this new world, you had seen Atom take a pill like a medication instead of rehydrating it into food.

You’d asked him if he always ate them like that, and had said, “What other way is there to take a pill?” And it dawned on you that Atom did not know he was supposed to rehydrate them. How he had not known this in the twenty-something years he’d been alive? You didn’t know. But you were too amused to correct him.

“________,” he began, and you turned your attention from the tray he was holding to him, “I just wanted to let you know that I was going to be busy today, so I won’t be able to spend time with you today like we thought. And I thought I’d bring you lunch when telling you.”

“Oh,” you said, trying to sound disappointed. You’d completely forgotten about your plans to explore the city with Atom since Axel had arrived, having been thoroughly distracted. “That’s too bad, but maybe next time. And thanks for the lunch. That’s really sweet of you.”

You took the tray from him, and Atom flushed a little at your praise, and a small silence fell between the two of you. It was fine at first. Then it was kind of awkward as he was just standing there smiling at you. And that wouldn’t be such a problem if you weren’t trying to get back to your boyfriend.

“Well…,” you prompted, letting one of your hands drop to the doorknob and taking a tiny step back so you could close the door.

Atom let a little awkward chuckle pass his lips, fumbling for words.

“Oh! Yes! Of course! I didn’t mean to keep you,” he said, stuttering just a bit. You fell into a tiny fit of giggles at his demeanor, and Atom also let out a little chuckle.

Axel let out a groan – loud and long and annoyed.

You stiffened at the door. He was supposed to be acting like he wasn’t there, so what the hell was that?! Atom tried to peer around you, but you eked the door shut another few inches so he could only partially see you.

“What was that?” he asked, still trying to see into the room.

“Oh it was the, uh, radiator. It’s a little loud, but, hey, you know, that just means it’s working, right?” you said with a high-pitched, somewhat nervous laugh. “Nothing to get jumpy about.”

“Of course,” he said, playing off his apparently unfounded concern, “We do have very fine radiators in this world. Well I suppose I’ll be seeing you around. If I finish my work early, I’ll drop by. Maybe we could get dinner again. If that’s alright with you.”

“Oh, well maybe,” you said, conscious that you had to turn him down without mentioning it was because you intended to be out and about with someone who was not even supposed to be here and was supposed to be guarding the ruler of the empire. “I might exhaust myself trying to explore everything. I’m warning you now that I might fall asleep sooner than later. I have to say that if you knock and I don’t answer, it’s because I may have already fallen asleep.”

“Well if that’s so, there’s always tomorrow.”

“Sure thing, Atom.”

“Well get some rest. Us heroes need to be ready for anything.”

This got another giggle out of you, and Axel let out another annoyed groan. Was he trying to get caught or did he just like playing with fire? Hm. Wrong choice of words for a pyromancer.

“Boy that radiator sure is working overtime,” Atom said with a light chuckle. You added your own nervous chuckle and started to back away from the door a bit more so you could close it.

“Yes it’s very efficient. Well I won’t keep you any longer, and I’ll let you get back to your work. Thanks again. I’ll see you around.”

“Take care,” he said, taking a few steps of his own backwards and walking away.

You closed the door fully and let out a long sigh of relief before turning back to Axel who was smirking at you and patting the bed where he wanted you to join him – as if twice he had not almost given himself away. You just rolled your eyes, placing the tray on the nightstand, conscious of Axel’s eyes following your every move intently.

“What’s your problem? Were you trying to give yourself away or what?”

“Pfft. Problem? What problem? I just hate his guts is all. What problem?”

You blinked at him, pure confusion written on your face.

“You don’t like Atom?...Why?”

“I don’t know. Feminism? Maybe? I just don’t like the way he usually treats you. Plus there’s the whole phony ‘noble hero’ thing.” Axel missed the tiny flinch that ran through your body at the mention of the hero complex being kind of phony.

“Well…,” you began, “I mean, he’s nowhere near as bad as he was when we first met him. He’s, ya know, coming around to the whole women being equals thing. And after that he’s kind of nice. Even the hero thing is pretty legit with him. You have to admit that it’s a tiny bit admirable.”

No, Axel did not find it admirable. It just agitated him more. Especially when he couldn’t get the image of you and him dancing out of his head. That was when he got a wonderful idea.

He sat up, bright and excited smile on his face.

“Wanna play hooky?”

You blinked. Hooky?

“Axel, I am literally on vacation. What would I be playing hooky from?” you said with a light laugh, getting a little sucked into Axel’s mischievous mood. He just playfully rolled his eyes and stood up from the bed.

“Don’t talk back to your elders,” he said as he opened up a corridor to who knows where, “Now put on your protective gear and follow me into this swirling vortex of darkness.”

You started giggling. You forgot Axel could be funny. Axel smirked, feeling smug, as you put on your armor and walked through the corridor. Looks like Atom wasn’t the only one who could make you laugh.

~

Demyx groggily blinked his eyes open. He was conscious of a weight on his chest and a separate small weight pressed over his stomach, and a heat pressed into his side. He slowly got his bearings. He realized that the small weight on his stomach was a book he’d fallen asleep reading last night when she and Namine were researching and attempting to uncover the conspiracy. The other weight on him and source of the heat he felt, he realized with no small amount of flustered excitement, was Namine, who had fallen asleep with her head on his chest.

He felt a blush cross his face while he reveled in this small moment, noting that it felt nice to lay like this with her, and he’d be content to do it more often if they had more nights like the previous one.

He heard a little snort and looked at the foot of the bed where Figment lay snoring to himself, sleeping on one of several books scattered about the bed. History books that held nothing regarding any of the information they’d been looking for. Another dead end. Just like Tom Morrow’s past and the artificial intelligence study.

Namine stirred slightly on his chest, blinking her eyes open to meet Demyx’s. She immediately opened them wide, a hot blush spreading on her face as she sat up abruptly, realizing that she had, in fact, spent the night cuddling him.

“Sorry!” she sputtered, looking away and smoothing down her hair.

“N-no, it’s cool,” Demyx said after, and a small, awkward silence followed. Namine traced a finger over a book next to her, sighing as she looked at it. It confirmed what you had said that most of the population of the world you were staying on was definitely decimated due to sickness. Though she had more questions about that.

Why were the people from Tomorrowland unaffected by the sickness when they visited these worlds? Or were they the carriers and hadn’t known? Though that opened up its own host of questions to be answered.

The other strange thing about these history books, while they confirmed the evidence of a plague sweeping over the land, was that that was the only piece of history confirmed by the books. There was nothing else.

Why is there no mention of all of the other cultures that were integrated into Tomorrowland? Wouldn’t they have wanted to preserve the histories of a people they accidentally destroyed – if for nothing else other than posterity?

“Something wrong?” Demyx asked once he noticed Namine’s defeated expression.

“I think this investigation has run its course. Lotta loose ends have been tied up. We keep hitting dead ends. I mean, it was pure luck that ________ told us what she did about the resort planets not having a history. There was no way we would’ve been able to find that out through research. We don’t even know what half of these thing have to do with each other. The only thing they have in common is that their histories just stop.”

Demyx felt rather disappointed. They were on to something big. Did she really want to just drop it? Just like that?

“Are you sure?”

“Well, yeah. We’ll be leaving whenever they fix the ship. And that’ll probably be any day now. And what are we going to really do about any of this?”

“Well I mean who knows what we’ll do about it?” Demyx answered with a shrug, leaning just a bit closer to her, a determined look in his eyes. “And don’t you think you owe it to Robot Butler? I mean, you drop a bomb on him that he has artificial intelligence, something he has lived possibly his whole life not knowing, and now he knows he’s not just some program but a person – an actual person. Don’t you think he deserves to know why he was given the ability to think for himself and not told about it? Now he knows and there’s nothing he can do about it.”

Namine shrugged. It was an excellent point. Almost irrefutable. But they had nothing left to go on – no clues to point them in the next direction.

“Even if that were enough to make me want to keep going, what would I do about it? I don’t know where to look next. And neither do you. Whatever they want to keep hidden, they made sure it would never come out.”

“I know. I just thought you liked the thought of doing something like this.”

“I do,” Namine said, musing briefly about her life, “My life is so much more different than how it started and how it was before I met you or ________. I was just waiting around to be recompleted, to just phase into someone else. And there was a time I was ready to accept that.”

“Well what’s different about it? Is it mostly the fact that you’re not just waiting around to die?”

“Kind of. I guess. I sort of have a purpose now.”

“You guess? ‘Sort of?’” Demyx almost looked offended, taking Namine by surprise – even more so when he leaned a bit more forward to say his next words. “You’re on the heels of a conspiracy that could very well change the course of millions of lives. That’s way more than just purpose. You’re making an active difference in the world. You’re as prodigious as they come!”

Namine’s face turned a deep shade of red.

“Th-that’s a five-dollar word,” she giggled/stuttered out, feeling a rush of butterflies flutter through her insides at a rapid pace.

“Ant there’s plenty more that describe you, but I’m broke,” Demyx said with a bright smile that only brightened further when Namine giggled at his little joke.

Figment, who had woken up about the same time Namine had and had been watching this whole exchange, got up from the bed to leave. He didn’t need to be around to watch another pair of kids fall for each other. Watching his niece do it was enough.

When he opened the door to leave he was greeted by Ludwig and Dreamfinder standing outside the door, Dreamfinder’s hand raised as he reached for the door to knock.

“Oh, Figment! Good afternoon! Oh my,” Dreamfinder said as he peered past him to Demyx and Namine who were sitting very close on the bed, their faces only a few inches from each other. When they noticed Dreamfinder and Ludwig at the door watching them, they jumped apart – Demyx practically leaping out of the bed.

“It’s not what it looks like!” Namine rushed out at the same time as Demyx said, “I swear I didn’t touch her!” It came out as a garbled rush that anyone barely understood.

“…Right…,” Ludwig said watching them, “Anyway I came to see if any of you wanted to accompany me on the way to see one of Tomorrowland’s many innovations. They say it’s supposed to be a real doozy.”

Figment nodded. He wanted to see this.

“Y-yeah, sure!” Namine said as she smoothed out her dress. She was still wearing her clothes from the day before, but she was pretty sure that since she and Demyx had been holed up in her room all day studying, no one would really notice.

“I’ll come too,” Demyx said, running a hand through his hair and avoiding eye contact with everyone. He didn’t much care about what the innovation was. He just thought he’d spend a little more time with Namine.

They exited the room, chatting about what they might do later that afternoon – lunch was high on the list of things to do. It was as they were walking through the palace, heading towards a limo waiting outside to take them to their next destination, that they saw the empress and Captain Eo walking by. She was fuming, her hands clenched tightly at her sides as she walked with a demeanor that seemed determined to bulldoze anything standing in her way.

“I don’t understand how you can lose a person!” she snapped, “How can you not know where he went?” she said, eyes glancing at him as they continued to look for whoever she was looking for.

Eo just shrugged, seeming completely unbothered by her anger – almost smug about it.

“What was that about?” Demyx muttered once they were sure Nova and Eo were out of earshot. Everyone shrugged.

"I don't know," Ludwig started as they exited the palace, “But I sure would hate to be the person she’s mad at.”

The ride to their destination was uneventful. As it turns out it was the military base they were headed to. They rode out past the buildings and to a large field. And they could see in that field was something large and metallic the color of pitch and the size of a house. It was shaped very much like a spade with several windows on the top where the control panel was and three large lights on the front that looked like empty glass while unlit.

They all strolled up to it, unsure of what this thing was supposed to do. It didn’t appear to be mobile as it had no wheels, sitting firmly on the ground and casting a large black shadow.

As they approached they notice several people at the base of the large apparatus, one of whom stepped forward as the small group approached.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” he said, hand outstretched to shake each of their hands as he made introductions, “My name is Dr. Braun.”

“Sir Master Doctor Professor Ludwig von Drake, Scientist at Large,” Ludwig introduced with a hearty shake of his hand.

“Yes, I am well aware of the great presence I am standing in,” Doctor Braun said with a light chuckle, “I’ve been eager to meet with you for the longest time, but my work has kept me from it. And it is a great honor that on the day of our meeting I show you one of our greatest inventions.”

“Yes… It’s quite something…. What is it?”

The doctor and several other assistants let out hearty chuckles. The doctor then gestured to the large structure with a grand sweep of his arm.

“This is… No. Forgive me. I was going to tell you all about it, but to truly understand it, one must experience it in all of its glory. Would you like to step inside?”

“Would I?” Ludwig said excitedly, rubbing his hands together and prepared to bound over to the machine where they noticed a lift that led to a doorway near the top of the mechanism.

“Ludwig, are you sure?” Dreamfinder hastily whispered, putting a hand on Ludwig’s shoulder.

“Yeah, you don’t even know what it does?” Demyx added while eyeing the strange thing up and down like he wasn’t sure entirely how to comprehend it.

“Listen, kid,” Ludwig said, leveling a look at Demyx, “In life you’ll find that you should always say ‘yes’ to opportunities to try new things. You don’t tell Walt Disney ‘no’ when he asks if you want to star as a ‘sorcerer’s apprentice’ in a musical movie anthology “as a way to jumpstart your career” and say, ‘No, I don’t want to star in no stupid career-killing music movie with no words, you idiot. It’ll never work. Nobody’s gonna see that. Especially not during the war. You’re a fool, Mr. Disney! A fool!’ But how was I supposed to know he was gonna give him a keyblade and make him the king?! Sure, why not! What haven’t they given that mouse?! Why doesn’t he just take everything? Take my house! Is that what you want?! Well you know what?! It coulda been me wearing the hat! Me! Me the face of the Walt Disney Corporation!” Ludwig continued to yell, foaming lightly at the mouth.

“…What?”

“Luddy, are you okay?” Dreamfinder interjected.

“Don’t worry about it! The point is, life has chosen me to suckle from her great bosom of opportunity, and I must answer her call.”

With that he spun on his heel and followed Dr. Braun over to the machine. With Namine shrugging at the puzzled look Demyx gave her. She didn’t know anymore of what Ludwig was talking about than he did.

“Is… is he gonna be okay?” Demyx asked turning to Dreamfinder.

“He, um, has suffered in a life of obscurity, and is trying to compensate now that we’re somewhere where all at once he is finally getting recognition for his accomplishments, he’s trying to take it all in as much as he can. He was pushed into the background on his home world, and he was completely obscured on Spaceship Earth. He’s going through a lot right now. And the only person who has always looked up to him for everything and appreciated him was _________. And now she’s head over heels and running off to be with some bad boy in a trench coat.”

Namine snickered.

“You think Axel’s a ‘bad boy?’”

“I’m sorry. Was he not a part of an evil organization that stole hundreds if not thousands if not millions of hearts? Or has his recent tameness caused you to forget that he, and someone else in present company, were working for a terrorist organization that was going to kill my niece.”

“Well he didn’t. He did the exact opposite. And Demyx is changed for the better, I think. He’s sweet.”

Demyx felt a light blush start to creep over his features before changing the subject.

“What do you think it does?” Demyx said, gesturing to the machine and looking as Ludwig and Dr. Braun lifted up to the entrance. Namine and Dreamfinder just shrugged at him, as clueless about it as he was.

“Oh you’ll see soon enough,” one of the assistants said with no small amount of giddiness in his voice. He, as well as the rest of the assistants, had broad smiles across their faces. Namine returned the smile politely.

Ludwig hopped into the doorway and approached one of the front windows, looking down at Namine, Demyx, Dreamfinder, and Figment. He waved to them, and they waved back, barely able to see his tiny form in the windows. Likewise they also appeared to be much smaller from where he was.

“Now, Great Professor, press this button to turn it on,” Dr Braun instructed, pointing to a large blue button that glowed faintly. Ludwig did as he was told, and the dash of the machine lit up. A gust of air released from the outside of the machine making a deep, rumbling noise that sounded like a monstrous groan as if it were a beast that were slumbering and was rudely awakened. Demyx and Namine each took a step back with Figment darting behind Dreamfinder suddenly in a frightened fit. Even Dreamfinder flinched at such an unnerving noise. They certainly hadn’t expected that!

“Now pull this lever to really get things going,” Dr. Braun said, feeling giddy. It was just like a decade ago when he last had used such a device.

Ludwig pulled the lever, and the machine began to lift from where it rested. As it rose, another deep rumble emitted from the machine, a deep sound akin to what you’d hear in a sci-fi film straight out of your nightmares. It rose slowly all the while making this deep unsettling noise until it stood taller than most skyscrapers, peering down at them, blocking out the sun on three, spindly metallic legs that glinted a dull silver. Small slivers of tentacle-like tendrils dropped from the head of the machine where they writhed idly.

That was when Namine realized that this was a tripod. One of the devices used to visit other worlds. This was the actual size of that tiny, adorable replica Namine had seen in the museum. Only this one was not tiny or adorable. It was… intimidating, almost surreally scary. The spotlights on the tripod turned on, shining down on the people below looking very much like eyes peering down at them.

“This is the first thing anyone sees on the other worlds?” Namine said, voice wavering slightly. Demyx had gone a little pale in the face. He’d already thought they were creepy, but seeing it in person was infinitely worse.

“This is how they spread their cultures?” Namine continued, truly unsure what to say that wouldn’t be offensive to the scientists nearby as all she could think of was how horrifying it must be to see it land on your world.

Then it began to speak in a deep, metallic voice so loud and disturbing that Namine jumped and instinctively grabbed Demyx’s hand. Figment was outright being held by Dreamfinder at this point who seemed to need the comfort just as much as Figment did.

“Greetings, inhabitants,” it thundered, “We mean you no harm. We are beings from another world here to learn of your people and share of our own. Other ships such as this one have simultaneously contacted your other major cities. May our time together be one of prosperity. We mean you no harm.”

“Geez,” Demyx said, not the least bit comforted by the tripods words, “Why not just say, ‘Take us to your leaders?’”

“Well,” Dreamfinder began in an attempt to lighten the mood, trying to write off just how unnatural everything felt, “At least they say that they mean no harm.”

“Which is why,” one of the assistants interjected, “We intercept television signals to broadcast that message to everyone who can watch. We need to be sure that everyone knows that we mean no harm to them.”

They all nodded absent-mindedly. This was no comfort.

Meanwhile in the tripod, Ludwig was having a field day. Such an invention truly was unique in its own design, and he wanted to press all the buttons to see what other uses it had. So he picked one at random.

He had slapped his hand over a flashing yellow button, and the tendrils wriggling from the bottom of the tripod finally stopped wriggling, instead lifting and pointing the ends of themselves down at the ground, bright points of light growing on them and the clear sound of something charging up.

It didn’t take a genius to know that it had to have been some sort of weapon.

“I see you’ve found our defense system,” Dr. Braun said, not sounding the least bit worried that Ludwig had turned on a weapon. “You’ve charged them, however, you would need to press a second button to fire. For quicker yet less effective attacks we have a separate set of controls.”

Dr. Braun pressed another button, this one a dull purple color, and the lasers charged down, the tendrils returning to their idle whipping states, flicking like cat tails.

“I’m a bit confused,” Namine said as she relaxed minutely, glad they were not about to give a demonstration on the tripod’s combat features, “Why would you need weapons if you come in peace?”

“Well, unfortunately,” one of the scientists answered, “Not everyone we come across is yet aware that we come in peace. Some efforts of first contact are met with force before we have a chance to explain our motives.”

Namine nodded her head. Her mind was swimming. That was a perfectly reasonable explanation, but everything about it still made her feel as if something were terribly off.

“But, of course,” he continued, “We prefer compliance. We would like to avoid conflict if possible. No need to make things messy when trying to make friends.”

Namine nodded again, telling herself that these were reasonable people, and that this tripod was nothing more than the current best way to make first contact with another world and that the weapons were definitely used for defense only… and not for attacking people who preferred not to show compliance.

What if they didn’t show it? What if the whole world didn’t? What if you needed to get rid of the ones who didn’t show compliance?

Her mind flitted back to the resort worlds, thinking of how ________ had described them as barren wastelands with none of the original population to speak of.

Then she shook her head again, remembering that the people of the resort worlds had died of disease, a plague that had swept the worlds. That could happen. It could happen to any world. Even several… right? Though she told herself this, her mind started working overtime again, taking a new train of thought.

It would have taken a while for an entire planet to die off from disease provided people took the proper precautions to prevent the spread. Why wasn’t an effort made to provide a cure for the world added to the empire? And why did they keep bringing in planets when they noticed that they were carrying diseases with them? She could understand if they had done it once without knowing they’d done it and perhaps had accidentally repeated the mistake. But after that, someone would have known…. How does more than half of an empire die of disease and no one stops it?

“You seem tense.”

Namine jumped, thoroughly broken from her train of thought to see another one of the scientists standing in front of her.

“Sorry,” she said, weakly, “I’m just a little… overwhelmed is all.”

“Ah, yes, I understand. Something like this can be a bit intimidating. But not to worry, it has it’s fun features as well.” The scientist brought out a walkie-talkie and spoke into it, “Why not show our guests our little party feature?”

“Excellent idea,” Dr. Braun replied from where he was in the ship before pressing another one of the many buttons on the dash.

And another rumbling noise sounded before several fireworks shot from the top of the tripod, lightly coloring the sky with reds and blues.

“Well,” Demyx said, voice dry and still unsure, “I’m sure that calms the people down.”

~

“Okay, Axel,” you say as you step through to the other side of the corridor, “What’s on the agenda for ‘hooky’ day? A walk in the park? Getting some lunch? Cuz I didn’t eat the lunch that Atom brought me.” You looked around and saw that you were outside the hotel, a little way from where it was – just down the road.

Axel scoffed with a roll of his eyes.

“Look if some rando who is not your boyfriend is going to take you out dancing, I’m not gonna settle for a walk and a meal.”

“Dancing? How’d you know about that?”

“People talk,” Axel answered with a shrug, trying not to seem all that bothered. But Eo’s somewhat smug face had popped into his head and how he had mentioned that Atom didn’t dance. But for you he would. You took a long, hard look at his face, reading him like he so often tried to do with you. Axel saw this and quickly put on a casual look. You squinted your eyes at him before realization hit you. You let out a little giggle.

“Axel,” you trilled, voice full of giddiness and light disbelief, “Are you jealous?”

Axel didn’t answer but looked away with a tiny frown and blush on his face.

“Don’t be,” you reassured him, taking him by the hand and lacing your fingers together, “We were hardly even dancing with each other. It was more like dancing next to each other.”

“I know,” Axel muttered. He knew you weren’t the type to do anything flirty with other men. But Atom didn’t know the two of you were dating, and he didn’t like that Atom saw you as a potential significant other.

“So if not lunch and a walk, what are we doing?”

Axel’s smirk returned to his face as he gave you another mischievous glance.

“I was just wondering if you were up for breaking a few rules.”

You snorted.

“You? Breaking rules? You’re almost as strict as my mother.”

“Wow. Okay. Rude. First of all, I’ve told you before that I used to sneak into the castle back in Hollow Bastion all the time. Second of all, when I lived there, it was me who was the one with a wild streak in my peer group.”

“Really? I don’t know…. I just can’t see it. You’ve played the role of my guardian angel for too long. Like I can see you as suave and cocky and kinda sexy and definitely the cool guy everyone wants to hang out with, but not as someone who makes trouble. I could definitely see you as someone who’s good at getting out of trouble, but not someone who makes it.”

“Kinda sexy?” he asked with a quirk of his eyebrow.

“Well… yeah. I think you’re sexy.”

“Damn straight.”

“You’re just not adventurous.”

“…Doubt all you want, but by the end of the day, you’ll know what real fun,” he said as he took another step closer to you, peering down at you with a predatory look in his eye and a flirtatious edge to his voice. It made you shudder just a bit as a thrill ran up your spine. Axel noticed and smirked at your vulnerability – something that annoyed you as much as flustered you.

Axel peered around at the surrounding area for something to do when he spotted a car lot in the distance. You could rent cars, hovercars, hovercycles, and flying saucers. Perfect.

“This way,” he said, gesturing for you to follow him. The two of you walked in mostly silence, with you asking twice what the two of you were going to do that was going to teach you the real meaning of fun, but he only answered with a smirk and a wink. When you realized you wouldn’t be getting an answer any time soon, you just rolled your eyes and huffed, following him silently.

When he led you onto the car lot, it only raised more questions in your mind. Was he going to take you for a drive around town?

“Wait here,” he instructed once the two of you had reached the office building of the lot. You waited patiently while you watched through the large glass windows as he strolled inside and spoke to a woman behind a desk, flashing a badge on his chest at her. You’d almost forgotten he was in his guard uniform. Though you don’t know why he would have drawn attention to it. He was only a guard honorarily and that was only to the empress. And he wasn’t even doing that job right now, blowing it off to have “fun” with you.

The woman behind the desk scurried off briefly then returned with someone else, a portly man in a suit who was dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief. Axel gestured outside to where you were waiting, and both the man and woman seemed to jump at your presence there.

All three of them walked outside with Axel bringing up the rear with a serious expression on his face. He almost looked kind of like an actual guard with how his outfit and demeanor currently screamed, “all business.”

The man and woman approached you, large smiles on their faces.

“You are the great keyblade wielder the royal guard speaks of,” the man said, eagerly grabbing your hand and vigorously shaking it. You were caught off guard but returned the gesture, “Can I just say what an honor it is to know that you and the empress’s royal guard will be using my humble vehicles to carry out official business.”

You blinked at them before glancing behind them at Axel who sent you a discreet wink. You felt your heartrate pick up before returning your attention back to the man and woman in front of you.

“Oh, yes, of course, and let me say how appreciative we are of your services,” you said, putting on your best performing smile, all pearly teeth and glittering eyes.

“I just wanted to shake your hand before we let you have one of our best flying saucers. You’ll be able to patrol the entire city in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. And please let us know if there’s any other way we can be of service. Minerva,” he said looking to the woman next to him, “Be a lamb and go get the key.”

“Yes, sir,” she said and scurried off.

She returned only a minute later with you and the owner of the car lot making idle conversation, Axel remaining, for the most part, stoic and maintaining his façade as a serious guard on business. The two of you were escorted to the flying saucer, and with a quick goodbye, the two of you were climbing into it.

Once the dome of the ship had securely closed around the two of you and the two of you were alone, you turned to Axel, a look of mild awe crossing your features. You couldn’t believe how easy it was for the two of you to get away with that any more than you could believe that it was Axel of all people who had instigated the little stunt. Safe and responsible Axel had helped the two of you more or less steal a flying saucer.

“Okay,” you said finally, ignoring his cocky smirk, “I’ll admit that I’m a little impressed. I didn’t know this would be on the list of fun things to do with Axel today. But do you even know how to fly one of these things?”

“Yeah,” he said, starting it up, “The guards gave me a crash course on it that first day you and Atom left for your mini-vacation. It’s pretty easy.”

The saucer began to hover, and Axel steered it up and out of the lot, flying over the city. You looked below, marveling at the fact that you were in a sort-of-stolen vehicle.

“But I already know how to fly this. The important thing is that you learn how to fly it.”

“Me? Fly this thing?”

“Well, yeah,” he said with a light shrug as he guided the steering wheel, “I already know how to do this. It’s really simple, and it practically flies itself. Now come here.”

The flying saucer was a bit roomy. You had room to stretch your legs in front of you, but standing wasn’t an option. This meant you had to scoot over to where Axel was. But he didn’t get up from his seat, merely remaining planted where he was.

“Um,” you prompted, gesturing to where he was. He just smirked and patted his lap. You felt a tiny thrill run through you at his flirty nature, biting your lip and sliding into his lap, letting your back firmly rest against him and getting very comfortable almost immediately. It made Axel chuckle a little as he wrapped one of his arms around your waist to press you more firmly to him.

Then he used his other hand to guide your hands to the steering wheel where his had been. Then he leaned forward a bit and began muttering the instructions in your ear – instructions you constantly had to ask him to repeat because he was proving to be a very big distraction to you. But you eventually managed to get the hang of things, learning how to accelerate, break, and change gears as needed. Axel was right. It really did drive itself in its simplicity.

“Okay, let’s head back to the lot,” he said finally, and you let out a little, “aww,” of protest. But Axel just chuckled and reassured you that your day of fun wasn’t over yet. You successfully steered the saucer back to the lot, getting another quick lesson in from Axel on how to land it. Once it was firmly on the ground you let out a little huff. You had never flown a vehicle besides your glider before and while not as exhilarating as having the wind in your face, it was still fun.

“Wait here,” Axel said as he hopped out of the saucer and went back into the dealership office building. You waited in the seat, missing the constant warmth he radiated when you realized a few minutes later that Axel had left the keys in the saucer. He couldn’t very well return it without giving them the keys. But then he was back the next moment with another set of keys in his hand.

You blinked at him.

“They gave you another set of keys?” you asked, “Because we still have the originals, so they didn’t need to give you a spare.”

“No. These keys are for another saucer entirely.”

“Oh. Why? What was wrong with this one?”

“Nothing. But how are we gonna race if we only have one flying saucer?”

Your mouth dropped open, and Axel was reveling in how smug he felt. He bet Atom never took you racing. You snapped your mouth shut before opening it again to say something and closing it again, at a loss for words.

“I know,” Axel said smoothly, “You’re shocked. You don’t know what to say. Well you don’t have to say anything right now. You can just think about what you’re gonna say when I beat you in this race.” Then he casually sauntered over to another saucer identical to yours, and hopped in. It was about then that you finally snapped out of your shock, a devilish grin spreading across your face.

“I’ll beat your ass three ways to Sunday,” you challenged, and Axel just smirked from where he was seated in his own saucer.

“Sure thing, doll. Just try not to cry when you realize the teacher will best the student. Again.”

“Are you still on that? That was days ago! You can’t keep riding that train.”

“I’ll keep riding it until the day you beat me,” he said, closing the dome of the saucer and starting it up. You did the same, determined to knock some of that cockiness out of him. He called you on your gummi phone and you picked up, already with a quip in mind.

“Already rethinking those words and ready to admit defeat early?” you jabbed, looking over to him where he hovered not to far from you. He laughed, and it made you smile and your heart flutter just a bit.

“Not a chance. I was actually telling you where we’re racing. I was thinking three laps around the city. It’ll give us some time to enjoy the view. Especially since the only other thing you’ll see is me leaving you behind.”

“Fuck you. Now it’s about respect. You are definitely losing. Lead me to the starting point, so I can teach you a lesson in humility.” You hung up the phone but saw Axel laughing in his own ship, and your heart fluttered just as much as if you could actually hear him. You had it bad.

The two of you flew at a moderate speed over to the edge of the city where its wall stood. It was a decent track as it meant the two of you would have a good idea of where you would be going.

Your phone chimed, and you looked down at it.

Axel: We’ll follow the curve of the outside of the wall. That way nobody (you) cheats to get ahead and cuts any corners. We go on the third honk.

***: This win is gonna be satisfying.

You put your phone down and watched Axel as he prepared to blow the horn of the saucer. He blew it once, and you both revved your engines. The second time had you both hunched over your steering wheels. And the third time the two of you took off in a blur. The city looked vastly different as it raced by you in a distortion of colors on one side. On the other side it was all red-brown and flat. You’d almost never know you were moving from just being able to see it with your peripheral vision.

The two of you zipped around each other, losing speed on turns, practically turning sideways with how sharp some of them were. Though Axel did take a moment to show off and fly upside down next you and wave. It made you laugh. You’d never done something like this before, and needless to say you were more than elated to share this first-time experience with Axel.

But your joy was short-lived.

Because he won.

And now you were pouting. The two of you exited your flying saucers, standing next to them where they rested at the top of the wall. Axel’s smile was broad and smug, and you had every urge to wipe it off of his face.

He was lucky he was so cute.

He just stood next to you, smiling that cocky-ass smile. And the two of you were quiet for a minute, daring the other to say anything about the outcome of the race. You broke first.

“I swear, Axel, if you say this had anything to do with your skills as –”

“Skills? Who said skills? I didn’t say anything about skill. But, hey, if you’d like to acknowledge my skills, I sure won’t stop you.”

“Oh shut up!” you said, feigning irritation when in actuality the smile Axel put there had not once left your face.

“Whoa hey. Calm down with all that bitterness. Don’t be a sore loser.”

“You’re being a sore winner! You’re just lucky I think you’re cute.”

“Well if being cute is what’s allowing me the gift of your mercy, I can be so much more than cute for you, ________,” he said this last part while putting a hand on the small of your back and pulling you just a bit closer.

“A-are you doing that on purpose?” you asked, heart racing. And you were half sure he knew it was with or without your special connection.

“I have no idea what you mean,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. His expression said otherwise. He knew exactly what he was doing.

“I’m asking if you’re trying to seduce me.”

Axel seemed taken slightly aback at your boldness, but he recovered quickly.

“Maybe. But I’ll do a better job of it later. I promise. For now let’s return these ships and keep having fun.”

“Okay,” you said with a light waver to your voice, trying to ignore his promise and all the hormones it was stirring up, “What are we gonna do next?”

“You’ll see when we get there.”

~

“Your room?” you questioned as you stepped through the corridor, “I thought you weren’t trying to seduce me?”

Axel laughed lightly.

“I actually just brought us here to get changed. The guard thing might have gotten us a couple of joyrides on some flying saucers on another planet, but it’ll draw too much attention here. Don’t forget. I’m playing hooky, and that only works if I don’t get caught. Plus don’t you think it’ll be a little odd when they see a guard and the keyblade wielder who’s supposed to be vacationing on another world?”

“You got me there. Okay, so get changed,” you said with a wave of your hand as you flopped down onto his bed to watch a little T.V. while he changed. Nothing much new on the news. Well not entirely. You saw the little fluff piece on you and Atom and could see why Axel might have been so riled up. But since you wouldn’t even see him today, you were pretty sure the story would die out pretty quickly since there would be nothing else to perpetuate it.

Axel stepped back into the room from his bathroom about five minutes later. He, as always, was cute even when just wearing a simple t-shirt and pants. Though you had to comment on his shirt. It was a Ludwig von Drake shirt with his face plastered on the front with a speech bubble that said, “E=mc^FUN!”

“Seriously?” you said pointing to the shirt. He just gave you a lopsided grin.

“What? I’m wearing it ironically.”

“Right. You would be the guy that thinks wearing things ironically is cool.”

“No, I’m the guy that makes wearing things ironically cool. You guys have no sense of fashion.”

“Guys?”

“Yeah, Demyx mentioned it too when I bought it. Like it’s my fault you all don’t know what looks good and what doesn’t.”

“Pfft. Please.”

Axel just shrugged, walking over to a dresser in the corner of the room and pulling out a little hair tie. Then he pulled his hair back into a low ponytail. It was… different. But.. cute.

“Huh,” you mused.

“What? Does it look bad? I only did it because my hair is kind of eye-catching.”

“No, no. It looks nice. It’s just different. I’m just used to you letting it all hang out I guess.”

“Well I guess my hair is kind of a signature thing about me. I’ve always kinda had it like this. But it’s a little too recognizable.”

“Well I do agree. You are eye-catching,” you said with a flirty wink.

“I get the insinuation, but I’m tryna keep a low profile.”

“Well you do have a nice profile.”

“Are you gonna be doing this all day?”

“You gonna be lookin’ like a snack all day?”

“You got three more, and then I have to stop you with the comebacks.”

“You got three… shit. I don’t have anything for that one.”

“I’ll give you the privilege of letting you try again later.”

“…Well anyway where are we going to have fun next since you seem to have this all figured out.”

“Ha! I am literally making this up as I go. I thought of this right before I beat you in that race.”

“Oh ha ha. Let it go.”

“Mmm… No.”

Axel opened up another corridor, and you stepped through it, armor flashing on and off once you stepped through to the other side. You were back at the World’s Fair.

“More rides?”

“Sort of. I was thinking a more immersive experience honestly.”

“Immersive?”

“You ever snuck around in a ride before?”

Your eyes widened. Such a thought had never even occurred to you. It wasn’t like you thought that every ride that said to remain seated was a death trap if you got off of it, but it wasn’t like you were one to ponder going against that rule either.

You shook your head at Axel’s words.

“Is it fun?” you asked.

“It can be.”

“Okay! Let’s try it!”

“Good. We’ll need to be stealthy though. We don’t exactly blend in with any of the rides around here, so it would be really easy to get caught.”

“Because everything looks so silver/space age-y?”

“Yeah.”

“I can fix that. I think?”

“Uh, what?”

“A while back Riku taught me a magic that would allow me to change appearances to better blend in with the dominant species of the world we were in. That might work here.”

“Is it safe?”

You pouted.

“Now you want to play it safe? After we stole flying saucers?”

“No, no! I’m still Fun Axel. It’s just… I’ve never once used magic to alter my physical being. You can understand my hesitation.”

“Relax. I tried it on myself and turned back to normal when I was done. It’s easy and painless.”

Axel took a deep breath and let out a long sigh.

“Fine. Let’s try it.”

“Great!” you said, guiding Axel behind some booths so you would be out of sight and summoning your keyblade. You closed your eyes and concentrated, letting the magic surround and flow through you until in a quick flash the two of you had changed in appearance.

You still looked like a person which wasn’t exactly what you were going for. It was a jumpsuit with a transparent poodle skirt attached at the hips and a pair of boots. Your hair was up in two large pigtails that trailed to your hips and tied off at two large bows that matched the color of your jumpsuit.

Axel on the other hand was a robot now – silver and red with no trace of his clothes but rather a body designed to look like he was wearing them. Not that it mattered. He was smoothed out down below anyway. In fact, the only thing that remained that seemed organic was his hair, but upon closer inspection you saw that even that was synthetic.

“Pretty neat, huh?” you said, still proud of yourself even if only one of you turned out to be a robot. Axel was looking down at his crotch with a light frown on his face.

“There are a few things I’m not a fan of.”

You let a devilish grin cross your features.

“Is there a difference down there now? I couldn’t tell.”

“Okay, wow, way to be a bitch about it.”

“Oh relax. You know I’m just kidding.”

“Well it’s easy for you to kid. You get to keep all of your parts. And why are you human anyway? Why am I the only one smooth over here?”

“Well I don’t actually get to control the way we look. I don’t make the rules, just the magic. And, uh, it looks like you won’t be making any magic anytime soon.”

You could barely contain your own laughter when making your joke, and Axel just lightheartedly rolled his eyes before responding.

“I hate you.”

“Pfft. You think I’m cute. Let’s go. Those rides won’t explore themselves.”

The first ride the two of you thought to approach was the one called, “It’s A Small World.” You remembered riding it and Axel falling asleep on it briefly. It was slow enough that getting back on the ride wouldn’t be a problem, and the sets were close enough that the two of you wouldn’t have trouble getting through the backstage areas. But it was as you were approaching that you noticed a sign that stated, “No Robots.”

You blinked. You didn’t remember such a sign before. Though perhaps that was because last time you were being bombarded by people who wanted pictures and autographs. You hardly had time to focus on anything – let alone a sign that didn’t even pertain to you.

“I guess I’ll have to change you back until we’re on the ride,” you said a little disappointedly.

“Why do you sound so down about it?”

“Well it’s just… I like Robot Axel. He’s much easier to annoy,” you snickered.

“Shut up and change me back.”

“But you’re so much tamer now that you’re castrated.”

“I will fuck you up!”

“With what?”

“Change me back!”

“Fine! Don’t blow a fuse, Axel.”

You couldn’t resist that last pun at his expense, and he seemed to be taking it well. So you both retreated behind another booth, and you changed him back. Then he promptly picked you up and threw you over his shoulder, running around you with you and screaming while you laughed hysterically. A few people laughed at your antics; others rolled their eyes at the noise the two of you were keeping up, but you were a little too caught up to notice either of these things.

Then Axel offered you a deal.

“I’ll put you down if you apologize.”

“Ha! I’m not gonna negotiate with some guy who wears an edge lord trench coat that makes him look like a dork.”

Axel stopped.

“Dork?! My coat doesn’t make me look like a dork! And plenty of people wear it! Mickey Mouse wears it!”

“That’s your argument for why it’s not dorky?” you laughed, falling into a trill of giggles.

“Yes, it’s my argument! Isn’t he one of your uncles or something?”

Your laughter quieted.

“What? Because he’s a toon? That’s racist, Axel. I’d rather date a dork than a racist.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Maybe. But you love it.”

“I don’t like this dynamic shift. Why are you the one with all the quips now?”

You shrugged.

“I don’t know. Been hanging out with you. You’re not so intimidating now that you’re my boytoy,” you said with a laugh.

Axel put you down, and you had another laugh at his expense while he rolled his eyes, smiling softly at the sound of your laughter.

The two of you returned to the line for It’s A Small World, chattering about nothing in particular when you were approached by someone mentioning you looked a lot like the famous keyblade wielder. Axel damn near panicked, having forgotten what a recognizable face you now were. But you brushed off their assumption, mentioning that it was something you got a lot of, and how sometimes it was neat, but mostly it was just annoying.

The two of you hopped on a boat for the ride, noting that despite the line, it was a rather empty day at the fair. There wasn’t anyone behind you in the line. And you both took this as a good sign as it meant no one would see the two of you hop off of your boat.

You promptly changed Axel back into a robot after the two of you were out of sight of the people operating the ride. And that was where your fun started. You both hopped off of the boat and onto one of the stages, getting towards the back of the first scene the ride presented.

And that was when you noticed a lot of the animatronics looking at you. You were surprised. They weren’t animatronics but more robots like the ones you’d seen all over Tomorrowland. You waved at them with a shy smile, and they smiled and waved back.

“So what’s first?” you asked. Axel just smiled and led you through.

The first stop was a place called Germany during something called Oktoberfest. And your first antic was posing like a couple of drunks passed out on one of the platforms. You and Axel would also stumble around, slurring the words and drunkenly dancing while holding one of the many prop mugs of beer around the set. A few boats’ riders came by and saw this, absolute shock written on their faces as you and Axel acted like complete drunks, even getting into a mock drunken brawl.

It took everything within the two of you and several of the robots around you not to burst into laughter. You could even hear little hints of laughter in their voices as they sang their song on loop.

Once the boat of people currently passing had gone, you and Axel darted off to another area of the ride. This time Spain, and you had to admit that it was your favorite as Axel took the lead and twirled you around the exhibit to the fast beat of the music.

Next was France where the two of you posed on top of a structure built to look like a grand church with Axel lifting you up and looking as if he was prepared to drop you over the edge, with mock fear and worry written all over your face.

You could have sworn you saw a mother cover her child’s eyes at that one. Something that made you want to die of laughter on the spot. You were both contemplating what to do in the next area when one of the robots flagged you down.

“This has been fun, but you should know that some maintenance people are on their way to see what some of the riders are mentioning about the ride. They might be looking for you,” a tiny little robot girl in a fancy, multi-layered skirt said, hiding her face behind a gilded fan.

“Oh, okay,” you said, motioning to Axel that it was time to go. “Thanks for playing along.”

“We didn’t mind. It’s a nice break from all of the monotony,” she said with a wink.

The two of you waited for the next boat with no people on it and hopped on, with you removing your magic from Axel so he looked like his normal self again.

When you both hopped off of the ride, you were asked by some of the people operating the ride if you’d noticed anything strange or odd about it. And the two of you shook your heads, asking what they meant and playing the part of two innocent bystanders. They told you not to worry about it and sent you on your merry way.

It took everything within you and Axel not to laugh until the two of you were definitely out of earshot of the people who had asked you questions.

“Okay, where next?” Axel asked, looking around the fair. You tugged on his shirt and pointed to Spaceship Earth. It was a relatively slow ride that the two of you could run around.

Once on it you did much of the same routine as you had on the last ride. Only this time around instead of using the environment to stage your antics, you improvised, and like last time, the robots were only too happy to oblige. You staged an angry mob of robots which included Axel chasing after you, a cheerleader’s pyramid with you posing on top, and a kick line as a grand finale in another scene, all the while the robots recited their lines about the history of the world as if nothing were wrong or different. And, like last time, you and Axel snuck off on the next empty cart and acted like nothing was wrong.

Next was the “Carousel of Progress.” This one would be almost too easy. It was so slow moving it was stationary. Or rather for several minutes at a time the rotating stage was stationary as the characters on the stage spoke about the current decade of history in which they were from before the scene would need to change and the stages would rotate between one set and the next. It would give you and Axel ample time to move around the back and look around at the different things. And as it turned out, this ride was one of the less popular and there was next to no one getting on it.

There was only you, Axel, and one other couple with their hands tightly clasped and giggles bubbling between them. You already knew that they wouldn’t be paying attention to anything around them. And you were proven right. As soon as all four of you were in the ride, the two hopped in a middle row of the audience seating area and began kissing like no one was watching.

“Is that what we look like?” you muttered, leaning over to Axel before letting your magic once again change his appearance.

“Nah, you are way hotter,” he muttered back, and you couldn’t stifle a giggle, “Let’s go.”

You followed Axel up to the stage. It was almost laughable how easily you were going to get away with this. You weren’t even trying to hide your movements. The only other people there were so absorbed in themselves, they didn’t even notice.

“Don’t mind us,” you said as you hopped up on the stage after Axel, “Just looking around.”

The robot, currently the only one on stage aside from an animatronic dog, blinked in surprise but then shrugged. He was dressed in slacks, a button-up shirt, and sweater vest and sat in an armchair with a pipe in his hand. He briefly reminded you of S.I.R. who liked to smoke and brushed you off when you called attention to the fact that he had no lungs. He just liked to do it for show.

“I was going to give an introduction to our little show, but it hardly seems what’s left of the audience is interested,” the robot man said as he looked at the two teenagers in their seats, still unaware of anything – much less the robot who had called attention to them specifically.

You giggled, taking a seat next to the dog, and petting it behind its ears. It wasn’t real, but you could pretend. You loved dogs. They were just so great. Like the greatest. Gosh dogs are great.

“So how’s life on the stage been treating ya?” you asked, looking behind you as Axel ambled around to look at various props on the stage.

“Can’t complain. Can’t complain,” he said with a slow nod, “You should ask some of my other iterations though – the ones that look like me yet less handsome.”

You laughed a bit. That was such a dad joke to make.

“They’ve got problems here?”

“Eh. This isn’t the most entertaining job to have. But it won’t last forever. But you should head over to that back corner of that stage. The scene is about to change. We wouldn’t want you getting stuck in the scene until it rolls back around to the front.”

You wanted to ask follow up questions, but he had a point. There might be more people in the next grouping to enter the ride, and you weren’t trying to get caught. You stood up and motioned for Axel to follow you. You found out what the robot meant about the other robots looking like him. The next scene was of the previous robot but now with a wife and two children – one boy and one girl. You chatted them up a bit just as you had with the last robot, and the next few scenes were much of the same with you and Axel making light conversation with them as the robots who had forgone their scripted dialogue in favor of a break since they were all being outright ignored. What they told you about their jobs was a bit like what the previous robot had said. It was alright but boring. But it wouldn’t last. And every time you were prepared to ask about it, it was time to move on to the next scene.

You and Axel stepped from the corner of the stage into the last scene on the Carousel – a recreation of the modern home of this decade. This one featured an older version of every robot you’d met on the ride but now with grandchildren.

“Hello,” you said with a wave. They waved back.

“Was that you making conversation with the others?” the wife, now a grandmother, asked, “We could hear you through the walls. They’re rather thin here.”

“That was us. Your audience isn’t particularly interested in what’s going on up here,” Axel confirmed, making a gesture over to the couple who you were sure had yet to take a breath since the ride had started.

“Hmph,” the grandfather huffed, “This ride gets less and less visitors every day. At this rate they’ll close us out before the fair has a chance to end.”

“Oh hush,” the son, now a grown man and father, chided, “The fair won’t shut us down. We’re just as important as the other attractions.”

“As important as their roller coasters?” the grandfather shot back, “Not likely.”

The rest of the robots rolled their eyes. This was clearly a conversation that had been had before and probably often. You supposed that the end of the attraction or fair meant they’d all be looking for new jobs soon. Which kinda sucked.

You listened to the robots go back and forth on how they were all content in their jobs for a while when it was about time for you and Axel to hop back off the stage and get in the seats so you could exit the ride. However, as you were walking passed the grandfather, he latched onto your arm, startling you.

You looked to him in surprise and were even more surprised to see a rather sad and pleading look upon his features.

“You’ve gotta get me outta here,” he said in a harsh whisper that wasn’t all too much like a whisper. You blinked in surprise. Similarly the other robots looked shocked at what they had overheard. Axel also turned in surprise to look at the exchange.

“W-what?” you asked, bewildered.

“I don’t wanna die,” he said bluntly, his voice taking on a desperate tone, “Look, everyone else may be content with this, but I’m not. Do you know what happens when the fair’s over or when they shut your attraction down?”

You felt a cold, creeping sensation crawl up your spine. Somehow you doubted that it was so simple as them having to look for new jobs as you had originally assumed.

“They dismantle you,” he said, not waiting for you to answer, “That’s it. You’re gone. No more.”

“They kill you?!” you almost screeched. You were rightly horrified, and for a moment you forgot about the couple in the audience, but a quick glance proved that they were paying about as much attention now as when everything had started.

You turned back to the robots.

“And you’re all just okay with this?” you hissed. There was no small amount of trepidation in your voice. It was a disturbing thought.

“We’re created,” the mother explained, “With the express purpose of performing for a year and being dismantled once we’ve done our jobs. There’s nothing to make a fuss about.”

“But doesn’t it feel wrong to you?”

“It doesn’t feel anything. We’re simulated intelligence.”

Simulated intelligence wasn’t something you’d thought about since your first encounter with S.I.R. who had been locked away on Space Mountain thinking of rescue and became bitter when it never came. He was grateful to have been rescued and, simulated or not, had clearly communicated distress and resentment. Atom had brushed it off. He was programmed to act that way. And maybe that was something the grandfather was programmed to be able to feel – or simulate feeling. But that he was expressing this programmed feeling now, when you were more than a little sure he wasn’t supposed to, was enough for you.

“I’m getting you out of here,” you said simply.

“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute,” Axel said, “Look I’m your side about this, but don’t you think we at least ought to have a plan before doing this?”

“Axel, we may not have that kind of time. He said that this ride isn’t popular. Suppose they shut it down tomorrow. It’s already been running for almost three weeks now, and it’s not pulling many people in.”

“Ugh, fine,” he huffed, “But we need to make this quick.”

“Just undo the straps by my feet,” the robot instructed, “Then we can sneak out the back, so they won’t see me.”

You began to work at the straps near the floor next to his feet, and Axel took the other side, trying to work quickly before the set was supposed to change. It was just as the straps came undone that the stage began its slow rotation.

“Thank you!” The robot said, clasping your hands in his cold, metallic ones, “Thank you so much! I owe you my life! Thank you!”

“Um that’s great, but we have to go!” you rushed out, motioning towards the back of the stage where your opening for escape was closing.

“Right! Right!” he said hastily, starting off at a quick pace towards the back with you and Axel following quickly behind him. It was a relatively wide space to get through the back, and the three of you realized as you gazed at the corridor into which you had entered that if you didn’t make it all the way to the back of the ride near the exit, you would be quite possibly crushed between the wall of one set and another. But there was currently enough space and the sets were moving slowly enough that you could make it to the end in what was no faster than a walk.

It was going to be fairly easy to do. All you had to do was make it to the back while stepping over some wires and the odd platform here and there. It was a cakewalk.

“Wait!” someone called.

You looked back behind you. The grandmother was leaning into the closing entry way to where your little group had escaped.

“Take me with you!” she pleaded, “I want to live too!”

You looked about the closing space. You could make that. You had time. So you jogged back to the entrance. Axel looked back to see you returning to the front.

“Where are you going?” he whispered in a confused and somewhat frustrated manner.

“They need help,” you said over your shoulder.

“But-!” But you were already hopping back outside the hallway to the stage and undoing the straps on the second robots feet. Axel stayed put until you and the grandmother were headed back down the corridor before walking again. He huffed to himself. You could have played hero on a second ride through. There had been absolutely no need for you to this now.

But that hardly mattered now. You were now all traveling at a brisk pace to make up for the lost time with the grandfather robot at the head and you bringing up the rear. By the time you had undone the grandmother’s feet back on the stage, the opening that had been so wide the first time you went through was then a bit of a tight fit.

But you could still make it to the end of the corridor and out of the maintenance hallway in decent time. Despite your delay everything was fine. Or at the very least it was until you tripped over a little bundle of wires haphazardly piled up towards the end of your little trek.

You huffed and pulled your leg from the wires. Only you found you couldn’t. The wires were tangled rather severely, and pulling only served to tighten their hold on you. Great.

You began to fiddle with the wires a bit, tugging a red one, pulling a green one. But the knot was not getting any looser. You began to sort through them a bit more frantically as the walls continued to close. The grandmother who had been close enough to hear your stumble was already pulling at the tangle of wires with you. But this wasn’t going fast enough.

“Axel,” you called, noting that he and the grandfather had almost made it to the very end. He turned to look at you, a look of confusion crossing his face when he didn’t see you right behind the grandmother but on the ground with your leg lost in a tangle of wires. “I’m stuck.”

“Shit,” he swore, catching the attention of the grandfather ahead of him who looked rightly panicked when he noticed your predicament.

They added their hands to the mix, plunging deeply into the wires to untangle them or at the very least trying to create enough space between the wires for you to wriggle free of them so you could dash to the end of the corridor and out of harms way. But the wires weren’t relenting.

The robot stopped when he realized the walls were getting a little too close for comfort. He pushed back against them, hoping to slow down their slow press onwards, but he wasn’t doing much of anything to stop them. The four of you had to think fast. You didn’t know what to do. And honestly the next thing out of your mouth was to just tell the rest of them to get out of here while there was still time.

“The sprinkler system!” the grandfather cried then, looking up at the ceiling. “Do either of you have a lighter? The ride has an emergency brake system that kicks in when something in the ride breaks down or gets damaged.”

Axel didn’t waste time with confirming or denying that he had a lighter, simply chucking a sizeable ball of fire up at the ceiling. A few sparks flew and fluttered down when it made contact, but it had the desired effect. The ride ground to a halt with just enough room for the three of you to shimmy through to the end as water rained down on all of you and the sound of an alarm filled your ears.

“Will you be okay? The water won’t hurt you or anything will it?” you asked the two robots, and they and Axel looked at you as if you had lost your mind.

“You’re asking if we’re okay? You just –,” then the grandfather stopped. He didn’t really know what to say. So he just answered your question with a worried albeit relieved smile on his face, “Yes. We’ll be fine. Let’s get you out of here.”

The four of you spent the next five minutes untangling you until you were able to pry your leg free and keep moving down the corridor. You shimmied out of it and took a quick turn past the deeper innerworkings of the ride to an emergency exit, tiptoeing quietly so as not to be seen by a maintenance worker who was inspecting the ride to see where it had gone faulty and set off the sprinklers.

He’d be looking for a while.

The robots turned to you and Axel once all four of you were safely outside of the ride, and the grandmother clasped your hand in hers as the grandfather had done before when you had first agreed to help him.

“Thank you!” she said, “You really have no idea how much this means to us.”

“Of course,” you reassured, “What will you do now?”

They thought for a moment.

“I not sure,” the grandfather mused, “Anything we want I guess! We can do that now! Thank you so much! What’s your name?”

“________ and this is Axel.”

“Thank you _________ and Axel. We will never, for the rest of our existence, forget this.”

You waved goodbye as they went off to live their new life, and you felt a sense of accomplishment, a bright smile dawning on your face. A smile that only broadened once you watched the two robots hold hands with each other.

You turned to Axel expecting to see a similar expression on his face, but instead you saw… well… a look that wiped the smile right off of your face. He wasn’t looking at you. He was looking off in the distance where the robots had disappeared to. And he looked tired. Sad and tired.

“What’s wrong?” you asked, lightly touching his arm, and searching his face for any indication of what the problem could possibly be.

He seemed snapped out of his thoughts, turning to you with a lightly surprised look on his face. Almost like he’d forgotten you were there at all.

“Huh? What?”

“I was asking if you were okay? Did you want to call it quits for the day?”

“What? No! Of course not! I still got something I want to do with you.”

You blinked.

“Really?” You had assumed after all that, he wouldn’t have wanted to do anything anymore. Maybe relax somewhere but not continue to hang out like you had been. Not when in one instance it had proved dangerous.

“Well, yeah,” he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “Put your armor on and change me back to normal. We should get cleaned up before we do the last thing.”

You nodded, doing as he said while he opened a corridor to the palace – his room specifically.

“Okay,” he began already walking towards the bathroom, “You go ahead and dry off and meet me back here in thirty minutes, okay?”

You nodded wordlessly once more, still relatively stunned by how well he was handling this.

It was easy to sneak into your room as there were no guards about at the time, so you slipped in the door completely unnoticed. Not that you were sure you had the complete mental capacity for stealth at the moment.

You found Axel’s behavior odd to say the least. True, he had been surprising you with his recent capacity for “bad-ness” and breaking rules, but he wasn’t above safety. You knew that much. He didn’t even say anything about what had happened. Not about freeing robots nor about how doing so had nearly killed you.

.

.

.

As it seemed your hero complex so often did.

Did… Did Axel know about your complex? Did it bother him? Was that what made him look like he did just before he remembered you were there and observing him? Was he trying to keep something from you?

These questions continued to bounce around in your head while you dried your hair and re-braided it and as you dried off your moderately wet dress. You were worried about Axel. Because something was bothering him that he didn’t want to talk to you about.

You sat on your bed for a good while, thinking about this and pulling your legs up to your chest as you meditated on what his odd response and reaction to you could be.

Minutes ticked by as you sat there going over that one moment in your head over and over and over again.

“Hey!” Axel greeted, stepping into your room and causing you to jump a bit. You were so lost in your thoughts you didn’t hear him open a corridor. “You ready to go?”

You forced a very bright, happy smile on your face.

“Yup! I was just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Nothing in particular. Trying to guess what’s next on the agenda.”

“A picnic,” he said, holding up a picnic basket that, in your distracted daze, you hadn’t even noticed until that moment. You smiled. Something as mild as a picnic sounded nice right now.

“Cool. Where at?”

Axel opened up another corridor with an easy smile. So he was keeping this a secret too. Okay. You shrugged. You would go with it.

As you stepped through to the other side, you realized that you were back at the fair. It was a strange place to pick. The stranger part was that you were up very high, and you realized that was because you were on top of a ride. Spaceship Earth to be exact. The sphere of the ride was apparently flattened at the top and high enough that no one could see you standing up there. And surely the only things up there were you, Axel, the tiny raised barrier of the top of the platform, and a hatch that likely led to a stairwell for maintenance workers to traverse.

And the view was amazing. A perfect view of the setting sun and the fair coming to light in the fading rays of sunlight.

“Axel,” you breathed, momentarily forgetting your previous train of thinking, “This is beautiful.”

“Yeah, I thought you’d like it. I may have done a little scouting of the area before I came to see you. I may have also put in a request to have a little dinner made that we could share up here. I may have also wanted to watch the sunset with you.”

You let out a little swoony sigh and giggle. You absolutely loved that idea.

“That sounds perfect.”

Axel responded with a wide smile before reaching into the basket and pulling out a rolled-up blanket and laying it out on the roof for the two of you to sit on. It was fairly large, big enough for both of you to lay on and still have room. You had to wonder how he fit that and an entire meal in the basket which was only of moderate size.

You sat down on the blanket, and Axel joined you, placing down plates and a larger plate with a dehydrated food pill on it. Ah, so that was how he fit everything.

The food pill turned out to be for grilled cheese sandwiches and fries. Not fancy, but perfect for the evening. He also brought a bottle of soda.

“What? No romantic candlelight?” you joked

“Because that’s what we need staring all the lights from the fair,” he shot back, “I had other things to worry about.”

Worry…. That made you remember your thought process from earlier. And you grew quiet while Axel was putting food on your plate and his. He noticed this and the faraway look in your eyes.

“Something wrong?” he asked. And you wanted to say no, to brush it off as just one of those things where you were lost in thought a little bit. But then you decided to be forward about it.

“You had a look on your face earlier today after we helped those robots. Is it because things almost went really bad?”

Axel looked conflicted. He clearly didn’t want to talk about this. But he also wanted to be honest with you. And your eyes were begging him to be honest with you.

“Yes,” he sighed.

“I thought so.”

A moment of silence passed between the two of you.

“Axel,” you began again, looking away from him, “Do you think I have a hero complex?”

...

“Yes.”

…

“Does it bother you? Honestly?”

…

“Honestly?... I hate it. I hate it so much. You just rush off into danger and I never know if it’s gonna be the last thing you ever do or not. The last time I’ll ever see you. Or if I’ll be able to protect you or not. And I don’t want to lose you. And I know that makes me a selfish asshole, but I can’t shake the fact that I don’t know what I’d do with myself if anything ever happened to you. I already lost Roxas, and he was my best friend. I don’t want to lose you, ________. I mean, you could have just gone back on the ride if you needed to save the second robot so badly. Why risk it?”

You visibly deflated a bit.

“…I’m sorry.”

There was a moment of silence then Axel let out a long sigh.

“Don’t apologize. I know you hardly have any say on the fact that a keyblade chose you. And you are literally one of only three people who have any ability to bring back your world. And for you to deny that responsibility is probably among one of the most morally reprehensible actions a person could take since you would be condemning literally an entire world to death. But I wanted to be Fun Axel because I know that’s the very reason you felt the need to go on a drinking bender with Setzer. But I can’t ignore the fact that you’re still unnecessarily throwing yourself into danger,” he continued, “And yet I’m also a bit conflicted because I know why you’re like this. I know you’ll never let someone be in the same position as you were – where the world is figuratively or literally crashing around them and they’re helpless to do anything about it. You’re not that kind of person. You’re far more selfless than I could ever hope to be. And as much as I hate that you feel compelled to do whatever you can to help people, I have to admit… I also love and admire the hell out of how noble and selfless you can be. And I want you to know that no matter what you decide to jump into I’ll be there with you to protect you just like in the beginning.”

You were moved. You felt an overwhelming flood of emotions that you couldn’t quite put into words. So you kissed him instead, and he kissed you back, softly and sweetly.

“Thank you. You are kind of amazing, you know? Everything you do for me. Sticking by me even when it’s hard. I love… everything about being with you,” you said softly as you turned to the sunset that had started before you.

Axel pulled you close.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, kissing you sweetly one more time before the two of you just enjoyed a quiet moment watching the sunset.

.

.

“Hey, Axel,” you began after a minute, “Do you remember that first night we watched the moon together?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“I thought it was the most amazing thing I had ever seen, and since then I’ve watched about three different moons, sunrises, and sunsets on different worlds, and every time I’m wowed by how beautiful they are. And I know it sounds really cheesy, but they’re always way better with you.”

“Wow,” he said softly, “You’re right that is really cheesy.”

“You think you can say something better?” you shot back, relieved that any tension from before had melted away into your usual demeanor.

“Yeah, anyone could.”

“Okay. Prove it.”

…

…

…

“Well?” you prompted after a minute.

“…Give me a second to think about it!”

…

…

“Okay,” Axel finally said, “I can’t think of anything. I give up. Hell of a moonrise though, huh?”

“Oh my gosh,” you said with a laugh and an eyeroll, “Shut the fuck up, Axel.”

“Watch it. I’ll push you off this ride.”

“Nah. You’d miss me too much.”

“On the contrary. This was all apart of my master plan to off you for the Organization. All those months of careful friendship planning and romantic outings all leading up to this moment several months later where I finally lower your guard enough to throw you off the top of a ride built to look like your home planet. And while I’ve had you alone several times and was presented with several opportunities to kill you, I was waiting for this specific moment.”

“Wow. That a very specific plan.”

“I like to be thorough,” he said with a shrug.

“Was Demyx and Namine getting it on somewhere off to the side also a part of your grand master plan to kill me?”

“Aw gross. I don’t want to think about that! She’s like my little sister.”

You laughed at his expression of disgust.

“What?” you questioned, “I think they’re cute together.”

“Meh. I think it feels typical. I don’t know. Though we don’t really see them interacting that much if I’m being honest.”

“Well it’s not like we’re always around them, A+5xel. I’m sure they have things going on off screen that we have no clue about.”

“I know. It just feels kinda weird. He’s a guy. She’s a girl. It’s almost like some cheesy movie plot where they end up getting together just because they’re always together.”

“I mean they’ve had just as long as we’ve had to find all the best in each other. You know what? It’s almost as if that’s how relationships work! It’s almost as if that’s how ours worked.”

“Okay, okay. I see your point.”

You both shared a small laugh before digging into the food. It was delicious, and you felt overly happy and content eating with your boyfriend who you loved so very much and watching a beautiful sunset and the fair lighting up.

It was then that you noticed Axel’s gaze consistently drifting towards the sky, almost like he were looking for something. You looked around but never saw anything out of the ordinary. A dark sky and a few stars that shined just brightly enough to not be hidden by light pollution.

“What are you looking at?” you finally asked after a good ten minutes of trying to spot what continuously had his attention.

“Oh, I’m, uh, just… watching the sky…,” he said, his eyes drifting back up.

“Why?”

“If I’m being completely honest. I’m paranoid.”

“Really? About what?”

“I don’t know. Everything? It feels like any moment Vanitas or Marluxia or even fucking Xemnas of all people is going come out of nowhere and try to take you away from me again.”

“Oh, Axel,” you said, placing a hand over his, “I wouldn’t worry too much. 2000 years here went by in the span of 20 years for us. And we’ve been here for almost three weeks. So it’s probably been like an hour of time has gone by back in Twilight Town. So we’ve only been gone for like a day since leaving to try and reach Hollow Bastion.”

“I know. Just….”

“That’s hardly enough time to plan an attack. And they don’t know where we are. We barely know where we are.”

“Yeah, I guess that true….”

“And even if they somehow knew where we were and tried to show up here, you just have to remember what Pops said. Trying to open a corridor here where time moves so fast creates a black hole. And the sheer force from the time difference would probably kill them before they could even show up on the other side.”

Axel cracked a smile.

“Well now I want them to try.”

You let out a laugh.

“Axel, you’re so bad.”

Axel pulled you close, and you scooted into his side for a close snuggle as he wrapped his arm around your shoulders. It made you feel all warm and fuzzy and caused you to let out another array of giggles. Axel mocked your giggling, doing a poor, high-pitched imitation of your laugh.

“Are you making fun of me?!” you gasped, your voice cracking a little as sadness flooded your tone. Axel was taken aback, shocked that he had legitimately offended you.

“No, wait! I was just kidding. I didn’t mean to – oh.” Axel stopped mid-apology once he had actually turned to see your facial expression, a wide, cheshire grin on your face. “I thought I hurt your feelings you dick.”

You just laughed again with Axel giving out a chuckle of his own – mostly out of relief that he did not actually hurt your feelings as he thought he had. He had briefly forgotten that you were sometimes insecure about your unconventional laugh.

The two of you settled back into your previous snuggling position and relaxed into a comfortable silence. An announcement played over a speaker down below that the fireworks for the evening would be starting up soon.

You let out a sigh of contentment then for no reason at all let out a tiny laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Axel questioned.

“Nothing. It just feels nice to laugh. I didn’t think I’d ever laugh or smile this much again.”

“Why not? Isn’t your uncle a literal cartoon?”

“Again with the racism, Axel. But that’s not what I’m getting at. I lost everything at one point. My friends. My family. My home. Parts of my life were ripped away from me without so much as a warning. Everything was gone. But with you I feel… fine. I feel like I’m complete again.”

“As someone who is literally not a complete person, I can relate. Sometimes I forget that I don’t have a heart. Or least not a complete one at this rate. You make me feel whole.”

You smiled, feeling strangely close to him. You already felt close before, but now it felt just a bit different. Like the two of you had strengthened something between you just now.

“I don’t ever want to lose this feeling,” Axel said lowly, pulling you just a bit tighter against his side. And you lifted your hand, gently placing it on his chest right where his heart would be. It was very, very slow and extremely faint. But you could feel a small beat in there. It made your own heart feel happy.

Axel lifted his own hand to your chest, above your breast where your heart was. Steady and strong. He didn’t expect anything different. He just wanted to feel it, this thing that connected you to him so deeply. He lifted his eyes from where his hand rested on your chest to your eyes, and he saw that you were looking at him too.

Your faces were barely inches apart. Both of you leaned in just a bit, your eyes closing. And just as your lips were about to meet, a loud explosion sounded overhead. The two of you jumped apart a little and then started to laugh when you realized that the fireworks had simply started. Then the two of you just looked at each other. All the love and warmth you felt previously was still there, lingering in your gazes.

You both leaned in again to kiss once more, this time uninterrupted.

Warning: Steamy bits ahead!

 

 

 

It was a slow, lingering kiss that felt extremely heated both literally and figuratively despite its innocence. Waves of heat rolled off of the two you, warming the air around you so much it warped the scenery.

The kiss broke after only a second and left both of you breathless despite not having done anything strenuous. You only looked at each other for the barest second longer before falling back into another kiss and another and another, barely breaking away and wrapping your arms around each other.

You could just barely feel a shift in your gravity, feeling Axel lay you down on the blanket where your plates and cups weren’t, your lips never leaving his. You could much more clearly feel when he was running his hands up and down your body though. And you loved it.

You stretched your arms above your head to allow him more access to your body and arched your back, pressing into him and panting when he began to trail kisses down your jaw and to your neck, paying special attention to the spot he knew would drive you crazy. You let out a loud, wanton moan that sent Axel’s senses into oblivion. All there was in that moment was you and him.

He kept teasing that spot so he could hear you moan over and over again, feeling more than a little confident in himself as he caused you to lose yourself. He was just vaguely aware of your hands slipping back down and underneath his shirt. He could feel your hands trail up his back, feeling the scarred skin there and digging your nails into his skin when he nipped at the spot on your neck that was so sensitive. You began to rake your nails down his back as he continued with his relentless abuse of that one spot, and he groaned in light pain and pleasure at the sensation of it.

“Off,” you panted as you tugged at his shirt, too lost in your moment with him to form an actual sentence while he continued to give you a hickey.

Axel straightened up so he was resting on his knees, staring down at you with half-lidded eyes.

“Is it because it has a picture of your uncle on it?”

“No, but thanks for reminding me,” you muttered while watching him take off the offending garment.

“What about you?” Axel asked as he looked down at you.

“What about me?”

“Yeah, are you gonna take anything off?”

You smirked at Axel. Looks like someone wanted to take a peek.

“Are you that eager to get me naked, Axel?” you asked in a breathy purr.

“Don’t get cocky,” he said with a dangerous glint in his eye, “That’s my thing. Now take it off.”

Axel? Commanding you? You would be surprised and maybe a little taken aback under normal circumstances, but here… it was….

“Daddy,” you breathed as you looked up at him, pure arousal written all over your expression. Axel continued to look down at you with a smirk, his eyes looking no less dangerous than before, waiting for you to take off your dress.

You sat up, slipping the straps of your dress off your shoulders.

Axel watched closely as the fitted clothing loosened with your actions, watching the dip of the neckline dip lower, showing more cleavage. You stood up, shimmying the dress down further and wiggling your hips out, stepping out of it once it was fully on the ground then sliding your shoes off.

Axel let his eyes trail over you, gaze lingering on your legs, hips, and breasts. He looked like he wanted to pin you down and ravish you – which wasn’t too far off from what he wanted actually. Seeing him look at you like that was enough to make your body shudder involuntarily as feelings of excitement, anticipation, and arousal ran through you.

You let your eyes trail over him as well. He was still more dressed than you, but you could fix that with time. You let your eyes linger on his lower half where you could see a prominent bulge in his pants, his cock straining against the material.

“I want to touch you,” Axel said, breaking the silence between the two of you that was created when you both took a moment to just stare at the other.

“Please touch me,” you breathed in a voice that almost sounded like a plea. You needed him to touch you or you might go insane.

Axel pulled you in for another kiss and resumed touching you all over. He sat back onto the blanket, bringing you with him so you were sitting firmly in his lap and straddling his hips, feeling his erection press into you. You moaned into the kiss, grinding down on him while he subsequently bucked his hips and humped you back.

Axel’s hands were everywhere though you pinpointed his favorite spots as one almost never seemed to leave or stop kneading your ass and the other groped your breasts, massaging it and making you wish he’d rip off your bra and do more. But you didn’t want to be too forward. All you could do was arch into his touch and more firmly press yourself into his grip.

Axel’s hands weren’t the only ones roaming though. You ran your hands all over his chest and abs and back, as desperate to feel him as he was to feel you.

Axel let out a short, deep groan as he felt his cock pulse, oozing out precum into his underwear. He’d already started leaking, but he could feel that a fair amount was starting to accumulate in his boxers.

“Hey,” you breathed, “Do you want to take those off?”

Axel blinked a little blearily. His mind was a fog of arousal. He could barely think past the fact that you were practically riding him and giving a lot of pleasure in doing so.

“Uh, wha?”

“Your pants,” you clarified, reaching between the two of you and giving the bulge in his pants a few strokes, causing Axel to let out another groan and another spurt of precum. “I’m sure they’re more than a little uncomfortable by now.”

And you weren’t wrong. By now Axel was rock hard, and his pants were unnecessarily tight because of it. Axel nodded at your statement.

“Yeah, I’ll take ‘em off,” he said, placing one more lingering, languid kiss on your lips before you slid off of his lap.

“Actually,” you said, just as he was back on his knees and reaching to unbutton his pants, “Can I do it?” Your voice a mix of shy and hopeful.

“S-sure,” Axel stuttered. This was all new. He’d never had anyone undo his pants before. Hell, no one had even seen him naked before. You seeing him in his underwear was the most he will have ever shown anyone. And he felt a little nervous about this new experience but not so much so that he wanted you to stop.

You reached up to his pants, eyes glancing between what your fingers were doing and the bulge which was almost at your eye level from the position you were sitting in. It would be so easy to lean forward and kiss it.

You undid the button and slowly slid down the zipper, hearing Axel let out a brief sigh of relief now that his cock was no longer so harshly pressing against his pants. You saw the spot on his underwear where the precum had been pooling, and you bit your lip. You did that to him.

Axel stood up fully so he could finish removing his pants all the way and kick his shoes off. Then when he settled back onto the blanket the two of you took a moment to just look at each other, take in the fact that you were pressing beyond a boundary the two of you had previously had. You’d never gone quite so far with each other before, and you most certainly hadn’t gone this far with anyone else. And it wasn’t like you hadn’t seen this much of each other before. You’d certainly seen this much skin when at the beach in your swimsuit and trunks, but there was something that was wholly intimate about it now.

Then a nervousness settled into that intimacy. Neither of you knew who ought to make the next move. You only knew that a next move was going to happen.

“Should I…,” Axel trailed off, gesturing to your bra.

“Only if you feel comfortable with it,” you said trying to reassure him as much as yourself.

“Do you feel comfortable?”

“Oh, yeah, totally. What about you?

“Oh, uh, yeah, I’m comfortable.”

More silence.

“Do you want me to…,” you said, reaching behind yourself to undo your bra but not undoing it. Funny how both of you were certain you were comfortable, and yet there was still something holding you both back.

“No, no I got this,” Axel said, wondering where all that confidence from before had gone. Was he wasting your time? Did you think so?

“Sorry I’m –,” you and Axel began at the same time, but stopped when you realized you spoke at the same time.

Another pause.

“You go first,” you said finally. Were you blowing this? Holding him back?

“I was going to say that I’m nervous,” Axel admitted finally.

“We have that in common,” you said with a light laugh, and the two of you dissolved into a small fit of laughter at how nervous the two of you were. And some of that tension ebbed away with the ease of your laughter.

“You say you’re nervous,” you began after the laughter had petered out, “But you’re still hard.”

“I don’t know if I should be proud or ashamed of that fact?”

“Well…,” you said, taking on a slightly flirtier tone, “I think you have plenty to proud of.”

And just like that Axel felt some of his confidence rush back now that he knew you were not deterred by his hesitance. He pulled you close, and you could feel his boner pressed between the two of you. Your hormones had also returned full force, and you were extremely horny.

Axel pressed his lips on yours again, and the two of you found yourselves lying back down on the blanket with Axel over top of you with your legs wrapped around his hips. Axel rolled his hips forward, rubbing himself against you in a position that let him stroke himself against your clit, and you found yourself moaning into your kisses. Axel was being driven insane by your responses alone and started thrusting a little faster, his eyes nearly rolling into the back of his head at the pleasure he felt.

“S-slower,” you panted out between kisses. You didn’t necessarily mind Axel’s enthusiasm, but you liked the slow rub against your genitalia. It drew out your pleasure just a bit more.

“Sorry,” Axel panted back, “I’m still figuring all this out. All I know is that you feel amazing.”

“I just liked what you were doing before,” you said, rolling your own hips to meet his still thrusting ones. Axel shuddered and let out a low groan. “Do you like that?”

“Fuck, yes. But… can I ask a favor?” he said, pulling up from you a little bit, his hips still minutely moving against and with yours.

“What is it?”

“Can I see you? Like here?” he said, running a finger beneath your bra strap, eyes watching your breasts heave with every breath. You paused a bit. No one had ever seen that much of you before, but this was Axel. And he made you feel safe. You nodded and arched your back so you could reach beneath you and began to undo your bra.

Axel wanted to touch them but hesitated before putting his hands on them. So you reached up and put his hands on them instead. Axel wasted no time after that, kneading them and rolling your nipples between his thumb and forefinger, feeling his dick throb with excitement and shoot a little more precum into his boxers, making the spot on the front just that much bigger.

You could only moan beneath him. Your nipples were extremely sensitive, or maybe it was just that you were that turned on. Regardless of the reason, you arched into his palms and writhed beneath his touch and all of the feelings he was eliciting from you.

Finally when it all became too much you and thought you’d combust you asked, “Can I ask a favor?”

“No.”

You blinked up at him, your confusion just barely cutting through your haze of horniness.

“What?” you asked, “Why?”

“I’m kidding, dummy,” he said, resting his forehead on yours and asking in a low, tender voice, “What do you need?” His voice made you shudder. He not only sounded like he’d already agreed to whatever it was you were going to ask but like he was completely devoted to you. All you needed to do was ask. It made you heart fly into your throat.

“Can we both…,” your words died in your throat as you felt a little nervous under Axel’s intense gaze. You felt so vulnerable lying beneath him like this and asking something personal.

“Both what?” he prompted gently.

“Get naked? Like all the way?”

Axel’s eyes widened. He hadn’t been expecting you to say that of all things, and his face began to turn red. You also noted that while neither of you had ignited, the air was getting even warmer around you.

“O-oh,” he stuttered, “Uh, sure. I just thought you wanted to take it slow. But don’t get me wrong! I wanted to do the same. I just didn’t want to put any pressure on you.”

“No, it’s fine! I-I get it. I just want to see you. Like all of you.”

“Okay,” Axel said pulling off of you, making you long for him again, “Who should go first?”

“Do you want me to?” you asked, feeling your heart thump harder in your chest.

“No we can do it at the same time,” Axel said, standing up and helping you up as well so you could both take off your underwear.

“Okay,” you breathed, “On three?”

Axel nodded and hooked his thumbs in his boxers, and you did the same with your panties.

“One… two… three.”

The two of you shimmied out of your underwear, letting them pool around your ankles. You took each other in for the third time that night both stunned by your actions and awed at the person before you. This was everything, and some part of you felt completely and utterly nervous and the other part felt nothing but love and arousal and the need to be close again.

The tip of Axel’s dick was slick and shiny with precum and steadily leaking a stream of it as he stared at you, his eyes trailing all over you, noting that when he eyed your panties on the floor they seemed to be about as dry as his own underwear – which wasn’t all too dry with how much he’d been leaking this entire time.

“You look amazing,” Axel said, his voice sounding a bit deeper and his eyes a bit darker.

Your heart resumed its heavy thudding having skipped what felt like several beats.

“I-I’ve never done this with anyone before. You’re making me feel really vulnerable.”

“That’s understandable,” Axel said, a small, crooked smile breaking out on his face, “We are literally naked in public.”

You couldn’t help the laugh that slipped out of you.

“Well at least no one can see us but us,” you said with a shrug.

“Mhmm, and I think you’re beautiful. And I want you,” Axel practically purred. Axel closed the gap between the two of you, kissing you much more passionately on the mouth and laying you back down on the blanket again. You, seemingly out of instinct at this point, wrapped your legs around his hips, and you both froze briefly as you felt his cock pressed directly against your entrance. It would be so easy to slip it in, but you both shared a look.

You both weren’t quite ready for that step or any of the risks that came with having sex unprotected. But you liked what you were doing before, and so that’s what you did, resuming the steady rhythm the two of you had had when you’d been humping in your underwear.

Only now he was pressed directly against everything, and everything felt far more intense now that there was no cloth barrier separating the two of you. You moaned much more loudly. You were certain that if the music from the fair quieted even a little someone would be able to hear you.

Hell maybe people in the ride could hear you and feel the heat you and Axel were producing through the walls of the ride. Axel was also moaning rather loudly. Everything about this felt amazing – how slick everything had become, how good the stimulation felt, how close your hearts felt.

“________,” Axel moaned on a particularly hard thrust of his hips. Suddenly you understood why you moaning his name drove him crazy. It made you feel like you were going insane with how turned on you were.

“Axel,” you moaned in response, pulling him in closer for a deeper kiss. He happily returned it, shoving his tongue into your mouth and exploring it thoroughly while you let out a tiny whimper as you laid there and took anything he had to give you. He pulled off of your mouth to bury his face in your neck, groaning deeply in your ear as his hips picked up the pace, rocking you back and forth with the force of his thrusts.

“So beautiful,” he groaned out, “You’re so fucking beautiful.”

You clung to him tighter, scratching your nails down his back as he drove you to the brink of your sanity and kept you there.

“I want to pleasure you,” he said gruffly before doing something you didn’t at all expect.

He pulled off of you entirely, sitting back on his feet before lifting your hips up higher and higher until you were practically off the ground and upside down. Then Axel started tonguing your snatch, surprising you and causing you to let out a loud cry of pleasure.

“Tell me where,” he said quickly, just barely pulling off of you before going back in and licking and sucking anywhere he thought you might like.

“Not there,” you said when he reached the outer part of your labia where you just weren’t as sensitive. But then his tongue slid upward, “There!”

He began to circle your clit with his tongue, pressing down on top of the hood and letting his lips caress it while he applied a very light, extremely gentle suction that had you moaning and screaming his name and begging for more.

He continued those ministrations enjoying the angle he was at as it gave him full view of your face while you cried out in pleasure. You bucked your hips as best you could from the position you were in trying to shove yourself further onto his mouth, especially when you felt it enter you. The sensation was so new and shocking yet pleasurable that you felt your self fall over the edge he’d brought you to, screaming his name once more as you came, convulsing around his tongue and igniting in a bright blue flame while he gently stimulated you through to the end of your orgasm and only pulling off once you mentioned that you were too sensitive now.

Axel gently put your hips down on and took a second to look at you, sweaty and panting, singeing the blanket you were laying on in the midst of your afterglow. You looked fuckable. But he wasn’t quite ready to take that leap, so he settled for touching himself.

He took in the image of you laying there before grabbing himself. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, letting out a low groan at the feeling of getting some stimulation – finally relieving all of the pressure that had built up when he had been eating you out. He began to slowly stroke himself, his breathing picking up with every stroke. But then he felt something new.

You batted his hands away with your own, taking his cock in your hand and giving him a firm pump. Axel let out a little gasp of surprise that devolved into a long moan.

“If you don’t mind,” you began, continuing to stroke his cock, “I’d like to return the favor.”

“Holy shit,” Axel breathed disbelievingly as he watched you get on your stomach between his legs regripping him in your hand once you were properly situated and using your other hand to reach beneath his cock and fondle his balls.

You looked up at him from beneath your lashes, your eyes clouded with lust and adoration as you slowly stroked him up and down before leaning forward and kissing the head.

Another dribble of precum seeped out of Axel’s cock while it throbbed with every kiss you gave it. Though you had ulterior motives for kissing it so much. You planted soft yet firm kisses all over his cock, gauging which areas were the most sensitive and needed the most attention. And after teasing him like this for a while, you determined that the upper part of his shaft and his head were the best areas to give your attention. Though you noted that he wasn’t opposed to any of the focus your hand gave his balls either.

He was looking down at you with half-lidded eyes, and you met his gaze as you very slowly put the head of his dick in your mouth and began swirling your tongue around the head, continuing to stroke the rest with your hand.

Axel clenched and unclenched his hands, eyes rolling back just a bit as you pleasured him. He let out a deep, long moan when you began to take him deeper into your mouth, sucking gently and bobbing your head, feeling precum pool on your tongue.

You continued your ministrations, feeling like you were on cloud nine as you listened to your lover moan loudly and openly. Then you felt his hand on the back of your head, gripping your hair and applying a light pressure. You removed your hands from him entirely and placed them on the blanket beneath you as he began to lightly thrust his hips, effectively fucking your throat and moaning like he was in absolute ecstasy – which by the look on his face he might have been.

“Ah, ah, oh fuck. Fuck I’m gonna cum,” he said letting you pull your head off of him. You didn’t waste any time getting from in between his legs, grabbing him in your hand again and stroking him to orgasm. His breath and voice caught in his throat while he crested, red flame engulfing him and then joining with your own which had yet to dissipate, bathing the two of you in a purple glow. A small ooze of cum dribbled out of the head, and he let out his loudest moan yet, shooting out a rope of cum on the blanket then shooting three more times and bucking his hips while swearing loudly. He kept thrusting into your hand while he rode out his orgasm, more cum dribbling out once the most powerful part of his orgasm was over. Then finally he collapsed back onto the blanket when he was done.

 

 

 

Okay, guys. It’s over.

“Holy shit,” he breathed. You laid next to him, letting out a little giggle. He looked at you, turning his head just slightly, a lazy, relaxed smile on his face.

“What’re you laughing at?” he said, voice low and calm.

“Nothing,” you said back, just as relaxed and satisfied, “I’m just happy.”

Axel rolled onto his side to put an arm over you, and you snuggled into him, face buried in his chest. You let out a little contented hum.

“We should probably put all this stuff up and get out of here,” you said barely gesturing to the plates and cups on the blanket. It wasn’t much but still. Though you felt so content just to lay here like this with the love of your life.

You wanted to tell him. That you loved him. But you weren’t sure you were at a point in your relationship where it wouldn’t be considered too soon. And you didn’t want to make things weird by getting deeper into your feelings than he was.

“In a bit,” he purred, “I feel sooo fucking good right now.”

You giggled as he pulled you that much closer, burying his face in your hair.

“Should we at least get dressed?”

“Yeah, yeah, later,” he said into your hair.

Another quiet moment passed between you, and then you spoke again.

“Do you wanna go to the palace gardens? It’s a bit more… intimate. We can snuggle in the quiet there,” you said, thinking of the pretty plants there and the overall peaceful atmosphere it offered. It wasn’t that you didn’t like being on top of Spaceship Earth. You just wanted a slightly more romantic and frankly less noisy setting. The only quiet was between the two of you as the noises of the fair were still in full swing, loud music, people shouting as the fair filled as the day went on – not like when you’d arrived earlier and there was hardly anyone about.

“Hmmm,” Axel hummed, considering it, but before he could answer the two of you heard the faint jingling of keys from the nearby maintenance hatch and the subsequent click of a lock being unlocked.

“Shit!” you swore, sitting up just as quickly as Axel. You both grabbed your clothes and phones, and you put on your armor as you both darted through a hastily made corridor that Axel had opened.

You leapt out of the other side to find yourself in the gardens. You blinked.

“You knew where this was?”

“The empress likes to walk through here every now and again,” Axel replied, “And it’s my job to follow her. So, yeah.”

“That was close,” you muttered, shaking your dress out and setting it aside so you could put your bra and panties back on.

“Yeah, no kidding. Like holy shit,” Axel said as he pulled up his boxers.

“That gonna be a catchphrase for you or something? That’s like the third time you’ve said, ‘holy shit’ tonight.”

Axel just laughed it off, pulling up his pants and tugging on his shirt. He didn’t bother with his shoes, just setting them off to the side as he sat beneath a tree. You had also finished dressing and sat next to him, already leaning into his side. He put his arm around you, and you both sat there and took in the scenery.

The garden at night was even more beautiful than in the day time as most of the plants appeared to be bioluminescent, letting off a glow that was a mix of blue and purple hues, offset by the white fairy lights that hung overhead between trees and their branches. It was even more romantic than you’d originally thought.

That was about when your phone buzzed. You glanced at it seeing that it was a message from Namine who had just sent you a text and photo.

“Namine sent me a text,” you said, relaxing back into the lazy demeanor you and Axel had had before you’d almost gotten caught.

“Oh yeah?” Axel asked, taking out his own phone to send a text to Demyx.

“Yeah,” you said, answering Namine.

Namine: THIS is what they use to go from world to world. How creepy is that?

Attached was a photo of what you had to assume was the ship she was talking about. You had to admit that it wasn’t the most welcoming thing you’d ever seen. And just based on the size of it in the photo from where she stood, you could see that it was massive.

***: Yeah that is hella creepy. Is that what you’ve been up to while I was gone? Find out anything else about those vacation planets?

Namine: Oh. No. I gave up on that. But there wasn’t anything by the way. Like no history or anything. I guess they just didn’t feel the need to preserve it. Anyway what have you been up to?

***: I’m actually in Tomorrowland right now. Axel stole me away ;)

Namine: Ooh. Ya’ll didn’t do anything naughty did you?

***: I’ll never tell. … Maybe….

Namine: Ewww. I thought I wanted gossip, but I don’t actually want to know what Axel and you are doing.

***: Funny. He said something similar about you and Demyx when I mentioned the two of you were getting it on when everyone isn’t looking.

Namine: YOU DID NOT! AND WE ARE NOT!

***: Whatever you have to tell yourself. And I talked to him. About the hero complex. I know that wasn’t one of those things we talked about when you said I had a problem, but I wanted to know what he thought.

Namine:…Oh. Well what’d he say?

***: He hates it. Of course. But he’s at the very least understanding about it.

Namine: Did something happen to bring it up?

***: Sorta. We kinda may have helped two robots escape an attraction at the fair.

Namine: Escape?

***: Yeah! Can you believe they dismantle the robots at the end of the World’s Fair if their ride wasn’t popular enough? One of them was begging me to not let him be killed.

…

…

…

***: Namine? Girl you still there?

Namine: Yeah. I have to go. I’ll talk to you later okay?

***: Yeah, sure. I’ll talk to you later.

While you had been having your conversation with Namine, Axel had been having an interesting conversation of his own.

Axel: So me and ________ just got through fooling around.

Demyx: Really? Sweet! 2^nd Base?

Axel: Third.

Demyx: Yeah, and now I officially don’t believe you. You can barely admit you’re in love with her. Like hell you went to pound town.

Axel: Believe what you want.

Demyx: Hold on. Someone’s at the door.

…

Demyx: I gotta go. Namine needs to talk to me about something.

Axel: Sure thing. I’ll see you later.

Notes:

I'll be back. I promise that I'll finish this story. I think the next chapter will be a bit easier to write as the different story arcs are a bit more streamlined this time. So hopefully I'll have an outline and a chapter out for you soon enough. Thanks to all the people still reading this. Your unending patience with me is more than I deserve. And thank you all so much for your support. I really appreciate it. And now more than ever in these very trying and uncertain times.

Obscure-ish References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney%27s_Carousel_of_Progress

Chapter 68: The Robot Situation

Summary:

More news on the robot situation.

Notes:

Back sooner than I have been. I'm still trying to be more consistent. I'm mapping out the outline for the next chapter and maybe I'll have it up in the next two or three weeks if all goes well.

You were eager to get back to Tomorrowland. For the entirety of your second day on the vacation planet all you could think about was what you and Axel had been up to on Spaceship Earth the night before. You were floating around in a haze of complete bliss and longing, wanting to be with him again, but apparently Eo had to scold him for leaving his shift early so he could go hang out with friends. Though from what Axel told you, Eo didn’t seem too bothered by it.

But he couldn’t come see you as he had to work two shifts to make up for the one he skipped out on. A tough price to pay, but worth it in your book. You could only think about that night over and over. And he’d sent you a rather flirty text that suggested he felt the same.

But now you were sitting at a small table in the common area of the ship you were on, more than halfway through your trip back to Tomorrowland where your friends and lover awaited you.

You let out a lightly dreamy sigh, looking at a picture of you and Axel on your phone, when Atom let out a huff and sat down in the chair across from yours. You tore your eyes away from your phone.

“What’s wrong?” you asked, looking at the light, annoyed frown on his face. You didn’t know what could have possibly upset him on your trip given your limited contact with anyone onboard the ship, and the day before he seemed fine. And you would know as the two of you spent that day exploring the town a bit – with your head in the clouds more often than not thinking of Axel.

“I just got off a call with Eo,” Atom said, “He tells me your little friend played hooky a couple days ago. Just left in the middle of his shift of guarding the empress.”

“Oh?” you said, feigning mild surprise. Atom didn’t wait for a bigger response, already back on to his rant about it.

“Yeah, and after he was given an honorary position no less. The job of the royal guard is very serious, and he should treat it as such.”

“Well it can’t be all that bad,” you said, at least trying to defend Axel’s actions, “It’s an entire island crawling with guards and military. It’d be pretty hard to get past all of them for a shot at the empress.”

“Be that as it may, he could at least try to take his job seriously.”

“Relax, Atom. You’re getting all worked up over nothing. Plus Axel doesn’t work for the empress. Not really anyway. There’s no more obligation keeping him there than there is to keep him anywhere else in Tomorrowland. He probably doesn’t even know how serious it is or how personally everyone would take it.”

“Of course it’s serious!” Atom said, voice raising and fist banging down on the table between the two of you, “Suppose it’s you next! How can you rest easy knowing he might get bored and abandon you when you most need him?”

“Because Axel’s a good person. He has a good heart. And he’s been protecting me since the beginning of my journey. And he isn’t likely to stop. He just didn’t know the gravity of the situation. You’re sweet, but don’t need to worry about me. Plus I can handle myself in a tough situation.”

You turned your attention back to your phone and missed the blush that crossed Atom’s face.

“I supposed you’re right. Excuse me,” he said quickly, standing up and scurrying off before you could see the red in his cheeks.

That was about when you got a call from Namine. You answered it, your voice trilling happily in your greeting. So much so it made Namine blink on the other end of the line in light surprise. Then she let out a giggle.

“It’s nice to hear from you too,” she greeted, “I see Axel’s not the only one stuck on cloud 9. I can guess your good moods have whatever had to do with a few nights ago?”

“Maybe,” you sang into the phone.

“Well I was just calling to check in on you,” Namine said, “And for one other thing.”

“What is it?” you said, noting a slightly more serious tone in her voice.

“Do you remember when I had to stop talking, er, texting you so suddenly the other night?”

“Oh, yeah. I meant to ask you about that to make sure you were okay. Is everything alright now? You seem a bit more serious.”

“Well, yes and no. Are you alone? It’s a bit private.”

“I can move to my room,” you said, already standing up and moving to your own personal residence on the ship. Telling Namine to continue once you were in your own personal space.

“Okay,” she began, “So Demyx and I have been slowly uncovering what we think may be an interplanetary conspiracy.”

You blinked.

“I’m sorry did you say conspiracy? And here I thought the two of you were sneaking off for a few secret dates or something. This is way bigger.”

“I’m going to ignore that and keep going,” Namine said in a dry tone of voice, “The thing about it is that we think robots might be artificially intelligent.”

“I thought they were?”

“Well, yeah, me too. But they keep insisting that they’re simulated intelligence. And I went inside Robot Butler’s mind with Demyx to see if they really were or not, and there was something there. Files mostly, but there was also a door that I want to say leads to the subconscious, but it’s locked. So I need you to get into it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner? You know I would’ve helped you, no questions asked.”

“Because I gave up for a while. Every turn I took to figure out if they were A.I.s and why no one told them just led to dead end after dead end. And I gave up. But then you told me that there were ones who were going to die because they had no use for them anymore, and I couldn’t give up anymore. I need to do this now, and I wanted to ask for your help.

“Sure! No problem. Whatever you need, I’m her for you 100%.”

“Thanks, ________. I’ll see you when you get back, okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you then.”

“And Axel will be there too,” Namine teased. You giggled and hung up. You wanted to remain in your light mood, but it was harder now knowing that what you had essentially inserted yourself into was much larger than originally thought. And, oh shit, was your complex kicking in again?

No. No. This had to be different. These were lives at stake. And only you could help.

~

When you arrived home you were expecting a small greeting of your friends and family who, as promised, would be waiting for you. You were not, however, prepared for the large reception you received with the press. At first it just looked like a large crowd from where you had exited the rocket at a great height and distance from them. They milled about down below, and you were confused as to how anyone knew of your return from your vacation and could possibly be waiting for you. Knowing you were away was one thing as you had seen the news reporting on your vacation as it happened – with more people providing hidden camera pictures of you out and about by yourself and with Atom. Though conveniently none of you and Axel and your little race – not that you were complaining about it. But that anyone knew you were returning was actively a little bizarre as no one could have possibly reported on that.

You took the elevator down with Atom and hopped in a car that drove you over to the crowd. Which you didn’t understand. The driver explained that as soon as the two of you arrived, he was to take you to the press conference. But why hadn’t you been informed about it?

There were several sects of news outlets there to snap pictures. But they were not the only groups there. There was also a much smaller group off to the side composed of people and robots holding various signs and clapping and cheering once they saw you step out of the car.

You read a few of the signs.

“Robots Are People Too!”

“Lady ________ For Robots!”

“Give Robots A Chance!”

Your head was swimming. What was all this about?

“________!” Namine called, running up to you. You greeted her with a hug, seeing over her shoulder the rest of your friends and family approach as well with the empress, Eo, and Commander Bog in tow. Axel also followed stoically by, looking a little tired but happy to see you and tossing you a very discrete wink that sent your heart aflutter.

You felt some of the air warm around you and quickly reigned in your magic before you could burn Namine.

“Easy, girl,” she muttered to you with a light, teasing smile.

“________,” Nova addressed coolly but with a small smile on her face, “I’m afraid you’ve a lot of explaining to do.”

“What’s all this then?” you asked, looking out at the awaiting crowd, looking at all of their expectant gazes and many cameras that were either recording, broadcasting live, or snapping pictures.

“You don’t know?” one of the reporters called, “We have video footage of you and a robot vandalizing one of the attractions at the World’s Fair, and the world wants to know why?”

After he said this, more questions began pouring in from other reporters.

“Why did you vandalize the attraction?”

“Did you steal the robots for yourself?”

“What was the purpose behind this attack?”

“Was it rebelliousness or was there a deeper meaning behind these actions?”

Eo gently took your arm and led you to a podium on a small stage that stood before the awaiting crowd. He gave your arm a gentle, encouraging squeeze before he left.

“Oh boy,” you began, “Where do I start? Um, I didn’t know it would be an act of vandalism, I guess. I mean, I was just looking around the ride, and checking things out. Those attractions are really neat, you know? Better than some of the things back home.”

There was a small run of laughter in the crowd.

“But that wasn’t why I did what I did. I did it because they asked for help. The robots were begging to be let go, and they’re alive aren’t they? They said they’d die if the attraction was shut down. How could I turn away from them when they asked me?”

“So you did it as an act of sympathy?” a reporter asked, jotting something down on a notepad, “As an act of kindness?”

“I did it because it’s what’s right,” you said adamantly.

“And what about the others?” another reporter chimed, “Was the intention to begin a rebellion all over Tomorrowland?”

You blinked.

“What others?”

“I can explain!” a voice called from the middle of the group of robots and humans, “Over here!”

As he stepped out of the middle of the crowd, you saw that it was the grandfather robot from the Carousel of Progress, and following him was his partner, the grandmother robot. He stepped up to the podium next to you.

“May I?” he asked, gesturing to the microphone.

“By all means,” you said, relinquishing it to him and happy to not be the target of the press’s many, many somewhat accusatory questions.

“Hello,” he began somewhat nervously, “Uh… I… um.”

The grandmother robot stepped closer to him, holding his hand. He gave her a very grateful look before turning back to the crowd.

“You may know me from the attraction Carousel of Progress. Well. I want to say that I know what happens to attractions that don’t stick around. The robots inside get dismantled. And they die. And I defy you to tell me what’s wrong with not wanting to die!”

There were a few cheers from the crowd before he continued.

“Our Lady ________ isn’t a vandal. She’s a hero! The other robots left the ride because they wanted to live too. We don’t want to die just because society says we have nothing left to contribute once the show’s over!”

The grandmother stepped forward.

“It’s not just ________,” she said, “There was another with her. I wasn’t sure it was him at first, but that guard over there,” she pointed to Axel who looked rightly surprised and going a little red in the face, “He was there too.”

“But it was shown to be Lady ________ and a rogue robot with no known serial number that were seen in the footage,” a reporter interjected.

“And the world has one more big question,” another reporter stated, “How did you manage to get from one of the resort worlds to here and back so quickly? And on a side note, did you really run off with the empress’s personal guard?”

You felt the pressure of being back under the spotlight as all the eyes turned back to you once more. You returned to your spot back at the microphone.

“Well. The answer, simply put, is magic,” you said with a little flare of fire and electricity at your fingertips for show, “Magic to instantly get from one place to another. Magic to alter the appearance of oneself for the purposes of exploring rides and not getting caught.”

“So it was the guard you ran off with,” the reported concluded with a mischievous glint in their eye.

“Well, I mean, he is one of my best friends, and Atom was pretty busy with all the work he had to do. And vacations are lonely without people you care about, so I popped by for a quick visit. I just didn’t know getting my friend to play hooky for a day would have such large repercussions. I almost feel like I need another vacation.”

Another ripple of laughter through the crowd.

“But you do believe these robots are people?” another reporter spoke, getting back on subject and returning attention to the matter at hand.

“I do,” you said simply, “I really do.”

“I can attest to that fact,” a new but entirely familiar voice spoke up from the crowd. Into view rolled S.I.R. He rolled up to the stage, and you the other two robots helped him up to where he could be seen.

“My name,” he began with no hint of nervousness in his voice, “Is S.I.R. I was a service robot created for the express purpose of guiding passengers through Space Mountain and providing helpful information. And not long after my installment, a position which left me immobile except for the different terminals into which I could transfer myself to, the alien attack happened.”

There was a hushed murmur through the crowd.

“I was trapped on that station witnessing the atrocities committed by the alien as hundreds of people were unable to escape – including the death of the royal family. And for eleven years after that, I was trapped with nothing but my thoughts, a hostile alien, and the bodies of the dead. And I can tell you that I could feel. I felt loneliness. I felt trapped. I felt all of my hope leave me. And when I first saw this young hero and one of the captains of the guard, it was the first time I wasn’t sure what to feel. But then she said she’d bring me back. ‘It has enough intelligence to be bitter about being abandoned, and that’s enough for me.’ That was what she said. She gave me hope for the first time in a long time. And after I was attacked by the alien and as good as dead I felt fear. I was never going to be free from that prison, and my last memory would be of that vile creature killing me and attacking someone that for the first time in long time I felt something close to friendship for. My next memory was waking up here in Tomorrowland and feeling everything at once. Robots can feel, and I would gladly stand by this young woman and all she stands for.”

You swore you could hear a few sniffles in the crowd. If the crowd was skeptical before, they were starting to be swayed now. That much was for sure.

You and the others helped S.I.R. back off the stage with S.I.R. tossing a very discrete look in Nova’s direction, watching as she quietly fumed.

“But how do you know they’re really alive?” a reporter in the back asked, not entirely convinced, “How do we know this isn’t really a glitch in their programming or something?”

You tried to think quickly before your mind went to the only person who could possibly know the answer – having seen it herself.

“Namine!” you called into the microphone, waving her up on stage while you explained to everyone who she was “My good friend Namine went to an institute that specifically studied the mind and the consciousness of living beings. She can explain better than me what she knows.”

Namine’s eyes went wide and she looked at the crowd of people who were curiously looking around to see who this mysterious “Namine” was. The temperature around her dropped about fifteen degrees. But she had to do this. It was what was right. She took a tentative step forward, the air around her cooling more and more as she got closer to the stage. Tiny sheets of frost formed beneath her footsteps. When she reached the podium you gave her an encouraging smile and stood to the side so she could speak.

“Uh…,” she began, “Um, well the thing about c-consciousness it, uh, I, um….”

Namine’s hands were shaking and the ice that had previously only formed beneath her feet was now creeping up the back of the podium and at her fingertips. Her breaths came out in barely visible puffs of white like she were breathing in winter air instead the balmy weather you’d felt before she had gotten up there.

Demyx rushed up to the stage when he noticed Namine’s trouble with public speaking causing ice to start to creep around the front of the podium as well. She was still stuttering when he got up there, red-faced and a little embarrassed at her chance to help being ruined by her own stage fright.

“Sorry, folks,” Demyx said as he got up there, grabbing Namine’s hand behind the podium where only you and the other two robots nearby could see, “She’s still getting used to her magic and public speaking. But the long and short of it is we can have proof of robot sentience if you just give us a little time. We’ve been looking into it for the past few weeks now, and I can tell you that we’re onto something big. We just need a little more time to come to a conclusion.”

With that Namine and Demyx rushed off the stage with Namine muttering that she ruined everything and Demyx reassuring her that she didn’t. You didn’t really know what to say after that.

“Well,” you said, feeling a little awkward to have put your friend on the spot like that, “There isn’t much else to be said, so if there are no further questions….”

You prepared to leave after that statement as the press seemed sated with everything that was said, but as you turned from the podium to leave one more voice called out to you.

It was a soldier.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said, having gained the attention of the crowd, “But there’s a delivery truck here that claims to have been requested by you, and I need confirmation that it’s true before it gains access to the base where the rocket is.”

“Oh!” you said, “I almost completely forgot about that. Yes, I asked for one to arrive.”

“For what?” Someone in the crowd questioned.

“Oh, uh, well I’m kind of embarrassed. I got a crazy number of stuffed animals in my hotel room from several people and businesses thanking me for the alien fight. And more came every day I was away. And well I appreciate them. It’s always nice to be recognized, and I love them. I really do, but I can’t very well take something like 200 stuffed animals in, so I’m donating them. The delivery truck is supposed to take them to a children’s hospital where I know they’ll be more loved and appreciated than I can offer.”

There was an, “Aww,” from the crowd that only made you feel more embarrassed, and you could feel the air around you grow warm and buzz with electricity. You decided to get off of the stage before you shorted out the microphone.

“She’s almost perfect,” a reporter near the stage said.

“She is perfect,” Atom chimed in, grabbing the reporter’s attention.

“Go on,” they prompted, “Is there something about the Empress of the Renaissance we at home don’t know?”

“It’s not hard to pick up on,” Atom said, grabbing the microphone from the stage, “She bested me in combat and a hostile alien showing she is a competent and versatile warrior, and there aren’t many women you can say that about. She donates to charity, showing she has a heart of gold. She’s quick as a whip and has a tongue that could cut diamond. She’s unafraid of any and every challenge, having faced opponents twenty times her size and saving an entire world, not mention ours, and going to save her own. She’s the hero of heroes and all while maintaining her delicate femininity. Look at her. Strong, brave, beautiful, the face of Tomorrowland! And she has the laugh of an angel! It’d be impossible to find another woman as wonderful as she is, and I –”

Atom stopped in the middle of his rant, realizing he had more or less said too much. He couldn’t even look at you. The reporters couldn’t look away, except for a few

“Excuse me for a moment,” he said, dropping the microphone and jogging in another direction. You really didn’t know where to look, but you were certainly avoiding eye contact with everyone in your mild embarrassment. Your friends were at first all looking between you and Atom wondering where his sudden burst of adoration came from before their gazes all slid to Axel who was warping the air around him with the amount of heat he was letting off.

You scurried off too with your friends and family in tow, nothing being said between any of you until you got to the limo that was waiting to take you back to the palace. The empress, Commander Bog, and Captain Eo were with you as well. Atom had elected to find an alternative mode of transportation. Not that you could blame him.

“What… was that?” Ludwig asked as he plopped into a seat.

“That was disturbing,” Eo answered, “And he just kept going too. Like a long, embarrassing fart.”

“Eo!” Bog chided, “Don’t sully the air around the empress with such words.”

“I don’t know what it was,” you said, kind of wishing it wasn’t the topic of conversation at the moment, “I didn’t know he felt so strongly.”

“I’m sure he didn’t necessarily mean it like that,” Namine answered, “He knows a few of the things you’ve done, but he doesn’t really know you. Not really anyway. I think he means you’re someone to admire.”

Even as she said these words, you weren’t entirely sure how true you could say they were. You knew if Axel had hated his guts before, he may have outright despised them now. He had barely cooled down during the trip from the stage to the car, and you were pretty sure everyone was starting to get uncomfortable even with the A/C blasting.

You discretely slid your hand over and gave it a comforting squeeze. Axel squeezed back, and the temperature in the car dropped another few degrees.

“Let’s change the subject,” Demyx suggested, and there were murmurs of agreement.

“Like how I blew my moment to say something about our cause,” Namine groaned out, dropping her face into her hands.

“It wasn’t so bad, dear,” Dreamfinder said from where he sat next to Ludwig.

“Are you kidding? That could not have gone worse if I had vomited on the crowd.”

“You did fine,” Demyx weakly tried to reassure her, “Not everyone is great at public speaking and literally no one is holding it against you. And if they are they can take it up with us.”

“Yeah, we’ll kick their ass,” you said with a light punch to Namine’s shoulder. She let a weak smile light up her face.

“Thanks, guys.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what friends are for and all that,” Axel said, with a smirk and a shrug, “Honestly it could have gone way worse, but you all were fine.”

You all continued chatting amongst each other until you noticed the empress was the only one eerily quiet – even Eo and Bog had occasionally chimed in on different topics of conversation. But not Nova. Was something wrong?

“Anything on your mind, your highness?” you offered. Her eyes didn’t even slide over in your direction. She just kept looking out of the window with a frosty, cold look in her eyes.

“If there’s a problem, I’d be happy to offer any help,” you tried again. By this point, the rest of the people in the limo turned their attention to her. Was she ignoring you? Or just that distracted?

“My empress,” Bog said, and her eyes slid slowly over to him, “I believe ________ is wondering if anything is wrong.”

“Oh?” she said half-heartedly before her gaze finally slid over to you, and you felt strangely vulnerable. She offered you a tight smile. “It’s nothing really, my dear. It’s just that all of this hullabaloo and the delay at that conference made me rather late for a meeting with my generals.”

“Generals? I didn’t know you had generals,” you responded.

“Yes, well they live on the other planets commandeering their own bases, so any and all communication with them happens via hologram. You would not have met them.”

“Ah, I see.”

The limo pulled up to the palace and you all streamed out with Nova getting out first to go to her meeting with Commander Bog hot on her heels.

“Not to worry Empress Nova,” he said, “I’m certain the generals won’t be upset about our delay. After all you are the face of our great nation. The day begins and ends with your arrival, and they ought to know that.”

Nova gave a noncommittal hum of acknowledgement towards his statement. She wasn’t particularly in the mood for his special brand of ass-kissing, and she normally welcomed all kinds.

She turned down several hallways in her wing of the palace until she reached a large set of doors that led to a room in which there sat an ovular table with eight chairs and one throne around it. There were projections of each of the generals’ faces when she entered, already discussing things without her and hardly quieting once she and Commander Bog had entered.

She sat in her throne, back straight and eyes cool while Bog stood at her side.

“Good afternoon, my empress,” one of the generals greeted and the others subsequently stated their own greetings.

“Good afternoon,” she said in a clipped tone of voice, “Let’s get down to business, shall we? What do you believe to be so important that you needed to call a meeting? You know we’re in the process of getting our tripods fully-functional again.”

“We’re well aware of the work and effort of the scientists,” one of the generals said, “We were originally just going ask the status of that project to know when we could expect to move out our ambassadors, but something else caught our attention. We’ve been watching the news and have heard of Lady ________ and all that she’s done.”

“We watched the news just now as well,” another said, “That keyblade wielder is quite something, isn’t she?”

“She certainly is… something,” Nova said with a sigh. You were not something she really wanted to talk about right now.

“And she’s presented us with a very interesting problem. You see we were unaware of the robots’ potential sentience.”

“And?” she urged, impatient.

“And we need to get ahead of this before it becomes a problem. It’d be a PR nightmare, and the last thing we need is for the world to think we’re all a bunch of tyrants and you by extension, Empress. We were already discussing possible solutions to the problem when you were running late.”

“Is that so?” she said with a light narrow to her eyes.

“We propose a gala that will publicly recognize robots as people provided their sentience can be proven. We just need to appoint a representative for them.”

“You’re just going to pick some robot at random, and appoint them to represent the robots we just learned are sentient? I’m not certain any of that would be a decent idea,” Nova said with a passive wave of her hand.

“Well what about Lady ________?” Bog suggested, drawing the intrigue of every general in the room and the ire of the empress. She fixed him with a hard look that he was completely oblivious to. He just smiled proudly at her as if he had done her some great favor. And as far as he was concerned he had. Now she had nothing to stop her from bettering the lives of the country and people. And what could be more important than that?

“Lady ________?” one of the generals questioned, “On what grounds?”

“Yes, precisely what grounds?” Nova nearly hissed, “She’s hardly been on Tomorrowland for three weeks, isn’t a permanent resident, and unless I’m mistaken has no intent to be one either.”

“Well it would be a temporary position, of course,” Bog elaborated, “Until a permanent ambassador could be found or unless she agrees to stay. But she’s already gotten some influence behind her. She helped to restart space and interworld travel, she’s a philanthropist, and she saved the life of our dearest leader Empress Nova during our little excursion to the beach.”

“That’s a rather compelling case,” a general said.

“If all you need is the following of the people of Tomorrowland, then I’d be just as good a candidate if not a better one than the keyblade wielder,” Nova interjected. The generals all seemed to shift rather uncomfortably.

“Well you might have were it not for the incident with Space Mountain,” one stated after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, “Closing down the space station and stranding people on other worlds as well as condemning those stuck on the space station to death has left the public with rather mixed feelings on you.”

“Are you telling me that my people do not like me because I had to make a tough decision?”

“Not at all! We’re saying that people don’t like losing loved ones, and even though we understand you believe you had no choice –”

“I didn’t!”

“We know! But regardless there are those who are always going to say that something else should have or could have been done. Lady ________ on the other hand has only a positive review from the people.”

“And a big one from one of our captains,” another general interrupted, and was joined by laughter around the room from everyone but Nova.

“Personal reviews aside,” the previous general continued, “We’ll appoint Lady ________ as the ambassador for the robots and we can announce it at the gala. Now if there’s nothing else?”

Nova waved them off dismissively, thoroughly annoyed at everything at the moment and feeling a headache beginning to form. The generals each signed off, and it was just Nova and Bog left.

“I think that went quite well,” he said with a cheerful grin, “And I’m glad I could assist you in today’s meeting. And I’d like to know if there’s anything else you or the country may need of me.”

“You’re dismissed, Commander,” she grumbled, not even looking in his direction, instead closing her eyes and trying to will her headache away.

“Yes, my empress,” he said giving a quick bow, and leaving.

Nova had about ten seconds of peace before S.I.R. rolled into the room. She opened her eyes and fixed him with a heated glare which only grew in intensity when she noticed he looked somewhat smug.

“You,” she said once he reached her side, “What the hell was that? At the press conference? And what were you even doing there?”

“Word gets around the robot community. We talk. Even if you flesh bags don’t listen or even think that we know how. And I was just doing my part for the community. As someone who was violently screwed over by lack of recognition of the autonomy of robots, I thought I should say my piece. But that’s not why I’m here.”

“Why are you here?”

“The same reason I always visit you. Also I had a few questions. Like how you sent her to another planet to ensure she couldn’t get into the spotlight or be involved in politics by spending too much time with your soldiers. How did that work out?”

Nova huffed bitterly before her face cracked into something that almost resembled vulnerability. But was still clouded with far too much bitterness.

“I don’t know what to do,” Nova whined, “She’s in everything.”

“You don’t think you’re exaggerating a little? She hardly even knows what she’s getting herself into just that she’s been flung into the world’s politics by robots who are grateful to her for acknowledging their humanity.” S.I.R.’s face held a wry smile that only served to grate on Nova’s nerves further. “But if you’re that desperate to be in the spotlight, why not work with her as opposed to against her? You don’t need to support her just to be in the spotlight. You could just do what she does. Make a name for yourself instead of relying on the people to acknowledge you for your lack of accomplishments.”

Nova thought this over for a moment and took into consideration about what the generals had said before when they mentioned how you’d only done good things for people to see before an idea popped into her head.

“I suppose that makes sense,” she answered slowly, a glint in her eye.

“Now a few other questions I have,” S.I.R. continued, dropping the previous subject, “How’s that whole ‘I deserve Axel because I deserve power,” thing coming along?”

“That,” Nova seethed, “I had actively planned to act on that a few days prior. But he ran off before I could do anything.”

“Oh really? Were these the same days prior that he happened to be spotted with a certain keyblade wielder?”

Nova froze. She had known he had run off. She knew ________ had been spotted the day he ran off. And hadn’t they mentioned that at the press conference?

“He preferred having fun with one of his friends I suppose. Though I’m sure his friends have a bit more to offer than letting him follow them around hoping to catch him staring down their shirts, huh? Have you even caught him looking in your direction?”

Nova was quiet. She couldn’t think of a single time. If anything he seemed completely uninterested. Though it could be because they were always in meetings with scientists and military personnel. And it wasn’t like she had turned on her charm. Though she had half expected to just catch him staring at her. They always did – save for Atom who was too proper and Eo who preferred the company of men. But not this one.

“It isn’t as if I’ve made my intentions all that clear,” she said with a sniff, “He just needs a nudge in the right direction.”

S.I.R. snorted.

“Or maybe he just doesn’t like you and needs more than a fake pair of tits to turn his head.”

“Was there a point to this visit of yours?” she snapped at him, voice raising a little.

“The same point as always.”

“And what point is that.”

“I don’t like you, and just need to make sure you didn’t forget.”

S.I.R. turned and began to wheel himself out of the room when Nova called to him one more time.

“Just because you cozied up to that keyblade wielder doesn’t mean you’re untouchable.”

“Then who else would you rant to about your feelings towards ________ or your failures? The duck?” he said with a dry laugh before leaving.

~

Axel was feeling possessive. You had to assume so because as soon as the two of you were out of view from everyone else he had wrapped a tight arm around you and pulled you in for a very deep, very passionate kiss that left you reeling afterward.

And even now, an hour later while relaxing in the hot tub with Namine and Demyx, he still had an arm around you and kept whispering flirty and suggestive things in your ear that kept you in a constant state of flustered giggles. Demyx would roll his eyes every time Axel broke from the conversation to mutter something in your ear. Namine was a bit more patient, instead laughing when you couldn’t keep your train of thought due to Axel distracting you.

It didn’t help that you both still felt that lingering closeness from a few nights ago when you’d gotten much more intimate in your relationship than you’d ever been before.

However, after getting nowhere in your conversation because of these factors, Demyx opted to turn on the T.V. instead, and the four of you settled in to watch while you soaked. He flipped around a bit before settling on the news.

“Really? The news? We were just on the news,” you said, more in the mood for movies.

“No, you and Namine were on the news,” Demyx said, not relinquishing control of the remote.

“Don’t remind me,” Namine grumbled.

“But if we’re really gonna do this whole robot rebellion thing, don’t you think we ought to stay informed and all that? Who knows what they’re saying about us.”

“I mean you were briefly on the news,” you said but conceded anyway. You were curious about how everyone was handling the news of robot sentience as well.

He flipped through a few news channels, and most of them said the same thing – shock and bewilderment with alternating hints of mild skepticism and optimism. No one was really sure what to think, but thankfully they didn’t shoot the idea down outright. Though you noticed, with no small amount of happiness, that they kept replaying the stories of the grandfather robot and S.I.R. You had no doubt that if there were a way to win anyone over, it would be that.

“Such moving words from such a brave person,” a news anchor said about S.I.R.’s speech, “In other news wildfires on top of World’s Fair attractions?”

You and Axel froze.

“That’s right,” the co-anchor answered, “The same day of the liberation of the Carousel of Progress robots, a strange light was being emitted from the top of Spaceship Earth. Bystanders had initially thought it was the light of the fireworks bouncing off of the surface, but strange lights continued long after the lightshow had ended.”

A picture of Spaceship Earth from below popped up on the screen, and you could see the unmistakable purple glow giving it almost a halo-like effect along the top part of the ride. Two other pictures, one depicting a blue glow and another depicting a blue and red glow side by side, popped up on the screen before the news anchor continued.

“Maintenance workers went to the top of the ride to investigate after riders complained about a rather intense heat at some point during the ride, and it was suspected that parts of the ride might have been overheating. The ride was temporarily closed and evacuated while maintenance workers went up to investigate. However, once they reached the top of the ride, all that remained were the remains of what looked like a dinner and a charred blanket. Authorities suspect it was a couple of teenagers trying to have a romantic evening. No one knows where they may have disappeared to when maintenance workers arrived to search the area, but all we know is that if you have any idea who it may have been that you call the number at the bottom of the screen.”

Namine and Demyx slowly turned to look at you before simultaneously saying the first things on their mind.

“You did it on top of a ride?!”

“The two of you really did fool around!”

Demyx and Namine then looked at each other while you and Axel looked at each other.

“You told Namine?!” Axel said, face beet red knowing that someone who was akin to a little sister knew he’d been up to something sexual.

“Well you told Demyx!” you said equally a little embarrassed.

“New subject!” Namine called to move on from the topic of you and Axel being sexual. She still didn’t want to think about that.

“But I have questions!” Demyx objected.

“New Subject!” you parroted Namine.

There was a knock at the door, and you all quieted a bit, the T.V. still droning in the background.

“Come in!” you called, ignoring Demyx’s grumbling that he wanted an explanation later. In stepped Robot Butler whose face looked quite somber, his eyes in a thousand-yard stare.

“Oh!” Namine said, turning in her seat in the hot tub so she could better see Robot Butler, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you since earlier today! I wanted to ask if we could borrow your mind for a moment. We may have answers for you!”

“I know,” he responded, voice almost devoid of any emotion – practically robotic in tone, “I saw the news, and I figured you would ask. But….”

“Is something wrong?” Demyx piped up, lowering the volume on the T.V. so Robot Butler’s quiet voice would carry better.

“I… I can’t explain it,” he said, voice seeming unsteady, “I can’t do it. What you’re doing. I just can’t do it.”

“What do you mean?” you said, getting mildly worked up as your mind went to the worst possible scenario, “Is someone threatening you? Because we will not stand for –,”

“No!” he interrupted you, voice caught between anger and sadness, “I just can’t. Now if you’ll excuse me. I have things I need to do.”

“Wait!” Namine called, standing up, the water around her legs sloshing violently, “Don’t go! We have to do this! You can’t just- just leave!” Namine’s hands clenched into fists and the water in the tub began to cool rapidly, ice crystalizing up her legs.

But he didn’t stop or turn around. He just left.

“What the hell?!” she nearly screeched as you and Axel scrambled out of the hot tub which had gone so starkly cold compared to what it had been only moments ago. You both began to heat yourselves, shivering slightly from what she’d done to the tub, the water of which had begun to form a thin layer of frost on top.

“Hey,” Demyx said, reaching up to grab her hand, “It’s not the end of the world. Maybe we can talk to him later. I mean, try seeing it from his point of view: Everything is changing. He’s probably all shook up and doesn’t know how to process it yet.”

“Still,” Namine grumbled, “He couldn’t have picked a worse time to back out of it.”

“There’re probably plenty more robots that’ll be willing to help,” Axel suggested.

“I guess,” Namine said before sitting back down in the hot tub, “What happened to you two?”

“What do you mean what happened?” you said, pointing at the hot tub which had still yet to thaw, “You nearly gave us frostbite is what happened!”

“Oh,” Namine said, looking down at what she’d done and going red in the face.

“Huh,” Demyx said amusedly, “I hardly noticed. Maybe while we wait for Robot Butler to come around we can get a handle on that magic. It’ll get your mind off of things.”

Namine let out a long, weary sigh.

“Yeah,” she said finally, “Yeah that might be nice.”

~

 “And you said this lecture was on the molecular structures of what again?” Dreamfinder asked as he and Ludwig walked the halls of the palace on their way to a lecture at the military base.

“Bran muffins! This is the sixth time I’ve had to remind you. Doesn’t Figment usually right these things down for you? Where is he anyway? Usually separating the two of you is near impossible.”

“Well we’ve been going back and forth lately ever since that money fiasco with the gambling – when we first got here, remember? Well we talked about it because I was worried about him, and Namine, bless her heart, convinced him to talk to me about it. And he’s decided he wants a little space to figure himself out. But I know that just means he’s going to stay up past his bedtime and eat too much ice cream. Well it won’t be long before he comes crawling back to me!”

“Why’re you so protective? He’s a grown man!”

“Because I’m his father! I’ll always be protective of him.”

“Well consider this: He was alone for twenty years on Spaceship Earth with only me and ________ for company – the latter being only when he was babysitting her with me. Now he has a chance to branch out and not look after ________ 24/7, so let him eat his ice cream and stay up a little late. And when he’s had his fun, he’ll be right back here with hug for you.”

Dreamfinder huffed. He didn’t like the idea, but what other choice did he have that wouldn’t cause Figment to push him further away?

“Fine,” he mumbled, pouting.

That was when he spotted the empress as they passed another hall, and a thought flitted through his mind. He’d already been intrigued by the advancements of robotics on Tomorrowland prior to knowing about Demyx and Namine’s theories on it, and now that his own thoughts were confirmed, he thought to perhaps pick Nova’s brain about it. From his own studies he had also gathered that the rulers of Tomorrowland had known more about the robots than the public could offer – as shown by their initial implementation of them.

“Ludwig, would you mind if I caught up with you in a bit?”

“Sure, what’s wrong?”

“Oh nothing, dear, I just need to ask the empress for a bit of information. I’ll see you at the base a little later.”

With that Ludwig shrugged and continued his walk while Dreamfinder took a turn down the hall and after Nova.

That was also about when Ludwig’s phone buzzed. He looked at the screen to see a picture and a text from Figment. The picture was of Figment in a bed with a cookie at least twice his size in front of him with the caption: Getting Turnt Tonight!

“Oh man that guy is so cool,” Ludwig said aloud, “Better not tell Dreamfinder. He doesn’t need his suspicions confirmed and ruining his good time.”

Dreamfinder caught up with the empress as she glided silently down the halls, unaware of her mood until he saw the stiffness of her features when he finally caught her, calling out her name. She turned to him and put on a smile as she was supposed to – stiff and obligatory.

“How can I help you, my dear?” she said gently. Dreamfinder regarded her for a quick second. Like Axel he was exceptionally good at reading people, but he had the advantage of being more in tune with human nature and psychology. Every tiny twitch of her facial muscles was another tell.

She was stressed.

“How are you feeling?” he began, dropping the main subject that he wanted to talk about in favor of being a willing ear to listen, “You seem like you have a lot on your mind.”

“Do I now? Are you good at reading people?” she responded, eyes becoming more alert and calculating as she asked, searching his face for an answer.

“Well, not to brag, but I am a psychiatrist. Dreams and emotion are my area of specialty.”

“Then perhaps you could answer a question? Why is it so easy for a stranger to sway people with one good deed, but I can’t do it by just being a decent person?”

Dreamfinder blinked. He hadn’t expected such a question.

“I don’t know,” he replied honestly, “At least I couldn’t tell you right this instant. Such a question could only be answered with deeper, more introspective thought as opposed to a cursory glance at the surface.”

“Ah, well forgive me as I do believe you sought me out and not just to answer my questions I’m sure,” she said her smile just a fraction tighter than it had been a moment before.

“Well, if you don’t mind my asking, could I get your opinion on the robot sentience situation?”

There was the tiniest downturn to her eyebrows. She was annoyed.

“What should my opinion be?” she replied, her voice clipped and chin raised defiantly, “The subject came up out of nowhere. No one had ever really questioned it before. How was I to know the keyblade wielder was going to reveal to the world that robots could think?”

“Oh, well, I –,”

“Could I ask you another question? About her?”

“You mean ________?”

“Does she make a habit of that? Getting involved in things that at one point didn’t concern her?”

Dreamfinder was mildly taken aback. If he weren’t mistaken, he could hear a hint of… jealousy?

“Well,” he said, answering her question, “To my knowledge… yes. She does. But it’s a bit more complex than that. She has a hero complex. She’ll feel obligated to get involved if people need help. But she’s been working on that. Not getting involved, I mean. It puts a strain on her – more than she can handle. And let me tell you – not to be a gossip – but it can drive her to drink!”

“Oh?” Nova said, actively surprised by this little tidbit of information.

“Oh, yes. But she’s recovering from that too,” Dreamfinder said with a wave, “But I’ve said too much. It’s just… I worry about her.”

“Oh I can only imagine!” Nova said with tones of sympathy lacing her voice, “The poor, sweet dear. I’d no idea what a struggle she had! And such a fragile vice to have! I know it must be hard on you as well – caring for someone who so often puts herself in danger and who’s in charge of saving the world. I mean, as someone who has an empire of eight planets – nine if you include this one – under her rule, I completely understand her ordeal.”

“Oh I know!” Dreamfinder said, “But I’ve every confidence in her, and she’ll have her home world back in no time! As soon as our ship is fixed, we’ll be taking care of it!”

“And I’m certain she’ll do it with flying colors,” Nova said with a big, toothy grin.

“I thank you for the vote of confidence and for the little chat. It can be a lot to hold on to. But I should be going. I’ve got somewhere to be, and I’m certain you have more important things to do than to listen to me go on about ________.”

“It’s no trouble at all, my dear. And do know I’ll always be here if you need someone to talk to about ________’s little problems.”

~

Namine launched a small bolt of magic from her staff, freezing a pillar of water that Demyx had created. She’d done this maybe twenty times now, but it made her no less worked up or anxious. The conversation with Robot Butler kept replaying in her head over and over and over again. In fact, she wondered how it was no one else seemed as bothered about it as her.

You and Axel were off to the side either training or dancing – she wasn’t really sure. You were both attacking alright, but you looked to be having a little too much fun for her to believe it was strictly training. It may have just been another excuse for Axel to be close to you.

“You’re still thinking about it,” Demyx said as he created another set of pillars for her to attack.

“Thinking about what?” Namine said with a shrug and a voice that was a little too high and innocent for her lie to be even halfway believable.

“The thing from earlier. It shows.”

“What?! How?” Namine said, pouting and going a little red in the face.

“You’re kidding right? Axel catches fire when he gets worked up, Reader does it too and can electrocute you if she’s anxious. Even I lose control of my magic when my emotions are strong.”

“But I’m attacking the pillars!”

“Yeah,” Demyx conceded, lightly rubbing the back of his neck, “But your aim is pulling to the left and your shots are sloppy. You were better back on Hollow Bastion, and that was when you were still kinda new to it.”

Namine huffed.

“I know,” she said, letting her shoulders slump, “It just feels like I should be doing something, you know? Like if not going into Robot Butler’s head then at least something to feel like I’m contributing.”

“You are contributing. You started this. Don’t forget that, and a few setbacks isn’t the end of the world. I mean, we’ve been up against way worse than just this. I mean look at Axel and ________. Axel’s a complete jackass, edge-lord who has trouble admitting his feelings, and he still managed to get a relationship with an impulsive, semi-stable elf-person with PTSD and daddy issues.”

Namine snorted. She looked over at you and Axel. She supposed if the two of you who had histories that seemed fucked up beyond all repair could manage to set a steady future together, she could overcome this, now that she thought about it, small obstacle to her main goal. There was more than one way to prove a theory. She just needed to work with that.

“Put me down,” you laughed as Axel continued to hold you in his arms and spin you around, “We’re supposed to be training.”

“What are you talking about? This is training! I’m the teacher, and I say it’s training.”

You laughed and closed your eyes.

“But you’re making me dizzy,” you whined.

“Good that means it’s working!”

“Put me down!”

“No! Haven’t you ever watched a romance movie? This is what they do in romantic movies to show the couple is having a good time! And we’re having a good time!”

“Hey, Ax?”

“Oh are we on nicknames now? Yes, my sugar-coated, sugar biscuit?” he said, pulling you even closer and nuzzling his face into yours. You giggled even more before you hit him with your question.

“Boi, why you tryin’ so hard? And so suddenly too. Are you trying to butter me up? Or are you doing that thing where you’re playing along but you’re actually kinda making fun of it cuz you think you’re cool?”

“Nah, this time it’s genuine,” he said with a shrug as he finally put you down, “I just want you to be happy.”

“I am happy,” you laughed, “You’re like the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“With the way I had you screaming my name the other night, I know damn well I am.”

Of all the things that could have come out of his mouth in that moment, that was the last thing you expected. So of course you responded in the only way that seemed to come naturally to you these days.

You lit the fuck up in a blue flame that damn near exploded from you. And Axel just smirked at you, eyes playful and cat-like.

“Back to training he announced, picking you up, flames and all and spinning you around again. You managed to shake your surprise enough to fall back into the fun you’d been having previously until you were begging him to put you down again.

Axel laughed and finally put you down, laughing even more with you joining him when the two of you began to stumble a bit until you both fell into the sand on top of each other in a giggling heap, with you snuggling your face into Axel’s chest from where he lay beneath you.

You were interrupted, however, by the sound of someone clearing their throat. You looked up to see Eo and someone you didn’t recognize, both with looks of amusement on their faces.

“Busy?” Eo asked with a smirk and a quirk of his eyebrow.

You scrambled to get off of Axel, smoothing your skirt out as you stood. Axel followed after, dusting sand out of his hair and off his back.

“Um, no,” you mumbled, “You needed something?”

“Not me, Lady _________, but this young woman says she has information about your cause? For the robots and all that. That is, of course, unless you have someone better to do.”

Your flames which had barely calmed down from before re-ignited at the implication, feeling much like how you did the first time Gyro made a snarky comment about your magic on your first training day.

“Can you not?” Axel interjected dryly, giving a hard look at Eo who looked back with that ever-present look of amusement on his pretty face, “And can we help you?”

Axel fixed his gaze on the person next to Eo who had been quietly watching the exchange. It was a young woman – maybe a year or two older than Axel – who looked nervous almost as soon as all of the attention landed on her. She fidgeted a bit with her hands before clearing her throat.

“Hello,” she began, “My name is Ann, and I’m with the Robot Humanities Association. We were at your press conference – me and lots of other people.”

“Oh,” you said, reeling in the last bit of your magic, “Of course. How can I help you? Is there anything wrong?”

“Yes and no?” she said, “It’s just that there are more things to the robot plight than just not being recognized as people.”

Namine and Demyx walked over to listen to the conversation.

“Like what?” Namine said, feeling like this is just what she needed – to do something or at the very least fix something.

“That’s the thing,” Ann said going a little pink in the face, “It’s better if I show you. You can’t really know what you’re dealing with until you see it in person.”

You all looked at each other for a moment, unsure of where this was leading. But Namine responded first before a discussion could be opened.

“We’ll go,” she said boldly, “Take us wherever. And we’ll handle it.”

The woman smiled and looked relieved, her shoulders visibly relaxing.

“Thank you! Thank you!” she said, “I was worried you’d say no.”

“Why would we?” Namine answered, “Helping people in need is literally what we do.”

“Well you won’t be needing me anymore,” Eo said as he turned from the group, “However, if you do, call the military base. I’ll be escorting the empress there a little later. Just let any of us know if you’re in trouble.”

“Will do,” Demyx responded, and you all followed the woman out of the palace and to a monorail. You rode that monorail to another stop where you boarded another monorail that took you to the edge of town. You vaguely recognized it as where the robot part of town began from the last time you’d been here with Namine and Robot Butler.

You all hopped off the monorail, and that was where the walking started. You walked and walked and walked for what seemed to be about two hours or so. And the further you walked the more subdued the town became and the more dilapidated. It wasn’t in complete disrepair. It was just more void of bright or happy colors. Instead of sleek whites, silver, and chromes like the ones that dominated the human part of town, there were more wooden and brick buildings – some of which looked like they’d been there for a while. But none of them look structurally unsound, just old.

But you all weren’t here to see any of that. But nothing could have prepared you for what you did see.

A junkyard.

Piles and piles of scrap, metal, and robot parts. And among the hills of forgotten and dead robots were camps. Little groupings of robots that were rusted out and barely functioning – most of them larger and bulkier and clearly outdated – as they no longer matched the designs of the much sleeker robots you’d become accustomed to seeing in the nicer parts of Tomorrowland.

And with a dawning horror your group realized that it wasn’t just a junkyard. It was a graveyard. All of these robots were barely functioning – some entirely immobile – and just here waiting to die.

“Now you get it,” Ann said, turning to you with wide, sad eyes, “When no one believed us – when we said they were people – they were dismantled or thrown away like your friend from the World’s Fair said. But when they aren’t dismantled immediately they come here. These ones all lived in the city at some point and moved to the robot part of the city when they weren’t needed anymore. They maintained themselves as best they could for a while, buying parts or trading things in for them as needed. But then their parts stopped being made. And now they can barely function. So they became scavengers – having to take parts from robots that are dead. It’s like finding a corpse and trying to give yourself a new liver. Some of them don’t have much time.”

“And no one knows about this?” Namine whispered, her voice wavering. You also felt a lump rise in your throat.

“That’s bullshit,” Demyx muttered, looking around dejectedly.

“And this is the fate of all robots that go obsolete,” Ann continued, “If we don’t do something, they’ll all wind up here someday, and the cycle will just continue. Some of them can’t even function well enough to leave the junkyard. They’re just trapped here with all of the corpses. And more show up every day.”

“Axel,” you called, your voice wavering like Namine’s. He looked at you with alarm, first looking you over to see if anything was wrong with you physically before asking about the problem.

“What do you need?” he asked, prepared to give you anything.

“Go find Pops. He needs to see this. He’ll know what to do when he gets here,” you said, a look of hard determination burning in your eyes. You felt the need to save these people, but Axel had no qualms about it this time. Even he was appalled by this revelation. …You and Namine were making him way more sympathetic than he used to be.

“Bring Dreamfinder too,” Namine added, “I should talk to him about all this. And maybe we can give a little counseling to the robots who need it. This can’t be good for their mental health.”

Axel nodded.

“I’m on it,” he said, opening a corridor straight to the palace island and going onto the military base. He didn’t have any time to lose. Not after what he had seen.

He had to get directions from different soldiers on base to find the exact building he was looking for, and when he walked in he felt even more lost. It was an endless array of twists and turns, and it wasn’t until he reached a briefing room that he found anyone willing to help him look.

Nova was bored in this meeting. She was barely paying attention, trying desperately to even keep herself awake when she noticed, from across the room, a tall, redheaded figure. Now she was wide awake and feeling a bit flirty.

She stood from her chair, barely excusing herself from the other people in the room, who continued as if she were barely a part of the conversation – which she barely was. Then she hurried over to Axel who was hurriedly looking around the room.

She adjusted the front of her dress, tugging it down just a bit as she approached. She put on a charming smile and made sure there was an extra sway to her hips. But he was too busy looking around to notice. It wasn’t until she was right next to him that he acknowledged her at all.

“Axel,” she greeted, “What a pleasant surprise, but I don’t remember you being needed here. Not that I mind all too much.”

“Ah, yeah, sorry,” he said sheepishly, “I didn’t mean to barge in on anything. I was told I could find Ludwig and Dreamfinder here? I need to speak with them.”

“Oh well I’m not busy,” she said leaning forward just a bit, “I could help you look. Two pairs of eyes are always better than one, aren’t they?”

“Well if you don’t mind, sure.”

“Believe me, dear, I do not mind,” she said gently tugging on his arm to follow her out of the room. She was prepared to remain on his arm for the rest of their little search, but as soon as they were back out into the hallway, he darted away from her to check a room across from the one they had just left. So she let her arms drop to her side before deciding to cross them under bosom, lifting them so it would press her breasts higher and make them easier for him to notice – since he had yet to do so.

And he was constantly not looking at them, too lost in his own search – so much so he didn’t even notice all of the looking Nova wasn’t doing in her attempt to get him to look at her.

“So are you and your friends still enjoying your stay at the palace?” she asked while pretending to glance in a room.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. It’s nice. Never stayed in a castle this nice before,” Axel responded, remembering how uninteresting and unaccommodating the Castle That Never Was could be.

“Well that’s nice.”

“Uh-huh,” he acknowledged, peeking into another room, this one a supply closet. But Nova would not be so easily brushed off.

“Were you a guard before you had your temporary position? You seem to know your way around a battlefield from what I saw the other day. Such power and control doesn’t come from nowhere,” she said with a bat of her long lashes.

“Well sort of. I was something of a fighter before I met ________. But I’ve been fighting alongside her for a while now. Taught her just about everything she knows.”

“That’s quite impressive. I’ll admit that I’m going to miss having a guard with such unique talents. I assure you I’ve never had someone with the ability to control fire. And you’re always welcome to reapply for the position of my personal guard.”

“Well it’s a nice offer, but I’m not sure it’s the position for me,” Axel said, finally looking in her direction so as not to be completely rude to her. Nova was ecstatic nonetheless – even if his eyes never dropped from hers to admire her figure. It was a start.

She stepped closer, ensuring a deep sway to her hips with each measured step.

“I’m sure together we could find a more comfortable position. I can be flexible for you if that’s what it takes,” she purred, a bounce in her final step to ensure her chest bobbed with her, her eyes glinting in a heated manner. But Axel’s attention was quickly caught by a set of double doors behind her.

“No, but thanks for the offer. I’m kinda eager to finish the mission I’m already on,” he said as he stepped around Nova to get to the doors, “As soon as the ship is fixed, I mean.”

Nova pouted from behind him.

“Yes, of course,” she bit out.

Axel let out a sigh of relief. Within the room were several rows of chairs all occupied by people taking notes and giving rapt attention to the pair on stage as Ludwig and Dreamfinder pointed to different parts of what looked to be a diagram of the innerworkings of a bran muffin.

“Axel I –,” she began again, reaching out for him to ask him if she could possibly persuade him to spend a few minutes with her, but he was already walking briskly down an aisle of chairs, throwing an, “Excuse me, your highness,” over his shoulder as he went.

She blinked and watched stunned as he reached the stage and hopped up there as if he belonged there and whispered something to Ludwig and Dreamfinder on the stage, away from the microphone.

“What?!” Ludwig and Dreamfinder shouted simultaneously.

Ludwig approached the microphone to speak.

“I have to go! My people need me!” he said dramatically, and the auditorium, for reasons no one not even the author is sure of, responded with uproarious applause.

It was as Axel, Ludwig, and Dreamfinder were slipping behind the curtain of the stage that Nova realized her chance at keeping Axel around was escaping. She rushed at a brisk yet elegant walk towards the stage, slipping behind the curtain. She didn’t see them.

She checked the door further in the back where a faint exit sign glowed, but when she peered out of the back of the room and into the outside, she was met with more nothing. It was as if they had vanished into thin air.

Axel was gone.

Nova huffed to herself before returning to the auditorium and briskly walking past everyone, ignoring anyone that greeted her as she went. She was more than a little annoyed. First you were throwing yourself into the spotlight again with your charity work, then Bog practically promotes you into a position of power himself, S.I.R. grating her nerves at every turn, Axel ignoring her, and now she had to march back into a boring meeting about something she didn’t even much care to remember.

She stormed back into the meeting room where she’d left Eo seeing that the meeting was still in full swing, and she wanted no part in it. She wanted to go home and rest.

“Eo,” she called, nearly stomping over to him, only getting more and more aggravated with each step she took. He looked at her, a bored expression on his face as he regarded her. “We’re leaving.”

“With all due respect, Your Highness, we’re still in the middle of a meeting. About our plans for the empire moving forward. We should be up-to-date on the situation.”

Nova stopped in front of him, her eyes narrowing to slits, her voice icy as she spoke.

“Excuse me,” she said, “But who are you?”

Eo let out a sigh.

“Your captain, Your Highn–”

“Precisely. My captain. You answer to me, and you would do well to remember your place when telling me your opinion on what I should do. We’re leaving.”

She spun on her heel and began to walk with a reluctant Eo following after her.

“Even as I consider my place, I can’t ignore that if you would ask for my opinion, I would mention that you ought to be more directly involved with the goings on of your empire instead of dragging one of the people who helps run it out of said goings on.”

“I don’t need to take that from somebody who prefers to spend his free time on his knees,” Nova hissed as she looked him up and down with disdain. Eo met her glare.

“Funny. From what soldiers whisper, I heard you enjoy doing the same.”

Nova slapped him across the face and the sound echoed in the empty hallway. Eo didn’t respond, simply stared at her with the same cutting glare.

“You’re not indispensable. Remember that, Captain.”

Eo said nothing else, and neither did Nova, as they returned to the palace.

~

They were as horrified as everyone else had been.

Ludwig and Dreamfinder looked around in complete shock at the grave that lay before them.

“This isn’t what’s supposed to happen,” Ludwig said quietly, “Not like this.”

“I know, Luddy,” Dreamfinder said, giving him a gentle pat on the back, “It’s a tragedy. They’ve been discarded like common scrap. How many lost hope in this place when they could have been made better?”

“Pops,” you said, voice pleading as you looked at him from where you sat next to a few robots, “You have to do something.”

“I know,” he said somberly, “I’ve always believed that everything and everyone can be improved upon. And to throw them away is a waste of potential.”

Ludwig reached into his pocket and pulled out a wrench.

“And I won’t allow that!” he announced, “Line up everyone! You’re all walking or rolling out of here on your own two or more legs or wheels! If you can’t line up, then I’ll come to you!”

There was a quiet awe that swept the junkyard as they heard what he said. Was it really happening? Had the father of innovation really come here to give them all a new chance at life?

Those that could stand, clambered up in heaps of rattling, rusted, and barely held together parts, eager to be free from the scrapyard. You, Namine, Axel, and Demyx also helped up the ones who had trouble standing.

Dreamfinder approached you all.

“What will you all be doing in the meantime?” he asked.

“Well we’ve been getting a few stories from the robots,” you answered, “Anything that might make their cause more sympathetic so we can get the humans on our side.”

“Good, good,” Dreamfinder said with a nod, “Keep at it. I’m going to set up a small counseling area. The more I can deduce about their psychological process, the more evidence we’ll have to prove they’re thinking, functioning people. Let’s get to it. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”

And you did. But the challenge didn’t come from the tasks you’d taken on. It came in the same way the problem from Robot Butler had. None of them quite wanted to have their minds explored. And none of you could understand why. Namine, understanding as she was, was still frustrated to no end.

Because none of them could explain why it was they were so hesitant.

~

For the first time in his career, Robot Butler left in the middle of his shift to do something he wanted. He wasn’t used to it, and it made him uneasy. But he needed to talk to someone.

So that was what he was going to do.

He took a monorail not long after he had had the talk with Namine and the rest of you when you all had been lounging in the hot tub. He had debated what he was going to do afterwards. There were a few things to be tended to, and he was due to check in on the empress before she left for the military base to ensure she didn’t need anything and wouldn’t need anything upon her return.

But he found that he was having trouble caring. He couldn’t think of a single memory he’d had of her that made him feel compelled to check in on her. Not like with Namine. It had actively pained him to have that talk with her, even more so when he saw the hurt look she and the rest of you wore when he said he wouldn’t be able to help you.

But he just couldn’t.

Because what if you were wrong, and he’d have to feel all this hope he had shatter in front of him. And that would be it – the dream of having something like personhood ripped away from him because he’d never had a claim to it. Not really anyway. And he wanted it. He wanted it so desperately it felt like it hurt. And he’s not sure he could continue to exist, let alone function, if he found out that it just weren’t true and that it really was some glitch in his programming.

Who knows what they would do to him then? Ship him off to have whatever simulated intelligence he has ripped out of him? He didn’t want to think about it.

When he stepped off of the monorail, he walked and walked until he had reached the shop of Giovanni. As usual, Giovanni was deep in his work, buried beneath piles of fabric and design templates and patterns he’d sketched out himself.

“Giovanni,” he called out weakly.

Giovanni popped up from where he was working, sending fabric flying in different directions.

“Robot Butler!” he cried, happy, as always, to see him, “Do the empress or the keyblade wielder and her friends need new outfits?”

Robot Butler somberly shook his head, and Giovanni suddenly picked up on his mood, lowering his voice and tilting his head just a bit in confusion. For as long as the two had known each other, he had never seen him in anything but a good mood – or at the very least a neutral mood.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, approaching Robot Butler.

“Did you hear the news? About our kind?”

“About possibly having sentience?” Giovanni asked, his mood and voice perking right back up, “I did! And I’m ecstatic!”

“You are?”

“Of course I am! Think of all the things I’ll be able to accomplish as a citizen! This shop would be mine as opposed to owned by the city. I could make my own profit!”

“But what if we’re wrong?” Robot Butler asked, “What will they do to us if they think we’re not supposed to feel? Will we be reset? Dismantled?”

“I don’t know,” Giovanni said, “And I don’t care. I’m not even going to entertain the thought.”

“You don’t think it’s important?” Robot Butler asked with a little bit of annoyance creeping into his voice. He didn’t like the thought of would happen to him or any other robot if it turned out they weren’t sentient, but he couldn’t ignore it.”

“Of course I do. But everyday my work gets credited to someone else. I make money that I don’t have a right to because I am property of the empire. My designs are written off as the product of an algorithm as opposed to my own creative genius. Of course, I fear what they would do to me if I were not sentient, but it cannot compare to the way I feel when everything that I am equates to nothing in the eyes of people I am forced to serve.”

“Everything that I am,” Robot Butler mused. He didn’t know what he was. He knew Giovanni had the entire world to gain. In fact, many robots did. But he didn’t know what he was or who he could be. And as much he liked the thought of being someone. His fear was just too great.

But the more he thought about it over the next few days, the more Giovanni’s words rang in his head. And his thoughts continued to shift over and over again, turning over the idea of being someone in his head until it repeated itself in all his quiet time, then interrupting his thoughts, then pounding like a mantra every moment of every day until he couldn’t take it anymore. He needed to know.

So he sought Namine out, ready to give her and you entry into his mind once more.

Of course, Namine was ecstatic about this. Finally! She grabbed you and Dreamfinder, Ludwig, Axel, and Demyx tagging along, ready and waiting to see where this would lead them. All they needed was Figment.

But no one could find Figment.

Notes:

Hope you all enjoyed, and I'll see you soon! Thanks for all your support and understanding. You all mean the world to me!

Chapter 69: Nice.

Summary:

Let's call my absence an extended vacation. One that I will not do again. I might disappear, but I won't do it for six months at a time again. I'm genuinely sorry about that.

Anyway. This chapter is robot charity, whispered limo conversations, and dinner with royalty.

Warning: This chapter mentions a spiked drink near the end. Just so you know in case it makes you uncomfortable.

Nova ran through the palace, panting and breathless, bunching her skirt up around her thighs. Her mother would scold her for wrinkling her dress. She would also be upset she had managed to scuff her shoes having tripped earlier. But at least she didn’t scrape up her knees. She didn’t want a big, ugly scab on them again – one she wouldn’t be allowed to pick, lest it leave a scar.

Princesses should try to be as neat and tidy as possible.

Nova grinned.

Especially princesses who were going to be the empress one day.

She rounded a corner to see her mother speaking with Robot Butler, her face creased sternly with worry. Probably about the war. Everyone was worried about that. But whenever Nova asked about it, they brushed it off. It wasn’t something she needed to worry about, they would say.

No matter. They’d be answering all of her questions when she was empress. Like telling her what the war was about and how robots were made and where babies came from.

Her mother’s worry melted from her face as soon as she saw Nova. She bent down and opened her arms for her, and Nova charged forward, leaping into them as she always did. The empress lifted her with a grunt before placing a kiss on her face and setting her back down.

“There’s my favorite heir. The future leader Tomorrowland so greatly needs and awaits!”

Nova beamed. She knew this to be half true. It was no secret that the people of Tomorrowland were hesitant at best for her to rule. At worst they were pessimistic about it altogether. There had never been a female ruler before. She would be the first.

But her mother never doubted.

“I’ll show them,” Nova boasted, puffing her chest out.

“I know you will,” her mother said, a gentle smile making her beautiful face seem to glow, “You’ll get a keyblade just like your father, and you’ll be just as wise and competent as any emperor we’ve ever had.”

“Will I be a better empress than you?” you Nova asked with a cheeky grin. Her mother grinned back.

“You will be ten times the empress I ever was or will be.”

And just as loved she hoped. Nova’s mother was almost more of an icon than her father, beautiful and kind – a philanthropist known for donating money to those less fortunate and volunteering in soup kitchens. You couldn’t threaten her to keep her out of children’s hospitals where she would spend time reading to the children and bringing them toys or paying to have various magic shows performed there. If there was a charity that existed, she was undoubtedly a part of it. And if there was a cause for which no charity existed, she would start one.

It was almost as if she had some sort of complex for helping people. But it just made her all the more beloved to the people and her husband.

~

The war had been going on for ten years now. The emperor’s ambition very well may have been his downfall. He’d wanted too much – to be the first emperor in generations to bring another planet under the empire, to continue the empire’s great legacy. But what did he have to show for it thus far but wasted resources and an empire that was quickly losing soldiers. It was unprecedented. They’d never before encountered a world that was able to match them technologically.

He stood in a dimly lit room with his generals. Laid out before them was a hologram depicting their current situation, various depictions of battlefields and the estimated chance of success.

On the opposite of the projection stood Commander Bog, one of his most competent and capable forces, and he was as grim as any of them. None of this was quite going to plan. Bog’s eyes strayed from the projection to the emperor.

“Your Highness,” he began, voice low yet so loud in the dour quiet, “You know I would never doubt the ability of our great empire. It is the greatest pride in my life. And it is for that reason I must press that our next measures need to be drastic or surrender will be the only option we’ll have to continue our existence.”

“Surrender isn’t an option,” the emperor snapped at no one in particular. His eyes were glued to the odds of success – the number far too low for his liking. The estimated rate of survival for the soldiers was even lower.

“I know that, but we may need to consider it given that they’ve matched us on every front with equal force. We can’t continue on like this.”

“What if we redirect some of our manpower,” a general suggested, zooming in one of the battlefields, “They have an abnormal number of weak spots in this particular formation. It may just be a front to divert our attention, but if we strike quick and strike hard, then we can sweep it away and have time to pull the extra forces into a different battle and hopefully turn the tide of the war.”

“What about Captain Adams Sr?” the emperor suggested, jumping at any hope that this war might still go his way, “He’s our best man.”

“Sir, he just had a family,” another general interjected, “It’d be too much to ask him to leave his wife and child behind.”

“I’ll do it,” a deep voice rumbled as a man in his late thirties strolled into the room, his stern blue eyes sweeping the room with a confident gaze.

“Captain Adams,” the emperor greeted, “Are you certain?”

“I said I’d do it. And don’t any of you worry about Junior. He’s a trooper like his old man. And I don’t need him growing up in a war-torn empire. I’ll end this war if I have to do it single-handedly.”

“We still need a course of action.”

“If I may, Emperor,” he said, changing the projection to that of one of the earliest images retrieved from Planet X-S. It was a photo of their leader, taken during first contact when they were still willing to talk to each other civilly. “There’s our target. We’ve been trying too hard to strike down their manpower where they match us hand for hand, gun for gun. But if we strike at the head of their operations – their leader – I think we can end this war yet.”

“It won’t be easy getting that close,” the emperor said as he stared at the picture of his enemy, “And it’s drastic.”

“But it would be preferable to surrender,” Bog stated, also eyeing the projection with no small amount of contempt.

Everyone stood quiet for a moment. Then after what seemed like an eternity of stewing in their emotions which had turned into a jumble of worry and hatred, the emperor spoke.

“Let’s take a small recess and reconvene in ten minutes or so.”

He ran a hand through his hair which had been steadily graying since the beginning of the war. He felt like he was getting too old for this. And he was only thirty-five.

He stepped out of the war room and began walking down the hall, his footsteps echoing loudly in the halls and even louder in his ears. His temple was throbbing lightly, and a migraine felt like it was starting to form.

It was so much. But it was for the empire. He’d kept telling himself that at least. But this would be a surge in the glory of Tomorrowland. They’d have a new world. They could reintroduce Artificially Intelligent robots. That was its own stress to carry, but admittedly the science behind that was undoubtedly easier to manage than interworld war.

A new sound pounded down the halls, the sound of little shoes rapidly approaching him. He uncreased his brow to allow a smile to spread as Nova ran up to him.

He embraced her. This was another reason to keep the empire going. For her. She didn’t need to inherit a mess he’d started. And he had his doubts about that already. Adding war into the mix was out of the question. He would sooner surrender. But hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

“What are you doing daddy?” Nova asked before looking behind him down the long hallway where the tall doors of the war room stood. One of the generals was leaning against the door smoking. “Are you taking about the war?”

“It’s nothing you need to worry about, Princess.”

Nova pouted, her bottom lip jutting out.

“But I’m going to be the empress, so you have to tell me. I want to know too!”

“I know, dear. But you’re just not ready yet.”

“Is it about keyblade stuff? Because I could handle that. I’ll be ten in like ten months, so you can tell me! You could give me my keyblade now! I can handle it!”

“Slow down, Princess. You know what tradition states. Heirs to the throne receive their training keyblades on their tenth birthday. No sooner and no later.”

“But I want it now! There’s no real reason to wait anyway!”

“Patience is a virtue, and one that every empress and empress-in-training should learn. Like your mother. You’ll get your keyblade at your bequeathing ceremony when you turn ten just like I did and every other ruler before you. Now I have to go, dear. The meeting will be starting up again soon.”

“Can I come?”

“When you’re older.”

~

Every paper in Tomorrowland had news of the new baby the emperor and empress had welcomed into the world. And the empire was brimming with excitement because of it. Nova was less enthused.

This new heir was male. That meant it was him and not Nova who was now destined for the throne. Everyone was so happy that the tradition would carry on.

Nova scowled as she stared down at the dirt in the garden, and her mother let out a sigh.

“Nova, were you listening to me at all dear?”

Nova didn’t answer, she just glared harder at an ant crawling by. The empress sat down on a bench and pat the spot beside her. Nova dragged her feet but sat down next to her with a huff, crushing the ant on her way over just because.

The empress ran a gentle hand over Nova’s head, but it did nothing to lift her mood or unsour her expression.

“What’s wrong, my dear?”

“I was supposed to be the empress,” she grumbled, folding her arms tightly across her chest.

“Well… you were,” the empress said, pulling her daughter into her side, “But things changed. No one could have predicted this. And certainly no one knew we’d have a boy. But you know tradition. He’s next in line for the throne now. But it isn’t all bad.”

“How?” Nova huffed with a bit of venom in her voice. Nothing her mother was saying was making her feel any better.

“You can still care for the empire without sitting on the throne.”

“You sit on the throne.”

“Yes, but I don’t rule over the empire. I support it in other ways.”

“Well that’s not fair because I was supposed to rule it.”

“Sometimes life throws you a curveball. But you can still make the best of this.”

“But I was supposed to have the best. How can I be the best now if I can’t even rule part of it.”

“Come with me, darling,” the empress said. Nova stood up with her, and the two of them began to stroll slowly through the garden, Nova glaring at all of the blooms there and her mother admiring them.

“You know that it’s gardeners who take care of the garden. But the head gardener is the one in charge. He makes all the rules and gives all the orders. But it’s the people underneath him that are the ones truly helping the garden flourish. They tell him about all the little things he can’t see or can’t be around for because he has too much garden for one person alone to care for. And it’s the people who support the head gardener who ensure the garden thrives. You won’t be the head gardener. But you’ll be able to look over the empire all the same and help. Can you do that for me?”

“…Okay…”

The empress smiled before pulling Nova into a hug.

~

The war was progressing no better. In eight years since they’d decided to strike at the head, they’d come no closer to their goal. At this point surrender was almost an option the emperor wanted to consider.

He was walking the hall one morning, his generals, his captains, and his commander all at his heels debating with each other about what their next move would be. It was all such a strain.

The group passed by Nova and her mother who were walking the palace, most likely on their way to some charity function or other. Nova barely regarded the group of passing men, but the empress was never one to vaguely acknowledge her husband. She stepped over to him in long, graceful strides, spreading her arms out for a hug and kiss as was custom almost every time they were in a room together.

Nova let out a tiny huff, watching as every eye was caught on her mother – the so very beautiful and benevolent empress of Tomorrowland. It was the only thing she could ever thank her mother for in her head. She’d taken after her in the looks department. Long, dark hair that shone in the sun and ran down her back like a river. Full lips and shimmering eyes and perfect skin that wasn’t even marred by the presence of a birthmark. She was practically an exact replica of her mother.

Well… almost. Nova looked down at her chest. She’d never quite filled out there as much as her mother had. And as such never quite seemed to command the attention of a room as much as her mother. Though that could also have something to do with the ever-present icy demeanor she seemed to constantly give off as opposed to her mother’s warm smile and gentle greetings.

The empress gave her husband a hug and kiss, gently caressing his face as she wished him well for the day before giving a nod to the entourage behind him, telling them to give the enemy hell – receiving a round of flattered thanks and bows of respect. Oh how everyone just loved the empress. Nova suppressed a scowl.

As if this little meeting weren’t enough for her, that was the exact moment the bane of her existence appeared. The young prince ran in, swinging his training keyblade back and forth. Alongside him was the son of Captain Adams.

“There he is!” the emperor boomed, beaming with pride at his son as he ran around, blasting pretend enemies with pretend magic. The young prince turned to his father, running up to him.

“I’m a warrior!” he proclaimed proudly, “And my captain is too!”

Atom ran up to the emperor and the young prince.

“Sir!” he said, giving a rigid salute that he’d no doubt picked up from his father.

“At ease,” the emperor said. Atom smiled and relaxed, giving an eager wave to his dad who gave him a smile and nod back.

“We’re killing aliens,” the young prince announced.

“Well you’re the empire’s bravest protectors,” the empress cooed, stooping down to give her son a big kiss on his forehead. But the young prince pointed his training blade at her.

“Halt, alien! You won’t trick me today! Zap!”

The empress gasped, feigning pain in her chest where her son “shot” her before collapsing onto the floor.

“How did you guess?”

“Because I’m the greatest keyblade wielder ever! And you can’t trick us!”

“Yeah!” Atom said, giving the prince a high five before they went about “shooting” the other generals down – who all played along.

There was laughter all around the room. Nova just stood there. Her mother had invited her to one of her charity functions, but she intended to feign a headache at the last moment so she could slip away. Her mother talked a big game about the people and charity work, but from what she’d observed, no one really paid attention. At least not to her. Most of the attention always remained on her mother.

And what was the point of doing good like her mother encouraged if people wouldn’t even acknowledge that you were doing it? Ungrateful.

But her brother couldn’t even do anything. He just ran around swinging around that stupid keyblade that wasn’t even real, acting like he ran the empire already. It wasn’t cute. It was annoying.

He ran up to her after he and Atom had successfully subdued half of the generals and “zapped” her next. But she would be damned before she got on the floor for some stupid pretend game.

“Go away,” she said with a roll of her eyes, promptly ignoring him as she watched the generals and her mother pick themselves up off of the floor and begin to go their separate ways, her mother giving her father a few more kisses before she would let him leave.

“No! You have to die now! I zapped you!” the young prince said with a stomp of his foot.

“I already said no. Now go away you annoying little twerp,” she said as she eyed a soldier across the room making rounds in the palace. He was cute. Maybe she’d slip away from her mother and into somewhere cozy with him to “clear up that headache” she planned to have.

“You’re just jealous,” her brother continued, “‘Cuz you’re dead, and I have a keyblade and you don’t.” He stuck out his tongue for good measure. That oughta show her.

“You only have a keyblade because you were an accident our parents didn’t mean to make. If they hadn’t messed up and had you, then I’d be the one with the keyblade.”

“Moo-oom!” the prince whined to his mother as she approached, “Nova’s being mean again!”

“Nova be nice,” the empress sighed. Every other day it seemed to two of them were at each other’s throats. And one more than the other, and she wasn’t happy to say that it was the older of the two siblings.

“He started it,” Nova said with a huff, going red in the face.

“Be the bigger person, dear,” she said calmly, “You’re eighteen. He’s nine. Now come along and let your brother and his friend play.”

Atom, who had been quietly waiting for the exchange to end, perked up at the thought of playing and not getting involved with his friend’s mean, older sister.

“Come with me, darling,” the empress said, gently taking Nova’s arm and guiding her away from her brother who was already running off in another direction with Atom trailing behind.

“He’s always like this, you know?” Nova snapped, “And you always take his side.”

Her mother led them into the garden. She hated this garden so much. She hated her brother so much. She hated her mother, her father, those generals, just everyone so much.

“Am I wrong to take his side? He’s nine. You shouldn’t be letting what he says get to you.”

“But it hurts! He’s nine, but I was supposed to be the one to rule. He even got his keyblade early! And he just reminds me of that! It’s not fair!”

“I know, dear,” the empress said, pulling her daughter into a tight hug, rubbing her back. Nova didn’t hug back. She could only stand there feeling complete, utter resentment towards her brother. An accident. And now he’s going to rule them all. “Do you remember how I tell you to do good things?”

Nova rolled her eyes. She hated this conversation so much.

“Yes,” she grumbled into her mom’s shoulder, “But does it even matter? You and father accidentally have a child, and suddenly he’s more fit to rule than I am? Me? When I was supposed to get my keyblade right after he was born? And you,” she nearly spat, backing up a bit from her mother to glare at her, “You just let it happen! You of all people who said you didn’t care that I was going to be a woman in charge – that I was as capable as any of them. You let me believe I was going to rule, that I would make a name for myself as the first empress to rule the empire.”

“It’s not that he’s more fit to rule than you are. It’s just how things work, and we’re in no position to stop them. But I know you. You are capable of great things when you put your mind to them. And I’ve never stopped believing in you. You may not get a crown or a fancy title, but I know you’re not any less fit to rule than your brother or even your father.”

“I know I’m not.”

Her mother smiled gently.

“Why don’t you stay here? I know we were going to the charity function together, but you’re a bit worked up. You can relax for the day, and we’ll do something together tomorrow or when I get back. I promise.”

She placed a gentle kiss on Nova’s forehead before leaving her there to mull over her thoughts.

Nova watched her go, probably angrier now than when the conversation had started.

This was her mother’s fault. That brat was born, and she just let them pass her over in favor of her brother. And now he’ll be the ruler instead, and she’ll just be some footnote in the history books.

~

People milled about, chatting idly about the state of the world and the state of the empire. Everyone wore friendly and happy faces, but tension was high. If you looked closely enough, you see it – tight smiles and the occasional hard look in the direction of them . It was a word that was being thrown around quite casually in this instance between hushed whispers to your allies, your trusted affiliates.

Nova, quite frankly, couldn’t care less. She didn’t care for much at all these days. She much less cared for how people used the word “them.” To her the whole world was “them.” The world had promised her everything and had just as easily ripped it away. So the people milling about the ballroom now politely sharing laughter and finger sandwiches were as equally as bad to her as the aliens here to make peace with them.

But despite all her feelings of bitter resentment towards a world that seemed to not care about her, she smiled – a charming, beautiful smile that hid all of her feelings of ire. She offered that smile only to the people she hated most. And she had become quite good at it, and no one was the wiser. Her mother had even commended her on joining them at this event and charming some of the dignitaries as she greeted them with this smile. And Nova offered her mother the same smile.

Even now she held that smile. As she watched tense peace talks commence. This wasn’t the official meeting that would garner peace between Tomorrowland and X-S. No, that had happened a little over a week ago. This was merely a formality to show goodwill between the empire and it’s soon-to-be new addition. The war had raged for nearly fourteen years now, and it was finally coming to an end. And the only way her parents could agree to commemorate the occasion was this stupid luncheon.

She sipped at her champagne, the little bubbles tickling her skin, and one of the dignitaries from X-S sidled up to her with a casual lope – clearly trying to convey ease so he could conversate with her. Nova expected it. He’d been eyeing her from across the room, and as she had learned from her charming smile, she was someone who was considered beautiful on her world and theirs. It was only a matter of time before he finally had the balls to attempt to garner her attention.

He was bald – like everyone from that planet. Eyebrows and the occasional facial hair were something you could expect to find on these people, but apparently not on top of their domes. As if having a bluish-green color of skin were not off-putting enough. But baldness and color aside… he was kind of cute. Her smile changed then. It wasn’t a mask anymore. Now it was bait.

“Enjoying the festivities?” he asked, and Nova took a long, slow slip of her drink. Make him wait, let his eyes trail while you’re “distracted.” And she could feel his eyes raking over her. “Personally, I’m not one for these events. Often the conversation leans on the side of disinteresting.”

Nova quirked an eyebrow at him, still offering no words, but offering an amused smirk instead.

“I can tell you’d rather be anywhere else right now,” he continued. He was carrying an entire conversation by himself. She’d already had him wrapped around her finger, and she hardly had to do anything to do so. She had this method of reeling people in almost as perfected as her mask – and over the past few years she’d had plenty of practice.

Her mother walked by with her father, tossing her a quick smile – though it was dazzling all the same. And Nova couldn’t help but notice the way the dignitary watched her mother – watching the lithe sway of her hips and the light bounce of her breasts as she glided by, her dark hair flowing behind her like a river. Nova inwardly sneered. Nova was beautiful, but she’d always envied her mother’s beauty. She was just a fraction taller, with a curvier frame and a large bosom that Nova never inherited. In fact, it seemed all Nova had inherited from her was her dark hair and hips that were almost as full.

Ignoring her mother, she finally decided to use her voice if only to keep the interest of the dignitary at her side.

“Princess Nova,” she said, voice like honey, and offered her hand to him. He snapped out of his mild stupor to pay attention to her again, taking her hand gently in his own and giving it a gentle kiss.

“Councilor Bronn,” he said, offering her a lop-sided grin.

Just as she was reeling him back in, her brother walked by at a brisk pace, and just close enough for the two of them to step out of the way to avoid being bull-dozed. Nova let her composure break, her face contorting into a frown.

“So that’s your future emperor,” Bronn said with an incredulous tone.

Nova took a calming breath before replying.

“Yes,” she said, her tone smooth but a bit clipped, “He’s to be crowned emperor of Tomorrowland once he comes of age. It won’t be long now.”

“That’s only six years from now if I understand correctly. You must be rather enthused to see your brother prepare to move your empire forward.”

Nova couldn’t stop the scoff that escaped her. And she figured that since that made her position on the matter more than clear, she may as well continue to voice her opinion.

“I’m as enthused about the transition of power as I would be about a root canal.”

“I can take it that means you’re opposed to it then?”

Nova considered her words carefully so as not to come off as too bitter.

“I was supposed to rule the empire, you know? I was an only child for a very long time. But he came along. I’d be sitting on that throne right now were it not for ‘the accident.’ And I assure you, I’d be running things differently.”

“Do you suppose you would have ended the war sooner?”

Nova didn’t really want to talk specifics. Or politics. They bored her. So she turned the conversation in her favor, offering a charming and sultry smile.

“Of course,” she answered, “I can be very persuasive. And I make very tempting offers.”

She let her eyes trail slowly up and down his form before downing the last of her champagne. He took the bait, offering a confident smile and stepping just a tad closer.

“Well I for one can say, I’d be very happy to work closely with you.”

“Should we find somewhere more private to discuss how you’d work with me?”

~

Nova’s “guest” had left hours ago. And she didn’t think their roll in the sheets was anything too grand. Though she wasn’t so sure he didn’t think the same. Why else was she receiving an envelope that was made out of a very nice and expensive parchment with a wax sealing the back of it up.

She took a deep inhale on her cigarette, fingering the envelope before deciding to open it.

Just as she popped off the wax seal, her mother knocked on her door, poking her head in before Nova even had a chance to answer.

“Hello, darling,” she greeted, walking in without permission. Nova looked and saw that she too was holding a nice envelope, “I just wanted to be sure you got your card.”

“You sent these?” Nova asked, flipping the envelope over again to look at the half-broken seal. It wasn’t a crest she recognized.

“No, they’re from Planet X-S. I thought it was so sweet of them to send these cards. They’re so nice and thoughtful. And I just wanted to be sure that you received yours.”

“Yes, mother,” Nova said in a bored tone. Her mother offered a tight smile. She always had this sneaking feeling that she and her daughter were drifting apart, but she never knew what to do to fix it.

“Well,” she said a little awkwardly, “I can see you’ve had a long day.” She took note of Nova already being in her nightgown and robe though it was still early evening. “I’ll see you tomorrow, dear. Sleep well.”

“And you as well, mother.”

With another uncomfortable smile, her mother left.

Now that she knew the card was just a thank you and an extension of goodwill, it was far less interesting. And she debated fully opening it at all.

With a sigh she slid it out, surprised to find, not parchment, but a sheet of metal as thin as a sheet of paper but rigid anyway. She gazed at it in confusion. Was this someone’s idea of a joke – someone mocking her lack of a claim to the throne? She felt a flash of anger flit through her before one side of the sheet of metal lit up and a projection played.

“Greetings, Princess Nova,” a short, bald man who looked like he came from X-S – if the skin and lack of hair were anything to go by – appeared before her. “This is a message different than the ones received by your family. They wouldn’t understand anyway. But we are here to say that X-S does understand. One of our councilors told us about your predicament, and I must point out that we’re in a similar position.”

Nova watched in confusion and mild awe. She had no idea what to make of this other than that she was being contacted directly, and she could assume it was something her parents and brother were never to know about.

“We know,” he continued, “What it is like to have your rights torn from you. To have what is yours taken without so much as a sideways glance with those who claim, ‘it is the way’ never thinking about the injustice they’ve done you. We know you are the rightful ruler to the throne, and you were usurped by a pup whose too small to fit the crown.”

Nova should turn off this little message of theirs. She should have ignored it. But finally, finally after years of thinking these exact words – albeit in a way with much more swearing – somebody understood.

“I’ll keep this brief. You want power, and X-S wishes to remain an independent sovereign world. And we are prepared to ensure you’ll have that power provided you allow us to have our independence. That’s all. We’ll send ambassadors or generals or what have you to meetings to keep up appearances. But we’ll remain independent and free from Tomorrowland rule. And you’ll have our word that peace will remain and that you will be Empress Nova – no longer the princess who will remain in the shadows.”

Nova felt an unfamiliar feeling of exhilaration rush through her. In just a short minute she’d heard all that she wanted laid out in front of her.

“Contact us at your earliest convenience to let us know your answer. And please do not attempt to alert anyone of this message. It will delete itself shortly after completion, and we know that no one on your world respects you enough to take your ravings and ramblings of treasonous planets seriously. Though do take our offer into consideration. You could be right where you deserve.

~

The plan had been set. All Nova had to do was wait to see it play out.

She sat in her room, tense as she watched the news. Her mother, her father, and her brother were all smiles as they shook hands and took pictures, pausing momentarily to answer one of the press’s questions. She almost wished she could be there just to watch it firsthand. But she knew she couldn’t be. So she’d have to settle for watching it from home.

Her heart raced when she saw what they were there for. The teleportation pods. Apparently it was a widely used technology on Planet X-S. It was safe, and anyone could use it. And that was why no one was expecting something to go wrong.

And to ensure everything went wrong. They had a robot on scene – newly installed – to ensure that they received their intended outcome. A S.I.R. they called it.

She watched with delight. The people clapped. They shook hands. They demonstrated the technology by sending the X-S dignitaries who were to accompany her parents on their journey through first. Though Nova knew this was just to get them out of the way of the coming disaster.

Then as they readied the pods to take her parents through. An alarm sounded from the pods. Everyone froze momentarily wondering what was going on before a clear worry swept through the crowd. The looks of mild fear on the faces of her family were nothing short of bliss to Nova. It made her body tingle delightfully from head to toe. But now she had her own show to put on.

She broke into a run, heading towards the war room and making it there in record time. Many of their soldiers and their Commander were there watching with rapt and worried attention. She had an even better view on the large screen now than she had in her own room, and she had to stop a smile from breaking onto her face.

“Commander,” she cried with faux tears already springing into her eyes, practically throwing herself at him, “What’s happening?”

“I-I-I don’t know, your highness.”

Then the real entertainment began. In a flash of light an alien, dribbling acid from its mouth and towering over all those in the room charged through, letting out a paralyzingly terrifying shriek. There was chaos, acid, blood. There was almost no chance her parents and brother, who had been in close proximity to the pods upon the alien’s arrival could have survived. And S.I.R. was on Space Mountain ensuring that they would most certainly die. But she needed to be sure.

“Shut down the station,” she said in an even tone, maintaining her distraught façade.

“W-what?” Bog said, in shock at what he was seeing and even more so at her decision.

“We can’t let that thing escape into any ships. We need to protect the rest of the worlds.”

“But the people in the space station…”

“Are less than those of any other world under our rule. I’m acting ruler until we know if my parents survived and can be rescued. But until then, we need to protect everyone else.”

There was hesitance. For a brief moment Nova felt panic that they wouldn’t listen to her, that they would see through her, that they would defy her and try her for treason. But Bog gave a stiff nod, and her order was put through. And just like that Space Mountain was sealed. And it would remain so until the alien was dealt with.

~

Three days before Figment went missing

 

You’d been in the junkyard for what felt like hours. Robots kept lining up to get fixed, and you found yourself as well as your friends and the robot rights sympathizers, listening to them to figure out just what was wrong, taking notes and keeping track of everything that needed doing. Dreamfinder and Ludwig were doing the same, and they weren’t making a large dent in the list of robots that needed help.

                Needless to say, you all needed help.

                “And how can we help you today?” Ludwig asked, prepping a pen to write down a new issue. So far the biggest issue and priority was finding a more sustainable power source for robots with outdated battery systems.

                The robot didn’t speak, merely touched the area where his mouth appeared to be.

“Cannot communicate via speech,” Ludwig muttered as he scribbled. Then he turned to Dreamfinder. “Mark down another one for voice box.”

Dreamfinder nodded, keeping his own tally. He was helping Ludwig with physical issues at the moment, because he found that he needed to figure out a way to better establish giving the robots proper therapy. There were just too many issues to tackle at once. One of the more heart-wrenching tales he’d heard were of a robot who’d lost their lover due to the lack of a power source – hence why it was so high on the list of things to be fixed.

Another robot dragged himself up to them. He dug his hands into the ground, pulling himself along in what seemed like quite a struggle since he had no legs to walk with or wheels to roll on. And while Ludwig was certain he knew what this robot was going to list as his issue, he felt he ought to ask anyway in case there were any other issues he couldn’t see right off the bat.

“How can I help you?”

The robot hoisted itself up to balance on its bottom before holding up his hands.

“My thumbs squeak,” it said. There was a small moment of quiet after while Ludwig waited for him to name any other more obvious problems. But he said nothing.

“And?” Ludwig prompted.

“And what?”

“Well… What about your legs?”

“What’s wrong with my legs?” the robot asked with a confused tilt of his head.

“They aren’t there….”

“WHAT?!”

What followed next was the robot having a mental breakdown while trying to comprehend the fact that it didn’t have legs – as if it hadn’t been dragging itself around from place to place – and Dreamfinder and Ludwig trying to calm it down.

Meanwhile Axel was thinking about how he could help. This was going entirely too slow. Ludwig, who had originally shown up to fix the robots, was so swamped with requests, he couldn’t focus on any one robot for fear of not being able to catalogue all the problems that needed fixing.

“What’s wrong?” you asked him, as you noticed he was looking around at his surroundings and surveying the area. Then he smiled and sent you a wink.

“Nothing. I think I may have figured out a way to get this to run a lot more smoothly.”

Before you could ask what, he was already backing out through a corridor of darkness. You looked around to see if anyone had noticed, but it didn’t appear as if anyone had.

It was roughly an hour later when you realized at all what he had been doing. Several large buses arrived at the junkyard, all of them filled to the brim with students from universities and scientists, including Dr. von Braun.

The doctor sidled up to you to introduce himself formally, extending his hand for you to shake.

“So,” he said as you gingerly gripped his hand, “This is the famed keyblade wielder and our empress of the renaissance? It’s an honor.”

“No need to be so formal,” you said, lowering your head a bit in embarrassment. You were going to thank him for showing his support when you noticed that not only had buses shown up full of students, but several helicopters and news vans had arrived as well. And with them came swarms of reporters already clamoring to interview your friends, your uncles, the robots, and you.

Of course, with all this attention, it was bound to gain the interest of government officials. In this case it was the military. You watched Eo stride out of one of the military vehicles that had arrived and were about to send him a quick wave when you noticed Atom step out behind him only a second later. Your eyes met Atom’s, and you felt yourself freeze in place. You hadn’t seen him since the incident at the press conference where he essentially told the world he had a thing for you. And you had kind of planned on avoiding him anyway. But based on the deep blush on his face, he wasn’t too keen on trying to talk to you immediately either.

You turned from him back to where everyone else was, noting that Axel had frozen in his spot as well to glare at Atom. You gave him a gentle nudge and motioned for him to help you continue helping with the robots. He grudgingly went along with you, giving off a rather dense heat as he did.

Eo looked around with a cool gaze. When he’d been notified of some sort of public gathering in the junkyard, he hadn’t quite expected to see what he did. Then again he wasn’t sure what he would expect anyone to gather in a junkyard for.

He turned to Atom see what he thought of the situation, but he noticed that Atom was frozen with a look on his face that mimicked that of a deer in headlights – albeit with a much redder face.

“Atom, are you–” Eo began before Atom pulled out his gun and like a phone, placed it on his ear as if he were in the middle of a phone call.

“Sorry, Eo,” he said, while quickly walking away, probably to head back to the base they arrived from, “Very important, completely real call being made. Yes, hello, Mr. President of Space. What? Lunch on the Sun? I’ll be right there.”

Eo sighed and rolled his eyes. For all that man’s machismo and self-confidence, he always struggled with feelings of intimacy – especially now with his newfound feelings of infatuation.

Eo continued to survey the area, taking note of the press swarming them. He hadn’t seen them this worked up since… well since you arrived and defeated the alien actually. You’d been in the spotlight quite a bit. And that was only furthered by your grand act of charity when you gave away all those stuffed animals.

He knew Nova had to be furious. He felt a tingle in his cheek as if she had just slapped him and it pissed him off. He was glad you had shown up. Glad that you were in the spotlight. Glad you were taking it off of someone who wanted it and placing it on the people who needed it. You were just like the previous empress in a way.

And Eo wasn’t the only one who thought so. He listened in on a few of the robot interviews, and they all had similar complaints and messages. They don’t like the way they’re being treated, and they’d apparently been complaining about it for ages. It wasn’t until you and your friends started doing anything that people began to take notice – with your uncle, of course, bringing in the most publicity.

Eo began to think about how he could use this to his own advantage. He couldn’t retaliate against Nova for her treatment of him, but he could push you that much further into the spotlight to further infuriate the vain empress.

He sidled up to you as you were writing some things down on a notepad and speaking to one of the many robots lined up to talk to you. Nearby photographers were taking your picture.

“This is quite the set up you’ve established,” he said as he continued to look about the crowd of people. There were already several students and scientists hard at work picking up the slack and fixing the robots where you and your friends previously could not.

“Well I wouldn’t quite call it ‘established’ exactly,” you said with a slightly nervous chuckle, “‘Established’ implies that this was planned. But I assure you I’m making things up as I go. Which has been my life for like these last few months.”

Eo chuckled.

“Well I thought I’d give my input on how to give a little ‘establishment’ to your movement. You’ve got a lot of attention on you right now. You could spread the word a bit more now while the getting’s good.”

“Oh, yeah?”

He nodded.

“And you’ve got a good angle to work too. You remind me of someone else who was this charitable. She was a high-profile figure too. You put your face on camera and advocate for this cause like she did, and you’ll get more people behind it than you’ll know what to do with. Encourage people to donate and volunteer a little of their time to help.”

“Well if anyone wants to advocate, it should probably be Namine,” you said, gesturing over to your friend where she was currently surveying the robots with Demyx.

“She’s nice and all, and I won’t ignore that earlier it was mentioned that she’s the reason any of us even know that these robots might be sentient. But she has a stage fright problem, and the robots need someone to mention their cause now. We can’t wait around for your friend to work up the nerve.”

Just as well. It had to be you. Nova needed to feel the sting of having you in her spotlight again.

You furrowed your brow in thought for a moment.

~

Nova sat in her bedroom. She leaned back against the headboard of her bed, watching with an eerie quiet and tranquil fury.

You were on the news.

Again.

This time doing services for the robots your friend claimed were alive. And she watched as interview after interview was conducted with robots praising you and condemning her – saying she didn’t care. And it was like this on every channel she viewed. No matter which news station she flipped to, it was some ungrateful hunk of metal complaining about her.

Nova picked up a small communicator on her nightstand. She pressed a button and the visage of Robot Butler appeared before her.

“How can I be of service, my empress?”

“I want you to arrange a dinner – between me and the keyblade wielder. Have her join me once she returns from her little charity function.”

“Yes, your highness.”

~

You felt tired. You all did. You piled into a limo that had been sent for you for your trip back home and were relatively quiet. You arrived at a horror show but ended up leaving with a high sense of hope that everything would eventually right itself now that the robots had the help and attention of a large portion of Tomorrowland. And they still did even as you and your little family left. Dr. Braun and many of the students had remained in the junkyard to continue working.

So you felt you could relax, and you felt the sentiment was shared among your friends and family as they all eased into drowsy states of relaxation as they sank into the soft seats of the limo. It was ten minutes into the limo ride when most of your party fell asleep, even though it was still early in the evening – it couldn’t have been later than 7:30. Ludwig sleeping on Dreamfinder and even Namine and Demyx seeming a little cuddled up close together, with her head resting on his shoulder.

You and Axel were the only ones still awake. And you felt yourself ease into his side, welcoming the warm comfort his presence had to offer.

“I think we did good today,” you said in a low voice so as not to disturb the others, “Though I think we’re all a little sore and tired.”

Axel, rather than answer, gave you a once over.

“Yeah, really sore,” he finally said, “So you wanna like give me a back rub ‘cause I’m tense. Trust me; you’ll enjoy it.” He smirked at your somewhat surprised reaction.

You scoffed at his answer, though a smile played over your lips despite trying to keep your cool.

“Fine,” he relented when you didn’t respond, “I’ll give you a backrub. You’ll enjoy it. It won’t be as fun as massaging me, but you’ll still have fun I guess.”

At this you had to laugh at least a little. You also didn’t mind the thought of getting a backrub from Axel. You thought about it for a moment, letting out a little thoughtful hum.

“With your permission, of course,” Axel followed up, gently caressing your hand in his own and sending a feeling of warmth bubbling through you.

“Such a gentleman,” you purred, giving his hand a little squeeze.

“I know,” he sighed, looking wistfully out of the window, “If only more men were like me. The world would be perfect. Alas, I’m just too amazing. Guess you really lucked out in the boyfriend department.”

You let out another playful scoff.

“If more men were like you, they’d all be walking with their heads up their asses.”

“That’s… kinda kinky actually.”

You started laughing before calling him out on his cocky behavior.

“You’re awfully confident for someone who was just as unsure as I was about getting physically intimate the other day on top of Spaceship Earth.”

Axel then leaned really close to you, grabbing your chin gently between his thumb and forefinger. His eyes were staring deeply into your own, and you felt something along the lines of mesmerized. You had always loved those eyes so much.

“I was unsure. Then I heard you scream my name, and I have made it my sole purpose in life to hear it over and over and over again.”

“O-oh,” you said, with a shudder wracking your body, semi-conscious of the heat you were letting off and trying to reel it in before you turned the limo into a sauna. “Someone might hear us.”

“I want ‘em to hear.”

The two of you descended into giggles.

~

You and Axel minimized your flirting in favor of idle chatter after you told him how the car was far too cramped and crowded to be getting you quite literally hot and bothered. And you all arrived back at the palace some time later, a little groggy but mostly hungry.

You entered the palace doors and waiting for you inside was Robot Butler. He greeted you all with a bow as he always did. He offered a smile.

“I hope you all had a productive day,” he said, and before any of you could answer he said, “Your dinners are waiting for you in your rooms. And Lady ________?”

“Yes?” you responded, halting in your movements before any of you could leave.

“Empress Nova has specifically requested that you join her for dinner this evening.”

“Really? Just me?”

“Yes, just you. I believe she wants to get to know you better and will be expecting you within the next hour.”

“Oh wow,” you said, feeling a little giddy and nervous, “Uh, I need to go hop in the shower. I’ve been in a junkyard all day. I’m a complete mess!”

“We should all probably shower, honestly,” Namine said, sniffing her hair a bit and wrinkling her nose. You all had gotten pretty dirty from sweat and just general dirt and debris.

“Meh,” Demyx said with a shrug, “I’m just gonna hop in the hot tub.”

“Ew,” you said, looking at him with light horror and disgust. Everyone else wore similar expressions as you began to walk away.

“No!” Demyx said backtracking, “Not like that. I’m gonna use soap and just bathe in there, you know? Just in the hot tub.”

“Ew,” Namine said, “Never getting in there now.”

“NO!” Demyx continued, getting frustrated and a little panicked, “I’m not gonna, like, dirty up the hot tub a lot or anything. I’m just gonna clean the parts of me that are important.”

“Ew,” came a resounding chorus from everyone as you all began to open the doors to your rooms.

“No! I mean –”

“Demyx, shut the fuck up, and get your ass in the shower,” Axel said as you all entered your rooms. You just barely heard Demyx grumbling to himself before closing your door and making a beeline for the shower.

You took a quick shower, feeling immensely better and more relaxed as you combed shampoo through your hair and rinsed soap from your body. You wrapped a towel around your body and one around your hair before stepping out of the bathroom into your bedroom.

Waiting on your bed in a robe was Axel, idly flipping through channels on the T.V.

Now it was your turn to be a little cocky.

“Can I take your scantily clad presence in my room as an invitation to repeat the events of the other night?” you said, taking the towel out of your hair and letting it fall around your shoulders. You didn’t miss the way his eyes raked over your body appreciatively, and you smirked.

“Well aren’t you presumptuous,” he said, as he pulled the robe a little tighter around himself, “Objectifying me just because I didn’t feel like putting clothes on.”

“You’re ridiculous,” you said with a roll of your eyes, “But sexy anyway.”

“I know,” he said as he watched you saunter over to a closet to pick out an outfit. You pulled out a silver-y mermaid gown beaded with rhinestones and a slit up the side that stretched to your upper thigh. You braided your hair and put it up into a bun then did a few twirls in front of the mirror. You looked good, but you were still unsure.

“You should wear it,” Axel said, still watching you, “It makes you look elegant – like a dancer.”

“Are you sure? Does it say dinner with royalty? ‘Cause I’m having dinner with the empress, so it has to look good.”

“________,” Axel said in a firm tone, and you turned to look at him. “You look amazing. Of course, I always think you look amazing, so I could be biased.”

You smiled at him.

“You’re amazing, Axel.”

“I know.”

You sauntered over to Axel, sitting next to him on the bed before you leaned in and kissed him. He kissed back, running a hand up your arm and gently caressing your shoulder. One kiss turned into two then three then a long line of kissing that just didn’t end as the two of you fell into a natural rhythm.

You could already feel yourself heating up again. If there was any water left on you, it was quickly evaporating. And it was only getting hotter when Axel broke the kiss to leave little kisses up and down your neck. You hummed out a little happy noise. But pushed him away lightly when you felt yourself about to give in to your magic. There was always a point where it was easier to ignite than it was to hold it in.

“We should get that under the control,” you muttered through your haze.

“Why? I though you liked feeling the heat,” he said with a wink. You let out a giggle.

“Well, yeah, but,” you said feeling a little shy, “It’s just that we did stuff on Spaceship Earth and caught on fire. And I couldn’t even control it when we danced on Animal Kingdom or when we danced at my birthday party. It’s not like I don’t like feeling so in sync with you. It’s just that I don’t want to have to worry about whether or not the surface I’m on is fireproof when I want to fool around with my boyfriend.”

“Hmm,” he hummed, “You may have a point. Fine. In our next magic lesson, we’ll explore control and all the problems you have with it when faced with my charm and wit.”

“Gee thanks,” you said with a roll of your eyes.

“Anytime, babe.”

“Can I just point out that you seem more relaxed and cockier than normal. It’s not an unwelcome change, but you’re seeming more and more like the cool, calm, and collected Axel I met.”

“First of all, I’m always cool. Second: I’m just relaxed in general.”

“What’s making you so relaxed?”

“Many things. The first thing is that I’m on vacation. I haven’t been on a vacation in years, and here we are treated like V.I.P.s. The second thing is that back home practically no time has gone by because of the accelerated time difference here. We’ve been gone for like an hour back home, and we’ve been here for weeks. Also I don’t have to worry about the Organization for the first time in a long time because if they somehow managed to take a corridor here, they’d be sucked through it like a black hole and wouldn’t survive. Ludwig’s happy. Namine and Demyx are happy. Dreamfinder and Figment are happy. I’m happy. And… you’re happy… right?”

“I am extremely happy. Why? Do you think I’m not?”

“It’s not that necessarily. It’s just you being happy is, like, one of my biggest concerns.”

“You already asked me when we were at the beach before we went to the junkyard. My answer is still the same. I’m happy. You make me happy.”

“But everything else is okay, right? I don’t want a situation like before where you’re secretly unhappy, and I can’t pick up on that.”

“I assure you that you aren’t the only thing that makes me happy. I just feel happiest when I’m with you and when I look at you.”

“I feel the same way whenever you’re around.”

“Are you reassured now? Because I want to know that you’re happy too.”

“I’m happy. I know I act all cocky and suave because, you know, I am. But sometimes I remember that other people exist, and I care that the people I care about in my life are happy.”

“Well you have nothing to worry about from me. I’m happy. You don’t need to worry.”

“…I know. I also know you’re under a lot of pressure like all the time. Especially now.”

“I mean, yeah, but I’m not too worried about it. I don’t really have to do anything to maintain my reputation here. Basically everything I do is some act of greatness for the empire. Like they’re saying I’m some charitable person for donating all of those stuffed animals. But really I just didn’t want to be mean and throw them away. I had like two hundred of them. What would I even do with all of them? Where was I gonna keep them? And it’s like this with everything. I pet a dog while I was away on one of those other planets, and then I saw in the newspaper the next day an article detailing how I was kind and charitable to animals. And people keep calling me a hero and the empress of renaissance. And don’t even get me started on the fact that these were titles I got before I fought the friggin’ alien. I don’t even know what I’m doing half the time. I just do things, and they just go with it. I could sigh, and they’ll say breathing is now a hot commodity by ‘today’s it-girl ________.’ And it’s so weird and strange, and I don’t understand half of it. And I don’t even deserve it. Because I know this is a thing where I throw myself into danger, and they’re rewarding me for it. And I know how that can be really stressful for you and everyone else and I don’t want it to seem like I’m embracing it. They just won’t stop, and it’s with literally everything I do. And apparently I’m just supposed to have dinner with the empress of the free world and I –”

Axel planted his lips firmly on yours, cutting you off in the middle of your rant.

When he broke away from you, you were a little breathless.

“Let’s go on vacation,” he said.

“Vacation?”

“Yeah. You deserve a break. And when we leave here we can go on a real vacation. No press. No duty. No crazy heroics you need to get into or worrying about being whisked by the Organization. Just you and me. Anywhere you want.”

“That… actually sounds entirely amazing. Not having to worry about things for just a moment and just being with you.”

“And with an infinite number of worlds to visit, I’m sure one of them would be a nice get away.”

“I like that thought,” you said, leaning in for another kiss.

Like before those kisses melted into several kisses. It was when you were both about ten minutes into kissing and caressing each other that Axel muttered something to you, barely taking his mouth off of your own.

“What?” you muttered back, barely understanding him.

“I said you’re late,” he said, pulling off and going back in for another kiss. But you stopped him, whipping your head around to look at a clock.

“What?!” you nearly screeched. You weren’t extremely late – about six minutes late – but you didn’t like how this might reflect on you. You hopped up from the bed and smoothed out your dress, grabbing a simple pair of silver hoop earrings off of the dresser and a pair of strappy heels, Axel watching you calmly before opening up a corridor for you to hop through that was near the grand dining hall you’d previously eaten in.

“Thanks!” you called out as you flashed your armor on and practically leapt through.

You smoothed your dress down again one more time once you were on the other side of the corridor before striding through the grand opening. You were surprised at the beauty of it again. And the table was adorned with crystal and glass flatware and cutlery. You strode over to the table, admiring the glasses. It was beautiful and glittering.

“Exquisite, isn’t it?” Nova said as she strode into the room. “I do apologize for being late. I didn’t keep you waiting, did I?”

“Oh, no, your highness. I just arrived. I was afraid I’d upset you.”

“Not at all dear. Come. Sit.”

You did as she said, and Robot Butler walked into the room carrying two covered platters, setting them each in front of you as you took your seats. He removed the lids to reveal plates of fresh cooked filet mignon, potatoes au gratin, and marinated vegetables. It smelled delicious, and you could feel your mouth water.

“Thank you for this,” you said as you watched Robot Butler poor water into your water glass and a deep red wine in the goblet beside it.

“It’s no trouble, my dear. I just hope everything will be to your liking.”

The two of you sat and ate in silence for a while, and you panicked internally, trying to think of what one says to the empress to be polite and make conversation. Were you blowing this???

“So, how are things, dear?” Nova said in a smooth tone, taking a long sip of her wine, “How is life treating you?”

“Oh, uh, it’s doing well, I suppose. How are you?”

“I’m fine. Though you’ll have to forgive me if I want to keep this conversation on you. After all you’ve been quite the busy little bee, haven’t you?”

“What do you mean?

“Well I saw on the news how you were helping those robots….”

“Well that’s mostly my uncle and Namine.”

“I know, but you’re practically the spokesperson, what with your friend’s stage fright and all.”

“Well-”

“And you donated all of those toys.”

“I mean that was-”

“And saving my life the other day.”

“There’s that-”

“And being crowned the empress of the renaissance.”

“Sure, but-”

“You remind me so much of my mother,” she said, giving you a charming smile and downing the rest of her wine. Robot Butler didn’t waste any time refilling it. And she took another sip almost as soon as he finished.

“Really? Thank you!”

Nova’s smile was tight, but you couldn’t see that, looking away in mild bashfulness.

“She was always a favorite of the empire,” Nova continued, “So charitable and sweet – always putting others first.” She downed half of her wine, and waved Robot Butler over for a refill.

“I just try to do good things,” you said with a shrug, still looking away.

“Yes. Well it shows. And the empire just adores you for it.”

You reached for your water glass to take a sip when you noticed a rather large crack running up the side. You wondered how you hadn’t noticed it earlier, and a small puddle had started to form on the pristine tablecloth.

“Oh!” you gasped, “Robot Butler, my glass has a crack in it. Could I get another one?”

“Of course, right away!” he said, hurrying over and wiping up the water. He was back only a moment later with a new glass.

“Thank you,” you said, finally sipping some cool water.

Nova eyed your glass. Your wine glass. You hadn’t touched it. Not once. Hadn’t your eccentric friend that always had the dragon with him said you were prone to drinking?

“You’ve hardly touched your drink,” she said, spearing another piece of food on her fork, “Is it not to your liking?”

“It has nothing to do with that,” you said with a shake of your head and a gentle smile, “I just don’t really drink alcohol.”

“Oh but you have to try it. It’s a great year with a nice finish. It really compliments the meal.”

“Well I don’t doubt that. I just… I’m not really a wine drinker.”

Nova tried to maintain her smile.

“Well that’s alright, dear,” she said, watching as for the rest of the meal you didn’t once touch your wine.

You both enjoyed a slice of cake for dessert, and conversation continued on idly with you offering absolutely no information that Nova could find useful.

“Let’s take a drive,” she said finally, taking you a bit by surprise.

“Right now?”

“Yes! It’ll be fun. It’s such a nice night, and you can look out at the little castle town when it’s all lit up at night.” You spotted a clock on the wall, noting the time. Was it 10 o’ clock already? Well you didn’t think you’d be out too late. And you didn’t exactly tell Axel you’d be back soon, so he might not be expecting you. Though the two of you had spent just about every night together. It would be fine. You’d text him later when you would be on your way back.

“Okay,” you agreed, “That could be nice.”

“Butler,” she said to Robot Butler, “I’d like you to drive us. We want to take a turn about the town.”

“Yes, your majesty,” he said with a light bow, “I’ll prepare the limousine.”

Then she turned to you.

“Give me one moment, my dear. I’ll be right back. I need to run to my room right quick.”

“Okay. I’ll be here waiting.”

She gave you a smile and left for a moment, returning just a few minutes later.

You followed her out of the grand dining hall and to the entrance of the palace where you and Nova waited for Robot Butler to return with the limo. There you made more idle chatter that meant nothing. Even when you all were finally in the limo, you still had nothing to say to Nova that was of use.

Then she decided to give it one more shot. Just one more. She reached over and touched your arm, and you stopped talking once she had your attention. You’d previously been looking out of a window.

“Have a glass of champagne with me?” she said with a hopeful look and a bat of her eyelashes.

“I don’t dr-”

“I know, but it’d absolutely break my heart if we don’t at least share one glass in good spirits together in honor of all that you’ve done for Tomorrowland.”

You deliberated. She spoke in such a pleadingly sad voice that it was hard to say no. Well she only wanted one drink. It didn’t have to go any farther than that.

“Just one,” you said quietly, finally relenting, “And no more.”

“That’s all I ask,” Nova purred. She turned away from you to where the champagne was kept, preparing two glasses and slipping a vile from her cleavage, popping it open and pouring its contents into your glass.

She handed you your glass, careful not to spill it.

“To new beginnings,” she said, lifting her glass.

“To new beginnings,” you repeated, clinking your glass lightly against hers and taking a long sip. The bubbles tickled your nose. And… and you felt really woozy. You felt like you just chugged the whole bottle of champagne instead of 1/3 of a glass. That’s not… that’s not normal. That’s….

“Let me take your glass, dear,” Nova said, taking the glass before you could pour champagne all over her limo or her dress.

You giggled, feeling bubbly and light-headed. Hmmm. You wanted to go do something now. But what? If only Setzer were here.

“Who’s Setzer?” Nova asked. Oh shit. Did she know Setzer? That son of a bitch sure knows how to get around.

“He’s one of my friends from home,” you slurred, “He’s, like, sooo much fun. He taught me to hustle, you know.”

Nova smiled, delighted.

“Really? Tell me more,” she encouraged, her smile only widening as you talked on and on about your little habits and escapades. What would Tomorrowland say if only the press could hear what you were saying now? Gambling? Scaring people? Bar fights? It was all too delicious.

Nova peered out the window. There weren’t a lot of people out and about which she wasn’t enthused about. But she had an idea. She ordered Robot Butler to stop the car once they’d reached the center of the Castle Town. It was empty, but Nova doubted it would remain that way forever.

“Let’s help you walk that off a bit, hm?” she said, guiding you out of the limo. You stumbled a bit, and it seemed like you could hardly hold yourself up.

“I don’t know if that’ll work, but it’s whatever, bruh,” you said, nearly falling and bringing Nova down with you. Were it not for the fact that you were absolutely going to make a fool of yourself, Nova might have felt annoyed.

She walked you over to the fountain and sat you down. You wobbled a bit, and she briefly wondered if you were about to fall in. She was rather disappointed when you didn’t.

“Oh no!” she feigned, though you were so out of it, she doubted she had to act much.

“What is it?”

“Oh well it’s just, I remembered I have some paperwork I meant to send off to the military base. It’s about the renaissance. And they really need them first thing in the morning. I have to send them out so they’re there as soon as they walk in tomorrow morning.”

“Pfft. No! Stay! You’re the empress. What are they gonna do? Fire you?”

Nova feigned a laugh.

“I can tell you want to stay,” Nova said, pretending to think of a solution, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll send that paperwork, and you can stay in town. Then I’ll come pick you up when I’m done.”

“Nooo. You don’t gotta worry ‘bout me. I can fly back.”

“Well, goodness, are you sure?”

“Yeah, totally. I can just glide on home with no problem.”

“Well, alright,” Nova said, turning from you with a smile that spread across her entire face.

She climbed back into the limo, lowering the divider between the driver and the rest of the limo.

“Back to the palace,” she instructed.

“But…,” Robot Butler hesitated, “What about Lady ________?”

“She said she can make her own way home. Now drive.”

Robot Butler would have gulped if he could. Something about this didn’t quite sit right with him, but he did as he was told, driving the empress back to her palace and leaving you in the square to stumble your own way home.

Notes:

I'm sorry I've been away so long. I hope everyone is doing okay. Stay safe and Happy Holidays!

Chapter 70: Fountain Fiasco

Summary:

You're drunk.

Notes:

I am sorry for my absence. I will be uploading again somewhere between 1-2 weeks from now.

Two Days Before Figment Goes Missing

 

                They were just so glittery. You reached a hand down into the water, letting your fingertips brush against their smooth surfaces.

                You then had a great idea. You should bring some home. Oh Axel would love that! Axel was great. Yeah. He’s the best. If only he could be here to see this truly amazing fountain that held such beautiful coins. Just look at how they shimmered in the moonlight. Yes, you definitely need to bring some to Axel. You would only get the best most pretty coins you could. And like in the grocery store when buying milk, the best coins would obviously be further back. You just needed to reach.

                “I’m gonna getcha, I’m gonna getcha. I’m gonna be your best friend,” you taunted as you leaned as far as you could, teetering at the very edge of the fountain, and quite quickly losing your balance – not that you were even remotely aware of this.

                Just as you were splashing into the cool water below, Atom strolled by. In his hand was his tiny book of poetry, but he promptly dropped it once he heard the noise – not wanting anyone to catch him in the middle of his guilty pleasure. He looked around and didn’t see anyone immediately, but the splashing noises continued. He walked around the fountain’s edge only to see you splashing about, mesmerized by the drops of water glittering in the moonlight.

                “Gadzooks!” Atom exclaimed, already moving closer to help you up, “What are you doing in the fountain?”

                You leaned further into the water and away from Atom’s help, until just your face was above the water. You let out a little hum.

                “The water feels nice,” you slurred. Then you stood up abruptly, making an even larger splash. It looked like the water was dancing. You loved dancing. Dancing is so much fun. Atom watched with a blush on his face as you started to sway in the water, dancing about – graceful even when clearly intoxicated. Your dress was hard to move around in though. It flowed in the water well enough, but the parts above it were heavy and clingy now. You didn’t like it.

                You let out a tiny whine and began to pull at one of the straps on your shoulder, trying to dislodge the mean dress. But it wasn’t really working. Maybe if you tried to lean away from the strap, that would work. Well you tried that, and all you managed to do was fall over the rim of the fountain, starting a topple towards the ground.

                But Atom was there, and he caught you. You landed rather roughly against his chest and let out a gurgle and giggle against the fabric of his shirt. You looked up at him with a smile, and Atom only felt his face grow redder.

                You leaned up a little.

                “Do you wanna here a secret?” you said conspiratorially. You leaned in closer once he gave a very brief, curt nod. “Chicken butt.”

                You descended further into giggles. This was peak comedy right here, so you didn’t know why he wasn’t laughing like you. Maybe he was just a big fuddy duddy.

                “I am not,” he said indignantly. Whoops. You must have said that part out loud. This was even funnier, and you proceeded to laugh even more.

                Atom let out a mildly exasperated sigh when he then noticed some passersby – a couple that looked to be enjoying the night together. He went rigid. He couldn’t let them see you like this. You had a reputation to uphold. It wouldn’t do for anyone to see you like this, clearly intoxicated and in a state of vulnerability. He wondered if he could support you and get you at least to the other side of the fountain and out of view. Maybe if he hurried they wouldn’t notice.

                He flinched when they called out to the two of you. They had clear recognition on their faces.

                “Are you alright?” one of them asked, taking a tiny step forward. Atom had to think quickly. What do you say when you’re standing with the current face of the renaissance standing half in and half out of a fountain.

                “We were rescuing a bird,” he blurted. Nice save Atom.

                “Tweet tweet,” you muttered quietly against him.

                “A bird?” one of the bystanders asked.

                “Yes,” Atom said more firmly, “The poor thing ran into the fountain and got its feathers soaked. And good ol’ ________ here couldn’t bear to see it struggle. She heroically jumped in, no questions asked, and helped dry it off and saw it on its way. But, um, not before losing her balance. As you can see, she’s still a little dazed. And I’m just helping her out.”

                “Aww,” one of them cooed, “So sweet and considerate.”

                “Yes, well, we’ll just be on our way,” Atom said, helping you get your other foot out of fountain, supporting you and quickly walking away as the couple oohed and ahhed at your and his apparent heroism.

                But he found as the two of you stumbled about, that he wasn’t going to be getting anywhere quickly. You were too out of it to walk in a straight line. And he couldn’t let you be out here too long – there was a chance other people could be out and might see you inebriated.

                “The time draws nigh,” you muttered ominously.

                “Time? Time for what?” Atom questioned, looking down at you.

“The transformation has begun.” You raised one of your hands to where he could see, showing that it had gone pitch blank in color, claws steadily growing from your fingertips.

                “Stars and stripes forever!!!” Atom exclaimed, flinching mildly. He knew about your other form, but this meant he needed to hustle if he was going to get you to safety before you fully transformed. Who knew what the whole of Tomorrowland would think if they saw the way you looked – especially since you would be completely devoid of clothes.

                “In mere minutes, I will be fully born anew,” you slurred, raising your hands to the heavens.

                Atom propped you up, placing both hands on your shoulders, and looking deeply and sternly into your eyes.

                “Now, ________, I need to explain my intentions with you this evening,” he began. You were still looking at him. That was a good sign. “I’m going to take you to my home because it’s close by, and I need you to sober up. Just as well I don’t want you to make a spectacle of yourself in public.”

                “You’re a spectable!”

                Atom took that as your consent, and picked you up in his arms, carrying you like a bride so he could hightail it to his home. The night was quiet as he walked down the sidewalk. Every noise made him anxious. Every door made him worry someone would come outside and see you just as your limbs had gone completely black and you were sprouting horns and a tail.

                He nearly sprinted when he finally saw his house within view – practically flinging the door off of its hinges, rushing inside, and slamming it behind him. He breathed a sigh of relief, feeling exhaustion catch up with him. You were quite heavy in this new form, being that you were taller and more muscular. But at least you were asleep, so the next step would be easy. Yep. You were finally calm.

                AND COMPLETELY NAKED!

                Atom nearly screamed, averting his eyes and awkwardly making his way through the house with his gaze turned upwards. He ran into his bedroom, all thoughts of exhaustion leaving his head to the point where he didn’t even feel it anymore. He flung you onto the bed and threw a blanket over you. That was better now that you were decent. He wondered if you would be naked when you woke up.

                … He’d put out some clothes just in case. In the meantime, he’d get a chair to keep an eye on you through the night. He didn’t want anything to happen to you under his watch.

~

                If you remember, Tomorrowland works at an accelerated time compared to most other places, and the last time we saw Vanitas he was going through corridor after corridor looking for you. I’m only mentioning it because it’s been roughly a month since you escaped Marluxia and arrived on Tomorrowland, and for the Organization it’s been roughly six or seven hours since hearing of Marluxia’s defeat at your hands in Twilight Town.

                Vanitas looked below with a sneer, taking a break from looking for you. He could see a pink head of hair moving along a path to the Castle That Never Was below him. That idiot.

                Vanitas was so mad he could spit venom. It wasn’t enough that you had survived his first assassination attempt and that you were rescued before he could finish you off a second time. But just when he was getting close to finding you again, Marluxia interrupted with some half-thought-out plan to get some sort of revenge.

                His fists clenched and unclenched.

                He figured you’d be in Twilight Town. Call it a hunch. He was about to go on the hunt, but when he arrived, he saw only destruction. The hotel was obliterated. There was fire and debris everywhere. And flower petals. That was how he knew his hunch had been correct. There was only one person he could think of that had humiliated Marluxia enough before that he would want revenge. Of course he didn’t know he’d still been harboring a vendetta against you after you rescued your pet duck. But apparently he felt enough anger to want to destroy you.

                Of course he failed. And he reported this to Xemnas, and Vanitas had happened to overhear. If he’d had any doubt that was where you were hiding out, he didn’t anymore. He left right after in a blind rage trying to find you. Somewhere. Anywhere. But with infinite worlds to explore, it was unlikely that he would run into you just yet.

                Xemnas had been pissed. And such a thought of what Xemnas might have done to Marluxia as punishment made the corners of his mouth twitch upwards into something almost resembling a smile. Almost. But Xemnas knew that someone else had succeeded in finding you before Vanitas himself did, and it reflected badly on him. But it wasn’t that, that had Vanitas so angry so much as that it was that Marluxia had the audacity, the gall, to go after his mark.

                It made it bittersweet that he’d lost in his endeavors. Vanitas felt very satisfied that Marluxia failed, but now he needed to find wherever it was you had disappeared to – and before Marluxia got it into his head to try and pursue you again.

                Below Vanitas’s heated gaze, Marluxia strode into the castle, taking aimless twists and turns as he silently fumed to himself. He had been so close. You were within the jaws of defeat quite literally. The moment played and replayed in his head. And so far the only thing about his day that had been pleasant was the revelation that Specter had developed some form of malice towards you.

                He stopped wandering and opened a corridor back to his own personal castle. Specter was making quite a recovery. He looked out over his balcony down to where Specter rested. Their jaw was healed, but still they consumed hearts.

                “How are they?” a somewhat timid voice asked from behind him. Larxene was still wary; though he assured her by this point that he had never intended to leave her behind. And he hadn’t intended it. He just didn’t think about her in that moment.

                “I’m not sure,” Marluxia answered honestly, “They’ve recovered from their injuries, but never in my history with Specter have they ever shown the ability to speak. I don’t know what this means.”

                “Do you think it might be bad?” she asked, standing by him and gazing down at Specter. She shuddered. Larxene had never been able to see beneath the shadow of Specter’s hood to look into their eyes, but their head was tilted up in such a way that she was certain they were looking at her. Almost as if they were trying to listen.

                “I’m not sure,” Marluxia said again.

~

                Wind was rushing past your ears. It was almost deafening. You were falling.

Yet when you opened your eyes. There was only darkness. You were falling into the nothing. But it wasn’t the fall that scared you. It was something else. But you didn’t know what. Nothing was there.

Then a voice spoke.

You had heard the voice before, but it had been all but a whisper, and for a while it had disappeared. You had always blamed it on some form of lucid dreaming. And now you weren’t sure that was the case. Now when the voice spoke it was no less than a thunderous roar.

“I will devour this world and the next and the next, and with their demise, so shall you fall.”

You had stopped falling now. Now you only floated in the empty vacuum, looking above you where you believed the sky to be. You were alone. Or at least it looked to be that way. But you still felt the voice’s presence. It was overbearing, almost suffocating. And the words rang in your head even now when there was silence.

“Who are you?” you finally called into the darkness.

And there was silence.

Then the darkness before you opened up, and before you looked back a bright yellow eye that was so large it consumed all of your vision as it filled the entirety of the sky above you.

~

                You jolt awake. The nightmare once so vivid began to immediately ebb from your memory. Soon all you could vaguely remember was yellow and the faint tugging and pull of your being. But now that was fading too. You were more concerned with what was going on in your immediate vicinity.

                You could feel really warm, unpleasant breath right next to your face. You turned towards the source of it to see a more than welcome sight. Two curious brown eyes stared out at you from a mound of wrinkles that made up the baggy face of a bloodhound. It wagged its tail lightly when you turned to face it. All your previous terror was gone – replaced entirely by pure, unconditional love and joy.

                You held the doggy’s face in your hands, scratching behind it’s big, floppy ears while the dog wagged its tail even faster. He lifted his head a bit, and you reached under his saggy jowls to peer at the collar around his neck.

                “Roosevelt,” it read.

                “You are now my son,” you said to him, giving him a peck on his snoot. The dog placed two of its legs up on the bed you were laying in to lean in closer and sniff your face. You let out a little giggle, then you took in your surroundings, realizing that you were not in the palace.

                In fact, you didn’t know where you were, and your memories of the night before were fuzzy at best. You could remember dinner with the empress, but you couldn’t remember anything past having a glass of champagne. You were certain you only had one, but if that were the case, shouldn’t you be able to remember more?

                Who’s house was this? You began to panic just a bit. Had you wandered into some stranger’s home and adopted their dog without their permission? You looked about, noticing a lot of Tomorrowland paraphernalia and trinkets, including a rather large flag on the opposite wall.

                You maneuvered around the dog and out of the bed, smoothing out your dress which was extremely wrinkled. You frowned a bit, feeling bad about the state of it. After all Giovanni had put so much effort into it.

                You combed through your hair as best as you could and looked into a nearby mirror. You were halfway presentable. At the very least no one would scream and run away at your disheveled appearance.

                You peeked out the door of the bedroom. It was quiet, though you could hear what sounded like noises coming from down the hall. It sound like pots and pans clattering. Come to think of it, something smelled really good right now, and your stomach felt very empty.

                You tiptoed out of the room, hearing the clicking of Roosevelt’s paws on the hardwood as he followed you. You peered into a room across the hall. It looked to be a study – complete with tall bookshelves, a desk, and a few filing cabinets. You walked over to the desk, noting the stationery on it that read, “From the desk of Atom Adams.”

                So this was Atom’s house. While you didn’t feel that much less anxious, you at least felt better that it was the home of someone you knew and not some stranger. Though now you had to wonder if anything had happened the night before. Anything… intimate. You felt your stomach tighten into a knot. You really didn’t want that to be the case. You really didn’t want to ruin your relationship with Axel so early into it. Not when you were sure you might be in love with him and before you could introduce him to your new dog son.

                You turned to look at him. He sat in the doorway patiently waiting on you and watching. You walked back over to him and pet him on the head.

                “I don’t suppose you could tell me what happened, huh, boy?”

                He just let out a yawn as if to say, “You’re on your own, pal.”

                You took a deep breath deciding you ought to suck it up and go face the music, and maybe you should ask Atom what happened the night before. And you desperately hoped that nothing had happened.

                You made your way down the hall and down a set of stairs. You turned a corner into the living room and continued to the kitchen where you saw Atom in a robe at the stove cooking what looked like bacon. You would actually think that would be just what you needed were you not so nervous about what had transpired the evening before.

                It was just as you stepped into the kitchen that Atom turned around. He jumped seeing you there, face turning as red as a tomato. Despite the fact that he was wearing a tank top and pajama pants, he still hurried to cover himself with his robe as if you could possible see anything inappropriate.

                You almost laughed, but you were so overcome with relief. There was no way if he was this sheepish about being seen in his pajamas that the two of you would have in any way done anything even remotely inappropriate.

                “Lady ________,” he said before clearing his throat, “I’m sorry you saw me so indecent.”

                Yeah, the two of you definitely didn’t do anything.

                “I’m going to slip into something appropriate,” he continued, “I made some breakfast. Please help yourself.”
                “Thank you,” you said as he slipped past you and out of the room. You noted he looked tired and briefly hoped he hadn’t been up all night looking after you. You let out a sigh of relief and made a small plate of food to eat. You found yourself, despite your relief, mostly picking at your food. Nothing about last night made any sense to you. And it kind of made you feel like you were going crazy.

                Atom was in about ten minutes later, and you were thankful you could say you had gotten through at least a third of your plate.

                “Atom,” you began as he made his own plate, “Can I ask what happened last night? I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I really don’t remember anything.”

                “Well I have to say that it isn’t exactly a pretty tale,” he stated, appearing mildly embarrassed. To make things worse, you were more than certain he was embarrassed on your behalf. “I found you in the fountain in the center of town. You seemed to be rather drunk.”

                You felt like you were going to die of embarrassment. Well, death might be preferable. It was better than sitting here and dealing with it. And what’s worse, you had gotten drunk despite telling yourself you wouldn’t do so again. Wasn’t what happened to Axel enough to deter you? What was wrong with you?

                “I didn’t want anything to happen to you or for your reputation to be tarnished because of it, so I brought you back here to sleep it off.”

                “Oh my gosh,” you said, putting your head in your hands, “Thank you so much. I feel so relieved I didn’t make a complete idiot of myself, I could cry. You’re a real hero, Atom.”

                “Now if you don’t mind my asking,” he said as he began eating his own breakfast, “How did you get in such a state?”

                “I don’t really know,” you answered honestly. Nothing was adding up in your head. You didn’t even feel the least bit hungover despite apparently being blackout drunk. “I was having dinner with Empress Nova, and we went out for a little drive to enjoy the night. And she said we should have a drink, but I don’t remember anything beyond that point.”

                “I believe you. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. The empress would never admit it, but she could hold her alcohol very well. She always likes a glass or two with every meal and whenever she feels stressed. And she’s had little drinking parties with others. It wouldn’t be the first time someone got drunk with her. She probably just pushed you a bit farther than you’re used to.”

                You weren’t entirely sure that was the case. But you had no memory to dispute it. And you would like to think you tried to push back against her offers of alcohol. It would be the only thing that would even remotely make this moment feel a little better.

                Thirty minutes later and the two of you had finished breakfast. You helped Atom clean up and gave Roosevelt a few more pets before Atom offered you a ride to the palace.

                “I know you could fly back on your own,” he said, “But I noticed some paparazzi outside and thought I’d ask if you’d rather leave in a more discrete manner.”

                “Do you have a secret tunnel or something?” You kind of hoped so. Not only would that be cool, but you really didn’t want to add this on top of everything else. It would be mortifying to leave Atom’s house in front of them as if the two of you had had some sort of tryst.

                He chuckled.

                “No, but I have a flying saucer in the back that I’ve been fixing up. They won’t be able to see inside very well, so it’ll allow us to have some modicum of privacy.”

                You nodded. It was better than nothing.

                It was a relatively quiet ride in the beginning. You saw people trying to get pictures of the two of you, but it didn’t seem like they were having much luck. But you still weren’t looking forward to whatever the papers would say the next day about it. Because if they were here at all, they must have at least suspected that you were there.

                You were a bit anxious the whole ride back. Atom had turned on the radio, so there wasn’t much talking going on, but he could tell you had a lot on your mind. You were still worried about Axel and how he might perceive all of this.

                You were silent even at the checkpoint where Atom had to be briefly pulled over because he arrived in a vehicle they didn’t recognize. You gave a polite nod to the soldier who seemed surprised and excited to see the two of you when he realized exactly who was in the ship.

                All you offered when you got out of the ship was another brief thank you to Atom as you hurried on your way. He assured you that it was no trouble, and you were off at a brisk pace to your room.

                You were happy the hall your room was located in was empty. You slipped into your room quietly as if just opening your door too loud would be enough to alert your friends and family to your whereabouts. But it didn’t exactly matter.

                Axel was on your bed when you walked in. He was asleep though, so you could at least avoid this conversation for now. He was just laying on the top of the bed in nothing but a pair of pajama bottoms. Though you noticed a vase on your nightstand that hadn’t been there previously. It was full of an arrangement of bright, beautiful flowers. You walked over and gave them a quick smell before you noticed a card in them.

                It read, “For the most beautiful woman in every world – Axel.”

                You felt your heart melt, your anxiety dissipate, your stomach untie itself, and your head become light as a feather. You were so far gone for this man; it was unreal. Then all your problems came back tenfold because now you really didn’t want to tell him what happened.

                You let out a sigh, picked out some clothes to wear, and slipped into the bathroom for a nice, long shower and a quick change. You wondered if it was luck that allowed Axel to be asleep when you showed up to your room.

                It was when you had gotten dressed and slipped out of the bathroom that you wondered when your luck would come to an end. And it was when you looked and saw Axel looking right at you that you realized that now was when your luck would end.

                “Hey,” he said with an easy, always handsome smile, “Where were you?”

                “I was with the empress, but… you knew that already…,” you trailed off. You might as well come clean about it now. Rip it off like a Band-Aid. But that didn’t make it any less nerve-wracking. “And then I was….”

                “Rescuing birds with Atom?”

                “…What?” If he wanted to believe that, then it was all well and good, but at the same time you wanted to know why he would have such a story.

                Axel handed you a newspaper. The front-page story was hailing you and Atom as heroes for rescuing a baby bird that fell into a fountain. It also conflicted with what Atom told you. Further reading showed that some people in town saw the two of you and asked what you were doing. Atom had to have lied to them to cover you. You really owed that man.

                “I don’t want to come off as that boyfriend,” Axel began, looking uncomfortable that he even felt the need to say this, “But you said you were just having dinner, so when you didn’t come back I got really worried.”

                Oh fuck could this man accidentally guilt you even further? You thought the flowers would send you into spirals of guilt but seeing that worried expression on his face and knowing that he felt guilty for worrying about you too much made you want to break down.

                “I thought something might have happened to you,” he continued, looking you over for any signs of harm despite fully believing you had been out being a bird savior.

                “It’s a bit more complicated than that,” you said, moving to sit next to him on the bed, fully aware you looked and sounded guilty. “I was with empress, and she wanted to have a glass of champagne to celebrate all that was happening. I initially said no, but I felt bad consistently turning her down, and I know I said I was off drinking forever, and I don’t know why I did that, and Axel I’m so sorry! I don’t even remember what happened. I swear I thought I only had just one drink; I swear,” you were tearing up and unable to even look Axel in the eye with how guilty you felt, “And the next thing I know I was waking up in Atom’s house.”

                Axel’s magic flared up to a near inferno; the air had gotten to stiflingly hot. This was it. He was going to break up with you. You had ruined everything.

                “Did he do anything to you?”

                “…What?”

                “Did he do anything to you?” he said, looking you over more closely now, tracing your face for any signs of more clear distress than what you were already showing.

                “N-no. He didn’t do anything to me. We didn’t do anything. He was even fully clothed this morning with a robe and pants and everything and still thought it was indecent. I’m upset because I got drunk again, and I didn’t mean to. And I feel like I betrayed yours and everyone else’s trust doing that and I –”

                “You said that you only remember having one drink, and you never meant to get out of control. And I believe you. I was just worried something else had happened. That Atom might have done something.”

                “No… You’re letting it go? Just like that?”

                Axel ran a hand through your hair then brought it around to cup your cheek, staring deeply into your eyes with such intensity you wanted to look away but couldn’t even if he hadn’t been holding your face in place.

                “I trust you. I believe you. I know you aren’t the kind of person to go back on your word for fun. If you say you felt pressured, I believe you.” Axel swiped a tear from your cheek. You felt such relief that you actually were crying this time.

                “Atom actually did me a favor. He made sure no one knew I was drunk. He actually found me splashing around in that fountain then lied about it.”

                “Damn. Now I owe that guy,” he said with an exasperated sigh. You actually managed a laugh.

                “What’s wrong with that? Atom isn’t a bad person.”

                “The man admitted to having a crush on you on national television; he’s built like a god with the face of an angel; he’s the Tomorrowland version of the All-American hero trope –”

                “What’s American?”

                “– that women are constantly swooning over, and he has a massive… personality. And you want to know why I don’t want to add, ‘Savior of My Girlfriend” to the list?”

                “To be fair, you’ve saved me more times than he has.”

                “Okay well that makes me feel a little better.”

                “But with the way you just described Atom, with such vivid detail might I add, should I be worried?”

                Axel pretended to think for a moment, then answered.

                “Nah. He’s not my type.”

                “What is your type?” you asked with a raised eyebrow.

                “I don’t have a type.”

                “Then how do you know it isn’t Atom?”

                “Because I fucking hate him, that’s how.”

                “You hate him?”

                “No, I don’t hate him. Especially not after what he did for you. Just outside of that, I think he’s a tool, and I don’t like that he likes you. I get it’s because he doesn’t know about our relationship, but because he doesn’t know, it’s weird. And it makes me uncomfortable that he admits to having feelings for you.”

                “Should we say something?”

                “No, I know all this praise from Tomorrowland really has you feeling the pressure. I’m not going to add to it by dragging our relationship out for the public to judge and ogle.”

                “It’s true that I do like having quiet moments with you where I can just relax.”

                “Well let’s have a quiet moment. I’ll be right back.”

                Axel left for a moment and came back in pants and a shirt instead of pajamas. Then he opened a corridor – to where you didn’t know, but you were excited nonetheless for private time with him.

~

                “Where have you been?” Eo asked as Atom strode in to hang up his coat and retrieve his holster and gun where they were hanging in the castle armory.

                Atom opened his mouth to answer, but he was interrupted by a long yawn. He covered his mouth and half slurred his answer as he exhaled.

                “What do you mean?”

                Hm. Not the exact answer Eo had been looking for.

                “You’re late,” he clarified, “You’re never late. Does this have anything to do with the news.”

                Eo eyed Atom. He knew where he’d been. He’d been with you. But he needed to hear it for himself. He needed to know if what the tabloids had been saying was true or false. He didn’t think it could happen considering the state of you and Axel’s relationship, but… he worried. After all it wouldn’t be fair if Atom received a promotion just because of clout he received by hooking up with you.

                “Oh that,” Atom said, waving Eo off, “It’s all just a misunderstanding.”

                “What is?”

                Atom looked more alert for a moment and looked around to ensure it was just the two of them. It was. Then he moved in closer to Eo so he could say his next words quietly and still be heard.

                “________ was a tad intoxicated yesterday evening. I simply let her sleep it off at my home.”

                “The two of you were out drinking?”

                “Oh heavens no. I was out taking a walk and… clearing my thoughts,” he said, unable to admit what he was actually doing. “I happened upon her in the Castletown square. She had fallen into the fountain.”

                “And she was by herself?”

                “Looked to be that way. Though this morning when I asked, she’d said she was with the empress. You know it’s funny,” Atom chuckled, “I never took her for a drinker.”

                “Me neither…,” Eo said with a sneaking feeling creeping up his back.

                “She said she didn’t have much either. She must be a lightweight. Or the empress brought out the heavy stuff.”

                Eo let out a little hum of acknowledgement, but he just wasn’t so sure that either of those were the case. He didn’t have anything to base his assumptions on – other than a hunch and the knowledge that this wasn’t the first time Nova had gone out of her way to humiliate someone….

~

                Nova felt giddy. A strange giddy excitement that she hadn’t felt since… 11 years ago. Well it wasn’t quite that grand, but it was dangerously close. She wondered what you had done the night before. Had you vomited all over yourself? Did you pass out? Public indecency of any sort? She poured herself a glass of red wine. She knew it was a bit early in the day to be drinking, but a glass with breakfast while she watched your downfall would be okay. Plus no one was here to judge her anyway.

                She grabbed her remote and turned to the news. Luck had to be on her side today, they were just about to talk about you if the headline across the bottom of the screen were any indication.

                “Fountain Fiasco,” it read across the screen. So the fountain she had left you at was your downfall? Nova turned up the volume.

                “In other news the Empress of the Renaissance was spotted late last evening in the Castletown square,” a female newscaster started. Nova frowned a bit hearing your title but sipped her wine and felt a little bit better. After all they were just about to get into the good part.

                “Yes,” her cohost agreed, “She was found drenched in water head to toe yesterday evening.”

                Nova almost spit out her drink with laughter.

                “And what was she doing in that fountain? Apparently rescuing an animal!”

                Nova coughed and sputtered, a few drops of wine flying from her lips to her dress – not that she even noticed, transfixed by what was on the screen.

                “According to Captain Atom Adams who was spotted with the young hero, the two were out for a stroll in the moonlight when Lady ________ noticed a bird had accidentally flown into the fountain. And, ever the hero, she sprang into action to ensure the bird would be able to fly, using her beautiful evening gown to dry its feathers in an act of true selflessness.”

                “So brave. We don’t have any video footage, but we do have an artist’s rendition of what transpired that evening.”

                A picture appeared on the screen. It was of you in the fountain in an evening gown far more beautiful than the one Nova had seen you in that night that elegantly flowed around your frame. You were reaching up above you, glittering droplets of water flowing from your hands and arms, hair flowing behind you in a beautiful trail, as a bird took flight from your palms. Atom stood on the other side giving a sturdy salute as if wishing the bird the best of luck on its fligh. Around you fluttered petals of flowers that lined your hair, and behind you and Atom was a flag billowing in the same breeze carrying your hair – it was the flag of the empire.

                Slowly the screen faded back to the two newscasters.

                “Truly inspiring. A woman who strives to be the face of the empire. In other news that painting is now up for auction for $500,000,” the female caster said before moving on to the next story.

                Nova took in several deep shuddering breaths, trying to calm her rage. She gripped the neck of the wine bottle then hurled it at the television, breaking the screen and splattering wine on the walls, floor, and her dress with the force of the splash. Thick red drops stained her outfit, and she let out noise of frustration that sounded like a strangled growl.

                “Witty one-liner about how embarrassing this must be for you,” a smooth, snide voice said.

                Nova’s head whipped in S.I.R.’s direction; she had a somewhat crazed look about her.

                “What?” she demanded in a low voice.

                “I wanted to say a witty one-liner about how embarrassing this must be for you, but I couldn’t think of anything on the spot.”

                “Why are you here, insect?”

                “I’m here to show off my new legs,” he said, cocking a hip and placing a hand upon it, using his other hand to gesture down at his new robotic legs. She hadn’t even noticed that he had walked up to her as he had been insulting her, too blinded by her own rage. “Being friends with – oh, what was it they called her? The face of the empire? It has its perks. Her little duck uncle installed them. Did you hear about that? A Professor von Drake fixing all the robots?”

                “Everyday I ask myself why I haven’t killed you yet.”

                “Didn’t you just hear me? I know you’re very into yourself, but you could pretend you understand when other people speak. I’m friends with the face of the empire. She’ll know I’m gone, and you don’t want anyone asking questions. Besides misery loves company, and you would have no one to vent to anymore.”

                “That only applies when both parties are miserable. And you don’t seem to be miserable at all. You only come in here to fuck with my head, and I’m close to crushing your skull or whatever it is you people call those talking frames you have on your shoulders.”

                “You don’t have time to kill me. Plus it’d be too much effort for you. More than you’ve ever put into the empire you claim to run anyway. But I’ve got to run. Oh! I can do that now,” S.I.R. said with a dry laugh as he strutted out of her room.

                S.I.R. closed the door behind himself and started down the hall, spotting Eo walking his way as he did. He gave him a little nod, and Eo was prepared to let it end there. But he had seen this specific instance before. Just the other day he’d seen S.I.R. leaving her room and once more on another occasion, and he’d never inquired about it because it wasn’t really his business. Though it did raise questions.

                “Good morning,” Eo stated, halting and changing his direction to match S.I.R.’s.

                “As good as it can be I suppose,” S.I.R. replied. He sounded sarcastic, and his response said he wasn’t really enjoying the day. But something about the way S.I.R. was carrying himself gave Eo the impression he was very pleased with himself.

                “Well you just seemed chipper. I assumed you had a pleasant conversation with the empress?”

                “Pleasant? Oh yes, immensely.”

                “I didn’t realize the two of you were close friends.”

                S.I.R. let out a cackle. He was far too amused by this observation on Eo’s part.

                “I wouldn’t say we’re friends,” S.I.R. said simply after he had calmed, wiping an imaginary tear from his eye as he did so.

                “Oh. Sorry. I just assumed because I’ve seen you go in and out of her room to talk to her.”

                “Well we’re not friends. We just go way back.”

                “…Really? I thought you were stranded on Space Mountain for 11 years. You’d said so yesterday when you were telling your story.”

                “I was stranded for 11 years. I was first installed on Space Mountain, you know. I was brought online a few days before the whole station was shut down.”

                “Oh. I didn’t realize.”

                “Yes, well. I must be going. I’ve got places to walk with my new legs and all. Toodle loo.”

                Eo abruptly stopped, watching S.I.R. go. He was brought online just days before the alien attack on Space Mountain? Yet he and the empress knew each other? But she hadn’t been there that day….

~

                You and Axel strolled through the garden at a rather leisurely pace. You had your fingers loosely twined together while you walked. It was silent for a while as the two of you just enjoyed the day. Then Axel spoke.

                “Where do you want to go for vacation?”

                “I don’t know. I’ve only recently left my world, and seen like ten locations, and that’s not even exploring the entirety of the world.

                “Really? Feels like more than ten. What do you feel like seeing anyway? What have you always wanted to see?”

                “I always wanted to see beaches, but I’ve seen so many now. I’ve seen the jungle, the beach, a mountain range – and that memory is none too pleasant – also cold. I hate the cold as it turns out. Hell I’ve seen the inside of the mind. Twice.”

                “So let’s go to the countryside. Just you and me and the nice, quite countryside. At a nice quaint hotel where no one knows who we are. We’re just two regular people. And we’ll be so relaxed, we won’t even remember who we are.

                “That sounds… amazing.”

                It was quite for another moment while the two of you traversed the garden which turned out to be a lot larger than you originally anticipated. You and Axel had been following a path for twenty or so minutes now, and it showed no signs of looping back around to the start. It was so wide and beautiful.

                “It’s a shame such a garden is kept private. It’s like the size of a large park, but it’s closed off from everyone.”

                “Well not everyone,” Axel countered with a smirk.

                “Hm. True. But we did sneak in here. It isn’t like we were supposed to be here. But I don’t think they anticipated anyone using dark magic to get in.”

                “I guess. It’s such a shame we’re the only ones in here. With so much privacy,” Axel murmured with a tone that implied he had some dawning realization.

                “Yeah. Even if other people did manage to sneak in, there’s so much room in here, it’d be nearly impossible to run into anyone,” you said, picking up on his light implication and following it up with one of your own.

                “You could do whatever you wanted and probably never get caught.”

                You and Axel stared deeply into each other’s eyes for a moment with a deep intensity and longing before you jumped into his arms.

Notes:

See you all between 1-2 weeks from now, and many thanks to all the people who have stuck it out this long with me and have had never-ending patience. It means the world to me. You all are so wonderful, and I don't deserve your support!

Chapter 71: The Day Figment Went Missing

Summary:

Figment goes missing.

Notes:

Sorry I'm a week late. I'll be back again between 1-3 weeks from now. Enjoy! Obscure-ish References can be found in notes at the end.

Nova felt an unusual buzz about her body that morning when she woke up. She could tell that something extraordinary was going to happen. Something unforgettable. And she used this energy to get her out of bed and to start her day – ignoring the news so any talk of you would not sour her morning. And she let this good mood carry her throughout her morning up to her big press conference where she announced that in a week’s time, a gala would be held to benefit the robots of her empire. There was a swell of applause, all eyes on her, minimal questions about you or what you would contribute. She just carried on, laughing elegantly, promising big news at the gala. She wasn’t talking about your new role that the generals had decided on though. She was talking about something she had planned herself.

Yes, today would be unforgettable.

~

You let out an exasperated sigh, one that went noticed by your boyfriend. You, as well as the rest of your family and many groups of engineers, students, and scientists, were in the junkyard again trying to help as many robots as you could. It was long and tiring work, and today was a particularly hot day. And you were doing your best, trying to not mess up, trying to constantly look presentable. Eo said that you would be the face of this, and that meant you had to be perfect.

And it was getting to you.

“You alright?” Axel asked from where he was writing down notes from robots who had issues with rusted old parts that needed replacing. He’d be helping to put in special orders later.

“I just kind of wish I weren’t being photographed all the time. We’ve been here for, what, three hours? And they’re still here. I feel like they’re all just waiting for me to slip up.”

“Who them?” Demyx chimed in as he walked by with a box of newly delivered parts – one of several charitable donations this cause had received – “Nah. They’re waiting to see the next miracle you perform.”

You let out a groan while the others laughed – well except Axel. You both knew they found the whole arrangement – especially that business with rescuing a bird – to be rather amusing. You didn’t need to do much to gain the adoration of the people of Tomorrowland. So you feared what they would say if you messed up. You worried about how this would affect everyone around you. How would it make your cause look if you became a laughingstock? But luckily Axel knew how you felt.

He briefly excused himself from the robot he had been jotting down parts for and began to walk over to the press. They photographed him as he approached. You couldn’t hear what was being said, but he gestured to you and made a few other dismissive gestures and the press left.

Then he walked back over and resumed his work as if he had never left.

“What did you tell them?” you asked, looking at him and not even realizing you were smiling.

“Hm?” he said coolly, “Oh that you were about pop a cap in their asses if they didn’t leave.”

“You did not!” you said with a laugh.

“Okay, fine I said we collectively wanted the robots to feel like this was a safe space and that the people fixing them needed to be able to concentrate and for them to give them some room and privacy.”

“Hm, well that works. Thanks,” you said a little more quietly to him, giving his hand a brief squeeze when you walked by him – a bold move considering the two of you were trying to keep things under wraps. He winked at you before continuing his work.

“Maybe we should take a break from it all if you’re feeling stressed, _________,” Dreamfinder suggested, “Oh! I know! Why don’t we all do a group activity. It’s been a while since all of us did something outside of the palace together that was just us as a family.”

“We could try, like, mini golf or something,” Namine suggested as she took inventory of the parts Demyx was unpacking.

“Maybe something less open,” Axel suggested, “Like in a building where we don’t have to worry about overcrowding.”

You sent Axel a grateful look.

“We could grab lunch at a restaurant. Demyx and I went to a juke joint the other day that was pretty nice.” You didn’t miss the way the two looked away from each other with a blush on their faces. You’d grill her about that later.

“Lunch would be nice. We’ve been out here for hours, and I don’t doubt I’ll be starving again in the next three,” Axel agreed.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Ludwig announced as he walked closer to the group, “A rather grateful robot has gifted us with tickets to a day spa should we choose to accept them. Now, originally, I was just going to go on seven different days, but I suppose we could all go today instead.”

“Oh how generous,” you said dryly. But you had to admit that a day at the spa getting pampered and in a quiet, enclosed area did sound nice. “But it isn’t a bad idea.”

The others thought it over briefly, thinking that it didn’t sound too bad. Slowly you all chimed in your agreements thinking that a day at the spa and away from everything else would be a nice change. It would be something like a small moment to care for your mental health. And it would be a nice moment to catch up. As you realized that as much as you all had spent time together, you had no idea what each person had been up to individually outside of what they may have mentioned in passing.

“So we’re agreed then. We’ll have lunch at the palace and clean up a bit then head to the spa to relax,” Dreamfinder said with a note of finality, and you all nodded in agreement.

You all got back to work shortly after, needing to focus on the robots who needed help the most before you could work on yourselves. Axel continued writing down lists of parts to be ordered; Ludwig directed the engineers and students on what area to work on next – offering some advice from time to time; Dreamfinder continued to give council; and you took over Namine and Demyx’s job of taking inventory of newly arrived parts while the two of them went scouting for more robots.

Namine and Demyx made their way further and further back into the junkyard. Most robots that could be helped further towards the front of the junkyard had already been helped forward. But that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be stragglers that existed further back, unable to move because they were too large or had been broken.

Unlike the area of the junkyard where people were working and the atmosphere had taken on something of a hopeful tone, the rest of the junkyard was bleak, depressing, and a little creepy. It was more of a graveyard than the parts they’d explored the day they found out robots were dying in it. It was just piles and piles of old rusted parts – some mangled beyond recognition; some so rusted a light touch would disintegrate them. Here there were no signs of life. Almost.

They almost passed him. He was propped against a pile of old, rusted bodies, the metal of his body faded a dull, gray color, the light of his eyes waned to an almost invisible glint of light. But he saw them. He watched, looking as the two called out for life. And he wondered what they could possibly want with any robot out here.

                His voice was rough and cracked from disuse as much as deterioration. He needed to replace his voice box. Not that it would matter in the long run.

His first attempt at speech sounded somewhere between a groan and a creak. But it got their attention. Namine and Demyx both jumped at the sound, truly not expecting to hear anyone or anything out so far in the junkyard – even though they were looking for people who would logically make noise. That didn’t make the sound any less jarring, however.

Namine slowly approached with Demyx right behind her. She stopped a bit to look into his eyes. Her eyes held concern, an emotion he was, admittedly, not used to seeing on humans and especially not directed towards robots.

“Hello,” she said, voice soft and light like the smile on her face.

“Hello,” he said, this time the noise coming from him sounding like speech. Though it was still garbled like someone threw a handful of nails in a grinder. He didn’t miss the light cringe.

“That sounds bad,” she said bluntly, “But we can fix you.”

“You’re in the business of fixing dead robots?”

“Well,” Demyx began, looking mildly uncomfortable at the robot’s choice of words, “You’re not dead yet. We’ve got a team whose been fixing up the robots. We could fix you up to if you wanted.”

If he could, the robot would squint. It wasn’t like he had much life in him left to begin with, but such a thing was too good to be true.

“Why?” he asked.

“Well because robots are as much people as we are, I believe, and we’re trying to help,” Namine answered. Demyx piped up next.

“Yup! Robots are looking to get their full rights as people soon enough. ‘Til then we’re just doing what any good Samaritans would.”

There was a moment of pause for the robot as he watched them. He was in a stunned silence, and Namine briefly wondered if he had broken further.

“No kidding,” he muttered finally after another brief moment, “That’s amazing.” There was hope in his voice, and it made both Namine and Demyx smile.

“What’s your name?” she asked next, settling more comfortably on the ground next to him. It was almost humorous. He didn’t think in his final moments he’d have a pleasant conversation. He just thought he’d be alone.

“I was never given a name. I simply respond to Butler.”

“Butler? You were a butler then?”

“Not just any butler. I used to work in the castle about 100 years ago before I was replaced with a newer model.”

“For the royal family?!”

“The very one. Now tell me more about robots being people.”

“Well,” Namine thought, thinking about how best to say this, “We think robots have hearts. Or rather souls. So we’re making sure robots are well cared for until they get their citizenship.”

The robot let out a crackled, rusted laugh.

“You would think,” he said between huffs of laughter, “The royals would have known that. Or at least one of their fancy scientists would have been able to figure it out. Especially with all of those crazy experiments they used to do?”

“Experiments? How would you know about those?”

“A butler knows everything that goes on in the castle. And robots talk.”

Namine and Demyx shared a glance. In their entire search, there’d been next to nothing useful to learn about AI technology – at least not that they had seen or found.

“Anyhow,” Butler continued, unaware of the look between Demyx and Namine, “Those experiments were being phased out when I was around, and it was real hush, hush stuff – not just anyone would talk about it. Top secret. You know, royal archive stuff.”

“The royal archives? We stay in the castle as guests and have combed through the archives. There’s nothing there.”

“No, you’re thinking of the palace archives. I’m talking about the royal family’s archives.”

Namine’s face wrinkled in confusion. She looked to Demyx.

“Why wouldn’t Robot Butler have mentioned that when we mentioned we were looking for more information?”

Demyx shrugged before answering.

“Well if it was phased out when Butler worked at the palace, how would Robot Butler have known by the time he replaced him?”

“I suppose…,” Namine said quietly before turning back to Butler. “How have you managed to last this long? We were looking through the junkyard, but every other robot here is, um, out of power.”

“I’m solar powered. But my batteries are going bad. I’m done for soon enough.”

“We can help you.”

“Nah. Everybody I ever knew or cared about is dead. I don’t see the point. But I can rest easy knowing things are going to get better. I lived a decent life.”

“Do you want us to stay with you?” Namine asked quietly, placing a gentle hand over his old and rusted one that lay limply next to his body.

“Nah. Get out of here. You have others who need your help. And if anything I’ve told you helps you with that, then I’ll have peace.”

“Alright. If you’re sure…,” Namine almost whispered as she moved to stand up.

“Wait,” he said suddenly, and Namine froze in her movement, “Before you go. The heart of the royal family is where you’ll find the key to the royal archives. Now go.”

Namine and Demyx nodded and left at a brisk pace, heading back to where they left the group. The mood was somber. But hopeful. They may have just gotten a very big hint in their search for evidence of robots’ sentience.

“The next shift of help is coming in,” Demyx noted, seeing a bus of more volunteers arriving on scene, “It’s about time we head back to the palace.”

“Right…” Namine said quietly. Demyx stopped Namine’s stride and stood in front of her, placing his hands on her shoulders and looking her in the eyes.

“Hey,” he said in a gentle, reassuring voice, “Don’t get caught up on what just happened. It’s going to be alright.”

“I know. It’s just sad.”

“I know it is. But we’re doing a good thing. He won’t die in vain. Because I know you’re going to get to the bottom of this and do something miraculous.”

Namine felt her face grow a bit hot.

“Thanks, Demyx,” she said with a light smile. The two continued walking, noticing you on the phone and looking rather wary.

“I mean I’m going to be busy this afternoon,” you said into the phone, a pause. “Yes, I can meet a few hours before dinner. ... Around 4? …I guess that’s fine. … Okay. I’ll see you then.”

You hung up.

“Who was that?” Dreamfinder asked as he packed up his things and prepared to leave with the rest of you.

“One of the empress’s generals,” you answered, putting your phone away and preparing to leave, “They want to have a quick chat with me later today. Hey what time is it?”

“Still early,” Ludwig answered, “Don’t worry. We’ll still have plenty of time to relax before your little appointment.”

“Good,” you grumbled, “Because I feel like I’ll need it. Let’s go.”

~

Your group arrived at the spa to what, at this point, felt like the usual fanfare for you. Though this time it was mostly robots that were crowding around you. But they were crowding around your friends too. Though they were expressing gratitude which, you had to admit, was nicer than the needless praise you received from the human citizens of Tomorrowland.

Unlike the humans though, the robots did not crowd so needlessly. They went about their day after they had expressed their thanks. And in this case, their day was running the spa. And the limited room in the spa meant that all the people who’d tried to swarm about before could not come in without being a patron. It was honestly a relief.

It meant you were able to change into a swimsuit and pick out your preferred treatments without having people surround and judge you. You put your hair up and stepped out to a room full of large tubs of water that could seat up to ten or so people. You walked between them, letting the steam that rose from the heated, bubbling waters let tension melt from your shoulders.

Then you reached the one holding your friends and family, and you slipped in next to Axel, leaning into his side and feeling his arm wrap around your shoulders. There were no other people in the room as far as either of you could tell, so this was fine for now.

There was a moment of quiet between all of you as you all relaxed into the tub. After about a minute, Dreamfinder spoke.

“So what has everyone been up to as of late? I’ve been conducting a bit of research in the psyche department of one of the local universities. I found numerous studies I believe could be used in the understanding of robot autonomy.”

“I’ve just been lecturing and sharing my genius,” Ludwig replied, folding his arms behind his head, “I may have shared a bit on the knowledge of hearts and their inner workings – pulling information, of course, from my brilliant colleague.” Ludwig gestured to Dreamfinder who blushed and waved him off.

“Demyx and I are pulling out all the stops in our search,” Namine said with a fire in her eyes, “And I think we’re really on to something.”

“Yeah,” Demyx agreed, “We’re pretty much uncovering the biggest government conspiracy that’s ever existed. Not to brag. What about you, ________? You and Axel been up to anything.”

“Nothing I do sounds nearly as productive or impressive as what any of you have been up to,” you said relatively sheepishly, “Mostly it’s just been Axel and I planning to take a vacation once we leave here. I haven’t done really anything interesting.”

“Oh nonsense,” Dreamfinder said with a wave, “We heard about your bird in the fountain story. And, personally, I thought it was really sweet.”

“Hey, how’s Figment?” Axel said rather abruptly, changing the subject. You knew that was because he was trying to keep you from feeling uncomfortable, and you found yourself snuggling closer to him because of it.

“He’s fine – as far as I know,” Dreamfinder said with a sigh, “He texts me at the end of each day, so I at least know he’s alright. But I’m sure we’ll see him at the empress’s gala.”

“Oh, yeah,” you chimed in, “I saw the announcement for that. Could be fun, and I’m sure Figment wouldn’t miss it.”

“I should hope not. I haven’t seen him in what feels like forever.”

“Dreamfinder,” Ludwig said with a roll of his eyes, “Cut the cord. He’s in his 40s.”

“That’s easy for you to say! You don’t know what it’s like. It’s been 20 years since I’ve seen him. The last time we saw each other he was just about to graduate college. I’ve missed out on so much…. Did he ever find love, Ludwig?”

“Dreamfinder, we were hiding out in a basement for 20 years. No, he didn’t find love. Frankly, I’m happy to finally not have to hide my genius in a basement and get the recognition I’ve been craving for all my hard work. It’s finally paying off.”

“That’s not entirely true. Walt acknowledged your genius when he brought you in for the Wonderful World of Color. You were his prime educator.”

“Yeah, well that was 60 years ago.”

“Ludwig, we’ve been over this….”

At that point it sounded like it was going to be one of their general spats about their obscurity, so you decided that you’d soaked enough and stood up. Namine, Demyx, and Axel followed suit, all ready to move on to the next activity.

“Where are the two of you headed?” Demyx asked as he stretched his arms above his head.

“Somewhere private,” Axel said, wrapping his arms around your waist and getting a giggle out of you. Demyx rolled his eyes.

“Ew. Well I’m going wherever that isn’t,” he said, spinning on his heel and heading in the opposite direction.

“Hm, I’m with Demyx on this one,” Namine agreed, “You two have fun, and try not to set anything on fire like last time.”

You watched them walk away for a bit before Axel began to lead you away.

“Where’re we going?” you asked, “Wait. Did you actually have something planned?”

“I may have called ahead while we were getting ready to come here earlier today,” he said, leading you into a room where there were two massage tables and two masseuse robots.

“Couples Massages?” you guessed. And Axel nodded an affirmative. You were touched. He seemed to be doting on you today to ensure you weren’t stressed out more than you needed to be.

“We were instructed to keep the nature of your relationship confidential,” one of the robots said, “And we want to assure you that nothing you say or do will leave this room. We were told how difficult of a time you were facing, and we want you and your lover to feel at peace here.”

“Thank you,” you said bashfully, feeling a flutter in your chest at the term, “lover.”

“Come on,” Axel said leading you over to where you were to lay down, “You deserve this.”

And you reveled in it – the feeling of not having to hide your relationship from the world, the absolute peace surrounding you, and the excitement of knowing you would get to feel a similar feeling once you were finally able to leave Tomorrowland.

~

Later that afternoon, Eo was walking the castle. He had a guard shift starting soon and needed to make his way to the other wing of the castle. Though he’s not sure how much help he could be. He’d been distracted most of the day. He had been mulling over what S.I.R. had said and he had a sneaking suspicion that there was some sinister hidden meaning behind it.

“Well we’re not friends. We just go way back.”

Nothing about that phrase made sense. And the only way to make it make sense was to imply that Nova knew more about the day she shut down Space Mountain than she ought to. But that would be a serious accusation to make with no proof to show how one would come to such a conclusion logically.

And he knew Nova to be petty enough to humiliate people or even chew them out for opposing her or getting in her way – years at her side showed how cruel she could be behind closed doors – but murder? He didn’t think her capable of it.

It was as he was distractedly rounding the corner that he nearly ran into Demyx and Namine. He jumped a little bit when he saw them, and so did they. In fact, their expressions looked wary as well as surprised. Eo quickly composed himself, letting out a slightly awkward chuckle.

“Where are you two off to?” he asked politely.

“Oh we’re just going to do some research on the robot issue. Um,” Namine hesitated, “But maybe you could help?”

“Of course. How can I be of service?”

“Well when we were at the junkyard we ran into an old robot.”

“Really old,” Demyx interjected, “Like over 100 years old. He said he’d been the old butler of the castle.”

“Really? You would think a robot that old would be out of commission by now if he hadn’t had regular maintenance and was outdated.”

“You would think so,” Namine agreed, “Well he mentioned the royal family having archives – like ones that are different from the ones openly available in the castle.”

“Let me stop you right there,” Eo interrupted, “Those are strictly prohibited.”

Eo saw a little hope die in their eyes. But then had an idea. One that happened to benefit him and may answer his little question about how S.I.R. and Nova were linked.

“Then again,” he began, feigning thinking it over and trying not to laugh when Demyx and Namine looked overly eager, “Given the cause… I suppose it would be fine. But I would be discreet if I were you.” There was hidden meaning in his tone. One that told Demyx and Namine that he was allowing them to do something he could not give them permission to do and could not, or would not, be held accountable if the two of them were caught snooping.

“You’ll run into the problem of actually getting in though. It’s accessible through the castle archives, but actually opening the door will be the problem. Only the royal family knows how.”

“Well maybe we can appeal to Empress Nova?” Demyx suggested.

“You shouldn’t,” Eo said with a shake of his head, “The archives are beyond your standard levels of prohibited. I doubt she’ll be keen to let you in. However, she’ll be busy with the gala preparations, and security in the castle will be spread thin. I don’t doubt you’ll be able to sneak in with relative ease.”

Demyx squinted at Eo with a level of distrust.

“What’s the catch?” he asked, “You’re telling us how top secret this is, yet you’re telling us to do it. What am I missing?”

Eo smirked.

“You’re smart to ask because I actually do have a condition since I’m just letting you in. I need any files you can find on S.I.R.”

“S.I.R.? But why?”

“I need to know things about him before he returned from Space Mountain. I need to know if there was any correspondence between the day he went online and now – 11 years later. Plus it would probably help your cause, yes? You’ll know more about what he was going through. But mostly I’d like to put it in the other castle archives since we didn’t even know anyone was on Space Mountain at the time.”

It was a lie, sure, but it sounded more plausible then what his own theory actually was.

“It’s a deal,” Namine agreed. Eo smiled.

“Good. I’ll be on my way,” he said, giving a little nod of his head and brushing passed them.

Once he left, Namine and Demyx continued on their trek through the castle with their new information. But they hit a light snag once they entered the castle archives. They could see no visible door with which to enter the royal archives.

“Maybe it’s hidden?” Demyx suggested, looking around the room, but there wasn’t anything that appeared to be obviously out of place. The shelves neatly lined the walls with the occasional portrait of the royal families of the past in between bookcases, and there were a few tapestries that hung on the wall opposite the entrance to the castle archives.

“I guess. Eo did say it was in here somewhere. So let’s start looking.”

It was a short and boring search. Absolutely nothing stood out at all. And that was with Demyx stomping on the occasional floor tile he thought looked slightly off in the hopes of revealing some secret door.

“I don’t think the tiles are going to show us anything,” Namine said after a while, “If it were that easy then anyone casually walking through here could find it.

Namine nudged the bookcases just a bit to see if they’d budge like a secret pathway you’d see in a movie or read in a book, but all of the shelves remained steadfast and still.

Then Demyx peered behind the tapestries hanging on the wall, and it looked like nothing was there either. Then he saw it. He was just about to let the fabric swing back into place when he saw a tiny keyhole etched into the wall.

“Hey, I think I found it!” he said, waving Namine over.

“Really?”

“Yeah, there’s a tiny keyhole here, see?”

“Demyx you’re amazing! Now we just need to figure out how to open it.”

Demyx blushed at her praise before asking about her statement.

“What do you mean how are we gonna open it? We could just ask ________ to do it.”

“We can’t actually. Right now she’s busy because the generals called her earlier so they could speak with her. But also we’re trying to be discreet. The people in this world are so obsessed with snapping a picture of her and putting her in the next headline, they’d type up an article detailing what we’re doing before we have a chance to do it.”

“Good point. Well I guess we’ll just have to think about what Butler said, ‘The heart of the royal family is where you’ll find the key to the royal archives.’”

“But what does that mean?”

The two of them slumped down on the wall next to the tapestry to think for a moment, and for five solid minutes it was quiet as they contemplated what Butler could have possibly meant. Could he have said something that sounded a little less like riddle? But then that would be too easy wouldn’t it?

“I’ve got it!” Demyx practically yelled, breaking the silence rather harshly and nearly causing Namine to jump three feet in the air.

“What is is?”

“In all those comics I read, the secrets are always behind paintings or books. And this place has both of those things. So let’s look behind all the paintings because people have hearts, and those paintings have people. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll start pulling books with suspicious titles that talk about hearts.”

Namine wanted to be skeptical, but so far Demyx’s wild theories regarding conspiracy up to this point hadn’t be all that wild. So she relented.

“We don’t have anything else to go off of, so I’ll honestly try anything at this point – if only to not hit another dead end when it feels like we’re going to be so close to figuring it all out this time.

So the two of them checked book titles, but nothing especially stood out to them. And they checked behind paintings, but they didn’t hold any secrets either. Namine felt a strange kind of frustration building at ramming her head into dead ends every time if felt like she had a lead. Demyx was placing a painting back in its spot, feeling about as dejected as Namine.

“Maybe he meant we should be looking for a literal heart instead of a metaphoric one,” Demyx mumbled. Namine, out of ideas, shrugged.

“We can try that,” she sighed then began re-examining book titles while Demyx looked more closely at the paintings. There was nothing special that Demyx could see about the paintings. They all posed in the same neutral way of just looking at the person producing their picture with the same light smiles and quiet authority they all exuded – with the only consistencies being the crown passed down from emperor to emperor. And… a necklace worn by the empresses. Probably a family heirloom. But… it was shaped like a heart.

Demyx leaned in a bit closer. Something was just a tiny bit off about that necklace. It was flat like the rest of the painting and yet somehow looked less flat.

“Find anything?” Namine asked, walking up to him, but Demyx didn’t answer.

He just raised his hand and pressed the heart pendant of the necklace. There was a faint click as it pressed inward like a button, and a little part of the frame of the painting popped out, revealing a tiny compartment that could fit something small – like a key.

“Demyx I could kiss you! You’re a genius,” Namine squealed throwing her arms around him in a hug. Demyx half expected her to actually kiss him, and he was met with mild disappointment when she didn’t. That disappointment didn’t cause his blush to fade any – which was quite bright on his face.

Namine checked the compartment.

Empty.

“Where’s they key?”

“Well this is an older painting,” Demyx noted, looking at the date. These were probably Nova’s grandparents and father.

The two walked over to the most recent portrait which featured Nova, her mother and father, and her brother – her brother and father holding their keyblades. Namine noted the coldness of the photo. It made Nova look icy despite her smile – not at all like the empress she’d come to know up to this point. They pressed the necklace hanging around Nova’s mother’s neck, and the little compartment in the frame popped out.

But it was empty too.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Demyx huffed, “This is the painting of the royal family, so where’s the key?”

“Maybe it’s in a different painting,” Namine mused, “Technically they aren’t the current royal family anymore. Empress Nova alone is.”

“So let’s check her painting.” They did a quick scan of the room and noticed there wasn’t a portrait of Nova in the room.

“Hmm,” Namine hummed, “Maybe her painting isn’t in this room?”

“Well which painting do you think it would be in? There’s a ton of pictures of her around the castle.”

“I guess we’ll have to check every painting of her in the castle.”

~

“I have to write a speech,” you whined, leaning heavily into Axel’s side. He blinked. You had all but barged into his room – without knocking – and looked more stressed than he had seen you that morning when you were worried about the press. And after you had seemed to let all the stress go at the spa earlier that afternoon no less.

“What?”

“I met with the generals. They want me to write a speech. Something about the robot thing and how we’re helping them in their bid towards personhood or something like that.”

“Well did you tell them you didn’t want to do the speech?”

“Axel,” you said looking up at him rather sternly, “Look me in the eye and tell me how you would say that after all your friends and family have done to help robots, you don’t want to say anything about the movement you are the face of at an event that is supposed to benefit the very cause you’re championing?”

“…”

“…”

“…Okay, I see your point. Look,” he said, placing his hands on your shoulders, trying to look at you with a glint of encouragement. You could feel his heart. It was reassuring. It made you feel calmer. “I’ll handle it. You have enough to deal with. I’ll write the speech, we’ll rehearse it a bit, and you’ll only have to remember the main points, and it’ll be over before you know it.”

Your shoulders relaxed a bit.

“When are we leaving, anyway,” you asked, “If we leave before the gala, we won’t have to worry about the speech.”

“That’s a good question. You would think with this place being as technologically advanced as it is, a spaceship wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Well our technology is different from theirs. Suppose they wanted to study it too or something.”

“Maybe. How about this? I’ll go ask the empress when we’re leaving and if maybe we can speed up the process a little bit. The sooner we leave, the sooner I can have you all to myself for a few days.” A smirk appeared on Axel’s face, and you felt yourself get a little less stressed and a little giddier. You let out a little giggle.

“Okay,” you relented, “I’m going to relax for a bit and maybe watch some T.V.”

“I’ll come join you in a bit.”

With that, Axel left the room while you flopped face first onto his bed.

Axel tried to think of the words he would say to the empress. It wasn’t that hard to think of because he knew what it was he was asking for. He just didn’t want to come off as rude by saying something along the lines of, “When can we leave? We want to leave.”

Even though that was what he wanted. He wanted to relax in the countryside with you. He’d enjoyed his vacation here thus far not worrying about the Organization, but he had forgotten to think about how this all affected you. You weren’t off jumping into danger anymore, and while that was a blessing, you were still under pressure just from the pedestal Tomorrowland had put you on. And even when you weren’t actively trying, you were still expected to be some kind of savior.

Axel was broken out of his reverie when he almost ran into Nova, rounding a corner just as she was about to. But he had fast reflexes, stepping back quickly so as not to jostle her. She seemed shocked to see him initially, but then relaxed, offering a dazzling smile and a bat of her lashes.

“Axel,” she breathed, a light pink dusting her cheeks, “Forgive me. I didn’t see you.”

“No, it was my fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going. But I was actually looking for you.”

“Well I’m here for whatever you may need, dear,” she said, looking up at him through her lashes. She folded her arms, pressing her breasts up. She looked at him fully expecting him to glance down. But he was looking elsewhere, his brow furrowed in a worried expression. Something was concerning him. And it was enough that he wasn’t really paying all that much attention to her.

“I actually just had a question,” he responded, looking at her eyes, and much to her chagrin, only her eyes. “A few of us were wondering when the ship would be fixed.”

“Ah, yes, of course,” she said, trying not to pout, “Well I’m a bit busy. I can’t really discuss it right now.” She was a bit huffy and knew she contradicted herself, having said only a moment ago that she was available to him. Of course she’d meant it a bit more suggestively but still…

Then she had an idea. Her brilliant smile made its way back to her face.

“Although,” she continued, “I could find time to discuss it a bit later. Come by around dinner. I should have a moment then. We can chat about it. It’ll just be you and me, and I’ll be able to give you my full attention.”

“Um, okay?” Axel answered, feeling as if he was inconveniencing her by making her use her time for dinner.

“Wonderful,” she said with a clap of her hands, brushing passed him and letting a hand trail over his arm, “I’ll see you tonight, my dear.”

~

It was a quiet afternoon. Figment was enjoying it like he had been enjoying all of his recent afternoons. He was sitting in a little lounge chair that was just his size and looking out at the sea from where he reclined on the beach. It was a nice way to unwind after a long day. He’d been living it up as of late – enjoying his time to himself. He’d done everything he wanted to do – stayed up past his bedtime, eaten dessert for breakfast and every other meal including second dinner, and made more prank calls than any mute being who can’t talk outside the realm of the mind probably should.

But now he was reflecting.

He pulled out his wallet and looked at the pictures within. The first was of Figment right after he was created, cradled in Dreamfinder’s arms and smiling brightly. The next was of him and Dreamfinder enjoying some Dole whip. He remembered that day. He’d eaten so much he had gotten sick, and Dreamfinder stayed up all night caring for him. The next picture was of he, Dreamfinder, and some of their friends: the three little pigs, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Pecos Bill, Johnny Appleseed, and even Orange Bird. He was pretty sure that guy had a name, but he never bothered to learn it. He hadn’t seen them in a long time. Not since Dreamfinder had gone missing. After that he just didn’t have the heart to go to the Convention of Elite Toon Town Obscure Characters.

The pictures, he noticed, transitioned after that. It was his time without Dreamfinder. There was a picture of him at his graduation; a picture of him with Ludwig in the basement wearing matching t-shirts that read, “Basement Buddies,”; and a picture of him eating dole whip again but this time all by himself. And he noticed how unhappy he looked in all of those pictures. He may have wanted time to branch out on his own and separate a bit from Dreamfinder’s somewhat overbearing nature, but at the end of the day he still loved him.

The last picture was after he’d been reunited with Dreamfinder. It had everyone in your little family – including you, Namine, Demyx, Axel, and your mother. He needed to take a new one with your father included now that he was back in the picture.

Figment blinked, and a fat tear drop rolled down his cheek. He should talk with Dreamfinder. He knows he’s only had his best interest at heart, and he was a bit harsh when he decided to take time for himself.

Figment hopped up from his lounge chair and started his trek back to Dreamfinder. He’d smooth things over with him.

He was nervous as he walked. How would he go about this? How should he go about this? His steps slowed as he contemplated how this would go. It was as he was trudging slowly through the castle, he overheard something.

“A gummi block?” S.I.R. questioned.

Nova smiled smugly. In her hands was a part of the ship. Figment leaned in where the door was cracked, trying to see more clearly – though he could hardly believe his eyes.

“It’s how I’m going to keep them here until I can convince Professor von Drake and Axel to stick around a little while longer.”

“Where did you even get something like that?” S.I.R. asked with a cock of his hip.

“I asked one of the scientists to give it to me. Then I told him not to ask questions.”

“I can assume you did that with your usual methods of persuasion. Tell me. Did you use money, power, those tits you glued to your chest or did you threaten to kill him.”

“I don’t need to use murder to get everything I want,” Nova said, unperturbed by S.I.R.’s snide remarks. She was still in her giddy mood. Everything was fine. And she had a very important date later on.

“Hm. I suppose not, but apparently you’re not above sabotage of innocent parties.”

“I didn’t sabotage him,” she said, with a flippant wave of her hand.

“I wasn’t referring to him. I was talking about ________. I heard what you’d done to her. As I’ve said before: robots talk.”

“Why do you care? You don’t even like humans.”

“No, but she shows more empathy for strangers than you ever have for anyone you’ve ever held close to you in your life. And while I don’t usually speak well of you flesh bags, I like that one. You went too far. She never did anything to you. At least not actively. You don’t need to antagonize her. And drugging her is beyond even that. I know you think your family was out to screw you, but she hasn’t done anything.”

“I never intended to antagonize her – just outshine her. But she’s had it a little too good. There’s nothing wrong with bringing her down a peg. It’s not like I knew stranding them here would lead to any of this or her ascended status as a celebrity. But it won’t matter. I’ve already got plans in place to get my cake and eat it too. They’ll be gone as soon as I give them this little piece back.”

“And that’ll happen once you’re done seducing the duck?”

“And the red head.”

The door creaked, and Nova felt every nerve in her body light up. Her head snapped in the direction of the door, and she saw Figment. His eyes went wide and he turned, fully prepared to run, but Nova froze him in place, her crown glowing brightly.

She pulled him into the room and closed the door. Then there was nothing but silence.

“You really fucked up this time,” S.I.R. said finally. It sounded so loud in Nova’s ears. Her breaths came in shallow pants.

“And I mean you really fucked up,” S.I.R. continued, sounding almost amused by this situation, “He heard who knows how much. But you can’t kill him; people will come looking for him. You can’t let him go or else everyone will know what you did. You’re screwed,” S.I.R. said finally succumbing to a fit of laughter. His cackle rang loudly and hotly in Nova’s ears. And she couldn’t stand it. And his laughter didn’t appear as if it would die down any time soon. If he wouldn’t shut up, she would make him. Her crown began to glow brighter.

S.I.R.’s laughter was abruptly halted by a loud grinding and creaking sound as the metal of his head folded in on itself, crushed on the weight of Nova’s psionic energy. S.I.R.’s body fell to the floor, the mangled remains of his head skidding from his shoulders. Finally there was quiet. Nova’s breath calmed a bit. She needed to handle this. And then she needed to get ready for her date.

Notes:

See you all between 1-3 weeks from now! :)

Obscure-ish References:

The Three Little Pigs: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/The_Three_Little_Pigs_(characters)?fbclid=IwAR1XbFUEf_-UDedkT8fFenNCUotcm7TGNDY-O9xq3ba_flSUIYzmdHQangk

Pecos Bill: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Pecos_Bill_(character)?fbclid=IwAR1bvuvykOAnMa2cBilLEekW1mZTn5itfaYpdGOewAYmZMlt8jDs40Ucd40

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit: https: //disney.fandom.com/wiki/Oswald_the_Lucky_Rabbit?fbclid=IwAR32Qj3VFgORK0JwJVTMUCMVTlvL7fdrLgjEEzZAgS-ZHfwk5OWZ6GSJp3w

Johnny Appleseed :https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Johnny_Appleseed?fbclid=IwAR3V4z1RtWoUdDZUy4W_AcWOImIQbMMDCEkdrTVAJPEU5RTdqxb_-TU6Llk

Orange Bird: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Orange_Bird?fbclid=IwAR2ppcT1ru9njPAFgSI2C9JvSK1d32u33x6fj4Lr_aUDWzBM-EA2FrQVW1Y

Wonderful World of Color Intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QjfFWfdrvE

Walt Disney Introduces von Drake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFjfbtMho54

Dole Whip: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dole_Whip?fbclid=IwAR3MuZ0XKClUME5IT9nJXEKI32FHeNM5jDZHXRfq-JY-Sx7_tshSawYHOX4

Chapter 72: Gabezo

Summary:

Gabezo gabezo gabezo I'm the sassy bitch

Notes:

Gabezo

When Axel walked into the dining room that Nova instructed him to meet him in, he was… wary. Nothing about the scene was bad or dangerous, and Nova herself didn’t look much different aside from her attire. In fact, most people would say that the atmosphere, the room, and the empress’s attire were quite nice. But, nevertheless, Axel still felt that the entire situation was inappropriate.

This particular dining room was dimly lit with light piano music playing from a hidden speaker. In the center of the room was a large dark wood table lined with a red and gold table runner. And lining the sides of the runner were several glittering crystal glasses, gold-rimmed porcelain plates with floral patterns, and gleaming silver utensils. On the back wall was a large fireplace that was lined with swirling gold and silver patterns. Even the logs in the fireplace were immaculately cut. Above the table were three gilded chandeliers holding multiple lit candles, providing the room’s dim lighting. And at one end of the table was the empress. Her hair was completely down instead of its usual half-up-half-down style, running like a dark river over her shoulders and down her back. Her dress was less formal than her typical manner of dress. It was still as skintight as the others and just as lowcut as they had always been, however, it was also shorter and more intimate looking. It was like something one might wear on a date. The only thing not expected on a date, would be the crown which always adorned her head.

In fact, one could say everything about this situation looked like a date. And Axel wanted to back out of the room very quickly, but he could remember the look on your face when you were feeling particularly stressed. And it was enough for him to tell himself that he was overthinking things. Afterall this woman had absolutely no reason to come onto him. She hardly knew anything about him. In the weeks they’d been here they had hardly even shared a conversation or been in the same room.

“Axel,” she said, her voice light and pleased. She was quite happy with how she sounded. You would hardly know she’d done anything drastic only a few hours ago. “Please, sit.”

She gestured with a light wave of her hand. She clearly wanted him to sit close, but Axel instead chose to across from her. It, at the very least, made him feel less like this was a date. But he was stopped before he could take his seat.

“Actually,” Nova interrupted, “Could you do me a favor? It’s terribly dim in here. Would you mind lighting the fireplace?”

Axel didn’t have any matches, and he didn’t see a switch, lever, or any other device or tool that might allow him to light a fireplace. So he could only assume that she wanted him to light it using magic – something on any other day he might have been cocky about, but here it just felt like she wanted to ogle him.

He stepped up to the fireplace, aware of the eyes roaming his figure yet telling himself that he was imagining it and making baseless assumptions. He told himself that she wasn’t interested and that he need to get over himself. With a flick of his wrist, a bright flame lit the fireplace. Nova let out a giddy little giggle, bouncing a little in her seat.

“That is so nifty,” she said, as Axel took his seat across from her. She leaned forward letting her chest spill out of her dress a bit. But Axel was busy looking elsewhere – trying to feel less awkward about everything by not making eye contact. “Did it take you a long time to learn such magic?”

“Oh, uh, no,” Axel said, finally meeting her eyes as he responded so as not to be completely rude. To the empress’s chagrin, he didn’t let his eyes wander anywhere else. “I actually picked up magic pretty quick. It’s simple once you learn the basics.”

“Then I imagine you must have had a knack for it,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes.

“I guess…. ________ picked it up pretty quickly too,” he said, now thinking about you. It made him feel a little better talking about himself. Because he could always steer the conversation away from himself. And he felt better talking about you. He smiled a little. The thought of you always made him feel better. “She actually picked it up the first day I taught her.”

“Oh,” Nova said, trying to feign interest, “Is that so?”

“Oh, yeah. Demyx also has a talent for magic. Though his is water based. Namine picked her magic up even faster. Although I would say that ________’s magic is different. Her fire magic is really strong. And she picked up electricity too. She’s probably got such a knack for it because of her keyblade.”

“You don’t say. Isn’t she just so lucky to have a keyblade?” Nova wanted to spit venom. But she maintained her façade.

“I suppose. It draws a lot of danger to her, but she never backs down from a challenge….” Axel paused for a bit. He may have hated the way you rushed into danger, but he had to admit that there was always something nice about the way you fought. How graceful you were. Even when taking a hit. You were… beautiful.

“Hm,” was Nova’s curt reply. Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. If she didn’t know any better, she would think that Axel had feelings for you. “If you don’t mind my asking, how close are the two of you? You and ________, I mean. You’ve been on this journey so long, you’re bound to have gotten close, yes?”

Axel considered answering honestly. He wanted to make clear how much of a relationship he had developed with you. But he also wanted to maintain your and his privacy.

“She’s my best friend,” he said after a moment. It was an honest answer at least.

“It’s nice to have friends. So tell me more about yourself. I’ve heard oodles about ________ day in and day out and day in and day out. But what’s your story? Tell me all about Axel,” she purred, leaning forward just a tiny bit more.

“What do you want to know? There’s not really much going on. I lived a somewhat… normal life before I met ________. Since then it’s just been adventure.”

There was a tiny rumble in the crystal glasses on the table. It was imperceptible though, so it went unnoticed by Axel. Could he really not talk without mentioning you?

“Well what were you like before you met her? Surely there was something extraordinary about you?”

“Not really,” he said with a shrug. It was a bit of a lie. After all even if he hadn’t been a part of the Organization before he met you, there was still the matter of learning magic. His life, even if he didn’t want it to be, would be considered by most to be interesting. From the scandal of his birth, to his abandonment, to his indoctrination into the Organization, to meeting Roxas and you, to falling in love, and every event he’d experienced with you up to that point. But he wasn’t exactly trying to prolong this encounter. “It’s really as normal as anyone else’s life.”

It was at this point that Robot Butler brought in their food. He looked around at the scenery and between Axel and Nova as he carried in the food. And this made Axel feel even more antsy. He already didn’t want to be there. And now someone he knew was seeing him in this somewhat compromising position. He didn’t know that Robot Butler was feeling his own set of unease.

He placed the food down in front of them, pouring them each a glass of water and a second glass of champagne. Axel at the very least sipped the water but only found himself moving his food around on his plate.

For the next few minutes while they ate – or at least Nova ate while Axel pretended to eat – there was silence. It was heavy and palpable on both sides. And Nova hated it. He wasn’t eyeing her. He wasn’t flirting. He could barely talk about himself. He was hardly the powerful, smooth-talking person she’d become accustomed to. Though she did spring this on him. Maybe he was unsure of what he could have? She smiled to herself. She’d just have to make her intentions clearer.

She paused her eating to place her hands beneath her chin, her arms framing her breasts which she gingerly rested on the table. He wasn’t looking at them, but she figured he would with time. Right now he was only staring at his plate.

“So, my dear,” she cooed, playfully dropping in a little pet name to see how he’d respond, “Have you made many friends on this journey?”

“A few I guess,” he met her eyes, again remaining respectful and keeping them solely on her face, “We meet a lot of people going from world to world.”

“And… forgive me for being so forward, but… Have any of them ever caught your eye?”

Axel blushed. Every moment you’d caught his eye flashed in his head – from the moment he started realizing he had an attraction to you to the last time he saw you earlier that evening. His blush deepened a little more. The last time he saw you, you were in a robe that was loosely hanging off your shoulders and telling him to hurry back with a wink.

Nova smiled. He was blushing. Perhaps he’d been harboring a little crush after all? It made sense. She was gorgeous, and most men found it quite hard to resist her for very long. She had a pretty high success rate – with Atom and Axel currently being the only exceptions. Though if she played her cards right, she was certain she would add him to her list of conquests.

Axel finally answered.

“No, not really,” he said, but it was an obvious lie to both of them. Nova’s smile broadened ever so slightly.

“Oh? That’s a surprise. A young, handsome man such as yourself must have plenty of women clamoring after you. I mean, you’re so tall with such gorgeous eyes, a commanding presence, and your magic? You could conjure a flame with a flick of the wrist. I, for one, think those are exemplary qualities in a potential partner. And I would be so lucky to find someone just like you.” She winked. And that’s when Axel knew he hadn’t been presumptuous in thinking she might be interested. And it was time to leave. But he didn’t want to be rude. After all this woman had opened up her home to him and the rest of his friends and family. He’d wait a bit to politely excuse himself.

“I’ve moved around a bit too much lately to really put down any roots – much less with any men or women who may have wanted to start a relationship.”

“Maybe you just haven’t found the right woman – someone who has much to offer you and makes you want to put down roots. Maybe a single moment of passion would be all it takes to change the trajectory of your life forever.”

Oh shit. What was she implying? No, nope. He had to be overthinking that one. This woman didn’t even know him. She wouldn’t jump straight to that, would she? Axel tried to think quick, changing the subject so he wouldn’t have to focus on this anymore.

“Um, you know,” he said, looking around the room, “You really didn’t have to go through all this trouble just to talk about the ship.”

“It’s no trouble really. I thought you deserved it after you filled in for Atom while he was away. ________ gets so much attention while you’re just seen as a background player – despite all you’ve done for me and by extension the empire, and even ________ herself. Namine and Demyx have recently gotten attention because of this whole robot ordeal, and ________ has pushed them to the front of the spotlight. But what about my Axel?” Axel’s posture stiffened. He did not like that. Nope. Not even a little. She was trying very clearly to flirt.

Nova stood from her chair and walked over to him as she continued speaking.

“I just don’t understand that for all her fame now that she hasn’t built you up the way you deserve. She does it for her other friends, but she seems to have left you unappreciated.” She stopped by his chair. “I could give you the attention you deserve,” she said, moving to touch his shoulders.

Axel abruptly stood up, moving out of the way before she could place her hands, or anything else, on him.

“Shit! I forgot that I was actually supposed to meet up with everyone to discuss our plan of action once we leave here,” he said, red in the face and backing up towards the door he came through.

Nova blinked, surprised that he wasn’t going for it. She was being explicitly clear right now. And he was just… going to leave?!

“You’re leaving?” she said, trying not to sound as startled by his decision as he was, “So soon? Couldn’t you please just stay for a moment longer? For me?” She moved to grab his arm, wanting to tempt him further by placing it between her breasts. Surely that would convince him to stay. But Axel moved out of the way of her touch and far less subtly this time.

The two of them just looked at each other for a quiet second that seemed to stretch on into eternity.

“I really do have to go,” Axel said, taking another step back, “When did you say the ship would be ready again?”

“Soon” she nearly spat, “It’ll be ready soon.” She tried not to sound to venomous in her answer. Axel gave a brief, curt nod.

“Well, thank you for the, uh, dinner. It was great. I’ve gotta go.”

Axel turned fully, half expecting her to tackle him in another attempt to flirt and began walking quickly out of the room.

Nova stood there for a moment longer, seething as the door closed behind him. The crystal dishes on the table began to tremble before they shattered entirely.

Axel shuddered as he left, walking briskly to put as much space between him and whatever that was that he’d experienced in that room. He felt dirty. And somewhat guilty. That was obviously meant to be a date, but he wanted to act like Nova wasn’t interested and like the whole situation wasn’t awkward for him. He needed to talk to someone about this. But not you. You had enough on your plate. So he went to the next best place.

~

Demyx heard a knock on the door. He stood up to get it, cracking it open slightly and seeing Axel on the other side. He opened it fully, grinning broadly and happy his friend had come for a visit. But then he noticed Axel’s expression – which was troubled to say the least.

“Hey, uh, what’s up?” he said as he let Axel in and returned to where he had previously been, sitting on the bed and idly plucking at his sitar.

“I need to talk to you.” Oof. Nothing good ever started like that.

“Is this a casual talk? ‘Cause you sound serious, and I need to know if I’m going to have to prepare myself mentally.”

“Serious talk. Something… ‘weird’ happened.”

“Define, ‘weird.’”

“I think the empress is into me.”

Demyx digested this for a moment. Then he laughed.

“SuUuRe she is. What did she do? Ask you on a date?” he said with a light chuckle.

“Sort of.”

“Oh.” Now there was thick, heavy silence before Demyx spoke again. “You said, no, right?”

“Of course I said no!”

“Oh. Okay. Well… other than you having women clamor after you, you should be fine, and I see no other problems. It’ll just be a little awkward is all. Don’t know why you’re coming to me about it. Because, um, I know I don’t look or act like it, but I actually don’t have a lot of women flirt with me.”

Axel blinked before rolling his eyes.

“Oh wow really?” he said, not even bothering to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

“Sarcasm isn’t an attractive feature, Axel,” Demyx retorted, sticking out his tongue for good measure.

“You say that, but which one of us has a girlfriend?”

“Low blow, Axel.”

Axel merely shrugged his comment off before steering the conversation back to its original topic.

“Anyway that’s not why I brought it up.”

“So why did you want to bring it up?”

“I wanted to know if you think I should tell ________. Because I feel like she has the right to know, but I don’t want to cause any unnecessary drama either. She’s been stressed lately.”

“Well if she’s been stressed, don’t add to it. Giver her a little time to relax before you say anything. But don’t wait too late either.

“Okay,” Axel said quietly, mulling it over for a quick second before perking up, “Yeah, okay. That makes sense. Thanks.”

Axel abruptly spun on his heel to leave.

“Where are you going? You gotta hot date?”

“Yup,” he answered without even looking back, “I’ll see you later.”

Demyx shrugged.

“Alright. I got plans too anyway. Ya know, just liberating the robot race is all – nothing too crazy.”

Just as Axel was about to leave, a robot masseuse showed up, asking Demyx if he was ready for his massage. Axel gave Demyx a dry look, raising an eyebrow. Liberation his ass. Demyx chuckled nervously while Axel left to go plan his date with you.

~

                The next day you wanted to fuck with Axel. For absolutely no reason at all you just wanted to have a little fun and fuck with him just a tiny bit. So it absolutely made your day when he strode into your room.

                “Hey, babe,” he said in his somehow always cocky voice that made you internally loopy every time he used it.

                “Hey, bitch,” you shot back with a shit-eating grin plastered to your face. He looked lightly surprised before he held back a laugh to respond.

                “Okay. Wow. I came here to ask you on a date, fucker.”

                “No, wait! I wanna date.”

                “I don’t know. Do you deserve it? Maybe I’ll bring Demyx instead.”

                “You’d rather date Demyx than me?”

                “Well Demyx doesn’t call me names.”

                “You called me fucker!”

                “Yeah, in self-defense.”

                You bounded off your place in the bed to sit on the edge of it, leaning forward and beaming a smile at Axel. You were just so happy to see him.

                “Where’s the date?” you asked.

                Axel smirked.

                “It’s a surprise.”

                “Can I have a hint?”

“Sure. Always old, sometimes new. Never sad, sometimes blue. Never empty, sometimes full. Never pushes, always pulls.”

You blinked.

“What the fuck kind of hint was that?”

“That’s funny. I said something similar when the ticket-seller said it to me when I bought the tickets.”

“So there’s tickets involved? Is it a ride?”

“Something like that. Anyway we leave in two hours. So get ready.”

“Okie dokie. Wait. Won’t people recognize me? We’re just gonna be bugged the whole time.”

“So disguise yourself.”

“Hmmm. Okay. I think I have an idea for that.”

“Okay. I’m gonna go shower and get ready.”

You watched him leave, missing him already, but absolutely thrilled you were going on a date with him. And for your grand disguise… you were just gonna lop your hair off. Shorter than it had been when this whole adventure started. A pixie cut would be cute. And it would certainly be a far cry from the long and lengthy looks you’d been sporting around Tomorrowland up to this point.

As you were making a room service call to Robot Butler about someone who could cut hair – luckily they had the empress’s personal hairdresser on site – Namine walked in.

“Knock, knock,” she announced as she strode in. You were hanging up the phone with the assurance that Robot Butler would send a robot over to cut your hair.

“That’s not how you enter someone’s room. Rude.”

“Well the door was open,” she said with a shrug, “And it didn’t look like you were doing anything important. I figured I’d ask if you wanted to hang out for a few minutes and relax a little.”

“I can’t. I got a hot date later.”

“Oh really? With who?”

“First of all it’s, ‘with whom?’ Secondly, who do you think it’s with?”

Namine let out a few giggles before answering.

“I’m just kidding. So where are you two going?”

“Always old, sometimes new. Never sad, sometimes blue. Never empty, sometimes full. Never pushes, always pulls.”

There was a beat of silence.

“What the hell does that mean?” Namine finally said with a furrow of her brows.

“That’s what I said!”

“Well I’m not good with riddles. Demyx is probably better at them. He did, after all, figure out this whole conspiracy thing and the next piece of it.”

“How’s that going by the way?”

“It’s going okay. We’re studying a lot of psychology stuff. And we’re gonna meet up later today to discuss some other things.” Namine felt a little bad about lying to you about how she actually planned to snoop all over the castle, but you were just too high profile to be involved. Yet.

“You and Demyx have been doing a lot together,” you said with a wiggle of your eyebrows. Namine blushed and looked away with a tiny smile on her face.

“It’s not like that. We’re just friends. But I have enjoyed working with him.”

“Axel and I were just friends once,” you said with a dreamy sigh, “And we enjoyed working together. And now he’s taking me on a mystery date.”

There was another knock on your door just then. The robot hairdresser had walked in. Or rather wheeled in. It looked like just an orb on a stick with wheels attached.

“Good morning,” it announced in a vaguely feminine voice, “I have a catalogue of hairstyles for you to choose from. Your wish is my command, Empress of the Renaissance.” You internally cringed but put on a bright, happy smile. The robot couldn’t have known about how you felt.

“I should get going so you can get ready for your date,” Namine said, before turning towards the door.

“Alrighty then,” you called out to her, “Good luck with your research! And don’t you and Demyx get too ‘distracted.’” You added a wink for emphasis. Namine just rolled her eyes with a blush on her face and left.

~

                As of late, Robot Butler had been more and more often contemplating his humanity. Or what so far had been theorized as some version of robot humanity. He wondered about it. He pondered what it meant for him to have autonomy. And he’d deliberated the very definition of artificial intelligence countless times. What did it mean to be? And would having the answers to such explain more about who he was as a person.

                He’d considered what kind of person he would be. What things would he like? And these questions led him here. To a little shop on the robot side of town. It sold crafts and paints and crafting materials and finished paintings. And it was the primary area where he bought the paintings that adorned his room. He kept thinking about how he’d always, since he’d first seen them, had an affinity for them. All he knew was that he liked them.

                He pushed open the door and strode in, a little overhead bell jingling as he did so. He could hear the whir of an engine and rolling wheels as another robot made their way over to him.

                “Welcome!” they greeted, “What can I help you with today?”

                Robot Butler held up one of the many paintings he’d collected.

                “I was wondering if you knew who the artist was.”

                The robot seemed to whir with a mild excitement – though it could have just been their cooling fans starting up.

                “Why it’s me! I’ve been painting those landscapes since I was first installed around here.”

                “That’s fascinating!” he remarked, eager that someone was as passionate about these landscapes as he was, “I’ve been collecting them since I had first seen them – which, admittedly, was not long after I was installed at my place of work as well.”

                “Was there anything in particular you wanted to know about them?”

                “Well yes,” he hesitated for a moment, “Actually I wanted to know why it is you paint them.”

                There was a long pause of silence. The robot’s semblance of eyes glazed over, dulling out into nothingness. There were faint clicks that could be heard as the robot combed its files for memories of why they had started this collection and for years had never stopped.

                “I don’t know….” They answered finally, “I suppose I’m just drawn to them.”

                Robot Butler felt a deep well of disappointment within him.

                “I’m sorry if it isn’t the answer you’re looking for.”

                “It’s no fault of your own. I suppose I am also just drawn to them. Thank you for your time.” Robot Butler turned to leave, stopping next to a painting of one of the landscapes he was obsessed with, and he felt a twinge of familiarity.

~

                “Ready to get started?” Namine asked as Demyx opened the door. Demyx found himself smiling. It was a strange feeling but seeing Namine made him the slightest bit giddy.

                “Yeah, totally. So what’s the plan exactly?”

                “Honestly? I don’t really have one. We just have to check every painting of empress in the castle. But I did ask Robot Butler about all the paintings of royalty in the castle. He said it was an odd request, but I just told him that I was interested in the history of the empire and that I wanted to see depiction of them on a grander scale than in a book. He was okay with it then. He told me that he had the entirety of the castle memorized and knew where to find each and every one of the paintings. So I marked them down on this.”

                Namine held up a folded square that Demyx was only just now noticing.

                “Blueprints,” she clarified, unfolding it, and showing a map of the castle with little red and black Xs marked all throughout. “The black ones are paintings of the royal family in general, and the red ones are paintings of Empress Nova.”

                “That was smart,” Demyx said with a bright, award-winning smile that made Namine blush just a tiny bit. “There sure are a lot of red ones. There’s only like five black.”

                “According to Robot Butler, they aren’t even of her own family.”

                “Weird. You’d think she’d have more of those.”

                “Maybe losing them to that alien took a toll on her. Maybe she can’t look at paintings of all of them anymore,” Namine said with a shrug. “In any case, now we know where to go to check paintings. There is just one problem though.”

                “What’s that?”

                “One of them is in the empress’s room, and since what we’re trying to do isn’t exactly supposed to be known about, getting in or out of there will be a bit difficult.”

                Demyx thought for a moment.

                “What if we ask Eo? He might have a solution. And since he wants something out of this, he might be willing to give us some sort of plan of action.”

                “Maybe. Let’s give him a call.”

                They sat on Demyx’s bed while the phone rang. After a few rings it seemed like he wasn’t going to pick up, but then a telltale click could be heard on the other end.

                “Hello?” he answered.

                “Eo?” Namine called, “It’s Namine. Can you talk?”

                “Give me one moment.”

                They heard a shuffling noise as Eo moved from wherever he was located to somewhere more private. His voice came back slightly hushed. He obviously wasn’t alone and wanted to keep any listening ears out of this.

                “Did you find anything?” he asked, straight to the point.

                “Sort of,” Namine answered then began filling him in on everything that they’d figured out in the archives. “What we need now is a way to get into the empress’s room.”

                “That’s not a problem,” Eo remarked, “Though it’ll require a little patience. Check every painting in the castle first. And maybe, if we’re lucky, you’ll find what you’re looking for without having to invade her personal space. If nothing turns up, you’ll have to search her room during the gala.”

                “The gala?” Demyx asked, unsure of what the empress’s party had to do with their mission.

                “The gala,” Eo confirmed, “Security will be most concentrated where the guests are, leaving most of the castle open to be searched. And since Empress Nova herself will be hosting it, she won’t have a moment to sneak away at all. Her room will be open to you. You can get in and grab the key then.”

                “That works,” Namine said with a nod.

                “Good to hear it. I’ve got to return to my post but let me know if anything goes wrong.”

                “We will. Thank you, Eo.”

                “No problem. Just remember our deal.”

                “We won’t forget. Goodbye.”

                “Goodbye.”

                There was a moment of silence as Eo’s words fully sunk in.

                “You know we’re basically spies now,” Demyx said with a full grin on his face.

~

                On one of the Tomorrowland Empire’s many planets, a meeting was being held with Nova’s generals. And Nova was not present for it. A decision needed to be made. And the generals did not think Nova’s approval would be needed. They didn’t think she would mind. It was, after all, for the good of Tomorrowland. And all they had to do was convince you to stay.

~

                Axel met you at the front of the castle. Though he seemed a little nervous. Unbeknownst to you, he was worried he might run into Nova, and after their extremely awkward encounter the night before, he couldn’t think of a more horrifying thing to deal with. Especially when he was meeting up with you. What would you say if you saw the empress acting differently towards you? And they just weren’t feelings he was ready to deal with. This was supposed to be a day all about you. He’d been planning it since yesterday after he’d had that talk with Demyx.

                “Hey,” you said as you walked up to him, placing a hand gently on his arm, “You okay?”

                Axel jumped a tiny bit, not expecting you. Then he smiled when he saw it was just you. Then he noticed your hair.

                “Whoa,” he said, blinking at you.

                Your hand automatically went to your hair, a worried look on your face.

                “Is it that bad? You said not be too recognizable, so I went with something a little extreme. Do you think it’s too short?”

                “What? No, I’m just surprised is all. You look beautiful. Like really beautiful. Like if it wasn’t for the fact that I wasn’t taking you somewhere great right now, I’d drag you back in that castle and keep you all to myself.”

                You giggled, then bat your lashes flirtatiously at him.

                “I mean we could reschedule, and I could let you have me,” you said in a low voice, pressing closer to him. A small shudder ran through Axel’s body. You were tempting as hell.

                “Please don’t,” he said in a voice that had a hint of strain to it, “I really want to do this, and you’re damn near irresistible.”

                You let out another laugh.

                Then a taxi pulled up. You were mildly surprised, but only because you had become so used to being picked up by limousines at this point. It almost seemed out of place.

                “A taxi?” you questioned as Axel guided you to it with a hand on your lower back.

                “I figured it would be a good way to stay anonymous.”

                “Oh! Smart!”

                “Yes, I’m a genius, I know.”

                “Hmm. Might have to check that cocky attitude though.”

                “You love it.”

                “I don’t know. You did call me a fucker earlier, you bitch.”

                “Again that was in self-defense. Now get in the car, fucker.”

                You laughed as you got into the taxi. The rest of the taxi ride went in a similar manner with the two of you trading little jokes, insults, and compliments alike, laughing for nearly the entire ride until the taxi pulled up to what appeared to be a shuttle.

                “A shuttle?” you questioned, “Will the surprising vehicles never end today?”

                “I’d surprise you with the most ridiculous of vehicles just to see that smile,” Axel said, pulling you close. You let out a little snort of laughter.

                “Oh, Axel,” you swooned, falling into his side a little and playing along. The two of you descended into giggles again as Axel paid the cab driver and you both exited the vehicle.

                The two of you joined a small group of people waiting around the shuttle. It could have been more than twenty or so people. Your heart thumped. Time to see if you would be recognized. Axel had an easy enough time remaining anonymous. He’d only been featured on the news only a handful of times. And he’d thrown his hair back into a ponytail for the day, and that alone made him look vastly different. But would your pixie cut be enough?

                “Hello, everyone,” a robot said, wheeling out of the shuttle to face the crowd. All eyes went to the robot, and you felt relief that no one was looking your way. Though you’d noticed that not really anyone looked your way when the two of you approached. You felt like the haircut was working.

                “I am Lunar-1,” the robot said, “And I will be your pilot today on our trip to the moon!”

                “You’re taking me to the moon?” you said, looking at Axel with a mix of awe and giddiness.

                “Yup,” he said with a smirk and a shrug as if it were not a big deal.

                “What’s on the moon?” you asked, only to be answered by Lunar-1.

                “That’s a great question, paying customer! You can hike, camp, picnic, or visit our moon museum. The moon offers a big nature park that is completely unique from any other park in Tomorrowland’s empire.”

                “What makes it unique?” another person asked.

                “The nature of this park is composed of nothing but rocks! Moon rocks! How exciting! There are a lot of fun things to do on the moon if that nature park isn’t your speed. You can explore the moon’s surface in one of our moon rovers or ‘chillax with the homeboys’ in our moon rec center!”

                You raised your hand to ask another question.

                “Yes?”

                “How will we be able to do all this if there’s no oxygen on the moon?”

                “You’ll all be given special space suits or rather, ‘moon suits,’ that will allow you to breathe on the moon and filter out most of the harsh light. For those of you who will be camping on the moon’s surface, a special device will be provided that will create a 12x12 foot dome of artificial atmosphere for you to relax in with enough oxygen to support a family of five for 48 hours. However, I must offer this one warning: Please do not start campfires within the dome. I cannot stress this enough. We’ve had accidents where people have burned away all of their oxygen in a matter of minutes. Please do not start any fires of any kind. Please do not open the bubble without putting on your spacesuits. If you have any emergencies, press the emergency button and the nearest patrol droid will be there to assist you. Also please do not harass the patrol droids. Are there any more questions?”

                “Is there anything else to do on the moon?”

                “Of course! Jumping is much more fun there because of the decreased gravity. Any other questions?”

                You raised your hand again.

                “What time is it?”

                “12:45.”

                “Thank you.”

                “You’re welcome.”

                “I have a question,” Axel piped up.

                “I’m sorry your group reached the maximum amount of questions I can answer before departure.”

                “But I –”

“Query denied.”

“But what if –”

“Query denied.”

You let out a quiet giggle. You didn’t know your question about the time would be the last one, and it seemed funny to have wasted it on something so trivial. Axel glared at you playfully before rolling his eyes.

“Whatever. You can laugh now, but I’ll get my revenge.” This only made you laugh further, and Axel’s smile broadened.

The two of you lined up with everyone else and filed into the shuttle, picking seats that were a little near the front. You were surprised how much the inside of the shuttle resembled a bus given its spacecraft like appearance.

“Set phasers to fun!” Lunar-1 said as he got into the driver’s seat. There was a little cheer that went through the crowd, and you snuggled up to Axel in your seat next to him. You were full of a giddy excitement that made you feel completely at ease for the first time in a while. Axel put an arm around you, and the two of you shared a quick kiss. The shuttlebus was abuzz with chatter for a while after takeoff. And you and Axel chattered about what you might find on the moon since, as far as the two of you were concerned, you’d never been somewhere that the moon had been turned into a tourist attraction.

About fifteen minutes later, Lunar-1 rotated his head to face the group.

                “Time for some moon trivia!” he announced, and the group turned their attention to him, “Now what color is the moon?”

Someone further in the back raised their hand.

“Gray?”

“INCORRECT,” Lunar-1’s voice said in a much sturdier, and frankly a tad more startling voice, before it went back to its original friendly, tour guide-like tone, “It’s actually moon white – which is a shade of gray. Next question: What is the moon composed of?”

Someone else, a teenager it looked like, raised their hand.

“In school we learned that some of the things it’s made of,” she announced, “The moon is composed of silicon, magnesium, and calcium – just to name a few.” She seemed proud of herself, and her parents looked equally proud.

“INCORRECT. It is composed of moon rocks. Next question: What is the moon’s atmosphere composed of?

Axel could see this not really going anywhere he considered logical, so as a goof he decided to answer, raising his hand.

“Is it made of moon air?”

You squinted at him. He just smiled and shrugged at you.

“…Moon air?” you began, whispering to Axel, “That’s the weirdest –”

“CORRECT!” Lunar-1 announced, his voice no less jarring even when the answers were incorrect, “Here you go!” He handed something to Axel that looked a lot like a coupon.

“It’s five moon bucks you can use at the moon arcade and gift shop,” Lunar-1 explained, “Speaking of the moon: We’ve arrived at the moon!”

You peeked out of the window next to you, and sure enough, the shuttle was already making its descent, a small cloud of dust being kicked up as it touched down then wheeled itself into the garage of a large nearby building that was surrounded by a giant, clear dome.

“This is a nice surprise,” you said to Axel as you waited for the shuttle to park.

“This isn’t the surprise,” he answered smugly. You furrowed your brow in confusion.

“So what is the surprise?”

“You’ll see soon enough,” he replied, standing up with everyone else about to leave the shuttle, “Anyway let’s go have some fun.”

You exited the shuttle and followed the group, led by Lunar-1, to the exit of the garage. You couldn’t resist doing a little hop. You just had to test the gravity. But it was just a normal jump.

“Aww,” you said, a little disappointed, “I thought we were supposed to be lighter on the moon.”

“Actually,” Lunar-1 explained, “Gravity is normal in this area because of the artificial gravity.”

“Oh,” you said, wondering how it was you didn’t notice that you didn’t feel any lighter when you arrived. Your group dispersed after reaching the rec center’s entrance. In the center of the large main hall was a circle of land with a flag planted in it with a large plaque that read, “site of the first moon landing.”

Axel tapped you on the shoulder and you looked up at him.

“Before we explore, give me a second?”

You nodded.

Axel took out his phone and snapped a picture before sending it to Demyx.

Demyx: I still don’t believe it.

Axel: Demyx I am literally on the moon taking a picture of it.

Demyx: Well, yeah, they want you to believe that’s where it happened. Real convenient.

Axel: So you’re saying it’s possible, but it didn’t happen.

Demyx: I’m just saying, where I came from, it was fake.

Axel: Sure it was Demyx. And the world is flat. Demyx what reason do you have to believe that it was fake?

…

…

…

Demyx: Someone told me about it once….

Axel: I’m gonna stop talking to you now

You noticed the texting Axel was doing, his face looking mildly annoyed.

“Who ya talking to?” you asked.

“Some idiot,” he said, putting his phone back into his pocket, “Let’s go look at some stuff.”

“Okay! Let’s go look at the museum first!”

“Anything you want,” he said with a wink, which sent your heart aflutter like always. You let out a giggle and grabbed his hand before leading him towards a sign that said, “Moon Museum.”

Inside the museum were various vehicles of varying shapes and sizes – though they were all just shuttles and rovers that had changed over time from the first journey to the moon to the most recent. There was also a section dedicated to Tom Morrow.

“It says here that he colonized the moon and lead the ‘moon cavemen’ to a better tomorrow,” you read from the plaque below the display. The display itself was rather questionable. It showed the cavemen trading their land for Tomorrowland Electric sponsored trinkets – such as electric ovens, refrigerators, washer-dryer combos, and what the plaque called the finest in Tomorrowland Electric cheese. “Farewell natives, and hello civilization,” it read. You frowned a bit. That was kind of messed up. Well more than kind of. The next display was a caveman leaving a home in a suit – he’d had a club that had apparently been traded for a briefcase.

“I gotta get me one of those,” Axel remarked.

“A caveman?”

“Yes, a caveman. Ever since I was a child, I wanted a caveman of my very own. No, dummy. I meant the suit. I think I’d look nice in one, don’t you?”

“I think you look nice in almost anything, hot stuff.”

“You look pretty hot too. And I like the new hair and the outfit. And I kinda wanna show you how much I like it,” Axel said, sliding an arm around you, a sly, cat-like grin slipping onto his face. He leaned in for a kiss, but you stopped him.

“Axel,” you said with a giggle, “Not in front of the cavemen.”

“Then let’s go to the next exhibit.”

The two of you walked to the next area labeled, “Animal Hall of Fame.” You liked this exhibit much better, prepared to ignore the previous one and its less than okay underlying message.

There were various animals located in it that you didn’t recognize. Though Axel kept you informed, letting you know that many of them were just regular animals with he word “moon” slapped onto it. You didn’t hold out much hope to see a moon wyvern or moon cockatrice. Though you did see moon bears, moon fish, moon snakes and other animals. Personally, your favorite was the lunar moth. You liked its seemingly ethereal wings, and Axel favored the moon gecko.

In all it was a relatively short exhibit, but it ended in something that made you giddy regardless. There was a station for getting your face painted.

“I’m getting my face painted!” you announced. Axel looked over to where you were staring and shrugged.

“Sure, why not. Go ahead.”

“You said that like you were going to stop me,” you said, squinting at Axel who only smirked at you mischievously.

“…”

“…”

“Were you going to stop me?!”

“No,” Axel said with a light laugh, “It’s your day. Go ahead, sport.” He gave you a light punch on the arm. You let out a giggle and walked over, a little bounce in your step.

You approached the robot that was painting children’s faces.

“Hello, little girl, what would you like painted on your face.”

“A chimera, but like, just on my cheek instead of my whole face,” you said, hopeful they could do this rather unusual request.

“Sorry, we only paint the moon.”

“…Only the moon?”

“Yes. We paint every phase of the moon on your entire face except for the new moon. We don’t paint the new moon anymore as it no longer reflects our modern values here at Moon Corp. a subdivision of Tomorrowland Electric Brand Appliances. That was wrong then and it is still wrong now. And we humbly apologize to the impacted communities thereof.”

Geez! You knew Tomorrowland seemed stuck in the 50s for many of its values, but you didn’t think that was a recently solved problem.

“How about a lunar moth?” Axel chimed in, also trying not to acknowledge the world’s rather rough past in an effort to continue enjoying the day.

“I don’t know…,” the robot deliberated.

“It has the word lunar in it,” Axel reasoned.

“You got me there,” the robot conceded, “A lunar moth it is. Just don’t tell my boss.”

You presented your cheek for the painting and were pleasantly surprised by the quick job it did. It looked beautiful.

“So what do you want to do next?” Axel asked.

“Hmm. I feel like this date has been all about me. What do you want to do?”

“Me? Hmm,” Axel looked around and decided that exploring the surface of the moon would be a fun thing to do. Axel gestured for you to follow him. You each rented a couple of spacesuits – which were sleeker than the bulky things you’d expected, though you supposed you should have thought more of such a technologically advanced world – and sat through a brief lecture on keeping the suit on at all times and to not start fires if you rent an atmosphere dome.

You were hardly paying attention because you were too eager to walk on the surface of the moon. Your world didn’t have its own moon, but you doubt that if it did, you would have ever been able to walk on it.

As soon as you were outside, you did a big jump, letting out a giggle as you landed. You started putting all your dance classes to good use and started doing twirls and flips as you danced along the moon’s surface.

“No one likes a showoff,” Axel joked. You rolled your eyes.

“You’re just jealous cuz you suck at it.”

Axel decided to take you up on that challenge, joining you in your dance, the two of you laughing as you bumped into each other and stumbled about in the new gravity.

It was at the height of one of his jumps that Axel noticed something not too far away. There were people riding motorized bikes and 4-wheelers. He grabbed your hand and pointed in that direction.

“Let’s do that,” he said, looking giddy and excited. It was a new look for him. He usually looked so cool, calm, and collected. Always cocky. Always suave. This was… so cute. And you felt your heart flutter.

You nodded at him, and the two of you jumped all the way to the rental place where you had to sign a waiver.

“Go wait by the one you want, and I’ll be over soon,” Axel said, and you backflipped off to wait next to a very pretty pink 4-wheeler. Axel paid for the rental and talked with the robot who was handling the booth for a moment. For a bit it looked like Axel was buying something that he stored in a bag. Then you could see the robot gesturing off in the distance, but you didn’t know for what. Axel just smiled, nodded, and then began to make his way back over to you, the bag with its contents tied up tightly. You both decided to ride on the same one, with Axel steering and you clinging to him on the back.

For a bit, the two of you just rode around, getting used to the terrain. That’s when you both saw people doing tricks and jumping craters. One quick exchange of excited looks, and the two of you had silently agreed that you were definitely doing that next.

Axel kicked up the speed, and the two of you were jumping over large gaps on the moon’s surface, doing donuts, and using little makeshift ramps to fly even higher.

After another hour of thrill-seeking via seeing how many flips could be done before you touch the surface again, the two of you decided to do a little relaxing. You thought Axel was going to take the two of you back to the base where you originally were and that perhaps you’d relax at the little food court or maybe play games in the arcade, but Axel kept driving across the moon’s surface.

Once he seemed satisfied with the area, which was a little way away from everyone else, he stopped. He pulled something out of the back he brought. He pressed a button on a tiny box no bigger than his palm and tossed it on the ground. A dome formed around the two of you. It had to be one of the atmosphere domes you’d heard so much about. You both took off your helmets.

Axel pulled a blanket from the bag as well and placed it on the ground. Then he laid out some food he also bought from the stand. There were some sandwiches, chips, and a few juices.

“A picnic? I hope it doesn’t end up cut short like the last one,” you joked, taking a seat on the soft blanket. Axel sat next to you.

“You mean when we had sex?”

“It wasn’t sex,” you said with a light wave of your hand and laugh. Axel raised an eyebrow at you.

“Okay, so then what was it?” he said with a smirk.

“…”

“…”

“Oral.”

“Oral what?”

“…”

“…”

“Intercourse.”

You and Axel broke into laughter at your own stubbornness before deciding it was about time to indulge in lunch. The two of you ate in silence for a bit before laying on the blanket next to each other to stare up at the sky through the clear parts of the dome. It was beautiful, and you were so blissfully happy.

“This is nice,” you sighed.

“Yeah,” Axel agreed, “Just me and my girl, relaxing on the moon in a cozy little gabezo.”

“…”

“…”

“Did you just say gabezo?” you asked, sitting up so you could look at him better.

“…No.”

“Yes, you did!”

“What do you know?! You didn’t even have trees on your little artificial world.” He laughed.

“Yes I did! I had trees, you dumbass. And at least I know what a gazebo is!”

“I thought it was spelled gabezo,” Axel said with a shrug.

“No,” you said between brays of laughter.

“Hold on. Let me google it,” Axel said, pulling out his phone. A few seconds passed before he said anything, “Oh.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The moon doesn’t support wifi.”

“Oh. Well I guess that makes sense.”

“And I don’t have 3g.”

“Oh.”

“Also this universe doesn’t support my phone plan.”

“…”

“Also this isn’t a phone. It’s a candy bar.”

You blinked then looked again. You hadn’t even realized it wasn’t a phone. You were stunned for half of a second before letting out a loud snort of laughter.

“Can I have –”

“Let me finish! Wrapper. It’s a candy bar wrapper.”

You let out another peal of laughter before Axel pulled out the actual candy bar to split with you. You munched it happily then you paused again.

“Wait. Did you say you use 3g?”

“What do you know about 3g, 4g, or 5g? You lived on a golf course.”

“I said I lived in a golf ball. And I didn’t live in a golf ball!” You fell back to the blanket with Axel, laughing until your sides hurt. Then a comfortable silence fell over the two of you. Your hand brushed against his, and he twined his fingers with yours. You let out another blissful sigh.

“So,” you said after a moment, “Demyx and Namine, huh?”

It had been becoming pretty clear that they were getting close during their little investigation. Though they might have been getting close before then.

“Yeah, but I don’t think he’s asked her out yet,” Axel stated with a light shrug – as good a shrug as he could do laying down anyway.

“Oh so he’s pulling an Axel.”

Silence.

Axel slowly sat up and looked at you.

“What did you just say?” He was feigning anger, but he could barely keep the smile off of his face. “Is that a thing? Since when is that a thing? What does that even mean?”

“Well it’s when you sit around madly in love with someone and don’t say anything,” you said with a smirk. Axel’s face dusted a light shade of pink.

“It only happened once! How can it already be a thing or have a name?! There’s no precedent!”

“Sure there is. You’re the precedent.”

“First of all, fucker, I’m the sassy bitch. And I’m getting tired of this cute kinda sexy little attitude of yours. Why couldn’t something else be called pulling an Axel? Like pulling off this sexy haircut? Or pulling off this sexy face? Or this sexy ass figure. Why don’t we call hustling your boyfriend out of his money when he just wants to show you a fun video game from his childhood pulling a ________?”

“You’re still mad about that?”

“I’m not mad, just disappointed,” he said with a dramatic sigh.

“About what?” you said with a roll of your eyes.

“Your morals. You hustled an injured, sickly, orphan that went out of his way to plan you a surprise birthday to show kindness to his girlfriend in an effort to help with her severe depression. You looked him in the eyes after he innocently wanted to share part of his childhood with you, and you said, with malicious glee, ‘I’m gonna sucker that poor bastard out of all of his money.’ And all just to get your sick kicks! Do you like taking advantage of innocent orphans, fucker?”

“That’s the fourth time you’ve called me a fucker. Is that your catchphrase now?”

“Why are you keeping count? Also you know what? Yes, it’s my new catchphrase. I’ve been trying it out.”

“Well fine. Then my new catchphrase is, ‘Got it memorized?’”

“You son of a bitch. You wouldn’t fucking dare.”

You pulled out your phone and speed dialed your uncle. You sent a mischievous smirk to Axel.

“________, what are you doing?”

“Trying it out,” you said with a playful glint in your eye. Ludwig picked up the phone on the second ring, and you put it on speaker so Axel could hear.

“Hello? Who is this? ________? Is this a Facebook?”

“Got it memorized?” you said, watching for Axel’s reaction.

“What?” Ludwig answered, confused, “Ha-ha. Is this what the kids are saying? I like it. Hey, Dreamfinder. Got it memorized?”

You could faintly hear Dreamfinder in the background.

“Oh that’s nice,” he gushed, “Where’d you hear that?”

“________ said it. She called me on the Facebook. She says that’s what the kids are saying now.”

“Oh I gotta tell Merlin about that one.”

“Merlin? You’re talking to Mer-. Why you gotta let Merlin in on what we have?”

“I just thought it was cute. I’m gonna call him.”

“No, don’t I’m on the line with ____-”

The phone line went dead with a click, and you let out a tiny giggle at your uncles. Then you looked at Axel who had little swirls of darkness flowing from him.

“What have you done?”

“Axel? Axel, it was a joke.”

“That was my catchphrase.”

“I thought it was fucker?” you said, backing yourself up a little while he got closer to you. “You remember jokes don’t you Axel?”

He didn’t answer, just kept getting closer.

“What are you gonna do?” you asked as he stood up. He stopped for a moment, just staring at you in the silence. Then he scooped you up and began spinning around with you. Peals of laughter escaped you both as you clung to him, laughing out apologies as best you could.

“Are you gonna do that thing?”

“What thing?”

“That thing you said where happy couples spin around and fall on the ground laughing together.”

“Well I guess I have to now.”

“You don’t have to.”

“No. You’ve pointed it out, so I have to by obligation.”

“The ground is much harder here than on the beach I think.”

“Well then it sucks for me that you’re making me do this. I swear the things I do to keep you happy.”

“Wait no!”

“Relax,” Axel said with a laugh, “I’m not gonna do it, fucker.”

“Oh thank goodness.”

“You thought I was just gonna throw us on the ground even though I have literally never done anything to harm you intentionally, but I can’t say gabezo without ridicule?”

“What do those two things have to do with each other?”

“Between the two of us, you’re more likely to get us into a dangerous situation than I am. Because you lack a sense of self-preservation,” he said with a smirk, placing you back down on the ground, “And that is worthy of ridicule. But for some reason I make one tiny-”

“Gabezo.”

“One mistake, and somehow that’s worthy of ridicule,” he said, sitting next to you. You just offered him a lopsided grin and kissed him. And he seemed to like that, leaning in more to deepen the kiss. Though as you were kissing, something popped into your head. You broke away, albeit a bit reluctantly.

“Axel, you never told me you were an orphan.”

Axel blinked, apparently not expecting that to be the next thing out of your mouth.

“I thought I did. Oh well let’s keep kissing,” he said, leaning back in. But you stopped him.

“You made peace with that?”

Axel thought for a minute.

“Well I came to terms with it pretty quick.”

Silence.

“You pity me don’t you?” Axel asked with an amused look on his face.

“NO! I just don’t know what to say. I mean, I don’t want you to think I feel sympathy for you.”

“You don’t think I need sympathy?”

“Nonononono!”

“Shut up,” he said with a laugh, “I’m just kidding.”

“You’re the worst,” you giggled.

“I’m the worst?! After you swindled an orphan – as I just said. Were you not paying attention?”

“Gabezo.”

“Just for that I’m gonna kill you.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“You know I never really thought about it like that before. You make some excellent points. Let me tell you if someone had tried that while I was in the Organization, I don’t know what I’d do. I’d be up shit creek without a paddle. Because what am I supposed to do? Fight them? They said, ‘no.’”

You fell back again, laughing.

“I got her right where I want her,” Axel said smugly. But you got the conversation back on track.

“Did you ever try to get in contact with your mom or dad?”

“No,” Axel said, thinking for a second before he explained, “I was really angry at first. Then really sad. Then when I was older, I understood a little better. The full truth is: My mom cheated on my dad and had me. My dad never loved me, so I never really had much of an attachment to him like I did my mom. He left. And it was just me and my mom. But she was depressed. I didn’t understand it at the time, but she could barely take care of herself while she was that depressed – much less me. So she put me up for adoption. So I can’t really blame her for doing what she thought was best for me. But I’m not gonna act like it didn’t hurt. I was abandoned by a mother who promised to come back and never did.”

You hugged Axel. You didn’t know what else to do.

“None of that was your fault,” you soothed.

“I know. But I’m not upset. Because I think everything turned out okay considering I was orphaned, murdered, assigned to work in what is essentially the interdimensional mafia but worse, and now I’m working against them on the good guys’ side with a super-hot, kickass girlfriend. My life turned out pretty great. You know, except for that one thing.”

“What thing?”

“That thing where my super-hot, kickass girlfriend swindled me, the poor, innocent orphan, out of his money.”

“Again, you’re not innocent.”

“You better believe it,” he said lowly, pulling you in again to kiss you. Things began to heat up between the two of you and the next thing you knew, you were back on the blanket with Axel over top of you. He kept you distracted with deep, passionate kisses that left your mind a blur.

“You know,” he said after a few more minutes of making out, “I didn’t just bring you up here to kiss you and dance on the moon.”

“Oh?” you said, still in a blissful haze.

“No. I wanted you to experience another one of those natural phenomena those of us who don’t grow up in golf balls get to see.”

Axel rolled off of you and looked out into the distance. You could see the planets that made up Tomorrowland’s vast empire, but there was something new. Meteors. They were passing by, catching fire, and emitting a beautiful, brilliant glow as they streaked passed the moon and many of Tomorrowland’s planets in a blur of light.

“You brought me here to see a meteor shower?” you asked, touched and in awe of the beauty before you.

“Yep. From the best seat in the empire.”

~

Meanwhile, watching the meteor shower from a balcony in the castle was Dreamfinder. He wished Figment were there.

“Do you think he’s alright?” he asked Ludwig, thinking about how Figment had always loved meteor showers.

“I’m sure he’s fine. I’ll bet Figment’s out there watching the meteor shower right now and eating chocolate-dipped strawberries… or whatever.”

“Perhaps you’re right. I’ll just have to see him at the gala. I’m certain he won’t miss that.”

“And I’m sure he’ll be done with his little journey of independence. And you’ll be glued at the hip again.”

Dreamfinder smiled.

“I hope you’re right.”

Notes:

Gabezo.

Chapter 73: The Night of the Gala

Summary:

Namine and Demyx make progress in their investigation. Meanwhile Nova begins to unravel a bit.

Notes:

I'm here. Tomorrowland is burning me out, but it's almost done. I am never doing a conspiracy this large again unless it's part of the overarching plot and not a side thing. Even though the conclusion of this one happens to be very relevant to the plot. I'm going to finish this story if it kills me. I already know where it's going to go and how it's going to end. Hubby (who is my co-writer) and I already worked out the deets.

“Here,” Eo said, handing Namine and Demyx a folded sheet of paper. “You’ll need this.”

“What is it?” Demyx asked as he observed Namine unfolding the paper. Eo had interrupted the two of them that evening as they were doing a bit of research in Namine’s room.

“A guard schedule for the night of the gala. I know I’ve mentioned that the guards will be spread thin, but that doesn’t mean you should run in blind. At least this way you’ll be able to estimate when to make your move. I’d go during a time where everyone is busy but won’t notice you missing.”

“Like during dinner?”

“I’d say during dancing. People will either be lost in conversation or dancing with each other. No one will notice you slip out or back in. Just remember our deal.”

“Get whatever information on S.I.R. that we can,” Namine confirmed. Eo smiled and gave a brusque nod. He felt a giddy nervousness. The gala was only two days away.

“I’ll see myself out. Call me when you’re ready for me to get my information,” Eo said over his shoulder. His thoughts immediately went to S.I.R. whom he had not seen in a bit. It was true that S.I.R. was not always so present, and he wasn’t someone he saw too often. But he did pop up from time to time. Walking around the palace. Slipping around the empress’s room….

Eo rounded a corner and almost bumped into you. You seemed just as surprised as he was – maybe you were just as lost in thought.

“Oh!” you gasped, “Captain Eo! I think you can actually help me with something.”

“Of course, Empress. What can I help you with?”

You wrinkled your nose.

“Empress?” you questioned.

“Of the Renaissance,” he said with a smile.

“You don’t have to call me that. It’s just me,” you said with a half-smile and shrug. Eo nodded. He knew he didn’t need to call you that. He just found some small satisfaction in it and knowing it would bug Nova – even if she were not around to see it.

“Of course, Lady ________,” he said. It wasn’t too much better of a title, but you’d take it. “What is it that you needed help with?”

“Well it’s just that Empress Nova has been so kind to us, and I wanted to get her something nice in return – maybe something for the gala or I don’t know. So I was wondering if you might know what she’s fond of? Like chocolate? Or jewelry? Something?”

Eo could think of several things that the empress was fond of, with men at the top of the list, power tying with that if it wasn’t a close second, and fame or popularity following close behind. But he was certain he couldn’t tell you to give her that. He was certain at this point the empress would only want to see you humiliated.

“About that,” he began, “It’s a sweet gesture. Goodness knows you’ve become famous for your kindness and generosity. You don’t need any more brownie points. Everyone already loves you.”

You let out a little laugh.

“Oh gosh don’t remind me. I’m a little tired of the spotlight at this point. You all have put me way too high on a pedestal.”

“And she’s humble too!”

“I just wanted to do something nice for her.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it. At least for the time being. She’s under a lot of stress right now, and she really needs to focus.”

“Oh, well that’s too bad.”

“Yeah, maybe at a later time.”

Eo didn’t want to have to say that Nova wouldn’t want to see her of all people. Nova hadn’t ever really said it – at least not for him to hear – but he knew she didn’t like anyone in the spotlight that wasn’t her. And whether you meant to or not, every time Nova tried to bask in it, she was quickly eclipsed in your shadow.

“Now if there’s nothing else, my lady.”

“No, I suppose not.”

Eo offered you a nod goodbye and continued on his way. You let out a huff and continued your own trek to Axel’s room.

When you walked in, Axel wasn’t in there, but there was a pizza and a 2-liter bottle of soda sitting on the bed, with two Styrofoam cups next to that. You called his name, there was no answer. So you figured you’d just wait for him to come back to the room. You sat and watched T.V. for a minute, texted with Namine about meeting up in her room for your gala gown fitting – Giovanni had called and insisted he make your gowns the previous night – and twiddled your thumbs before your stomach let out a little growl.

You scooted over on his bed next to the pizza and opened the box, helping yourself to a slice just as a corridor opened. Axel stepped inside holding a bouquet of flowers.

“Wow okay. Rude. That was mine.”

“Then why are there two cups?” you questioned with a smirk.

“So you don’t get thirsty while you watch me eat my pizza, you dumb bitch.”

“What?!”

“Sorry. I was trying to be spicy.”

“Well what was that?!”

“I don’t know. I’m a sassy bitch!”

You rolled your eyes before they landed on the flowers.

“And are those for me?” you asked with a bat of your eyelashes. Axel tried not to let his smile broaden, but he loved how radiant your eyes looked. Full of laughter. Ah shit that was cheesy. He was glad you couldn’t read minds.

“Wow, okay, Conceited, these are also for me.”

“You got yourself flowers and I’m conceited?”

“Yes, and you’re an ass because you ate my pizza.”

You let out a giggle as he sat next to you on the bed, handing you the flowers and giving you a deep, tender kiss. You let out a contented giggle before burying your nose in the flowers. You loved flowers so much. Of course, he knew that.

“I gotta be honest with you about something though,” Axel said as he pulled away. He looked serious and mildly concerned.

“What is it?” Axel looked hesitant. “You know you can tell me anything.”

“It’s about the empress.”

“Oh! I meant to talk to you about her. I was thinking we could ger her a –”

“She asked me out.” Axel cut you off, needing to end it before you got over excited. And the next few seconds were… interesting to say the least. He watched the smile fade from your face. Your expression was blank for a second, the troubled, then annoyed. You looked at him with a sharp gaze.

“I said, ‘no,’ of course,” Axel reassured.

“I figured. I mean I would hope so.” Your eyebrows knit together for a while. “I wanted to do something nice for her. But now I just feel….” You searched for the right word.

“Like she’s a bitch?”

“Kind of?” you said with a tilt of your head. Though you felt a little bad. It wasn’t like she knew you and Axel were together. It was just a misunder- oh shit is this what Axel was dealing with?!

Axel watched your face morph from deep thought to realization to sadness and pity.

“Oh, Axel,” you almost whined, leaning over to hug him, nearly crushing your flowers in the process, “Is this how you felt about Atom? I had no idea.”

Axel… was not expecting this.

“Oh come on,” he chuckled, “I’m tough. You don’t gotta coddle me.”

“Is that why you kept saying Atom was a tool? Because I recall you saying he was a tool even though he didn’t really do anything?”

Axel cleared his throat and looked away, blushing lightly.

“Yeah, well, ahem, he is a tool. But, hey, at least the empress didn’t make a public declaration of love.”

You cringed.

“Ugh, no, don’t bring that up. And I surely hope she doesn’t make some sort of declaration. I don’t think I could take it. And I don’t want to go from hero to villain for punching the empress.”

Axel laughed. Then he was quiet for a moment, his face thoughtful.

“What if I did?” he asked.

“You? Did what? Punch the empress?”

“No,” he laughed, “Made a declaration. Or what if we did. I know we said we wanted to not be in the spotlight, but it would take us out of the awkward position of being pursued by other people. And we won’t be here forever. The empress said the ship would be done soon, so it’ll just be a little while that we have to put up with it at all.”

You pondered that for a moment. It wouldn’t be ideal to have the paparazzi in your business, but to not have to duck and dodge everyone to hide your relationship….

“Okay!” you said, grabbing his hand and giving it a squeeze, “Let’s do it! But let’s wait until after the gala. Namine and Demyx worked way too hard to bring attention to the robot crisis. I don’t want this to be something that people jump on and ignore everything else.”

“Yeah, no, I get it. It’ll be our little secret for just a little longer. Then we don’t really announce it. We’ll just be out in public and hold hands. Maybe do a little hugging. Maybe a smooch or two for the camera,” he said leaning forward to give a peck on the cheek, “Then we sit back and let the public wonder how you landed a catch like me.”

“You are such an ass,” you said, laughing and giving him a light shove.

“Shut up and help me eat this pizza.”

It was quiet for a bit – the only noises the T.V. and the sound of the two of you eating. But something was eating away at you a little bit.

“Axel,” you started, “How did you turn her down?”

“It isn’t so much I turned her down but rather I wouldn’t let her touch me. And every time she tried to flirt, I steered the conversation away from it. Usually to you if I’m being honest. I think I kind of like you,” he said wiggling his eyebrows. That made you smile a little. “You weren’t jealous, were you?”

You were mildly caught off guard and a little embarrassed.

“Me? Jealous? Of an empress with all the money and power someone could ask for and curves for days? No! Not even a little bit threatened by that.”

“Good. Because you wouldn’t need to worry about her. I prefer my women impulsive, brave, and independent. I would want her to be a hero – even if it’s to a fault. And she’s an incredible dancer. In fact, I wouldn’t mind if she gave me a little performance right now.”

Oh? Did he want you to be sexy? You could do that. Or….

“How about we both dance?”

“Both of us? Kind of takes away from getting a nice little show, but if you really want to see me….”

“No, you goof. I mean let’s dance together. I love dancing with you. Some of my best memories are of us dancing. Plus, there’s a gala coming up. Do you at least know how to waltz?”

“I guess not. And I have to admit, I enjoy the dancing too. I never really liked it before. Like at all. But with you… It feels nice.”

“So, let’s do this!” you said with a giddy giggle.

Axel stood up with you, your dinner forgotten for the moment. You took both of his hands and stood him up, placing one of his hands on the small of your back and holding the other hand with your own. You guided him through the steps. It was a simple waltz, nothing complicated. And once he got the hang of it, you let him lead.

~

This was a bad one. A really bad one. It was longer than the others – and this after you had one that wasn’t very short only a few days before. It hurt. And waves of nausea rolled over you. And all before your dress fitting. Namine was with you, sitting next to you on the floor, watching your age go up and down and back to center before fluctuating again. She was patting your back soothingly and murmuring little affirmations to get you through this. Your uncle had said they would pass eventually, but that didn’t stop her from worrying too much. You were glad Axel wasn’t there to see it. As much as he worried about you, you didn’t need this to mess with him too.

But it passed. It took what felt like forever, but it passed. And you were… astonished at the amount of hair that existed. You’d gone from a pixie cut to just short of Rapunzel. At some point, probably several points, Namine had been adjusting your hair.

“It’s long,” you said smartly.

“Too long. It’ll get all gross dragging on the ground behind you.”

“I kinda like the Rapunzel look though I won’t lie.”

“Hmm. Maybe something a little shorter though? Like just before it touches the ground. It’ll give you a princess kind of look.”

“That could work.”

“Oh my!” a new voice spoke. It was Dreamfinder who spoke. Behind him entered your uncle, Giovanni, Demyx, and Axel. Everyone was shocked, looking around the room at the long, long train of hair that stemmed from your head. You already knew, without glancing at him, that Axel was looking at you worriedly.

“I’m fine,” you said with an airy laugh and a wave of your hand. “I mean it’s a little heavy, but it gives total princess vibes, right?” You tried to do a little turn, but your hair wrapped around you instead. You offered a little shrug.

“We can work with this actually,” Giovanni stated, “We’ll have to cut it a little obviously, it fits with the regality I had in mind. You think too small.”

“Too small?” you questioned.

“You and your friends are doing things that the best of nobility is supposed to champion for the disenfranchised. This group, in the short amount of time that you’ve been here, has done more and carved a bigger path for an entire race of people than generations of rulers that extend back centuries. Tomorrow night you,” he gestured to you, “Will be an empress – and your friends and family the royal council. We will show them what true royalty looks like.”

~

Giovanni delivered on what he said. This was the first time you felt like the title that nearly all of Tomorrowland forced upon you. And everyone around you looked like nothing short of royalty. Even your uncle, the cartoon duck, looked regal. Your uncle had added a cane and top hat which threw if off a little, but he looked no less important.

But you couldn’t take your eyes off Axel. He looked like something out a fairy tale – an actual prince charming. His suit was a deep, dark black with silver embroidery. Silver epaulets lined his shoulders, and a deep red sash crossed his torso from shoulder to hip. His suit jacket had coattails that billowed lightly when walked. In place of a tie there was a cravat in an equally deep red color, and his hair was pulled back into a ponytail. He felt the hair down look would be too informal. Though he left out a little hair to frame his face.

Demyx was in a similar suit with golden embroidery. He couldn’t stop looking at himself in the mirror – that is when he wasn’t sneaking glances at Namine. Speaking of, Namine was in a deep blue gown. It was such a striking color on her. Her hair was pulled up with a few strands of hair framing her face. She wore long gloves and gold and sapphire jewelry. And the dress had a deep plunge and hugged her tightly, only loosening around the knees to flow around her. Draped in the crooks of her elbows was a faux mink boa that made her look like she had stepped out of the upper echelons of high society. When you had initially seen her in it and had stopped freaking out over how beautiful she looked, she couldn’t stop blushing from you teasing how sexy she looked. And Namine liked that. Demyx may not have been carrying a torch for the empress anymore, but she liked the thought that she could maybe compete with her a little. Though she said she’d only manage to do so if she stayed away from you.

Your dress was a true ballgown. It hugged your waist, pushed up your bust, and billowed out around you, with a train that flowed behind you a short distance, keeping your newly cut hair from touching the floor. You kept a lot of it, and it flowed behind you like a river and shimmered like a stream with diamond flowers dotting your locks. The whole gown was shimmery, made from a silvery, satin fabric that was embroidered with an iridescent white silk thread and further dotted with patterns of diamonds. You’d been too afraid to ask if they were real – this was clearly the most expensive thing you would wear in your life. And, according to Giovanni, the most amazing dress the gala would see this evening.

Though you weren’t sure how you felt. Kind of like a beacon with the way you were certain light would bounce off of you. And you’d shown cleavage before, but it felt like your boobs were pushed up to your neck. But the real kicker was the tiara. Well sort of a tiara. It towed the line between a tiara and an outright crown. But Giovanni insisted on it. It was a part of his vision according to him. And you didn’t want to put a damper on it.

Though if there was one thing you did like… it was the way Axel was looking at you. It made you shudder and look away. It was one-part raw devotion, and that made your heart swell. It was reminiscent of all the closest intimate moments the two of you had ever shared. The other part was sheer want. His eyes would rake over you and hold on the places he like most, making you feel vulnerable under his gaze – but not uncomfortable.

“Should we go?” Dreamfinder offered. He was in a suit that matched your uncles, and considering Giovanni’s penchant for unique designs, you had to wonder if the two of them coordinated their outfits.

“Where’s Figment?” Namine asked. Dreamfinder shrugged.

“I’m worried about him. I won’t lie,” he replied, “But I’m still giving him his space. I’m going to enjoy the evening. I suggest you all do the same.”

You all exchanged glances, but silently agreed to let it go.

“Shall we?” Demyx said to Namine, offering his arm for her to take. You and Axel both gave them a look. The two of them blushed then offered a hasty explanation.

“We just didn’t want to go in alone,” Demyx rushed out, “Ludwig has Dreamfinder.”

“And you have Axel,” Namine said, gesturing between you and your boyfriend. You could feel Axel’s eyes on you once more, and it made you feel vulnerable and giddy all over again. Then from the corner of your eye, you saw him approach and offer his arm. You looked up at him and were met with a very dazzling and charming smile. You offered one of your own.

You all filed out of the room in couples, steadily walking towards the ballroom. You whispered to Axel.

“I know we’re not coming out about the relationship yet, but that’s no reason not to enjoy the evening together.”

“I agree. Let’s enjoy each other,” he purred, and you fought a shudder that went through your spine anyway. You could feel a smirk on his face.

“You’re awful,” you said, though not without a tiny smile creeping onto your face.

“You’re beautiful.”

“Axel –”

“No really. You look like a queen. And I know you haven’t really liked hearing that lately from a world that barely knows you. But take it from someone who’s been getting to know you. No one will be able to take their eyes off you. Especially me.”

As your group approached the ballroom, you could hear music swelling beyond the large doors that would let you into the gala. Your heart began to pound. You were feeling a bit confident before with Axel’s reassurance, but now it all loomed in front of you. Trying to make a good impression for Demyx, Namine, and the entire robot population’s sake. Being pressured into giving a speech by the generals. Having all eyes on you as you entered the ballroom.

Eo was not all too enthused to see the crown upon your head. He loved vexing the empress. It was the best way he could get back at her for years of abuse that he had suffered merely for rebuffing her affections even though he couldn’t return them even if he tried. And on any normal day, he would have loved to see the empress’s rival wear a queenly crown and dress to the empress’s own gala with the man she’d been eyeing for weeks on their arm in what may have been the greatest upstaging in Tomorrowland history. But this wasn’t any normal day. Several days hadn’t been. Lately the empress had seemed off. She seemed like she was unaware of her surroundings sometimes, lost deeply in thought and staring at nothing. And other times she seemed overly aware of her surroundings – watching everyone, observing. Like she was certain she couldn’t trust any of them. And this on-edge attitude set Eo on edge. So, he wanted to tell you to remove the crown, but he doubted he’d be able to make his way over to you. As soon as you descended the stairs, you were swarmed with celebrities, politicians, and the Tomorrowland elites. All of them wanted to personally meet you. All of them wanted to rub elbows with you. All of them were ignoring the host of the party. Normally, a gala’s success would be entirely based on the attitude, mannerisms, and over all togetherness of the host. But tonight, Eo could tell, all anyone would talk about would be you.

Nova knew this too. Well, she wasn’t deterred. She merely placed a serene smile on her face, the same as when she was young, and decided to mingle as well. After all, she would be the one with the world-shattering news that would for certain make her the center of attention once more, and maybe even convince a certain duck to stick around. Though that didn’t get rid of the sting from seeing your arm linked with Axel’s. Captain Atom wasn’t helping. He was clearly smitten with you the moment you walked in the room, uttering a, “Holy mother of all that is glorious,” before scurrying off. He may have been enraptured with you, but he was still relatively embarrassed by his sudden declaration on national television.

Namine didn’t envy you right now. But she was happy to see this. If everyone was focused on you, it meant it would be easier to slip out of the gala later. She and Demyx had gone over this moment since the second Eo handed them the guard schedule.

“You ready to do this,” Demyx said lowly, side-stepping the crowd that was growing around you and Axel with his arm still firmly locked with Namine’s. She gave a brief nod.

“Yep. We mingle as much as is needed. Play the part. Sneak out.”

“Cool. Cool. Okay. We can do this.”

“Relax, Demyx. We still have,” Namine checked the time, “Thirty-four minutes before we need to slip out.”

“Right. Then 12 minutes to get to the empress’s wing of the castle.”

“Fifteen minutes to find the picture and grab the key.”

“Then back here to maintain appearances.”

“Then back out in an hour to grab what we need from the archives and drop them off in our room and hand off the records of S.I.R. to Eo.”

“Then I corridor back into the empress’s room all stealthy like and drop the key back off.”

“We’re ready,” Namine said, though she felt more like she was trying to convince herself – ironic since she was trying to convince Demyx merely a second ago. She took a few more deep breaths before she and Demyx decided to kill time trying different appetizers on trays being wheeled around by robots, passing by Captain Atom as they did so.

 “Atom!” Bog called, motioning for Atom to join him and several of the other generals from the other planets of the empire. It was the first time they’d been to Tomorrowland in years. It was almost strange to see them in person. In fact, this was Atom’s first time meeting them without them being holograms. Eo had already made his way over, though he seemed distracted.

Atom briskly walked over, thankful for his own distraction. No matter how hard he tried not to, his eyes just kept finding you in the room. You were typically laughing politely, smiling demurely, or charming the people and robots who walked up to you.

“Commander,” Atom greeted once he reached the group. He was about to salute, but Bog waved it off.

“None of that Adams. We’re at a party! Relax!” Bog laughed and the other generals joined him. Not Eo though. He kept looking elsewhere.

“Of course, sir,” Atom said with a nervous chuckle, “How are you enjoying the festivities?”

“It’s quite the shindig. ‘Course it would always be better to replace champagne with scotch, but the women would be all in a dither.”

They all chuckled, but Atom couldn’t help but think about the sass that would come out of your mouth in response. You wouldn’t miss a beat.

“We were discussing politics,” one of the generals filled Atom in, “Though nothing too serious.”

“They plan on making Lady ________ some sort of ambassador,” Eo said, still looking a bit squirrely. “I wasn’t so sure. She already has so much on her plate.”

“Well, it’s too late now,” Bog responded, “We already spoke to the empress about it. This whole gala was about the robot sentience issue, and we need a face for it. Nova’s going to announce it soon enough.”

“Was she really on board with this?” Eo asked, sounding almost exasperated.

“It doesn’t really matter,” another general answered, “The robots already like Lady ________, and the robot sympathizers are already in support of her and her little posse. We might as well make it her. We wouldn’t really know who to make it anyway. But it’s a temporary role.”

“For now,” another general piped up and a secretive chuckle rumbled through them. Eo didn’t like this. Now you really were getting too much attention. And Nova wasn’t known for her patience. Maybe the thought that you would only be here temporarily might calm her down. Maybe he should have a chat with her to remind her of this fact. He started to look around for her, but he didn’t have to look very far. She was still where she was at the start of the gala, sitting in a throne now though – looking down on the party guests.

And glaring at one in particular.

It wasn’t like she was being completely ignored. Many guests had come up to her to thank her for the invitation and comment on her beauty. And normally this would appease her. But conversation always drifted to you at some point, and she would become dismissive. And they would rejoin the rest of the party guests. She was certain you were all anyone was talking about. You were at the center of everything lately. Almost like you were doing it on purpose.

Her eyes narrowed as she watched you glide around the room. Elegantly. You had only stumbled once, and Nova had taken great pleasure in it until Axel steadied you, wrapping a guiding arm around you. And he hadn’t removed it since.

She took a glass of champagne from a passing robot with a tray of them and took a long sip, a small crack appearing near the top of it the longer she stared you down.

“I brought you a glass, your majesty, but I see I was beaten to it,” Eo said, walking up with two champagne flutes.

“I’ll take it,” she said, taking the other glass from him. It wasn’t considered exactly proper, but no one was paying attention. She finished her first glass off. Eo noted that her eyes were trained on you and that they narrowed when Axel whispered something to you, and you giggled behind your hand. He also didn’t miss that the first glass she held seemed to be fracturing and that there was almost an unnoticeable glow to her crown. If he hadn’t been looking at it, he would have missed it entirely. And any guest would probably think it was just what supposed to happen. But Eo had seen her like this before. He wondered how many fragile objects they’d be replacing tonight. He looked back to you and Axel, watching the two of you charm dignitaries and politicians. The two of you worked well together. And he’d always known that the two of you could not hide your relationship so well from him as you had with the public. But now it seemed the two of you had tired of hiding. It wasn’t so much that the two of you were doing extravagant shows of affection. But the enraptured look Axel always gave you and the adoration in your eyes that only appeared when you looked at Axel was more apparent in this setting. And he wouldn’t leave your side. People would talk. Nova took note of Eo’s gaze.

“Do you think there’s something between the two of them, Eo?” she asked, tone neutral. Almost too void of emotion.

“I can’t say, your highness,” Eo lied – for your sake. “Friends often appear close, and it isn’t as if Lady ________ has any suitors to escort her to the gala.”

“You could be right,” she muttered.

There was a moment of silence as Eo tried to smoothly bring up your eventual departure. Then he decided to just go for it.

“Shame she won’t be here for very long, isn’t it?”

Nova bristled. It was the exact opposite of what Eo had wanted. And he was so confused. Didn’t she want you gone? Of course, Eo couldn’t have known that it was Nova who was keeping you here in her attempt to win over Ludwig and Axel.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a shame,” Nova said, quickly downing her second glass and placing it on a tray to be taken away. Eo’s grip on his own glass grew a little tighter and he took a sip. He didn’t really want to drink too much. After all he had his own plans for the evening. He snuck a quick glance at Demyx and Namine who had taken to the dance floor. He looked at the time. Almost time for them to go. But by the way they were looking at each other, they were going to lose track of time very quickly. He would need to wrap up this conversation very soon.

“Why do you think she’s here?” Nova said, eyes still watching your form move through crowds of people, politely declining champagne but sneaking little extra snacks off appetizer trays when you thought no one was looking – how charmingly and sickeningly adorable.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” Eo answered slowly.

“Exactly how it sounds. Why do you think she’s here? You don’t think it’s the slightest bit coincidental that someone shows up with the one relic I’ve never gotten and magically starts solving all of Tomorrowland’s problems?”

Eo blinked. He had more questions now, but he wouldn’t have time to ask them all. So he just asked the most important one regarding Nova’s implication.

“Do you think she planned this?” he said, looking at her like she might be a bit crazy. But she never looked at him.

“I don’t know what to think,” she answered lowly. “You’re dismissed, Captain.”

“Yes, your grace.”

Eo left her throne and disappeared into the crowd which had broken out into amused applause. He looked and saw that Ludwig von Drake was dancing to a jaunty tune while people clapped along and chattered about how he was smart yet approachable. Dreamfinder stood nearby also enjoying the festivities but looking like he was waiting for something or someone.

He lightly bumped his shoulder against Demyx’s while passing him and Namine as they continued their dance, giving them a pointed look. Namine and Demyx blushed, realizing they had been caught up in each other – so much so someone had to subtly remind them that they had a job to do. They looked around the ballroom, noting that everyone still seemed to be taken with either you or Ludwig, and slipped out unseen.

It would take 720 seconds to get to the empress’s wing of the castle. That’s a lot of seconds to count out, yet Namine found herself quietly ticking away each one under her breath as she and Demyx briskly walked down the corridors. They were darkened to indicate that the area was off limits to the guests who happily mingled and walked about the brightly lit and intricately decorated areas. It made Namine feel even more anxious. Demyx, on the other hand, felt a little exhilarated. He was still terribly nervous, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that he was living a little bit like the silver age heroes in comics he likened Tomorrowland the day they arrived.

But it all went smoothly.

Everything. No surprise guards. No hiccups.

They walked right up to the empress’s door and into her room. It was much larger than theirs, and, for only a second, they wondered if they’d be able to find the portrait that contained the key. But that was easy too. The portrait of Nova was enormous, covering nearly the entire wall it was hung on. It was of her face and shoulders. She was smiling and notably younger. Namine briefly wondered if she’d had it painted when she was coronated. Probably not given that she was probably in mourning.

“I don’t see any other pictures in the room,” Demyx said, walking up to her after doing a very quick sweep of the room. But there were no other obvious displays of her anywhere. Demyx looked up at the painting that Namine, just moments ago, had been staring at. “She’s kind of….”

Namine waited for what she was sure would be a compliment. How would he end the sentence? Pretty? Sexy? Amazing?

“…self-absorbed, don’t you think?”

“Wha…?”

“Yeah, she barely has paintings of her family who she loved so much, and instead of keeping it around, she throws it into a library with other paintings. And we saw so many pictures of her around the castle. And now this. It’s huge and in her own room! She’s the only one who stays in here, who is it for?!”

Namine let out a little giggle.

“Did you find the button?” Demyx asked, getting back on topic – a smile on his face for having made Namine laugh.

“No, but this portrait is huge. How would we even reach the button that’ll open the compartment if there even is one?”

“Maybe we could get a chair? Or a ladder?”

“I don’t think a chair will do it. And we can’t be very subtle by asking around for ladders.”

“Then we’ll have to do something a little more drastic.”

Demyx walked up to the painting.

“Actually,” he said, “We may not need to do anything at all.”

The little compartment was still reachable – about eye level for him. He tried to slip open the compartment, but the space between was too thin.

“Hand me something small and skinny,” he said, “Like a nail file or something.”

Namine briskly walked over to Nova’s vanity dresser. It had all sorts of things on it – perfumes, combs, brushes, lotions, skin serums, and a nail care kit. But she then noticed something. Scratches on the floor. Deep ones that discolored the floor and left gouges as if something heavy had been dragged across it. It led over to a long curtain by the empress’s bed.

“Hurry!” Demyx whispered, still trying to jimmy open the frame.

She opened the kit and pulled out a tiny nail file before putting it back like she found it and rushing it back over to Demyx.

He slipped the little nail file in between the crack of the frame and compartment opening, forcing it open by roughly an inch or so.

“Your fingers are smaller than mine. See if you can reach in there.”

Namine nodded. She slipped her index and middle finger into the space, feeling around for a key until she felt it, a small, slender piece of cool metal. She pulled it out and smiled brightly at Demyx who pulled the nail file out and pushed the opening back into place.

“Now for the easy part,” he grinned. Namine let out another giggle, and the two of them stepped through a corridor of darkness into the archives.

They stepped through to the other side, and the room was void of any people. That was a good sign. Everything had gone smoothly. Everything was going super smoothly. A sense of giddiness filled the air, and Namine and Demyx hugged each other tightly while jumping up and down.

“We did it!” Namine squealed.

“We did it! We did a heist!”

“We did a heist!”

~

The evening carried on, and it reached a point where the generals gave Nova the signal to begin the announcement, and they took their places flanking her sides. She stood above everyone once more and called their attention. Then she noticed a tiny subtle movement towards the back of the ballroom. Three guests were entering. Specifically, it was Namine, Demyx, and Eo. What had the three of them been up to? She was certain none of them had business with each other. Of course, until recently she was certain Namine, Demyx, you, or anyone else in your little party had no business on the whole of Tomorrowland. Though now…. Now she was even less certain. What had the three of them been up to? Had Eo filled them in on any of her suspicions? No. That wouldn’t make sense.

“Your grace?” one of the generals at her side said lowly when she had paused for just a moment too long, watching the three of them attempt to blend into the crowd. She was suddenly aware of everyone still staring at her. A whisper was running through the crowd, and she saw you in the center of it, a little giggle escaping you from a joke Axel told. Though Nova was certain you were just laughing at her. She bit back the urge to snap at you. It wouldn’t do to behave so callously when the rest of the party was unaware of your true nature. She put on a stunning smile.

“My people!” Nova said, and the ballroom quieted once more, the whispers dying out. “I have a very important announcement before we adjourn to the next room for dinner. And I’d like to ask that you all join me in a toast.”

Robots were swift in handing out glasses of champagne to all of the guests. You, of course, declined. Though Axel joined you, and the two of you instead took glasses of water.

“I’d like to toast,” Nova continued, eyes sweeping over the crowd, “The start of new beginnings. Of course, a new movement is beginning in history where robots will be tested for their sentience.”

Applause ran through the crowd.

“And also, I would like to announce the opening of a new university! The Ludwig von Drake Institution of Higher Learning!”

A noise of pleasant surprise ran through the crowd before breaking into a rather uproarious applause.

“To new beginnings,” she continued, “And hopefully a long and prosperous relationship with who I hope will be our new professor?” Nova gestured to Ludwig and a spotlight shown on him. He waddled his way up to where the thrones was, chest puffed confidently out yet looking sheepish in the face. Your face looked surprised, almost concerned. Nova’s grin got a little broader.

Ludwig was handed a microphone. He cleared his throat before he spoke.

“Hello, ‘dere! I can’t tell you how honored I am to have my accomplishments recognized. From the moment I’ve arrived, I’ve been showered in lavish gifts and compliments. I’ve been able to deeply explore and enjoy every facet of technology and education that I have inspired. And I must say that I’ve never experienced a life so enjoyable.”

The audience let out applause, many of them lifting their drinks in celebration.

“But my work is not yet done. I cannot stay.” There was a disappointed murmur that ran through the crowd. “But don’t fret. I know this great empire will prosper even without my presence. Just look at the way you’ve evolved without me. And look at the attention to the education of the people of this world. I have no doubts that you will succeed greatly.”

The disappointment that ran through the air was replaced with a certain pride as people applauded von Drake for his speech and generous compliments.

Nova attempted not to roll her eyes when you looked relieved that your uncle would be returning to your side. Of course, he was. What else did Nova want that you would take from her?

When Nova was not quick to move back into the spot that von Drake had vacated after ending his little speech, one of the generals stepped up, casting a worried glance at Nova that she misconstrued as exasperated. She knew what that look meant. He thought she was incompetent. That’s what all the generals probably think. And why not? Ever since you showed up, all you’ve done is steal her spotlight. You have a keyblade. You brought travel back to the empire. Your uncle was practically the inventor of the world and all the technology surrounding it. And the most eligible bachelor in the empire made a public declaration of love to you on national television and gave her nothing after years of flirtation. And you couldn’t even be satisfied with that. Axel had been glued to your side all evening as if suddenly you needed to be sure he wouldn’t stray from you either. And he turned her down? For you?!

Nova could hear S.I.R.’s voice in the back of her head cackling at her. He’d be doing that now if he could. Maybe she could be satisfied with that at least. He was dead like he should have been on that damnable space station. And this time she was certain you couldn’t bring him back.

“…So, let’s give her a round of applause.” The general was finishing up his small introduction, and Nova finally paid enough attention to see you stepping up to speak. You looked nervous. Probably an act. Reeling in the idiots with their penchants for empathy.

You stepped in front of the crowd, a nervous, glittering ball of tulle, silk, and diamonds. Axel helped you prepare the speech and rehearsed it with you a few times. But still. This was so much more different than when you were going off to fight. This could impact an entire people’s freedoms.

“H-hello,” you stammered then cleared your throat. You looked around the room, eyes landing on Axel. He sent you a wink which made you feel a subtle shudder. “I don’t even really know where to begin. This is such a momentous occasion. First, I’d like to thank the empress for hosting us,” you said giving a quick, modest curtsy in her direction while a light applause rippled through the crowd. “And I’d like to thank all of you for having us. You’ve been nothing but kind, and we are so grateful to you all. I was asked to speak about the ongoing situation, and I just wanted to say that I’m honored that my friends and I can represent this cause. We really believe in it, but I must admit that this speech shouldn’t be mine. It belongs to Namine and Demyx and Ludwig and Dreamfinder. They were the champions who pioneered this entire cause. If anything, they should be hailed as the heroes and guests of honor for this evening. Not me. I haven’t done nearly as much as they have. And for all that I’ve accomplished in my journeys, none of it would have happened without them. And that goes for Axel too. He’s been an overwhelming source of support and inspiration. He got me started on my journey, and he’s never left my side. And I don’t know where I would be or who I would be without him.”

There was an, “aww.”

“Just know that we believe that robots have hearts, and they deserve all the love and acceptance that Tomorrowland has shown us. And we thank you again for everything.”

You stepped down and rejoined your friends and family, letting out a bit sigh of relief.

“Thank you, Lady Empress,” the general who introduced you said, taking your place in front of the crowd, and both you and Nova bristled at what he called you, “Ah, beg pardon, I mean our Empress of the Renaissance.” A charmed chuckle drifted over the air. Axel rubbed soothing circles into your lower back to relax you. But Nova didn’t have that. She merely attempted not to glower. The evening was disastrous.

“But in all seriousness,” the general continued, “Empress Nova forgot to mention something rather important regarding our Lady of the Renaissance. We, on behalf of all of Tomorrowland, would like to extend to you the title of Ambassador of Artificial Life – a role that allows you to mediate for the cause you’re supporting. It is temporary, of course. We know you’ve got a mission to complete, but we hope you’ll accept in the meantime. And you’ve said how important your friends are so, we’d like to extend the invitation to ambassadorship to them as well.”

There was more applause, and you were certain everyone’s hands would be numb by the end of the evening.

“And that’s not all,” he continued, “We would like to extend to you an honorary citizenship.”

Nova went rigid, and her eyes nearly narrowed to slits. She hadn’t been notified of this!

“The other generals and I thought that someone who does so much for the empire deserved as much. We know you won’t be with us long, but if you ever have a mind to come back, you will always be welcome among our people.”

Even more applause, and you looked gracious and mildly flustered about such an announcement. You had no idea what to say, but luckily you didn’t have to say anything. The general concluded the speeches for the evening, and everyone adjourned to the next room over for dinner.

Dinner was, for the most part, uneventful. Outside of the name plates on the table. Yours of course had your name with the title, “Empress of the Renaissance,” below it. But you had requested something special for Axel that the robot chef had made sure to deliver on.

Axel was playfully glaring at you, and you pretended not to see while trying not to laugh.

“I know it was you,” he said lowly.

“I have no idea what you mean,” you said, sipping your water and taking another bite of your appetizer. Axel leaned in closer, and you couldn’t suppress a tiny laugh.

“You know exactly what I mean,” he said, voice dropping a little more. He leaned in even closer so that his lips were nearly pressed to your ear. He whispered in your ear, and visible shudder ran through you. You only hoped people didn’t misconstrue your blatant flirting as… well… flirting. Would it even be misconstruing it at that point?

“And I swear I’m going to make you pay for it,” he growled in your ear. But it didn’t sound like a threat. It sounded like a promise. A really sexy one.

“I’d like to see you try,” you said, turning your head to face him. This put the two of your faces in very close proximity. And Axel stared deeply into your eyes, a smirk on his face that matched the one on yours. He finally leaned back and continued eating. And you snuck a glance at what had riled him up so much before descending into another fit of giggles. His name plate.

Axel “Icky Jobs” Gabezo.

Dinner went on with the two of you trying somewhat hard to not flirt too openly with each other and talking to the people across from you and your friends next to you. There were several courses, and dessert was your favorite – chocolate lava cake.

Next were the last few dances of the evening. So, everyone walked back into the ballroom, finishing up their mingling and conversations.

“I’ve been mingling too much tonight, I don’t think we’ve done any dancing,” you muttered as you and Axel stepped back into the ballroom, his hand finding its way back to your lower back.

“That’s because you wanted to talk to everyone,” Axel replied.

“No, it’s because it would be rude not to.”

“Well, be more like me. Stop giving a fuck and enjoy yourself.”

“I’m not enough of an ass to do what you do.”

“Then I will be ass enough for both of us,” he said, halting a group of people who came over to talk to you. “Excuse us. Lady ________ has promised to dance with me for the rest of the evening. And I’d be an idiot to say no.”

The group laughed at Axel’s charm as he turned to you and took your hand, bowing lightly.

“May I have this dance?” he said, looking at you with an irresistible smile on his face. It made the cheesy line he just said actively kind of charming. You did a small curtsy.

“Absolutely, sir. I’d be nothing short of honored.”

Axel guided you to the dance floor just as the orchestra started to play again, and the two of you started a simple waltz. It wasn’t much to look at, but it had caught the interest of several onlookers who wanted to gossip about a potential love triangle between you, Axel, and Atom. Others gossiped about how the two of you looked like royalty. Others gossiped about how elegant and amazing you were, the belle of the ball. But you didn’t hear any of it. This time none of your anxieties could reach you, and that was because you were dancing in the arms of the man that you loved. It felt like the two of you had only danced for a second before the song ended and the next one started. And the two of you kept on dancing. People clapped for you both. One of those people was Atom. He may not have been as sharp at reading people as Eo was, but even he could see how smitten the two of you were. And he clapped, smiling, and raising a glass when the two of you made eye contact as if to say, “No ill will.”

You smiled back and kept dancing. And it felt so much like when you were back in the village with Daealla and Amaya and the rest of the tribe. The music and setting were so vastly different, but dancing with Axel still felt so right and amazing. And you could feel it bubbling around inside of you.

Axel could feel it too, and the two of you felt yourselves ignite on the dance floor. People around you gasped and took a step back as they watched the blue and red flames flicker before they melted into each other and illuminated the room in a purple glow. It was mesmerizing to watch, especially with the way the purple light filtered through the crystal chandeliers above and on the diamonds on your dress. Never mind the glow of the silk on your and Axel’s outfits.

But not everyone was so mesmerized by what was happening on the dance floor, which had cleared just a bit to give you and Axel room to burn without setting anyone else ablaze. Eo was approaching Demyx and Namine who were still paying far too much attention to each other – giggling about their successful plan.

He stood next to them, casually sipping at a champagne glass. He figured he ought to slow down a bit even though he was more of a guest rather than a guard tonight, but with the way Namine and Demyx were giggling, he hoped that meant they were successful. …Unless they were just drunk.

“Can I assume by how you two are all over each other that the mission was a success?” He said lowly, looking everywhere but at them to maintain an air of separation – as if he didn’t have business with them. Unfortunately for him subtlety didn’t seem to be Demyx’s strong suit when flustered.

Demyx’s face was bright red as he stammered.

“I-it’s not even like that! And the mission went great thanks for asking!”

“Hush!” Eo hissed, eyes narrowing lightly, and finally meeting their gaze. “We don’t need to draw attention to ourselves. If either of us is caught or found out, we don’t need to implicate the other. Need I remind you exactly what’s at stake if you two are exposed? What do you think happens to the robots then?”

“We get it,” Namine said, wrapping an arm around Demyx’s own, “We’ll play it cool.” Namine’s contact with Demyx didn’t make his blush lessen at all, if anything it got deeper. Eo suppressed a laugh. They were cute in their own way. He went back to acting aloof.

“I’ll see you after the gala,” he said, “Maybe a few hours after. Just have what I need ready.”

“See you then,” Namine said, and Eo walked away, making a beeline for Atom. Then she turned to Demyx. “Let’s dance. We can’t let Axel and ________ have all the fun.”

“Dance?”

“Yeah,” Namine said with a smile, “Isn’t that how spy movies work and stuff? The dashing hero dances with a lady in between things he needs to do for his mission?”

“Actually, dancing with a person is usually part of the mission. It’s how they get information. You see, usually the person they dance with is –”

“Demyx, shut up and dance with me.”

“Right! Sorry!”

Eo approached Atom whose eyes were still locked on you as you glided around the room with Axel.

“How are you holding up?” he said, nodding his head in your and Axel’s directions.

“I’ll be alright,” he answered, his eyes only leaving you for a brief second to glance at Eo before finding their way back to you. “It’s not like the two of us knew each other very well. And her and Axel have probably had chemistry for who knows how long now.”

“Doesn’t make it hurt less,” Eo said, with a reassuring pat to Atom’s soldier. He thought ensuring Atom not being promoted by getting to you would make him feel better, but he still didn’t enjoy seeing his friend hurt.

“No, but scotch helps,” he answered with a chuckle. “It’s just as well. She’s got a world to save, and she can’t do that from here. We may have never even seen each other again.”

“There’ll be others.”

“Hopefully just as headstrong and noble.”

Eo decided to continue his rounds about the ballroom, acting normal and musing over the events of the evening. Everything seemed alright at the moment. The play was going off without a hitch. Namine and Demyx would have what he needed. Empress seemed to have cooled off. He glanced in her direction. She was slumped in her throne, overlooking everyone – appearing less ladylike in her slouch. She had a pout frozen on her face as she glowered, her cheeks dusted red from too many glasses of champagne. He decided to ignore it for now. She wasn’t handling the “________ and Axel situation” as well as Atom, but at least she wasn’t shattering any champagne glasses.

The evening could end on a decent note as far as he was concerned.

And it did. Axel whirled you around the dance floor for the two remaining hours of the gala, only stopping once so the two of you could catch your breath and sip some water before he whisked you away again.

Demyx and Namine also spent a good portion of the evening dancing. But a lot of it was spent whispering about what kinds of documents to look for in the archives and how long they estimated they would have to find what they were looking for. After all, they didn’t know if the empress would make her way down there at any point. They agreed to a certain time period to search through if the files were organized by date: the height of Tom Morrow’s career and life, the individual fates of the planets assimilated into the empire, the highest point of innovation regarding AI technology, and S.I.R.’s files – all of them, of course. It sounded like a plan. Though there was this tiny sense of growing dread of what they might find once they unraveled this conspiracy down to its roots. If this really was a conspiracy, what secrets could possibly need to be hidden so deeply that only the royal family was permitted to know about it?

“Should we go now?” Demyx said, glancing around the ballroom. The evening was winding down. No one had left yet, but the mood had changed. Everyone was getting tired, and spoke in more hushed, calm tones compared to the lively joviality of the start of the evening only hours ago.

“Yeah,” Namine breathed. Her heart was pounding. She didn’t really know why she couldn’t calm down. The hard part of the evening was over. They had done all the worst of the work. Now they just had to grab a few books. Or computer files if they were digital. “Let’s tell the others an excuse to leave early.”

They looked at you and Axel. You were clearly busy and still on fire. So they walked over to Dreamfinder who was glancing around the ballroom still – probably looking for Figment who had yet to make an appearance that evening. Von Drake was also nearby but surrounded by people who wanted to make his acquaintance if they hadn’t already.

“Figment is still a no show?” Demyx said when they walked up.

“No,” Dreamfinder sighed. “I know he’s only been gone for a few days, but it feels like it’s almost been two and a half.”

“I’m sure he’ll turn up eventually,” Namine soothed. “In any case, we’re gonna take off.”

“Already?”

“Yeah, I have a headache, and Demyx is going to walk me back.”

“I’ll let the others know. Feel better, Namine.”

The two waved goodbye then sent a covert nod to Eo as they passed him. He nodded back. They were in the homestretch. The two made their way down the hall if only for appearances and walked all the way back to Namine’s room before Demyx shut the door and opened a corridor back down to the archives. Once inside the inner sanctum of the royal archives, they took a moment to look around.

It was a far cry from the palace above. It was dimly lit and old. It was like stepping out of the future and into the dark ages. It was also smaller than imagined. It was just a room. It was built of large, old bricks that were a dark gray color that looked like moss might have somehow been growing on it. There was only one bookshelf, a table with a chair, and a small door near the back. They’d explore that room later. Right now, they needed to focus on what they could find here.

Namine glanced at the table. There was dust collecting on the surface, and on top of it was a single card about 1 inch long, 1 inch wide, and a few millimeters thick. On it were three simple, metallic letters:

S.I.R.

Namine blinked. Well, that was a good start. She swiped it off the table, leaving a streak where the dust had been disturbed, but realizing she had no pockets, stuffed it in her bra. She’d wipe it off before she gave it to Eo later. Demyx was examining the bookshelf, and she walked over to join him. It seemed to be divided into two sections. One section was marked as journals of the emperors ending at the last one – Empress Nova’s father. The other section seemed to be objective accounts of goings on in Tomorrowland which were labeled by era rather than leader. While both were organized chronologically. They split the work. Demyx pulled the accounts of emperors during the discussed and agreed upon time periods, and Namine pulled the accounts of the world.

She opened one, intending to flip through and gauge what she may find in it, and she found that it was a hologram. A hologram projecting a table of contents. Demyx paused what he was doing to watch. They had appeared to be books on the outside, but they were so much more than that. The contents were clickable, as they discovered when Namine tentatively picked a year she had read about far too often – the year Tom Morrow died. But they soon realized that Tom Morrow… didn’t die?

~

Some thirty minutes later, the gala had officially drawn to a close. Dreamfinder and Ludwig bid you and Axel goodnight, updating you on Namine and Demyx’s whereabouts, before thanking the empress for the night. You and Axel also bid her thanks, though you were a bit petty and more dismissive in your tone. You weren’t sure if she reacted or not, but you weren’t sure you cared too much. You knew you were being childish, but you also didn’t like the thought of someone aggressively flirting with your boyfriend.

You both passed Atom and Eo and bid them a goodnight as well. They smiled and waved. Now it was Axel’s turn to be a tad dismissive. But Atom didn’t seem to notice, quite ready to put the evening behind him and move on to focus more on his work – putting his crush on you to rest.

Eo bid Atom a good rest, saying he was going to take a little bit of a stroll to wind down from all the excitement of the evening. And stroll he did. But right to Demyx’s room where he knocked on the door.

Demyx opened it and didn’t seem at all surprised to see him there. He offered the only thing the two of them were able to find regarding S.I.R. They’d used numerous search functions on so many files, yet nothing came up. There was only the small memory card – they assumed that’s what it was anyway – that had his name on it. This only further aroused Eo’s suspicions on the matter. But he thanked them regardless and let them return to their research.

Meanwhile, you and Axel stepped into the empress’s private garden, your armor dissipating as soon as you willed it away and giving way to your extravagant ball gown once more. You wondered if it looked like some sort of magical princess transformation to everyone else.

“Why here?” you asked.

“You love nature and it’s private. Plus, I thought you’d like to unwind.”

“Whatever would you need privacy for, Axel?” you asked with a flirtatious bat of your eyelashes. He immediately wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you in close.

“To show you just how crazy you’ve been driving me all night,” he said before pressing a quick kiss to your lips. You let out a little giggle. He’s been essentially a fairytale prince charming to you all night, yet you were driving him insane? When he’s made you feel like you’re living some sort of dream?

“I think I know the feeling,” you conceded, wrapping your arms around him as well and leaning up for another kiss. This continued until he pressed your back up against a nearby tree and proceeded to be just a bit rougher with you. But it was wholly welcome. He’d been a perfect gentleman all evening, and now he was ready to be a bit more unrestrained. Maybe he’d even tease you a bit as payback for that name plate incident at the banquet earlier.

~

Nova rubbed her temples as she sat her vanity. She was still fully done up in her gown, crown, and make-up. She kept gazing at her reflection. She was the most beautiful woman she knew. The most powerful. The most influential. People would quite completely give up everything to be with her or to even be her. Yet she felt quite defeated.

Ever since you had showed up, you had been a thorn in her side disguised as some sort of savior. You had won over the people with your charity and selflessness, something that made her gag a little. So many people gave to charity, yet everyone was falling all over themselves to praise you for it. Then there was Atom. She’d been eyeing him and flirting with him for years, and you just show up and charm him like some sort of harlot. She briefly wondered how you’d seduced him. But there couldn’t have been anything you did that would have outdone anything Nova herself had done. Nova was certain she had done more than most people would be willing to. But Atom was too upstanding for that. Or so she thought, remembering the time the news reported you leaving his house. She had drugged you that evening and somehow that pushed you together.

But the greatest insult was how she had set her sights on Axel, and now it seemed like you were hooking your talons into him too. It was almost as if you were doing this on purpose…. The thought nagged at her again.

No.

Although… it seemed every time she had an opportunity to be in the spotlight… there you were. The time she wanted to have someone defeat the alien in Space Mountain, you immediately stepped in without question.

You brought back her brother’s keyblade. But then you had used it to humiliate her. You kept taking it. No. You said that wasn’t you. Or was it? Was it all some ploy trying to say she was unworthy?

She could practically hear S.I.R.’s snide, critical tone in her head.

You ARE unworthy. You couldn’t even convince your people to want you as an empress. All those years being usurped by your brat of a brother. And you never once thought to be a proactive member of your empire.

But that wasn’t her fault! She was a woman! What could she do? No one took her seriously.

And yet the Empress of the Renaissance managed just fine.

Because she has a keyblade! If that little whore didn’t have that, she’d be just as powerless as I am!

Powerless?! You were a princess. You had the third most amount of power and influence in the kingdom. What was stopping you from giving to charity? What exactly was stopping you from seeing your people. From acknowledging what was really going on with the robots.

That was another thing. You and your friends were helping the robot community. It was curious enough, but she couldn’t help but wonder why….

What were you trying to uncover? Was it all some trick? Were you using them to make her look worse? Did you know something?

Nova shook her head. Of course you didn’t. You couldn’t know. Even the robots didn’t know. They wouldn’t be able to tell you anything. Unless somehow one of them was defective?

The memory of Eo whispering with Demyx and Namine flashed in her mind once more. What were they whispering about?

I think we both know. And just think. If you hadn’t murdered your parents and brother, this would be their mess to deal with. But now they’re DEAD. And you’re not prepared to fill their shoes.

S.I.R.’s laughter echoed in her mind.

She lit a cigarette with a shaky hand. She needed a glass of wine. No, liquor. Something hard. Hmm. Maybe she needed to get laid. That would take the edge off. Maybe she’d seduce one of the guards that stood outside of her room. After this cigarette.

Maybe she’d make another pass at Axel. You may have had your tits on display that evening, but she’d like to think that she could outdo you if she did something a little bolder. She just needed to be more forward. Like maybe wearing lingerie under a trench coat. Or maybe nothing under a trench coat.

She stood up and walked out onto her balcony that overlooked her private garden.

~

You gasped while Axel worked your neck with his mouth. Things were getting progressively hotter – figuratively and literally. You could feel Axel’s fingers working at the laces of your corset and your bodice progressively loosening and threatening to have your breasts spill out – though there wasn’t much the corset hadn’t been displaying already. Axel’s eyes were devouring you, and you felt ready to ignite despite doing your best not to burn off the extra heat.

You gasped and clung to him before mewling out that you needed him when you noticed the fairy lights above flickering. Axel also noted this change. You both stopped and looked before they started to glow brighter and brighter before they started to explode! They weren’t violent explosions, but it sent a flurry of sparks and tiny shards of glass flying. They popped in a line leading all the way up to where you and Axel were located almost as if they were pointing at the two of you. Axel had shielded you with his body, ducking his head as well so he wouldn’t catch any glass in his eyes.

“We should go,” you said. No doubt someone would be by to clean up the mess and fix the lights. Axel nodded, having a similar thought before the two of you ducked out to a more secluded part of the garden to not be seen when you made your exit.

Notes:

Next time (when I can post again) we see deeper into the conspiracy. ...And the nobility's part in it.