Kingdom Hearts © Square-Enix
Wireless
If there were one thing that Xemnas could hate, it would be a lack of communication. To him, if there were one vital element in making any plan, scheme, or plot to take over whatever was to be taken over work, it would be communication. A lack of it, as he had so keenly observed on many previously accounts, led to chaos. While chaos was all good and whatnot to wrap up and hand off to the enemy, when you're the one opening the box of confusion, it was another matter by itself. There were countless cases of miscommunications between the members with each other, and the members and himself. While he could always rely on a certain few, too many cases of Larxene telling Axel telling Demyx telling Roxas to tell him have occurred, and with each passing on, the message became foggier and more incomprehensible, much like a game of telephone. Xemnas was in no mind to play telephone. Instead, he got them all cell phones.
You could say that there were mixed emotions surrounding the people in the room when Xemnas had tossed them their own wireless companion. Many like Saïx and Vexen just took the box and calmly exited without leaking a word or uttering a sound. Simplicity was their way of handling it. Others like Demyx and Axel vigorously shook the box and examined it from side to side like little children wondering what surprises were in stored for them in their birthday gift. Even some like Roxas just stared at it blankly before dropping it to the ground and sent it skittering towards the wall with a half-hearted kick before deciding it was better if he just held onto it with his hands. (Actually, he was the only one who did that.) Upon seeing the later two reactions from the group, Xemnas saw miscommunication happening before his very eyes. Xemnas despised miscommunication.
"Have you people never seen a cell phone?" his commanding voice boomed above the clamor emitting from the remaining members. Pure silence was his what he got for an answer, and it was an answer he disapproved of. While a part of him in his mind would've liked to call them all imbeciles registering at the lowest IQ score in that category, Xemnas remained level headed as he addressed the remaining members once again: "You will use these to communicate with each other. I will have no more of misunderstandings or transferring relays of messages, so keep these on you at all times, is that understood?"
The members of Organization XIII gave their shouts of the affirmative before dispersing and filing out of the room. Once the last black cloak fluttered out of the threshold, Xemnas allowed himself a triumphant chuckle. Now with this new additive to his already solid Organization, Xemnas was sure that communication would no longer be an issue. After all, how hard could it be to use such a simple contraption with a couple of modifications he made to them? Flipping open his own phone, Xemnas indulged himself in watching the tiny specks of colored orbs wander around on his miniature map. Not only was communication no longer a problem, he could also easily track them using this handy stalker function he programmed into it. Xemnas was mighty proud of his own ingenious plan.
As soon as Roxas had exited the room, he had taken only but three measly steps when he had literally been abducted by a frightening ghost-like hand and then shoved into warp hole of darkness without a single word towards his consent. Roxas was feeling rather violated because not only had Mystery Hand caught him off guard, he know found himself in a place where he really wouldn't have wanted to be dwelling in. It was dark, it was cold, and it had Vexen flanked by Lexaeus and Zexion as its dreadful centerpiece. Roxas had a nagging inkling that he was about to get used.
"Your keyblade," Vexen pronounced as he extended a hand towards Roxas. The younger boy's eyes narrowed as he began back up, hands blinding searching for an exit out of this chilly place.
"What do you want?" Roxas asked. Was it him, or was the temperature in this room dropping by the second? Roxas was glad he had worn a sweater under his cloak today.
"Unlock it," Vexen demanded as he pulled out his cell phone and dangled it in front of Roxas' face. Roxas' swatted it away on a reflex, preferring things not so close to his face and making his eyes go berserk. Zexion managed to catch it before it met its doom kissing the cold, hard floor.
"Unlock what?" Roxas said defensively as he scrambled to his legs and shot Vexen a hard glare. Something about him and his mindless and dangerous experiments really made him feel weary around the man, especially now since he was backed by two other members equally as fearful as he was.
"Our superior has tempered with these," Zexion said quietly. "He's added things that were not originally there. We need your keyblade to unlock them."
Roxas continued his slow retreated until he hit a wall that seemed to be made of racks upon racks of test tubes and beakers and flasks and all multitudes of various lab equipments all neatly arranged without a speck of grime on any of the glassware. Too bad for Vexen because now it had Roxas all over it. The scientist said nothing as his two colleagues and himself continued to advance on the now-starting-to-panic boy. While Roxas knew they had no intention to do any sort of physical damage to him, but the sight of the three looming over him like all your deeds loomed over you in final judgment is a little intimidating.
"Why should I?" Roxas asked cautiously. Vexen broke into a sick grin at this comment, and Roxas felt a shiver shoot down his spine, his body growing rigid and the gears in his mind squeak in complaint.
"No doubt you're clueless about these things," Vexen scoffed. "Unlock the things our superior had tempered with and we'll show you how it works."
"What does it do… exactly?" Roxas asked. Truth to be told, he, like many others in the Organization, were absolutely clueless on what these things really were. Judging by his reaction to what he did to the box when he first received it, Vexen was sure Roxas was probably the most clueless of the bunch. Roxas, on the other hand, thought that he had a pretty good idea what it was: a slab of useless metal as depicted on the box. However, seeing that their superior would be so eager on this idea as to call all of them together, it should be able something. Roxas hoped that whatever it was, it doubled as a can opener because it had been a pain opening tin can after tin can with his keyblade. Something sharp to poke Axel's bottom would be a nice addition as well for when the guy really got obnoxious.
"It's used for communication," Vexen said as he opened the model to let Roxas' eyes feast upon all its glorious LCD magnificence. Somehow, Roxas really liked how it made his eyes tingle like crazy and his brain go into slow mode from the light. It was so bright… so bright and shiny. Roxas decided that shiny was eye-catching.
"Okay," he said, rather dazed. Might as well get this over with as sooner or later Vexen and the other two would get their way with him. No use in trying to stop them with futile efforts, and if they held up their end of the bargain, Roxas knew that he would've gained something even better than a can opener, and that was a replacement to his broken lamp.
After a page and a half of solid text and a diagram of how to charge the phone, Axel had ripped the instruction manual into two clean halves before incarnating them into ashes and cinders and decided to go by his intuition. Once satisfied by his handiwork, Axel had done the smart thing of connecting plug to outlet and adapter to phone before sinking into his couch and waiting for it to charge. Axel was not an impatient man mind you, and after thirty seconds of dull boring silence with nothing explosive or big seeming to be on the way, Axel decided to charge the thing the faster, more efficient, and a lot more environmentally friendly way. (Not that he really cared much for the environment like we all should. As long as it was quick and efficient.)
After getting up and ripping off the wire from his phone, Axel dropped it safely in a snug pocket before stepping out through his room and zipping towards Larxene's without a single care for whether or not the girl wanted his company or not. If she did, (which Axel highly doubted) she got her wish because here he was banging on her door and demanding her presence. If not, she would have to change her opinion to option one.
"Hey, mind doing me a little something?" Axel asked smoothly.
"No," Larxene promptly answered from the other side of the door. Axel found himself still staring at a block of wood. Wood was flammable. Axel wanted entry. It wasn't a hard decision for Axel to burn himself a hole and step through it into Larxene's room without much hindrance. The thunder girl was quick to catch onto things though, and she had flashed out of the room in a blink of the eye as soon as Axel was in, but not before sending down an impulse of electrical current through the man. Axel cringed but shook it off. He briefly considered going after the girl, but he knew that when Larxene said no, she meant it in a "Ask me again and you'll get the same answer. Ask me a third time and there won't be a fourth." kind of way. Axel wasn't fazed the least by her threats, (she could never lay a finger on him anyhow) but it would be very annoying having her shock you every time you passed each other in the halls. Besides, Axel had just hit the gold.
"Talk about careless," he said to himself as he spied a silver phone on Larxene's bureau. "Shouldn't leave things like these unattended." He assumed that the little battery thing must mean that it had been fully charge, and without even thinking of the possible consequences that came with his action, Axel quickly dropped Larxene's phone into his other snug pocket while replacing it with his own. Now he had a fully charged phone without having to wait the annoying three hours. What could possibly go wrong?
"Hey, you know how this works? I only got it to light up so far." Demyx was another clueless soul when it came to complications of modern technology. He had wanted to consult Axel on the matter, but was disappointed to find him not in his room. He didn't want to bother any of the other higher-ups, and with Roxas seemingly never made it back to his room, Larxene in dire need of a new door, Luxord too caught up in his mindless card games to care, that only left Demyx with one horrible solution, and that was to ask Marluxia. Well, maybe it wasn't as bad as he had to put it. If you can get over the fact that he had a sort of flower fetish and that his hairstyle was unpractical and his choice of color was an eyesore, he was a pretty smart guy. Unfortunately for Demyx, Marluxia was just as lost as he was, but on a matter that differed from his a bit.
"If I knew, would I be sitting here like a fool trying to defeat this ridiculous objective?" Marluxia snapped as he went back to button meshing the keypad, watching as random screens popped up at high speeds with the occasional ring and jingle intertwined. Demyx watched wordlessly, completely oblivious to what Marluxia was trying to accomplish. By the looks of it, it seemed that he was trying to get his thumbs to go faster than the cell phone could process his random orders.
"Well do you know what it does?" Demyx asked. Block one was always a good place to start because frankly, he had no idea what this was suppose to be other than it was called a 'cell phone' as Xemnas kindly pointed out.
"It's used to hold conversations without the person you're talking to without actually being within earshot of each other," Marluxia exclaimed as his finger mashing accelerated by another dozen miles or so. Demyx was getting a bit edgy with Marluxia's intent glare on that device. Scary.
"Oh… how do you do that?" Demyx questioned.
"You use the keypad to type in a number then you use the green button to send a signal to the satellite superior set up and it gets sent to whomever the number belongs with and then you talk and they answer and when you don't want to talk you press the red button and it ends the conversation, got that?" Marluxia muttered at speeds that matched his frightful attack on his phone, not taking his eyes off of the screen for even a remote second. Demyx only managed to catch 'green', 'talk', and 'red'. It didn't really help at all.
"I thought you said you didn't know how it works," Demyx said, trying to get a little more attention from Marluxia.
"I just figured it out," Marluxia grumbled. "Now leave me in peace while I grow my digital flower, you fool."
Demyx would've felt hurt. Not only had someone blatantly insulted him, that someone was of a lower rank than he was, had pink-layered hair, and liked flowers. It made Demyx feel a lot more degraded than he was actually suppose to feel. (His normal composure was supposed to be thirty percent unappreciated, fifteen percent degraded, and fifty-five percent deprived of screen time.) Marluxia looked like he could really care less, still caught up in what Demyx now deciphered as a game. A twitch of the eyebrow and Marluxia's fingers suddenly hitting halt told him that he had lost.
"I said leave me in peace!" Marluxia snapped, his eyes glaring hard at him. Demyx decided it was about time to retreat.
"What next?"
"Once the screen reads 'charge complete', carefully detach the adapter from your phone."
"Got it."
"To activate your phone, please call this number- 666-666-6666."
"666-666-666… what was that last number?"
"It was 6."
"Got it."
Xaldin and Xigbar were perhaps the only two who actually went with the instruction manual instead of relying on instinct and calling upon others for help. It didn't take the two very long with their combined efforts to decode what the thing was supposed to be used for and got it working properly as it should. To them, it was the obvious thing to do, and they did what the obvious told them to and they were rewarded with a well-operated cell phone.
"So, what's your number?" Xigbar asked offhandedly as he skimmed the section about warranty and hazards. Only a one-week warranty? That was cheap.
"Xal-din-6666," Xaldin replied as if that was the most evident answer. Xigbar took a moment to punch it into his phonebook."
"Well mine is Xig-bar-6666," Xigbar offered. "Guess that means everyone else's number is just their name with 6's after it."
"Probably."
Luxord was delirious over his new companion. He had flipped opened a random page in the inch-thick instruction manual and landed on the section providing him easy access to blackjack and other casino games. Without even consulting anything else other than those two pages, Luxord had absorbed himself into playing endless amounts of games on his phone without break much like Marluxia, only he wasn't taking care of a flower, he was wagering digital munny against a mindless system.
"Hmm… this is a tough decision indeed," Luxord said solemnly to himself as he tried to decide whether or not he should let the digital dealer hit him. What to do in such a life or death situation? Hmm… He hadn't expected Saïx to be listening in on his conversation.
"I need your number," he said bluntly, getting straight to the point. Luxord pretended he didn't hear and hoped the other would go away. Saïx pretended that Luxord didn't pretend not to hear him and waltzed in without his permission. "I need your number," he said again in deadpan.
"Can't you see I'm busy now?" Luxord asked as he decided to have the dealer hit him with another card. It was an eight. Damn. Must be because Saïx was bad luck.
"I need your number," Saïx repeated yet again, his voice seeming a bit sharper and more aggravated now. Luxord again pretended he didn't hear. Saïx again pretended that he didn't think about Luxord pretending that he didn't hear him. "I said, I-"
"I'm in the middle of something," Luxord said calmly as he switched over to a good old game of Internet poker. Now all he had to do was think of a suitable screen name. He decided on the regular 'IOWNU' and left it as that.
"Your number," Saïx prodded once again.
"I don't know it," Luxord answered truthfully as he got ready to conquer his opponents 'MooseBowl-2000', 'Lovenal', and a 'Blue Toothbrush'. They made his alias seemed so much more intelligent and well thought out. Luxord took a moment to compliment himself on that achievement.
"It's on your home screen," Saïx said. "Just quite that ridiculous game and tell me."
"But I'm playing poker," Luxord said. "Go find someone else."
Saïx gave him a reproachful look before giving up on trying to squeeze his number out of him. Instead, he settled for a quick tap of the 'quit' button on Luxord's phone, which brought him to the home screen, quickly memorized the digits that was Luxord's number, and then gracefully conjured a black warp hole before stepping through. Luxord was infuriated. He had just been made to forfeit! And he never forfeited!
It was only day one of his new plan and Xemnas was already catching some problems. First off, there was the matter of Roxas being in the same room as Vexen, Lexaeus, and Zexion, and then shortly after that, their orbs were wiped off of his map, and when he tried to access them, it displayed an annoying: Request blocked. That was only a small glitch he had decided, and he would get that ironed out in time. However, there was also the issue of Axel's orb loitering around in Larxene's room for an insane amount of time while Larxene was roaming the halls seemingly not caring as well as Demyx's phone not being activated. Also, Marluxia's key frequency displayed an impossible twenty-five keys per second, and Xemnas had a feeling that it wasn't text messaging the man was up to. All in all, the first day had hit its bump, but Xemnas was sure things were about to get better tomorrow. After all, his plans were always good ones, right?