Okay, this is a one-shot. I like them. But if you think I should, maybe I'll write a second chapter. Anyhow, enjoy!
Your World
Zexion stepped out of his portal into Vexen's lab, unnoticed and seemingly not missed by his cohorts. This did not concern him in the least, however – what really mattered was how Larxene was doing. Quietly approaching the computer, he sat down and entered Vexen's username and password (fliched, of course) before choosing a certain program and intently watching the screen. Observing, waiting, expecting, his mind inadvertently added. As it did when he was particularly nervous. Anxious, worried, exasperated.
What could he say? He had to admit it to himself – Castle Oblivion was empty without her volatile (snarling, snapping, turbulent) prescence filling the halls and rooms. He missed her. He had to. What else could the empty feeling in his chest be otherwise? A yearning, longing, needful feeling. He couldn't make it go away. No amount of book-reading could keep his mind off her; no amount of sparring; no amount of any type of distraction at all. Books and studying had been his past life, his real life, his half-life – until now.
The screen came to life (animated, vivid, iridescent), lighting up to reveal a sleepily blinking Larxene waking up on a comfortable-looking bed. She yawned, stretched, and smiled slightly – something Zexion had never seen her do. His eyes widened, her suprisingly sweet smile making him feel a foreign kind of warmness. He thought he had not been able to feel – not been able to feel anything at all, be it good, bad, or in the fuzzy grey area other human emotions seemed to belong in. Emotions needing a heart. A heart needing to belong. He didn't have either. But Larxene made him feel like he had at least three-quarters of a heart. A real, beating, pulsing, life-giving heart; the ones he had studied about when he still possessed such a precious thing. Larxene made him feel alive.
Meanwhile, Larxene had gotten up, gotten dressed in her school uniform and headed off for school without any breakfast. She didn't need any – she had something better to do, to see. In fact, she was so excited she forgot all about her usual feeling of disquiet. She ran out of the house and onto the bus, plugging her iPhone earphones into her ears and listening to a familiar track - "Comatose" by Skillet. Drowning out the people around her with loud guitars and heavy drumming, she looked absent-mindedly out the window. Suddenly a flash of sleek black coat caught her eye – and though she had never seen one like that, never even thought about one, it seized her attention and brought back her feeling of unease in great force. She did a double take and looked again for the coat, but it was nowhere to be seen. However, the coat had lodged itself in her mind and wouldn't be shaken. She couldn't stop thinking about it. What was it? Where had it come from? And why, why indeed, was it familiar in any way?
Pertubed, she sat back in her bus seat and thought. Why was she unsettled? She had no idea herself. She remembered everything about the small town in which she lived – memories of a happy childhood filled with good friends and great times, and all the people she had ever met. But she had this sneaking, creeping feeling something was wrong. And not just wrong, but fake. Fake and purposely kept from her. When analysed from a perfectly objective point of view, she really had no reason at all for thinking something was untrue. But she trusted her instincts – her heart – and so kept an eye out for incongruent things, things that didn't match. And she hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary. Until now. [A/N: I know Larxene doesn't have a heart. But all this will be explained later. :3 Keep reading!!!]
Upon reaching school, where she attended as a sophomore in high school and was one of the...most interesting girls in school, she dumped her extra books in her locker and proceeded to the rooftop – one of her favourite places anywhere. Any rooftop was good; it made her feel closer to the sky, and she especially loved the sky during thunderstorms. She felt drawn to lightning, for seemingly no particular reason, and always loved sitting outside in the rain. She had always thought that it would be worth it to be hit by lightning, no matter the consequences.
From the height of the roof, she saw a lone figure exit the library, huge encyclopaedic book in hand, dark hair ruffling in the wind and one hand casually stuck into the pocket of his black school uniform pants as he headed up the stairs into the building. Oh – it was Ienzo. Her boyfriend. She smiled warmly and almost called out to him, but realised that she would get caught by teachers and then quickly ejected from her hiding spot. Not that she didn't want to talk to Ienzo, but he knew where she liked to go in the mornings – he knew her well – and would usually meet her up here at about this time. So she sat back and waited expectantly for the familiar shock of ebony hair and light blue eyes – well, light blue eye, as one was usually hidden under his overbearing fringe. She quite liked it, though. It was very...cute.
Ienzo and her had been long-time friends, and she had nursed an enduring crush on him ever since she had first met him. So when he had asked her to be his girlfriend, she almost died of shock. But it was a good shock. And now she was the lucky one, the only one to ever be with him as of now. A lot of girls were jealous of her, and she knew it. Their underhanded attacks on her were usually repelled by Larxene herself, who was more than capable of doing so – maybe a tad sadistically, but even so...
Once Ienzo had discovered these petty exchanges, he had put a firm stop to them. The fangirls would do anything to please him, and (though they hadn't said anything like it), Larxene had had a sneaking feeling that they were tiring of trying to overcome her. Larxene was pretty tough, even compared to the guys at school. But a lot of them found it attractive, and she was quite popular too – but as a gothic kind of tomboy. Oh well.
Zexion blanched, blue eyes widening, as he saw a representation of himself stride across the rooftop towards Larxene. The two met, and exchanged an embrace – a kiss. At first, Zexion just watched in blank shock as the couple sat down on the edge of the roof, Larxene pointing at the sky and the fake Zexion nodding in agreement with something she had said. Vexen hadn't told me that he was going to put me in the computer program, he thought frantically, searching for some vague recollection of anyone telling him anything about the experiment. He hadn't known he was going to play a part in anything! Here he was – the realhim – stuck outside in the actual, corporeal, painful world and missing Larxene; while in this stupid synthetic world Larxene was happy and loving a fake version of him?? A version made merely out of data – of numbers, and letters, and computer commands?
Zexion felt an inferno of anger erupt inside him, overcoming his logical thought processes and reducing his normally calculating mind to a whirlwind of tangled thoughts; each thought like a thread, intertwined with many others. Each time his mind pulled one string a thousand others came to his mind without hesitation, without doubt. And all thought trains led to one all-encompassing conclusion: Save Larxene. Get her out of the program. Bring her back....to me.
Zexion typed a few commands into the computer with absolute sureness. He walked over to the teleportation capsule, waiting there until he was beamed inside the computer and into the virtual environment within.
Zexion cautiously exited Larxene's digital "house", where he had been transported to in this pseudo pretense of reality, looking around at the unfamiliar and yet familiar surroundings. The scenery was new, but he could see so many reminders of the living world – of both heartless and nobodies, the Organisation and those goody-goodies: Sora and his aides. The clues were part of the experiment – probably included to see if she would be able to overcome the memory blocks or at least suspect something was wrong; but he hated seeing those hints of what was really out there in this contained, controlled world. It was sad to note that the whole worldto Larxene was not even a world. It was a fake. A sudden stinging, bitter feeling hit him right where his heart should have been; but he could not define it. He didn't want to define it. Ignoring it, he kept on. After all, if Vexen discovered he was in the program, Vexen would definitely question his motives and send someone in after him.
Tracing Larxene's well-known scent with his sharp nose, he navigated the streets quickly and with confidence. His mind was funnily blank as his feet pounded, breath coming in quick pants, his coat holding him back and restricting his steps. He ripped it off with an annoyed frown, not caring how suspicious or strange he looked, revealing a deep black waistcoat with a slightly open white collared shirt underneath and a pair of dark formal-looking pants. They were his old clothes – the clothes Ienzo used to wear. He had been going to ask Axel to burn them (which Axel would have done with pleasure), but after seeing Larxene's embarrassing wardrobe malfunction [A/N: Reference to Dark Hero Nightmare's fic – Out of the Darkness. Really good stuff :) ] , Zexion had figured that wearing something under his Organisation XIII coat was a good idea. Trotting on, satisfied with his now free movement, Zexion hurried on to the school.
He entered the building discreetly, carefully padding up the corridors and finally finding the shrouded doorway which led to the roof. The door had faint traces of illusion around it...he briefly wondered who could have cast those before pushing open the door and climbing the stairs two at a time. That could wait for later. Larxene came first – and that meant his first priorities were to find and take her back. Zexion unintentionally slammed open the door to the rooftop, and upon catching sight of the back of Larxene's blonde head he called out to her.
"Larxene! Do you...remember me?"
Okay, that's all pplz! I reckon I'm going to write a second chappie for this, but after that probably no more. I can't really see the plot going anywhere after this. But if you guys have ideas, tell me! I'd love to make this go somewhere. See you! OH – and review. Please???????