Musicbox

Chapter 1 - Journey at Daybreak

Plot: After finding that the Axel in Castle Oblivion (if you haven't played Chain of Memories, there's no point in you reading this) was a shadow of the living Axel, Sora finds that Axel was never working for the Organization. Axel joins Sora on his journey, in hopes of finding someone he is searching for. Shounen ai, maybe yaoi, AxelxSora.

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Sora guessed that it had to be somewhere around midnight when he, Donald and Goofy left Castle Oblivion. He precious memories of his friends, once lost, had now returned. But he couldn't help but feel something nagging away at his heart, and it was a feeling of regret. He stopped in his tracks and looked back at the castle behind him, without Donald or Goofy noticing. What was it? He scratched his head, and it felt for a moment like he was back inside the castle losing his memories again, piece by piece. But a thought suddenly struck him.

'"Axel!" he accidently gasped out loud. His two friends looked back at Sora.

"Yeah, yeah," said Donald with a frown, "We got rid of him, and the rest of those guys from 'the Organization'. Namine's probably safe too, so let's get a move on." Donald motioned for Sora to hurry up, and with a reluctant nod he did.

The three walked on for almost an hour through the fields until Goofy spotted a small cluster of trees not too far off in the distance. "Seems like a good place to rest, dontcha' think?" he said with a grin and enthusiasm. Sora and Donald could only answer with yawns, and wondered how their friend could have so much energy this late at night.

As they approached, Sora was almost sure that he had spotted a color of red behind one of the trees, and stopped in his tracks to study it. He was sure that he saw it move to the side just a little. His eyes widened, and he wasn't sure if it was out of fear or surprise. He made out the figure of a human, and the red it's hair.

"G-guys?" Sora tried to whisper not too loudly at his friends who were quickly advancing on the 'resting place'. "Donald?" he whispered just a little louder. "Goofy?" He concluded that Donald was too tired to hear him and Goofy was, well...just stupid. 'I guess we might as well go and see who it is. If we're lucky, maybe they've spotted Riku or the King.'

Sora had finally caught up to his friends by the time they'd nearly reached the trees. Sora abruptly noticed that he knew this person; it was Axel. But hadn't he killed him in Castle Oblivion? Donald and Goofy gasped at the sight of him. He moved his head to the side with his arms already folded.

"I've been waiting," he stated dully, putting on his cool-guy act like he usually did.

"But-" Sora could hardly finished his sentence before Axel unfolded his arms and turned to face the trio. He wielded no weapons, so Sora felt no need to use his keyblade.

"The imitation of me at the castle that you deafeated? A mere shadow. It was no wonder you were able to defeat it." He eyes bore deeply into Soras. "You could never handle the real me."

"If you're going to try and stand in our way-"

Axel interrupted Sora again with an amused laugh. "Sora...like I've told you in a sense before, you and I are much more alike than you could possibly imagine. I'm not the bad guy you think I am. I was never a part of the Organization. You could say I was a double agent, hoping to expose the Organization for what it really was. And I would have told you if you wouldn't have suddenly attacked me the way you did."

Sora hoped that he was right. It was too late in the night to get into another fight, and he'd had a long day. "Then...who are you working for?"

"That would probably be revealing too much. For now, why don't you consider me as a friend? From what I see, we're on the same side."

"Then what do you want from us?"

"An alliance."

Sora thought for a few seconds. Axel didn't seem too bad of a guy, and he never really did, in a way. It wouldn't hurt to have another ally. Plus, it would give them a better chance of finding Riku and the King. Sora looked at his two friends, but they only gave him looks that this was his decision.

Before Sora could respond, Axel added, "And to travel with the three of you."

Sora arched an eyebrow. Now this was begining to get out of hand. He was sure that Axel had to be up to something. "Why?" Sora questioned blankly, not sure of what else to say.

"There's someone I'm searching for also. And like you, the person I'm searching for means very much to me. If I travel with the three of you guys, I have a better chance of rescuing this person. Without you...well, with what I'll need to eventually be going up against, I don't stand much of a chance."

Sora felt something sincere about Axel's revealation. He had hardly given a moment's notice before Axel suddenly shouted "Sora!" and flung the boy to the side. Sora looked up and barely saw in a quick flash Axel summoning his twin disks and slicing a medium sized Darkball Heartless in two; which would have otherwise dealt a lot of damage to Sora.

Axel stood straight up calmy and his twin disks vanished. "So what do you say?"

Sora nodded with as much of an assuring smile as he could, despite the sudden event.

"Then it's settled." Axel stated with a cheerful smile. "We leave at daybreak tomorrow."

"Wak, that's Sora's line," Donald glared. He wanted to let the red-haired man know that he wasn't ready to trust him. On the other hand, Goofy seemed just fine with Sora's decision, and gave Axel a smile and a guffaw before moving to the trees and settling down followed with Donald.

Axel looked down at Sora who was still in the same position that he had been thrown in. Sora looked slightly startled when realizing that Axel was staring at him. He was at a lose for words until Axel spoke up, smiling, "If that's alright with you."

"Oh...yep! Daybreak is good."

"Alright then." Axel made his toward Sora and settled close enough to him that they were touching. The younger boy wasn't exactly sure to have someone who was almost a stranger this close this early in their journey. 'At least I won't be that cold,' Sora thought on the bright side to himself. He felt himself relaxing into Axel's folds of his black coat, which was unusually warm, and fell into a deep sleep.

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That's the first chapter.:3 I hope you liked it. Please review if you did. Or maybe review even if you didn't. And if you do review, I'll give you a moogle. XD