Chapter 1: Orientation
It was a hot and rainy day. The sound of the rain hitting the window was a sweet melody to one girl who had just come home from school. Lying on her bed with flowing brownish blond hair resting on her shoulders, gentle green eyes concentrating on the the Nintendo DS that was in her delicate hands.
Her name is Elizabeth, and she had just beaten the final level in Kingdomhearts 358/2 days. After spending about an hour of fighting boss after boss, she smiled in satisfaction as she listened to the beautiful music that played at the ending credits. The more she listened to the song, the more she thought of one character that has haunted her thoughts since she first began the game. Unfortunately, before she could finish her thoughts of adventure with this character, she noticed something unusual.
The room had begun to warm up. It was most puzzling. She got off from her bed and walked to the thermostat that was planted into the wall outside of her room. The setting was seventy- two degrees, on the cooling setting, but her room smelled as though it were on fire. Then she noticed something else that was strange in her house. The temperature was fine in the rest of the house, but not in her room.
"Why is my room so hot?" she asked herself as she looked all around for the source of the unwanted heat.
All around her room she searched, leaving her walk in closet that sat in front of her bed unchecked. She thought it was stupid for heat to be coming from there, but it was the only place left in the room, so she took a nervous gulp, and slowly opened the door. She had nearly fainted as she opened it.
With her breath and heart beat increasing in speed, she laid her eyes upon a black, cloaked figure with the hood covering the figure's face. The sleeves of the cloak hugged the figures arms to show some muscle tone, and the hands were gloved.
Elizabeth staggered backwards and landed on her bed as she continued to stare. The figure was so familiar, she could almost utter where she had seen it before. Then, the figure took some steps out of the closet and into the open, she was very afraid as she asked, "W-who are you?"
With one fluid motion, the figure pulled back the hood to reveal a man's face. The man had long, spiky scarlet hair that pointed to the back. Piercing emerald eyes looked at her and he smirked before replying, "Well, my name is Axel."
He pointed to the side of his head and asked, "Got it memorized?"
The way this man had responded to her proved her suspicions to be true. It was unbelievable to her that a character that was supposed to exist in a video game was conversing with her. She had so many questions to ask, but she thought it would be rude if her name wasn't given, so she nervously said, "M-my name is..."
She was interrupted by him placing a finger to her mouth and saying, "That isn't important at the moment. You'll have time for a more formal introduction once we arrive at our destination."
"Wait, what? Seriously, why are you here?" Elizabeth asked with increasing curiosity.
"Recruiting." Axel said simply as he turn his back to her to face the closet.
Instead of her usual disaster zone of a typical teenager's closet, she saw a dark corridor of shadows. This was getting more and more peculiar to her as she stared from the closet to Axel and back again. She was even more curious as to what Axel meant by recruiting.
"Are you coming?" Axel asked.
"Coming where?" She shakily asked as she rose to her feet.
"You'll find out, should you choose to follow." Axel responded with an air of mystery about him.
"Wait, you are giving me a choice?" Elizabeth asked.
He only nodded his response as he patiently waited for her to think about this.
A minute passed as Elizabeth thought about it. On one hand, how could she trust this man to go any where with him? And what if it was all a trap, or she never see her family again? But she also thought that this would be a chance of a life time. A chance to do something that she doubted very many would do. After weighing thing through, she nervously approached Axel and said, "Okay, I'll come."
He nodded once again, and continued forward into the darkness that lay inside the closet, with Elizabeth close behind. Once they went inside, the door to the closet shut behind them and left the room completely empty.
A few seconds of walking later, she found herself inside a strange white room filled with tall chairs, and perched in each chair were more cloaked figures with some that were hooded up, or revealing their faces to the rest of them. In the center of the room was a crowd of other children who were either older, younger, or of the same age as she was. There were some who, according to her, were gamers, a few emos, and then there were others who seemed to just be independent and hard to read.
They were all whispering among themselves, they didn't sound scared, rather, they sounded excited and they all looked it as well. Even the emos had smiles on their faces. Then all became quiet as a man sitting on the tallest of the thrones rose and pulled back his hood to reveal his long silver hair, and ominous gold eyes. He smiled with the warmness of an old man, though he looked young, and said, "Welcome, all, welcome. You are all wondering why you are here or why you were given the choice to come here. Well, it is simple, you have all been chosen to partake in a rare opportunity."
Before he could continue, he was interrupted by a barrage of questions and hands being raised into the air, Elizabeth's included. Then, a young man with a mullet strummed a few string from his sitar and produced a loud, ear-piercing noise that forced them all to cover their ears with their hands. This noise didn't have much of an affect on the cloaked figures as the silver haired man said, "Thank you Demyx."
"I was happy to do it boss man." The man known as Demyx replied.
"A very rare contribution from a complete bozo." A blond haired woman said. She had parts of her hair that pointed back and reminded Elizabeth of a bug, and her emerald eyes were less than inviting.
"Shut it, Larxene. At least my music is better than your silly little knives." Demyx replied to her.
A younger man with pale bluish hair covering one eye, looked up from a large book that he was reading, and said, "Can we not fight. After all, the new recruits are here, and I prefer to wait until Xemnas finished his speech."
"Thank you, Zexion. Now where was I?" the leader, known as Xemnas asked.
"Ah, yes. The opportunity that you have all been given is to join our group known as Organization XIII. There is but one way to do so though. Not all of you will be joining this organization. For the next fourteen months, you will be learning how to use weapons, elements, and how to be a member, but at the same time, you all will compete with each other to become a member." Xemnas said.
There were gasps all around the room as they children looked at each other, some to size their competition, and others sad at the fact that they will have to fight their friends. Elizabeth found no one that she knew in the crowd of children, and it kinda saddened her, but before she could dwell on these thoughts, a man with longer pale hair, and an X-shaped scare on his face rose and said, "If you will now follow your recruiter, you will all be lead to your rooms to get some rest and to answer some questions."
In seconds, all the members jumped from their thrones and landed before the children, each one going to a specific member. Elizabeth found Axel, and ran to him with some minor fear as to what they were all about to do. Then, everyone took their recruiter by the hand and were teleported to their own rooms that were as white as the throne room they were inside previously.
Elizabeth was in her small room that looked out to a strange moon that was in the shape of a heart, and saw that it was comfortable for her, and there was a black cloak that was resting on her bed, and a pair of boots, and gloves.
"Put them on, I'll be in outside waiting." Axel said as he exited the room.
In a few minutes, she had put on her cloak and boots and looked herself over in the mirror. She was surprised at how nicely it fit her. Then she looked to the door and said, "Okay, I'm ready."
He reentered the room and looked at Elizabeth, and smiled a little before saying, "Good. Now we have to get on to your weapon choosing."
"My what?" She asked.
"Well, naturally, you must have a weapon, so you must decide on what weapon you will have." Axel explained as he produced a paper that had a list of weapons that were in inventory.
There was a staff that caught her eye, and she asked, "Can I get this?" and pointed to it on the list.
Axel gave a small chuckle and nodded before taking notes on another piece of paper.
"Good. Now, you must decide on your element type, to do this, you must look deep inside of yourself, and feel it." Axel instructed.
Elizabeth tilted her head in confusion before closing her eyes and trying to relax. She tried and tried and found that nothing happened. She had no idea as to what was her element, and it didn't help that Axel was taking note of that as well.
"Sorry..." she said with disappointment in her voice.
"It's all right, not everyone finds out their element right away. But you better hope you find out soon. Because there are some who won't ever find their element, and it is those who have a slim chance of passing." Axel explained.
Elizabeth gulped and nodded in understanding, she wanted to at least put some effort into this. Then, Axel took out a schedule and handed it to her.
"Every month, you will move on to a new mentor. You'll start with Zexion this month and be with him for three weeks, learning what ever it is he will teach you. Then you'll have a week of break to spend time by yourself, or your recruiter. You get to your mentor at nine in the morning and all is over at five in the afternoon. Got it memorized?" Axel said with some mild enthusiasm.
Elizabeth comprehended only half of what Axel had said, "Um...yeah. I got it...hehehe..."
Axel chuckled a little before pointing to the paper and saying, "If you don't, it's all written on that. It's your schedule for the next fourteen months..."
Elizabeth interjected with a question, "Um, I've been meaning to ask, if this is called Organization XIII, why are there fourteen of you?"
Axel crossed his arms in frustration as he thought about this before saying, "that is really none of your concerns."
"You have no idea, do you?" Elizabeth asked.
"Nope." Axel said before laughing and asking, "What's your name?"
"My name is Eli..." She began before coughing a little from no where.
Axel took the notes then made letters appear in the air, let them twirl and through an X in it to make them stop. The letters formed Xeli.
"Welcome the recruiting program, Xeli. I wish you the best of luck." Axel said before closing the notebook and turning towards the door.
"Um...Axel? What now?" Xeli asked.
"Now? Well, now, you rest and mentally prepare yourself for the next three weeks of learning form Zexion." He said before exiting the room and leaving Xeli to her thoughts.
Xeli looked at her bed, then laid on it. She smiled at how comfortable it was, and began to get curled up under the sheets. Tomorrow will begin her new adventure, and what made it even better was that she was in the Organization. Or, at least she hoped she would be. Under her new name, and in her new bed, Xeli slept with running thoughts of what she had to look forward to.
Author's Note: The following story is based on a fantasy that my friend an I created of her and Axel. She has been turned into an OC with a changed name known as Elizabeth. I hope you enjoyed the story, and please read and review.