Oblivion

Day 1

Yeah...I don't know why I'm writing this, exactly. Consider this a retread of my "Galactic Empire" story, a retread I'm infinitely more satisfied with. Like that story, this one is an AU set in the future. So it's science fiction. This one is more of a story of colonization and stuff, though...and is in fact an effort to retell the story of the Organization's fall as a "first contact" story, my favorite kind of science fiction story. Well, nowhere near as pretentious as that, but...

Oh, and it's a Zemyx.

Much of this (particularly the colony) was inspired by Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves. Go read that book. It's genius.

Oblivion-XIII Report 23-548-LLI--LEVEL 6 CLASSIFIED

Recorded in the Year 382 of the Galactic Government

Zexion Ibelia/Mira-VI, Lt. Jr. Grade, Assistant Junior Sector Attorney, Station District 17 O-XIII

I have watched this world fall. I have seen it crumble, I have seen it destroyed both by folly from within and invaders from without. I have seen the foundations of the colony base we built ourselves--even me, through my own toil and sweat--crumble and rust and fade into oblivion. Truly fitting. We fade, and we leave nothing to show that we are fading.

How is it that we never saw it coming? I out of all of us here should have seen it. But I'll be the first to admit--I had no small part in this world's fall. Could I have prevented it? Well, they say hindsight is twenty-twenty. But at the time, I didn't see the doom that lurked just over the horizon.

The horizon. How I would have loved to see it again--in all of its deep reddish-purple glory, the colors of twilight for a sun that never set. I used to hate it, I remember...but I used to hate everything about this world.

Time has sharpened my memory. I remember how it was at the very beginning, when I was young and ambitious and loathed my exile above all else...

This wouldn't do. No, this...wouldn't...do.

He repeated these words again and again in his head, until they had assumed the formal, choric quality of a mantra and lost all meaning. This wouldn't do. He remained, stunned into inaction, lingering near the exit of the great interstellar transport ship that had carried him across light-years of dead space, until he finally arrived...here.

Here. The word tasted foul in his mouth, and he almost felt his stomach lurch as he tried out it. Here--his new "home". A planet with one-fifth the gravity he was used to, a ragged atmosphere, and no endemic life besides a few forlorn clumps of weed-like plants, and microbes. Standing at the top of the ramp, all his belongings in two suitcases by his side, he almost wanted to run back inside and demand the pilot to--to what? Take him back to civilization? Yes, that'd be a good idea. A very good idea. He halfway considered actually doing it, and made to turn back around and implement his plan, but unbidden a memory rose in his mind--

You can either accept these terms, Counselor, or you can spend the next ten years of your life in Galactic Pen. What will it be?

He knew immediately what it would be. Prison--or permanent exile. He would go with permanent exile any day.

It's better this way, the deep and mocking voice continued in his memories. You won't have a single blot on your record. And I know, Counselor, how much you hate not having an impeccable record...

Squaring his shoulders, sucking in a breath of air that already felt inadequate, not enough to fill his lungs, he took a step forward, into the forlorn landscape before him.

Home.

"Well, hello there," said the man who'd bounded out--aided by the planet's lower gravity--to greet him. "I haven't seen you around...ah! You must be the last-minute addition to the crew, am I right?"

"Yes," said Zexion shortly, folding his arms and fixing the man with as cold a glare as he could summon--while trying not to laugh. The man was tall, and fairly well-built--but sported a shock of flowing pink hair. Not to mention the overbearing scent of flowers following the man around like a dread cloud...which was incongruous with his simple jumpsuit, the same beige, shapeless kind all the colonists wore.

"I've heard about you, but didn't get much of an opportunity to talk to you while in transit," said the man. He had started walking, almost floating, his steps free and easy and carrying him with the grace of a dancer. An irritated Zexion, trying to resist the urge to float, followed him across the foreboding landscape--all hard and jagged dark rock, with a few lonely clumps of leaves dotting the terrain here and there. "I'm Marluxia, leader of the Oblivion-XIII project."

Oblivion-XIII. An all-too-fitting name for this bleak and empty world. Zexion swept a disgusted glance around again, taking in the reddish-purple tint of the sky above, the jumpsuited colonists scrambling back-and-forth in and out of the ship, bearing tools and materials for constructing their new habitat. His lungs burned--the air was thin, and each breath felt like a struggle to get enough oxygen into his system.

"Zexion," said Zexion flatly, deciding that if this "Marluxia" was going to ignore proper greeting procedure, he would too.

"A pleasure to meet you," said Marluxia. They were drawing closer to the scurrying colonists. Marluxia stopped, though continued to float a little bit forward from inertia, and turned to face Zexion. Zexion stopped too, secretly pleased he wouldn't have to waste more of his precious oxygen on walking. He was not pleased when he didn't come to a complete stop but, like Marluxia, drifted across the landscape a little bit before stopping. "Tell me--what is it you do as a living?"

Zexion cringed inside. Obviously, Marluxia was just taking in his thin and pallid appearance...though Zexion himself had to admit he wasn't the most physically fit person in the Galaxy. "I am a lawyer."

"A lawyer?" Marluxia's pink eyebrows rose to meet his similarly-colored hairline. "Really. And what kind of law do you expect to be practicing here on Oblivion-XIII?"

That is a very good question, thought Zexion, disgruntled, but to Marluxia he merely straightened to his full height--which wasn't much--and said, in as cold and formal a voice as possible, "Every colony needs law and order. I do not know much about 'order', but I assure you I am here to provide the 'law' necessary to keep the Oblivion colony functioning."

Marluxia replied with a brief, skeptical laugh. "I doubt you will get many clients."

I doubt it too. But out loud, he said, "Who knows? This colony needs stability--"

"Yes, I agree. Stability is perhaps the singularly most important aspect of a fledgling colony. But as the Galactic Council itself hand-picked every single colonist on this mission, I'm quite certain, Counselor, that the people here are a sturdy, stable, law-abiding bunch. They will not be raising any hell." Marluxia had started walking again, to the point where he'd approached the perimeter of the colonization site, where the rock was harder and smoother and glazed over in a flat expanse the size of a ball field. Several brightly-colored crates littered the edges of the site, and Marluxia pulled the cover off of one, revealing that it was stacked with interlocking triangular panels--used for building the base that the colonists would make home.

Zexion stopped by Marluxia, making sure to catch on the edge of the crate to keep from drifting into the middle of the worksite. He watched, wordlessly, as Marluxia lifted an armful of panels, and then selected a laser screwdriver from another crate. "All the same," he said, answering Marluxia's earlier statement, "you never know. The strains of living in an enclosed space might be enough to unhinge even the most sane of people...and in that case you will need me to intercede in a legal manner, according to Galactic Law."

"Yes," said Marluxia, though he seemed more interested in examining his screwdriver. "You're right, Counselor. Come here--"

Zexion obeyed, though slightly mutinously, and jumped in surprise when Marluxia effortlessly dumped half the panels into his arms. Due to the lower gravity, though, he floated instead of coming back to the ground instantly, and bumped against the edge of the crate. He kept his startled curse to himself, though, and stared down, surprised, at the panels in his arms. His surprise only increased when Marluxia dropped a laser screwdriver into Zexion's arms as well.

"What are you--" he began.

"Counselor, allow me to be frank," said Marluxia, leaning against the crate and fixing Zexion with an intent look. Zexion returned the intent look with a frosty one of his own. "Your services here are...frivolous."

"Excuse me?" Zexion would have taken a step back if it wasn't for the crate that was in his way. Hadn't he just spent the past five minutes explaining to Marluxia why his services were needed? "You must be joking!"

"I am not joking, dear counselor Zexion," said Marluxia, his voice acquiring a condescending quality. "I never joke, as you'll soon find out. And I mean what I just said. Yes, law and order is necessary in a colony--but in the earliest stages at the very least I will provide the law and order. Don't look at me like that. Think, boy! Think about where we are!"

"We are on Oblivion-XIII," growled Zexion, the mutinous feeling growing. The panels and screwdriver in his arms felt heavy, pulling him down like leaden weights.

"But do you know what that means, boy? It means one hundred light years away from the nearest civilization! From the nearest deep space outpost, even! We--we--are all alone here!" said Marluxia, and as he spoke his voice rose to a dramatic shout, and he gestured violently behind him at the working colonists. "There are only two hundred of us, men, women, children, from all walks of life and of all species! But what we have in common is this--we are willing to work. We must work. Every single one of us, no matter our profession, species, age, gender--will work for the greater good of this colony. If we don't, we will all die. Do you understand that?"

Zexion's only response to this was a mute nod--but he was steaming inside, struggling to come up with the words to protest to Marluxia, to explaint that he didn't even want to fucking be here--

Marluxia, however, gave Zexion no opening, but continued to rant. "Just because you are a lawyer, comfortable in your world of antigrav furniture and intantaneous hyperwave communication, does not mean that you are exempt from work! Now, get to work, Counselor. I expect you to be out there, helping us build our colony from the ground up."

With that, Marluxia turned brusquely away and walked--no, half-glided, half-strode--towards the flat field where the other colonists were already busy assembling the triangles and welding them together with their screwdrivers. Zexion stood where he was, numb with shock, for a moment, but then regained his senses and called out after Marluxia.

"Wait!"

Marluxia turned around and cast Zexion a look that was half-disinterested, half-pitying. For some reason, Zexion's rage only grew.

"Make it quick," he said. "I've got work to do and so do you, Counselor."

Zexion mentally grit his teeth, thinking with no small trace of sourness that if he had his way, the "work" he'd be doing would involve him sitting behind a desk or in a prosecutor's box, not assembling bases with a screwdriver like a common laborer. "You don't--you don't understand. I don't even want to be here!"

Perhaps Zexion was just imagining it, but he thought--thought--that for the briefest moments Marluxia's eyes widened, and the pity became even more pronounced on his face. Then he said, his voice quiet, but floating strangely loud across the desolate landscape:

"I"m terribly sorry, butlike it or not, this is your home now."

Marluxia didn't cast a single backwards glance at Zexion, but moved, in his strangely graceful way, across the flat field, to join a group of colonists busy linking triangles together to form the base's walls. Zexion remained stubbornly where he was, still clutching the panels in his arms, glaring holes in Marluxia's back, but then, with a heavy sigh--sucking in as much of the thin air as his lungs could swallow--he pushed away from the crate and moved after Marluxia, to take his place with the rest of the working colonists.

His life on Oblivion-XIII, he thought grimly, was going to be even worse than he had imagined.

He had no idea how he had even survived it.

Zexion leaned against a particularly large black rock, on the opposite end of the field, greedily gulping huge breaths of Oblivion-XIII's thin air. Despite the chilly weather, he was sticky with sweat, plastering his clothes to his skin and his hair to his face. He was quite certain that every single muscle in his body was burning.

Technically, Zexion knew his "shift" wasn't over and wouldn't be in an hour. But he had had enough of the taxing labor of trying to align and weld triangles in low gravity and low oyxgen, and finally just snuck off to skulk behind the rock and regain his breath. He was sure Marluxia wouldn't miss him...

By this time, the lawyer had a newfound respect for all laborers. How could any of them stand it? He'd barely survived an hour and a half of work and yet there were those who made their living constructing buildings and hauling goods all day long...though admittedly not in as hostile conditions as this. And besides, robots were rapidly making laborers obsolete. Zexion sourly wondered why the colonists hadn't bothered bringing a construction robot or two. Well, they did have one but it was horribly old and worked at a slower rate than Zexion, even. The technician had explained to Zexion that the robot wasn't adapted to Oblivion-XIII's gravity.

Zexion wasn't either, and doubted he ever would be.

Just as he was contemplating--yet again--asking the spaceship pilot to take him back to civilization, a sudden scent wafted in his direction. Not an unpleasant one, but a startling one--smelling faintly of sea salt and a gentle ocean breeze. Zexion whirled around so fast his neck cracked, to face the source of the scent.

"Hey there," said a young blonde young man in a colonist's jumpsuit, heading across the rough rocks to where Zexion hid behind his larger rock. Unlike Marluxia, this stranger's motions were hardly graceful--each leap sent him flying higher in the air, and sometimes he pinwheeled his arms in a hopeless effort to regain balance and return to the ground. He resembled a fledgling bird trying--and failing--to fly.

"Who are you?" said Zexion, feigning disinterest. It wasn't hard.

"I'm Demyx," said the young man, smiling cheerfully even as he slid to an ungraceful stop several yards past Zexion. "Son of Loran, of Aersu."

Aersu? What kind of idiot would move from the Center to--here?

Zexion automatically knew the answer, and he heard it in a certain person's slow, deep, and sadistically confident voice: An idiot like you, Counselor.

"Zexion," said Zexion flatly, remembering common courtesy.

"I didn't see you aboard the ship," said Demyx, frowning and tilting his head to examine Zexion more closely. "But I guess that doesn't matter. Say, why aren't you working?"

"Because I've had my fill of working for today, thanks," said Zexion, turning away from Demyx and gazing at the distant horizon. It wasn't an inviting sight--just miles of jagged dark rocks and a deep reddish-purple sky. Three moons peeped from the sky, like the eyes of some mutant creature.

"Marly wouldn't like that," said Demyx, though he didn't sound upset--in fact, he sounded almost approving.

"I do not care what Marluxia likes or does not like," said Zexion bitingly. "He is not my leader."

"Don't be like that. You're a part of this colony too--"

How many "for the good of the colony" speeches was he going to have to listen to today? "I am not. I'm not here by my free will--and anyway, I came here as a lawyer, not a...a manual laborer."

"I didn't come here as a laborer either," said Demyx. There was no trace of an accusation in his words--just his typical bright cheerfulness. Zexion cast a sidelong glance at Demyx, who had sidled up next to him. Zexion quickly took a step in the opposite direction, and accidentally drifted a little farther than he'd wanted to.

"What did you come here to do?" he said. Mostly to keep making small talk--it wasn't as if he cared what this loser from Aersu wanted.

"I'm a musician," said Demyx with a faint, almost embarrassed, laugh, and he turned to face the horizon--like Zexion was. "I came here because I wanted to reignite my muse."

"What?" Despite himself, Zexion's jaw dropped and he gaped open-mouthed at Demyx. "What the hell--what the hell kind of reason is that, to abandon everything you have and move a hundred light years away from the nearest civilization?"

"I know...I know. My family was mad." Demyx shrugged, though, as if he didn't much care what his family thought. "But I--I had to. I felt like...if I could be at the edge, and experience everything, and...oh, hell, I don't know. It would be--it'd just be great. I could be a part of this! I could go back to the Center and tell everyone, guess what, I was one of the guys there at Oblivion..."

What an idiot. So this Demyx was apparently an untalented musician with hopelessly grand dreams and pretensions of glory. He'd come to Oblivion-XIII for, Zexion had to admit, an even stupider reason than Zexion had. Stupid because it was entirely voluntary. This idiot--

"You're not doing much of your part to make history," said Zexion, frowning at Demyx through half-closed eyes. "Why aren't you with them, working?"

"Because--hell, I got tired." This was true. Demyx seemed to be as sweat-soaked and red-faced as Zexion was. "And the real adventure hasn't even started."

"This isn't an adventure," snapped Zexion.

"What is it, then?" said Demyx. He was grinning hugely and didn't seem bothered at all about Zexion's insulting tone. Which either meant he was thick-skinned or stupid. Zexion elected to go with the latter.

"It's hell," snarled Zexion, and turned back to the horizon. Again, he saw nothing besides the hideous color of the atmosphere, and the mocking stare of the three moons. Disgusted, he turned around again and glared, this time, at Demyx.

Demyx didn't even look fazed at Zexion's statement. He just continued standing there, smiling. Against the dim light from the three moons, Demyx's blonde hair shone like a beacon. When he spoke, though, the rapt tone had dropped out of his voice, replaced by a low sympathy. "Wow. You feel strongly about this place, huh?"

"I do." Zexion turned away from Demyx, and started back in the direction of the base, as much as he didn't want to return. After all, it meant more panels to assemble and more laser screwdrivers to burn himself with--but somehow he found it infinitely preferable to talking with this smiling blonde idiot who'd given up everything he had just for a pathetic lick of glory. Zexion wasn't sure whether to pity Demyx, or hate him.

He decided on hate, because it was easier for him to do.

"Aww, come on!" Demyx, much to Zexion's annoyance, Demyx joined Zexion, matching Zexion's awkward strides--more like pitiful attempts to avoid floating. Demyx, unlike Zexion, didn't seem to mind the lower gravity, and was now almost bouncing again. "You sound like you've got a hell of a story."

"A story you'll never know," said Zexion, stepping aside to avoid a hole he hadn't seen until that moment. Because he was unused to the gravity, though, the motion caused him to skid wildly to the side. He windmilled his arms in a mad effort to regain balance, but it was a useless effort and he was almost about to crash into a particularly large--and nasty-looking--rock a few yards to his right--

A sudden, strong grip around his arm jerked him to a sharp stop. Zexion managed at the last minute to suppress a curse, just as he bumped against his savior--Demyx. Who was still holding tightly to his arm.

"Hey, you okay? Be careful," said Demyx, gazing at Zexion with real concern shining in his sea-blue eyes. This only managed to make Zexion angrier.

"Shut up! I'm fine," he snarled, trying unsuccessfully to yank his arm from Demyx's--surprisngly strong--grip. Demyx, however, seemed unwilling to release Zexion's arm even though Zexion was in no danger of impaling himself on a rock any longer. "I just lost my balance."

"Okay, okay," said Demyx, and he pulled away from Zexion, sticking both hands in his jumpsuit pockets as if showing Zexion that he wouldn't be touching him anymore. Zexion threw Demyx as dirty a look as he could summon, and then turned back around and focused on putting one foot in front of the other, watching where he was going and intent on returning to the rest of the colonists...

"It just--I mean--why would a lawyer come all the way out here?" For a moment, Zexion had no idea what Demyx was talking about--but then realized that the singer was still obstinately pursuing the topic of why Zexion had decided to come to Oblivion-XIII in the first place. Well, wasn't the answer to that obvious...

Not that Demyx would ever know the answer.

"It has nothing to do with you," said Zexion coldly. He'd arrived at the perimeter of the field, and noticed, much to his displeasure, that several of the colonists had dropped what they were doing and were staring, owl-eyed, at his and Demyx's direction. He folded his arms as he approached, even though this made it harder for him to keep his balance. Still, it presented a more imposing image, or so he liked to think.

"Where were you?" said Marluxia, effortlessly gliding across the surface to intercept Zexion. "I don't believe your shift is over, Counselor."

Zexion found that he had no energy to argue with Marluxia. He merely fixed the pink-haired man with the best scowl he could summon, before storming off--as much as the gravity would allow--to where he'd been previously struggling to straighten up a few panels. Much to his surprised pleasure, he found that they'd already been finished. Well, small favors...

Still, there were more panels to weld, more rooms to build. Zexion sighed and ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair--and for the first time began to regret the choice he'd ultimately accepted. With the gift of hindsight, he would have to admit...

Ten years of Galactic Pen were looking like an increasingly attractive alternative to this.

If you read this, please send commentary this way. I'm hoping this is better than my previous KH-scifi efforts. I'm doing my hardest to keep everyone in character, and...yeah. Comment!

Updates will be sporadic, because I'm focusing more on my serious fiction at the moment. Not to mention school.