Note from the author: My only reason for posting fan fiction is so that readers might be entertained by them, nothing more. Please enjoy.
Chapter I: Project Keybearer
The figure raised its head, standing erect on the horizon like a black shadow. Flies flickered around its metallic feet but remained unconcerned, as if it weren't even there. They hummed around their plentiful meal, unaware of the gravity of the picture that surrounded them. The shadow remained proud, tall, and towered over its conquest with sinister metal eyes.
The sea of corpses was festering. The figure turned its smooth head slowly, surveying the scene with stiff indifference. If it had a working mouth, it would be smirking with ignoble triumph at the success of the battle. Instead, it was content to stand as the tallest object, impervious to the smell of rotting flesh.
There was no one alive for miles.
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Ansem the Wise stared back at the boy with mute surprise. The day outside was bleak and grey, though the lab had no windows and was instead lit by faded neon lights stretching across the walls. For all intents and purposes, there was no day or night in the mansion's basement. The dark atmosphere complimented his mood perfectly, and Ansem's disappointment was illustrated unambiguously in his tone.
"You yourself know that--"
"But Ansem!" the boy interrupted, intent fervor reflected in his eyes. "I really think you should consider the points I've made! Also, if I can show you again what I meant on page three…" Sora enthusiastically flipped through the pages he was clutching, grinning with uncontained confidence. Ansem stilled the pages with his hand and shook his head sourly at the boyish and hopeful face that looked back so eagerly; the boy hung on his every word.
"I don't care for your unorganized attempts at persuasion; you cannot fight on the front lines. I won't allow it, and the reasons have been made more than clear, Keybearer." Sora shrunk back slightly at Ansem's rigid expression, glancing sideways uneasily towards the computers.
"But--" Sora was interrupted as the door to the lab slid open. A girl with dark red hair trotted in, her body covered in a white lab coat and red goggles loosely hanging around her neck. Glancing up, she flaunted a toothy smile at Sora, but it wavered as it went unreturned.
"Hello Ansem, Sora," she said cheerfully, laying a file down next to the computer. Her steps were upbeat and lively, her heals clacking like pebbles; something that Sora always found reassuring. He looked to Ansem expectantly, but the man had already turned to flip absentmindedly through some notes scattered across his desk.
"His name isn't Sora, Miss Hime. His official name is Project Keybearer, how many times must I tell you?"
The girl and Sora ignored him. "Hi, Kairi," Sora replied, finally smiling back at her with his usual goofy grin. "Where's Riku?"
"Oh, he's helping George and Donald with Mickey." She sat down next to him, uneasy at Sora's dour expression but smiling anyway. She put a hand on his shoulder and leaned back to look over at Ansem, giggling as she anticipated the routine reply.
"Stop calling it that," said Ansem from his desk, his voice monotone as though he replied out of dreary routine. "I hope that you'll come to your senses and stop with those childish and superfluous pet names."
"Come on, don't you at least think the name Sora fits the guy better than 'Keybearer'?" said a tall, handsome figure standing in the doorway, wearing the same clothes as Kairi.
"Riku!" Kairi and Sora both exclaimed, greeting him with eager faces. Sora grinned, absentmindedly handing the papers to Kairi and marching over. They were crumpled at the edges from his unconscious fidgeting, and Kairi fingered the wrinkles as she thumbed through.
"I guess Donald and George don't need your help after all. How's Mickey coming along?" Sora asked Riku. They both held their laughter as Ansem sighed again in annoyance.
"He's progressing faster than you did, Sora, though you have always been slower." Riku smiled, messing Sora's hair affectionately as the other boy scowled. "Hey, what're you reading there?" Riku asked, leaning over and looking at Kairi. Sora turned around quickly and bit his lip when he saw her skimming through his papers solemnly.
He briskly strode over, expecting her to relinquish them into his outstretched hand; she waited until she had skimmed through the last paragraph. He took them quickly from her, laughing nervously while Riku watched them, puzzled.
"Don't worry about that thing, Kairi. Ansem turned it down anyway." Kairi looked up at him, and Sora swallowed anxiously under her gaze.
"There's no need to pay that document any mind. Project Keybearer was just trying to convince me, yet again, to send him to the front lines to fight with the regular soldiers. Of course I refused, as always," Ansem said apathetically from his desk, still looking fixedly at his notes. Riku knit his brow, glancing over to Sora who was fidgeting with the papers and smiling nervously. Despite his earlier reassurances, both Riku and Kairi knew better.
They had been aware for a while that Sora was increasingly desperate for human interaction, and they were growing disconcerted. In his earlier stages of artificial cognitive social development, he had been so pained at the dreary pall that saturated the basement laboratory that he had thrown a tantrum. Half of the computers and a wall were completely destroyed by the time he had finished. Ansem had finally settled his pride and allowed Sora to meander through most of the floors of his mansion. As he had predicted, Sora began to notice the vibrant life that surrounded the mansion, and the boy's desperation grew as the walls containing him became the established limits to his world.
Once he was allowed to fight, Sora's pent up anxieties had an adequate release. Still, being encircled by nothing but hostile metal puppets tugged at the urge inside of him, the urge for civilized contact beyond test tubes and circuits and robots.
It pained Ansem's assistants that Sora had developed from a stable, placid experiment to a warm-faced boy, and they lacked the expert training to deal with the latter. Riku had often commented, when Kairi or Donald were particularly fatigued by a project or report that was due, that people were much harder to control than experiments. The weight of the saying intensified as their work with Sora grew more intimate.
The saddest truth of their relationship with Sora, the one that was hardest to face, was that Ansem the Wise always knew best. He was perfectly right that Sora was far too valuable to fight on the front lines and that the chaos of fighting with humans would lead to immeasurable amounts of problems for both Sora and the people he wanted to protect.
He was the only mechanical being they had on their side, after all.
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Donald and George were almost complete contrasts, but their partnership still managed to function with few kinks. George was tall and lanky, with a rural southern accent and a hardly scientific appearance. Donald was a short, angry man with a pink face and a viciously raspy voice that was unintelligible to anyone who hadn't had time to grow accustomed.
"Don't touch that!" the squat man squawked, grabbing the wrench fiercely out of Riku's hand and waving it threateningly. Riku sighed, smiling a little at Donald's temper. The man was prone to unnecessary outbursts of frustration, and watching him waddle away each time was like observing a fuming duck try to storm off on dry land.
"Gwarsh, Donald. Could you help me with these connections?" George asked, rubbing his head quizzically. George hardly appeared to be the scientific type, but his penchant at physics was the most genius among the four mechanics and scientists. It certainly didn't show in his buck toothed grin.
Riku stood silent, watching the two mess with the giant metal egg that was Project King. They were remarkably dedicated, treating their work like an art form rather than engineering. That was one of the traits Riku admired most about them, aside from the humorous duo they made.
He watched them silently for a few minutes, finally becoming comfortable enough to voice his question. "What do you guys…?" Riku started, shifting his weight, "…think of Project Keybearer? When it comes to how it fights, or how it functions…"
George and Donald seemed indifferent to Riku's question, continuing to stay sternly focused on what they were doing. Riku scoffed a little at being ignored; he had taken the question quite seriously, and was anxious for an answer. After wiping his face with a nearby towel, George rubbed his hands and replied nonchalantly, "Sora's just a good kid, Riku. A good kid."
Riku was taken aback at how simple the answer was.
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The voices sounded like old speakers, their vibrations echoing through a wired cage and coming out in scratchy pieces.
"We won't hesitate, then, if that's what you wish. Hopefully this won't be another hackneyed strategy and reinforcements won't be needed, unlike our previous failure."
"If some of us weren't so craven when it came to controlling those on the front lines…"
"Their forces were unpredictably strong. Project Keybearer's sabotage of our weapons in the west field…what choice did we have but to be apprehensive?"
"It's all in the past now, IV, no need to be defensive. What are you, a human?"
Among the more sentient robots, referring to any of them as a human or having human qualities was a dire insult, usually followed with a battle that left both the offended and the offender in undistinguishable scattered pieces. Axel had been indulgent with the phrase ever since he witnessed how far most robots would go to defend their honor as artificial creations, and though his snide comments still held weight with the older members, to most it had grown trite.
Vexen scowled with animosity, or at least he would have if he had a face. The humanoid metal robots had smooth and generic heads, distinguished by two eye-like sensors that were placed appropriately where they would be on a human face. They also had metal shielding over their heads; one of the few attributes that varied between them, usually reminiscent of strange, though gravity defying, hair. Originality with these two features, a surprisingly human concept, was still kept by the sentient members as a means of distinguishing themselves from the mindless clones of dusks.
"Number VIII," Vexen started venomously, shamelessly using Axel's rank in the Organization in an attempt to flaunt his authority, "despite your victories towards the southern front, you still have a ways to go before matching the military prowess of the original six. I have yet to acknowledge any genius in you that would give you leave to address me so brashly."
"Let's not get into arguments now, of all times," said a broad shouldered, pastel crimson robot sitting in the eleventh seat. His head was bowed contemplatively; both he and the Superior never faltered in their focus during strategic meetings. Both were prone to losing themselves to silent scheming, drifting into a complex and devious world of their own, while the rest of the robots bickered amongst themselves. For an organization of deadly mechanical men, Marluxia found their disorganization deplorable.
"If you don't mind me interrupting," said number VI, his elbows resting on the table and his hands interwoven, "shouldn't we direct our attention to the implementation of our latest project?"
"Indeed," said the Superior, lifting his head and looking around the table at his subordinates. They quickly silenced under his gaze. "Our losses have been growing as Project Keybearer's skills have improved. The time to counter has come; our project can't wait on the sidelines anymore while our forces take more damage. Axel, I believe number XII assigned you to monitor and calculate its progress."
All eyes, lifeless as they were, shifted to Axel, who calmly took their weight. The other members of the Organization were extremely suspicious of him and his motives, and they had been appalled when informed that another questionable neophyte had assigned him with such a principal task.
Axel let them wait briefly, leaning in his seat and returning their looks coolly. While the rest of the Organization assumed his slight pause was meant to further rile number IV, it was actually due to something entirely different.
Axel was contemplating something that even the new members would find outlandish coming from such a vexing character.
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