Legacy

C01

Location: OATS (Operations and Tactical Support) Room 3, DiZA
Time: November 15th, 10:55 PM

"What are you doing?"

Naminé's eyes remain trained on the monitors while she's speaking. From the corner of her eye, she catches a glimpse of the young, unnamed operator at the back of the room, mere steps away from the door. He turns to respond unabashedly.

"Getting ready to leave. My shift's almost over."

"Your shift is over in…" Naminé glances at her watch, "...five minutes, so you can leave then. A lot could happen."

"Or nothing could happen," the operator returns with a pointed look. "It's fucking 11 PM at night, and I skipped dinner. I'm starving."

"Well, maybe pack a snack next time," Naminé suggests primly, returning her attention to the radar on the central monitor. Despite her years training to be and working as an operator, listening to the intermittent beeps in the OATS room always puts her on edge, in anticipation of anything that may happen...

"Hey, look. I literally have like two minutes left. Can I just go? I mean, are you really gonna hold us till the last second?"

The young operator's voice floats in one ear and out the other as Naminé glances at the status of the on call team. All three members of WINNER have a green light next to their names, but only one has consistently checked in with Naminé in the past few hours. She could give them the benefit of the doubt, but maybe it's time for a group wake-up call...

"You know, I've heard about how uptight you were. But I've been in this room for 8 hours, and do you actually think something's gonna pop up last minute? God, I swear - "

"Hey," another voice cuts in, "either shut your trap and sit back down, or we can take this up to Kain."

Naminé spares a glance at the speaker and smiles at Hayner's supportive thumbs up gesture. She's about to voice her appreciation when her ears pick up on a familiar sound.

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP

"That's it!" Naminé exclaims, turning her attention back to the monitors. Instantly, the room bursts with chatter. The unnamed operator groans as he returns to his station. While gesturing at the comms unit in the room, Naminé adjusts her headset and patches through to the on call team.

"WINNER, WINNER, can you hear me? This is Naminé, please report in."

A brief pause and some shuffling noises later, the other end of the line comes to life with a crackle of static.

"Hey - ugh. What's up, Naminé?"

"Sorry Xion," Naminé apologizes. "Nothing confirmed yet, but we've got incoming at 5 mph."

"8 mph now!" Hayner exclaims, and Naminé hastily corrects herself.

"Alright, better safe than sorry," Xion chirps. "Let me wake up the other two...AXEL. ROXAS. GET YOUR LAZY ASSES OUTTA BED."

"...ugh, what the hell's your problem, Xion?" Naminé quickly identifies the speaker as Roxas. "I'm trying to sleep here."

"Yeah, what he said!" a lower voice, Axel's, joins in. "I just managed to block out Roxy's snores!"

"I - what? First, don't call me Roxy, and second, I do not snore!"

"You so do! Want me to record it next time so I have evidence - "

"You guys!" Xion hollers so loud that Naminé winces at her volume. "We're not here to sleep! We're on call, and if you idiots forgot, that means we get our asses moving when Naminé tells us to!"

"...I'm sure there's a 'that's what she said' joke there somewhere."

"AXEL!"

"Yes ma'am! Wait, why am I listening to a girl 5 years younger than me…"

WINNER's voices die out as Naminé returns her focus to the OATS room. While keeping an eye on the target's location, her operators are figuring out its identity and when it'll come in contact with WINNER.

"Maybe it's just deer, or something…" one girl murmurs wistfully.

"Dammit, there was literally 1 minute left on my shift!"

"Naminé totally jinxed it."

Though she knows what they're saying is in no ways on her, Naminé can't help taking the complaints personally. She knows her reputation at school: the uptight OATS lead operator who has no life outside of school and work. And well, she's figured that if work's all she has, she might as well be damn good at it. She worked off her ass to get to where she is today. Determined to quash any other feelings of inadequacy, she quickly tunes into the proceedings before her.

"WINNER en route. Status update?" comes Roxas' voice.

"...still identifying the target," Naminé begins tentatively, "but you're due for contact in 20 minutes."

"So you've got nothing."

Naminé swallows a sarcastic response. Roxas tends towards being extremely snarky without his teammates around to mellow him out.

"Chill," Xion pipes up, "Naminé always lets us know the moment OATS figures things out."

"Well, she better figure things out before we make contact…"

"Is he always so...antsy?" Hayner asks. Naminé glimpses over in his direction, where he's slid off his headset and is shooting her a look.

Naminé makes sure her hand is covering the mic before responding. "Usually...he's worse."

"Worse? He's said like three sentences, and I'm already pissed."

"Status update?"

"Nothing, Roxas!" Naminé hisses lowly, slowly losing her temper as well. "Are you going to ask every ten seconds?"

"Just checking, cause it sounded like you were chatting with someone…"

"I assure you, I am 100% focused right now. You need to trust me so I can do my job."

"Okay, okay. I'm just risking my life out here, that's all."

"Making me repeat myself isn't going to help protect you guys out there."

"Oh-kay," Xion interrupts with a placating voice, "maybe we can hash this out after we get back. For now - "

"Yeah, Roxas," Axel chimes in, "stop flirting with your girlfriend! We've got some Heartless to slaughter!"

"...I'm not flirting, and she's not my girlfriend," Roxas mumbles in a tone that suggests he says this quite often.

"Axel, maybe we shouldn't distract ourselves," Naminé points out. "We're in the middle of a mission."

"Exactly my point, Naminé! You can never let your guard down. Don't listen to what Roxas says, cause he says the same thing to all the girls!"

"Well, except me!" Xion unexpectedly joins in. "Cause I'd kick his ass to tomorrow!"

"Just tomorrow? Weak, Xion."

"To next month!" she amends with Axel's prompting.

"Seriously, Xion," Roxas lets out an exasperated laugh, "you should start kicking Axel's ass."

"Ain't nobody touching dis ass!"

"Is that a challenge?" Xion asks. "You know how I am with challenges."

Namine's attention is caught by the flashing words on one of the monitors. Quickly double-checking with the operators at that station, she clears her throat to interrupt WINNER.

"Confirmed pack about 300 feet north of you guys," Naminé speaks into the mic. "Approximate headcount...about 20."

"Okay!" Axel's voice lowers as he begins to dicuss strategy with the team. "20's pushing it, but we'll start with each their own and regroup if Naminé says there's more. Remember to watch each other's backs, and don't chase'em out too far. Also, Bossman asked us to watch out for abnormal behaviors. Naminé?"

"Sounds good to me."

Roxas snickers. "Hey Xion, wanna - "

"No!" Axel interrupts. "There will be no more of your little contests where you two compete to slay more Heartless. Seriously, guys, we gotta focus on the mission…"

Naminé tunes out the rest of Axel's pep talk, instead focusing on the operators in the room keeping track of the movement of the Heartless. Watching the red dot on the radar, symbolizing the target, steadily approach WINNER's flashing blue dot, Naminé initiates a count down.

"Establishing contact! In three...two...one - "

"I see'em!" Axel exclaims. "Alright, let's act."

In lieu of jocular banter, battle cries and terse commands fill the air. Despite the lack of visual surveillance, auditory cues and radar positioning give Naminé an idea of how the battle is proceeding. The OATS room falls quiet as well, wholly intent on following Naminé's orders. This is war against the Heartless, after all, and one mistake could result in a fatality.

"Xion, behind you!"

"Dammit, Axel, I need some help here!"

"What the hell, Roxas? What part of 'don't chase them out too far' do you not understand - "

"LOOK OUT!"

Naminé holds her breath, listening to the loud shouts coming through her headpiece. She can never help the slight racing of her heart as the battle unfolds. The Heartless have been slaughtering people and encroaching on their world, Land of Departure, for decades before Naminé was even born. For the eighteen years of her entire life, she's only known living in constant fear of the monsters breaching their border defense. She's only known going to school, learning from a young age basic self-defense and how to be the best OATS operator to provide operational and tactical support to field agents.

A blinking number on one of the monitors catches Naminé's eyes. "Watch out for flying debris."

"But there's no indication of increased wind speed in the area," one of the operators in the room thinks aloud.

"...so is there wind or not?" Xion exclaims.

Naminé's eyes drift towards the speaker. Wide-eyed, hair immaculately combed, and most importantly, an unfamiliar face - Naminé concludes she must be a first year in the OATS curriculum.

"You need to watch the surrounding areas," Naminé explains, approaching the speaker and pointing on her map north of where WINNER is fighting. "There's a 32 mph SSW wind here, so it's just a matter of time before it reaches our area of engagement. If you only watch our area's wind speeds, you'll just be letting the team know after the fact."

"O - oh…" the girl mumbles, quieting down. Naminé sighs, wondering if she'd been too strict, but the ongoing action demands her full attention.

Despite her scrutiny, the rest of the mission proceeds without any major surprises. Naminé attributes this largely to the fact that WINNER is one of the oldest and best teams at the academy. Even without her guidance, she figures the team could've mostly taken care of things by themselves. Nonetheless, as lead operator, she pays close attention throughout the entire mission, not about to let anyone (especially not Roxas) call her out for being incompetent or inattentive on the job.

She doesn't realize she's holding her breath until she hears Hayner announce, "We're clear."

"...copy that," Xion mumbles between huffs. "En route to evac point."

"Copy, stay safe," Naminé returns, sliding her headset off her ears. She lets a smile surface and gives herself a pat on the back for another mission accomplished. To the OATS room, she announces, "Good job everyone. Thank you for your hard work."

Her team of operators, mostly fatigued at this hour of the night, weakly parrots some words of gratitude. Most of them, sans the few responsible for WINNER's return, rise to their feet and stretch, ready to head home with the official end of their shift. Naminé detains the female operator who had spoken earlier, dragging her aside to have some privacy.

"I'm sorry about not catching the wind thing," the younger girl quickly apologizes. "I'll pay attention next time."

Naminé waves her hand airily. "That's just experience, you'll get it eventually. I want to talk about the fact that you spoke up against me."

The girl's cheeks redden. "I - I'm sorry, it won't happen again - "

"No, speaking up against lead operator isn't a bad thing. If you think I'm wrong, tell me. Pride or ego isn't important in this room - keeping the field team alive is. But you forgot your mic was on." Naminé taps on the headset around her neck. "And you contradicted what I'd told the team."

"...I'm sorry, I don't follow."

Naminé draws a deep breath. "Okay. Imagine you were them, a field agent out there. You're surrounded by Heartless, fighting for your life, relying on your instinct and OATS team. When you hear two contradicting pieces of information, who do you listen to? The time it takes for you to make that decision could be the difference between life or death." The girl's mouth drops a little as she closely follows Naminé's words. "I don't want to distract the teams out there in any way. We're here to handle the variables for them, not create more. So next time, if you have something to say, you tell me off comms."

"Y - yes ma'am!"

The honorific title gives Naminé pause. Had she been too stern? "I just - this is how I run things," she hurriedly explains. "I try to do what I'd want someone doing for me if I were out there. Anyways, besides that, good job today."

"Thank you, you too," the girl returns, bowing before scurrying out of the room.

Naminé sighs as she sinks into her chair, finally letting the fatigue settle in. Though she's been on call for numerous night shifts before, she doesn't think she'll ever get used to the aberrant hours. With all the adrenaline built up from the mission, she still has a persistent buzz in her head and her thoughts racing in her mind. Trying to focus on taking deep breaths, she slides her headset back on and halfheartedly listens to WINNER's ongoing conversation.

"...and I want ice cream," Xion says.

"It's almost 4 in the morning," Roxas points out. "Where the hell are we gonna get that?"

"I don't care, you owe me ice cream."

"I thought I said no contests!" Axel protests.

" - got eight," Xion continues, "and there's no way you got more than me!"

"...I hate you," Roxas mumbles under his breath.

Listening to their resumed bantering brings a smile to Naminé's face. Things are always better when you have someone else, she supposes. In contrast, when she takes off her headphones, she's greeted with silence sans the constant humming of machinery in the OATS room. The smile slips off her face, and she closes her eyes, trying to forget about the loneliness threatening to consume her.

She's always relied on herself anyways.

Location: Training Simulation Room 5, HBRC
Time: November 15th, 10:55 PM

"Okay guys, let's call it in."

"What?" Sora blinks, processing the high-pitched voice coming through his earpiece while he slashes down another two Heartless. The simulated monsters pixelate and disappear, leaving him standing by himself in the darkening room.

"C'mon, Sora," Riku's voice chimes in. "I wanna grab food."

"Are you going to the cafeteria?" Kairi asks.

"Well, probably. I was just gonna get something to-go."

"Why don't we all eat there? Sitting down to eat is an important part of a healthy diet…"

Sora tunes out the rest of Kairi's ramblings, mainly because he knows it's just her mother hen tendencies getting the best of her. Taking out a few more Heartless, he picks up his pace while heading back to the rendezvous point. Through the corner of his eye, he notices a Heartless closely tailing Kairi. Is he standing too far? Always up for a challenge, he crosses his fingers and aims a long-range Fira.

Fzzz…

Hey, his accuracy's still pretty good.

"So, you watching my back too?"

Startled by the deep voice right behind him, Sora whips his head around so quickly he thinks he's sprained something in his neck. His heart rate gradually slows down when he realizes who it is.

"Don't scare me like that, Riku," Sora complains, resting a hand over his chest. "And stop sneaking up on me."

"What's got you distracted?"

"The past hour of training simulation, that's what," Sora insists, shoving his best friend in the shoulder. While keeping up their lighthearted banter, they reconvene with Kairi at the rendezvous point.

"God, I'm so tired," she complains, bending over to catch her breath. She brushes some dirt off her knees as she sighs. "And I have a ton of bruises again…"

"Get the new guy at the nurse's office to patch you up," Sora suggests with a smirk. "What's his name again? Everyone says he's real hands-on - oww, OWW!"

Kairi effectively ends the conversation by stomping down on his foot, hard. "Let's go," she announces, pressing her hand against the wall. Riku steps forth to mimic her actions.

Meanwhile, Sora is crouched over clutching his foot. Hell, the heels in Kairi's boots are no joke, and - seriously, does she not realize she can cause pain?

"Get up," Kairi murmurs, "before I stomp on your other foot."

"...yes ma'am," he responds, quickly rising to his feet and putting his hand against the wall near theirs. The door glows bright, and when they open their eyes again, they find themselves surrounded by the plain plastered walls of the small simulation room.

Kairi uses her foot to push the door open. "I'm grabbing a late dinner with Selphie. You wanna come, Riku?"

"Hey," Sora cuts in, "what about me?"

"You're not invited," Kairi begins with narrowed eyes. Sora's eyes widen and he gasps dramatically, his hand clutching his chest. "...cause it's your turn to go to monthly check-in, remember?"

Oh, that's right. Sora sighs despondently. "I hope the fries are all soggy and the orange juice is even more sour than usual."

"Wow, Sora, share some love, will you?" Kairi rolls her eyes. "Riku?"

"...I'm actually not that hungry, I'll go to check-in and grab something with Sora later," Riku insists. While Sora cheers at the display of bro solidarity, something feels amiss about the brief pause.

"Well, alright. Good night guys," Kairi announces, heading out of the room before either boy can say much else.

Leaning over, Sora jabs Riku in the ribs. "Eyy. Thanks for being a true bro."

Riku snickers, fistbumping his friend. "Well I owe you one, don't I?"

"Huh? For what?" Sora asks as both of them exit through the door Kairi had stepped out of, entering a room to strip their protective gear. "B - but I mean, right! Totally."

Riku rolls his eyes. "Last week, when you covered for me. With that girl in the lobby."

"Oh, that!" The memory just occurs to Sora. "Seriously. You have all these girls flocking towards you, but you just turn them all down!"

"They're...distracting. They always come and bother me at work."

"And now you're complaining that you're popular? Seriously, man. The only reason girls ever talk to me is to ask about you."

"Well, except Kairi."

"Kairi? Oh, right." Sora laughs. "I don't think she'll ever be interested in you. That would be real awkward, huh?"

Riku sets his armor aside and grabs a towel, heading towards the washroom. "C'mon, let's wash up."

Sora follows, hopping under a showerhead and turning the knob to let hot water pellet down his back. Instantly, he feels all the tension in his muscles being washed away. Forgetting about his foot injury, he puts a little too much weight on one side and ends up whining in pain.

"What's wrong - oh, your foot?" Riku looks over at him. "Speaking of, you're gonna apologize, right?"

"What? To Kairi? Why do I have to apologize? I mean, why'd she get so mad?" Thinking about it gets Sora worked up again. He wants to complain about his foot some more, but his dignity's more than a little snubbed at this point.

"Well, you always mess with her," Riku begins.

"Exactly! Always! Why is she suddenly overreacting now?" Sora shuts the water off and grabs a towel to dry himself. "I joke around with you just as much as I do with her."

Riku opts for silence once more. Both of them grab their spare changes of clothes from their lockers and put them on. While Sora's done in a few minutes, he notices Riku still taking his time looking in the mirror and fixing his bangs.

"I don't think we'll see any of your fangirls today!"

Riku grumbles something under his breath and quickly joins his friend as they head up the stairs. The sight of windows and the outdoors is a welcome change after being stuck in that stuffy simulation room in the basement. As third years with the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee, both Sora and Riku know the place like the back of their hand. Soon enough, they find themselves in the admin wing outside their boss's office. Eager to get this over with, Sora opens the door and barges in without a knock.

Squall doesn't even look up from his computer monitor. "Take a seat, boys," he says calmly, hands flying across the keyboard.

"Take your time!" Sora chirps as he pulls up a chair, Riku following suit. "We're only starving after a one-hour training simulation and wanna grab some food - what?" He turns towards Riku and looks down at the extended elbow jabbing into his side. "Just being honest."

"We're early," Riku points out. "And Captain's busy."

"As we all are," Squall says, looking up and turning his full attention to them. "So. What are you both doing here?"

"Ha! I knew you'd ask!" Sora exclaims.

"We're all supposed to be here, so I thought I'd come," Riku reports.

"So...where's Kairi?" Squall asks.

Sora leans back in his chair, tilting it so it's balancing on its two hind legs. "Do you really want an excuse? 'Sorry, she's with the nurse getting patched up - '"

"Never mind, I've heard millions by this point. Besides, half of your team coming to check-in certainly isn't the strangest thing I've seen this week." Squall pulls out a thicck manila folder. "Everyone gets pretty creative during the holiday season, huh?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, nor why the statue of General Yen Sid is bright green."

"...I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. A lot of benefit," Squall mumbles, opening up their team's folder and flipping through the documents aside. "Well, Paopu's doing good as usual. Above average simulation scores, good patrol reports, and no missions while you guys were on call this week - lucky."

"Do teams ever go on missions while they're on call?" Riku asks.

"Rarely. I think we had one last month?" Squall shrugs. "It was a false alarm though, just some rabbits. Hollow Bastion doesn't get that many attacks, and our defense system keeps out most unwanted intruders. Consider it a blessing."

"Everyday's a blessing, sir," Sora recites one of the committee's mission statements with a casual grin.

"Continuing with practicals...your instructors only had nice things to say, so I won't inflate your egos any further. Good job on individual assessments this week - I beat Tifa's kids, so she's buying pizza for everyone this Friday."

"AW YEAH!" Sora cheers, fistpumping in the air. "From Giorgio's, right? The 14" ones?"

"I'll be sure to let her know," Squall says with a smirk, closing the folder. "That's all I have. Keep up the good work, boys. Any questions?"

"Wanna grab drinks with us?" Sora grins. "The Crooked Slant has half-off beer on tap on Thursdays."

"Since when were we getting drinks?" Riku asks curiously, shooting his friend a look.

"Since now! Squall looks way too stressed, and you need to let loose."

"You always say that," Riku argues.

"That's cause you always need to let loose." Sora chuckles. "So, Squall. You in?"

"Normally I'd be down," Squall begins, "but I'm meeting Cid in a bit. Our radar's had some malfunctions recently, and - ahem. Maybe another time."

"More for me then!" Sora cheers, jumping to his feet. "See you in a bit, Squall! Stop frowning so much, you'll get wrinkles faster!"

"And you're not helping," Squall exclaims, throwing an eraser in his direction. The two boys scramble out of the room just in time to shut the door and block the projectile.

"I'm starting to think," Riku begins, "that you just like annoying the hell out of everyone, regardless if they're a friend or your boss."

"Ya think?" Sora cackles, swinging an arm around Riku's neck. "So. Am I annoying you yet?"

"Your existence is an annoyance, Sora."

"Hey!"

Riku smirks. "I'm gonna need a drink, or ten, to continue hanging around with you."

"Yeah?" Sora cheers giddily. "C'mon. Cheap beer and cute girls await!"

A/N: Whoops. You may be wondering, what is she doing posting another story? Whelp, I've been wanting to write something more IU for the Kingdom Hearts fandom compared to all my highschool!AUs. And I've been itching to write more action-based plots for some time. So, voila! Fun fact: This has bits of inspiration from a wide range of media I've enjoyed in the past few years: anime (Soul Eater), Korean dramas (The King 2 Hearts), and even Naruto fanfiction.

I'm hoping this'll be a fun ride, an engaging read, and good exercise for my writing muscles. Or an epic fail with super staggered updates - I guess we'll see. Please leave a review and let me know what you think!