For as long as he could remember, he had been warm and comfortable, ensconced in an artificial womb. Sometimes he opened his eyes, aware yet not awake, and always saw the same pale green light. It was soothing and relaxing and he would drift off again into unawareness.

Part of him wanted the simple existence to go on forever, but a much larger part was slowly growing restless. This was not what he had been created for. He was not aware enough to consider what he had been created for, but something deep inside kept insisting that he needed to move, needed to act. Needed to go.

But the green light was so seductive that the need was always smothered and he never awoke. Blank awareness occasionally touched the world, but that was all.

Until a special day came.

"Are you SURE this is a good idea?" The nervous Nobody asked his companion. The other, more confident Nobody sighed angrily.

"No. Do you have a better idea? We need something." They were not exactly remnants of Organization 13. Born well after the death of the Organization, they had nonetheless been 'born' in the Land that Never Was. And now they were attempting to raid Maleficent's castle. It wasn't the best strategy for long term survival, but when you got down to it, what did they have to lose? And maybe Organization 13 had left something interesting in the castle. There were certainly enough basements.

They didn't wear the robes of the Organization. That would have been far too identifying. Instead, they wore drab, grey, utilitarian clothing and grey facemasks. It was boring, but given the low profile they were trying to keep boring was probably best.

"Down here." The more confident Nobody picked a direction at random, and they made their way down. "Look for anything out of place."

"This place is a maze." The second Nobody complained. "And what do you mean, out of place?" He sighed and leaned against a wall, against an ornate white symbol set into the white wall. "What-AHHH!" The symbol seemed to sink into the wall and he went with it.

"Hey!" The other Nobody sprang after him. She didn't particularly care about him… she was a Nobody… but even Nobodies don't want to be alone.

The slide they had fallen into seemed to go on forever, but finally dumped them into a room as bright and white as anything else in the castle. But unlike most of it, there was incredibly high tech equipment everywhere. The two Nobodies looked around, amazed by it.

There were computer consoles, strange diagnostics they couldn't understand… and many tubes of clear green liquid. There was nothing in most of them, or odd disturbing things that they didn't want to look too closely at. But one of them had something more.

"A boy?" They both peered at the body in the tube. It was a well shaped boy of perhaps seventeen or eighteen. Maybe, maybe twenty, it was hard to be sure. Soft silver hair floated in the liquid, and as they watched his eyes opened. They were green and unaware. The bolder Nobody walked up to the tube, pressing her hand against it, fascinated. Suddenly the green eyes seemed to focus on her and the boy laid his hand against the glass against hers.

"Hey, what do these do?" Wrapped up in the strangely intimate moment, she didn't react to that… until her feet began to feel warm. Glancing down, she saw that she was standing in a circle inlaid into the floor… and it was glowing.

Suddenly worried, she tried to step away but found her feet were locked firmly to the floor. And she couldn't remove her hand from the glass.

"What have you DONE?" She shrieked at her companion, who started violently and backed away from the console he had been tapping at.

"Nothing- oh shit!" The blue light spread, and she yelped, raising one hand to her head and gripping her braids. Emotions suddenly welled up in her heart, but that wasn't right, she didn't HAVE a heart…

Yes yes yes! Woopah! Free! Free free free! Her breathing speeded up as the joy, the amazement; the pure freedom touched her mind. If it was some kind of delusion she didn't want it to end.

The tube abruptly shattered, and the boy was suddenly holding her hand. His eyes fixed on hers for a moment, green on brown. Then he laughed, and she laughed with him. He vanished in a puff of darkness, but she kept laughing, loving every moment of the mirth.

"Oh man, they're going to notice this!" The other Nobody grabbed her and began pulling her out. "Come on, we got to go!" She giggled helplessly as they ran, enjoying the feeling of movement, the air through her hair. It was all so intoxicating, as if she'd never done any of it before. "What's wrong with you?"

"I feel…" She gasped, laughing. "I feel like I have a heart again!" He shot her a startled look, but she didn't care. She knew, somehow, that the emotions she was feeling weren't hers… they were that boys. But she didn't care. It was beautiful and glorious and she never wanted it to end.

If they had stayed a little longer, they might have looked at the machines more closely and discovered some intriguing things. None of the data was protected. Since they did not, I will relate it to you.

The equipment was stolen from Harmony. It was meant for cloning and was used in the Organizations first attempt to create a Riku replica. They soon learned they had made a mistake. In order to avoid the inconvenient problems with the AI systems from Harmony, they stole equipment that had only very basic programming. That meant they needed to create the full program themselves. Clones require information feeds, or what you end up with is a full grown baby of no use to anyone.

The Chilly Academic did well at creating the basic programming, but Xemnas quickly realized that the whole process was going to take too long. He had underestimated the length of time it would take to grow the clone. It requires two years, minimum… usually closer to three. So the project was abandoned.

But he saw no need to destroy the project. It would, after all, become useful in a year or two. But active work on the information feed was ceased and everything was declassified. The other Nobodies were free to enter anything into the feed they thought the clone should know.

And they did. Subjects ranged from music to odd types of pornography. The cloning machines possess a rudimentary AI and attempted to make sense of the various data and interpret what the people feeding it in wanted.

The result was rather peculiar.

"It's a beach!" Green eyes glittered brightly as they looked over the sand. It was vaguely familiar, but not really. "Ohhhh water!" The shiny water attracted him instantly, and he laughed, dashing into the waves and splashing the water everywhere.

I'm alive I'm free I'm ready to DO STUFF! Laughing, he twirled and began to dance, singing. It was a wordless song of pure joy, because he simply had more energy than he could contain.

"Hey!" He kept dancing, but spotted the two boys on the shore staring at him. One was a brunette in some interesting clothes… and the other was a silvery haired boy who looked just like him. He suddenly stopped dancing and leapt out of the water. "Who are you?" The brunette demanded, but they both paused as they got a good look at him.

"You're my replica… but that can't be, I killed you." Riku and Sora readied their keyblades as the double laughed and shook his head.

"No no no!" He waved his hand as he spoke, grinning. "I'm not that one. I'm the first Riku replica! I just got let out of my cage." He pressed a finger to his bottom lip in mock thoughtfulness. "I needed to come here first. I think I was SUPPOSED to try to kill you." The two prepared themselves for the onslaught… the replica laughed and pointed at them. "But! I don't want to! I want to… boop you!" With lighting swiftness, he dashed in and poked Riku right on the tip of his nose. "Boop!" He leapt back as Riku swung at him. "And now, I think I'm going to go do something else!" The replica vanished in a puff of darkness, leaving the two Keyblade wielders staring.

"…What just happened?" Sora wondered, and Riku could only shrug, bewildered.

"I don't know. I just know that was nothing like me."