AN/ Welcome to the first chapter of Nothing's Fair! For those of you potentially a little confused: yes, this is a rewrite of a story that was posted on this site like three years ago, in 2012. The original has been taken down, and if you really wish to read it, for some strange reason, a link to where it's hosted on a separate site is on my profile.

"Why did I rewrite Nothing's Fair?" well, 1) it was the primary source of continuity errors within the FtPverse series (concerning the Rebellion, the Experiments, etc), and 2) I felt I could do the story much more justice with my current writing abilities.

As for timing: This actually begins during Falling to Pieces. Further timing details will, eventually, be put on the timeline on the FtPverse blogspot. And for old fans of the series, keep in mind that the Rebellion isn't in full swing yet. Strange feeling, huh?

Anyway, finally, I hope you enjoy.

Chapter 1

"It's a failure."

7 didn't look up. His eyes remained fixed on the cot, on which the new Replica lay. The sigh left his mouth unbidden, and he bit his lip to prevent another, hoping to mask his devastation. He'd known that building a Replica like this—deleting more than half the source data—was risky business, but they hadn't had another choice. They needed a Replica of Sora, and more importantly, a Replica that wouldn't struggle with the darkness like Sora himself was.

It wasn't even the darkness that was the problem. A Replica could wield darkness with no problem, provided the Darkness Protection Protocols were installed. The problem with the darkness in Sora's data lay in its amount. Too little to be wielded properly. Too much to leave alone. Their only option was to remove the darkness, and, unfortunately, a lot of Sora's data with it.

7 cleared his throat. "I… I wouldn't go as far as to say failure, 37," he said.

His eyes trailed over the new Replica one more time. The Replica had taken the form of a girl with dark skin and darker hair. 7 wasn't quite sure how or why, besides perhaps the fact they'd cut out so much data that the default appearance for this new Replica wasn't Sora's. She—the new Replica—almost reminded 7 of that one friend Sora had… Kairi, was her name? The new Replica looked a little like Kairi.

"A mistake, then," 37 said. It was the contempt in his voice that made 7 look up.

"Xemnas wanted a Keyblade wielder," 7 said, with a shrug. "And if—"

"Yes, Lord Xemnas did want a Keyblade wielder," 26 broke in. "But look at this data, 7, look!" He gestured at the computer monitor that hung over the cot, the one that 7 had been avoiding looking at. "That's hardly sufficient for any Replica to run on, and you should know that."

7 glared at 26—he didn't glance at the monitor for more than a second. It would only dissuade him—not appreciating the interruption. If 26 had just let him finish…

"Why are you even here, 7?" 37 demanded. "Isn't this out of your jurisdiction? Since when do you create Replicas?"

7 took a deep breath. Anger would not help him here, not if he wanted to be listened to. When he spoke, he spoke very slowly. It was, in part, to make sure that he was heard, but also to be sure he could rein his emotions.

"I am a Medic. I am here to fix anything that goes wrong, such as this."

26 shook his head, angrily. "There is nothing to salvage, 7. We put in too little data. It'll be faster to just start a new Replica—we'll have to deactivate this one."

He turned his attention to the monitor in front of him. He and 37 both had one, so they could work on the Replica concurrently, and double check each other's work. Had this been mere months ago, Master Vexen would be standing at one of those computers. But Master Vexen was dead. The boy Riku had killed him, along with Zexion, Marluxia, and Larxene. Now Saix had the Program, and things were… uneasy, at best.

7 rubbed his head with a hand, pushing the thoughts out of his mind. He tried not to be too upset about Master Vexen's death, though it was hard. Death was always hard, being a Medic. You were built to keep Replicas alive. Master Vexen was no Replica, of course, but it still hadn't been easy.

And as for Riku, well… I will reserve judgment about him until I meet him… 7 thought. Master Vexen was our only real loss when he cut through Castle Oblivion, and I suppose, in building Namine, we had it coming.

He also supposed that having been in the World that Never Was at the time, he had a completely different perspective on the matter than anyone who'd been in Castle Oblivion. But back to the matter at hand. Back to the girl lying on the cot before him.

He was a Medic, he was built to fix things. He was built to repair flaws in data like this.

"If you give me some time…" he began.

26 just shook his head again. "Lord Xemnas wants a Keyblade Wielder now, 7. We don't have three months for you to fuss over this. We need to start over."

"Can we at least keep her alive?" 7 asked, very slowly, very calmly. He wouldn't argue with 26. 26 was right. It would be faster to start from scratch at this point. But it seemed cruel just to deactivate this girl, and if he had a little time… maybe he could work something out.

"And then what do we do with it?" 37 demanded. 7 cringed at his use of the word it. "Unless you want to take care of it and shirk all your duties, 7, this Replica is more effort than its worth. 26 is right. We have to deactivate it."

"And if I'm prepared to look after her?" 7 asked.

"Look, 7, I know it's not easy for you," 26 said, gently. Well, perhaps gently wasn't the best way to put it, but he spoke calmly, and was certainly kinder than he'd been before, and much kinder than 37. "I hate seeing all this work go down the drain as much as you do, but I do not really think either of us want to deal with Xemnas when he discovers we have failed him, and are not already working to fix it."

7 grit his teeth. He could point out that as long as they started working on a new Replica right away, it wouldn't matter what they did with the girl—but at this point, he doubted it would convince them. That was alright, though. There were other ways he could save her.

"Can I have a day? To look over the data, and to see if I can come up with anything?"

37 laughed. "And say you do come up with something! What then? We still have to wait for you to—"

"Oh, let him have a day," 26 waved 37's protests aside. "I need to look through Sora's data anyway, to see what I can possibly include from it that won't cause problems."

"Thank you," 7 said.

26 said nothing. He considered the computer in front of him for a long moment, then pulled away from it. When he turned his attention to 7, his expression was dark. "Once the day is up, though…" he said. "And if you have not come up with anything, you will have to deactivate her yourself. If I find she hasn't been, I will march you straight to Lord Xemnas and tell him how you have failed him."

7 cringed. The punishment was harsh, but… It would not matter, when the day was through. It would not matter. He nodded his head in agreement, and 26 and 37 left him.

xxx

Awake. She'd never been awake before. It was interesting, to say the least, though amazing might have been a better word for it. She wasn't just awake, she was alive, and there were so many new things to take in. The white walls that surrounded her. The feel of a cot against her back, of the clothes on her skin, of the hand clamped over her mouth. Few sounds. An awful smell—

Wait a minute.

She jolted and reached up to grab at the hand, defensive instincts—she didn't even know she had those!—kicking in. The hand was removed quickly, though, followed by a voice. A kind voice, though frantic and hushed.

"No no no no! I'm sorry! I'm sorry calm down, please. That wasn't the best idea I'll admit, in hindsight. I just need you to be very, very quiet."

The voice belonged to a Vexen Replica. She wasn't sure how she knew that he was a Vexen, but she supposed it made things easier.

"Who are you?" she asked, sitting up. "What's going on?"

"I am 7, and, as for what's going on… Well… To make a long story short—and I promise I will tell you everything else later, once you're safe—I'm smuggling you out of here."

"What?! Why?"

Smuggling. It took her a moment to put a definition to the word, but once she had, everything made even less sense. Why would she need to be smuggled anywhere?

The question seemed to make 7 uncomfortable, but he didn't hesitate to answer. "Because there are two other Vexens who think you should be deactivated."

Deactivated! That helped even less!

"Why? Is there something wrong with me?"

First 7 looked pained, then his expression softened quite drastically. "When you are safe. I will tell you when you are safe." He reached up to the comset on his ear. "R? Are we good to go?"

"You never told me where you were heading."

The voice came from the comset—a woman's voice, that sounded more amused than anything else. It wasn't very loud, and it was a little distorted by static, but it came through clear enough. The only surprise was that she could hear it, when it was on 7's ear, and not her own.

"I don't know!" 7 replied. "Somewhere out of the way."

"No one goes to the basements."

"Basements, then—anywhere in particular clearer than the rest?"

"It will take me too long to check every room, 7, and you know it."

"You know what, never mind, I have a better idea."

She listened intently, trying to make more sense of what was going on. She was being smuggled. She apparently should be deactivated. They were heading somewhere out of the way—those were the facts. And 7 and this R apparently knew each other, though she wasn't sure how.

7 formed a dark corridor. "Alright, come on," he said, nodding towards it and then stepping through. She hesitated a moment, then decided deactivation was not a fate she really wanted to face. She followed.

"This was your better idea?" R was asking when she stepped out onto the other side of the dark corridor. It had to be R. The voice was the same. R was a Larxene.

7 waved her accusation off. "Well, this way, I can look and see which—"

He stopped after a step towards R's computer. The look R gave him was murderous, and she moved as if to shield the computer from him. He let out a long sigh.

"Uhm? 7? Do I get a name?"

"You didn't name her?" R asked. The murderous look had fallen from her face the moment 7 stopped looking at her computer, and now she just seemed amused again.

"I… I hadn't gotten to it," 7 said. "How does… Xion sound?"

"I get a say?"

That was a surprise, really. If she'd known she had a say in what her name would be, she wouldn't have asked. She would've just declared a name for herself. Not that she could think of a name…

7 smiled broadly at her. "I don't see why you shouldn't! It doesn't have to be Xion, of course, it was just a suggestion…"

"No, I think… I think I like the sound of Xion."

She said the name—her name—slowly, testing how it felt on her tongue. Xion. It was a nice name. Her name.

"Xion it is!"

R raised her eyebrows. "Xion? Is that the best you could come up with?"

"Well, on short notice—" 7 began. R just rolled her eyes and turned away, as if it weren't a good enough excuse. "Like you could've done any better?"

"I've always liked the name Rachel," R said.

"Mmhmm."

"Rachel is a very pretty name," Xion told R, smiling. "But I think I like Xion much more."

"See, if she likes it, then it's a fine name," 7 said, haughtily.

R just rolled her eyes again.

"Anyway, Xion…" 7 softened immediately. "Do you mind staying here with R for a bit? I need to figure out where we're going to hide you—unfortunately, finding somewhere for you to lay low is… Well, we'll figure it out. I'll figure it out."

"Uh…" That wasn't exactly soothing at all, but Xion bit her lip after the initial sound of protest. It had to be better than being deactivated, right? "Okay," she said.

"Good. I'll be right back." 7 formed another dark corridor, and then was gone.

"I don't get it," Xion said, slowly. "Why didn't he have more of this stuff figured out beforehand? Wouldn't that have been the smart thing to do? Iron out the details and then set the plan into action?"

R spun back and forth in her chair a bit, her eyes fixed on her computer, and not on Xion. "He was on a time limit," she replied, distractedly. "If he hadn't needed me to mess with the security cameras for him, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have even told me what he was doing until he had you somewhere safer."

"What'd you have to do with the security cameras?"

"Make it so no one saw him smuggle you out."

"Oh."

R swiveled back around in her chair to face her computer. She began typing, not frantically, but quickly, like she'd had years of practice. Xion couldn't quite see what she was doing—and didn't want to pry—but she did see the words virus 13 at the top of the screen. The word virus sparked a couple of red flags in her mind, but…

"Oh shoot!" she exclaimed.

R looked up at her. "Hmm?"

"I meant to ask him why I was supposed to be deactivated…" Xion answered. She folded her arms across her chest, feeling quite upset that she'd forgotten to ask.

R turned back to her computer, and she sounded extremely disinterested when she answered. "Insufficient data, apparently—that's what he told me, anyway."

"What's that mean?"

R groaned a little, and after a second of tapping the keys of her keyboard with annoyance, turned to Xion again.

"It means there isn't enough data in you to function," she said. Xion felt something in her chest constrict. The tone of R's voice wasn't helping. "Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't collapse two second after 7 activated you. Better thank your lucky stars."

"I don't… have any…"

"It's an expression."

Xion swallowed. She rubbed at her arms, wondering why she suddenly felt so cold.

"So… I should be dead now?" she asked.

"Well, that's what insufficient data generally means. I can't quite say 26 and what's-his-face were wrong, saying you should be deactivated."

"That's mean!"

Xion felt a little dumb shouting that at anyone, but the words had already left her mouth. R didn't even look phased.

"But what happens when you don't have enough data to process simple actions, huh?" R asked. Her voice shook, but Xion got the feeling that was from anger more than anything else. "Like walking, or talking, or, I don't know, breathing. That sounds like a horrible death to face. Slow and painful."

Xion's chest grew tighter. She felt even colder. "Is that… is that really…?"

"Insufficient data means you shouldn't be able to do those things in the first place—whatever data is allowing you to know will inevitably fail, and then—"

R's words were cut off by the opening of a dark corridor. Xion's heart leapt to her throat, but it was only 7. His smile quickly became concern, as he looked between R and Xion.

"She asked me what insufficient data meant, so I told her," R said, before he could ask.

"More like you scared her!" 7 shot a glare at R, then moved to Xion. He grabbed her by the shoulders, which surprised her. "Don't worry," he said, firmly. "I'll fix it. I will. Okay?"

Xion nodded.

"Better be quick," R said. "No telling how long she has."

"Would it kill you to not be brutally honest for just a second?" 7 demanded.

"Yes."

"It's okay," Xion mumbled. "I think I'd rather know than not."

7 sighed, then let go of her. He nodded at the dark corridor.

"Come on. I've got a room for you to stay in, now."

"Thank you."