Originally published on aff 2008-08-23 - 2010-02-21
Prologue – Awaken
Something cold – ice cold – nudges his arm. A sharp squeak echoes in his ear. Another cold object nudges his leg.
Wait.
Arm? Leg? Ear?
Yellow eyes open in the suffocating darkness, wide in surprise. Pushing himself upright, he looks down at his body. He's surprised he even has a body – two arms, two legs, a torso, the list goes on, but he definitely has a full body. And he's naked. That's a whole new level to weird.
The sharp squeak echoes in his ear again and he whips his head around to stare into glowing blue eyes and a white, fuzzy face. He lets out a scream of surprise and scrambles away from the fuzzy thing, backing up until he topples off whatever he'd been laying on and hits a stone floor. A cold stone floor.
"Oh, holy shit!"
He leaps up, shivering as the coldness from the stone permeates his skin. He stares around at his surroundings, trying to figure out where he is and why he doesn't remember appearing here. The room looks like a dungeon with huge stone blocks placed one on top of another and darkness shadowing the high ceiling and any semblance of a door. And yet, there is a sense of light deep within this darkness, a comforting sort of light that only serves to unnerve him more. The fuzzy creature pads over to him, curling around his ankles and purring a greeting. He looks down at the creature as it twines itself around his ankles, warming them at least.
"What the hell are you?" he asks the creature. "And where the hell am I?"
The thing purrs but gives no answer, rubbing its head against his skin. He tenses, feeling something else – something primordial and almost tainted – enter the little shadowed chamber, watching him. He feels its eyes boring holes in his back. Swallowing, he kneels down and picks up the fuzzy creature, cradling it against his chest to try and gain some comfort from the rumbling thing. Silently, he prays that whatever is staring at him is only staring for the view and not eyeing him for its next meal. Though, as memories started to dribble back, he completely deserves to be something's snack. After all, the last coherent, clear thing he can remember is getting the shit beat out of him by a fourteen-year-old boy. Then everything kind of goes blank. He can feel the thing watching him move closer, and takes comfort in the fact the white fuzzy creature in his arms is not afraid of whatever is coming to eat them. He starts when a warm cloth is draped over his frame and his silver hair is pulled from beneath the cloth by an eerie, frigid touch.
"Pleased to finally meet you, Ansem."
The voice is feminine but in its echo there was a hint of maleness. Slowly, Ansem turns to face the creature or whatever it is and swallows when his yellow eyes make contact with violet-green. An entity – or a manly woman or something – stands behind him, calmly smiling away at him as if he's just been caught pilfering cookies from the cookie jar after dinner. Or, in other words, like a very irate mother. Father. Damn. He just kind of stares at the female – male? – entity and swallows for about the third time in less than ten minutes since he first opened his eyes.
"I'm sure you're wondering why you're here instead of floating in purgatory as a disembodied heart."
"Gee, what was your first clue?" Ansem blinks. His voice sounds different, more boyish, younger. The fuzzy creature climbs its way to his shoulders, draping itself around them as though it were a shawl. It purrs against his throat, comforting and reassuring. Despite this, Ansem doesn't feel too reassured.
"We've decided," the entity says, "to give you a chance at redemption. A chance to atone for your past sins. Though I don't see why, as you've released the Heartless into the worlds and basically threw the entire realm order into chaos." The entity sniffed. "But then, my opinion doesn't matter in the Court."
The entity gauges his reaction, smirking when Ansem merely continues to stare at him – her? – and remained silent. "Anyway," the entity continues, "You're being given one chance to redeem your soul and make a place for yourself in the heavens. If you fail, you'll be tossed into purgatory – or hell, really – where you will relive all of your crimes and then the defeat you suffered at the hands of the Keyblade Master until you finally burn yourself out."
"Comforting thought, that," Ansem mutters dryly, narrowing his eyes at the entity. He feels uncomfortable with the entity watching him so, tempted to ask whether he should refer to the entity as male or female, but he decides against it. No sense in pissing off your warden.
"Yes, it is." The entity smiles serenely at him. "Now, I'm going to tell you the rules of your little redemption quest. As well as that darling creature is on your shoulder, and why you feel so uncomfortable in that new body of yours."
"Wait." Ansem looks down at his body, stretching out his arms. "New body?"
"The Keyblade Master destroyed your old body." The entity explains with an air of annoyance. "In order to complete this quest of yours, you needed a new one. So we gave you one. It's younger than your other one – and better looking if I say so myself."
Is that a bit of lust Ansem detects in the entity's voice?
Oh, hell, yes.
He backs away slightly, keeping his eyes trained on the entity.
"Anyway, the rules. First, you are to locate Riku. You must gain his trust – and how you decide to do that is entirely up to you. Second, you are to find the Keyblade Master and join him in his quest. You are to return Riku to him. You must gain the Keyblade Master's trust, as well as the trust of the others you've hurt, and earn their pledges of friendship. Thirdly, you are to help the Keyblade Master in any – and every – way to destroy the Heartless you've unleashed." The entity pauses. "You must tell them who you are. If you lie, you will fail. You must keep your eyes uncovered to show all your sin. Anything else is entirely up to you. And finally, you must do whatever they ask of you, without complaints or deviations."
Ansem's eyes almost pop out of their sockets at the last rule. "You mean to say that I'm going to have to be their slave and like it? Are you mad?! I'll never be anyone's slave!"
"Do you want to go on to the afterlife, or would you rather spend your time wallowing in the same misery and pain you've caused others?"
Ansem glares at the entity, knowing full well what he is going to do. And he knows that the entity fully expects him to undertake this stupid quest for redemption. "Fine. Find Riku, bring him to Sora, gain their trust and friendship, help them, be their slave, I get it."
"Good. I'd hoped you would. Now, the creature on your shoulder is called a Memoria Custos. It will allow you to contact us at any point in time and us to contact you. We're sending it with you to keep an eye on your progress. There is no time limit – though we pressed for one, the Court didn't find it fair. Also, around your Memoria Custos' neck is a collar. Set in this collar are sixty stones, all white. Every time you complete one step of your quest, one stone will fill with blue light as a sort of… marker. When all sixty stones are blue, your quest will be over. Questions?"
"Yeah. Can I have some real clothes instead of a blanket and a furball?" Ansem has pulled the blanket around his body to shield it from the entity's roaming eyes. The entity laughs – annoyed, Ansem notices – and complies with his request. Dropping the blanket, Ansem finds he likes the chosen ensemble. Black combat boots, black jeans, a black tee shirt ripped in all the right places covering a long-sleeved, red shirt with thumbholes in the cuffs. Even his hair has gotten swept up into a ponytail. The Memoria Custos yawns and then drags its tongue over his cheek.
"Ugh. Memoria Custos drool," Ansem wipes his cheek with the back of his hand and looks at the entity. "So when do I start? And do I get to give this furball a name? Calling it 'Memoria Custos' is kind of annoying."
"Of course you can," the entity replies with a hint of anger, "and you can start right away. Just ask the Memoria Custos to start your quest."
Ansem pulls the Memoria Custos off his shoulders and stares into its luminous blue eyes. It stares right back and Ansem hates to be the one who has to finally look away. Taking a deep breath, Ansem looks back at the Memoria Custos. "All right. I'm going to call you… Emma. You are female, aren't you?"
The Memoria Custos stares at him with a bored, sleepy look as if to say, "What do you think, idiot?"
"Right. Okay. Emma, would you kindly start the quest?"
The last thing Ansem sees before the darkness swallows him is the entity smiling a smile not meant for human faces and Emma glowing brighter than the star Sirius on the darkest night of the year.