A/N: And we're back. Who's in the mood for a little plot development?
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Axel wasn't going to ask how or why. But maybe it'd work out. Who was he kidding? He couldn't run away from the Organization, there was no way he could take those guys on if they came after him.
He wanted to believe Isa though, for now anyway. This gave him a moment away from his mission, and well, it was better than sea salt ice cream.
Oh man speaking of ice cream, "Urrrrrk, Isa. I'm starving." Axel slumped over in Isa's hold, laughing at himself for ruining the moment.
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Isa blinked, and then he laughed. Really laughed.
The sound was foreign to his ears. Had he not laughed like this in that long? He supposed he hadn't. But suddenly everything really did seem like it would be alright.
"You look it. Do they not feed you in that Organization?" Isa smiled at the Nobody.
"Come on, then. If you're really that hungry, I'm sure Aerith has lunch ready by now."
"You sure? Oh man, I hope it's pizza. I'm really craving pizza," Axel groaned, "And well, I don't really have time with all my missions and- hey wait a second! Are you trying to say something?" he lightly jabbed at Isa.
Well, he could at least use this time to get more out of Roxas. So he could just play it off as a mission errand in the meantime. Speaking of...
"What about Sora though? He's not going to try and bludgeon me at the table, will he?" Axel wasn't afraid of the Keyblade... okay, maybe just a little.
Isa chuckled softly. "You let me worry about Sora. He's an idiot, but he's a big-hearted idiot. He'll come around."
Isa wasn't sure how long this little bit of peace was going to last, but he intended to milk it for all it was worth. But he'd better at least let the others know that he was fine and unharmed; the last thing he needed was to be interrupted by Sora, or worse, Squall, while in a compromising position. Isa stood, easily lifting Axel to his feet as he did. "Come on, then. Before Sora comes barreling back in here with my entire family looking to kill you. And I want to hear about this Roxas."
"Whoa wait, entire family?" Axel was a bit confused, last he remembered Isa didn't have much for a family. "I'm not in trouble, am I? Well, I guess that's a stupid question," He picked up the pace to match Isa's speed, wrapping an arm around his shoulder, "Hah, you're short," he teased, trying to avoid the subject of Roxas.
"Hmph." Isa snorted briefly. "You're the one who shot up to ridiculous heights. I'm not that short."
Isa let Axel leave his arm right where it was, smirking. "You may be in a bit of trouble. And yes, my entire family. Cid and the littles. We escaped together when Radiant Garden fell, and we've been together ever since."
Isa really felt so strange. He's been so miserable just a few minutes ago, but now he felt happier than he had in a long time. He honestly wanted to introduce Lea to everyone, and then maybe...
Axel just laughed at Isa's response and patted him on the shoulder. "Whatever you say, Isa," he wrapped his arm around tighter, "well I'm just warning you now, I can't stick around all day. I still gotta report back to the Organization until we figure this whole plan out. Last thing I need is them breathing down your neck too," he paused for a moment, realizing there was a smile on Isa's face.
"I've never seen you smile like that before, what's up?"
"Hmph." That was all Isa had to say on the subject of his smile. It fell, though, when he thought about the Organization.
"You had better come back. Otherwise I will be forced to come find you."
By that time they had reached the Bailey; Isa glanced away from Axel at the sound of pounding footsteps, but he didn't pull away from the Nobody.
The surprised look on Squall's face as he skidded to an abrupt halt almost made Isa snort out loud. He could see the gears turning in the young man's head as his gaze flicked between Isa and the Nobody.
Yuffie, though, had no concern for that. She and Aerith were right behind Squall, at least at first. Yuffie stepped in front of Squall, pointing at Axel with one hand while she placed the other on her hip.
"HEY YOU! Get away from Isa! Sora told us ALLLL about you!"
Isa groaned, while Axel just blinked at the threat.
"What's the matter? Yer not scared, are you?" the Nobody laughed, then turned to his companion.
"So uh, yeah, you so sure about this Isa? I probably don't belong here," he trailed off, looking around for a sign of Sora.
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After Leon and the others left, Sora puttered around Cid's house. They would be fine, Isa would be fine, they didn't need him making sure everything was fine, especially when they were all older than him...
Oh, dammit all.
Without saying a word, Sora dashed out the door and after the 'kids,' as Isa called them. He was worried about Isa, and he wouldn't deny it. He shouldn't have left him alone with that... that... Nobody. Who knows what could have happened after he left? Axel was a Nobody, after all. It's not like he had an attachment to anyone he might have known before. He could have dragged Isa back to the Organization or attacked him or-
... Or they could be standing in the Bailey, one of Axel's arms around Isa's shoulders, being confronted by Leon, Yuffie and Aerith. And that glare was back, aimed Axel's direction.
Isa almost groaned again in exasperation. Wonderful. Well, at least Squall only looked hesitant, not outright hostile. Isa was about to open his mouth to chide Yuffie, when...
"Yuffie. Don't be rude." Aerith, always the peacekeeper, stepped forward to just in front of Isa and Axel. She looked a a bit awkward, but bowed slightly anyway.
"I'm glad to finally meet you. Isa's told us so much about you." Well, that wasn't strictly true. Isa usually avoided the subject and he knew Aerith knew it, but if that was how she wanted to be he wasn't going to correct her. Isa smiled at her; he knew he could count on her, at least, to be open-minded.
Yuffie, however, squawked indignantly, waving her hand at Aerith. "Wait, you can't just- he's a liar! He's gonna take advantage of our Isa!"
Squall still had not said anything, but was beginning to look rather uncomfortable.
Well, this was honestly going much better than he had expected. Isa raised one hand to gesture to the three.
"Lea, this is Aerith. The excitable one is Yuffie, and my copycat is Squall."
"It's Leon," Squall grumbled indignantly. Isa just smirked at that.
"As I said, Squall."
Axel was just a little uncomfortable. Still, he kept his arm around Isa, digging a bit into his shoulder, hoping he'd convey his discomfort.
"Well, we should get along just fine. The name's Axel, not Lea, get it memorized," he recited. "And she needs to watch the attitude," the Nobody grumbled into Isa's ear, just loud enough for Yuffie to hear.
Aerith nodded, smiling at Axel for Isa's sake.
"Axel. I'll remember that."
Squall snorted then, and opened his mouth to grumble "Good luck getting him to call you that."
Isa smirked at Axel's discomfort. "Never mind Yuffie. She's 15 and excitable." He turned to Aerith then.
"Is there lunch, by chance? This idiot won't stop whining about how hungry he is."
Aerith blinked, but quickly recovered herself. "Uh...yes, there is. Um...Why don't we go back to the house, then...?"
Isa nodded and started forward, ignoring Sora's glare and Yuffie's indignant complaints. Squall and Aerith just exchange A Look, then followed.
Since he clearly wasn't going to get a say in the matter, Sora trailed after the rest of the group, glaring at the back of Axel's head at every opportunity. Sure, he could stay out here at the Bailey and sulk, but... food.
Besides. He couldn't exactly just wander off if they were taking Axel straight to what amounted to their headquarters, since Isa clearly didn't believe him about the dangers of Nobodies. He had fought lesser Nobodies before. If it came down to it, fighting a member of the Organization couldn't be all that different, right?
Though Isa would kill him if he fought Axel...
And so it was with some reluctance that he quit glaring in Axel's general direction, somewhere around the time they got back to Cid's house. For once worrying about Nobodies could wait. There was that whole food thing, and quite frankly he was pretty hungry.
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Okay it didn't look like there was pizza, but Axel didn't complain. Before he got ahead of himself though, he decided to wait until the whole crew piled in before he plucked a grape off the table. The inside was quaint, but the Nobody didn't pay much attention. He pulled up a seat and made himself at home, looking at the chair next to him and then at Isa expectantly.
Isa didn't even hesitated before taking the seat beside Axel. Everyone else, though, stood around awkwardly while Aerith grabbed the food. Everyone except Cid, that was. The older man grabbed a chair and swung it around to sit backward on it, just on the other side of Axel from Isa. Cid leaned on the chair's back, peering at the Nobody's face.
"Well, well. If it ain't you after all." He tipped his goggles back. "I was sorry about what happened to ya. Still am. Where you been for ten years?"
"Oh you know, busy," the Nobody said as he eyed the food on the table. This was awkward, Axel had gone from battle ready to... this? Besides, It sounded like this man already knew everything about Axel. Well, about Lea anyway.
"I'm not one for small talk, y'know. I figure Isa's already told you all about Lea," Axel eyed the blonde man suspiciously.
Cid leaned back a bit in his chair.
"Guess you don' remember me, huh? Well long time I guess, can' remember every neighbor. Remember YOU, though. Troublesome little punks, the both o' ya." Cid glanced up at Isa, and then back to Axel. "Yer welcome here any time. Don' worry about Yuff and Leon, they're just too uptight."
Axel looked up at Cid and blinked.
"OH... you're... OH. Damn we uh," He turned to Isa and whispered, "He's the one with the shop right? The guy who's window I totally smashed with my frisbees?"
Isa smirked. "Yes, Lea. He is the one with the shop."
Well this was awkward.
"I'm welcome here? Well uh, thanks," ...well that was nice. He turned to Isa with a confused look, but just shrugged and attacked the food in front of him.
The room lapsed into an awkward silence for a few minutes, only punctuated by the sound of people eating for the sake of something to do. After a few minutes of this, Isa cleared his throat. He needed to break the tension.
"...Cid. I'd like to make decrypting the rest of the data on Ansem's computer priority one for now."
"Ah yeah," Cid was quick to respond, glad for a reason to break the silence. "I can see why that'd become a priority, yeah. Think we'll dig sumthin' up on howta get hearts back?"
At Isa's nod, he got up and moved over to the computer dominating one side of the room, booting it up.
"Ain't gonna be a fun read, though. Didn' know it before these reports, but those apprentices were some sick bastards. Ye'd think they were havin fun with those experiments of theirs, 'way they write about 'em."
Axel was suddenly paying attention."What's that all about now? Ansem's computer? And what about the apprentices?" He leaned over the table, trying to make sense of the conversation.
Isa scowled. The apprentices. How he hated them. Just the thought of them filled Isa with rage. Ever since finding that computer, and reading what reports they'd managed to decry-
Isa had clenched his glass too tightly and smashed it. He winced, shaking his hand to rid it of the largest pieces of glass. Aerith tutted and went to get a cloth, as if this sort of thing wasn't out of the ordinary.
"...We found Ansem's computer in the wreckage of the castle. It has a number of files on it...from what we've managed to decode, it seems they were researching hearts." Isa was fighting to keep his voice level and even. "The Heartless that attacked you escaped from their lab. They had been throwing people to them on purpose, just to see what would happen." Isa's voice was very tight by the end of his sentence. It still infuriated him. Those bastards...he took a deep breath and continued.
"...there is the possibility that their research notes may contain some hint on how to help you."
Did he just smash that glass? And no one thought anything of it? Axel placed a hand on Isa's shoulder, but soon slipped his hand back to the table, gripping the edge as he listened to Isa speak.
"Oh, well I'd like to see these notes. Because I heard a different story." The Nobody was no longer making eye contact with anyone in the room.
Isa scowled, ignoring Aerith bandaging his hand to look at Axel.
"You can see them if you want. We have the decoded notes downloaded to the local network."
Something about his reaction wasn't right...
"What story were you told?"
Sora, who had up until this point still been doing his damnedest to completely ignore Axel, started paying attention to the Nobody. He seemed... upset, maybe, over something Isa had said. Was upset the right word? Couldn't be. Axel was a Nobody, he couldn't be upset.
But his reaction was odd enough that Sora wasn't sure he had another word for it.
He almost said something, almost asked about what he had been told, because this was the first he'd heard about any of this. Sora had known that Ansem was involved, but he hadn't known of any apprentices. But Isa asked first, and Sora was rather thankful for that. It meant that he didn't have to ask, just pay attention and wait for the answer.
And he didn't have to wait long. Axel gripped the table, trying not to lose his cool.
"They were the only ones there when you were gone, Isa. Not that it mattered anyway. Not like I could be lonely if I tried." His eyes sunk, trying to avoid Isa's but failing.
"...you might say they're heartless, but who are you to talk."
Isa's scowl deepened. Something was going on here that he didn't understand.
"What are you talking about?"
Axel finally made eye contact, immediately shoving away from the table to stand, towering over Isa.
"Y'know, I don't want to hear anything about what monsters they are. They're after their hearts too, just like I am. But they... he told me. He told me about the day I died and... How you left me there to die... They saw the whole thing happen and took me in, gave me a purpose," Axel slammed a fist into the table, focusing his glare on Sora this time, "But what does it matter when I'm just a Nobody. Because I clearly chose to live this way."
Isa stared at him for a moment. What had he just- had he just accused Isa of abandoning him?
Isa surged to his feet. "I never did!" he snarled. How could this- "I tried to save you! How do you think I got this?" Isa gestured at his face.
He tried to think clearly. "They." Was this Organization run by the apprentices? What had they told Lea to keep him loyal?
Isa hadn't thought he could hate the apprentices more than he already did, but-
Axel was fuming, too angry to give Isa the benefit of the doubt. "You could have gotten that fucking thing anywhere. Because next thing I knew I was alone. I was alone until the Organization. I could have been swept away by the darkness but they took me in. Xigbar was convinced you died too, but... if you were a Nobody we would have found you. So I gave up looking for you and..." his eyes drifted elsewhere. To the clocktower, to Roxas' face.
Isa could not believe what he was hearing. After everything, he was being accused of this?
"Lea, I thought you were dead! I had no reason to believe you weren't!"
Xigbar. Who was Xigbar? If Isa ever found out, he would absolutely destroy that person. Someone had deliberately gone out of their way to turn Lea against him.
"I never abandoned you, Lea! I was right behind you! Excuse me for only managing to be disfigured before being rescued! If I'd had my way I would have gone with you!"
He was getting worked up again. But it wasn't Lea he was angry at. None of this was his fault. None of it.
How dare this Xigbar? Isa would find this person, and end them.
"How do I know that? This was all just, pure coincidence that I even found you. If I wasn't even looking for Rox-" Axel had to think about that. Roxas abandoned him too. And here Isa said he'd have gone with Axel but...
"Forget it..."
Isa was beyond words. He was absolutely furious. This could not stand.
He reached forward and grabbed Axel by the arm, dragging him over to the computer and shoving him into the chair Cid had vacated when the argument had started. Without saying a word, he leaned over and clicked open the file that had made his blood boil the most. One of Xehanort's journal entries.
"Read." he demanded.
Isa didn't need to read it. He knew it by heart.
Some of the research subjects have escaped. Two children were attacked in front of the castle. However, only one was killed; Aeleus managed to save the other.
Like the other live subjects, the boy who died faded away. Of more interest however was the one who survived. We have never had a subject exposed to the Heartless and live; that the wounds inflicted by the Heartless, which usually caused the subject to fade into darkness, not only remained but were disfiguringly scarring was unexpected.
It would be fascinating to study the boy. To dive into a pack of Heartless bare-fisted implies a very strong heart. However, the death has already called too much attention to us. It would look too suspicious if the surviving boy disappeared.
As it is, this situation may cause us some trouble. It would be inconvenient for our experiments to be halted. Something will have to be done.
Axel slumped into the chair, but read the file before him hoping for some sense of truth. But it didn't seem right, like a... a conspiracy.
The Nobody continued staring at the screen after he'd finished reading, unable to put it all together. This wasn't the story the man with the eyepatch fed him. This wasn't the group of Nobodies who gave him a new home. This wasn't what... he was dragging Roxas back to?
He just stared. And stared.
"So there you have it." Isa stated as levelly as he could manage. "Do you need to read more? There are more files; this is just the only one that mentions you. Do you see how little they cared what happened to you? You were nothing but a footnote to them."
He leaned over and closed the window, scowling.
"Now. I think you'd better start talking, Lea. Things are clearly not how you think they are."
Axel winced. "Maybe I don't want to talk. What do I have to say huh? I've been fed nothing but lies." Shit, now he knew how Roxas felt.
Shit shit shit.
This was not in the plan. If there even was a plan.
"What do I even say after that?" he slumped over in the chair, resting his face in his hands, trying to cool down.
Isa leaned over his old friend. Lea not knowing what to do, he knew how to deal with.
"Start by telling us what they told you. And, I want to hear about this Roxas if you are ready to be rational."
He frowned. He felt bad being so cold when Lea seemed genuinely distressed, Nobody or not. He rested his hand on the redhead's shoulder.
"I want to help you." he insisted. "Trust me. Please."
Axel felt a hand on his shoulder but he didn't want to move. This was too much to process, and it was even more complicated knowing he was a Nobody but yet ...felt sad. Frustrated. Angry. He had convinced himself he was a good actor, but it was starting to feel like an excuse in itself.
"Roxas, he... It's ridiculous. We shared sea salt ice cream." he sighed, stopping to make sense of his next confession. "He made me feel like- ...when I was with you. Like I had a heart again. But it doesn't make sense," he removed his hands from his face and grabbed at Isa's shirt, pulling him a bit closer. "I'm not supposed to feel this way. I'm not supposed to feel at all. And I keep telling myself that, but this 'feeling' doesn't go away."
"Oh, ice cream. I see how it is," Isa tried to joke, squeezing Axel's shoulder reassuringly.
Axel turned away when Isa spoke. "It wasn't like that."
Meanwhile, the gears were turning in Isa's head. Both Sora and Axel had insisted up and down that Nobodies had no feelings at all. But Lea's behavior, both before and now, made it very difficult for Isa to believe he had no emotions. And now Lea was admitting to feeling some emotion now, even though it seemed like he truly had not in the past.
Roxas...Isa had a suspicion. The way Axel had acted before, how he had spoken to Sora, who had been missing and forgotten for a year...Isa suspected Lea was not the only Nobody to have a new name forced onto him.
"This Roxas was a Nobody, correct? What was his original name?"
Axel pulled on Isa's shirt again, "What do you think? I thought it was pretty obvious anyway. Lea, L-E-A, add an X, that's Axel. Roxas well," he didn't want to come right out and say it, after all, Sora didn't know about Roxas' existence. Or the fact that Axel may or may not have planned to kill Sora in order to get him back.
Well, what they didn't know couldn't hurt them.
Isa rolled his eyes, flicking Axel's ear in false irritation. "How exactly did you expect me to know how those names were spelled?" In any case, if his hunch on how Roxas was spelled was correct, then...
Isa looked over at the keyblade wielder. "Sora. Where exactly have you been for the past year?"
Sora blinked, then frowned. He couldn't imagine why in the worlds it would be important, but maybe Isa knew something he didn't. It certainly wouldn't be the first time someone else had caught something he had missed.
"In some place under the abandoned mansion in Twilight Town." They didn't have to know that he had been asleep the entire year instead of working. Not yet at least. "Why?"
"Doing what?" Isa pressed. He was sure he knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it from Sora. He didn't want to jump to conclusions. "What were you doing that would cause everyone you knew to forget about you until just a short while ago?"
"Sleeping!" Sora snapped in reply, "As far as anyone can tell, Donald, Goofy and I have asleep for the past year. The last thing any of us remember is defeating Ansem and helping Riku and the King close the door to the light!"
Isa thought about it for a long moment, and then decided that Sora was too thick to figure it out without more obvious hints.
"Well, more to the point...have you ever lost your heart?"
"Of course I haven-" Sora stopped himself and stared at the table, arms crossed as he thought and looking maybe a little upset. No. He had forgotten about it until Isa asked, but... he had lost his heart. Right here, in Hollow Bastion.
"... Yes. Right after we found out that Ansem had possessed Riku." He had only done it to get Kairi to wake up. "I had to. For Kairi." Sora looked back over at Isa. "But it was only for ten, maybe fifteen minutes. I'm fine!"
Wait wait wait. He had told Isa about how Nobodies were created earlier, and now he was asking about this. "Why? You don't think this Roxas...?"
"That's exactly what I think. But maybe Lea can confirm it for us."
Isa knew people's hearts became Heartless themselves when they were lost, but it seemed that Lea knew Roxas for quite a while. He remembered reading a file about someone claiming to be Ansem removing their heart deliberately. That person had become a Heartless, but had stayed sentient and in control. Could that be a regular mechanism? If that was the case, then Sora...
"...Sora, I suspect you may have been a Heartless for longer than you realize." He frowned. Lea had been speaking to Sora as if he were Roxas. Could it-
Could Sora and his Nobody have reunited?
Then there was hope for Lea. His hand tightened on the Nobody's shoulder.
"Lea, what happened to Roxas?"
Axel's grip on Isa loosened, slumping forward again. This was going to lead to some unpleasant confessions, he just knew it. He wondered if anyone would put it together, why Axel was after Sora in the first place.
"He left the Organization. I've been assigned to get him back. He was our chance at getting our hearts back but," the Nobody sighed, remembering the last moment he saw Roxas in that black coat. "He went back to Sora, even though I tried to stop him. But this one wouldn't be, y'know, up and causing problems if Roxas was still around," he laughed. "But it's no wonder Roxas was such a knucklehead, look at you, kid."
Axel turned to Isa again, "Look... that's why I even stayed behind in the first place. Yer looking at Roxas; what's left of him, anyway."
A glare was Sora's response to the knucklehead comment. Not that he could really say anything; he hadn't exactly been the most polite to Axel. But he sucked it up, because he had questions that only Axel could answer. "What do you mean by 'he went back' to me? Or that I wouldn't be up and about?"
And, for that matter, about him being a heartless for longer then he thought. He had been running around fighting Ansem with the Keyblade, for crying out loud! He wouldn't have been able to use it if he'd been a Heartless. ... Right?
"There's even some things I don't understand. But I do know that Roxas... claimed he needed to go back to you," this brought up some old wounds. "He was so damn sure he knew what he was doing but, even still," Axel pointed to Sora, "Now they're after you, 'cuz of that Keyblade. They just want to use you like they used Roxas, it's no big deal that he's gone. Hell, I'm the only one concerned with getting him... back..."
He thought about it for a moment and came to a sudden realization. "Damnit, they're just toying with me! They just want me out of their hair while they pull the strings-"
As if on cue, the windows of the little house were shattered from the outside in, Dusks and Snipers pouring in. Their target was immediately recognized; while the others in the room were restrained, the majority flocked to Axel, seizing him firmly. The struggle was minimum, a clear Sleep spell cast on the redhead as the Nobody underlings attempted to drag him out.
At the sound of the shattering windows, Isa and the other residents of the house immediately ducked and covered. It was a completely instinctual reaction, honed from years of having to worry about the Heartless. It only took a moment for Isa to shake off that automatic reaction, but by then the Nobodies were on top of him. He forced his way up, using brute strength to overpower the Nobodies and get to his feet, snagging at his Claymore. He didn't have room to swing it, though, so he had to resort to grappling to free himself.
Around him was pandemonium. Aerith, the noncombatant, was crouched in a corner, being menaced by the Dusks. Yuffie was screeching and flailing, hacking away at whatever she could reach with her little darts. Cid hadn't been near enough to his spear to reach it, and was struggling to free himself from the two snipers that had him suspended near the ceiling. And Squall was having the same problem as Isa; inside the little house, with this many bodies packed in, he didn't have room to swing his weapon.
The door was blasted open, swinging limply with iridescent purple diamonds wedged into the shattered wood. The Dusks made their attempt to cling onto Sora as well, trying to drag him away.
"Two for one special." The hooded Organization member standing outside of the shop leaned a little to look into one of the windows, grinning under his hood. "What luck," he continued to chuckle to himself. He stepped forwards and lifted one gun to rest on his shoulder as he caught sight of Axel's flaming red spikes, his limp body being carried by the wriggling Dusks.
"Don't mind me," the man laughed, loud enough for those in the house to hear, "Just taking what's rightfully ours!"
The new voice seemed familiar to Isa, but the young man couldn't put his finger on where he had heard it. His head snapped towards the door, and that was when he saw Axel, being carted away in the grip of the Dusks.
He wasn't moving.
Isa panicked. He knew nothing about how Nobodies worked, knew nothing about fading. Everything was suddenly a blur. It wasn't a true Berserk; he was in control of himself, but everything was happening too fast for him to form a clear impression of. In seconds, he had smashed the Dusks trying to restrain him to paste, lunging to wrest the redhead from the grasp of the Nobodies that held him.
"Lea." He patted the Nobody's face, letting out a brief sigh of relief when the Nobody made an unconscious groan of protest. Alive, then.
Squall had by then fought his way to Isa's side, standing at his back. Isa raised his claymore, holding Axel in his free arm to protect him.
It was a bit of a surprise to the hooded man to see the Dusks disbanded so quickly, but as soon as two fighters appeared from the ruined home, it made sense. He would need to call up a few extra Nobodies to really give them a challenge. There was a flash from inside, a signal to the Organization Nobody that Sora was, unfortunately, not as easily subdued as The Flurry.
"Well well, not bad for a couple of street punks," he grinned. He twirled a gun in his hand, several lower level Nobodies appearing at either side of him. They writhed and fidgeted impatiently. As he continued to speak, one or two more Snipers and Dusks appeared, beginning to surround the area. "Buuut you might as well, y'know, give up now. Unless you want someone to get hurt...?" The guns were now pointed straight at Isa and Axel, a carnivorous bite to his voice.
Then, he tilted his head, still hooded, and his attention was on Isa.
"Something familiar about you, Blueberry. Something with that blue and that red..." It was lucky he had his hood up, his poker face was slipping entirely. He knew exactly who this man was and what was going on.
There was something familiar about the hooded man, too. Isa turned his body so that Axel, draped over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, was more protected. He held his claymore in front of him to shield his front from any potential gunarrow bolts. He trusted Squall to protect his back as he confronted the cloaked man.
"You'll have to try much harder than that." His eyes narrowed. "It's rude to attack someone without even introducing yourself."
The Organization member flicked his hand to the side dismissively, letting out a low laugh. "Hah. As if I owe you guys the pleasure of knowing my name. I mean, I already went easy on you. Could've brought your whole house down if I wanted."
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The attack was fast and came out of nowhere.
Sora was used to dealing with both of those things; his enemies were usually various creatures that appeared from the darkness, after all. And more than a few of them were quite fast. But he wasn't used to being attacked indoors. Nobodies and Heartless had never attacked inside a house before. And that was what caught Sora off guard.
Dusks clung to him, trying to drag him after a limp Axel despite all his struggling. If he could get just a bit of ground, just one arm free to summon the Keyblade and actually be able to do something with it-
He caught sight of the chaos the rest of the room was in. He had to do something. "Give me strength!"
A brief flash of light and whirl of red and flashing Keyblades later, Sora had freed himself. His first impulse was to get to Isa's side, but he could hopefully handle things for right now. Aerith needed help.
It didn't take long for Sora to utterly destroy the Dusks and Snipers between him and Aerith. Before long he was stationed firmly in front of her, demolishing any Nobodies that came at them.
Fighting furiously, Yuffie managed to free Cid. They fought their way to Sora and Aerith, standing side-by-side to form a wall in front of the brunette.
"Sora! We can protect Aerith; you go help Isa and Leon!" Yuffie declared.
Sora glanced at the two of them, then nodded. If they said they could, then he believed them. "Got it!"
He sprinted through the room and towards the demolished door. The Nobodies in his way were dealt with fairly quickly, though the Snipers slowed him down a bit. Another Dusk went down, and then Sora was outside, skidding to a stop by Isa's side.
"Thought you might want some help," he said with a grin, glancing away from the startling amount of Nobodies to look at Isa briefly.
As Sora appeared, the Organization member let his guns lower slightly. His lank body stood firm, feet planted to the cobblestone ground, but his arms and the way he moved his head were expressive enough; his voice was confident. This was a man who was more aware of what was going on around him than was possibly natural.
He finally lowered his guns completely and lifted his hand up to his hood, pressing the hem of the fabric up and back to reveal his face.
"Roxas, good of you to show up! Now the party's really starting." The man cocked his guns again, taking a small step forward.
Isa's eyes flew wide open. Another ghost stood before him, but this was one he wanted to break.
Braig. The apprentice whose meager notes were the cruelest, the most calculatingly vicious. This was a man who had enjoyed the research experiments that had destroyed their world.
Wait. Braig. With an X added in...
Isa saw red. The pressure started building behind his eyes. This time, he didn't try to stop it. Axel slid from his grasp as he hunched, leaning on his claymore. His breathing turned into jagged, snarling gasps, his lips drawing back into a tooth-bearing grimace.
Leon whipped his head around when he heard the sound. "Shit!" He grabbed Axel's hood, dragging the Nobody behind him as he ran away from Isa and back towards the house as quickly as he could. "GET CLEAR!" he yelled at Sora. "NOW!"
Sora whipped around, confused. Wait, what was going on? Why was Isa acting like that? It was apparently really bad, whatever the reason, considering how Leon reacted. Ah, dammit. There'd be time to ask questions later, when Isa wasn't acting like... that.
Sora followed Leon's example and hightailed it back to the house. Or at least, almost. He stopped a few feet from the door, leery of leaving Isa entirely on his own. Though it didn't really look like he'd be needing any help. "Leon, what's going on with Isa?"
Leon stopped when Sora did, waving his gunblade towards the door.
"He's going Berserk. He doesn't recognize anyone when he's like this, he'll just smash everything in his path until he kills that guy or he wears himself out. If you stay out here you'll just be in his way. Now get in the house." Leon hiked Axel up to be draping over his arm while he talked, realizing Isa would probably not be pleased if he choked the Nobody to death with his hood. He was waiting for Sora before he'd enter the house himself.
Isa was vaguely aware of their movements, and then everything was a white haze. His eyes were nearly rolled back into his head, and suddenly he was moving, faster, stronger than he could ever hope to be except in this state. He snarled, a harsh, gutteral sound, and lunged at the Nobody.
"BRAIG!"
This was something Xigbar couldn't have expected. What the hell was up with this guy? All of a sudden he was-
"Woah!" It was lucky that Xigbar was so agile. He hopped back out of the spiked grasp of Isa's blade, raising his guns as a weapon and a shield. The Dusks around him quivered, sensing the danger, and flung themselves from every angle at Isa. The Snipers shot down at the house in the meantime, trying to get a hit on Sora and Leon before they entered the safety of the house. Leon grabbed Sora by the shirt and bodily drag him into the house, just barely avoiding the bolts from the blue.
Isa was unstoppable. He plowed through the Dusks like they were paper, not even noticing them in his single-minded drive to destroy Xigbar. His claymore flashed and sliced impossibly fast for such a large, heavy weapon. Isa swung the sword like it was as light as a feather, but the stone of the pavement and nearby walls was reduced to gravel wherever he struck.
Purple bullets flew at Isa, going for hits. Xigbar wasn't scared, no, that wasn't even possible. But this was an unexpected element. This kid, who he as Braig and Dilan and Aeleus had tossed out of the castle on countless occasions with his little redheaded buddy, was like a rabid beast out for blood. This was an anomaly that even Xigbar couldn't have accounted for.
He dodged attacks, sometimes just barely, bouncing from Isa like a flea. This was not an opponent to play with too terribly much; he was unpredictable and wild.
Isa deflected most of the bullets with his sword, and the few that struck home didn't even draw a batted eye. It was like he didn't even notice them. He took no notice of anything but Xigbar, lunging fast and hard at him. The Berserker was not terribly accurate. His swings were huge and he overextended, but the force behind the blows was not to be trifled with.
Xigbar could feel that force, the air swishing past him, pressing the fabric of his coat against his legs. This was unreal, this was exhilarating, this was-
He winced as he felt one of the spikes of Isa's blade gouge into his bicep. The Nobody jolted back and leaped into the air, flipping over the bluenette and firing shots from above. Once he'd skidded to a halt on the ground, he glanced at his arm. A flesh wound, it would take more than that to stop him.
"You swing like a girl!" he jeered, hopping up to stand on a pocket of air a head higher than the blue-haired berserker, and setting up another two rounds to fling down at him.
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There was gunfire and howling coming from somewhere. A warm hand pressing against his face. Axel's eyes flickered open; Aerith was huddled over him with a bottle in her hand.
"Oh, thank goodness you're alright!" she exclaimed.
What... just happened? The Nobody stumbled to his feet despite her protests, and ran through the now demolished front door to find-
"Xigbar? Oh shit, I'm screwed. W-wait, Isa?" he watched in horror as the blue haired man swung his claymore like a lunatic. In an instant, Axel summoned his chakrams and ran out to help defuse... whatever had happened while he was passed out.
Isa ignored Axel competely. He swung his claymore above his head to deflect the bullets Xigbar fired as he went by. Isa also ignored his taunts; instead, he leapt into the air to a ridiculous height to get at Xigbar. He raised the claymore above his head as he leapt, swinging it straight down at the Nobody even as bullets grazed by him.
This time there was no way of avoiding the attack through conventional means. Xigbar disappeared, Isa's claymore hitting the remaining wisp of the Nobody's image, and the one eyed man reappeared crouching against the wall, his guns meeting to create a rifle. From that point, he started firing much heavier, more dangerous shots, cracking the stone floor with each missed hit.
The heavier shots were actually easier for Isa to block because there were fewer of them. However, blocking them was slowing Isa down considerably; the impact of the bullets on his sword left him slightly off-balance, making him take a moment to get moving again. For now, Isa was pinned down and on the defensive.
Axel couldn't watch this go on, and even if it marked him as a traitor he decided he needed to take action against the Freeshooter. Flames circled his chakrams as he aimed, and flung one into the wall as a warning. The second came barreling after, Xigbar's rifle as it's target.
He could only hope he didn't miss.
Once more, it was Xigbar's quick skills that saved him as he disappeared just before Axel's chakram wedged itself into the stone wall. He appeared again, guns separate once more, and he scoffed, firing off again, now aiming for Axel as a target too.
"You really shouldn't have betrayed us, Lea!" He was going for the stairs." You were bein' such a good little puppy, but now you've gone and pulled a Roxas on us! What," He jumped to the side of a building, leaping up. "A," He pushed off the chimney, sailing through the air above the two, "Shame!"
His body stopped and his arms were suddenly engulfed by small portals, a wave of bullets barraging over the courtyard.
Isa was running after Xigbar the instant he was no longer being pinned down by sniper rounds. He held his claymore in front of him as a shield as he barreled towards the Nobody, ignoring the hands jutting out of the portals.
He was starting to tire. Soon his berserker state would wear off, and he would be too exhausted to keep fighting. He lunged at Xigbar's body, swinging with intent to cleave him in half.
Xigbar disappeared but not quite fast enough, receiving a slice in his thigh. A splatter of blood hit the stone ground. The Nobody was crouched on the roof of Cid's house, where he leaned on his good knee and tried to ignore the pain.
Maybe some backup was in order. He wasn't about to go through losing a limb with this raving beast just to get Axel back.
He leapt into the air, running (with a bit of a limp) up some unseen ramp in the sky, and hopped down onto the platform leading to the Bailey. From this safe distance, he looked over.
"Axel, you'll regret betraying us, buddy." He could see Isa preparing another attack and opened a portal in preparation. "Be a good boy now!"
As he hobbled through the swirling doorway of darkness, he was already beginning to plan his next plan of action. Perhaps a less direct approach, maybe he could send Demyx to talk some sense into Axel.
Or they could just destroy the redhead and just worry about retrieving the Key. Either way, this new piece, Isa, in this game of chess would be interesting to figure out.