Brutality
Day 23
Roxas found that the Grey Area was relatively deserted today.
On his way to get his mission from Saïx, Roxas passed by the Melodious Nocturne in a rare pensieve mood. "Wonder what it's like there anyhow..."
"What's it like where?" Roxas asked.
Demyx jumped in surprise, before calming down a scant second later. "Oh, it's just you, Roxas. I was just wondering what it's like over at Castle Oblivion."
Upon seeing Roxa's confusion, he explained, "Y'know how a lot of the other members up and left recently?"
Roxas nodded.
"Well, it's because Xemnas apparently thinks there's something worth investigating at Castle Oblivion, so he sent half the Organization there to check it out."
Roxas narrowed his eyes at the water-user, irritated that he wasn't worth telling these things, but chose to let it slide. Hopefully, Saïx would give him a better opponent to fight than the lazy Number IX.
The Key to Destiny glanced and nodded at the hooded XIV, but didn't get a response.
Deciding to ignore it, he then began paying attention as Saïx dealt with the briefing.
"Roxas, starting today you will be executing missions alongside Xion. Pay extra attention to the intel I've prepared for you in the mission briefs."
The line 'because your partner won't pick up the slack if you don't' was unspoken, but conveyed all the same.
"This ought to be common sense," he continued, "but make sure that you take the data on your targets into account when deciding on your equipment."
Roxas nodded, accepted the file Number VII handed him without comment, and read through it for a few seconds.
Poison Plant in Twilight Town, he summarised. Search and destroy, make use of fire magic, be mindful of Dire Plants. This is gonna be a cake walk.
Speaking to both of the youngsters before him, Saïx noted, "Today marks your first time out on a mission together. You read the file, so all I need say now is that you're in charge, Roxas. Merit the trust the Organization has placed in you."
Roxas shrugged. "As long as you can get me some interesting and powerful enemies to fight, then sure, no problem."
Then, with a wave, he bade Xion follow him into the Corridor of Darkness to Twilight Town.
Cracking his neck, Roxas declared, "Okay, let's do this."
When he failed to get a response, Number XIII turned around and clapped Xion on the shoulder, startling her. "I'm going to need more reactions from you than silence, Xion. If we're going to work as a team, then you have to be more than some doll that just does whatever I say. You're a proud member of the Organization, now act like it."
Surprised, Xion finally found her voice and stammered, "Um, y-yes..."
Roxas rolled his eyes at that, and in retrospect had considerable sympathy for poor Larxene, having had to put up with himself when he had been the zombie.
Roxas sighed, "Well, it's a start. Now c'mon. Even if you don't like fighting for whatever reason - no idea why someone wouldn't, but to each their own - there might be a reward."
"What's a reward?" came the innocent question.
Defying the urge to facepalm, Roxas said, "It's when something good happens to you because you did something right."
Facing her directly, Roxas managed a smile as he added, "So let's do this right, and maybe something good will happen."
He couldn't quite be sure on account of the hood obscuring her face, but Roxas thought that Xion shyly smiled back.
Heading towards the Side Street, since one of the paths to the Tram Common was blocked, Roxas asked, "So, what kind of weapon do you use?"
Xion mumbled something incoherent.
"Sorry, what was that? You'll need to speak up."
Slightly louder, Xion replied, "I... I don't have a weapon..."
Roxas turned around and grabbed her by her shoulders, wide-eyed. "No weapon? Wait... you go around beating stuff up with your bare hands?! Holy crap that's awesome!"
In his excitement, Roxas had inadvertently shaken his partner so hard that her hood fell back, revealing a fairly cute girl with black hair. Although she looked supremely embarassed.
"No, what I mean is, I... I don't know how to fight. All I can do is cast basic fire spells. And use potions. ... and teleport over short distances."
The look of disappointment on Roxas's face was so absolute Xion had no idea how to respond, until he perked up with a grin. "No problem! Just watch what I do when I fight, and then try to copy me. Of course, you don't have a Keyblade, so you'll have to take that into account."
Beaming at her, Roxas concluded, "Trust me, we'll make a proper fighter out of you yet."
As if on cue, a Dire Plant sprouted up in their path, flanked by a pair of Minute Bombs.
"Wow. Couldn't have asked for better timing if I tried. Thing is, it's not really worth it to fight these runts the proper way, so I'll show you the really cheap and underhanded way to do it. You watching?"
At Xion's nod, Roxas brandished his Keyblade, and then stood there until the Dire Plant shot a seed at him.
Then, at the last second before it would hit him, Roxas swung his Keyblade and deflected the projectile right back at its source, instantly killing the plantlike Heartless. "As you can see, the plants die when you hit their seed back at them. As for the bombs, if you block them when they tackle, they give up and explode after a few seconds. Or they blow up right now if you set 'em on fire with magic. Like this one."
While Roxas had been talking, one of the aforementioned Minute Bombs had flung itself at him. Sadly for the Heartless, Roxas casually knocked it flying into the other one without even turning to look at it. As he'd predicted, the one curled up and exploded, taking out the other with it.
With an exasperated sigh, Roxas said, "It'd be different if they came in mobs of twenty-something suicide attackers, at least then I'd have to work at not getting blown up."
Having turned back to the entrance to the Side Street, Roxas didn't see Xion's awestruck expression, nor her reddened cheeks.
Just before officially moving out of the Sandlot, however, Roxas asked, "Say, how much magic power have you got, anyway? Or rather, how many spells can you cast in a day? And what's your maximum teleporting range?"
Shaking herself out of her stupor, Xion replied, "U-um, well, I don't know. M-more than twenty fire spells... and I can teleport over a range of maybe ten yards."
Turning on his heel, Roxas fixed the girl with a raised eyebrow. "Really now? And you know the basics of evasion, right?"
Nervous, Number XIV meekly nodded.
"In that case, Xion, I've got a plan that should help this mission go a lot faster. Now, through here is the Side Street. There's an alcove to the side about halfway through, and then a small fork at the far end. I want you to try and just get as far as that far end, near the entrance to the underground tunnels."
Shocked, Xion stammered out, "A-alone? Why?"
Roxas clamped a hand down on her shoulder. "Just from what you've told me, I know that you have the skills needed to probably take care of this mission by yourself. All you need is experience. By which I mean 'the chance to kill stuff yourself and really get a feel for it'. If you know how to block an enemy's attack, you're just about invincible against these kinds of enemies.
"Now, as for me, I'm going to take the long way through Station Heights, do some looking around to narrow down the target's location. If I don't find it, then the Poison Plant is somewhere in the underground tunnel network and we'll go in together. If I do find it, I'll come grab you so you can get a piece of the action."
Seeing that she was still anxious, Roxas looked straight at her, forcing eye contact. "Trust me, I know you're going to come through this just fine. I wouldn't ask you to do something I thought was beyond your abilities. I can tell you've got the potential to be pretty awesome. Now you just need to see it for yourself."
Xion was incredibly nervous, but Roxas seemed so nice to her compared to everyone else, so she chose to do as he said without complaint.
Sure enough, a few steps in, she found herself faced with a Dire Plant and a pair of Minute Bombs.
Recalling her senior's advice and demonstration, Xion flung a fireball at one of the Minute Bombs quickly enough that the other two Heartless were caught up in the blast radius.
The Dire Plant, however, managed to survive the two explosions. It was actively on fire and looked like it would keel over and die any second, but it had enough time to vindictively fire a seed at Xion before it completely burned away.
On instinct, before her mind could catch up, Xion automatically dove and rolled a few feet to her left, before watching as a few pink Hearts lazily floated into the sky.
Recalling the complete confidence Roxas had seemed to have in her, Xion unknowingly began to smile.
As something almost like confidence began glimmering in her eyes, and she clenched her fist over her heart, Xion said, "I... I can do this!"
Attempting to fill herself with determination, Xion strode to the other end of the Side Street, intent on doing her partner proud.
Roxas had had Xion cover the smallest area for two reasons - first, it was something like 'training wheels' for her; and second, it let him stalk the rest of the available Twilight Town for kills while searching the town.
Much to his dismay, however, wherever he looked, Roxas only found more of those stupid bombs and plants.
As the Station Plaza and the Tram Common were blocked off with barriers, and the target hadn't been anywhere else he could find, then it was probably in the underground tunnels.
"Here's hoping the target's a better fight than the cannon fodder," Roxas muttered.
The trip through the Underground had been pretty much the same as the Town above.
After slaughtering everything in sight - a process, during which, Roxas coached Xion in the fine art of deflecting projectiles with her backhand - the duo stood at the entrance to the tunnel that linked Twilight Town and the station at the outskirts.
As great as Roxas's anticipation was, he was met only with as much disappointment, as the large Heartless shriveled and died in a matter of seconds when the Keybearers started flinging fire spells at it.
Clearly irritated at how pathetic the target had been, Roxas muttered, "Looks like all tasks at hand have been cleared. You can go on and return to the castle, I've got some personal stuff I want to take care of."
"U-um... okay, Roxas."
With that, the black-haired girl went on through the Corridor of Darkness, while Roxas turned around and went for a piece of cake.
As he sat at the docks eating it, however, he realized something was wrong. He'd gotten the exact same thing as before, but it wasn't quite as good as it usually was.
It just... wasn't the same, without someone to share it with.
Day 24
Roxas entered the Grey Area to find Numbers IX, II, and XIV in conversation.
Or rather, Demyx and Xigbar were chatting, while Xion was off to the side with her hood up again.
"This place is, like," Demyx began, "a hundred times better minus all the bossy coworkers, am I right?"
When Xion didn't respond despite the older Nobodies' gaze upon her, Roxas took it upon himself to reply. "Bossy coworkers?"
Demyx nodded. "Yeah, the 'dream team' that got shipped off to Castle Oblivion. Dreamy for me," he explained, "because they're gone!"
Roxas shrugged. "Meh."
Xigbar gave the younger Nobodes an unsettling grin. "Too bad you and Poppet didn't get to spend more quality time with them, kiddo-"
"Roxas."
Raising an eyebrow, the Freeshooter asked, "Pardon me?"
Teeth grinding a little, the Keybearer said, "My name is Roxas, not 'kiddo'. And her name is Xion, not 'Poppet'. Get it right."
At that time, a cold voice cut in.
"Get to work, slackers. With nearly half our competent force gone, your workloads are going to increase to compensate."
Demyx stared at Saïx slack-jawed for a second, before hanging his head with a resigned, "Dammit."
Instead of bothering to see if any of the other Nobodies had anything worth chatting about, Roxas went straight to Saïx.
"You'll be teamed with Xion again today."
Roxas muttered, "Please tell me you've got something better than that lame Poison Plant."
"Read the file and find out."
Turning to the summary, Roxas skimmed over the details - another Heartless extermination, how droll - but perked up at the intel at the bottom of the page.
Unknowing of the grin creeping onto his face, Roxas asked, "These 'Deserters'... so if I take out one, then the rest go berserk?"
Upon seeing the Luna Diviner's nod, Roxas just grinned more. "Perfect."
Turning to his partner - and unintentionally scaring her a bit with his bloodthirsty expression - Roxas then said, "C'mon! This oughta be fun!"
When the newbie duo entered the Sandlot, they were immediately greeted by a legion of Deserters lazing about.
Roxas raised an eyebrow, wondering, "How the heck do the people here not know about this?"
He turned to face Xion, wondering what she thought, only to get a puzzled shrug instead.
Slightly irritated that she wasn't even trying to think of an answer, Roxas instead raised a hand to the crowd of Deserters.
Turning to face her over his shoulder, he said, "Just sit back and watch, this is my fight."
With that, he flung a Fire spell into the crowd of Deserters, killing one instantly.
A scant second later, the air turned remarkably cold as all the assembled Heartless immediately turned to glare at Roxas. Such was the Deserters' collective anger, Roxas couldn't help but break into a nervous sweat.
"Heh heh heh, Xion?"
"Yes?"
"...I miiiiiight need a little help from you after all."
As if in response to some mysterious signal, the Deserters split into smaller groups. Some of them charged at him head-on, while others instead went at him from his sides.
The next several minutes were chaos.
Every time Roxas swung the Keyblade, he defeated a Deserter. But for each one that fell, another took its place and slashed at him with its claws.
Xion attempted to help him from outside the melee, by flinging Fire spells into the crowd. And while she succeeded in thinning the Heartless numbers, she did an even better job of drawing the Deserters' wrath onto herself.
Eventually, even Xion began to run out of spells, and had to try defending herself by punching and kicking the mob of Heartless.
Just as XIV was losing hope, however, white light exploded out of Roxas's form as he destroyed a swath of Deserters with one swing of the Keyblade.
His cloak was in tatters. He was bleeding from wounds across his entire body, including his face. He probably had a few broken bones. But as he dashed across the lot in a frenzy of attacks, there could no mistaking the look on his face.
Joy.
Roxas was panting heavily as he powered down from his Limit Break. "Yes. That... hahahaha... that was a much better fight than the last mission was."
Even though he was smiling. Even though he still had a pleasant expression - no, perhaps because of the pleasant expression on his blood-soaked face - Xion still couldn't help but flinch away from Roxas when he looked at her.
He didn't even notice. "If you want to go ahead and return to the castle, you can do that. I've got some of my own stuff to do again."
As the day before, Roxas had a piece of cake at the pier.
Just as he was finishing, Larxene took a seat next to him.
... Okay Roxas, just what the hell is up with you and Xion? I thought Larxene was your one true whatever-passes-for-a-really-screwed-up-crush.
Yes, readers, I don't even know what's going on with that.
Also. Each and every one of you deserves an apology, because this should literally have been posted a year and two weeks ago.
Fortunately, however, my chronic lateness worked out semi-favorably, since I was able to get some pre-posting commentary from one fellow Troper known as Dorked. If you've read "Kingdom Hearts: The Antipode", then I imagine you know that he's a pretty cool dude.
Guest review replies:
unnamed guest(s): Roxas is as ruthless in battle as Larxene, yes, although inflicting pain doesn't get him off the way it does Larxene. But cold? Hardly. He loves violence and he fights dirty but as shown in this chapter, he isn't really 'cold' at all. That said, Roxas is a battle junkie with no concept of a fair fight, and he'll exploit any weaknesses he can find. Which, given the Poison Plant, isn't always going to give him the fight he wants.
Kira Ria 18: Sorry, Roxas probably won't be going to Castle Oblivion for COM. And I don't know if I'll ever do a fic covering those events, either. Not that this is a promise either way, of course...