The next morning, they woke to frost on the windows. Temperatures had plummeted overnight. Wind brought the clouds back over the city with a vengeance, mixing rain with snow, coating the buildings with layers of speckled glass. The front door groaned when Dilan tried to push it open, shedding fragments of ice half an inch thick. He swore for several minutes, and then resorted to kicking it loose.

Elaeus scoured the warehouse relentlessly, looking for a heating system while the rest of them huddled in blankets and complained to keep warm. In the end, he managed to convince the furnaces to turn on; when Even asked the man how he had accomplished the task, Elaeus only shook his head in bewilderment.

"None of the switches in the fuseboxes seemed to do anything," he admitted. "So I just yelled at them until the heat fired up."

No one knew why the weather had transformed from summer to winter. Time continued to ignore them; Radiant Garden seemed an eternity away, and they all had lost track of the nonexistent days. Any clocks which Dilan and Braig could scavenge were set to different hours. Ienzo arranged them mournfully in a semicircle for display, and all six researchers watched the mismatched minutes tick away before Xehanort cursed, and picked one at random to be real.

Each of them adapted to their new conditions at different rates. For once in his life, Ienzo had more puzzles than he knew what to do with, each answer multiplying into twenty fresh riddles. Braig kept muttering about not being as young as he used to; Elaeus was as steadfast as ever, concerned more with the state of everyone's health rather than the circumstances that had brought them there. Only Xehanort seemed to flourish at the chance to rebuild his life anew, responding as easily to the challenge as the day he had shown up at the Bastion without a memory.

Power found them as gently as the snow had. While control of their magic responded slowly at first, as the researchers became more accustomed to the state of their bodies, their strength returned tenfold. Elaeus was even more tireless than before. Braig fell off the walls half a dozen times, cursing with each fresh bruise. Then he was suddenly standing on the ceiling more than the floor, drinking tea upside-down as Dilan rolled his eyes and complained that he wouldn't go out scouting if his partner couldn't even be bothered to keep the same vertical half the time.

One morning, Even woke up to realize that he had fallen asleep with the window open. He had been penning notes in one of the newer storage rooms; the heaters had turned the air dry, and he had thought to relieve the stuffy confines by letting in a fresh breeze. But weariness had overcome his attention span. The book had slipped from his fingers and kept him company on his chest while he dreamed of nothingness.

Frost had formed on his eyelashes overnight. It blurred his vision when he tried to rub the pale hairs clean. He had always been more careless of temperatures than the others; studies of ice had given him an understanding that made the cold simple enough to counteract, but his body had never ignored the weather so easily before.

He parted his lips, and shaped a long, wordless breath that curled in a puff over his face before vanishing.

Winter kept them closer to the warehouse. Now that the building was well-lit and furnished, it seemed less of a ramshackle shelter, and more like a home. Their personal rooms remained near the junction between the main two warehouse chambers, but walkways up to a second floor had been discovered, and many of the researchers had gravitated upstairs. Study rooms had been designated, along with a pantry for food supplies that ran alongside a long table for communal meals.

It was hunger that motivated Even to finally move. Setting his book aside after marking the chapter, he followed the smell of hot bread down the halls. It led him up the stairway, mixing with the distinctive tang of citrus teas before urging him along to a rooftop door. The crisp touch of winter air licked his skin as he stepped outside, rubbing against his neck like a sleepy lover; he ignored the temperatures, caring more about his search for food.

Dilan and Elaeus had converted the open swatch of roof into a patio of sorts several weeks ago, hauling out a table and chairs that routinely had to be cleaned of snow. Only part of the attraction was the view across the city; the warehouse was situated directly behind a large watchtower, and numerous unexplored buildings filled in the skyline like so many black spears.

But the street provided enough entertainment for them all. Dilan had chosen to establish his practice yard there: a square of pavement that stretched out beside the traffic lights and abandoned streets, little more than a rough blacktop of tar. His latest hobby involved the Dusks. One expedition into town had looted tent poles from a camping supply store, and Dilan had given them to some of the creatures to test their ability to follow directions. They mimicked him clumsily, twisting their bodies around the makeshift spears and attempting to pick the weapons up; a few of them had managed to retain a grip on the poles by reshaping their hands, distorting their own limbs like sugar taffy.

As a rarity, all six of the researchers were awake at the same time. Someone had assembled a piecemeal breakfast - Elaeus, Even assumed, watching the redhead check the teapot before refilling Ienzo's cup. Xehanort was balancing a half-finished bagel on the fingers of one hand while he scribbled hasty notes with the other. A bottle of jam sat exposed on the middle of the table, a knife jutting out like a battle flag; Even made directly for it, hoping that there was enough food left over to scavenge.

Dilan had left his strange students to their own devices that day. The promise of food had also lured him up to the rooftop with the other researchers, and now the dark-haired man leaned against the shallow railing that swelled up from the side of the warehouse, chewing on a piece of buttered bread.

"I want," Ienzo was saying to him, in a voice that was very low and very methodical, "scrambled eggs. I swear, I can taste them. Hot, scrambled eggs with pepper and salt, eggs on toast, eggs over easy..."

"Feeling bright and shiny today, Even?" Braig's greeting was painfully cheerful. Xehanort glanced up for only a moment before resuming his work; Elaeus made a half-hearted wave of his fingers before sliding over a plate.

Even responded with a groan. The tea smelled good. Not as welcome as coffee would be, but hot liquid would suffice to wash the torpor from his body. He filled a cup carelessly before managing a grudging, "And how are the Dusks responding?"

"They've reduced the amount of times they've almost stabbed me by accident," Dilan commented acidly. "Some of them have shown improvement. I may focus on them for future training." Then he frowned, nodding towards the blacktop. "Look at that."

Darkness squirmed within the confines of the square. The appetite of the Heartless was also strong that morning, powerful enough to send a loose pack hunting across the roads until they found themselves encircled in the boundaries of Dilan's yard. The wire fence gave them no hesitation as they slid through it; they ignored the Dusks still left inside, choosing instead to wriggle across the ground, mouthing pebbles, sniffing at the tent poles in search of a heart.

The white monsters, on the other hand, took a distinct interest in their new companions. They hovered around the Shadows, jostling one another as they dared to move closer, then jerking away whenever a Heartless snapped back. At first, both sets of forces kept their distance: black against white, marked and unmarked, each wary of the other's power.

Then a Dusk pounced.

Rubbery limbs pinned down the Heartless it claimed, struggling to trap the beast before it could fade away. The Shadow twisted as it was pulled away from the ground. Writhing bodies fought together in a scene of primal mockery, two figures locked in bloodless combat.

It was the light that startled the researchers, more than the unwarranted attack. A tiny glimmer that flickered weakly at first - a negligible, pinpoint ember buried amidst the thrashing limbs. Then it began to grow. Brilliant rays wrapped around both combatants, dissolving them in a white cocoon that burned spots in Even's vision, until the blaze shone as vivid as the noontime sea, reflecting off the windows in a chorus of newly-birthed stars.

When the light faded, it left behind a human girl.

Her figure was slender, smaller than Ienzo. Young - Even could not guess the age, save that she was not a toddler, but not full-grown either. Her hair was a deep brown, darker than Elaeus's, and it drifted around her ears with all the finesse of a half-starved mouse's pelt. Ash coated her arms and legs. Her clothes were ragged, lacking any distinctive markings that could have identified her home village. Soot had left a raccoon's mask on her face as she lifted her head, blinking in confusion.

When she saw the Heartless, she screamed.

The Dusks had backed away. Their rival Shadows turned in a unified black mass, antenna vibrating rapidly as they sensed fresh prey. Even could barely see the street; the vanishing of the light had left him feeling blind, groping helplessly for the sun which had abandoned them once more.

But it was Elaeus who reacted first, vaulting the railing like a winged god. He landed in the middle of the twisting monsters with a crash, bellowing with a bull's rage as he flung the creatures aside, and swept his arms around the girl.

The Heartless latched onto him within seconds, claws digging into his skin. They mimicked the laboratory disaster all over again: shadows thick as leeches, flesh melting together, pulsing as they coated Elaeus's body in a second skin of ink.

Even's knuckles clenched white on the railing. Beside him, Ienzo drew in a sharp breath; his face had paled, and Even wondered if the sight brought back the same memories for him.

Weaponless, Elaeus resorted to beating down the Heartless with one arm, stumbling away as he sought to get free from their weight. Braig had a foot already up on the railing, preparing to jump down; his hands patted his hips frantically as they searched for guns that no longer existed, weapons that were the only things that could turn the tide.

Xehanort said nothing as he watched, a wordless statue to Even's left.

Elaeus had already been dragged down to one knee. The presence of a heart drove the Shadows to frenzy; tiny claws sought to worm between the man's arms and maim the girl within, leaving Elaeus no other option than to try and shield her with his body as long as possible. It looked for a moment as if he would be overwhelmed before any of the other researchers could intervene - and then Dilan thrust his hand into the air, and the tent-poles answered his call.

They ripped through Shadows and Dusks alike, borne on a dozen hungry winds. Power crackled like ripe ozone. Black energy that had been conjured by Dilan's desperate need now lashed in streams around the poles, gracing them with razor points that glimmered like ghostly lances. The sound of the slaughter came in a roar of metal tongues as the mute Heartless died. The Dusks scrambled to get out of the way, but Dilan wove a lethal field around Elaeus's body, indiscriminate in its targets.

It was over in seconds. The Heartless were blasted into a fine, dark mist that was whipped away by the bitter winds. The Dusks had vanished - hidden away somewhere, Even assumed, escaping the carnage by squirming into the cracks between the pavement.

And Elaeus was struggling to his feet, his shoulders still bowed, arms heavy with their burden.

"She's alive," he forced out, the yell breaking halfway into a cough. "She's alive."


They talked about dicing, or pulling straws to see who would have the first go at her, but those ideas were quickly discarded when they realized their lack of gambling supplies. Dilan offered his tent-lances in lieu of sticks; Ienzo ignored him. Finally they all settled on the old children's game of Hotch Potch Pie.

"You're doing what?" was Xehanort's first reaction when they told him.

Ienzo pressed his lips together, interlacing his fingers as he nodded expectantly at the chart on the table. "We need you to fill out the competition bracket. Otherwise, it's an odd number of players, and someone will get a free pass through."

"It's an odd number anyway!"

"For the love of the Garden," Even cut in, covering his face against the mockery of it all: six powerful researchers squabbling like little kids. "Just do it, Xehanort, please."

Xehanort rolled his eyes with a sigh, and did not look unhappy when he lost the first throw, tossing a Pie against Potch, and then Potch against Hotch in the loser's circuit. Ienzo placed unexpectedly low at fourth; Even ranked second, leaving Braig first in line to begin the experimental research.

Braig wasted no time, scooping up the unconscious girl and heading triumphantly for the second floor. Elaeus departed soon after, shrugging away the loss. This left Even and Ienzo to stare at each other in resignation while Dilan kept going through the motions of the children's game, flipping out a fist for Pie, and then the double-finger gesture of Hotch. Knife cuts the crust off the pie, that's how the rules went, but Dilan always threw Hotch, no matter how many times his opponent beat him with an opened Pie.

"You lost," Ienzo snapped at last, unable to tolerate how Dilan kept naming the throws under his breath, an endless rhythm of Hotch Hotch Pie Potch. "Get over it. At least you beat Xehanort."

Dilan looked unperturbed. "You mean Xemnas."

"I mean one of them, Dilan."

Mention of the lancer's birth name caused him to sober. "Best two out of three?"

Even escaped their arguing. Ienzo was predictably irritated because the game had been his idea in the first place, and he must have expected to rank highly as a result. The girl represented a wealth of potential experiments in her pristine state, one whose mind had not yet been infected by observations of the new world. Instead, it was Braig who would be shaping the first questions for her to answer, Braig who would be leaving expectations for her to fill.

Ansem the Wise had always stressed the two-way nature of all interactions, and had often paired his students off for a similar exercise. The interrogator would always be studied in turn by the subject they were questioning. In turn, bonus credit was given if the subject could subvert the direction of the conversation; winning involved uncovering your opponent's secret without giving up your own.

The same practice, unfortunately, had not been applied to the Darkness.

He discovered Elaeus on the opposite side of the warehouse from Dilan's practice yard. Somehow, the man had found a shovel, and had begun to carefully break up sections of the sidewalk pavement to reveal the dirt beneath. Originally,the redhead had tried to collect small samples of plants from around the city: windowsill boxes with delicate ferns, or potted hangers that Braig and Dilan had dutifully carried back, muttering about abolishing agriculture.

The stalks grew without sunlight. Braig, noticing that, had laughed and claimed them to be Heartless plants. But living seeds remained absent from the city; there were no parks, no weeds, no lawns. Though five of the researchers had shrugged away the mystery, the sixth had uttered one mildly horrified word.

Oxygen.

Elaeus's studies had always revolved around the natural world, and that pursuit was what captivated him now. What little soil he had uncovered was rocky, stained by the tar that had been laid over it, but Elaeus seemed willing enough to work with the stunted materials. He walked by inches, tapping the shovel against the sidewalk bricks as he moved, frowning to himself.

As Even circled closer, weaving his way around the shattered blocks, the other man looked up.

"There's not nearly enough earth in this city." Weariness touched Elaeus's voice for a heartbeat, and then was deftly buried. "Rains make this soil muddy. Snow freezes the earth. Maybe a greenhouse would be better." Another step forward, and Elaeus paused to squint at a crack between two bricks, kneeling without hesitation amidst the grit to poke at it. "Do you think Xaldin will help me if I ask? He's better with building layouts than I am."

"I don't think it matters." Even watched him for a while. "Elaeus -"

"Don't call me that." The chastisement was without rancor; Elaeus had always held his temper even when pitted in fierce debate. "It's supposed to be Lexaeus now, remember?"

"Why does it matter what we're called?" Nudging a chunk of brick aside with his foot, Even scowled. "I don't understand this new game of Xehanort's. He always conjures wild ideas. He has a child's sense of propriety when it comes to real study."

"Maybe because he never was one." Elaeus's voice, solemn, held nothing of concern. When Even looked towards him for clarification, the man only shook his head. "Xemnas came to us as an orphan. Perhaps that's why it's so easy for him."

In the silence, Even let his gaze drift over the sidewalk. Elaeus did not have the proper tools to uproot stones and concrete, so he had resorted to the roughest workman's tricks. Small divots had been chipped out of the bricks. Several chisels had been driven into the gaps, like seamstress needles studding a length of cloth. The cracks were thick with ice. From his studies, Even knew that the properties of water could be used to expand those small crevices; he could only imagine the patience needed to lug buckets back and forth from the warehouse, cold water to freeze, hot to thaw.

"I think he has a point." A grunt, and Elaeus gave up on the brief attempt to pry another brick free. "I like Ien... Zexion's idea. Our old names aren't lost. They're still a part of who we are, but they're not everything we are. When I look at my memories of the man known as Elaeus, I don't recognize myself. Some characteristics are similar. The memories, I've inherited. But I'm not entirely him." The man shook his head, slow and ponderous. "The problem is that you still see Elaeus whenever you look at me. Each time you do, it's like you only see what I was. Not what I am now."

Even watched as the redhead got to his feet, studying the ground for a long moment before moving on to the next block of side-pavement. "And what are you, then?"

"Alive." There was a faint smile on Elaeus's face as he worked. "Think about everything you did when you had a heart. Would you make those same choices? And if you didn't, would you want someone to treat you like Even, just Even - the one on the surface that everyone saw, not the person you are now?"

Confidence stuttered in Even's mouth; he hesitated, digesting the questions. "I don't know." The admission seemed humbling, simple words in the barren garden. "I hadn't looked at it like that before."

The redhead chose not to push the advantage; instead, he eased the conversation sidelong, steadfast and methodical. "Do you remember - back at home - how you would get upset if we invited Xehanort to an experiment, but forgot to ask you?"

"Because it was unfair to allow him to have access to early advances," Even defended stubbornly. "A perfectly understandable situation, and one easily sympathized with."

"Do you?"

Even blinked.

"Do you," Elaeus repeated, mercilessly gentle, "sympathize with it now?"

Forced to reexamine old pettiness, Even balked. "I might."

A scrape of gravel, and Elaeus was tracing his shovel over the pavement, like a dowser hunting for fault lines. "One night," he began quietly, matter-of-fact, "shortly after Xehanort arrived at the Castle, you came to me talking about how you were planning on running away from the Bastion. You were that angry. You had all kinds of plans about where you'd live, what you'd do. But in the morning, you came to breakfast just like the rest of us."

Even winced at the memory. Elaeus kept his face averted, carefully aimed towards the ground as he wedged the tip of the shovel's blade between two blocks, and pushed.

"Do you want me to think of you as the same man who'd get so jealous over nothing? Or have you changed, Vexen? Who are you now?"


Braig responded the least to the new names, more stubborn than Even - claiming they could call him anything, Ansem the Wise Reborn for all that it mattered. But the protesting was familiar, following old habits of arguing among the six, and that alone made the transition easier.

As the days went on, Even found himself mulling over Elaeus's verdict. It had been a while since he had last confronted the redhead on the field of philosophical realism, and he felt woefully unprepared. Ansem the Wise had stressed ontology as part of their studies; Even had skipped class on those days. Elaeus had not. His strength was a quiet one, but all too easy to underestimate based on appearances, and Even was privately annoyed that he had fallen into the same trap of assumption.

Avenues for conversation in the warehouse were slim. Xehanort had shuttered himself away in his office; Elaeus continued his personal crusade to discover a natural environment in the bizarre city. The remaining three researchers were fixated on their new prize. Despite Braig's win, everyone knew that Dilan would simply cheat and split the gunner's hours anyway; without his partner, Dilan rarely scouted the city alone, and their shelter was well enough stocked with supplies that urban hunting was not vital.

It was with resignation that Even joined the interruptions to Braig's workroom, trailing behind Ienzo and leaning in for a view through the doorway. His arrival earned a shushing gesture from Dilan's direction; ignoring the lancer's caution, Even watched the interview that was already staggering in its traces.

Braig had set the girl up on a stool, her back to the wall and two chairs hemming her in. He twiddled a pen between his fingers, but the papers on the nearest table were all blank. None of the questions posed had won answers by the look of it, and the afternoon was half-over.

"So, feel like sharing your name with us yet?"

The girl's throat was very white. It fluttered when she swallowed, a trapped dove sensing the hunger of the fox. "I... please, tell me where my family is," she forced out, squirming on the wooden seat. She was sitting on her hands, knees pressed together, shoulders hunched. Now that Even had a moment for study, he saw that she was older than he'd originally thought; fear made her smaller, shrank her down until she looked no bigger than a war-starved refugee.

Braig mulled this over, leaning back against his chair. "Perhaps we could give you one, since you're not being very helpful," he suggested eventually, ignoring her grimace of dismay. "How about... hm, how does Aerlen sound? Has a nice ring to it."

"That was your dog's name, Braig," Dilan hissed, grabbing the man by the shoulder and giving him a rough shake.

Braig's eyes darted from the girl to his companion. "She doesn't know that! You don't know that," he pled next, seeing the horror in the girl's features. Then at last, "It was a very good dog!"

But the moniker stuck, despite any wishes to the contrary. No one else volunteered a name, and the girl refused to speak of her past, regarding them all with a suspicion that bordered on terror. She did not demonstrate the awkward naivete of amnesia; nor did she offer any information save in the form of repeated demands to know about her family, about her father, and why her house had been engulfed in black flame.

The lack of progress was taken in stride by Braig, who seemed willing to accept any delays as another form of strategic patience. Even grew tired of visiting each day, only to discover the gunner engrossed in building intricate pencil forts, or tearing blank pages out of the books to fold a fleet of paper boats.

One morning, Even pushed open the door, only to flatten himself instantly against the nearest wall as a white missile streaked past where his face had just been.

"Close," Braig remarked, giving a thoughtful nod. "Too bad."

A piece of paper had been tacked to the back of the door. Tiny ink dots spotted the lopsided circles that had been drawn on top of it, and as Even glanced around, he saw dozens of loose pens scattered across the floor, victims of the gunner's boredom.

"What in the seven halls of the Bastion are you doing, Braig?"

"It's called, 'making friends,' Even. See, he needs practice too," the gunner confided in the girl perched on the table beside him. She seemed torn between laughing and cringing away in terror. Braig cleared his throat. "Aerlen's not too good at darts. We're working on that."

"If your idea of companions involves aiming things at them - never mind," Even sighed, waving his hand to forestall the answer he knew would come. "I should know better. I was hoping that you'd at least gathered the physical specifications of the subject for us to review."

"She kicked me," Braig answered cheerfully. Two fingers came up and tapped his jaw. "Right here. You're welcome to try, if you think you'd have better luck."

The challenge was thankfully diffused by the sound of footsteps down the hall; Elaeus turned the corner at a jog, his loping pace easily taking up the distance. "Vexen!" He leaned against the doorway, pausing when he noted the girl's presence. "I apologize for the interruption, Xigbar. Zexion's been looking for his raincoat - we can't find it anywhere. Have either of you seen it?"

Aerlen was staring at the taller man; her eyes had gone round and wide, bright blues in a pale, hopeful face.

"No," Even replied briskly, flipping the conversation around to try and snatch the child's sudden interest. It was the first expression he had seen on her that did not contain hostility, fear, or both. "This is Elaeus," he informed her. "Also known as Lexaeus, I suppose. He saved your life. Are you grateful?"

The girl pulled her gaze away, long enough to peek hurriedly in Even's direction, and then down to the floor. "Ye... yes. I am."

"Subject is grateful," Even noted. He scooped up one of the errant pens from the floor and scribbled the observation down on the crude paper target, scrawling over the scoring lines with a flourish. "Subject may be reacting out of surprise. Further interrogation is required."

At the subversion, Braig stiffened. "Hey. My interview, remember? Shoo!"


It was several weeks before the girl finally chose to act.

Supplies were low. In a rare show of initiative, Ienzo had volunteered to go with Elaeus out into the city, accompanied by a handful of willing Dusks. The creatures had gone slack without Dilan's instructions, and had taken to approaching each of the researchers, waiting patiently until they were given an order. Even himself had accumulated a half-dozen who hovered around his reading room, eagerly picking up pens whenever they fell off tables, or clumsily refilling his tea.

Piqued, he had thrown his pencil out the window, hoping the distraction would shoo the creatures away - only to discover them all returning with it several minutes later, cradling the writing implement in their pointed hands.

Unable to get a moment to himself, Even finally pushed himself to his feet, stalking down the halls until he reached Braig's workroom. The door was ajar; he shoved it open the rest of the way without pausing.

Aerlen was gone.

Even stared blankly at the room, tilting his head just in case she was hiding beneath a table. No girl revealed herself from thin air. Behind him, the cluster of attendant Dusks bobbed and swayed; Aerlen was not hidden among them either.

"Where is she?"

Braig opened his mouth, eyebrows arched as he made a show of thinking. "Er... around?"

Even felt a sudden headache beat against his temples. "You lost her."

"I did not - "

"A rare specimen of a reunited Dusk and Heartless, and you lost her."

"I may," Braig retorted, "have misplaced her when I went to ask Xehanort for more pens. Oh, believe me," he added, seeing Even's face twitch, "she's not going to get very far. Our little friends are already on their way."

Braig spoke true. The Dusks had vanished during the course of the argument, eager to serve; by the time that Even pushed out the front door of the warehouse, gunner in tow, one had already wriggled back to deliver a report of their success.

The girl, Master, it whispered, words without sound, directly into their heads. We have found the girl.

They were not alone. Dilan was already there, perched on a mailbox at the end of the alleyway Aerlen had run to. He was kicking one heel listlessly against the belly of the metal box; it clanged with each impact, a jerky tong tong tong. Judging from the noise, it was as empty as the rest of the city.

He lifted his hand in greeting when he saw them, extending the gesture into a wave towards the narrow lane that broiled over with Shadows.

"I believe you dropped something, Braig. Good thing I found it for you."

"Yeah, yeah, stuff it." Humor had abandoned the gunner's face. Braig strode forward, heedless of the Heartless which were swarming inside the alley; one of them latched onto his boot, and he ground his heel upon its body until it struggled free.

Aerlen was a battered figure huddled against the back wall, half-illuminated by lazy streetlights. Somehow during her escape, she had snatched up one of Dilan's tent-poles; she clung to it with both hands now, swinging wildly at the ring of Heartless which inched steadily closer. Occasionally, when a Shadow grew too bold, Dilan would snap a finger and send a sharp-edged gust whistling down the alley to knock it away - an intervention which was not frequent, for Aerlen sported several long gashes on her arms and legs, testament to the mute ferocity of the creatures.

She looked up as Braig's silhouette licked down the alleyway.

"So," he purred, a rough chuckle that kept its humor on a leash. "The little bird tried to fly away from the hunter."

Dilan and Even had both received the brunt of the eldest researcher's ire in their youth; Braig's moments of discipline were rare, but absolute. Judging from the girl's cower, she had never expected him to be anything other than friendly.

Still, she kept her chin steady. "I have to go home."

"Then I guess this is your first lesson. There is no home." Braig took another step forward; the Shadows parted before him, resentful peasants yielding before an enemy general. "Second lesson: these things will eat you. Third lesson, that's why we keep you under watch - for your protection, so you're gonna want to think twice about leaving it.

"Fourth lesson." He swept through the last few ranks of Heartless to her, shoving away the tent-staff that she clutched for a rudimentary defense, until he was leering in her face with a yellow-eyed malice. "You might have picked up the wrong impression from all the fun we've been having together, but I think I should tell you something."

His voice was a cold hiss in the alleyway as he leaned closer.

"We don't have to be nice."

She was more docile afterwards, obeying without protest as they escorted her back to the warehouse. She did not provide her name, but she allowed Braig to take her physical measurements without a fuss, and he handed over the data to the pack of hungry researchers at the door. Dilan escaped with the folder first; then Even managed to get his hands on the figures, taking satisfaction in withholding the information from Ienzo.

Unable to bar everyone else from the observation chamber, Braig tolerated more of their intrusions. Ienzo appeased the gunner by bringing sandwiches for lunch; Even preferred to observe, speaking up only when he felt the interrogations were lacking.

Those moments were common.

"So what I am... my personality, it's actually my heart." Aerlen had almost as many questions as they did, and Braig seemed content to allow her to lead the discussions. "But I'm existing inside a body that has its own mind - being overpowered by my heart. Is that right?"

"Most Dusks are dormant," Ienzo supplied helpfully. He was sorting through the gauze bandages that had been used to bind the girl's wounds after her escape, and was carefully labeling each with a small tag. "They haven't had a chance to live and breathe on their own. In a way, they've never been born, because they've never had the opportunity to. Yours did. But by reuniting with your heart, you forced it back into suppression."

"You're messing with her head," Braig drawled from the corner, lacing and unlacing his boots while he played with various forms of knotwork. "My interview, remember?"

Aerlen absorbed the information dutifully. Her hands were folded in loose fists, one on each knee; she sat with her back straight, jaw tight as she constructed each new query. "What was my Dusk like? Was it... like you? Or like the white ones?"

Ienzo did not pause with his answer. "It was indistinguishable from the others. Your will is unremarkable - only average. Boring."

"How do I make it stronger?"

This question finally stopped the slender man, and he lowered the gauze he'd been studying to regard the girl with mild amusement. "Do you want to live? That's a start."

"Ignore Ienzo," Even interrupted automatically, unable to resist throwing a contrary bone into the discussion. "He's been talking to Xehanort for too long."

"Out," Braig ordered at last, climbing to his feet with one boot half-off. It clumped on the floor as he flapped his arms in their direction; the man's scowl was comically fierce as he attempted to evacuate them through facial expression alone.

Ienzo smirked back, even as he relinquished ground step-by-step towards the door. "Are you ever going to get anything done here, Braig?"

"I," the gunner informed him crisply, "am going to take Aerlen outside, and we are going to test her reflexes with a snowball fight. Any bystanders," he continued, "may be in danger of becoming casualties. You've been warned."

Hours later, after Even had returned to scribbling notes in his book, Ienzo stalked by. The scruff of his hair was plastered to his scalp, dripping wet and encrusted with slush; he was muttering about the dangers of a snowbank, and the unfairness of being double-teamed.