Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, Disney or any other associate of said franchises do not, have not, or EVER will belong to me.
MY KEYBOARD IS FIXED! MUHAHAHAHA!
Ahem….
Let's pretend for a moment that Riku and Kairi don't exist.
This chapter is for the people curious about what happened to the Organization.
ENJOY! … Kinda!
I can't do foreshadowing. I don't know what it is.
Unknown Castle
The entire room was painted in a sharp white that seemed to bleach the life out of the few beams of light inside of it. There were no windows. A single wooden door was the only way out of the depressing room which locked and sealed itself each time anyone left the prisonlike room. To anyone who walked inside, an immediate air of human sadness and despair seemed to flow in the very air.
In the farthest corners of the room were twelve neat and very slightly dusty glass structures in the shape of a box or perhaps more like a coffin. In each foggy gray case, a single person lay sleeping.
None of the figures moved much; they would have almost seemed like the most lifelike of statues if not for the movement of their chests rising and falling with their breathing. They all seemed to be experiencing their own set of strange dreams, whether happy or sad it was unclear.
"Well, good morning, everyone." A gentle voice calls to them in a cheerful tone as a boy calmly walks in to see them. He was completely unaffected by the strange atmosphere of the room and marched right up to the cases. He pauses between a young man with dark blue hair and another with hair like flames. Neither stirred as the boy taps on their cases with one gloved covered hand.
"Hmm. Looks like Lea won't be waking up with the others. Poor thing…" The boy muses to himself, smiling sadly at the red-haired boy who continues to slumber unconcernedly. The red-haired boy smiles vaguely in his sleep. Something in his dream pleased him.
"I hope you sleep well, my dear friend. You won't be waking up for a good while. I suppose you'll miss all the fun, too." The boy tells Lea before turning to the rest of the group.
Each person seemed vaguely familiar. And each one wore the same black cloak-like jacket, in various lengths and styles. There was an older man who looked like he was in his late forties at the least who wore his jacket in a lab coat sort of style where it reached about halfway down his legs and at the other end a boy who looked only about ten whose jacket was a great deal shorter than all the others and barely reached his waist. All the rest though looked as if they were in their teens or perhaps early twenties.
"Awaken Organization XIII. Your worlds need you." The boy commands as he flicks his golden hair out of his dark silver eyes.
As if these words were a trigger, nearly every single person, except for the boy named Lea, opened their eyes.
For the briefest moment, eleven pairs of eyes stared in shock at the boy who only gave a cheeky bow to them.
After a moment, the silence was broken abruptly.
"LET US OUTTA HERE!" A girl snarls viciously as she starts to pound roughly against her prison. The others try to glance over to where her voice was coming from as the boy presses a
switch at the side of the rows of containers. Instantly each case opens.
"Gee, what a great nap!" One young man yawns as he ruffles his dark black hair and grins cockily at the group. The girl who had spoken before looks around curiously.
"Where are we?" She questions savagely to her companions but none can give her a straight answer. No one answers her right away; they instead begin to shiver as the icy atmosphere in the room begins to affect each and every one of them in their own way. They begin to remember strange memories, dark places they would have paid dearly to forget.
"Hmm…. Maybe it's like a hotel!" one boy with sandy blonde hair suggests with a cheerful smile. He was the one shivering the most, drawing his black jacket tighter and tighter around his thin form.
"Are you some kind of idiot, loser?" The girl snaps at him, rolling her dark green eyes at his idiocy.
"Um… My name's Myde! What's yours?" Myde asks instead, barely even registering that she had insulted him.
"It's Arlene. You better remember that; I don't like telling people twice." Arlene says grudgingly as she flicks a few strands of bright yellow hair out of her face. At this, the boy who had released them chuckles. Each person turns to look at him.
"Welcome to Veritas, Organization XIII. I hope you've enjoyed your stay." He says cheerfully. He snaps his fingers and a screen appears in the room.
"Huh?"
"Why don't we catch up on what you don't remember, my dear friends?" An image appears on the screen and everyone in the room turns to look. The image of a glorious castle appears with a peaceful looking town surrounding it is shown briefly.
"That's Radiant Gardens." The older man says icily, giving the strange boy a suspicious glare. The boy glances over.
"You may call me Dai, Mister Even. Yes, this is Radiant Gardens; the home world of many of you here." 'Dai' explains calmly. Myde raises his hand cautiously as if he was at school.
"Uh… I'm not from there. I'm from-" He begins to explain when Dai interrupts him.
"Yes, you're from Intermezzo Cove. I know." Myde nods, not questioning how this boy who he never met before in his life knew the name of his town.
"Six of you here were the apprentices of a great and wise leader, appropriately and perhaps not very modestly named Ansem the Wise. Your names are Xehanort, Braig, Dilan, Even, Aeleus and Ienzo, if I'm not mistaken." Six of the awakened eleven nod. A boy with dark blue hair watches the image of the Gardens in a sort of trance before giving out an audible yelp.
"What is it, Isa?" Dai asks him.
"Lea! He's… He was in the Castle with me! We were going to go get help from Ansem the Wise and… and…" Isa trails off, narrowing his eyes in confusion as he tries to remember just what had happened.
"Ah, I was getting to that part. Well, due to the influence of one of your fellow apprentices, Xehanort, you apprentices ended up destroying your town and creating creatures known as the Heartless. Am I correct so far?" Though Dai mentions this very casually, a solemn looking young man shuffles his feet nervously and coughs.
"Yes." A very tall and extremely strong looking man says in a rumbling voice. Arlene instantly backs away from him, apparently not wanting to get crushed by the large person.
"Ah, Aeleus. Ansem's fifth apprentice. You and your…let's say associates ended up losing your hearts, didn't you? You became Nobodies." Dai says with a sympathetic smile. Aeleus nods solemnly.
"But what is a Nobody?" The youngest member in the group asks. He was a very solemn looking boy with dark purplish hair. Dai glances at him.
"For Ienzo's sake, I suppose I must explain this. A Nobody is a creature with no Heart; it is the empty shell of a person with an extraordinarily strong Heart. You all became such creatures." Everyone in the room didn't seem the least bit surprised.
"And now, since I was the one who so generously brought you your Hearts and collected your Souls, you all work for me now." Dai says calmly as he rubs his hands together in eagerness.
"There's always a catch, isn't there?" Braig says with a cocky grin. His scarred face showed signs that he was an experienced fighter though there was an extremely mischievous look in his remaining eye. Dai grins back at him.
"Yes, there always is. Now, your first job involves someone very important to a friend of mine." He says calmly as a new image appears on the screen. It was of a quiet street bathed in the soothing reddish-gold light of the setting sun. There was no one in the alley like street except for a boy with dark gold hair calmly walking home from school. He looked very solemn and quiet, much like the town itself.
"Uh… A kid?" Isa asks in confusion. Dai smiles.
"Keep watching." A second after those words were uttered, a man with bright red hair greets the boy with a confident grin. They immediately start chatting as they begin to walk home together. Isa's eyes widen in shock as he glances over to where Lea was sleeping.
"H-H-How…But he's in here!" He stammers as he raps his knuckles against the glass. Inside Lea twitches slightly at the noise and then continues to sleep peacefully. Dai chuckles coldly.
"Your first instinct is to get your friend back, isn't it?" He asks in a completely different tone and voice than he had been speaking with originally. Isa nods. Dai smiles wickedly.
"Good. Your job is to eliminate Roxas and Naminé and get Lea's Heart back from the Nobody Axel. Can you handle that, Isa, Braig and Arlene?" The three mentioned jump slightly.
"By eliminate… you mean kill?" Arlene asks nervously. Dai nods.
"You cannot honestly think that I'll kill Lea, do you?" Isa says in an icy voice, giving the boy a furious glare. He was just about to punch the mysterious kid when Dai snaps his fingers. Instantly a black tendril of smoke wraps around the cases. Everyone freezes.
"I tried to be kind and negotiate. Now I see that I'll have to do this the hard way. Either you bring me Axel, Roxas and Naminé or Lea dies fully and completely along with the rest of you pathetic little Nobody has-beens. Do you understand you three?" Arlene glances nervously over at Lea's case and nods.
"Fine. I ain't having someone's blood on my hands if I can help it. Even if I don't know what's going on." She says in a reluctant tone.
"This kiddo's from my hometown. You think I'll let ya pulverize 'im? I'll do your little job, bucko." Braig says in an offbeat voice. He didn't seem to really care either way.
"Fine." Isa says in a defeated tone of voice. His shoulders slump down as if he had suddenly been given a heavy burden to bear.
"Good. Then we'll give you your weapons back and you can be sent on your way. As for the rest of you, you'll be sent back to your home worlds." Dai says as he turns away from them and starts leading them out of the room. Numbly, everyone follows.
"Lea, we will be home soon. I promise." Isa says over his shoulder as Arlene and Braig escort him out.
Behind them, the image of Axel and Roxas continues to play with the pair cheerfully joking around and laughing inaudibly until the screen cracks into a pattern not unlike a spider's web. It shatters violently, leaving nothing of the screen except a smoking frame and millions of tiny fragments scattered in gleaming outlines on the tiles of the chamber.