Just past the rusted, sharpened iron gates of Castle Midnight Moonraven McGee, bordering the winding brick road up to the great drawbridge and front gates, there was a vast and macabre garden. Stems of dead flowers raised the shriveled blossoms into the light of the full moon, like the gristly hands of a corpse reaching out from the grave. Moonlight poured from the silvery orb up above, perfectly round as it always was in this little corner of Inept Crossings—a requiem for the eternal day that had never been born, cloaked in the shadow of the eternal night. Gothic statues stood like monoliths in the deeper sections of the garden, gargoyles and lawn gnomes almost seeming to move in the absence of sunlight. Foreboding bushes lined the path, expertly trimmed into the shapes of Dracula, Lestat, Vlad the Impaler, every film role of Kate Beckinsale up to but not including Click, that girly Dracula from Castlevania, Alucard, Vampire Hunter D, Bela Lugosi and Bunnicula.
At the far end of the path was a particularly proud-looking bush, trimmed into the elegant figure of a very familiar being in a long robe doing his very best to look like he belonged on the cover of a gothic horror novel.
"I don't know why the moon didn't tip me off earlier that Saïx's Seme had a part in this," Xaldin rolled his eyes at the bush's likeness.
"He and Luxord's Seme must be working together here. They must be responsible for the horrid shape this world is in," Lexaeus sighed.
"I couldn't care less about this revolting little piece of nowhere," Xaldin replied, "But I would like our Organization members back as soon as possible."
"All three of them," Lexaeus added.
Neither would acknowledge the fact, but the screams of torture echoing from the direction of the castle had been silenced. There was an apparent mutual dread to find out why that was.
A wolf howled in the distance and suddenly there were footsteps—shuffling, stuttering footsteps coming down the stone path in a slow march towards the two Nobodies.
"We have company," Xaldin warned his comrade, drawing a lance up out of the air. Lexaeus nodded silently and called for his tomahawk, moving back-to-back against Xaldin to keep an eye out in a full circle around them.
"AH-NEE-MAY!" moaned a croaky voice. "AH-NEE-MAAAAAY!"
"AH-NEE-MAY! AH-NEE-MAY!" a whole chorus of croaky voices answered.
"Oh hell," Lexaeus groaned, as they were suddenly set upon by a small mob of pasty, red-eyed anime fans.
Well, this particular mob was made up of a species called Otaku Gutless, so they were considerably more pasty and red-eyed than most anime fans. They wore cat ears, Naruto headbands, tattered and stained shirts with kanji for "I want a Japanese girl/boyfriend" emblazoned across the fronts, blue jeans and Pikachu slippers. They carried boxes of pocky in greasy fingers and bottles of pressurized ramune hung from their belts, refreshments that could never feed the hunger for all things Japanese that radiated from their dead, glazed-over eyes. The Gutless symbol was tattooed proudly on their cheeks.
The Gutless in the back began to arm themselves with bootleg Hong Kong subtitled DVDs while those in the front continued their undead march towards our heroes, their arms out and their fingers itching to strangle some gaijin.
"They never seem to be anything more than cannon fodder nuisances," Xaldin lamented, impaling a whole group of the creatures nearest him on the ends of his six lances.
"No, it makes one wonder when we'll ever have to deal with a real challenge," Lexaeus agreed, decapitating those on his side.
The wounded Gutless stumbled on the ground after the dealing of their death-blows, but much to the chagrin of our heroes began to slowly lift themselves up as though only given flesh wounds.
"Why won't they die?" Xaldin snapped after his fourth or fifth attempt to kill a particularly stubborn group.
"This species must have gained ridiculously unrealistic stamina and recovery abilities, not unlike the majority of manga characters," Lexaeus suggested reasonably.
Unfortunately for Lexaeus, he was suddenly set upon by a snarling gang of the creatures, squeezing and poking and pulling at him in outraged fury at his callous mispronunciation.
"MAHN-GA! MAAAAHN-GA!" moaned the Gutless.
The Silent Hero was quite a large man, but it was difficult to effortlessly shrug off the spaghetti-armed dorks when there were so many of them glomping all over his legs, arms and back. "Xaldin, a little help?"
"Obnoxious little bastards!" Xaldin roared, becoming quite frustrated as he attempted to free his comrade from the onslaught. Headless, crawling Gutless began to yank on his coat like bloodthirsty zombies, scrawny hands feeling about in his pockets for any sign of a wallet, the only thing that could keep up the crack-like expenses of their favorite hobby. "Back OFF! We don't have any of your accursed cartoons!"
A banshee-like shriek sounded in unison from their meek throats, a very insulted scream of "AH-NEE-MAY! AH-NEEEEE-MAAAAAY!"
"I think we pissed them off," Lexaeus grunted, thrusting his shoulders left and right and trying to swing his tomahawk, but barely able to move for the unmoving mass of geek currently clinging to him.
"Son of a bitch!" Xaldin was not normally the type to curse when the going got tough, but now the little monsters were grabbing handfuls of his braids and yanking him downward to join their writhing cesspool of nerdiness on the ground. "They're stupider than anybody who thinks Naruto is an accurate depiction of ninjitsu!"
"Did you just go there?" Lexaeus managed a grin.
Xaldin smirked despite himself. "I rather think I did."
"NAH-RU-TOH! NAAAH-RU-TOOOOH!" screamed the Gutless.
"NUH-RU-DOH!" a solitary Gutless in the back added. The unfortunate little chap was immediately set upon by his own kind, who ripped him limb from limb.
Xaldin and Lexaeus stared at the grisly scene for only a second or two before the answer came to them.
"Lexaeus—answer me a question," Xaldin said quickly. "What would Aeris do in this situation?"
"I'm not sure—I've always subscribed to the philosophy of Luffy," Lexaeus replied without missing a beat.
The Otaku Gutless all gasped in simultaneous horror.
"AERITH!" screamed half.
"LOO-FEE!" screamed the other half.
The screaming was met by more gasps of horror.
"AERIS!"
"LUHFF-EE!"
"How about Yuffie?" Xaldin interrupted the screaming match.
"Oh no, I'd be more concerned about keeping my head in a more Tidus-like fashion," Lexaeus added.
"YOO-FFEE!" shrilled the incensed Gutless.
"TAI-DUS!"
"YUH-FFEE!"
"TEE-DUH!"
"The real question is what Vincent would do," Xaldin tossed out a little unnecessarily, as the Otaku Gutless were already busy screaming and bitching and choking each other over pronunciations.
"BINSENTO!" one rather zealous little fellow in the back yelled and pile-drove a few of his mates.
The Gutless slowly began to fall away from Xaldin and Lexaeus, turning instead to the very important task of correcting each other over the pronunciation of the names of fictional characters. When neither side of any particular argument would back down, there came the slaps, the pokes, the pushes and shoves, the foot-stomping, the biting, the clawing, the ripping and the dismembering.
The two Nobodies stumbled back a safe distance away and watched the scuffle, recovering their strength with big, evil smiles on their faces.
"Oh, it's a beautiful thing," Xaldin sighed with a satisfied smirk.
"Makes me wish I'd watched a little more Evangelion, wouldn't you agree, Xaldin?" Lexaeus said loudly.
That was the last straw. In a great explosion of noise, the Otaku Gutless gave their final screams of self-righteous trivial nonsense (some combination of "EHV-AN-JEL-EE-ON!", "EEV-AN-GEHL-EE-ON" and a few random Japanese curses from the ones who were too incensed and upset to even argue). Then the whole mob of them exploded in a magnificent burst of cherry blossoms, sweatdrops and comical nose blood, leaving nothing behind but smears and half-emptied boxes of coconut almond pocky.
"Handled with delightful cleverness as always, Lexaeus," Xaldin extended his palm.
"I only wish Vexen was here to see it," Lexaeus replied, shaking his hand.
"We oughtn't waste anymore time—let's get inside this place and rescue our unfortunate comrades," Xaldin motioned over his shoulder.
"Too right," Lexaeus agreed, and the two of them rushed up the path and through the castle's front door.
If there was one thing Secks was good at, it was brooding. He had a vast repertoire of skills, but brooding happened to be one of his specialties.
He was currently staring out the theatre window of his chambre in the highest centre tower of the castle, gazing ceaselessly at the full moon with a dark gleam in his eyes. It was almost dark enough to rival that redundantly dark guy from the first part of chapter six.
Ah, but it paled in comparison to the moon, that beautiful spectre in the sky. Its silvery light glinted off the dark fibres on the trim of his robes and the sabres displayed on the walls behind him. It was such a beautiful night. He felt good. Perhaps later he and Luxory would go outside and grille some beer can chicken.
Suddenly, his pleasant thoughts of a nice midnight barbecue were interrupted by a pair of semi-familiar scents catching in his nose.
Secks inhaled, sniffing. His eyes narrowed. He clenched his teeth together and suddenly the moon was a very unpleasant thing. It was calling to him, chanting his name, trying to edge him away from what was fine and upright and comfortable and admirable and towards the truth…
"Nobodies," Secks snarled to himself, tightening fists so hard his already pale knuckled turned bone-white.
He turned dramatically from the window, his cape whooshing behind him as he stomped towards the chambre door.
They would have to be dealt with immediatele.
Following the guidebook's signal and fighting off hoards of Otaku Gutless by starting amusing fights about stupid things, Xaldin and Lexaeus were able to quickly navigate the hallways of Castle Midnight Moonraven McGee until they reached the long, dank stairs down into the dungeons, where there were a few weak unidentified signals flashing for attention.
"Do you suppose he's all right?" Lexaeus asked softly as they reached a doorway at the bottom of the stairs.
"I don't know… we three are supposedly immune to the Gutless parasite, but if they've done something else to him…" Xaldin drifted off.
"If they have, we'll deal with it like we've dealt with the others," Lexaeus replied. "Simple as that."
He placed a hand on the doorknob and slowly turned it, pushing the pair's way into the dungeons.
It was eerily silent in the cavernous main room of the dungeon. All sorts of nasty-looking machines of torture and other unknown purposes hung from the walls, a fairly impressive one hanging from the ceiling above. At the far end of the room was a slab with some body covered by a stained white sheet.
And nearby, chained to the wall and passed out, was Vexen.
He was obviously not dead, his comrades noted as they rushed across the room to his aid—Nobodies did not leave bodies behind when they died, but simply faded away into the darkness from whence they came. Whatever happened to him, Vexen was still alive…
But in quite a state. He was bedraggled, exhausted-looking, and paler than the vocal comparison of Paul Rodgers to Freddie Mercury. His hair rested stringy and dirty over his shoulders and his eyes were closed as though he was merely sleeping. He was unresponsive as Lexaeus stood beside him and attempted to wake him.
"Vexen! Vexen! Wake up! Are you all right?" Lexaeus hissed, shaking him by the shoulders.
For all intents and purposes Vexen appeared to be quite dead, barely breathing—though healthily pulseless.
"What in the hell did they do to him?" Lexaeus asked in a rising tone, as Xaldin poked around the equipment on the walls.
"I don't know," Xaldin glared at the complex machinery and devices like they had personally insulted him in hiding their purposes. He turned his attention to the slab and the still body a short distance away, staring back and forth between Vexen and the figure obscured by the sheet.
"Vexen! Number Four! Vexen!" Lexaeus said loudly in his ear. "Even!"
Suddenly Vexen began to stir, groaning heavily and letting one of his eyes slide wearily open.
"There, he's awake," Lexaeus sighed with slight relief.
"Vexen, what happened?" Xaldin asked him, hurrying over to assess his condition.
Vexen didn't reply for a moment, still seeming to be gathering his wits. He moaned a few short, high-pitched nonsense syllables and stared sleepily at his rescuers, tilting his head ever-so-slightly to the side.
"Are you all right? Say something," Xaldin urged him.
"Ngggppggnhmggghggm?" he said eloquently.
"There now, calm down," Lexaeus gave him a few steady pats on the shoulder. "Take a moment to collect yourself."
Vexen very slowly opened his other eye, squinting in the bright light of the room and making confused faces at his comrades, as though working very hard to piece together what had happened to him. He weakly lifted his hands, chains jingling and banging against the wall as he tried to motion something with his hands. "Mmmph," he groaned. "Mmmmmph…"
"What is it?" Xaldin urged him.
Vexen began moving his lips very slowly, though no sound came out as he seemed to be mouthing something. He glanced back and forth from Xaldin to Lexaeus with fear in his eyes, mouthing faster and faster and seeming to shrink away in the horror of remembrance.
"Speak up, Vexen," Lexaeus pat him on the shoulder again. "It's all right, they won't hurt you anymore. We'll get you out. Just tell us what happened."
He finally began to mumble unintelligibly, the same syllables he'd been mouthing silently, eyes glazing over with traumatized fear.
"Pccktmkaprtycke…" Vexen whispered. "Fthwyshzy…"
"Vexen?" Xaldin raised an eyebrow.
"Speak up," Lexaeus encouraged him.
"You don't understand," Vexen's voice suddenly broke in a high-pitched moan. His chains jangled as he reached out, grabbed Lexaeus and Xaldin by the collars, and pulled them very close to him. "You don't understand. Can't understand. Can't hear! Can't see can't speak or feel or know can't understand why… why… why…"
"Calm down," Xaldin said sternly. "Just tell us what happened."
"Bits and pieces little bits and pieces of apple chunks coming up," Vexen's voice was tilting into a miserable wail. "Running and walking on two legs dancing singing like a girl… not a girl, not a girl, a monster… grotesque plastic faces smiling and laughing and moving like it's natural but it's not natural right and left and back and forth and up and down… can't speak can't hear can't feel or know don't understand why… why! Why!"
Xaldin and Lexaeus stared at their comrade in horror as the events of the past few hours began to come together.
"By the book by the book by the book by the book by the book," Vexen's voice rose into a helpless scream. "BY THE BOOK! BY THE BOOK!"
"Vexen…?" they mumbled together.
His eyes got very small and his mouth opened very wide in a shriek of pure terror. "YOU GOTTA DO THE COOKIN' BY THE BOOK! By the book… by the book, oh merciful worlds, not the cake… not the cake… They wouldn't stop… hours… minutes fading into hours of it… the cake… i-it's the cake… THE CAKE!"
The other Nobodies quickly broke themselves out of Vexen's grip and backed away as fast as they could, eyes wide in shock and terror.
Organization XIII was not a nice group of sort-of-kind-of-former people. They toyed with minds, they twisted relationships, they used lives as tools, they manipulated innocents, they spread chaos, they captured hearts, they lengthened the lines at the DMV and they commanded Heartless. They caused destruction and mayhem, they were amoral and didn't care about the consequences, they used any means to achieve their ends.
But no member of Organization XIII, no matter how desperate, no matter how mean, no matter how evil and no matter how determined to find a heart, would ever—ever—do something like this to any being, human, Heartless and Nobody alike.
"Those bastards… those sick, twisted sons of bitches!" Xaldin growled.
"This will not stand," Lexaeus glowered. "They will pay."
"Will they?" a cool, evil voice whispered from behind them.
Suddenly Xaldin and Lexaeus were thrown forward by a burst of ice and sleet. They skidded to a halt just short of slamming the poor delusional Vexen into the wall and turned around in time for a very climactic lightning strike and thunder clap, announcing the presence of someone new.
The body on the slab slowly rose up, unnaturally loose and dragging limbs like a rag doll. A pale hand yanked away the sheet and—
"YEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAWWW! Y'ALL BOYS IS ALL KINDA EXCITIN' T' BE MEETIN' FOR TH' FIRST TIME!"
It was fair to say that this was the first time anybody had seen Vexen (or at least, somebody who looked just like him) in a sweat-stained trucker cap. His red flannel shirt was tucked into ripped and greasy blue jeans, the pantlegs similarly tucked into a pair of snakeskin cowboy boots and held up by a pair of camouflage suspenders. The creature on the table snorted loudly, hocked a massive loogie off to the side and grinned like an idiot with shiny white buck teeth.
The Vexen-thing spun on the seat of his pants and hopped to his feet, adjusting his ball cap and hitching his thumbs in his pants.
"HOOOOOEEEEYYY! HOWDY Y'ALL!" he more or less hollered. "VIXEN'S mah name! Awful pleasure t' be meetin' y'all!"
Xaldin and Lexaeus stared silently at the Seme, then over at Vexen, staring in abject horror at the creature that had risen from the slab.
"Oh no no no no no no no no no NO," Vexen mumbled.
"What was it Vexen said we were to do if he ever got turned?" Xaldin asked.
"He said to give him twenty minutes and if he wasn't back to normal, kill him," Lexaeus replied.
"Am I alone in thinking it would be a mercy killing if we put him out of his misery now?"
"No. No, Xaldin, I think Vexen would appreciate it if we saved him a little dignity and killed him immediately."
"But he did say twenty minutes," Xaldin lamented—if it were him, he would certainly want to be dead.
"Let's see if we can't defuse the situation before then," Lexaeus said grimly.
"Awww shyoooooot!" Vixen giggled lecherously, grinning like he'd just won free tickets to a Toby Keith concert. "Y'all ain't gonna be gettin' rid'a me so soon now, are ya? I been waitin' t' deal y'all a hand'a TEXAS DEATH HOLD 'EM!"
"HUWHAAT?"
The sudden shine of bling across the room announced the presence of Homie X Luxory, posing melodramatically at the top of the stairway. He spun his pimp cane and grinned, showing off a mouthful of sparkly gold teeth. "Now Luxory knows y'all ain't makin' plans f'r card games 'round HEAH wit'out 'im, EH? EH?"
"HOWDY 'CUZ!" Vixen greeted his Seme brethren with a mighty helpin' o' Southern friendliness, waving and tipping his hat. "Y'all wanna come on down an' help me take these fellers out?"
"AW HELL NAW!" Luxory burst out. "Homeslice's all 'Yo Luxory we's gonna turn all three'o'dem peeps t' our side, an' we gets us some favas from the Sups', ya dig?"
"Hear ya loud n' clear, buddy!" Vixen danced a little excited jig. "An' after that can we go find us a honky-tonk?"
"HUUWHAAAT? Aw MAN y'all's all into that country shit, BOYEEE?"
"Dern skippy, 'Cuz! Let's GIT R DUN!"
"HUUWHAAT?"
"GIT R DUN!"
"YEEAAYUH!"
"I didn't understand a word of that," Xaldin said, shaking his head in utter disbelief.
"I'm almost glad Vexen isn't in any condition to witness this," Lexaeus said optimistically.
"In any case, he and the English language have suffered enough," Xaldin summoned all six of his lances and began to hover a few feet off the ground. "I don't know how much more of this I can stand. Let's get it over with."
"We're down to seventeen minutes before we should kill Vexen," Lexaeus caught his tomahawk as it appeared in thin air before him, hefting it over his shoulder.
"Once again, we can clearly see the importance of having a living will that your friends and family know about," Xaldin said off-handedly to the readers.
"I know I will make it a priority as soon as possible… you never know what can happen," Lexaeus agreed, nodding sagely.
"You take Luxord's, I'll take Vexen's?" Xaldin suggested.
"Sounds good to me," Lexaeus nodded and treaded across the room to face his opponent.
With a smug grin, Luxory kicked a switch on the floor nearby as Lexaeus approached. A hip-hop rhythm filled the room through the extra large speakers, and he twirled around in circles before striking another dramatic pose. "Yo-yo big guy, 'SUP? Now y'all gonna watch n' learn cuz HOMIE X LUXORY- he got Skillz That Killz, a'ight?"
"Okay," Lexaeus did not look very impressed as Luxory launched into a snazzy four-minute hip-hop crunk and breakdancing demo, a fairly disconcerting sight for anybody who knew the British gentleman from his Nobody life.
But suddenly the music began to speed up. Luxory stood straight and snapped his fingers in time to the beat. He grinned at Lexaeus evilly and a dark glow came about him.
Lexaeus tightened his fists around his tomahawk, bracing himself for Luxory's inevitable first attack. He watched closely as the Seme reached into his pocket and pulled out four flashy holographic-backed playing cards, carefully studying the numbers and the suits before throwing them up in the air.
This was going to be difficult.
Let it be known that though Luxord was the only member of Organization XIII without a real, threatening weapon, there wasn't one among their number who would ever doubt how dangerous and skillful a fighter he was (this does not include Zexion who as far as we know, wields nothing—and you are all very well aware of just how intimidating "nothing" can be). New recruits and cocky challengers always laughed when they found out that "all" Luxord could do is play games and make wagers. Luxord always took it in stride, simply smiling and then challenging the offender to a little game of cards or dice.
This more often than not resulted in humiliated, naked and penniless offenders begging and pleading for Luxord to stop collecting the "stakes" as he saw fit.
Number Ten was single-handedly responsible for the end of the Organization's weekly Game Night, after the great Monopoly Incident of several years ago. The man is named after a casino, for cryin' out loud.
So when Luxory's cards began to swirl around him faster and faster, more illusory cards gathering behind him and spinning in preparation to strike, one cannot blame Lexaeus for hedging his own bets the way he did.
"Y'all gonna be prayin' to yo momma fo' mercy up in HEAH!" Luxory cackled maniacally. "Y'all can't stop the HIP-HOP!"
"Yes, I can," Lexaeus extended his hand and began to concentrate.
"YEAAAYUH? How y'all thinkin'?" Luxory snorted condescendingly.
"With rock," Lexaeus replied as Luxory was suddenly slammed to the ground and entombed in six cubic walls of thick stone. "Let's see you dig out of there with your pimp cane and playing cards."
Meanwhile, Xaldin was clashing with the horrifyingly out-of-character Vexen Seme, backing away briefly from the Whirlwind Lancer and wiggling his fingers. "Y'all're pretty tough, partner! I'm'onna make you squeal like a piggy," Vixen giggled.
"I'll go easy on you if you just promise to never, ever say that again," Xaldin groaned in disgust.
"Now why y'all goin' all off'n tryin' t' kill me now?" Vixen asked with a twisted grin. "Y'all know I'm havin' FUN over here on off by mahself an' away from that!" He gestured back over to the real Vexen, who had fallen silent and was watching the proceedings with a blank expression.
"We both know you're not going to be here very long," Xaldin grasped two of his lances in each hand while the other two spun around him protectively. "Let's just get it over with."
"Ah-HUH!"
"I said, 'Let's just get it over with'," Xaldin repeated.
"Ah-HUH!" this was accompanied by a sudden, spastic jerk of Vixen's head.
"Are you listening to me?" Xaldin snapped.
"Ah-HUH HUH HUH HUH HUH!" There was something clearly wrong with Vixen as his head continued to jerk and his limbs twitched convulsively. "YEEHAW! YEEHAW! YEEHAW! P-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-partner!"
"That is NOT me," Vexen yelled desperately.
"I know, Vexen, just stay there and stay calm. I'll deal with him," Xaldin replied as he and Vixen circled each other, the latter still jerking like a Final Fantasy fanboy in line at the Advent Children premiere.
Did I just go there? I rather think I did.
"No… I mean, that is not me!" Vexen repeated, still dazed, but doing his best to make sense and gesture with his chained hands. "Not my Seme!"
"It's what?" Xaldin whipped his head around to glance at his comrade in shock.
"Behind you!"
Xaldin lurched forward suddenly as Vixen tackled him, wrapping his arms around the lancer's neck and squeezing his throat. "YEEEHAW! RIDE 'EM COWBOY!"
Screaming in rage, Xaldin swung an elbow back to knock the whatever-it-was off of him, spinning and lunging to dislodge the evil redneck Vexen from his person. Finally he managed to get an arm around the thing's neck, pulling its head forward for a nice gentlemanly meeting with Xaldin's fist.
Xaldin figured something was very wrong when the front of Vixen's face impacted. "What the hell!"
"YA GOL' DARN GONE AN' DUNNIT!" Vixen fell to the ground and continued to spasm, sparks popping from his joints and smoke pouring from his eyed, mouth and nose. "I GOT FRIENDS IN LOOOOOOOW PLACES!" Layers of skin, hair and clothes purchased from an Army Surplus store began to crumble and melt away from a metallic frame.
"Merciful darkness," Xaldin cursed, backing away from the malfunctioning Vixen and grasping at his throat. "It's not a Seme, it's a Replica!"
"Kill it!" Vexen snapped from his spot on the wall, apparently feeling more like his old, cranky self.
Never the type to ask questions or debate when the options came down to killing or being molested by a creepy replica of a friend of his (which happened fairly often, surprisingly), Xaldin gestured with his hands and a rain of four lances fell from nowhere, impaling the Vexen Replica to the hard stone floor in a great shower of sparks and motor oil.
Once everything quieted down, Xaldin recalled his lances and let out an immense sigh. "Why didn't you say anything earlier, Vexen? We were ten minutes from putting you out of your misery!"
"If the two of you knew what they put me through before you got here," Vexen growled, looking quite a bit healthier than he had a few minutes earlier thanks to a Nobody's innate powers of recovery, "You wouldn't be so snappy with me."
"Something about cake?" Xaldin asked as Lexaeus made his way over to join them. Vexen shuddered visibly at the hated word.
"I've got Luxord's Seme trapped over there for the moment," Lexaeus informed them, "We can deal with him whenever we're ready. Good to see you feeling better, Vexen."
"I can speak coherently, at least," Vexen grumbled, "But I still feel as though I was hit by a train."
"At least your… you know are intact. But why would they bother making a Replica of you?" Xaldin wondered out loud, staring distastefully at what remained of Vixen.
"It's fuzzy," Vexen replied as Lexaeus got to work releasing him from his chains. "But I don't think their coercion methods to get a Seme out of me were working."
"Good show, Vexen," Lexaeus complimented him. "Very strong of you, to stand up in the face of such pure, absolute torture."
"Thank you," Vexen sighed, weary and exhausted. "I used up much of my power trying to withstand their experiments… I don't think I'll be up for any fights on this world."
"And we wouldn't ask it of you. Concentrate on regaining your strength, and Lexaeus and I will handle any more fighting that needs to be done," Xaldin assured him.
From up on the top of the stairway, there came the sound of a slow clap.
"Bravo… bravo, gentlemen. Very nice detective work," Secks smiled eerily at them as he appeared in all his gothic glory. "The Grand Master Fangirl and our Superior were very insistent that we find a way to incapacitate the three of you, but your dear friend we captured just didn't seem to want to cooperate."
"You!" Vexen snarled, freed from his chains just in time. "You sadistic bastard! You're going to pay for what you did to me!"
"Ah, Saïx!" Xaldin smiled with fake good-nature. "We thought it was you holed up in this horrible, drab little castle!"
"Don't call me by my slave name, Number Three," Secks threw back a predatory grin and brushed very shiny long blue hair from his face, eyes glittering in the dim light of the dungeon laboratory. "Wait."
He paused suddenly and placed a hand on his chin. "No, no, no, that won't do at all. What a terribly-timed entrance!"
"Pardon?" Lexaeus called up to him.
"I ought to have come in right after you mentioned the Replica," Secks snapped his fingers. "No, no, see, what did I say? About detective work! Agh! It'd sound so much more diabolical if I came in at the proper time… Now hold on a moment, I'm going to leave and come back and we'll try that again. Say something about the Replica!"
Xaldin, Vexen and Lexaeus stared at him dumbly as he spun around and exited the dungeon again with a loud slam of the door.
"What in the name of…?" Vexen mumbled.
Xaldin eyed his two comrades much the way one eyes their very first encounter with mislabeled Pokemon tentacle hentai, and said, "What about the Replica?"
From up on the top of the stairway, there came the sound of a slow clap.
"Bravo… bravo, gentlemen. Very nice detective work," Secks smiled eerily at them as he appeared in all his gothic glory. "The Grand Master Fangirl and our Superior were very insistent that we find a way to incapacitate the three of you, but your dear friend we captured just didn't seem to want to cooperate."
He smiled suddenly, and laced his fingers together. "That was much better. Perfect."
Ignoring the dumbstruck trio down below, Secks slowly mounted the stairs and continued drawling on in a light, sinister voice. "Yes… all we needed was to buy a little time from our dear Superiors until we could figure out how, precisely, to get our hands on those lovely you knows of yours… So my associate Luxory and I built a Replica until we could present our masters with a true Seme."
"No wonder it broke down so quickly," Lexaeus snapped, "With such shoddy, hurried construction."
"It is much better than you could have done, you dundering oaf!" Secks snapped, then paused again. "'Dundering'… hm… 'stumbling'? 'Plodding'? 'Traipsing'…? Ah, yes- It is much better than you could have done, you traipsing oaf!"
"As though it weren't enough you were the empty, brainless shell of one of our most loyal associates in Organization XIII," Xaldin yelled, pulling a lance out of midair for the ensuing combat. "You are also a ridiculous, elitist idiot and a sadistic torturer, whose evil is unfit to exist in even the deepest darkness!"
"As such," Lexaeus added, hoisting his tomahawk over his shoulder. "We're going to destroy you, and your associate."
"Ahahahahah!" Secks laughed maniacally, throwing his hands up to the sky as a window shade across the room dramatically flew open, pouring silver moonlight into the dungeon (despite the fact that the dungeon was underground). "You insignificant worms! Hm. 'Worms'…? No, no… maggots… maggots! You insignificant maggots! You fools really think you can defeat me? Me, Lord Secks, the castellan master of Castle Midnight Moonraven McGee? Overlord and ruler of all Inept Crossings? HAHAHAHA!" He threw out his arms and his cape whipped in a sudden indoor wind behind him, dramatically accentuating the organ chords from nowhere. "Entire worlds have crumbled beneath my mighty wrath! And the three… no, the two of you think you can possibly defeat me?"
"In a word, yes," Lexaeus snapped, not taking Secks' snide comments about Vexen's inability to fight in a very light manner at all.
In actuality, Secks was referring to the fact that Vexen had vanished somewhere between his first and second dramatic entrances, so there were, in fact, only two Nobodies standing against him.
"Very well… allow me to show you just how hopelessly disillusioned you are," Secks sneered as he reached the bottom of the stairs, and crossed his arms over his chest in the manner of a corpse lying in the coffin. "Moonlight! Shine down upon me!"
Secks began to tremble and quiver, taking on a vaguely evil glow as the moonlight cascaded over his body. His eyes began to glitter blood red and he lurched as though undergoing some transformation.
"Oh, wonderful," Xaldin groaned.
"Let me guess. He's a werewolf in this world, isn't he?" Lexaeus added lamely.
"Either that or he's Sailor Moon," Xaldin quipped. "In which case all we need to defeat him is to call him by his dubbed name. He'll convulse and explode in a blind rage."
"Or we could insinuate that he's actually Luxory's cousin instead of his lover," Lexaeus smirked.
"Or we could simply wait until his androgynous sex-changing allies appear and they refuse to dub him in North America," Xaldin put in.
"And we most certainly went there," Lexaeus concluded with sarcastic smile.
Across the dungeon, Secks was fully in the throes of his transformation, growing claws, longer and silkier hair in a mane down his neck and back, and fangs. Adorable puppy ears sprang up from his head and once he had made it about halfway—that is, before he got too terribly ugly or beastly—the transformation ceased. He threw his cape off to the side and cleared his throat, emitting a loud and primal howl at the moon.
"Sssso you ssssssee?" Secks snarled, as the last echoes of his howl dissipated through the room. "You forccccced me to reveal my TRUE SSSSSELF! And now, I am going to DESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTROY you!"
"Bring it on," Xaldin challenged him.
Secks' lovely hair fell in his face as he paced towards them slowly, dramatically, each step a testament to his badassed evilness and his lycanthropic nature, eyed wide and teeth bared, lips pulled back into a gruesome snarl. "As I made your ridiculous old man comrade scream for mercy, I will make you scream when you are writhing beneath me as I sup upon your blood and devour your still-beating heart from-"
No sooner had the words escaped Secks' lips when there was the sound of electrical jolting from up above. The Seme and both Nobodies looked up quickly to see what was going on when a tremendous piece of scaffolding holding the UKENATOR 3000 snapped from its rivets and tumbled to the dungeon floor with a deafening crash. Xaldin and Lexaeus were able to teleport safely out of the way just in time, but Secks had barely managed to dodge, finding himself pinned as the scaffolding ground against the floor and barely missed impaling him, merely trapping him against another massive machine.
"First of all," an icy voice screamed from atop the fallen scaffolding, "I am neither an old man, nor am I ridiculous."
Secks grunted and squirmed, trying to escape from his predicament and growing just the slightest bit panicked as a dark figure drew closer and closer to him with something in his hands.
"Second," the voice continued, raising his hands and coating the scaffolding and floor with thick, twisting spires of ice that stuck Secks' arms, legs and torso to the wall, limiting his movement even further. "I never screamed for mercy from you, you sick, deluded bastard."
Secks glared in fury at the angry silhouette. "You releasssssse me thisssss insssstant! I was not BORN to be CAGED-"
That's when Secks saw what Vexen was holding—and he fell completely silent, save for a pathetic puppy-like whimper from the back of his throat.
"And third," Vexen hissed, leaning inches away from Secks and staring him straight in the eye. "Nobodies. Do not. Have. Hearts." He slipped a pair of rudimentary headphones over Secks' werewolf ears and took a few steps back towards the switch.
"Wh-wh-what are you doing!" Secks yelped. "You can't… n-no! No! You wouldn't!"
"I'm only keeping my promise, Secks," Vexen sneered. "I did say I'd kill you myself, didn't I?"
And with that, Vexen flipped the switch.
Silence filled the room.
Then came a dreadful noise. It was the sound of continued silence where there should have been screaming—but it was the silence that occurred when the victim was utterly incapable of screaming for one reason or another. Secks was incapable of screaming because his entire body had seized into convulsions—his eyes rolled back in his head, his mouth froze open and blood poured from his throat and the corners of his eyes.
Lexaeus and Xaldin appeared over Vexen's shoulder and glanced down in horror, just in time to watch Secks choke to death on his own vomit.
Then he exploded.
From the chunks came a burst of purple glowing sparkles, devolving to the shapeless purple blob the Seme had been born from and leaving a smear on the dungeon floor to mark where his body had been. Lexaeus very calmly opened the Tupperware and Saïx's you know drifted wispily in to join its comrades, almost serenely, as though it didn't remember at all what horrors the monster it had been was just subjected to.
Vexen, utterly calm, flipped the switch off.
"What in the name of any merciful Nobody deity was that?" Xaldin demanded after a moment of silence.
"Payback," Vexen shrugged.
"No, I mean… what was that? I've never seen such a reaction!" Xaldin sputtered.
Vexen brushed his hair from his eyes, looking quite satisfied at his vengeance. "Paris Hilton's new single."
This was a side of Vexen that Xaldin had never observed before. He took a very small step away.
"Anyway," Vexen quickly changed the subject, "Let's finish off Luxord's Seme and get the hell out of here. I'm sick to death of this world."
"One problem there," Lexaeus called from where he was examining the stone chamber that had held Luxory.
"What?" Xaldin paced towards him, concern evident on his sideburns. "What happened?"
"He's escaped," Lexaeus said drolly, gesturing to the small hole in the side of the rock that appeared to have been dug by a pimp cane.
Homie X Luxory was not as all-out imposing as his late colleague Secks. He did not have the eerie atmosphere about him, he was not the lord of the castle (thanks to that one stupid coin flip) and he was never accompanied by thunderclaps or sultry moonlight or gargoyle statues.
He was not, however, stupid.
Upon escaping from his rocky predicament, Luxory had known good and well that his partner Secks was going to die. Luxory was an enterprising Seme, however, and knew that even if Castle Midnight Moonraven McGee fell to the wrath of the three Nobodies, he could still get away with some glory.
Unfortunately, sneaking out the back way while leaving his partner to suffer the most horrible death imaginable did not qualify one for glory, so Luxory was happy enough to settle for getting away with all the treasure from Secks' vaults.
He was currently zipping away from the castle as fast as he could in the G.S. Escalade, a tricked out model with spinning rims, vanity plates, pink and purple leopard-print interior upholstery, fuzzy dice in the window and a custom paint job with hot rod flames and bunnies. The extra spacious backseat of the gummi ship was filled to bursting with munny, valuables, jewels and gold, all stolen from the castle's treasure vault and previously stolen from the unfortunate residents of Inept Crossings.
"Yeeaaayuh," Luxory sighed dreamily, leaning far back in the driver's seat and blasting on some Ginuwine to relax as he made his getaway. He bobbed his head and set the cruise control and the hydraulics, and the ship drifted lazily through the sky on its way… well, he didn't know where, exactly. He just needed to find a new 'hood to haunt.
Cruising just over Toontown, Luxory glanced out the window at all the suckers down below. They'd hear about Secks soon enough, and he was sure they'd be really happy about it, too. That is, until they heard that Luxory was still around…
This wouldn't be too bad! He was the sole lord of the world now! Sucked to be Secks, but hey, may the best man survive, right?
"YEEEAYUH," Luxory agreed with his own thoughts.
Thoughts that were quickly interrupted by a shrill beeping noise.
"HUUUWHAT!" Luxory sat up and stared at the ship's monitor, flashing red and white obnoxiously over the CD player.
"WARNING. ENEMY SHIP DETECTED FROM THE REAR. EVASIVE ACTION SUGGESTED."
Luxory scrambled to take the ship back into normal mode, cursing quietly under his breath and glancing out the back to try and get a good view of his pursuers. The words "G.S. EXISTENTIALIST" were written in proud block script on the bow of the approaching gummi ship.
"Whudda foo' bros thinkin' they gonna chase Luxory gotta nudda fing comin', A'IGHT?"
"WARNING. ENEMY SHIP DETECTED FROM THE REAR. EVASIVE ACTION HIGHLY SUGGESTED."
"I'M WORKIN' ON IT!" Luxory yelled back to the computer.
"WARNING. ENEMY SHIP DETECTED FROM THE REAR. ENEMY WEAPONS CHARGING. I WOULD MOVE MY ASS OUT OF THE WAY IF I WAS YOU."
Struggling against the tight controls jerking around in the turbulent airflows, Luxory desperately thrashed right and left to get away from the sights of the ship behind him as the alarms blared louder and louder.
"WARNING. WARNING. ENEMY SHIP DETECTED FROM THE REAR. ENEMY GRAVITRON CANNON PREPARING TO FIRE. IMPACT IS ESTIMATED TO DESTROY THE SHIP. EVASIVE ACTION HIGHLY SUGGESTED- OTHERWISE PLEASE ASSUME THE SAFETY POSITION."
"HUUWHAT POSITION?" Luxory screeched at the computer.
The computer showed a helpful diagram of a stick figure man placing his head between his knees and kissing his butt goodbye.
"WARNING. ENEMY SHIP DETECTED FROM THE REAR. COUNTDOWN TO IMPACT IN TEN, NINE, EIGHT, SIX…"
"HUUWHAT! Huuwhat happened to seven!" Luxory shrieked.
"JUST KIDDING. SEVEN… SIX… FIVE… FOUR… THREE… TWO… ONE… HAVE A NICE DAY!"
"Yeaayuh, thanks," Luxory glowered, crossing his arms in an angry pout.
A few moments later, a fourth shining purple something was floating in the Tupperware dish.
A beautiful fireball lit the skies of Toontown that evening.
But this wasn't any ordinary fireball. It was so bright it made the bleak, rainy skies of the slums look like the brightest day of spring, beautiful rainbow lights shimmering shrapnel down from a smoky burst high in the air. The Toons woke from their bleary dreams and wandered out of their broken-down houses to watch.
Then it occurred to them that the explosion had spawned some sort of weird rainstorm. Huge, shining drops began to fall from the sky in the general direction of the explosion.
"Dad!" Gosalyn yelled, racing back and forth across the town square and gathering up the "raindrops". "Dad, look! It's not rain—it's MUNNY!"
"Well whaddya know?" Drake Mallard had just now broken himself out of jail with a paperclip and stared up at the sky as the munny came raining down.
But it wasn't just munny. Jewels, gold, precious family heirlooms, stolen items that the Toons had been missing terribly were falling from the sky and into the open arms of the characters who desperately needed them.
"Jessica! Sugar plum! Sweetheart!" Roger squealed joyously, speeding into the waiting arms of his voluptuous human wife, "I found your wedding ring! I didn't lose it when I fell into that open sewer!"
"Oh, Roger, darling, I'm so happy!" Jessica sighed, hugging her husband.
"This means that Lord Secks and Lord Luxory must have den beef eated! Er… been defeated!" stammered a short fellow in a brown hat and glasses.
"Isn't that wonderful!" the woman in rags cried happily.
"YAY! I'M RICH AGAIN!" cheered the llama.
The Toons gathered in town square for a happy celebration, a great bonfire and a dance concluding in the blissful group singing the Toontown official anthem, "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile".
"This calls for a masterpiece to commemorate the occasion!" a short blue bear in the crowd mumbled to himself, racing off to work as the inspiration hit him.
The G.S. Existentialist floated through space on its way to the next world, and Vexen was taking a much-needed chance to help himself recuperate.
"I think we've had a very good session, Vexen," Lexaeus took off his reading glasses and put away his psychiatry notes. "I think you're well on your way to beating this thing."
"Thank you, Lexaeus," Vexen sat up from the couch and stretched, taking a deep breath. "I heal a little more every day. You two will forgive me, of course, if I refuse to partake in any celebratory cake once this mission is done and over with?"
"Perfectly understandable," Xaldin assured him, leaning against the doorframe and enjoying a box of coconut almond pocky.
"I don't know what could possibly be worse than that world," Vexen mumbled, shaking his head.
"Now, it's not so much the concept of a crossover that is terrible," Lexaeus corrected him, heading up to take the controls of the ship. "But the trite, repetitive, clichéd and overdone crossover is something to be avoided."
"Not to mention, a crossover becomes difficult to maintain if you cannot properly keep your eyes on the characterizations of all the different characters involved," Xaldin added. "It's also quite perilous to maintain the 'feel' of each of the worlds you are attempting to invoke. It's in that aspect that Secks and Luxory utterly failed, resulting in the destruction of every world they touched."
"A shame, really," Vexen sighed. "There was so much potential."
"Except for that Inuyasha fellow," Lexaeus cut in. "He's completely hopeless."
The three all shared a laugh.
"And look at it this way, Vexen. We've seen the limit. There's nothing possibly worse that you could go through on this journey," Xaldin assured him.
"Damn right," Vexen huffed.
"I'm picking up a world in the near vicinity, gentlemen," Lexaeus called back to them. "Should we approach it?"
"Pick up some statistics first," Vexen replied. "What's the name of it?"
"Uh… readings indicate the place is called…" Lexaeus paused, and then made a very odd expression.
"Lexaeus, what world is it?" Xaldin urged.
"It's called 'Voreland'."
Vexen choked. Xaldin spit out bits of pocky.
"ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT!" they screamed in unison.
The G.S. Existentialist screeched to a halt and shot off in the opposite direction, full throttle.
Months later, the square of Toontown was a very different place. The buildings were clean and white with a fresh coat of paint, the roads were paved and what had once been piles of trash were now lustrous flower gardens.
In the center of it all, though, was a tall marble statue donated to the Toontown Civil Center by noted sculptor Gusto Gummi, a breathtaking and majestic work featuring a strapping man in a long coat with a head full of braids and most majestic of all, a pair of magnificent sideburns.
"He robbed from the rich and he gave to the poor!" sang the minstrel to the children gathered around the statue as they joyfully clapped their hands and joined in.
"Stood up to The Man and he gave Him what for!
With his sideburns alert and a confident grin
The Hero of Toontown, the man called Xaldin!"
Hey, anybody who gets the references wins an automatic assurance that they are a Really Cool Person!
Sorry this chapter took so long! I really hate to be a whiny angsty sapmongerer, but uberthanks to all of you guys who enjoy my fic and leave me such wonderful comments. I've had a tough couple of weeks but knowing you guys appreciate all my work is just awesome. Thank you and may you pet many kittens!
And uh, no offense if vore is your cup of tea. But you're certainly not going to find it here.
And no offense to Paul Rodgers either. He sings well enough but come on… it's Freddie.
Incidentally, I'm sorry, Vexen. I am eternally devoted to paying you back for what I did to you.