Thank you all so much for your reviews! We've finally made it to a battle scene, yay. An opportunity for all of you wondering who Proxy, Dissolve, and Whisper are to pick up a few more clues. Special thanks to the C2 Too Much Eye Candy To Handle for adding Tears!
EDIT: Sarehptar saves me from typo-spawned humiliation again. Thankee!
Disclaimer: Same old, same old.
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Chapter VII
Dusk Dreams // Gold Eyed Envy
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A tear opened, remained open. Whisper silently counted the seconds. Three, four. "Is this it?" she asked.
Dissolve nodded. "He looks like he's paused for a moment. This may be our chance, mine allies! Attack now!"
"Mine allies?" Proxy muttered. He rolled his golden eyes, said, "I'm already going," narrowed his eyes in concentration, and seemed to lose track of reality.
Dissolve chuckled. "So, this is the start of our quest of righteousness, the end of an Organization member at our own hands."
Whisper also found him a bit melodramatic, but decided she'd be a bit more mature than Proxy. "This'll be our first victory," she agreed, somewhat less enthusiastically than her ally.
They watched the grid and the tear that had formed, waiting for it to fade out permanently.
x
Cinderella closed the attic door carefully before walking over to her wardrobe. She opened it and stood on her toes to remove a dress from a shelf at the very top, narrow enough that her step family would never notice it up there. She held the shoulders of the dress and let it unfold, shaking it slightly to get out the wrinkles. It was still beautiful. Her father had told Cinderella years ago that the dress had belonged to her mother.
Cinderella changed quickly into the dress and looked at herself in the cracked mirror hanging on one side of the wardrobe. Just as Father had promised she would, she had grown to look like her mother; the dress fit her perfectly.
It had taken her all evening to finish her chores, and she doubted she would have completed half of them if it hadn't been for the help of Axel. But now she was finished, and could go to the ball. It was, without a doubt, the most exciting thing she'd ever get to do in her sheltered life.
She quickly brushed her hair, slipped on her shoes, and hurried down the stairs from the attic. Lady Tremaine and her daughters were just about to leave. "Mother, wait! I'm coming, too!" She turned in the narrow corridor of the spiraling stairs, and stopped.
Standing in front of her were Drizella and Anastasia, arms crossed, smiling nastily. "Are you, Cinderella?" Anastasia asked.
Uncertainly, Cinderella clasped her hands together. "Yes. I have a dress, and Stepmother said I could go..."
"That was because of your little friend from Me-xi-co," Drizella said. "But he isn't here now."
A sudden jolt of surprise, unpleasant surprise, came from her chest. "Axel left?" She thought Axel was helping her! And yet, his eyes had looked so cold earlier, like looking into the Twilight Gem. Did he really care?
"Besides, you need to have a dress of your own," Anastasia said. "And this brooch," she grabbed Cinderella's brooch, along with a handful of her dress, and ripped, "is mine!"
Cinderella stumbled back and fell on the stairs, clutching at her torn dress. The sisters closed in on her, cackling wickedly, to finish Anastasia's work.
As they tore her dress apart, even ripping at her hair when they ran out of unmarred fabric to tear, the sisters forced her upstairs, back into her attic. "Looks like you won't be going to the ball after all," Drizella said, shoving Cinderella to the floor.
"Have a nice time at home, Cinderella!" Anastasia said. The two sisters headed back down the stairs to the ball, laughing with each other and at Cinderella.
Cinderella stared at the remains of her dress. The last memory she had of her mother was gone.
She leaped up and ran to the one small window in her room. It was coated with years of dirt and dust, so it stuck closed. Cinderella had to pound on the warped board several times before the window came open.
The sun was low, and the sky was washed with pale yellows and deep blues of twilight. Twilight. Cinderella scooped her regular working dress off the floor and pulled the Twilight Gem out of the pocket, holding it up against the sky. It sparkled brilliantly. The low sunlight danced across its surface and its melancholy glow intensified. So this was how it had gotten the name Twilight Gem. It was the most beautiful as the day died.
It had been a gift from Axel. The gem shimmered and brightened into a single brilliant star, blurring her sight; Cinderella realized that she was crying. Axel had given her a gem when he had many, gotten her invited to a ball at no cost to himself, and done a few chores that were easy for him. He had been a friend to her on a mere whim and left again, just some rich wanderer who wouldn't even give a straight answer about what country he came from! Cinderella should never have trusted him. After all that, what had been true her whole life only proved true again. Nobody ever came to her rescue. Nobody deserved her trust.
Cinderella dashed down the stairs and out the back door, finally collapsing on a rock in the back yard to sob.
Someone laid a hand on her shoulder. She jerked her head up. "Who's there?"
Cinderella stood and turned around to see an old woman in blue. The woman smiled kindly. "Why, don't you recognize me, Cinderella? I'm your fairy godmother."
Cinderella blinked. "I have a... fairy godmother? Why are you here? Are you... Can you help me?"
"Certainly." The fairy beamed. "After all, that's why I'm here. Now, there's no time to waste, deary. You have a ball to attend. Let's start with that dress. We'll have you fixed up in a jiffy!"
x
Axel and Soldier appeared together in the darkness, running into each other for the first time since they had started their little scheme. It was probably time Axel checked up on his Heartless. "Keeping up the good work?"
Soldier nodded.
"I think Tremaine's finally getting tired," he said. "She's running out of errands. Do you think she suspects anything?"
Soldier didn't respond. Her gaze suddenly locked on something behind Axel and she radiated wariness into his mind. He turned around, hand raised in preparation to grab onto his chakram.
There was another Heartless. It looked like a mage Heartless, similar to a Bookmaster, but with a fully humanoid body. Behind Axel, Soldier whispered, "Bad. Kill; self defense."
"We kill or it kills?" Axel whispered back.
"We. NOW!"
The mage Heartless lunged forward, shooting a stream of Fire at Soldier from its hands. Axel jumped in the way, caught the fire with a chakram, and shot it back at the mage Heartless. It fell backwards and looked at Axel with surprised, golden eyes. Axel looked back with equal surprise. It could use Fire, but was still damaged by it. Obviously, it wasn't an elemental Heartless. That meant it could use any form of magic.
Axel's skin tingled with static electricity. "Soldier, Reflect!" He whirled around in time to see Soldier cast the spell as a torrent of lightning descended upon her. It hit the sparkling wall and was repelled with a hiss of sparks.
Axel felt a sudden jolt of pain – it was from Soldier. Some of the lightning must have gotten though. Soldier had timed Reflect perfectly, so the mage Heartless must have used Thundara at least, probably Thundaga. This wasn't a typical Heartless.
The mage Heartless easily repelled the remaining lightning with a much stronger shield, directing it all towards Axel. Reflega. Axel stumbled backwards from the impact. He had no defense against Thunder magic.
"What does it want with us?" Axel hissed at Soldier, leaping a safe distance back from the mage Heartless.
"Nothing," Soldier said. "Follows orders?" She cast a weak Blizzard. The mage Heartless engulfed it with a stream of fire.
"Who is it following orders from?"
"Dunno." Soldier sounded perplexed. "Someone new."
That meant there was another faction with power over the Heartless. There had been Ansem, Maleficent, Xemnas... who now? Axel couldn't find out who it was without the rest of the Organization. How dangerous were they?
In any case, this Heartless needed to be killed before more popped up. Axel didn't know if it had any weaknesses, but he knew that he had an advantage. "Okay, I got a plan," Axel said. "Fire magic. And stay behind me." He sensed Soldier nod.
The mage Heartless's golden eyes narrowed, and it shifted warily from one foot to another. It looked intelligent. Axel hadn't seen any other Heartless like that, unless Ansem counted. And even Ansem wasn't too bright.
Axel tensed his muscles slightly, preparing to attack. Soldier took her cue and jumped forward, creating a ring of Fire that passed harmlessly around Axel and dashed towards the mage Heartless. It reflected the magic at Axel; he absorbed the fire without damage and shot a Firaga orb straight back.
The spell hit and sent the mage Heartless sprawling. Before it was back on its feet, Soldier and Axel jumped forward together and cast Fire and Firaga in rapid succession. The mage Heartless raised a hand to cast Reflega and then staggered to its feet, anger in its eyes. It understood the game, it told Axel, before it was once again forced to defend itself as Axel and Soldier attacked.
At this point, it was a battle over who could use magic the longest. The battle was two-to-one, but Soldier wasn't a kind of Heartless that was even supposed to use magic and Axel, with only one kind of magic, had a limit to his power. As long as the mage Heartless could cast spells, Axel and Soldier were at a disadvantage.
Soldier was the first to run out. She raised her staff, clenching it as tightly as she could with her claws, and nothing happened. Axel scooped her up in his left arm without a pause in the fighting. He was getting tired too, but the second there was a gap between attacks the mage Heartless would be free to go on the offensive. That would be the end of Soldier. She couldn't survive another Thundaga, especially without Reflect.
The mage Heartless repelled another burst of fire and Axel twisted sideways so it wouldn't hit Soldier. He stumbled and caught himself with his free arm, dropping the one chakram he was using.
That was all the mage Heartless needed. It lifted both hands with fingers arched upwards and cast Gravity.
Axel couldn't attack without his weapon; he couldn't defend or retreat while protecting Soldier. He just had to hold on as the spell started to take hold.
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Review, concrit, question, flame, whatever. Any comments appreciated. The battle to be concluded next chapter, whoo!
