Hi, I'm not dead.
I'm back, I'm writing, I'm addicted to Tumblr and a laundry list of new fandoms, and I've finally got some new ideas! However a lot of the ones you'll see for the next few days will be very short and chock-full of headcanon. Also crossovers. That's my modus operandi, right there. When in doubt? Write crossovers.
Not a lot of these have journal entries, either. Hope that's not a disappointment. Also, the reason I didn't write in an author's note at the beginning of the last chapter is because I had to upload it at the library due to internet problems brought on by family problems. The connection there was so slow I could've caught up on my reading while waiting for this editor to pop up...
Someone's got to teach that kid some life lessons.
-II.
Waiting. Biding his time. Waiting for the right moment and…
"What the- ew, Xigbar!"
Gotcha.
"Heh, pizza's here!"
Xigbar ran off, leaving Demyx picking bits of cheese out of his hair. Just another advantage of being able to walk on the ceiling.
Stir up trouble. Pretend to kidnap Xehanort and fight Terra. Hold off Aqua and buy time. He was always the second player, a knight at least if not a pawn, never the mastermind.
But he sure as hell had a mind of his own. And now, he had to put his own plans into motion… for he was now under the thumb of an amnesiac twit.
Would he ever say that out loud? No. But Xemnas was incredibly spacey at times. He was always sitting there, high on his seat in the Round Room, dreaming up lofty ideas. Xigbar, on the other hand, had the duty of working at ground level and ensuring Xemnas wasn't taken down from the foundations by the details.
"Hey Xigbar!" somone called from below him. Xigbar looked up – or rather down – and saw Roxas waving at him.
"What are you doing?" Roxas asked.
"Eh, not much. What're you up to, Tiger?"
Roxas shrugged. "I was just going to practice with the Keyblade… or something."
Xigbar's interest was piqued. Ten years on and he was still fascinated by the Keyblade.
"Hang on, I'll join you," Xigbar said, dropping to the ground.
They headed for the Hall of Empty Melodies. Pretentious name aside, Xigbar remembered it being constructed especially for practicing with their abilities. Roxas even had most of his aptitude essessment missions here. Xigbar had been on the ceiling for some of them, watching him run for his life from Dusks.
Xigbar and Roxas took stances on opposite sides of the room. Xigbar's trigger finger itched on his arrowguns as Roxas rushed him, arm drawn back to strike.
Xigbar didn't warp out of the way, just took a quick step to the side. He watched the prongs whizz by his head, then stepped behind its wielder and pressed the gun between Roxas's shoulder blades.
The weight, light as it was, was just enough to make Roxas overbalance. The Keyblade went spinning as he faceplanted.
"Not bad," said Xigbar, "pretty amateurish, though."
"Well thanks," Roxas shot back, picking himself up off the floor.
"Ah, don't blame yourself. I've been using this baby," he twirled one of his guns, "for an… upwards of ten years, now that I think about it."
"Really?" Roxas asked, then looked at his own Keyblade. "…I haven't been using this that long," he realized.
"Nope. And I've fought way more experienced Keyblade Wielders," Xigbar said, remembering quite vividly the Keyblades he'd seen ten years ago. Each was intricate, and even he could see they were intensely personal to the person who handled them. Not like the Kingdom Key, which seemed almost… generic.
"Really?" Roxas asked, "What were they like?"
Oh boy.
"Well," Xigbar began, "They'd… been using them a lot longer. And they'd been taught specifically how to use them. No offense, but you're lacking in both departments."
"Huh," Roxas looked down morosely at his weapon. "Were you ever taught how to use your guns?"
"Of course," said Xigbar.
"How?" Roxas pursued.
Xigbar had never fancied himself a guardian, or a teacher, or anyone who should be left alone with a child, period. But he'd been doing surprisingly well with Xion.
("I went to a school for magic. I was brought up to be a guard. Then, one day, I decided I was sick of the whole shebang and ran off."
"Really?"
"Yup. I travelled all the worlds I could get to, and eventually wound up on Radiant Garden. But not before I made a few friends."
"Like who?")
Xion wasn't entirely like Roxas, though. Roxas was a lot more curious. A lot moodier. A lot more impressionable.
("A princess. A pair of 'em, actually, and a lord who everyone said was a royal scumbag but was actually pretty cool. He taught me everything I know about pranking, and how to do the floaty thing.")
"But I thought you got that power as a Nobody," Roxas said, puzzled.
"Nah, I've been doing that for years."
Xigbar snapped his fingers, and Roxas suddenly found himself floating a foot off the ground.
"Hey! What the-"
"That I only learned when I became a Nobody," Xigbar said.
He let Roxas down, none too gently, and left the poor boy sprawled on the floor again. He would continue to do that a few dozen times throughout their session. It'd teach Roxas to keep his guard up (as if he could do anything other than struggle and squirm once the Lo-Grav field hit).
("So one day the princesses got tired of Lord I'm-too-great-for-gravity's antics and staged a revolution. With six magic stones and the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP they encased him in stone! But not before darkness had corrupted the youngest's heart. So she tried to usurp her sister. But Big Sis wouldn't hear any of that."
"What happened to the younger sister? Did she fight her big sister?"
"As if. Little Sis just got grounded. On the moon."
"And you saw all that?"
"Nah, I got outta dodge after Lord Prankster got taken for granite. Then I landed in Radiant Garden on a shooting star, went to college, got an apprenticeship with a buddy of mine, and here I am.")
Roxas got back to his feet for the upteenth time and Xigbar took his original place on the training ground. "Now, are we gonna keep going?"
Roxas answered by running at him with his Keyblade drawn again. Geez. Attack, attack, attack. Couldn't this kid think of any strategies?
The next day, Roxas told Axel and Xion about his training session with Xigbar over ice cream.
"Oh," Axel said, "I was wondering where all those bruises came from."
Roxas laughed, briefly. "Yeah, he was pretty tough."
"He was also holding back," Axel said, leaning in with a sly smile on his face. "If he'd been serious you'd be in a full body cast, not Scooby Doo band-aids."
Roxas scowled and punched Axel in the shoulder. "Oh, haha. Who's the Organization's secret weapon against the Heartless, again?"
"Xion is."
The three of them cracked up laughing.
"So anyway," Roxas continued, "He told me all about where he came from, and how he was friends with a princess from another world, and how some guy there taught him how to teleport."
Axel raised an eyebrow at him. "Really, now?" He put an arm around the young Nobody. "Roxas, Roxas, Roxas… so innocent…"
"What?"
"Well, I just think it's funny that you don't know when you're being had," Axel said with a shrug.
"What'd you mean, 'being had'?" Roxas asked.
"I mean 'being tricked', since Xigbar got you with the stupidest lie I've heard out of him." And Axel was lost in laugher again.
"Wha- really!"
"Trust me Roxas, I've been here as long as he has, and he's told fifty different versions of how he learned to teleport!" Axel snorted. "Xion, that goes for you too! Don't believe everything you hear, especially from Xigbar!"
