Violence: Yeah, Sephy's tough. It took me a while to beat him. Of course, I was doing it on Proud Mode. Man, that was an intense fight. Anyway, mind you, Aliasfan, Emeline could only beat him because she was on her whole turf. It was literally Sephy against the entire world. Anyway, not much to this chapter, except some violence at the end. Anyway, look forwards to next chapter, when I give you guys a look inside the new Organization XIII.
Chapter 9: Home Again
It was all just like how he left it. Not a single thing had changed in the few days he had been away, despite all that had happened. People still went about their business, oblivious to things such as Heartless, Nobodies and Organization XIII. It was all so normal. Almost surreal in how normal it was.
"Where is this?" asked Kairi. "Is this the World that Never Was?"
"No," replied Daxtin quietly. "This is my home. Twilight Town."
"Why are we here?" questioned Anya.
"I don't know," he answered uncertainly. "I tried to go to the Organization's world, but instead, the portal just brought us here."
"Maybe the entrance is here somewhere?" suggested Kairi skeptically. "Anyway, while we look, you can show me around town, huh? I showed you my home, after all!"
Despite the situation, Daxtin couldn't help but smile. Count on Kairi to look on the bright side of things.
"Okay, then," he grinned. "Let's check the Sandlot first."
"Well, tomorrow we can check Sunset Terrace and the Underground," said Daxtin as they looked out across the town from atop the station clock tower, licking sea salt ice cream popsicles. The nearly perpetual sunset of day was giving way to the twilight dark of night as they watched the sun dip downwards. Somehow, even though they didn't talk, it was really nice just hanging out together. He'd never felt like this. Was this how it was to have real friends?
"You're dripping," pointed out Kairi with a little smile, bringing Daxtin out of his reverie. Looking, he noticed that his popsicle was indeed melting all over his hand and pants, and he had to work quickly in a most undignified manner to try and salvage the dripping snack while Anya and Kairi both laughed at his attempts. "Well, I guess it's getting late. Once you finish making a mess, where are we gonna stay?"
"Well, unless something weird is going on, I should still have my old room at the orphanage, and there are almost always guest rooms," answered Daxtin, tossing his popsicle stick out and barely missing the circular tile design in the plaza below in front of the train station.
"You live in an orphanage?" asked Kairi with surprise as Anya threw her stick out. It bounced next to Daxtin's and across the circle then landed just inside the opposite edge of the circle before coming to a rest. Daxtin nodded, shrugging it off. "Huh," said Kairi as she cupped her hands around her popsicle stick. Whispering quietly, her stick floated up, supported by a wind spell. Delicately moving her fingers, she directed the air-borne stick out and down towards the plaza below, landing it in the exact center of the circular design. "I win."
"That's cheating!" protested Anya. Daxtin only smiled as they started arguing over the little game he had started. Even if it was only temporary, it was nice to be at his home with friends. It was novel and new, having friends, and he hoped against all hopes that it could last.
That night, Daxtin slept once again in his old room, Kairi and Anya sharing a room down the hall. The night was pleasantly cool, so he had the window open, the curtains blowing in a gentle breeze. Even if they hadn't found anything, today had been a good day. Smiling, he closed his eyes and let the tight embrace of sleep engulf him.
"Wake up, Daxtin."
Opening his eyes, he found the room was still dark. Sitting up, he searched the room for the source of the voice as his eyes adjusted to the dark. There was a slight movement, and he spotted a young girl sitting on the chair next to his chest of drawers, a book held in her lap. She smiled and gave a little wave at him as he swung his legs over and onto the floor and sat facing her.
"In case you've forgotten, my name's Emeline," said the girl. "You know, Anya's sister." Then she giggled inanely, as if at some inside joke.
"Anya…Kairi!" he yelled, first tenuously, then more urgently.
"They can't hear you. This is a dream," explained Emeline, an amused look playing across her face. She watched quietly as Daxtin ran over to the door and yanked it open. She didn't do anything to stop him as he walked out into the hallway to find his friends and alert them to the intruder in his room.
Opening his eyes, he found the room was still dark. Sitting up, he stared in surprise at Emeline who was looking right at him, ignoring the open door. He was back in bed again.
"I told you, it's a dream," she said simply.
"Who are you?" he asked carefully, staring hard at her light, innocent eyes.
"I told you, I'm Emeline, Anya's sister," she replied. "Did you already forget?"
"No, I mean… who are you really?" he repeated. "Who are you in all this? What do you want with me? With Anya? With all of this? You mentioned the Organization; what do you know about them? What are you after?"
At this last question, the girl's eyes became downcast and she looked away, as if in thought. "I want what anybody wants. I want to be whole." Sighing, she then shook her head, and when her eyes met his again, they were bright and confident again. "Anyway, I don't need to answer to a tool like you. As for the Organization… well, they're just means to an end." Shrugging, she opened her book, pulling her pen out of the spine. "Well, since you seem so incompetent, I'll tell you one thing: the portal you seek is right where it all started, at least for you. Go back to the beginning and you can find the next stage of your journey. Your journey to help me," she added with a smile as she started writing.
"I told you, I'll never help you," insisted Daxtin in a low growl.
"And I told you, that every step to help yourself helps me," replied Emeline, not even looking up as she wrote. "Now go to sleep."
The world went black then, and the sweet simplicity of dreamless sleep enveloped Daxtin.
"Hey, Daxtin, breakfast! Get up!" came the yell from downstairs.
Yawning and stretching as he sat up, Daxtin rubbed sleepily at his eyes. What a weird dream. Heartless and Nobodies and Kings and Princesses. Totally bizarre.
Getting dressed, he pulled on his baggy tan pants and favorite black shirt with white designs. Checking his hair in the mirror, he then pulled on his necklace and earring, socks and shoes, then grabbed his sleeveless white coat and headed downstairs.
"Hey there, sleepyhead," greeted Kairi with a smile, looking up from her oatmeal, complete with melon slices and strawberries. The half awake Anya merely grunted in acknowledgment of his existence, too busy concentrating on her oatmeal which looked like it had far too much brown sugar in it for Daxtin's tastes.
"Huh? What?" sputtered Daxtin in confusion. Then it hit him: it hadn't been a dream, it had all been real. Just the conversation with Emeline had been a dream. Right?
"What's wrong?" asked Kairi curiously.
"Uh, nothing," replied Daxtin before adding lamely, "G'morning."
"Here's yours," said the matron, handing a bowl of oatmeal to Daxtin as he walked by. "Extras are on the counter."
Giving a quick thanks before going over and piling on strawberries and a light powder of brown sugar, he sat down next to Anya, across from Kairi. All around, other orphans ate messily, though there weren't that many. Checking the clock across the room from the kitchen counter, he saw why; it was already nine o'clock, a late wake up for the little rug rats.
"So where are we checking out today?" asked Kairi happily as she munched her way through a slice of cantaloupe.
"Well, there's Sunset Terrace, and the Underground…" he started, trailing off as several things clicked. Where it all started, at least for you. "The mansion."
"What?" asked Kairi, thrown off by his sudden exclamation after his lapse into silence.
"The Old Mansion. That's where this all started," explained Daxtin, shoveling down his oatmeal hastily. "I know it, the doorway is there." Without explained why, he cleared his dishes and threw on his coat. "Come on, let's go!"
Blinking in confusion, Kairi quickly finished her breakfast before grabbing the oblivious Anya and running out the door after him.
The girls were puffing in exhaustion at the end of their sprint, but Daxtin was too caught up in the rush to notice. He looked up at the giant iron gates before the crumbling, ivy-encrusted mansion. Toppled white pillars lined the path down the garden up to the front door. A large metal padlock chained the gates shut, barring all access.
Looking up at the giant lock, he called Divider, the black aura blade to him, wielding it with both hands. Charging and leaping up, he smashed away at the metal contraption until a powerful glow had formed around the blue-green orb inset in the blade. Knocked back away from the lock, he hovered in midair momentarily as a beam of light shot out from Divider and into the keyhole of the lock. There was a splitting crack that resounded through the air, then the lock shattered, the chains crumbling with it. Landing lightly on his feet, Daxtin just watched quietly as the gates swung open of their own accord. Without saying a word, as if entranced, he walked forwards to the mansion, not even checking to see if the other two were following.
The inside was dusty, and ruined bits of furniture were strewn about here and there. Despite this, the place seemed in fairly good repair, considering that it had been abandoned as long as anyone living in Twilight Town could remember. Walking around, they found only one of the two ground level doors functional, the other being jammed shut with broken spars of chairs and the immobile hulking bodies of long dead dressers and tables. Opening the working door, they only found an empty dining room, the table inside smashed in the center, its two ends standing in sad triangles on their two legs. Dust motes danced in the golden light that filtered in from outside's twilit morning, but nothing else moved. After finding nothing except a family of mice inside one of the ornamental suits of armor, they went back out into the entryway and ascended one of the two curving staircases that led to the upper balcony. From there, they took a left and opened the door at the end of the walk.
The room beyond was in stark contrast to the rest of the mansion. There was a stale quality to the air, as if it hadn't been opened for hundreds of years. The walls were a gleaming white. Everything, including the mirror frame, the dresser, the table, the rose vase, even the roses in it, was all carved from the same white material. It didn't have the glossy shine or variance of marble; it was all just… white. Pure and simply white.
Pictures were pinned up here and there on the walls, drawn on pages yellowing with age. They looked to be drawn in crayon. Most of them didn't make any sense, though they were odd because one showed a brown-haired boy with a keyblade. Another showed four people, all wearing the black cloaks of the Organization. It was all very strange, but in the end, none of it seemed like anything more than doodles from a long past age. The door wasn't here. Silently, Daxtin exited the room and headed across the balcony, Kairi and Anya following behind him.
The other door led into a library, this one in the same wood-panel style as the rest of the mansion. There was a table in the center. On it was an intricate design drawn in yellow, depicting a large circle encompassing three circles, two of which were filled. The top left one had the heartless symbol. The bottom one had a three pointed crown that was like the one on Ansem's clothes, the symbol of the Kingdom. The upper right circle was empty. Nearby, a yellow crayon lay besides the unfinished drawing.
"What goes in the last part?" wondered Kairi aloud, voicing their unasked question. Daxtin however, knew. Grabbing the crayon, he quickly sketched in the symbol for the Nobodies. There was a flash of light, and the floor went transparent. Jumping back to a more solid looking part of the floor, the trio looked in surprise as the table and the floor below it all disappeared, revealing a sunken area with stairs leading down to a darkened doorway. This new area was nothing like the mansion above, all wood and elegance. The revealed part was metal and lights, like a laboratory or something.
"It's down there, I know it," said Daxtin before walking down the stairs, the girls behind him. The doorway led to another room, also done up in metal plating and cold lighting. In one corner was a set of computer monitors and keyboards, all dusted over from years of neglect. The same dust covered the floor, though now in the dim lighting, Daxtin noticed a path worn through the dust that led from where they had come from and over to another door. Following the path, they came into a large rectangular room with intricate designs on the floor. Regardless of the patterns, the path cut straight across into one corner. Walking over, there didn't seem to be anything there, but as Daxtin looked, his eyes caught a flicker of something else. Leaning close, he spotted a hairline crack in the air, as if reality was nothing more than a two dimensional picture and this was a flaw in it. Before anyone could tell him not to, he reached out with both hands and grasped it, as if pulling at a crack in a wall. Concentrating, he managed to slip his fingers into the widening gap. Pulling, he slowly wrenched it wider, letting all his energy flow into the effort. Then, with a sudden jerk, the whole thing sprung open, a swirling portal of darkness.
"The way in," noted Anya, Kairi too surprised and Daxtin too tired to say anything as she walked up to it. However, they jumped back in surprise as a black-cloaked figure walked out of the newly opened portal.
"Organization XIII!" exclaimed Daxtin, Joiner and Divider appearing his hands.
"Princess," said the hooded man in a deep voice, nodding towards Kairi and completely ignoring Daxtin. "Come with me."
"Why should I?" asked the girl cautiously, backing away from him.
"Don't you want to see your friends?" asked the man in a flat monotone.
"You're lying!" she shouted in response. "You don't know them."
Impassively, the man didn't even shrug. Instead, he swung his arm and in a flash of steel, his weapon appeared in his hand. It was a long, sharp sword, the handle bent like that of a gun, which it was. The chamber was visible where the blade joined the hilt, and the barrel went a little ways down the middle of the blade, ending before an intricate carving of a lion. Grasping the gunblade in both hands, the man only said "So be it."
Charging forwards, the man struck at Daxtin with an upward swing. The boy dodged, jumping back, then blocked the man's downwards strike. Daxtin's arms shook with each blow as the man continued with dispassionate power, each blow crushing and controlled. Knocking away Daxtin's blades, he didn't even flinch as he turned and easily blocked Anya's strike with the Shadow Lance. Knocking her off balance, he then cut a swift diagonal slash across her body, the blade exploding with fire as he shot her in the shoulder. Crying out in pain, Anya flew across the room until she hit the wall, where she slumped to the floor.
Calmly, the man turned and deflected the fireball Kairi sent at him, expertly knocking it back at her, throwing her off her feet. Daxtin, however, caught him off guard, striking right after his deflection, getting him in the back. Taking advantage of this, Daxtin set off in a flurry of blows, mercilessly beating down on the man's hastily raised blade. However, he got too caught up in it, and failed to see it coming as the man leaned back and kicked him square in the gut, knocking the wind out of him and sending him sliding against the cold metal floor.
"…whatever," murmured the man as he looked at the crumpled figures of the three fighters. Walking over to Kairi, he slung the princess over his shoulder. Taking one look back, he then walked over to the dark portal.
"Wait…stop," groaned Daxtin, stumbling to his feet. The man turned and looked at him as the boy picked up the aura blades. "Come back here."
Almost obediently, the man walked over. He stepped back then, easily dodging Daxtin's shaky lunge, then landed a solid punch straight into the boy's stomach with his free hand. As the boy fell forwards, he kneed him in the face, blood spattering on his black cloak as he almost broke Daxtin's nose. He watched silently as the boy fell to the floor, groaning in pain. As Daxtin stirred and tried to get up again, he quietly kicked the boy in the gut. Then he did it again. When Daxtin moved, he stomped on the boy's hand. Ignoring his cry of pain, he kicked the boy in the forehead, slamming his head against the cold metal wall. Finally satisfied that he was unconscious, he walked back across the room and stepped into the portal, heedless of the bleeding figures he left behind or the quiet sobbing of the princess he carried.