The light emanated from Roxas' hand casting various shadows on the walls in the silent room where he lay. The glow was small and barely emanated from his hand, but that was all he could produce no matter how hard he tried to summon more.
Furrowing his eyebrows, his thoughts wandered once more to questions such as, how did I do that, am I really safe, is Sora here to, am I bringing more trouble than I am worth? All these and more swirled around in his head as he rested on the bed with his wings outstretched to such a degree that they were spilling over the edges.
His arm let out a twinge of pain protesting all the misuse that it had been put through over the course of just one day. Though the bandages that Aerith put on were even better than what Axel had done Roxas had hoped that they would heal quickly for the prospect of having a lame limb in such a dangerous place put him on edge.
Laying his aching arm on his chest he let out a sigh and allowed sleep to take him once more allowing the dreams that showed what happened earlier invade his subconscious.
"We thought you were dead." Cloud said softly as he rested his chin softly on top of Roxas's head.
Roxas only murmured something incoherently as he shoved his face further into Clouds shoulder as he felt tears prick the edges of his eyes despite his best intentions to not allow them to. The joy that Roxas felt that his brother was alive and ok was too much for the poor exhausted teenager as the wounds and exhaustion overcame his will for one of the few times in his life and he felt his legs start to give way.
The arms that were holding him gripped him harder to stop his descent towards the ground as Roxas's body was rebelling against him and no matter how much he tried he simply couldn't stand, his attempts to regain his footing just resulted in him squeaking his tennis shoe futilely against the floor. Before his attempts could become more pathetic, he was scooped up by a strong pair of arms into a bridal hold.
He began to protest but it died on his lips as all his energy was redirected at not passing out. The thought of doing that in a building full of potential dangers made his teeth hurt but soon his thoughts were quailed a bit when Cloud's voice was heard again.
"He'll be fine Axel, come see me after I get him settled down. Aerith can you look him over more to make sure he is ok?" Cloud ordered to the people around him as he held onto his brother that was slowly becoming limper.
Roxas felt the world shift as Cloud moved out of the room and down to their destination. The lights that passed overhead blurred together causing Roxas to feel panic rise up once more at his helplessness even though he was with the very brother he had been trying to so hard to get back to. Sadly there wasn't anything he could do for Roxas had reached his breaking point a long time ago and nothing he did now would change that fact.
The journey came to a halt as Roxas felt himself placed gently on what he guessed to be a bed. His wings were still folded tightly on his back so there was no awkwardness in that department even though he still wore the hoodie that was split in the back.
His eyes tried to take in the swirling room but all that did was give him another headache, luckily a normal one and not the kind that threatens burst his head open. He closed his eyes to give his head a fighting chance to win the battle.
A kind hand touched his forehead checking his temperature and cooling his head in the process alleviating the headache somewhat.
"It feels like he has a small fever but from what we can guess he's gone through it could be a lot worse." Aerith reported to Cloud. "He's just tired though Cloud, it will be ok."
"Yeah…" Cloud said hoarsely.
"I'll take care of him; you go talk to Axel and find out what happened." Aerith concluded as the sound of her patting his shoulder was heard.
A rustle of clothes were heard and then a door closing.
The gentle hand returned and took off the remains of his sweatshirt and to undress the rest of the dirty gauze that was attempting to heal the bullet wound in his shoulder. She began to hum a small tune and it was then that Roxas finally let the last of his muscles unclench and released the world from his grasp.
No dreams of the Beast, the water tank, or anything to do with that place haunted him that night and for the moment Roxas felt at peace.
A weight plunged onto the bed that Roxas was currently using to sleep away the morning but that was abruptly ruined by the surprise. Scrambling away from the supposed attacker, Roxas's senses went into overdrive as he went to defend himself as memories of what had occurred yesterday seemed miles away. Summoning his keyblade to his hand and his adrenaline began to pump, he was merely rewarded with laughter directed towards him.
"Oh geeze, I didn't mean to scare you so much, put that thing away before you poke someone's eye out." The intruder said as he put a hand on the upraised Keyblade, pushing it downward and away from his face. The mane of red hair that greeted him only made Roxas bite his lip to contain his angry words but he dismissed the blade all the same.
Roxas was not amused as Axel was at the joke, but he dismissed his blade all the same.
"Oh don't give me that, I'm sorry, it's just good to see you're awake." Standing up he resumed his cool nonchalant attitude in one fell swoop without incident. Looking him over, Roxas noticed Axel seemed to have cleaned up since he had last seen him that grisly night. The trench coat was replaced by a much cleaner one without blood or tares on it and the same went for the rest of his ensemble.
It was then; Roxas realized that all he had on was his pants as his hoodie had been taken off last night when Aerith was taking care of him. His head turned to see Axel staring at him with the usual smirk on his face looking him over.
"Is there any clothes around here?" Roxas asked feeling suddenly self conscious of his body. Axel nodded and pointed at a pile at the foot of the bed. Roxas turned his head once more and stared at Axel with a blatant look on his face. Finally getting the point, He held up his hands and backed out of the room to wait for Roxas to get situated.
Sorting through the pile he found a clean hoodie along with a t-shirt that someone had kindly cut slits into. Roxas fingered the openings that had been sewed cleanly into the fabric. Roxas felt his heart start to allow Aerith in knowing that she had most likely done this for him. He put them on with minimal difficulty getting his wings to go through the slits but by the time he was done a couple of loose feathers had fallen out from the ruffling that occurred. Feeling a bit embarrassed at anyone seeing them, he picked them all up and threw them in the small waste basket in the corner of his rom. But in the end, it felt a lot better to have them folded neatly on his back rather than them being held tightly under his clothes.
Roxas exited the room to see Axel leaning against the hallway wall looking like a cocky son of a bitch the way he held himself.
"Is there a guy named Sora here?" Roxas asked, Cloud hadn't had the chance to tell him last night and the thought had been nagging at him ever since. Axel contemplated this whilst sticking out his lower lip as if in great thought.
"Hmm, what does he look like?" he said after a lot of deliberation.
"Brown spiky hair, looks like me, has the goofiest grin you have ever seen." Roxas said along with hand gestures as he pointed at himself and made a silly forced grin.
Axel laughed "Yeah, I know just the guy! I think he's on a mission right now but I don't keep tabs on everyone."
Roxas nodded as he took in the information. So Cloud and Sora had been safe all along, it made him happy that they had survived all that had occurred in the city and had found this haven. Once more he cursed all the stupid things that occurred the day of the explosion to make him end up where he did.
"Are you ready for the grand tour? Cloud is talking to the boss so he can't give it to you but I think I am a good enough second and besides I owe you for helping me out yesterday." Axel shouted back at Roxas as he proceeded down the messy hallway not bothering to check if Roxas was following after him.
The clutter mostly lay at the walls and appeared to be a mixture of clothes, shoes, and other various objects. Peering into the rooms of the hallway, Roxas noticed that they had been transformed from swanky suites to homes. Usually they were empty with just a bed and clothing haphazardly tossed around but others seemed to have been personalized by posters or nick nacks that adorned on desks. In one there was a group of girls playing with a deck of cards while talking about seemingly normal things.
"This is the twentieth floor and this floor, and a few others, houses the people that are a part of our group as well as a few refugees that were able to make it here before the Heartless could get them." Explained Axel as he gave his tour, they entered what appeared to be a small lobby on this particular floor that housed a huge wall of glass that was partially boarded up at the edges.
They walked up to it, allowing Roxas a chance to peer over it. He saw that this hotel apparently was a square shape and had an area hollowed out in the center so when he looked down he saw what appeared to be a small park in the middle of the hotel completely surrounded by the four walls. Looking up he saw that it was covered with what looked to be glass.
"That glass is bullet proof and along with the fact that we have never had heartless try to get through there, we have put off reinforcing it and instead have focused our energies on boarding bigger problem access points." Axel pointed out as he noticed the confused look Roxas gave him. "Moving on…"
"Is everyone in the city that survived, here?" Roxas asked as they gazed out of the glass.
"No, only about .01 percent of people have the gene to resist the Heartless virus and to become a Nobody and with a city of about 8 million inhabitants, that roughly results in 80,000 something people. Now after you subtract all the people from the rising death toll that often comes from living in a quarantine the number becomes quite sad. The people that have survived though often turn to gangs or other survivor groups to get by." Axel explained with a serious look on his face. "The military that was supposed to help us only seem to focus on keeping everything from getting out."
Roxas didn't know what to say to this as the news fell over him.
"With the heartless and other enemies, we are slowly killing ourselves off while the military just watches and does nothing." Axel finished heavily as he refused to meet Roxas' gaze.
Roxas's gaze wandered back to the glass. The thought that he had escaped one hell hole for another wasn't all that comforting but he knew that he would rather be in this hell hole than any other as long as he had his family.
This thought though was soon interrupted by a high pitched squeal that came to the right of them.
"Yuffie said we had someone new but I didn't know they would be so adorable!" A man exclaimed running down the hallway towards them.
"Oh god…" Roxas heard Axel mutter under his breath as he brought a hand over his face. The man drew up to them with the biggest smile on his face as he almost seemed to bounce up and down with excitement. He had what looked like a mullet and was dressed in a simple attire of a t-shirt and jeans but that was all washed away with his simply exuberant mood.
"Oh my god, you do have wings!" The mystery man yelled with the giddy apparent in his voice. "I haven't seen a Nobody with physical traits like that except from that one guy, and all he has is the tail."
Axel let out something that sounded like a low grumble when he stepped between Roxas and the man.
"Demyx, what did I tell you?" Axel asked as he punctuated the question with a rough prod to Demyx chest.
A guilty look passed over the man who was named Demyx features as he took a step back and fiddled around with his fingers. "Don't come in a twenty feet of you for at least a week…"
"And how long has it been?" Axel stated drawing himself up with a frown drawing out the last word for punctuation purposes.
"Ahhh come on Axel, I only poured some water on you, besides we were sparring, what else was I supposed to do? Throw my Sitar at you!" Demyx defended as the frown was thrown his way again but this with more vigor pushed behind it.
"How…long…has it been?" Axel stated once more with a deadpan stare that seemed to make the man shrink.
"Five days"
"How long?" He said as he cupped an ear and leaned forward.
"Five days!" Demyx practically cried with desperation hinging in his voice.
"Ok then we have our answer; now go before I shove a chakram up your ass." Axel said as he held up his hand as if preparing to strike and make good behind his threats.
Demyx stood up straighter and for a split second seemed to be not backing down even with the weighty statement looming overhead but then at the last second he stuck out his bottom lip and slouched down. He spun on his heel s and turned around while saying something along the lines about he was going to dump a truck load of water on Axel next time he had the chance.
With the grumbling continuing all the while, His figure slowly receded until he turned a corner and could no longer be seen or heard.
Axel turned around with a smile on his face, "Ok, now where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?" Axel questioned putting a finger to his chin before smiling and meeting Roxas' eyes, "Oh yes now I remember." Axel turned and started towards what was labeled as the stair well. Roxas hoped with all his heart that they were going down the stairs and not upwards.
"Who needs gyms when we have good ole stairs for exercise?" Axel joked as they proceeded down the stairs. Roxas observed that the stairs had some to no defenses in place. Thinking to himself that this was probably in case someone tripped and fell or that if Heartless did breach the defenses they would need to retreat quickly and defense in such a crucial point would hamper that.
Noticing the lights that lit the stairwell Roxas asked "How do you guys have electricity, didn't the military cut it?"
"We have a couple generators that light the critical points of the building such as the basement and the stairwell; everywhere else, lights are restricted in case they get spotted. We try to stay as inconspicuous as we can." Axel answered as they headed down more stairs.
After much stair travel, the two Nobodies exited the stairwell and entered the grand entrance of the hotel.
"Watch your step, we take a lot of precautions with the Heartless looming everywhere." Axel lectured Roxas as they walked by the grand staircase.
They were walking through what looked to be the main lobby of the hotel and as it was in the basement area, there were tables and desks upturned to create more makeshift barriers. By the door there were spikes for the heartless to impale themselves on if they crashed through the heavily fortified doors and windows.
The grand staircase that leads to the higher levels also had those said spikes. Axel maneuvered through the defenses with ease so Roxas just imitated him and all was well. There were a couple of people strewn about that looked at him with unease, Roxas tried to ignore them though and kept his face forward in an attempt to block out their faces. Sadly he could still hear their muttering and curious stares trained on him.
"Just ignore them; gossip here spreads like wildfire so a new rumor will pop up any day now and make you old news." Axel said seeing the uncomfortable look Roxas was wearing with all the unwanted attention. Axel reached out a hand and patted the blond on the shoulder before making a sharp turn towards another room.
They entered a grand dining hall that had been utilized to become what looked like a big storage unit. Piles of wood and metal were in various piles scattered around the room. People were bringing in more scraps while at the same time people were cataloging it making sure they knew just how much they had.
All of the commotion was so perfectly organized it was like a hive of bees.
"This is where we bring all the wood and metal that scavengers deem safe enough to handle and strong enough to be material for barriers." Axel explained as he gestured around the room. Continuing on "Scavengers are Nobodies that were gifted with extraordinary stealth skills such as being able to match their surroundings or having superior hearing where they can detect anything within a hundred feet. Sadly these people are also the most vulnerable if they are caught; we've lost good men and women who were detected.
Roxas looked back at the people milling around with new respect as he learned the risks they took for the safety of the people housed here. Not being able to defend themselves against the Heartless or the droves of gangs would be an unsettling feeling walking outside the safety of these walls.
"Moving on," The people in the room looked up as they weaved their way through the maze. A shout to their left made them pause as a short teenager made his way towards them.
"Yo, Axel it's good to see you! There were a lot of bets that said you wouldn't be able to pull it off. Luckily for me I bet on you and made a good amount of money when I heard you not only made it back but you succeeded in your mission." The teenager reported as he looked at Axel with light dancing in his eyes. He was shorter than Roxas and had what looked like a monkey's tail.
"Hey Zidane, glad I at least had your vote of confidence. Oh, Zidane meet Roxas, Roxas meet Zidane."
The boy looked at Roxas with a curious expression as his eyes caught the edge of his wings peeking out. Roxas looked back at Zidane unwavering, refusing to show that he was uncomfortable with the whole situation.
"Zidane here is one of the best scavengers/sneaker we have. He's gathered a lot of useful information from various factions over the weeks. He is also one of the few people that can blend and use a weapon to defend himself. Usually it's one or the other, and if that's not enough he has a physical feature like you." Axel finished pointing at the tail.
"Oh now you're just embarrassing me in front of the new guy," Laughed Zidane as he waved his hand about looking more at ease. "Alright I'll let you continue you showing the new guy around. But I still want that rematch against you sometime ok?"
"Yeah sure, I'm never too busy to win." Axel said as he and Roxas walked away from the scavenger. The exited the dining hall into another hallway. "We have a lot of factions here at our base, one of them was the scavenger/sneaker unit, and besides them are the fighters, planners, healers, and operations. You get assigned a faction and work for them basically for the betterment of the base. We couldn't do without any of them."
"And you're in the operations unit?" Roxas guessed as the exited the winding hallway into a big room filled with tables.
"Yep, good guess Roxas, me, and others, take on the missions that need to be done such as when I infiltrated the institute," Axel answered as he took a seat at one of the long rectangular tables that dotted the floor gesturing Roxas to do the same. "Now how about some food, I bet your hungry since you haven't eaten since yesterday afternoon, I'll be right back." Axel said as he pushed himself from the table and headed towards cafeteria style dining.
Roxas stared at the table as he felt eyes around the room train in on him, he was hungry but he didn't know if it was worth it. He fought to keep his wings from instinctively ruffling up but they still stood on end some. The muttering started next as his heightened hearing heard people start to talk about "that new kid." Balling his hands into fists Roxas ground his teeth in an attempt to fight the growing urge to hit something and waited for Axel to get back to get his mind off things.
"I heard he's Clouds brother."
"Really? Well I heard that he came from a military base just outside the city. I don't think we can trust him, better keep the kids away."
"Yeah I agree, I don't trust him either, just look at him. Got some sneaky eyes on him."
More of the same conversation erupted around him as the people eating took notice that he was in the room. After another minute crawled by with the conversations not slowing down, Roxas stood up abruptly and walked towards an exit knowing if he stayed in there a moment longer his resolve would disappear and he would end up confronting someone. The conversations quieted down as he walked by, Roxas only hoped that Axel wouldn't mind too much at his sudden departure.
Exiting the room, he walked in a random direction and only had the goal in mind of getting as far away from people as he could. The urge to go outside and fly away had never been greater than now but sadly he was still grounded. The hallways soon blended together and luckily he didn't happen into anyone that would gawk at him.
Walking onward, Roxas took a turn promptly ran into someone. Roxas was about to mumble an apology and walk away when he noticed his brother Cloud was with the man as well.
"Roxas, it's good to see your up. We were about to go find you." Cloud said as a smile barely showed on his face at seeing his brother up and about. Roxas glanced back at the man that was with Cloud. He was taller than him and had short jet black hair along with a carefully groomed beard and mustache as well a serious, yet at ease look to him.
"Meet our leader Roxas, this is Commander Mickey. He is going to be watching you over the next couple of days to see which faction you're going to be assigned to." Cloud said gesturing to the man beside him.
"I've heard a lot about you Roxas, how you survived at the institute for over three months and escaped all on your own meaning you could have some valuable information for us. That is impressive and will earn you good place here if you so desire and comply." The commander told Roxas as he appraised him with his eyes.
Roxas returned the look and said with grace, "It's good to meet you sir." Roxas felt respect growing for the man in front of him. He saved all these people and kept his family safe. That alone was enough to earn Roxas's loyalty, until proven otherwise of course. If this man hurt him or his family in anyway then there would be hell to pay without a second thought.
"Come with me Roxas, I want to talk to you more in depth and where there are no prying ears to overhear." Mickey explained as he walked down the hallway, supposedly to his office. Cloud gave him a quick head nod before clasping a hand on his shoulder in a brotherly sort of way, and then they both walked towards Mickey, and towards to Roxas's inevitable future with this group.
He just hoped it was a good one.
Sooo yes, I hope you enjoyed it and I know it was a tad on the boring side but the next chapter will have more action. Please or please review for if you do I will dance with horses.