A/N: Sorry that it took so long for an update and that it's long. Anyway, I thought this chapter would focused on Demyx and Payge but it went in a total different direction that I hope you won't mind. Plus there's a cameo appearance of a very much loved character. I don't know if this character would have any significance in the story yet.

CHAPTER 10

:The Experimented:

"We really suck at capturing people, don't we?" Zees told Bane. Not too long ago, Demyx had jumped into a portal and went to who knew where. Zees hated the fact that Nobodies could create portals, especially those who were known to run away from almost every fight. Zees looked at Bane, seeing that she was leaning on an empty pod filing her nails. "Don't you have anything else better to do?"

Bane shot him a glare. "Why? You want to check up with Thrash all of a sudden?"

Zees raised her eyebrows at her sudden anger. He was certain that he didn't do anything to her. "Bane, what's wrong?"

"Like anyone would understand."

Zees, running his hand through his jet black hair, already tired of her yelling. He sighed. "Of course not. You're the one keeping your problems to yourself." Zees stopped talking and looked behind him. "Hey, Thrash, Chrys, why are you hiding for?"

Thrash and Chrys came out into the open. Thrash's eyes went from Zees to Bane and back to Zees. "I didn't want to interrupt your moment." His gaze landed on Bane again and saw the dirty look she was giving him. She's mad . . . Probably because they failed their mission. "It's okay, Bane," he spoke, startling everyone. "We didn't complete our mission either."

Bane rolled her eyes. "Wow, Thrash. Now you're trying to act so humble."

Thrash's eyes became impassive. "Something else is bothering you?"

Zees folded his arms, confused by Bane's statement. She seemed angry. Thrash was impassive except for the glint in his eyes that was undecipherable. There had been tension between the two earlier this week but the tension had manifested into something else that was driving Bane up the wall. He raised an eyebrow and stared at Thrash.

Bane clenched her fists. "You think you're so perfect, that you've never done a thing wrong."

Suddenly Thrash grinned. "Nothing wrong. More like 'twisted'."

"Like what you ordered Warp to do?"

"Who's Warp?" Chrys asked. She had never heard of her until now.

"Someone who used to be like us," Zees said. "Until-"

"Until Thrash almost sent her to her death!" Bane interrupted.

Thrash still remained unemotional. "I did her a favor."

Demyx had been running throughout the city and castle looking for Payge. When he finally found her, she was lying down in his old room, labeled IX on the door, clutching a pillow. From the door way, he could see her swollen cheek. He walked into the room. After sitting on the bed, he shook her gently. "Hey, Payge?"

Payge opened her eyes and saw Demyx. Immediately, she got up and hugged him.

Demyx was caught off guard, even more off guard by the way her back shook as if she was crying. He couldn't tell though for she had buried her face into his black cloak. "Are you okay?"

She pulled away and wiped away her tears as fast as possible, muttering 'ow' when her hand passed over her swollen cheek. Then she smiled. "I'm just glad that you're here and that you're not hurt." Before she could do anything, Demyx touched Payge's cheek with a light touch.

"It probably hurts a lot," Demyx said, withdrawing his hand. He stood and made a portal. "I'll go get you some ice."

Payge watched him go through the portal and sighed. Great. I'm making him worry for no reason.

Demyx came back, holding an ice-pack wrapped in a paper towel. He handed it to her and she put it on her cheek, feeling the coldness already. "Right from the freezer," Demyx beamed and then added, "Surprise that it still works. You think that after twenty years it would be broken."

"Thank you," she whispered.

"No problem. So, what's wrong?"

"Huh?"

"You can tell me," he said. "If you want to." He gazed into her brown eyes, already seeing the thoughts running through her mind.

"I don't know how to explain it. It seems stupid to me sometimes.

"I guess I don't like being alone.

"I remember the flames that took my parents' lives away. I remember walking through my home town that night, abandoned, forgotten, orphaned. I remember a lot of things. Nobody I passed in the streets cared why a little girl was walking by herself without clutching onto a grownup's hand. I found myself at an orphanage the next morning, where I stayed there for eight years.

"Eventually, I left to go see the world for myself. During that time, I realized that stealing was the only way of survival. Because not everyone was kind to a beggar. People have their selfish tendencies when it came to food and money. Could I blame them? Could they blame me? I remember one girl I had asked. Her name was Tiffany. That was what her chauffeur had called her. I had asked her for some money. She had laughed at me.

"One day I was walking through the snow when I saw a man. I stared at him for a while before I walked passed him. Something hit the back of my neck and then I fell unconscious.

"When I woke up, I met Thrash and Bane for the first time. Back then Thrash didn't remember who he was and so he was on better terms with Bane. The others, Shadow, Gear, and Renegade, were in their sleeping states so I didn't meet them for a week or so.

"I found out that Thrash and Bane came from rich families. But it was because of Bane's new appearance that she couldn't see hers and Thrash only living relative died the year before, thus he inherited tons of money. In fact, his relative was on some committee and because of that, Thrash was on it.

"I found out that Bane was trying to give us nicknames. Her real name was Tiffany but she decided to call herself 'Bane' after the experimentations. She even came up with Dimitri's. She said my nickname would be harder. When I found out I could teleport, she settled for 'Warp'.

"And so I spent the last year and a half trying to get to know each of them" Payge concluded. "They were the closest thing I had to a family. We were all dealing with the same problems and I guess I felt at home with them. They took care of me because I was the second youngest. Even when Thrash remembered his past a year after my arrival, he treated me kindly. But now, things are different. The cost of losing my powers was losing my family. And to make things worst, I betrayed them. So I guess Bane had every right to be mad at me and in some odd way, Thrash was justified in nearly breaking my hand. I'm alone again."

"You're wrong," Demyx said. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, worried that she would cry. "You shouldn't say things like that. They're mad because they wish they had your luck. Maybe they don't want to be what they are anymore. Second, you're not alone. I won't let you be. I came back for you, right?" He added, grinning.

Payge removed the ice-pack from and Demyx could see that the swelling had gone down; it was getting better. Then she hugged him, making the blonde blushed. She didn't notice. "Thank you," she whispered again.

Donald and Goofy led Axel and Alana down the Colonnade. The hallway was lined with a red carpet with gold trimmings. As they walked on it toward the double doors at the end of the hallway, Alana noticed the tapestries draping from the high ceiling and stared at the columns which looked to be made out of marble. She gazed into the courtyard as the group passed a huge pink door. Goofy was talking.

"You'll like the king," he told them. "He's a kind person." He opened the door and Axel and Alana saw a library. Their eyes followed the books lined on the wall to the fireplace to the paintings to the desk where a mouse sat, probably only half of Alana's height.

"We brought them, Your Majesty," Goofy said as he stood aside so the mouse could see them.

The king looked up. "Aw, you're here!" He left the desk and came out to greet them. "I'm King Mickey. Nice to meet you both."

Alana raised an eyebrow at the king, folding her arms. I thought he would look a bit . . . taller. Maybe more human-like? She looked at Axel to see his expression. He appeared to be taking this in stride, like it was no big deal. Maybe he's seen the king before. Alana saw Axel turned toward her and she averted her gaze.

Axel scratched his head and stared at the king. "So why do you want us here?"

"Well," the king started, "this is about a number of things that had happened during the last month and so. Right now, Sora is going around closing the heart of each world."

Axel arched an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Every since the reappearance of Heartless in Radiant Garden, we've been worried about other worlds," Mickey explained. "The worlds are now connected to one another through a network."

"A network?" Alana questioned.

The redhead looked at her, surprised that she didn't know about it. Axel decided to explain. "About three years ago, a committee wanted to find a way for people to travel between the worlds. The original plan was to create Gummi ships but the king wasn't wiling to give away the blueprints. Then one of the committee asked the king for the keyblade wielder to open the hearts. He said that maybe he could make a passage out of that. The king agreed. No one knew the guy would have actually succeeded though."

Mickey sighed. "I didn't think it was possible. But back then I didn't know we were dealing with someone who could easily rival Ansem in genius."

"Who would that be?" Axel asked.

"Who do you think?!" Donald interrupted the conversation. He was tired standing by the wall doing nothing.

"If it's so obvious then say it," Axel muttered, his emerald eyes on the duck.

"It's Dimitri," Alana said quietly.

Thrash lied down on his bed. His tie was half-way undone, his suit rumpled, his shirt unbuttoned near the collar. If anyone had entered the room, they would have thought he was tired. He was.

The committee had, for the last week, been annoying him. They were complaining about the Heartless, claiming they would shut down the network, arguing about what to do with the Missing. He, as the chairman of the committee, had to stop the complaints, convince them that the network was a necessity, rationalize a plan to deal with the disappearances. He had never felt so stressed out. He had kept it to himself, the stress just below the surface. And poor Bane had been taking the blows for it. There was a strange appeal in taking out his frustration on Bane in either taunting or toying.

With that thought, he grinned and closed his eyes.

-FLASHBACK-

"Ansem."

His colleague looked at him. "For once you have a question?"

Dimitri sighed. "For once."

The two were in their fifties around this time, Ansem with a family, Dimitri without. They were studying the heart and its secrets in a lab. Though it was large, it was only occupied by two people. Ansem, who owned it, wanted to find assistants but hadn't had the time to do so. The only plus about not finding any was that with only two people, there was more peace and quiet.

But now, Ansem stared at the man who had broken the silence. "What is your question?"

"Can a heart be extracted out of a body without being tainted?"

"Why are asking, Dimitri?"

Dimitri could already sense Ansem questioning the validity of the idea. "If the heart could be removed without problems, then maybe we can turn it into a usable form or," he added, seeing the look on Ansem's face, "place it into a different body." He then realized that he should have said the latter first.

"What would be the point of such a venture?" Ansem asked. "Do you realize what you're saying?!"

Dimitri sighed. "Always with the morality. For once, lose that nobility you have and see it from a different perspective."

"You're speaking nonsense," Ansem said, resuming his work.

Dimitri saw that the conversation wouldn't get any further. "Forget that I mentioned it."

-END FLASHBACK-

Extracting the heart, what had been the point of it back then? There was none but now someone's heart can be fused with someone else based on the information gathered from the Heartless experiments. The idea presented endless possibilities. He thought of Alana's heart, then of someone else's.

The king sighed. "I wish I knew what he was planning."

Axel looked at Alana. "He was your old master. Wouldn't you have some idea what he's up to?"

"I don't."

Mickey began pacing the room. "This story may be of some interest to you, Alana."

-STORY-

Riku had never felt so silly in his life. He, a full-grown man, hiding in the bushes at night, following the new chairman of some committee who had recently figured out a way to connect the worlds. This was something a child would do; an adult talked things out. Yet not listening to the king's orders was childish in its own way. Riku had been told not to track the man but here he was behind a bush doing what he was told not to do. This is perfect, Riku thought sarcastically as he transferred bushes.

The man stopped walking. "Come out," he said.

Riku's blue eyes widened in alarm. How does he know I'm here? Did he know all along? He was about to give away his position when someone else jumped down from a tree near the chairman. It was a girl with round ears, blue hair, and a tail.

"Hey, Thrash, how did you know I was there?"

"I was only assuming, Bane," Thrash said, glancing behind him.

Thrash and Bane moved on, Riku following and listening.

"Artemis is proud of you," Bane said.

"Is that so?"

"Yeah. He was wondering how you figured out the whole heart-of-the-world thing even though it was what over two months ago."

"I don't know how. It made sense."

"Are you a genius or something?" Bane asked-Riku could tell it was a flirtatious question expecting a flirtatious answer.

"Yeah. I am."

"Isn't that conceited of you to say?"

"I don't know. Is it better to be honest or fake being humble?"

"Anyway," Bane said, changing the subject, "does Artemis really know where Demyx and Axel might be?"

Riku was about to change bushes but stopped at the sound of their names.

"I guess so. Or else he wouldn't have had me kill the previous chairman and start this network idea."

Riku narrowed his eyes, remembering how the body had been discovered. Ripped, maimed, torn apart. And the young man was the one claiming to have done it. Who would have guessed that a human was capable of such animalistic behavior?

"Don't you feel guilty?" Bane asked.

Thrash shrugged. "Why does it matter. I had to do it. Artemis' orders." Suddenly he halted and turned around. Riku could have sworn the young man was looking in his direction. Riku held his position as the guy came closer.

Thrash stopped in front of a bush. "You can come out now."

Riku stood up and found himself face to face with Thrash.

-END STORY-

"So where's Riku?" Alana asked.

"He's fine," the king said. "Dimitri didn't kill him if that what you had thought. He could have but he didn't. I assumed that he didn't kill Riku because he was curious about something."

"Like what?"

"Riku told me that Dimitri asked him about Xehanort's Heartless."

"Who's Xehanort?" Alana asked.

Axel smirked. "You remember Xemnas right?"

"You mean that's his-"

"That's right."

The door to the library opened and a silver-haired man stepped inside. His blue eyes darted across the room, spotting the redhead and the girl. He came inside to take a closer look. "Axel? Alana?"

Demyx gave Payge a new ice-pack to put on her cheek. It wasn't as swollen as before but it was still noticeable and Demyx didn't want it to turn black-and-blue. Bane punched pretty hard for a girl that seemed to file her nails all the time.

With that thought, Demyx looked around his old room. "So . . ."

"So . . ." Payge swung her dangling legs as her eyes focused on the ground.

"Want to play a game?" Demyx asked.

"Sure."

A/N: Thanks to halfdemon-kai and Esinahs for reviewing. Till later.