I want to thank all of my reviewers and readers! You guys are awesome!
I dedicate this chapter to disneytiger, Lauren-the-Lynx, and Flightfoot. You guys keep coming back and reviewing, which is great. ^^
Melle smiled and stepped forward. "I said it would all end, and right now, it is. You're free. I hope you can forgive me for what I've done to you."
Inside was a simple bedroom: dressers, two beds, a desk, and a table with a few chairs. Xemnas and Saix were sitting at the table playing a card game. They both looked over at Melle and Xion with surprise.
Xion slowly crept besides Melle. "Lord Xemnas? Saix? Is that really you?" She asked.
Saix growled. "Of course it is!" Xemnas shot a glare to the Diviner before standing up and approaching the two. He regarded the girls with a cold, unfeeling stare. "I'm going back to the castle and taking a very long shower. After that I'm going to stay in my room. Come in and I will impose every ounce of my wrath on you," he stated after a few minutes of silence.
Xion frowned. Lord Xemnas was usually in an odd mood, but she had never seen him this upset. "What happened?" she whispered to Melle. The girl shook her head in response.
The others watched as Xemnas angrily strode out of the room and into the hallway. Xion silently giggled as he passed by the room a few times, searching for the exit. It was clear that even he wasn't familiar with this area of the castle.
After the fourth time Xemnas went by the room, Saix jumped up and chased after him. Xion had noticed his anxiety growing, but stayed silent about it. "Superior! I apologize for going into my Beserker form and attacking you! Let me help you find your way out of this wretched castle; it's the least I could do!"
Both Xion and Melle laughed as they watched Saix trot after the furious Xemnas. Melle signaled to Xion to wait until they had left. When the sound of rapid footsteps and Saix's begging faded away, they went out of the room and continued down the winding, bent hallway.
Before long they came upon another door, similar to the one that led to where Xemnas and Saix were being held. Melle pressed the orb into the door, shattering the invisible wall so Xion could unlock the door.
Together they swung the door open to see Xigbar sleeping on the bed in the corner. Melle walked over to the sleeping Nobody and gently prodded his shoulder. "Wake up, please. It's time," she said gently.
Xigbar grumbled and pushed her hand away. "Unless it's time for target practice, I'm not moving."
"How about time to go home?" Xion offered, now standing beside her friend. "Door's open."
This didn't seem to affect the Sharpshooter. He waved his hand at them before letting it fall back onto his side. "Sleep now. Anything else later. Bye."
Xion and Melle exchanged glances. "Come on. Let's just go," Melle whispered, heading back towards the door. Xion looked back at the sleeping Nobody before closing the door (and then opening it again to check that it wasn't locked).
They soon came to the next room. After unlocking the door, they opened it to reveal Larxene throwing her knives at a small moving target. Most of the time she managed to get a bulls-eye, but a few knives still landed in the outer blue rings.
Larxene turned to the other two girls. "I'm free, right?" she asked, raising one eyebrow in the process. She smirked when Melle nodded.
"About time! Ugh, it's so boring in here. It even made me miss poker nights. And I hate poker," she took her knives out of the target and strode towards Xion and Melle. "I have never been this happy to see you, Xion and whatever-your-name-is," she smirked, "and I probably never will be again!" she added with a teasing laugh. "See ya."
Xion and Melle exchanged glances. "That was weird," said the Replica. Melle nodded in agreement. "Let's get going. It's starting to get late."
The two continued down the long hall. The next room with a huge lock on it was pretty far from where they were. Xion wondered why it would be so isolated. Maybe it was bigger? Or one of the more powerful members was being kept there. Maybe two people were being kept in there, like what had happened with Xemnas and Saix.
Why were they being kept in there in the first place? thought Xion. I think they have plenty of rooms here... She looked at a few of the doors they passed by as they headed farther down. She had passed by at least five of them.
She couldn't think of a good reason as to why they would keep two members together in a room, so she decided to ask Melle. "Hey, why did you guys the Superior and Saix together in the same room?"
Melle laughed. "Remember the cupcakes?"
Xion gagged. The insanity cupcakes; also known as something she would rather not remember. But they did taste delicious. Just get rid of the disturbing message on top and those would be perfect cupcakes. "I wish I didn't, but yeah."
"That's why."
"Are there others in the same room?"
"Yeah."
"But what would them being stuck in the same room accomplish?"
Melle scrunched up her face in disgust. "Because...Well...There's a better chance of them...You know..."
Xion was puzzled. "What?"
Xion didn't notice it as much as Melle did, but the situation was quickly growing very awkward. "Um...Agailia was the one to suggest it..." she trailed off, but quietly muttered, "you know how she is when it comes to yaoi..."
Xion realized what she meant. "Eww...That's just nasty..." She shuddered when she remembered the many times Agailia had tried to show her her yaoi collection. More than once Agailia had succeeded, usually with what she called AkuRoku pictures (which were Axel and Roxas in various states of undress touching each other in very inappropriate ways). The Replica didn't understand why she called it that name. 'Axel' does not have a K or it, or a U. And Roku... that was the name of that amnesiac has-no-personality-at-all Roxas impersonator. As for Aden...well, that definitely doesn't have a K in it.
Xion really disliked Aden and Roku. Aden would try to hit on her whenever she happened to be in the same room as him -usually try to go farther than just hitting on her-, while Roku stared on with empty, vacant eyes.
Almost all of the Sues had empty eyes. In most people -even Nobodies- there would be a spark of light in their eyes. Something that reflected their personality. Only Melle had anything resembling that spark.
At first, it was very dim, clouded by a shroud of pain she didn't want to imagine. As she became closer to Melle, the shroud slowly lifted to reveal that light.
The two opened the next door. Inside were Xaldin and Marluxia, arguing about something. Xion glanced up to Melle and mouthed 'why?' She didn't understand what the appeal of Xaldin and Marluxia together was.
"No, I did this. It's because Xaldin kept talking about this rose and I let Marluxia keep a small flower garden in his room, so I just moved him over here. I thought Marluxia might be able to help with the rose thing," explained Melle. Xion sighed with relief. Now this actually made sense. Well, as much sense as anything in this world can.
They came close enough to where they could hear the two men arguing.
"No. Just. No," said Marluxia, shaking his head. "I know flowers. And these flowers do not need any more water."
Xaldin grabbed a handful of soil and rubbed it between his fingers. "Do you see this? The soil is bone dry! Of course it needs more water!"
"No it doesn't."
Xaldin growled and threw what was left of his handful of soil at the pink haired Nobody. He yelled in anger, summoned his scythe, and attempted to swing at the other Nobody without hitting the flowers. He missed both of them.
Before long, a huge fight broke out between the two. Gusts of wind flew around the room, hitting both Xion and Melle, as well as messing up the Graceful Assassin's hair, only causing him to become even angrier.
"I think we should just leave a note!" Xion shouted, hoping that Melle would be able to hear her over the gusts of wind and pots breaking.
Luckily, she did. "Got any paper?" Melle shouted back.
Xion shook her head. "But I do have an idea!" She walked out of the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. Melle nodded and followed Xion out, making sure that the door was open before catching up to the Replica.
"Alright... That was odd." Xion waited outside of the next door for Melle. What was going to be next; walking in on someone tap dancing?
Fortunately they didn't; in the place of a tap dancing Nobody was Vexen, working on some random experiment.
Xion thought of an idea to mess with him. She giggled and signaled Melle to stay where she was. This was going to be funny.
The Replica skipped up next to the blond man. He was pouring some unknown chemical into a beaker filled with some other unknown chemical. "So," she said, leaning closer to him, "is that for your unicorn?"
He finished pouring the chemical before taking his goggles off and glaring at Xion. "Unicorns! I can't stand those horrible- Xion, how did you get in here?"
She laughed. "The door. You can go back to the castle now, but you might not like what they did to your lab," she added in a sing-song voice, "I like the unicorn in it. He's cute."
Vexen's hands started to shake. "Unicorns are in my lab!" he bellowed. "That's it! The experiment can wait!" He stomped out of the room, spurred by his hatred of unicorns and Xion's and Melle's laughter.
Once they had calmed down, they left the room. Off in the distance they could still see Vexen angrily stomping away, causing another fit of laughter from Xion. Melle simply giggled and grabbed Xion's wrist, leading her down the stark hallway to the next door.
After unlocking it, they tried to open the door. Something was blocking the doorway, keeping it from opening. Xion frowned and tried to push it open again. Whatever was blocking the doorway wasn't moving. "What do we do?" She turned around to ask Melle but she was gone. The girl looked down the hallway, but saw nothing. She sighed and leaned against the door. Instead of having the marble-like substance press against her back, she felt nothing as she realized -just a little too late- that she was falling.
She landed on the white floor flat on her back. Groaning, she managed to sit up.
"Oh! Sorry Xion!" Melle leaned next to her friend. "I didn't know you were leaning against the door." She looked over at something else. "Do you have any potions?"
Xion shook her head, closing her eyes. "Not right now... Ooh that hurt..." When she opened her eyes, she saw Melle next to her with an open potion bottle. "Here. Take this," she instructed, pushing the potion into Xion's hand. She immediately gulped down the contents of the drink. Within seconds, her back felt perfectly normal. She stood up and noticed Lexaeus close by, holding a couple of potions.
"Better?" he asked. Xion smiled. "Yep. Thanks."
He waved a hand in dismissal before putting the potions back and leaving. "He was the thing blocking the door. I used a corridor to get in here and I asked him to move. He didn't even know there was a door there," she said with a slight giggle.
After grabbing a few potions (just in case) they continued down the hall. Xion couldn't help but roll her eyes at the sight inside of the next room.
In the middle of the room was a large, round white table with cards scattered all around it. Luxord sat at in one of the many chairs, each having a hand of cards in front of it. He looked down at his cards and smirked. "Full house!" he shouted triumphantly, lying his cards out onto the table.
He then jumped over to another seat and threw those cards down on the floor. "You always get a full house! I smell a cheater!" He hopped back to the previous seat. "But my dear, the cards love me. I do not have an ace up my sleeve." He rolled up both of his sleeves. "See?"
Xion watched in silence. "I remember a poker gamelike this... I couldn't play, but I watched them. It ended with half of the room destroyed and Luxord bragging to the shop Moogle." He tried to convince the Moogle that he had more money than it. Since everyone bought items and panels from the Moogle, -mainly Roxas because of his obsession with always having 99 of everything he could get his hands on- it was rich. As Xigbar would say, he was served.
Luxord was too absorbed in his imaginary poker game to notice the two girls staring blankly at him. Eventually Xion sat down in one of the tables and grabbed a hand of cards.
Too bad they never taught her how to play poker. The only card games she knew how to play were Solitare and Go Fish.
Finally he noticed her. "Ah! Xion! What brings you to my game today? Normally I don't allow the children to play poker, but I'll make an exception this time," he said grinning.
Xion sighed and shook her head. "I'm not here to play. Just go back to the castle, please. It looks like you're going crazy."
He brought his hand out and all of the cards flew into his open palm. He put the cards into one of the pockets of his coats, stood up, and started to leave. Just as he reached the doorway, he turned his head back to look at the Replica. "Aren't we all a little bit mad?" With that, he went into the blank hallway, disappearing around a corner and out of sight.
Melle leaned against the doorway and looked over to Xion, who was still sitting at the table. "Alright, we have 9 down, right?" she asked.
Xion drummed her fingers on the table thoughtfully. "Yeah. We still haven't found Zexion, Demyx, Roxas, or Axel."
Melle shifted uncomfortably. "I think we passed by one of their rooms on accident... I'll go check." Xion nodded in acknowledgment as Melle left.
Xion wondered how they could miss a room. The huge metal chains were a dead giveaway, especially since everything else was a blinding white. Maybe they were just caught up in something and didn't notice the room. Or maybe the chains were smaller. "Who knows?" she said in an exasperated tone. "I just want to go to sleep." She lied her head down on the table and closed her eyes. Within seconds her mind was teetering on the line of consciousness.
Wait...No, I have to stay awake. Just a little longer... Xion slowly opened her eyes. The temptation to close her eyes again and drift off to sleep was threatening to take over. Her eyelids were just so heavy. She stood up, stretched, and yawned. She could go to sleep soon enough.
Melle's head popped into the doorway. "Alright, we did. The room's in an offshoot off the main hallway. That's why we missed it," she explained. Xion walked out of the room and followed Melle down the hallway to the offshoot.
Xion almost missed it. When Melle disappeared, she retraced her steps and noticed a chasm in the wall just big enough for a person to fit into. The chasm looked clean-cut, as if someone took careful precision when making it.
Xion slipped into the chasm, which opened up into a larger area. At the end was a larger area, where Melle was waiting. "I already broke the barrier. Now you just need to unlock it," she told her.
After unlocking the door, Xion slipped into the room. It wasn't much of a surprise that they decided to put Zexion and Demyx together (sometimes jokingly called the two most useless Nobodies in the entire Organization.)
When provoked, they could be pretty powerful. However, Demyx was too lazy to do anything and Zexion's illusions were easily disrupted by tinfoil hats. Both of them were good with magic, however no one really cared about that part.
In one corner, Zexion was sitting near a few stacks of huge books. He was reading a smaller book, but Xion was too far away to make out the title. Demyx was sitting on the lone -king-sized- bed, strumming his sitar. They both looked up from what they were doing to look at Xion.
"I thought I smelled something familiar..." Zexion mused. "Wait, how did you get in here?"
"We unlocked a door." Xion said, pointing to the door the two had just come through.
"Door! There was NOT a door there before!" Demyx shouted, then sighed. "At least I finally had time to finish writing all of the songs for my new album."
"With my help, since you're horrible at writing lyrics," Zexion pointed out.
"They're not horrible and overly depressing lyrics, right?" Xion asked.
Zexion stuck his tongue out in disgust. "Of course not. He wanted to play a love song, I wrote a love song. About picnics by a lake and dancing under the moonlight." He rolled his eyes. "It was odd. Anyways, I'm going to get out of his horrid place. I'll get my books tomorrow." He stood up, still holding the book he was previously reading, and left.
Demyx laughed. "He's just mad because I claimed the bed first. He said he'd rather sleep on the floor, so he did!" He grabbed his sitar and a pile of papers next to him. He walked by Melle and stopped to examine her. "Heeeeyyyy... You look like me!" He looked absolutely astonished. "Well, if I got in a really bad crash. But that's cool! What's your name?" He asked her.
"I'm Melle. The girl brought you guys food most days," she said, giving a slight bow. "I'm sorry for locking you up."
Demyx shrugged. "I didn't have to do anything. So you're THAT girl. Wait, you're a girl!"
Xion sighed. "Go away Demyx," her sigh quickly transformed into a laugh. "You'll only confuse yourself."
He frowned. "Fine..." He tried to open a dark corridor, but nothing came. "Huh?"
"You can't open dark corridors inside of the castle anymore."
Demyx groaned, then made his way back to the huge bed. He crawled underneath the covers, fixed a few pillows, then stared at the two girls. "I'll go tomorrow," he said, "so good night."
Xion and Melle exchanged very confused glances. "If you say so..." they muttered in unison.
After quietly leaving the room and closing the door, they went out of the small hallway and back down the main path. "Hey, since most of the Sues love pairing my friends together, they're in the same room, right?" Xion asked.
Melle shook her head. "Oh no no no. If I did that, they would be out in a few days. Axel's incredibly sneaky and has almost gotten free a few times himself. Roxas isn't as bright but he's really powerful. They could easily work together and get free and I would probably..." she shuddered. "I could have done that earlier though... But I was too afraid for my safety."
They reached the next room. Xion stared blankly at the few half-melted chains on the wall -the lock was misshapen around the corners, but otherwise fine- as Melle broke the iridescent barrier. "Etsuko came and flameproofed the chains after he melted most of them. I didn't know it was possible."
Xion giggled. "That's Axel for you. I'll handle this one." After unlocking the door, the excited girl burst into the room. She noticed a human-shaped lump underneath the sheets on the bed andran towards it. After poking it a few times and getting an angry grumble in response, she smiled and started to poke the sleeping thing even faster. Before long, spiked red hair and a very angry Nobody's head appeared from underneath. "Leave me alone...Tired..." He grumbled angrily.
"Axel!" Xion shouted happily, latching onto the red-haired Nobody. "I missed you!"
"What!" The surprise in his voice came through clearly, even though he was half-asleep. "How-what-where-huh?"
"You don't have to be stuck here anymore! You can come back home! Just ignore the guys who live there now! Especially the ones that look like you and Roxas!"
"Alright, what are you talking about? Guys who live at the castle, right? What are they, lazy repo men?" Axel joked.
Xion let go of him and nervously laughed. "Well...It's a long story. You'll understand later. For now, you might want to go back to the castle. Or do what Demyx did and go back to sleep." She shook her head, deciding to stop talking before she started rambling. "Anyway, I gotta go get Roxas."
Axel gripped onto her wrist. "Is it just him?" She responded with a curt nod. "Well... Eh, I'll go with you. I'm too awake to go back to sleep now, thank you very much," he said sarcastically, getting up and pulling on an Organization coat -that happened to be on the floor-.
As they re-joined Melle, Xion couldn't help but have a big smile on her face. If Axel was okay, Roxas must be fine! Melle wouldn't do anything bad to him. After so long, the three of them would be back together again.
The last room (where Roxas was) was at the very end of the long, twisting hall. After a little while, Axel looked over at Melle. "Alright. Why do you look like Demyx got into a fight with a very angrycake?" He asked. Xion lightly smacked his arm in offense, but he didn't notice.
Melle looked away. "Long story... Let's just say I, along with the ones who captured you, are imposters."
"Imposters. Wonderful," he replied flatly.
Xion pouted. "Axel! Don't be so mean. She was the one who took care of you."
"Fine, fine. I'm not in a mood to argue right now. My brain doesn't want to do anything, especially not think."
They didn't talk for the rest of the -short- walk. When someone finally spoke, it was when Melle was unlocking the door. Axel started to fire out questions about the iridescent barrier and the orb used to unlock it. Most of the questions Melle didn't have an answer to.
After unlocking her part of the door, Melle turned away and walked past the two. "My job is done. I'm gonna go now..." She opened a dark corridor a few feet away from the two Nobodies. "Xion, if you need to find me, I think you know where I'll be." She walked into the swirling vortex and disappeared.
Axel turned to the Replica. "Hey, how come she can do that and we cant?" he asked.
Xion didn't look away from the beam of light streaming from her Keyblade. "Because she's different," she answered. Only when the lock and Keyblade dissipate did Xion look back at her friend. "Come on. It's unlocked."
Axel was the one who pushed the huge white door open. Xion followed in behind him, peeking around his side.
The two of them stared in confusion at their blond friend.
Roxas was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, next to an odd black machine. He was looking down at the white thing in his hands, a few streams of tears falling down his face. He glanced up from the white device to Axel and Xion, then back down to it. He shut the device and stood up, slowly walking towards the duo.
"Axel?" he muttered, stopping inches away from him and poking his arm repeatedly. Xion then realized that Roxas probably couldn't see her, since she was behind him.
"The one and on—ahhh!" Xion got out of the way just as Roxas tackled Axel to the floor. "You're okay! Dude, I missed you so much!" Roxas said happily, a big smile plastered on his face.
Xion looked away, holding back a grimace. "Blech." She shuddered.
"Get off, you're heavy," complained Axel. "Go tackle Xion to the ground."
He got off of the other Nobody and looked around for Xion. "Xion!" He ran and hugged her, also making her fall to the ground.
She noticed that he still had tears falling from his eyes. "Why are you crying?"
"Huh? Oh..." He sat up and rubbed his eyes. "I don't know... I was just watching the last part of the game where I..." He stopped when he met Xion's very confused gaze. "Never mind. Heh, you don't know how much I've missed you two."
Xion and Axel laughed. "If only you knew, Roxas..." She said smiling. "Let's go home. I can't wait to go to sleep."
"I haven't slept in the last two days..." Roxas mused. "I tried to earlier but I had a nightmare about...Tentaclaws..."
((now for a funny dream sequence yay!))
After waking up I went into the Gray Area to get my mission from Saix, just like any other day. Except when I actually got there, Saix wasn't there. In his place was some vaguely familiar girl around my age with rust colored spiky hair holding a baby.
My curiosity got the best of me, so I walked over to the girl to look at the baby. I stared at it in shock.
Now, I'm not saying I hate babies, but I'm not too fond of them. The other members say that's because I'm a teenage boy, so a cute baby doesn't affect me. Plus they cry and poop and they're hard to take care of. I'm not even allowed to have a hamster, let alone a baby.
This baby looked...Tie-dyed. It had red bangs and blonde hair that stuck up in every direction. One eye was a deep blue; the other a mint green. It cooed at me when I touched it's hair.
"Aww," the girl chirped. "He wuvs his daddy."
I looked around the room to see if anyone else was here, but it was only me, the baby, and the girl. "But... No one is here," I said blankly.
The girl glared at me. "What, you like, don't recognize your own baby? That's like, bad parenting, you know," she chided.
I backed away from her. "Wait! I don't even know you! How can we have a kid together!"
She groaned. "No! God, you are, like, sooooo retarded! Even more than Xion! I didn't have a kid with you! This is YOUR kid with AXEL! A-X-E-L!"
"But...how? I'm pretty sure I know how babies are made," I shuddered from the memory of Vexen's sex education lecture, then continued, "and it happens with a girl and a boy. Plus...No. Just. No."
"Nuh-uh! You two DID! You don't remember all of those hours you were in labor? Vexen was the doctor and Larxene was like the midwife-thing!" she shouted, causing the baby to whimper slightly. She immediately started to softly talk to the baby, calming it down.
I kept backing away. How-why-what? This can't be possible. I'm a guy. I don't have a...you know. I have a...the other thing. And he has...the same thing. And two of those things do NOT equal baby. And we never did anything together. I don't WANT to do anything like that with him. Isn't that technically pedophillia?
But...what if I blacked out during it? I do that a lot. Plus I don't exactly have the best memory. Maybe I was asleep the whole time during the...pregnancy. Unlikely, but possible.
But I don't want to be a dad! I can't be a dad! I'm not even 15! I'm still going through puberty! And that means that I... did THAT with Axel. And if I had that, it would have to go out my... And babies are the size of a watermelon!
Ew. Ew. Do not vomit, Roxas. Do not vomit. You're stronger than that...
"It's okay, Roxel," she cooed to the little demon thing. "You always have daddy Axel. He'll always wuv you and your cute little self." It giggled as she gently touched it's nose.
I think my jaw almost hit the floor when I heard it's name. "Roxel? How unoriginal can you get? Ugh!" I brought my hand up to my forehead. "Axel would want to name it Flame or Fire or Burny-Burn-Burn. I would name it...I don't know, Xander or something! Roxanne is a more original name for the baby than Roxel!" Alright, maybe I should calm down on the whole ranting bit.
She stuck her tongue out at me in response. I snorted. This girl was unbelievable. That demon baby thing was unbelievable. Please, please, please let this be a dream.
Then Axel casually walked in. "Isn't he adorable, Roxie?" I growled at the nickname. It made me sound like a girl. "Our wonderful child!" He leaned down and whispered in my ear, "come on. Let's go make another." I'm pretty sure the girl heard because she was gawking at us with a big smile on her face.
I woke up screaming. I like the Tentaclaw dream better than that one.
OOOOOHHHHH ROXASSSSS I'M SORRRYYY. It was just a dream, but still... ;-; I got the idea for that extra from my friend. I asked her why everyone calls the pairing AkuRoku and not Roxel -which is a much better name- and she told me that's the name for their baby. She gave me a short description, thus Roxas has to deal with that horror. Poor guy. I don't think it's possible for me to be nice to him. Oh, and anyone else almost cry at the ending of 358? It was horribly sad.
The reunion of the Organization took forever to write. My favorite part was Marluxia and Xaldin's argument. Over flowers.
Sorry for the delay of this chapter. I ran into a writing dry spot. D: For a few days, my mind was a blank. I don't know if I'll be able to finish this story before my school starts again -August 23rd-. So if I don't finish by then, updates will take longer.
Oh, and two last things. 1. I do not have anything against yaoi or it's fangirls or it's demon babies. It's just a lot of fun to make fun of it.
2. I have another story (it's called Intertwined Fates) that I update a lot more often. That's because I write it solely on my iPod and it's a lot shorter. I take that thing everywhere with me, so if I'm on a long car trip and I'm bored, I'll start writing it. Or (because I'm only allowed on the computer for so long) nothing good's on TV so I'll start writing a chapter. It's not that I'm neglecting this story, promise! :