Ns: What to say about this chapter... X'ero really don't like the cheshire cat.
Ns: Also. In regard to this chapter. What do you guys think about my fights. Sometimes when I reread them I think that I have a tendency to make my characters overanalyze their moves - in other words that they think to much in a relative short span. For further writing it would be nice to know if you guys agree.
Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts or any of the charcters related to Kingdom Hearts
Chapter 11: Limit Break
When you are no larger than the size of the average playing card small fires could be lethal and Axel was not a man who kept things small when he could make them big. The leaves on the threes were burning, all the plants and mushroom were burning, even the forest moss on the ground were burning making it hard to move around, therefore X'ero chose to take advantage of the only benefit of being small and hid herself in a small fracture in a huge rock. She had lost sight of Saïx in the inferno, and she had no intention to leave her hiding place. Cowardly perhaps, but X'ero was not about to risk her non-existence just because her teammate might be in danger, Saïx was a big boy, he could look after himself.
It felt like the earth shook as the large Axel passed by. X'ero pressed herself deeper into the fracture letting the shadows cover her while she hoped that Axel wouldn't notice. As far as X'ero could think there were only two ways to get out of this battle alive. Either she or Saïx had to return to their normal size or Axel had to become small again. X'ero wasn't sure how to do either. They had become small by drinking from that bottle on the table in the Bizarre Room. She mentally pictured the table: Hadn't there been another bottle on it? That was it! She had to make it back to the Bizarre Room.
X'ero crept out from her hiding place and began looking for an exit. The original entrance was blocked by flames, but she thought she could see an exit higher up in a big tree. She ducked her head and ran as fast as she could through the wood, trying not to let the heat bother her. To reach the hole in the tree she had to climb higher. She chose three, relative not-burning, mushroom and began jumping higher by moving from mushroom till mushroom. On top of the highest mushroom X'ero took a moment to look down. Normally she had no problem with highs, but as she looked down into the flames she felt her knees going weak. A sound of something flying through the air made her look up.
One of the giant burning chakram was heading straight for her. X'ero's body froze with her knowledge of the fact that her normal 'reflectoga' –spell would be useless against such a large weapon. Instinctively she covered her head with her arms and closed her eyes waiting for the impact.
And she felt an impact, but to her surprise it came from the side and not from the front. Because she no longer felt the mushroom under her feet X'ero opened her eyes.
"Saïx?" she said as she realized that he had rushed in, grabbed her and jumped down from the mushroom. The she glimpsed at his right shoulder. "Saïx, you are burning!"
"..." Saïx said nothing as they landed on the ground. Without dropping X'ero, he rushed around a corner and hid them behind a rock. First then did he release her. X'ero wasted no time, she clasped her hands together.
"Blizzaga." She aimed the spell at Saïx's shoulder. The ice melted into water, but at least the fire died out. The cloth covering the shoulder had already been burned through allowing X'ero to see the flesh underneath. It was not a pretty sight. Saïx was clearly seriously wounded.
"Don't worry," he said. "It's not fatal, the fire from his weapon only brushed me ... You shouldn't happen to know a cure-spell?"
X'ero shook her head.
"Then it doesn't matter." Saïx glared at her. "What were you thinking, exposing yourself to attacks like that?"
"I..."
"Don't ever do that again!"
"But..."
"The whole point of these teams is to keep the dead tolls low. How do you think it would reflect back at me if I were the first to lose a partner? What were you thinking?"
"... There is an exit in that tree."
"NO!" If Saïx wasn't glaring at her before he definitely was now. "We are NOT abandoning this mission."
"I wasn't..."
"Those who fail their mission are worthless to the Organization."
X'ero was very close to point out, that this was a situation far beyond their control. However, even she could tell that she shouldn't provoke Saïx right now.
"...Saïx, I wasn't going to run away. I wanted to go to the Bizarre Room, because I wanted the growing drink. If we could just grow up to Axel's size the battle wouldn't be that hard."
Saïx looked at her judgingly.
"I will distract Axel, so that you can escape." He finally said.
"Watch out, you are wounded."
"Thanks for telling me, I really hadn't noticed that." Saïx paused; he kept looking at X'ero intently.
"What's the matter?" X'ero asked nervously.
"Just... be sure to come back. I... will be in trouble if you don't."
"I promise that..."
"Don't promise anything." Saïx closed his eyes in pain as he hesitantly tried moving his wounded shoulder. "We just don't have the hearts to be true to a promise..."
Saïx rushed back into the battle and as soon as Axel's attention was engaged X'ero used the opportunity to sneak away from the forest. At the edge of the forest X'ero glanced shortly over her own shoulder. Then she disappeared.
The Bizarre Room was really... bizarre. First X'ero appeared in the room through a painting in the wall, the wall now functioning as floor. Since she needed to reach the floor while it was a floor, she went through another opening of sorts and ended up standing on the ceiling. She was very close to screaming in frustration, she did not have time for this. She rushed through another portal, if she didn't end up on the floor this time; she wasn't sure what exactly what she would do, but it would be drastic. Covered in soot X'ero appeared from the fireplace. Brushing off dirt she allowed herself to curse, while she tried getting her brain to focus on the positive aspect that she at least was on the floor.
She quickly climbed the chair and reached the top of the table. Fishing out two empty potion bottles from her pouch, X'ero prepared to take the drink with her, but as soon as the bottle came in contact with liquid it grew until it was back at its original size.
"Why," X'ero groaned. "What is wrong with this world?"
"What is wrong? Or is it you who are wrong?"
"What the..." X'ero looked around. A fat striped cat was suddenly making itself comfortable on the chair, while it grinned at X'ero.
"Eh... who are you?" X'ero asked.
"Me of course, or perhaps I'm no more me than you are really you."
"Are you talking about me being a Nobody?"
"Oh, but we are all nobodies." The cat somehow succeeded in covering its body with it tail, disappearing. It reappeared on the table beside X'ero. "Or perhaps we are all somebody to someone."
"You are making absolutely no sense," X'ero complained while rubbing her temple with a finger. "Can't you just tell me how take some of that growing potion with me into the forest?"
"Objects cannot be moved. In the forest flowers make big, while feathers make small."
"What?" Now the cat really didn't make sense to X'ero.
"What what?"
"What did that mean?"
"That means that."
"No, what did you mean by what you said."
"What did I say?"
"Flowers makes big and feathers small."
"What does that mean? Are you sure you are right in your head?"
"That's it! You are dead!" The gloves on X'ero's hands burst into black feathers, the orange light in X'eros visible eye turned crimson as the feathers began to swirl around her arms. Blue sparks of dark fire occasionally adding the only colour to the black magical energy.
The striped cat vanished one stripe after another.
"Magic is magic." With that final sentence the mouth of the cat finally disappeared.
X'ero studied the change in her body with wonder. This had to be the so called "Limit break", which Zexion once had explained to her. She had never experienced it before since her battles usually either ended with her relatively unharmed or completely knocked out. Pushing her body or self restraint to the last resort like this was really not usual for her. And it really was a last resort. X'ero could feel how her energy was being rapidly drained; she could not uphold this form for long without risking her very non-existence. Trying to figure out what exactly had changed within her abilities, X'ero looked around, only to discover that that her already excellent scanning ability had greatly improved. She could now see the magic energy flowing in this world and it was really quite different from her own. What she would give to study it. She shook her head, she hadn't time to think about magic right now. X'ero scanned the feathers circling her and her ill-intended smile spread. Perhaps if the feathers were working as she thought, she wouldn't need to bring the portion along, but she needed to act now, before her new source of power ran out.
Saïx jumped just as the branch he was standing on was cut down by a chakram. He landed in safety on a stone, but had to immediately leap down on the ground to avoid a fireball. The good thing about being small was that he was harder to hit. The bad thing was that, even with his stamina, Saïx couldn't keep dodging forever, besides Axel was systematically burning the forest down, eliminating the hiding places one by one. Saïx briefly allowed himself to glance at one of the portals out of the forest.
"You really think she's coming back?" Axel asked mockingly. "I don't know why you allowed her to run away, but if she's anything like the rest of the Organisation, she ditched you."
"..."
If he had to be honest, Saïx knew that Axel was right. No one in the Organization was willingly to risk their existence for another member, and X'ero, who generally disliked others, were properly not going to be the one to start a new tradition.
A burning tree log toppled to the ground, blocking the path forward. Saïx turned around only to face a huge wall of fire slowly heading in his directions. Saïx quickly assessed his chances of avoiding the attack. There was nothing to hid behind or jump up on. The flame wall was too wide, even with his speed Saïx wouldn't be able to run around it. In that moment Saïx actually considered opening a dark portal and abandoning the mission. But he realized that it wasn't an option. He was simply too small to open not to mention pass through the dark portals, but that meant that there was no way to avoid the flame attack. And considering the scale of the attack his chances of surviving were slim. Saïx usual calm face didn't show his realization. He summoned his claymore as he felt the heat of the fire wall approaching. It was of useless against the fire and his sword arm felt numb because of his wounded shoulder, but if he had to go down he would at least go down fighting.
A could breeze formed somewhere behind Saïx and black feather began to surround him. Saïx looked over his shoulder for a moment before everything went black. When the feathers disappeared again, Saïx realized that not just had he been teleported to another place in the forest, but he had also returned to his normal size.
"X'ero?" Saïx looked surprised at X'ero.
Black feathers swirling around her arms and her visible eye now red, X'ero looked different.
"Limit break?" Saïx more stated than asked.
"I think so," X'ero mumbled. "It seems that these feathers absorb and cancel magic energy, no wonder I couldn't harm my heartless."
It was first then Saïx noticed that she was swaying.
"X'ero?"
"I know it's pathetic, but I have never done this before." Her eye began switching its colours between red and orange. "You'll have to handle the rest of the fight."
The feathers disappeared and X'ero slumped forwards. Saïx quickly moved so that she would fall against his good shoulder. Supporting her body with the left arm, he looked around for a safe place to lay X'ero down when his eyes locked with Axel's. Now that he thought about it, it was unusual for Axel to say nothing for a whole minute.
"What?" Saïx asked.
"I was just wondering. You shouldn't happen to be looking for this?" Axel suddenly had a black feather and a roll of paper in his hand. "They kinda seem to belong to your little friend."
"Where did you get that?" Saïx said, ignoring both the "little" and the "friend" comment.
"I was attacked by a weird heartless as soon as I arrived in this world, and it seemed such a shame to leave the spoils of the battle behind."
"Hand it over! Now!"
"Sure!" Axel threw the feather and the blueprint to Saïx who easily caught it in spite of his injury.
"That was too easy."
"Ha, I just pick my battle wisely."
Saïx kept quiet even though 'wise' wasn't word he would choose to describe his former friend – not with the choices he had made.
"Besides," Axel continued pointing to the sleeping X'ero. "You always did attract the interesting types."
That alarmed Saïx.
"Why are you dragging X'ero into this?"
Axel rubbed the back of his head.
"Because it seems fitting."
"Fitting?"
"You can't make me believe that, this 'Zero' lost her heart in the usual way. Not with that heartless, which attacked when I arrived here. This girl gotta have a really interesting heartless out there somewhere."
"Is there really are usual way to lose once heart?" Saïx asked, quickly changing the subject from the heartless of X'ero.
"Perhaps not, but that is not the question. The question is: What does it take to break this girl down?"
"How many times must I say it? X'ero is an ordinary Nobody. She's not a thing you can..." Saïx paused. Perhaps he should not go there. "... Leave her out of it Axel. She has just joined the Organization and has no relation to you, Roxas or...XIV. Don't make an enemy of her, you will regret it."
"We made enemies the moment she joined the Organization." Axel reached out and opened a portal with his hand. "Now if you will excuse me, I have just met this girl and I need to research her past and her darker side a little. We can always catch up later."
Axel vanished through the portal. Saïx looked after him, and then shifted his eyes to the unconscious X'ero still in his grip. He moved his shoulder, moving X'ero's body slightly, so that it wasn't heavy.
Axel was making mistake. Even if he somehow succeeded in finding out something about the past X'ero or her heartless, X'ero would be more than capable of dealing with him herself. He packed away the feather and blueprint in the bag pack.
Axel may have gotten away, but at least they had completed the mission. No one had to know that they had encountered Axel without killing him. All Saïx needed was to make up a good excuse for his serious burn mark.
Saïx looked at X'ero once more. She really was just an ordinary Nobody, right? An ordinary and dangerous Nobody, who wasn't going to be happy when she found out that she was being targeted by a renegade because of him.
Ns: I really hate that firewall attack of Axel's in Chain of Memories. In the GBA version it was unavoidable unless you used cardbreak. The only good thing about it was that it was so slow that I had the time to reload the deck. (Keeps rambling)
X'ero (Glares):... Why I'm I geting mixed up in this Saïx-Axel business.
Ns: because you are teamed up with Saïx. It would have happend sooner or later.
X'ero: I prefer later. Much later .
