CHAPTER 12
~ Reconnect ~
Otonashi sat on the edge of the flat rock, using his hook-tipped weapon as a fishing pole. Several seagulls flew overhead for a moment, heading toward their nests further up the rocks. A few feet away, Roxas was completely silent and motionless, deep in meditation.
For the past two days, the boy had been coming down to this spot in order to continue the meditation training that Marluxia and Xaldin had begun, though Otonashi had not been able to learn much about the reasons behind it. All he knew was that Roxas had apparently gotten progressively better at it with each day that passed.
On the first day, Roxas had been abruptly yanked out of his meditative state before he could get anywhere; the resulting shock wore him out to the point where he was unable to try again for the rest of the day. On the second day, he was able to overcome whatever had disrupted his calm the first time, and he stayed completely still for hours before finally opening his eyes again. This day was likely to be more of the same--Roxas had already been sitting there for an hour, and there were no signs that this would change anytime soon.
For a brief moment, he felt as if someone was watching him; Roxas' eyes were still shut just as tightly as before, so he turned and glanced around at the path leading back up the mountainside instead. There was nobody there--he and Roxas were alone on the flat rock, just as they had been for the past hour.
"Huh," he mumbled to himself, turning his attention back to his fishing. "That's strange..."
"She's finally starting to improve," Zexion said, glancing over to Lexaeus as the two watched Kisaki attempt to deflect all of Xigbar's shots. "It took far longer than normal, but it seems she's finally grown used to that weapon of hers."
Lexaeus just nodded, silently watching as the old elf fired another barrage of arrowhead-shaped bullets at the girl and she spun and flipped while swinging her spear about in all directions to deflect them all. Though at first glance it resembled her initial unskilled flailing, she was obviously doing something different now--her cloak, which had to be replaced twice during her days training under Xigbar, only had one or two holes in it so far, rather than being ripped to shreds.
"It's odd," the large man said, "She fights the same way she did when we first found her... but now it's actually working, somehow."
"I've noticed," Zexion said, nodding slightly. "I'm not sure if she just wasn't sure of herself at first, or if she was holding back for some reason, but..."
Lexaeus turned toward his blue-haired friend and interrupted his sentence.
"Holding back?"
"I'm not sure why she would, exactly," he answered, "But there's just that nagging feeling that she wasn't trying. Especially the first time she and I sparred--she seemed to flip back and forth between normal and incompetent within the same fight."
He flipped over a few pages of his book, moving his hands over the page and causing words to appear where there was only blank paper before.
"Perhaps she was afraid that, if she fought seriously, she might accidentally unleash that power the Zero Gear drew out on her first day of training."
Xigbar reloaded his arrowguns, then fired off two shots from each as Kisaki ran toward him, causing her to stop just in time to roll out of the way before leaping back to her feet and continuing her charge.
"Good!", the one-eyed elf said, grinning slightly. "You're mixin' it up a little, not always tryin' to block 'em all. Keep it up!"
She gripped her weapon with both hands and lunged forward, thrusting its point toward Xigbar, but before it could make contact he jumped into the air and began to flip over her head. She turned, expecting to see him land behind her, but instead he just hung upside-down in midair, completely defying gravity.
He tapped her on the shoulder, causing her to spin around, and then completed his flip while she wasn't watching her back. Upon landing, he dematerialized one of his guns and instead struck with an elbow to the back of the head, knocking Kisaki flat on the floor.
Zexion closed his book and stood up, while Lexaeus just remained in his seat and watched. Kisaki was lying on the floor, apparently unconscious; her weapon fell by her side and disappeared with a flash of green light, as any member of the Organization's weapon did when its wielder no longer had enough strength left to maintain its physical form. Xigbar scoffed and dematerialized his other gun.
"C'mon, is that all you've got?", he said, frowning down at the fallen girl. "One little hit and you go down like a bag of rocks? I expected a little more from the girl who knocked down Zexy just from summoning her weapon."
Lexaeus stood, a worried look forming on his face. Zexion's eyes widened slightly as well, and he began to walk over toward the girl to check her condition. Before either of them could get too close, however, she began to slowly push herself back up off the floor. The air suddenly felt different again, just like it had during her earlier weapon-summonings; seconds later, it was joined by the odd electrical buzzing sound that always accompanied it.
Xigbar, either not noticing the change or not caring either way about it, continued his taunting.
"Get up, dammit! I didn't even hit ya that hard!"
Finally, Kisaki brought herself to her feet, though her arms dangled almost-limply at her sides and she seemed to be incapable of standing up straight. She coughed slightly, then began to raise one of her hands toward Xigbar as she turned her head.
Xigbar gasped, stepping back a bit at the sight of it. The girl's eyes, usually a bizarre silvery color, were glowing red. The buzzing sound became even louder than before, causing the elf's sensitive ears to ache slightly. Before he had a chance to complain, however, he was thrown across the room by a bolt of greenish energy that came flying from the palm of Kisaki's outstretched hand.
He flew almost the entire length of the training room before slowing down and crashing to the floor, sliding to a stop just short of the room's wall. He groaned in pain and mumbled something to himself for just a moment before passing out, his single yellow eye slipping shut.
"Xion..."
Once again, Roxas found himself in the strange room within his own mind where the little black-haired girl seemed to live. Oddly, the room seemed a bit different now than it had been before--it almost looked as if it had been cleaned more recently. Though the computer in the corner was still permanently shut down, the rest of the room seemed brighter and less dusty, and less junk was strewn across the floors and in the corners. Taking a quick glance at the bed, he could see that only a few old stuffed animals were hiding under it, rather than old socks and an army of dust bunnies.
Xion, once again wearing what appeared to be a school uniform, sat cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the room, in front of a small table. She looked up at Roxas and smiled, and he walked over to join her.
"I... never really got around to asking this before," he said, looking at Xion and then around at the room itself, "But... what is this place?"
She giggled, reaching across the table with one hand and shoving him lightly.
"You mean you still haven't figured it out?"
He shook his head, glancing town at the small table in front of him. There were several small cups sitting there, though they were all empty.
"Roxas... this place," she said, glancing over at one of her bookshelves for a moment and then back to the boy. "The two islands outside, and most of the sea around them... this place is your soul."
When the spiky-haired boy only responded with an odd look, she continued.
"The islands outside... those are places from your memory," she said, pulling a piece of paper out from under the table and scribbling on it with a crayon. "And this room is from my memory. Even though neither of us can remember them, they still feel familiar... because those memories are still part of us, just out of reach."
She drew a small diagram on the paper, then handed it to Roxas.
"See, this little guy is you," she said, pointing toward a crudely-drawn human shape with spiky hair similar to his own. "And this squiggly circle inside is your soul. The part of you that makes you you. All of your personality, memories, feelings... everything except what you look like, pretty much."
She then added a second squiggly circle, inside the first, and labeled it with a large black "X" before setting the crayon back down on the table.
"But you're different from most people," she continued, "Because your body doesn't just have one soul--one person--inside of it. I'm here, too. Ever since that day, when..."
Noticing that Xion was beginning to lower her head and stare down at the table while talking to him, Roxas reached over and placed one hand on her tiny shoulder.
"You... you don't have to talk about that day," he said, "It's in the past now. And... it was my fault you ended up this way, anyway."
She shook her head.
"No... it's because of my own mistakes that all those things happened. I didn't understand what was going on, and..."
Roxas smiled slightly.
"You kind of went crazy there for a while," he said, "But you're back now. You don't have to worry about what happened in the past."
Xion looked up at him again, smiling slightly as well.
"I'll figure out a way for you to have your own body again," Roxas said, standing up from the table. "Don't worry about it. If there's any way to fix things, I'll find it."
Xion stood as well, pulling Roxas back slightly when he began to walk toward the doorway.
"But what about the others?", she said, "The numbered members... Xemnas, Saix... and Vexen... in his reports on that project, he said he was planning to destroy me if anything went wrong... because I'm partially a Fangirl."
Roxas shook his head.
"No," he said, "Vexen never made any plans to get rid of you. The report you took when you ran off... it was the first draft, written way back when he started the project."
The look of worry slowly began to fade away from Xion's face, mostly replaced by confusion.
"You were asleep when Vexen and Xemnas found you. They didn't know that you'd be a normal person when you woke up--they thought you might turn into some mindless monster like the Fangirls."
He hugged her, the first time since that fateful day when they were forced to fight against each other.
"After you woke up and joined the Organization, and he got to see what you were really like... Vexen wouldn't even think of just getting rid of you like that. He's kind of a weird old guy sometimes, but he's really not all that bad."
Xion pulled herself closer to Roxas and closed her eyes, laying her head on his shoulder. For the first time in months, she didn't feel alone.
Xigbar's eye opened halfway, and the world around him seemed to be spinning. He groaned and quickly shut it again, waiting until he had regained his sense of balance before attempting to reopen it.
On one side of him was Kisaki, her eyes back to their usual color and a look of concern on her face. On the other, Lexaeus and Zexion stood, watching him as he struggled to open his eye and get up from the spot where he had landed. Once he had finally managed to sit up halfway and support himself with his arms, the largest of the three spoke.
"Are you alright?"
He scooted back slightly, sitting up straight and turning his head toward Lexaeus. He then rubbed his shoulder with one hand, wincing in pain.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine... nothin' I can't handle. Just caught me off guard, that's all."
The old elf glanced around to the three gathered around him, noticing that Zexion seemed to be holding back a smile.
"What're you smilin' about, Captain Scud?"
He pointed at Xigbar's chest with one hand, covering his mouth with the other to suppress a snicker.
"What? What's so damn funny?"
Kisaki looked down at the spot where Zexion pointed, and she too began to giggle quietly. Even Lexaeus began to smile, though he managed to hold it back a bit better than his two young comrades.
"I would suggest looking at your clothes, Xigbar."
He blinked, then looked at the large man as if he was insane for a moment before glancing down at his own chest. In place of the familiar black cloak of the Organization, he was wearing what appeared to be a sparkly purplish-black dress, only held onto his body by tiny straps.
Xigbar almost roared with anger as he jumped to his feet, somehow ignoring his injuries.
"What the hell? Seriously, what the hell?!"
He glanced around at the three standing around him, glaring at each one (though not so much at Lexaeus, as he realized that there was no way that the large man would even think of doing something this ridiculous.)
"What is this, a freakin' prom dress? Which one of you slipped this shit on me while I was out!? You'd better gimme back my goddamn cloak, or..."
Zexion stifled a laugh, then interrupted Xigbar before he could continue.
"I'm afraid that is your cloak. Kisaki's power affected it in some way when you were hit, and it transformed."
"Just like the stone from the walls did," Lexaeus added, glancing over toward the spot behind the bleachers where the hole used to be. "But this time, it was much more focused."
Xigbar growled, yanking at the dress's straps in an attempt to remove them. Of course, the old elf had never worn this particular article of clothing before, so he wasn't sure exactly how to take it off.
"Okay... you'd better hope her little blast didn't do anything to my boxers, because I'm not gonna walk around in this shit any longer than I have to."
With that, he grabbed the purple fabric in both hands and pulled as hard as he could, tearing the whole thing almost in half. Kisaki gasped slightly, apparently a bit more aware of the dress's value than the three men... or, more likely, she was just shocked by Xigbar's sudden state of almost-nakedness.
Fortunately, however, his underwear was intact, so the most embarrassing thing anyone saw was the large collection of scars that were normally hidden beneath his uniform. Xigbar walked off toward the room's exit in nothing more than his boots and his boxers, grumbling the whole way about having to find a spare cloak.
Roxas climbed back up the side of the mountain, following a few feet behind Otonashi as the silver-haired man headed back up to the base with a rather large fish strapped across his back. Apparently he used his weapon for far more than just fighting--the whip-like part was able to extend, and he had tied the two ends together in order to make his fish-holder.
"So," the older man said, calling back toward Roxas without breaking his focus on the task of climbing upward. "Did you get anywhere with your meditation?"
He just nodded slightly in response, having a bit more trouble climbing up the rocks than Otonashi and not wanting to risk breaking his concentration and missing the next foothold.
"I could tell," he answered, stopping on a wide ledge and waiting for Roxas before continuing. "I'm not sure what you did, but something happened. After about an hour, I got this weird feeling... like there was someone else down there on the rocks with me."
Roxas' eyes widened slightly.
"Really?"
Otonashi nodded, then adjusted his makeshift fish-strap to make sure it wasn't coming loose before heading further up the wall.
The boy paused for a moment on the ledge, taking a granola bar out of his cloak's pockets and munching on it a little. Suddenly, he heard Xion's voice in his head, sounding just as clear as she had before when they were in that strange room together.
"Roxas... there's a Fangirl swarm coming."
"What?", Roxas replied, speaking to Xion through his thoughts. "They're coming here!?"
"No," Xion said, "Not here... but close. I can hear the Fangirl Queen's voice commanding them... in just a few minutes, they're going to arrive on an island to the southwest of this one."
Glancing up and noticing that Otonashi had nearly reached the top already, Roxas put his granola bar away and went back to climbing the rocks. The last thing he wanted right now was to be late getting back to the base again when a Fangirl swarm was on its way.
By the time both Roxas and Otonashi had made it back into the base, the sound of a Fangirl alarm going off was already echoing throughout the hallways. As they passed, some of the lazier members ran into other rooms and made themselves look busy in order to avoid being sent out to fight the Fangirls; others just walked by, figuring that Roxas--despite being a numbered member--wasn't very likely to recruit them for an extermination mission.
Before long, two sets of footsteps began to approach them from behind, quickly catching up. Roxas turned and glanced back, seeing Marluxia and Axel running down the hall.
"Hey," the boy said, waving slightly. "Where are you guys going?"
"We're taking the Dimensional Hippievan," Marluxia said, stopping to talk for a moment. "Didn't you hear that Fangirl alarm?"
"They heard it all right," Axel said, scratching his head slightly. "I mean, they came into this hallway right after it went off. No way they're not gonna hear it."
There was a short pause, and then Roxas spoke up.
"I'm going on this one," he said, glancing up toward Marluxia. "It's been a while since I've had any missions... but I'm not hurt anymore, so it should be okay."
"Hmm..."
Axel walked ahead of Otonashi, then turned around and took a good look at the enormous fish strapped onto his back. He grinned, then walked back over toward Marluxia, nudging him slightly with his elbow.
"I think Otonashi here should go along with you guys," he said, "I'll just take that fish back to the kitchen instead. Wouldn't want you to have to lug it around on your back the whole time, y'know?"
Otonashi grabbed the handle of his weapon and untied the knot, causing the fish to slip free. Before it could hit the floor, the spiky-haired man had caught it with both hands, grunting and crouching down slightly when the weight of the scaly thing ended up being a bit more than he had expected. He then grinned and walked quickly back down the hallway, heading toward the Organization's kitchen.
The remaining three Organization members turned and headed in the other direction, picking up speed a bit to make up for the time they took talking and giving Axel something to fix for dinner. Before long, they had reached the Hippievan's launch tunnel, and Marluxia (being the only one allowed to drive the vehicle) hopped into the driver's seat. Once the others were in the van as well, the pink-haired man turned the key in the ignition, and everyone quickly put on their seatbelts before the Dimensional Hippievan began to rapidly accelerate.
Within a few seconds, the van flew out from the hole in the side of the mountain, filling the sky with a flash of energy for a moment before vanishing.
The van rolled to a stop in the middle of a flat, sandy area, dotted with patches of coastal grasses here and there. There was an old boardwalk nearby, looking as if it hadn't been repaired in several years; the wood was beginning to fall apart and rot away. They seemed to have arrived near a beach--in one direction, they could see the ocean quite clearly, and in another there was a large building of some sort with chain-link fences set up all around it.
Roxas slid open the van's side door and hopped out, glancing at the nearby building for a second before turning to face the beach behind him. He could see two small islands out past the waves, with a few hills and tropical plants growing up all around them. As he stared out across the ocean, his head began to ache slightly, and images flashed through his mind.
A man with brown, spiky hair watched as two little children ran around in the sand. The kids were playing with wooden swords, screaming out battle cries and striking at each other as if they were pirates or samurai in the middle of a serious battle.
The two kids held on for dear life as the small boat they were sitting in passed through the waves, bobbing up and down rapidly as the sea swelled and lowered beneath it. The older man was casually rowing, apparently not bothered by the waves at all. In a matter of minutes, they had reached a smaller island, and the kids immediately scrambled out onto the dock, glad to be back on dry land.
The two boys, now several years older, sat on the boardwalk along with a red-haired girl, all three eating slices of some kind of tropical fruit. An older boy, probably in his late teenage years, walked up behind them and crouched down slightly. He looked remarkably similar to the spiky-haired one, sitting between the red-haired girl and another boy with chin-length silver hair.
"Hey, Roxas... is something wrong?"
The strange visions left Roxas' mind, snapping him back to reality. Marluxia was standing behind him, tapping him on the shoulder in order to get his attention, while Otonashi stood several feet away with his back turned to them. The spiky-haired boy shook his head and turned around as well, beginning to walk away from the beach.
"Nah, I... I guess I just kinda blanked out there for a second."
"Glad to see you're back with us," the pink-haired man said, walking a few feet behind him as all three headed out away from the beach. "All three of us need to be in fighting shape for today's Fangirl swarm... Zagan said it looked like it was going to be a pretty big one."
Otonashi held out his hand and summoned his weapon without saying a word, causing the blade-tipped whip to appear in a flash of grayish energy with an odd metallic shine to it. Marluxia and Roxas followed suit, and the air was briefly filled with flashes of light and a flurry of pink flower petals.
Roxas glanced around as he continued to walk onward, finally speaking his mind after a few dozen steps.
"So, where are they?"
"Probably that building over there," Otonashi answered, pointing toward the large, fenced-in complex ahead of them. "Though I'm not sure exactly what it is... it hadn't been built yet the last time I was here."
The boy glanced over at him for a moment, wondering why Otonashi would have been to an abandoned island before, but then decided not to say anything.
"Seems like some kind of research facility," Marluxia said, taking a good look at the building ahead as he walked. "Not anything too high-security, though... those fences don't even have barbed-wire at the top."
"They've gotta have computers in a place like that," Roxas added, "The Fangirls probably came out of the Internet somewhere in there."
Marluxia nodded.
"Yes. The rest of this area has been abandoned for over a year... so that would be the only place with any connection to the Internet."
They continued to walk toward the building, passing what appeared to be the foundations of houses that continued to stand even though the houses themselves were long gone. Occasionally they would spot some rotting wooden boards or shattered glass, or even stone steps leading up to doors that no longer existed--it was clear that there was once a town here, sometime in the recent past.
Eventually, they reached the chain-link fence that marked the border around the research center. Otonashi raised one hand, and the metal wire that made up the fence twisted apart, creating a roughly door-sized opening in the barrier and allowing the three Organization members to enter without causing any permanent damage.
Almost as soon as they had reached the building, the front door swung open and a terrified man in a labcoat came running out, screaming incoherently about girls attacking him. Following just a few yards behind was a group of a dozen Glomper Fangirls, arms outstretched and giggling as they chased after the helpless scientist.
"Well, there's our Fangirl swarm," Otonashi said, shifting into a battle stance. "Or part of it, anyway."
Roxas nodded, crossing his swords in front of him for a moment before swinging each one down and holding them out to either side.
"Let's clear 'em out before they leave the building."
Otonashi lashed out with his whip, narrowly missing the scientist and slashing three of the Glompers in the side. The first one stumbled and fell to the ground, where it was quickly trampled by the others around it; the other two shrieked in pain for a moment, but then continued their charge. Marluxia waited for the scientist to run past him, then held out one hand toward the Fangirls. Pinkish energy glowed around his fingers for a moment, and then the grass underneath the charging Glompers grew rapidly, flinging them backward into the wall of the building behind them.
"Is anyone else still in there?", the pink-haired man asked, turning to face the panicked scientist while Roxas and Otonashi ran forward to continue their attack. He nodded weakly, then wobbled for a second before passing out and falling to the ground.
After checking the man's pulse and determining that he was still alive, Marluxia stood and headed into the building. Roxas and Otonashi had both torn through the group of Glompers and made their way inside already; the sounds of weapons clashing against the metallic walls of the building (and slashing through the not-so-metallic bodies of Fangirls) echoed in from two different hallways. Occasionally, a green flash could be seen around a corner. Marluxia glanced around and listened for a few moments, then began to walk down the quieter of the two halls.
For a moment he glanced over through the large glass walls along the hallway, looking through into a lab of some sort. Tables and chairs were in disarray, as if everyone inside had rushed to escape when the Fangirls arrived. Computer screens on the tables that hadn't been overturned glowed dimly, showing plain-colored backgrounds with some text flashing across them. Looking past the lab and through the glass wall on the other side, Marluxia could see the other hallway, which seemed to be empty at the moment.
That is, until Roxas came into view, blocking a strike from a Fangirl's claws with both of his swords. When he countered with a swipe from his black-bladed katana, the creature ducked into a cardboard box to avoid the attack. Two more slashes came down, and the box was split into several chunks, revealing the Fangirl inside it. It lunged again, but was quickly sliced in half before it could reach its spiky-haired opponent.
"Hmm," Marluxia thought, "Stalker Fangirls... it's been a while since I've seen many of those."
Three more cardboard boxes slid into view, scooting along the floor behind Roxas as the first of the Fangirls flashed with green light and shattered. They all revealed themselves at once, then jumped at the boy's unguarded back before he could realize they were there.
"Arrgh!"
Roxas tumbled to the ground under the weight of the three Stalkers, struggling against them as he tried to push himself back up. He glanced back for a second and noticed something rather disturbing--the creatures appeared to be humping his legs while grinning evilly. Summoning up all of his strength, he stood up suddenly and threw the nasty little things off, lashing out with his swords as soon as his arms were free. One of the Fangirls lost its left arm, which dissolved into zeroes and ones as it fell to the ground.
Before he could see how Roxas dealt with the three Fangirls, sounds of boxes scooting across the floor around him got Marluxia's attention. A group of Stalker Fangirls had begun to approach him from both ends of the hallway, sliding across the shiny linoleum while hiding themselves inside their boxes. He calmly raised his scythe and waited for them to get close, pink energy flickering up around his weapon's blade occasionally.
Meanwhile, further along down the same hallway, Otonashi had his hands full with another group of Fangirls. A few Stalkers were present, but this group was mostly made up of Glompers and Flamers. The silver-haired man held up his hand and caused the metallic layer of the wall beside him to bend outward, catching a fireball and sending it flying back at the Flamer that had launched it. The creature barely managed to duck in time to avoid the attack, which singed some of its hair as it passed overhead.
"Who is this guy?", the Flamer growled angrily as it stood up. The other Flamers only grunted and mumbled before charging up fireballs of their own, though after a bit of random giggling one of the Glompers spoke up.
"He looks kinda like Riku," the creature said, the letters that made up its face shifting into a strange expression. "But he's too old!"
Otonashi gasped slightly, his whip-like weapon falling limp in mid-swing.
"Riku? Did you just say... Riku?"
The Fangirls just giggled (or grumbled, in the case of the not-so-giggly Flamers) before attacking once again. A barrage of fireballs smashed the folded section of the metal wall aside, allowing three Glompers to charge and leap forward. One of them latched onto Otonashi's chest, pushing him backward but not quite managing to knock him down. Ignoring this Fangirl, he instead swung his whip out and slashed the other two out of the air before they could get too close. Before he could prepare for another attack, another salvo of fireballs from the Flamers came flying at him, exploding upon impact and sending him flying backward into a wall.
Fortunately, the attached Glomper took the brunt of the blast for him, shattering into computer code as Otonashi shoved it aside and stood back up. The sleeves of his cloak had been completely burned off by the flames, but otherwise he was unharmed.
"Tell me," he said to the Fangirls, "How do you know Riku?"
Once again, they just giggled in response.
One of the Stalkers popped out of its box and held one of its clawed fingers to its lips (or rather, the part of its text-symbol face that was supposed to look like lips), then giggled and replied.
"Soooorry," the creature said, its face shifting to an evil grin. "We're not telling!"
Before it could utter another word, the bladed tip of Otonashi's whip flew out and impaled its head, causing the Fangirl (box and all) to fall backward and shatter. Getting back into his battle stance, he slammed one hand palm-first onto the floor, causing metallic-gray energy to flare up and spread across the walls all throughout the hallway. The steel plating along the walls and ceiling twisted into giant metal spikes, thrusting down in all different directions to impale the group of Fangirls. Stalkers ducked into their boxes for protection, but they quickly discovered that cardboard doesn't hold up well against sharpened metal. A few Flamers hit the floor and rolled out of the way just in time to avoid the attack, but the rest were wiped out immediately, flooding the hall with greenish light.
Sweat rolled down Otonashi's forehead; he hadn't realized just how much of his power he had put into that attack. Usually he had enough control to only use however much was needed to do the job--Lexaeus had taught him well. But this time, it was a little different; the Fangirls were refusing to tell him what they knew about Riku. About his only son, who he thought had been dead for more than a year. Ever since that night, when his hometown was destroyed by the largest Fangirl swarm that had ever attacked Japan...
He narrowly dodged as another fireball came rushing at him, thanks to one of the surviving Flamers. Before he had a chance to counterattack, a blade of pink energy sliced through the metal spikes blocking the hall and decapitated the Fangirl before fading away into thin air.
"Marluxia?"
The pink-haired man appeared in the hallway ahead of him, pushing the chunks of metal out of his way with his scythe as he went. He then glanced over toward Otonashi and nodded slightly before swinging his weapon backward, destroying the last remaining Flamer before it could finish charging another fireball.
"The swarm seems to be retreating," he said, "After I cleared out the first few waves of Stalkers, the rest broke through the windows of that lab and disappeared back into the Internet."
Otonashi paused for a moment to catch his breath, then dematerialized his weapon and spoke.
"That's strange. The ones over here didn't seem to be interested in escaping..."
Roxas blocked three sets of Fangirl claws at once, only barely managing to force them back with both of his swords. After clearing out his side of the building's first floor, he had proceeded up the stairs to check for any more Fangirls--and, as it turned out, "more Fangirls" was a bit of an understatement. It seemed as if half of the swarm had relocated to a certain computer room on the second floor, pouring out at him incessantly from the moment he opened the door. A few times, he even saw new Fangirls appear from the room's computers.
"It's like they're concentrating all of their forces on me," he thought, slashing one of the Stalkers in half as he slowly backed away from the approaching swarm.
A Flamer Fangirl launched a burst of flames at him with both hands, but he dodged to the side, causing one of the computer lab's windows to melt and shatter as the flamethrower-like blast collided with it. He countered by flinging one of his twin swords at the creature, slicing through its chest before spinning back like a boomerang.
"But why me? If they wanted to all gang up on the toughest guy here, they should be going after Marluxia..."
Several Glompers jumped through the broken window, grabbing at Roxas with their overly-long arms before being sliced apart by a series of rapid slashes.
"And if they wanted to take out the weakest first, Otonashi should be the one dealing with this mess. What's going on here?"
In the hall behind him, a door leading to an office suddenly flew off its hinges, and a group of Flamers rushed out from it. The Fangirls now had him surrounded--most of the swarm was coming from the computer room, but a quick glance down the hallway told Roxas that the computers in each of the offices were also being used as entrance points now.
While Roxas was distracted for a moment, one of the Glompers in the hall in front of him managed to tackle him, knocking him to the ground. He felt his energy begin to drain from his body as the Fangirl's grip tightened, but before it could stay on for too long, he wrenched one of his arms free and jabbed the creature in the side, causing it to shriek and jump away from him. He stood up again and finished it off with another slash before turning and lashing out at two Flamers behind him, causing all three of the Fangirls to glow green and shatter before they even touched the floor.
A dozen fireballs from the Flamer Fangirls on both sides of the hallway rocketed past him, some of them coming so close to hitting him that they burned small holes in the fabric of his cloak as they passed. He swung his two swords as fast as he could to deflect another barrage of flames, but he wasn't quite quick enough, and one fireball from each side managed to hit him.
Roxas screamed in pain as the heat and force of the explosions pummeled him from both sides, burning away most of his cloak and leaving him wearing little more than the black pants, gloves, and boots of his uniform. Even the shirt underneath his cloak was mostly shredded, reduced to a few strips of half-scorched white cloth that hung limply from his body. He was still standing, but it was becoming considerably more difficult by the second.
He gritted his teeth and stood back up, quietly talking to himself as he prepared for the next attack.
"This is ridiculous... these aren't even very powerful Fangirls," he mumbled, slicing a Glomper into pieces with a couple of quick slashes. "Nothing like that one from the last swarm. But there's... just too many of them..."
As he paused to take a breath between deflecting more fireballs and slicing the nearest Stalker Fangirl in two, a familiar voice popped into his head.
"Roxas..."
His eyes widened slightly, and he glanced around the hallway, seeing nothing but the usual Fangirls.
"Xion!? Is that you?"
"Roxas... you shouldn't need to look around like that. I exist within you, remember?", she answered, pausing for a few seconds so that the spiky-haired boy could fight off a few more Glompers before continuing.
"This swarm might be too much for you to handle alone... but with both of us fighting together, those Fangirls don't stand a chance."
"What do you mean?", he asked, not speaking aloud this time. "How can we fight them if you're still stuck inside me?"
"Just keep on fighting, Roxas," she answered, "You'll see what I mean."
Marluxia and Otonashi rushed up the nearest staircase as the sound of an explosion from the second floor reached their ears. As far as they could tell, this facility wasn't used for anything related to explosives, or even chemicals that might combine to make something explosive--so the Fangirls had to be responsible.
The silver-haired man turned toward his comrade and re-summoned his weapon, then asked a quick question.
"I thought you said the swarm retreated?"
"I thought it had," Marluxia answered. "The Fangirls left alive in my section of the building all jumped into the computer screens and returned to the Internet... it certainly looked like they were leaving."
They reached the top of the stairwell and glanced down the hallway, noticing a large group of Flamers firing off their attacks toward someone else even further down. At first glance, it was hard to make out who this person was, but after running a few yards down the hall, it became clear that it was Roxas--albeit burned and bare-chested. His cloak was nowhere to be seen; Marluxia correctly assumed that it must have been destroyed by the Fangirls rather than simply tossed aside.
For just a moment, Marluxia's calm was broken and his eyes widened slightly.
"Is that... the entireswarm attacking Roxas, all at once?"
"Sure looks that way," Otonashi answered, leaning against one of the walls and breathing heavily. He was still worn out from his final attack against his own group of Fangirls, and running up the stairs certainly hadn't helped his condition much.
A few moments passed, and the two men watched as several Glompers jumped toward Roxas only to be sliced in two and thrown aside by one slash from each of his twin katanas. Then, suddenly, a look of realization crossed Marluxia's face.
"I remember now," he said, "During Vexen's experiment a few days ago, Xion warned us that the Fangirls had some special interest in Roxas... they must be trying to capture him."
Otonashi shivered slightly, immediately remembering that the Fangirls he fought had mentioned his son. They may have been after Roxas now, but could Riku have been one of their earlier victims? He didn't want to think about the possibilities of such a thing.
"We can't let that happen," he said, taking a few steps down the hallway before pausing to catch his breath again.
"You're not in any shape to be fighting that kind of a swarm on your own," Marluxia said, holding his scythe out across the hall to block the silver-haired man's path. "I'll handle this."
Marluxia raised his scythe and then ran down the hall, slicing a row of Flamers in two with a single swing. He then swung again, letting loose a blade of pinkish energy that flew through the air and cleaved a Glomper in half before narrowly missing a group of Stalkers that ducked into their boxes just in time to avoid being decapitated. Before he could go any further down the hall, however, something unexpected happened.
Roxas, who had been knocked down by the Fangirls the last time Marluxia had looked, was now standing again... and his usual weapons had been replaced by two hook-tipped swords, just like Xion's.
The boy swung his twin blades down and let loose a powerful battle cry. For just a moment, it sounded as if two completely-different voices were both coming from his mouth, adding even more of an echo effect as the sound reverberated throughout the hall. A pale aura of light surrounded his weapons before spreading over his entire body, illuminating the hall with a dim, yellowish glow. Fangirls of all types flinched away from the light for a second before shaking it off and resuming their attack.
Marluxia could only watch as the spiky-haired boy charged directly into the swarm, slicing away at the Fangirls with speed that even a fully-healed Roxas couldn't hope to match. The aura around his weapons began to glow brighter as he cut down three Glompers before they even had a chance to lunge at him; when a Flamer threw its fireball toward him, a beam of light leapt out from the black blade and caused the orb of flame to explode in midair, raining sparks down on the Fangirls.
Otonashi caught up with the pink-haired man, finally able to breathe normally. The scene he saw unfolding down the hall nearly took his breath away once again; Roxas was somehow wielding Xion's weapons, and on top of that, he was using his light-based powers with a much greater level of skill than he had ever shown before. Instead of struggling against the sheer numbers of the Fangirl swarm, he was effortlessly wiping them out.
"What... what is this?"
"I'm not sure myself," Marluxia said, staring onward as the boy slammed his swords into the floor and vaporized a dozen Fangirls with a pillar of light. "I didn't see it up close, so I'm not completely sure... but just based on what Lexaeus told me, this seems a lot like that surge of power Roxas had during his last Fangirl extermination mission."
"But that didn't happen until he was on the brink of death," Otonashi said, "He was still up and fighting this time."
Marluxia dematerialized his scythe and placed his hand on his chin, just watching as Roxas fired a spinning beam of light from both of his swords that drilled through twenty Fangirls before finally running out of power.
"I can't say for sure... but by the looks of it, I'm guessing that Roxas found this new power during his meditation training."
Otonashi turned toward him, looking a bit confused.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm probably not allowed to tell you this, since you weren't involved with Vexen's project... but I suppose since you've seen Roxas fighting this way, it won't hurt to explain the situation."
Roxas jumped and spun around with both swords held outward, decapitating several Fangirls at once. He then raised his blades and lunged forward in midair, impaling a Stalker before it had a chance to jump at him.
"Xion still exists within Roxas," the pink-haired man said, "Her soul has been inside him ever since their fight, when her body was destroyed and she appeared to die. His power surge while fighting that Fangirl the last time was a result of Xion taking over his body in order to protect him."
The spiky-haired boy landed in the middle of a group of Flamers, dodging their attacks as they all fired on him simultaneously. When the panicked Fangirls jumped and ran around in an attempt to dodge their own poorly-aimed blasts, Roxas swooped in and destroyed them all with a powerful double-slash with both of his hook-swords.
"So," Otonashi said, "What Roxas learned during his meditation training... it wasn't how to keep himself calm in battle, or even how to better control his powers..."
A dozen Glompers all jumped at Roxas at once, only to be disintegrated when four pillars of white light erupted from the floor around the boy and spiraled outwards into them.
"What he learned... was how to communicate with Xion."
Marluxia nodded.
"Exactly. This new power that Roxas is using right now... it isn't just his power, or even Xion's power. It's both of them, working together."
With a flash of light so bright that both Marluxia and Otonashi had to cover their eyes, a handful of Fangirls standing around Roxas were thrown backward and shattered upon impact with the walls and floor. The ones that were left suddenly froze up and began backing away; the boy just stood still and breathed heavily, holding his two swords at the ready as he watched the few Fangirls that survived beginning to retreat.
Within a matter of seconds, they had all jumped into the screen of one of the nearby lab's computers, disappearing back into the depths of the Internet from whence they came. Roxas' twin swords glowed for a moment before returning to their normal shape and then dematerializing entirely, and he slumped to the floor, catching himself with his hands just soon enough to avoid falling flat on his face.
The Dimensional Hippievan rolled to a stop back at the end of its launch tunnel, and Marluxia climbed out of the driver's seat. He was followed shortly afterward by Otonashi, who slid open the side door for Roxas so that the exhausted boy wouldn't have to bother with it.
Ever since the last Fangirls had retreated, Roxas had seemed like he was about to fall asleep on his feet; at times, he was barely able to stand. He certainly wasn't in any shape to fight anymore--which was to be expected, since he had just taken on a whole swarm by himself.
"Roxas," Marluxia asked, glancing down at the boy, "Are you still doing okay?"
"Yeah... I guess so," he answered, shrugging slightly. "I'm just... really tired, that's all. Fighting off all those Fangirls really took a lot out of me."
The three returning warriors headed out into the stone hallways of the Organization's base, walking away from the Hippievan's tunnel and toward the stairs. Before heading down one of the staircases, Otonashi turned toward Roxas and spoke.
"You should probably get some sleep," he said, "Your injuries don't look that bad, mostly just some minor burns and scratches... but you're worn out. Nobody's going to mind if you turn in for the night a little earlier than usual."
The boy nodded sleepily, barely able to keep himself on his feet. He then mumbled something that neither of the two men could hear and headed up the stairs, toward the location of the numbered members' quarters.
By the time he had arrived at his room, he had nearly tripped over his own feet several times. His limbs felt heavy, as if all the energy he had was drained out from them; it reminded him of the feeling he had after being attacked by Glomper Fangirls, but to a much greater degree. He slowly opened his door and walked over to the bed, collapsing onto it in a heap without even bothering to change out of what was left of his uniform first.
Before he could fall asleep, however, a familiar voice once again popped into his head.
"Roxas... I'm sorry."
For a second, he just laid there quietly, thinking that he must be dreaming already. He then recognized the voice as Xion's, shook himself awake, and answered.
"Sorry? About what? If it wasn't for your help, I wouldn't have had a chance against all those Fangirls."
"Yes, but... this is my fault, too. The reason you're so tired now... it's because I had to use almost all of your extra energy in that fight."
She paused for a moment, then explained further.
"I don't have much strength of my own left... so to add my powers to your own, I needed to draw on more of your strength instead. I... I think I might have used a little too much..."
Roxas smiled slightly; he was already beginning to drift off into unconsciousness, though he was able to manage one last sentence before he was completely asleep.
"Don't worry about it, Xion..."