Writer's Block…coming in…fast! Can't…hold it off…for much…longer! (gasp) Need the power…of…of…reviews…! (collapses) No…I must…update for…loyal…readers! No…! No! NOOOOOOOO—! (gets crushed under evil WB)
Okay, um, yeah…I just had a ton of Skittles so, like, bear with me. Aheh…
14: Cryptic
"There is but one true language, and that is Mugic. All else is gibberish." –Donmar (got it off a Chaotic card X3)
Roxas wasn't hard to find. One simply went to where the most Heartless were and the Key of Destiny was more than likely there.
Xilvin wandered down several hallways before he heard the telltale sounds of battle. He picked up the pace and rounded a corner to find Roxas blade-to-blade with Luna Bandits. One of the Heartless' crescent shaped blades caught the overhead fluorescent light and left an imprint across Xilvin's eyes. A memory flashed along with it…
"What do you think you're doing!?" A man screams, emotions making his eyes spark and his face red with anger, "Get out of here! This is too dangerous! I knew Tobias shouldn't have let you brats stay here but noooooo! He had to go and play the he—!"
The sword of a Luna Bandit sprouts from his chest and cuts off his words.
A scream cuts through the air and then darkness.
"Watch out!" Roxas' voice snapped the Howling Storm back into the present just in time to see the spinning swords of a Heartless coming right at him.
Acting on instinct, Xilvin threw his hand out in front of him, summoning forth his weapon. It cracked against the Heartless, sending it spinning backwards to the floor where Roxas stabbed downward with the Keyblade, effectively destroying it. A crystalline heart floated up towards the ceiling and vanished.
"Nice." Number XIII commented, nodding at Xilvin's weapon before spinning around and fending off the Heartless again.
Xilvin joined him, silently agreeing with the Keyblade Master. Xilvin's weapon was a five foot long whip and that was not including the handle. The whip itself was an electric blue color that gleamed with a silver, steel-like sheen. The handle was black, wrapped in taupe colored leather to aid in gripping, with a circular guard where the whip attached and a small, silver, blade at the other end.
"Roxas," Xilvin said almost nonchalantly, "Plug your ears."
The golden-haired Nobody looked at Xilvin for a second or two and then dropped to his knees and stuck his fingers in his ears. The Heartless started to scatter, no longer sensing a threat from the one wielding the Keyblade.
"Scream for me." Xilvin hissed and spun his whip so that it became a blurred circle of blue, "Howl, Souls of the Dead."
An earsplitting wail rang out from the spinning whip. Walls cracked, lights burst, and Heartless dissipated in clouds of black smoke and sparkling hearts. Seconds later, Xilvin dropped his arm to his side, tossed his bangs from his face, and looked at Roxas.
"That," Roxas said with a smile, "Was sweet. I guess they don't call you the Howling Storm for nothing." He took his fingers out of his ears and looked around at the damage Xilvin had done, "Collateral damage to this place is gonna skyrocket."
"Roxas," Number XIV leaned against a wall, staring up at the ceiling, "I've been having these, I dunno, flashes of memories or something that don't belong to me." He looked at the Nobody, "Do you know anything about it?"
"It's normal for a new Nobody." Roxas replied, banishing his Keyblades in sparkles of light and crossing his arms, "To have flashes of the memories of your Other."
"Axel said you still had them."
"Every night." The Key of Destiny shook his head and closed his eyes, "In my dreams, I become another person." He opened his eyes again and sighed heavily, "With places I've never been before, surrounded by people I've never met, in a world that seems like it has absolutely nothing to do with me."
"Can I stop them?"
Roxas turned his glittering blue eyes on Xilvin and slowly shook his head, "They're supposed to fade after a while. None of the other members can even begin to recall who they were before they lost their hearts."
"Except you?"
"Except me and if anyone knows why they're not telling me." A thundercloud passed over the Key of Destiny's face and his eyes narrowed.
"You think they're keeping something from you?" Xilvin pushed himself off the wall and walked over to Roxas.
"Maybe…" The boy put a hand to his head, "I don't know." He shook himself and held out his hand, Oathkeeper blazing to life in his palm, "Look, let's forget about it. Want to come Heartless hunting with me? It's the best way to kill time around here."
Xilvin nodded distractedly and followed Roxas down the hall in a quick sprint, thoughts elsewhere.
Maybe his Other's memories were the key to finding his Other's heart…
Tom spent most of the morning helping Joseph, Izaak, Leon, and a few of the other boys rearrange the OverWorld Cafeteria so that it was better suited as a living space. It was a lot of work and kept Tom's mind off of Kaz and Xilvin and the Organization.
They'd moved all the tables and chairs to the far side of the Cafeteria near the windows and had rigged up temporary curtains around two parts of the room, one for the girls and one for the guys. Then they moved all the sleeping bags inside the two curtains. It was a little crowded but it was worth it; at least the girls had stopped whining. Then they rearranged the tables so that there was enough space to move around and still enough room for every one to sit down and eat.
In the Mipedian Cafeteria, Izaak directed the set up of a Rec Room. They moved all the boxes to the far side of the room with most of the tables, leaving a clear space in front of the kitchens and buffet. Then, with the aid of the rather hesitant Demyx, they retrieved several items from the original Rec Room and set them up around the Danian Cafeteria; a karaoke machine, stacks of different magazines, a TV and small stereo system with a Game Cube, a Plasystation 3, and an Xbox 360, another television, slightly smaller, with no cable, and a computer that, for some reason, would not connect to the internet. Joseph later discovered that their phone lines were not working either.
"It's probably the barriers." Leon guessed, prodding one of the walls with his finger and watching the patterns sparkle to life there, "They're probably messing with the signals needed to use WiFi and telephone lines."
"Odd that your cell phones should work, then." Commented Dylan, the basketball looking kid. He was smarter than he appeared.
"They're on a private network," Joseph explained, "It only runs through the building and they only work inside the building." He pulled out his cellular device, splashed with the Chaotic symbol, and turned it over in his hands, "We had this established so we wouldn't have any unnecessary calls tying up our lines when we needed to talk to one another about something important."
"Something like hole?" Soyokaze muttered under his breath. The word had spread around by now; those people in black had opened up some weird hole inside Khaos Corporation and let those monsters out.
"Let's not talk about it." Izaak said quickly, noticing the Tom's features had darkened suddenly, "Who wants to sing karaoke?"
"Tom does!" Matthew cried, pushing Tom towards the machine from behind, "Come on, mate, lighten' up!"
"Wait—but I—now hold on—!" Tom's protests were muted by the karaoke machine starting up and a microphone being shoved into his hands.
"The girls love it!" Matthew assured him with a wicked grin, "So pick a song!"
"I'm not singing." Tom pressed the microphone back into Matthew's hands and sat down at one of the behind him, "I don't do singing."
"Your loss, mate." Matthew shrugged, looking disappointed, "Hey! Who wants to sing with me!"
"I will." Said the Goth girl and everyone looked at her in amazement, "What? 'Cause I'm Goth I can't have fun? Tch, stereotypers." She snatched the mic from Matthew's hands, "Lacrymosa by Evanescence, Matt. You and me, duet."
"Right-o, Sheila!" Matthew grinned and bounced up beside the machine with the girl.
"Don't ever call me that again," The Goth said coldly, "It's Ellen."
Tom rolled his eyes at their antics. He jumped slightly as a bowl of fries was dropped onto the table top in front of him. He looked up to find Dylan taking a seat next to him, "You looked lonely." The boy explained, "Help yourself to the fries; I'm just here to see Matthew make a fool of himself."
"Out on your own, cold and alone again, can this be what you really wanted, baby?" Tom had to admit that the two actually had pretty good singing voices. He munched some fries rather slower than he usually would have, "Blame it one me. Set your guilt free. Nothing can hold you back now."
"So, what do you think about them guys in black?" Dylan asked and Tom glanced at him.
"Now that you're gone, I feel like myself again, grieving the things I can't repair and willing…To let you blame it one me and set your guilt free."
"The Organization?" Tom raised an eyebrow and Dylan nodded, "The honest truth?" Another nod, "I hate them."
"I don't want to hold you back now, love. I can't change who I am, not this time, I won't lie to keep you near me."
"Being kind of harsh, aren't you?"
"I don't think so." Tom swallowed another couple of French fries before continuing, "If they hadn't been so selfish, we wouldn't be stuck in here and everyone would be having a happy summer vacation!"
"And in this short life, there's no time to waste on giving up. My love wasn't enough."
"Ah…" Dylan muttered like he understood what Tom meant.
"And you can blame it one me. Just set your guilt free, honey. I don't want to hold you back now, love."
"Say," The other boy leaned in, setting his elbows on the table, "You're an OverWorlder, right?"
Roxas and Xilvin returned with the rest of the Organization members just as supper was being passed around. Nobody was pleased about having to share the Danian Cafeteria with them while they ate but they dealt with it.
Tom sat as far away from them as he could. True, he'd made some sort of truce with Xilvin but he still hated the Organization.
"See what happens when you pig out on French fries all afternoon? You've got no room for supper." Conner had appeared at Tom's shoulder, having noticed the boy picking at his food.
"Mm…"
"Mm? Mm!? What kind of response is that?" Conner laughed, "Look, quit brooding, it's only gonna give you nightmares."
"And you'd know this how?"
"I know everything!" Conner made a funny face and slapped Tom's shoulder before walking away.
"Hmph." Tom picked up his tray, dumped his half-touched food into the trash, walked out of the Cafeteria. He stopped in the middle of the OverWorld room and looked out the window. It wasn't that late but the sun had already disappeared behind the Hoarfrost Crests, darkening the room. Tom sighed; he didn't feel like socializing. The boy grabbed some bed clothes and vanished into the Mipedian Cafeteria that linked to the bathrooms. By the time everyone was filtering back into the room from dinner, Tom was already in his bed with the blankets pulled over his head and his eyes shut tight.
No one bothered him.
Tom opened his eyes slowly, still trying to stay asleep, but it was of little use. The nightmare still lingered in his mind, sending cold chills through his body. Rubbing sleep from his eyes, the boy rolled out of his makeshift bed, shivered from the chill air in the room, and pulled one of his blankets around his shoulders.
Tom picked his way through the sleeping forms of male staff members and fellow teenaged boys and opened the door to the Danian Cafeteria. The room was empty; it seemed the members of Organization XIII were out Heartless hunting.
"Couldn't sleep?" A husky voice from the far side of the room made Tom jump. Squinting at a corner, he could just make out the silhouette of someone in the shadows of a vending machine.
"Xilvin…" Tom walked over to the window where Kaz's Nobody sat perched in a chair, just out of the faint moonlight, "Yeah. Everytime I drift off the scene of those Heartless stealing Kaz's heart replays in my head." He choked and swallowed, "Only, I've got a Keyblade like Roxas and I could be helping…but I'm not." He sank into a chair, downtrodden, "What about you?"
"What about me?" Xilvin's hazel eyes never left the mountains outside the window.
"Why're you here and not with the rest of the Organization?"
"They're sleeping outside the Cafeterias." Xilvin responded, his husky voice dull, "I can't sleep. I keep having dreams of my Other."
"…Kaz?"
"Yep." Xilvin let out a heavy sigh and briefly put a hand over the left side of his chest, "Roxas says its normal for a new Nobody but…" He shook his head, "When you wake up in the middle of the night and realize that you're not afraid of the dark or relieved to find that you're not alone it's like…" He paused, blinking slowly as he tried to make a comparison, "It's like the world's moving forward and leaving you behind. You know you're supposed to feel hurt and scared and all that but no matter what you do you can't. You're just…empty."
"Because you don't have a heart?" Tom drew the blanket tighter around his shoulders.
Xilvin nodded, "I remember what it's like to have a heart; to feel emotions; but all I can do it physically copy those feelings." He put a hand over his eyes, forcing a half-smile, "Axel told me off for being morbid."
"Did it hurt?"
"Hm? Did what hurt?" Xilvin glanced at Tom but the boy was looking at the floor, face shadowed by his messy black bangs.
"Forming or whatever they call it. Did it hurt?"
"Mm, I don't think so. I mean, one second I wasn't and the next I was."
"That doesn't make much sense."
"There was darkness." Xilvin's voice was cold, like ice chips against glass, and there was a hard light in his eyes that looked somehow wrong on his expressionless face, "Nothing but infinite darkness that was neither hot nor cold. The memory is…blurry; I can't remember it exactly." The Howling Storm sat forward so that he was leaning into the moonlight and the gleam in his eyes became even more pronounced, "Black…something, someone maybe, walking away…I turned around and found myself surrounded by Heartless." Kaz's Nobody leaned back into the shadows again, the dark marks below his eyes standing out vividly on his skin, "That's it."
"Who was walking away? Kaz?" Tom's curiosity got the better of him.
"I don't know." Xilvin responded, suddenly sounding very tired, "It looked like him but I…don't know…" His brow furrowed as he tried to recollect, "When they were leaving, I got the sense that I should feel relieved. As though if that person had stayed I would have been killed."
"Nope, definitely wasn't Kaz." Tom smiled, "He even admits to himself that he's a coward." The smile fell, "He wouldn't hurt anyone intentionally unless they really made him angry." He chuckled, "That's a hard feat to achieve."
"You should go to bed." Xilvin said abruptly and Tom stared at him but the Nobody's attention was outside the window again, "Or else you'll be too tired to do anything in the morning."
"Hmph, like there's anything to do anyway." Tom snorted but stood up anyway and walked out.
Xilvin's hazel gaze followed him the whole way. When the door shut behind the boy, Number XIV got to his feet and faced the window, standing all the way in the moonlight. Dressed completely in black, he looked almost like a shadow.
"Chaotic is overrun with Heartless." He muttered, eyes narrowing, "Even if we clear this place out…will it matter?" His fist clenched over his chest and his voice became strained, "The hole must be closed. How am I supposed to find my heart…when there's nothing but darkness and no hints of my Other?"
No one answered him.
Oh, more filler. How nice. I'm so mean.
But I gave you guys a big chapter this time! Six pages!
So, tell me what you thought, what you think, and what you expect further on in the story. I like feedback, it creates inspiration.
Xilvin's being cryptic, Xilvin's being cryptic! Cryptic, cryptic, cryptic! This is getting fun! There were a few important things in this chapter though I don't know how relevant it's all going to be to the whole story. Wow, that totally made it sound like I had no idea what I was doing.
Anyway, I'll see you guys in the next chapter! Thanks for reading, please review, and byes!