A/N: First of all, I AM SO SORRY FOR BEING A FAIL. I haven't updated this since February! DX DX DX *cries* Stupid other fics, eating my life… I hope this is worth the wait. The last C.O. chapter! :D
Just a warning: this involves a lot of Zexion abuse. Sorry, Zexion fans. He's one of my favorite characters, but he gets the short end of the stick in this 'fic.
"Hurry, he's waking up!" Demyx yelled in my ear, and I flinched.
"Yelling's just going to wake him faster," I pointed out, tying the last knot in the rope around Zexion, who moaned softly. "Axel's taking a long time stealing the lexicon…"
"Yeah," Demyx agreed, sitting on the kitchen counter. "How hard can it be to take a book off a shelf? Lexaeus's dead, so Axel doesn't even have to sneak past him to get to the armory."
"It still smells bad in here," R-2 complained, poking the clothespin pinched on his nose as he sat cross-legged on the floor. "This thingy hurts."
I sighed, walking over to the refrigerator and grabbing a slice of ham that hadn't been thrown in the Stew of Death.
"Here, smell this." Taking the clothespin off his nose, I dropped the ham into his lap.
"Yay!" He scooped it up and hung it from his nose. Closing his eyes, he sniffed eagerly and smiled.
"Did you drug him or something?" Demyx asked me, still not bothering to whisper.
"If I did, it wasn't on purpose." I shrugged. R-2 was just being his usual self. I'd be more worried if he started acting normal.
"Ham ham ham ham ham…" He muttered gleefully as he gnawed on the meat.
At that moment Axel corridored in, holding the lexicon over his head and grinning triumphantly like it was a war prize. "It tried to eat me, but I-"
"Gloat later, Zexion's waking up," I interrupted.
"Sheesh, bossypants," he muttered, but for once he actually listened and took his spot in front of Zexion's chair as the rest of us gathered around. He set the book down on the counter where Zexion could see but not reach it.
"Nngh…" Zexion groaned, struggling against the ropes. "What in the name of Kingdom Hearts…"
"Hi, Zexy!" Demyx waved in his face. "We're going to prank you now!"
"What?" Zexion blinked in confusion.
Axel smacked Demyx upside the head, making him squeak. "Nice job killing the mood. I was going to make our plan sound epic."
"Too late." I sighed.
R-2 frowned at Zexion. "You ate me and my friends with your book. I don't like you."
Before any of us could stop him (not that we would've), he grabbed Zexion's arm and started staring daggers into him. He froze and his eyes (the one that wasn't covered by his hair, anyway) widened, and he shook like he was being electrocuted.
"How are you—"
"Don't hurt my friends." R-2's eyes narrowed seriously before he let go.
All of us, even Axel, gaped at him. (Axel looked pretty funny with his mouth wide open, by the way. Just saying.)
"R-2, what did you just do?" I asked, sounding calmer than I expected to. I guess that was the whole Nobody thing being helpful for once.
He beamed at me. "I stole his magic so he can't make us see fake stuff."
"You mean illusions?"
He nodded.
"…Okay, then. Thanks." I wondered how long it would last. And how he did it at all.
"You're welcome!" He skipped off to grab his Sharpies. I would never understand that kid.
Zexion looked like he was about to barf (probably due to the lingering stench of our cooking attempt), but he managed to speak in his normal 'better-than-thou' voice. "I understand that you didn't enjoy your stay in my lexicon, but it was your rightful punishment. 'Pranking' will only give me another reason to punish you."
Axel laughed. "You might be able to force your rules on them, but you're not in charge of me."
"You know you sound like a little kid, right?" I said. He scowled at me.
"You're not helping."
I shrugged and went over to R-2. "Can I borrow a marker?"
He nodded and handed one to me, then followed me back to Zexion's chair with the rest held tightly against his chest.
"Anyway, if you look to your left you'll see the exploded oven, and on your right is that disgusting goop stuff you smelled earlier. No wonder you made a rule against Demyx and Xenan cooking." He paused in explaining our destruction when I leaned over Zexion's shoulder and started scribbling on his face.
"Stop it! You're already in exile, do you want to be turned into a Dusk?" He asked angrily, but I kept assaulting his face. I could see why R-2 enjoyed coloring. Speaking of R-2 –
"Ooh! Me too!" He attacked from the other side and drew a detailed picture of a Dusk (a.k.a. what we would be if word of this prank ever got back to the other castle) on his cheek. Demyx took one of the Sharpies and started to draw what was either a sitar or a large blue blob on Zexion's forehead.
I caught Axel facepalming out of the corner of my eye, but I was more focused on the fact that Zexion was waving his head around like an agitated horse. It didn't bother my scribbling much, and R-2 could probably draw with his eyes closed in a hurricane using only his toes if he tried, but Demyx whined that his doodle was ruined. I broke the sad truth that to him that it had been a failure in the first place.
"When I get my lexicon back, I'll-"
"To quote Xigbar, as if," Axel interrupted, pushing me, Demyx, and R-2 out of the way.
"Nice drawing skills, but we need to finish breaking the rules and get out of here."
"Yeah, he's right," Demyx agreed, capping his Sharpie. "I don't wanna be around when Riku gets here."
I agreed as well and handed R-2 my marker. "But if he's anything like R-2, I'm not too worried."
"Hey! I fight good!" R-2 pouted.
"But we know how you fight already, so we could beat you more easily."
"Oh."
"Riku killed Lexaeus," Axel said. "Of course, Lexaeus is slow, so anyone with some agility could beat him. I'd still avoid a fight with Riku if we can."
"Translation: we should hurry up," I said, then realized how quiet it was. Turning around, I saw Demyx sticking pieces of duct tape over Zexion's mouth.
Demyx shrugged, grinning. "He was getting annoying."
I grinned too and high-fived him, feeling that the situation called for it.
"Okay, Xenan, get the books," Axel ordered while pointing to our supply pile.
I put my hands on my hips. "Say please."
Demyx burst out laughing as Axel rolled his eyes at me.
"You guys are so unprofessional," he said. It was pretty amusing that he got the books himself instead of just saying 'please.' He handed one to Demyx, who was sticking purple duct tape in Zexion's hair, waved one in front of R-2 until he stopped doodling on the floor and grabbed it, and threw one at me. I barely caught it in time to stop it from whacking me in the face.
"Unprofessional? Says the one who just threw a book at my head," I replied.
"You caught it first," he said, smirking. "Ready to disrespect some more literature?"
Demyx whooped in excitement. "I never liked books!"
Zexion squirmed and struggled, but the ropes and duct tape kept him bound to the chair.
I shrugged. We didn't have enough books on my homeworld for me to have much of an opinion on them, but making Zexion mad would be fun. Just to double the torture, I took out the other book I'd "rescued" from the library. Sure, it looked cool, but it's not like I'd have time to read it anyway.
Zexion struggled even harder when he saw the book. Must've been one of his favorites or something. Oh well, too bad I'd never read it.
"On three," Axel said, probably just so he'd feel like he had some sort of order over our pranking.
"Three!" R-2 yelled, throwing down his book and stomping on it.
Demyx whooped and tossed his book into the air before shooting it down with a glob of water, and Axel sighed and incinerated his. I went with something less flashy. With my new cards, I summoned my mace and stabbed the two books on it.
Zexion raged something that sounded like "Thou shalt not disrespect literature in the castle!", only it was muffled by the duct tape, so I couldn't be sure.
"What's up with all the 'thou shalt's' in the rules, anyway?" I asked.
"Seriously, nobody talks like that anymore!" Demyx said as R-2 chanted "Die, literature, die!" in the background. Demyx joined his chanting as Zexion yanked at his chair-rope-and-duct-tape prison, but apparently that sticky stuff really is as tough as Axel and Demyx said. Unless he meant to knock the chair forward and land on his face, Zexion's struggling was pointless.
Axel and Demyx laughed their heads off, so of course R-2 had to join in. Zexion tried and failed to roll the chair onto its side. I had to admit, it did look pretty funny, even if I couldn't technically feel 'amused.' And "thou shalt not laugh in the castle" was one of the rules, right?
I laughed right in Zexion's face while I set his chair back up.
"And for the grand finale…" Axel said dramatically, ripping one of my books off of my mace's spikes. I took the other off, Demyx readied his soggy one, and R-2 picked up his (which had plenty of boot-prints on it).
If great minds think alike, I guess stupid ones do too. That's my explanation for how the rest of us knew to violently sniff our books at Axel's vague signal.
Apparently not having a heart couldn't stop Zexion from fainting in horror.
R-2 stared, then rubbed his nose. "I have a paper cut."
XXX
Zexion looked like he was trying to snap at R-2, who had just slapped the Schemer's face to wake him up, but luckily the duct tape prevented that.
Demyx and I had dragged Zexion's chair through a portal to the library, where we planned to show off more of our destruction.
"Ta-da!" Axel gestured dramatically to the burnt, soaked, cheese-covered bookcases.
If it was physically possible for Nobodies to have heart attacks, Zexion would be dead now. So I guess that's one thing us heartless people have to be thankful for.
His eyes widened, and he tried to rage something until R-2 and Demyx hit him over the head repeatedly with their falling-apart books. It's kinda funny how cute those two are, even when they're doing destructive things.
After Axel got them to stop, he described what rules we broke and ranted about the grammar-killing, and then we were off to the bathroom.
We were sure to stand with improper posture as we hauled Zexion's chair again, dropping him on the hard floor. Whatever pride he once had was clearly gone by now, as he moaned in pain. It must've been an off day for him.
The bathroom was as full of messy glory as it was before, including the alligator (er, crocodile) tied up in the bathtub. Zexion seemed to be hyperventilating.
"Let's see, what's left…" Axel scanned the rule list as me, R-2, and Demyx pestered Zexion. I glooped some of my mace-metal in his hair; Demyx sang in falsetto; R-2 scribbled on his coat with Sharpies. Somehow the colorful ink showed up brightly on the black fabric. Weird, I wouldn't have expected it to show up at all…
Axel lit a pair of pants on fire. Hopefully they weren't any of ours.
"That takes care of that rule," he said smugly, tossing the flaming pants on top of the furious crocodile. "And Xemnas is a buttheaded jerk who brainwashed my best friend; I don't need any other motivation to 'take his name in vain' or whatever."
I took a moment to wonder who Axel's best friend was, but then R-2 interjected with something that was probably his idea of whale-speak. It sounded like a dying cow. With Demyx's help, it sounded like a rabid dying zombie cow, or at least what I think a rabid dying zombie cow would sound like. If it had a spork shoved in it throat.
That was all of the rules, except the ones about Twlight that Axel had forbidden us to break for some unexplained reason. Wait, no, there was one other rule left that we could break easily…
Demyx, R-2, Axel, and I shared another moment of mind-linkage.
"CONTINENTAL DRIIIIIIIIFT!" We screeched, throwing Zexion and his chair into the tub with the flaming pants and flailing crocodile. Heart or no heart, revenge was satisfactory.
We all laughed harder than ever, but there wasn't time to stay and watch.
"Show's over," Axel announced, opening a corridor. "You kids go back to the castle through here; I'll put the lexicon back on the summoning rack."
I wasn't not sure whether that was a good idea or not – if Zexion told anyone about our prank we'd be Dusk'd for sure, but I guess we couldn't just leave him weaponless against Riku. Were we traitors for leaving our fellow Organization member there alone, regardless of what awful things he did to us? Were we just as bad as that Sora kid who killed Larxene?
I didn't have answers for those questions, so I made a snap decision to be thankful that Nobodies can't feel true guilt. Or so I'm told.
I nodded at Axel, grabbing Demyx and R-2.
"I can walk by myself!" Demyx protested, pulling away and walking through with R-2 behind him. I rolled my eyes, then looked between Axel and the bathtub-chaos. Lucky for Zexion, the crocodile was still duct taped-up, and they seemed to have beaten out the fire, but there was still a lot of muffled screaming and death threats.
"Be careful, okay?" I found myself telling Axel. "Zexion'll want revenge."
Axel just laughed. "Don't insult me."
With a last glance at our wake of destruction, I walked through the corridor, where Demyx and R-2 were waiting to attack me with a bear hug.
"Guys!" I laughed, trying to push them off.
"We did it! We did it!" R-2 twirled around happily.
"It's kinda nice to be back." Demyx smiled.
I smirked at him. "Bet Saïx'll have missions for us tomorrow."
That shot down his good mood. "Aw, man…"
"This place is cool!" R-2 jumped on one of the Grey Area's couches. Saïx wouldn't like that… How was I going to keep R-2 a secret? Should I try to keep him secret? Saïx wouldn't want him here – then he'd have to stay secret. But where would he stay?
I sighed, sitting on a couch R-2 wasn't jumping on.
"What's wrong?" Demyx asked, plopping down beside me.
"Just wondering what I'll do with R-2."
"Oh." He frowned, then perked up a little. "He can stay in my room tonight, and we'll figure something out tomorrow."
"Thanks, Demyx." I smiled. He's a slacker on missions, but at least I could count on him to help me out with almost anything else.
I yawned, making him yawn too.
"Sleepy," Demyx muttered. "C'mon, R-2, I'll show you my room."
"Yay!" R-2 bounced through a corridor behind him.
It's always dark outside the Castle That Never Was, but it was probably late afternoon if I had to guess. Not that it mattered – I was going to sleep, not matter what time it was.
Corridoring to my bedroom, I flopped down on my bed and passed out immediately.
A/N: Summing up what happened with Axel: He put the lexicon back, Zexion fought Riku, then Axel came back with Repliku/R-3 and finished him off similar to what happened in the game.
I already have the next chapter written (:D) but it's short. It's mostly to tie up a few loose ends and provide some character development and transition before everyone goes back to regular pranking schedule. I just got Xigbar out of WYWTD, and now he's going to relocate over here again. :P
I also apologize to any Harry Potter fans, but that's what Xenan would do. ^^;