Chapter 26 ~ Knight in Shining Armor

It felt as if Zexion was being chased by something. Something of unspeakable evil.

He tried to run, but to no avail; the uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched was always there.

He saw a pool of light in front of him. Feeling strangely comforted by its presence, Zexion walked closer to the light, when the strange puddle lunged at him, grabbing his hand forcefully.

Little by little, the light became to take form, until a familiar figure was standing in front of him, hugging him for comfort.

"Xion..." Zexion whispered, squeezing her form tightly.

Suddenly, the light particles split into a million pieces and faded into nothingness.

"Xion!" Zexion yelled desperately, attempting to grab the air around him.

The uncomfortable feeling returned as quickly as it had left him: The strange feeling that he was being watched, that he was in fact, being used as the puppet for a bigger scheme altogether.

"You've got to be joking. No one uses me," Zexion declared boldly.

He was the Cloaked Schemer, No. VI of Organization XIII. He wouldn't stand to be an insignificant pawn of someone else. He made his own decisions. Everything moved to his accord. And nothing suspicious could slip past his notice.

That's when he woke up with a start.

His eyes opened abruptly, as if he'd only been resting two minutes earlier. Crawling out of his bed, he slowly walked over to the window and leaned gently on the windowsill.

"A dream, eh?" he asked himself.

Not that it mattered. He'd always lived for himself, and only himself. But it was just that this game he was playing involved one extra chess piece. One that he wouldn't be willing to sacrifice.

"That's all," he decided.

A bit confused by his own thoughts, he lay down on his bed once again to do some more thinking. It'd still be a while until she woke up.

"Good morning, Master," Kanon said politely.

"Oh, hey," I responded casually. "Could you get my clothes ready?"

"Not a problem, Master," Kanon answered, disappearing into thin air.

He appeared seconds after he left with a change of clothes in his hands.

"Thank you, Kanon," I said.

He nodded, disappearing once again.

I sighed, changing as I tried to calm myself from the past couple of events. I'd tried to forget the past and move on. With Zexion's conditioning, little by little, I'd managed to put it behind me. It got to a point where I didn't really care any more. I really didn't. What's done is done.

I just hope I never have to go through that again.

I left my room and walked down the stairs at a casual pace, and found Kanon waiting for me at the bottom.

"Where are you going today, Master?" Kanon asked.

I stared at him weirdly.

"School..." I said.

It felt really awkward talking to a Nobody with artificial intelligence.

"Excuse me Master, but it's Saturday today, and you don't have school," Kanon said.

I froze.

You know, it feels really awkward being bested by a Nobody with artificial intelligence.

Unable to contain the humiliation, I made something up.

"Right...Nina said she wanted to see me at school today...to uh...work on a project, so I have to go to school," I said sheepishly. "So, I'll be taking the car."

"I'll drive you, Master," Kanon insisted.

"That's quite all right," I said quickly. "I'll drive myself today."

I don't actually have a license, but that's okay. I have decent motor skills and could forge one on the spot if I needed to.

"I understand. Have a nice day, Master," Kanon said as I walked out the door.

I walked towards the luxury limousine parked on the driveway.

Really, he couldn't have gotten a more inconspicuous car.

I opened the passenger's door on instinct, forgetting the fact that I would be driving myself to who knows where today. Sighing, I moved to open the door again when I realized that I wasn't alone in the car.

"Er...hi Miss," the man said.

"Hi, and you might be?" I asked.

"Subaru," he stated shyly.

He was a handsome man, and looked to be no older than Zexion or me, but there was a subtle sense of royalty to his words and his actions. Very intriguing, really. Great, now I'm curious.

"Subaru, eh? So, what are you doing here?" I asked patiently.

"Well, I'm an orphan, you see...and while Master Rion was at the orphanage the other day, he offered to adopt me as a servant," he explained. "It was kind of weird, since Master Rion is the same age as me, but I'm glad to be of any service at all to Master Rion."

Zexion adopted a human kid? As a servant? Is that even possible? Was this guy sane?

I scanned his head quickly. There was nothing of interest that would've caught Zexion's attention. What the heck happened here?

Well, in any case...

"You're working here starting today?" I asked.

"Yesterday, actually, but yes Miss," he replied.

"Okay, first of all, drop the Master and the Miss, please," I said.

"But that's what Kanon calls you," he complained. "As a fellow servant, I should..."

What a strange guy.

"Let's not argue over trivial matters please. Drop the Master and the Miss," I repeated.

"Yes," he said, nodding.

I sighed. What idiot did Zexion pick up now?

"Well, I got nowhere to go today, so why don't you just drive around?" I asked. "You have a license, right?"

He flashed a card at me. A plain card.

"Right here, Rion gave me one yesterday. Apparently he had some connections, so he got one for me easily, even though I've never driven a car until today," he explained.

A blank card. Clearly an illusion. As for driving, apparently he took the car for a spin around the circular driveway for a while just this morning. I wouldn't exactly call that experience. Oh well.

"Well, you'd do well not to take anything for granted," I said. "When you get the time, get your driver's license the traditional way."

"I understand. Shall we get going then?" he asked. "Where to?"

"Anywhere," I said.

He nodded, pulling out of the driveway.

Thankfully, he was a natural at driving, otherwise, it might've been pretty ugly.

I rang the doorbell impatiently as I felt the eyes of the whole neighbourhood on my back. Well, on the car mostly, but on me too.

Nina came to the door after a few minutes, looking extraordinarily surprised to see me.

"Oh, Ino!" she exclaimed. "Why are you here today?"

"A friend?" her dad asked behind her.

"Yes, do you have anything to do right now?" I responded.

"Where's Ze-Rion?" she asked.

"Who knows where," I said. "So you got time?"

"Yep...I think," she said, checking with her parents quickly.

She returned moments later, with her bag in tow.

"Let's go," she said, stepping out of her house.

The new "butler" immediately caught her attention.

"Who's that?" she asked, as we watched him adjust his tie.

"A new guy that Zexion picked up yesterday," I responded. "I couldn't possibly fathom why he would..."

I stopped, immediately sensing the change in atmosphere.

No way.

Nina blushed a bit when I looked at her and read her thoughts, which confirmed my suspicions.

She totally liked him.

How strange of Zexion, just to go pick up another stranger for Nina's sake. He'd probably searched the whole world for her soulmate, finding him in an orphanage of all places.

Interesting. Very interesting.

Trying not to make a big scene of it and embarass her, I dragged her along.

"Let's go," I said, tugging at her arm.

We ended up driving to the park of all places, mostly because I didn't feel like going anywhere else. There were a lot of kids there, which was a bit annoying, but Subaru dealt with them pretty easily, so it was all good.

"You're good with kids," I remarked.

"Really?" he asked, blushing a bit.

I laughed quietly.

"So," Nina started, "why am I here again?"

"I was bored," I said.

"I would've expected Zexion to be back by now," Nina said.

Miss me?

"Well speak of the devil," I replied.

Getting off the swing, I walked over to the tree where he was hiding behind, followed by Nina and Subaru.

"It's too sunny today for my liking," he said.

"Good for you," I replied.

"Hey Rion," Nina said.

"Hello," he greeted in return.

Enjoy the surprise?

Hardly. You could've told me earlier. It's not like you to do something charitable anyways.

I was bored.

I found myself grinning at that remark. Birds of a feather, truly do stick together.

"Well, we have to go," Zexion said, pulling me to his side. "Subaru, you can drive her home, right?"

"Yes," Subaru responded quickly.

"Good," Zexion replied. "We'll see you two later then."

He walked away while I hastily hurried to follow him.

That was subtle, eh? With the "you two"...

Ah, you noticed did you?

Only an idiot wouldn't.

Well it's good that he's still relatively new to the outside world, isn't it?

Very.

Zexion chuckled.

"Today's mission involves stopping the electricity flow to this building," he said.

"It's on Earth, again?" I asked.

"Yeah, sorry. I asked Saix for another mission, but he was insistent. 'Work needs to be done,' was what he said," Zexion explained. "You just have to cut off all electricity to the building and shut down the systems."

"That's all?" I asked, a bit doubtful.

"Yeah, that's it. Apparently they want to steal a component of some kind, but that's not in your job description," he said. "Well then, excuse me, because I have my own mission to attend to in Wonderland. So once you're done, just go home by yourself. You don't have to travel between worlds, so you can get back by yourself, right?"

I hate that world.

"Well yeah. Anyways, good luck with that," I replied.

"Bye," he said, kissing me gently on the cheek before he disappeared into the darkness.

I just have to stop all the electricity, right? Piece of cake.

I walked around the building, searching the ground for the power lines. I found them with relative ease. Intuition, as I like to call it.

I overloaded the power lines with electricity, which activated the circuit breaker.

The lights in the building flickered on and off, until they came to a full stop. The whole area was absolutely dark.

Well, that should keep them from fixing anything anytime soon. It ought to give the Organization a full week or so to do whatever they want.

"That was an easy mission. Well, to home I go," I said to myself.

And so I did.

He watched from the rooftop of the building, until his eyes were able to make out the pink petals that remained everytime she teleported somewhere else. Checking that her presence was no longer there, he started to act.

Jumping down from the roof of the building, he entered the front of the building and easily defeated what little guards there were.

"Now then, today's target is Gimble Machaven, as I recall. Owner of this chain of pharmaceuticals," Zexion said aloud.

"You're after the boss?" one of the guards down the hall asked, as he pulled his gun out.

"Don't wave such a foolish item in front of me," Zexion said.

The guard pulled the trigger. The bullet, meeting a page of his lexicon, fell straight to the ground. He fired again. This one was slashed in half, straight down the middle.

"You're insane!" the guard yelled in fright.

"I'm perfectly sane," he assured the guard. "I'm doing this to protect someone who is dear to me. I'm sure humans have people like that do...people who are dear to them."

He walked up to the guard slowly, like a tiger stalking its prey.

"Stop it!" the guard yelled. "Don't come any closer."

The guard backed up slowly when he realized that he was the only one left standing. He turned around in a panic and ran.

"You know," a voice came from behind him, "it's a shame, I've kind of taken a liking to you too."

The guard ran full speed down the hallway without turning around, only to find that the murderer was standing right in front of him.

He came to an abrupt stop.

Zexion reached out with his hand, feeling the side of the man's face.

"You know, it's just not as smooth as her's," he remarked.

"Her's?" the man asked.

Zexion chuckled devilishly.

"You're Gimble, aren't you?" Zexion asked. "I'll admit, it's pretty smart of you though, to come out dressed as a guard and hoping to make it through the commotion that way. But you neglected to take care of your subordinates. What a low life form. Not that I'm one to talk."

"You monster!" Gimble yelled in desperation.

"Actually, I'm a Nobody, not that you'd understand," Zexion said. "It's been fun, Mr. Machaven."

With a quick movement of his hand, the man fell to the floor, permanently unconscious.

As he looked down the hallway and realized what he had just done, he felt nothing. No sorrow, no pity and no guilt. Compared to the her who could easily be swayed and ruled by her emotions, this was a good alternative. He'd do all the dirty work instead.

"It's better this way," Zexion said, disappearing into the darkness.