A/N: So it has come to my attention (thank you, reviewers!) that it's been nearly a year since I've updated this story. To this I say, first and foremost: wait, what? Damn. It doesn't feel like it's been a year! But apparently it has, so yeah. Uh…sorry? Guess I'd better get cracking though. (Then I think this took like another month and a half to get out because school. Why do I do this to myself?)
Warnings: Roxas has a potty mouth. (It's not that bad.) The last fight scene is ridiculous. I'm sorry.
Disclaimer: Sometimes I feel like it's a little ridiculous that I have this note about how I own nothing on every chapter, d'you know that? Anyway, I don't own anything, and I have no money.
Summary: AU. Axel/Roxas. He wanted an ending. He got Axel instead.
Chapter Thirty-Six: Some Sweet, Violent Urge
The mansion itself wasn't as badly congested with Heartless as the woods had been, but they still got attacked more than Roxas had honestly hoped. He held back as much as he could without putting anyone in danger, because he really was exhausted; Sora stuck to his side like glue, shooting him worried frowns whenever he could take his eyes off his own battles. Roxas wanted to tell him to cut it out, but he bit his tongue. Sora had every right to be concerned about him after the day they'd already had, and, besides, Leon kept throwing him suspicious looks at the way he lagged behind to catch his breath between every room.
"We've got to be missing something," Sora finally said in the last room upstairs, glaring at the table in front of him in frustration. Roxas was immediately reminded of his first mission with Xigbar three years before and couldn't hold back the snort, but didn't bother to explain himself when the other three turned to give him a curious look. Instead he dropped into the chair at the head of the table and leaned back with his feet over the arm so he could stare at the ceiling thoughtfully. There definitely weren't any paintings in this place that could be pictomancy again, not that he'd expected to come across that in Twilight Town with how rare of an ability it was, so what could they have possibly missed? A secret room maybe?
"We should go back to the first floor," he said eventually, reluctant to bring it up since doing so would mean he'd have to get up and fight Heartless again. "Maybe there's a secret room or a basement door we missed or something."
"Why wouldn't it be an attic?" Cloud asked. Roxas looked over at him, scowling, but Cloud just returned the look blandly. Roxas honestly didn't get this guy at all. He suspected that the taller blond already knew the answer to the question and was just asking to be contrary—an impression only strengthened when he glanced over at Leon and noticed that the brunet was rubbing at the scar between his eyes.
"Because the height of the rooms and the amount of stairs we went up don't seem to leave enough room above here for anything other than a crawlspace," Roxas responded anyway, noticing Sora nodding along out of the corner of his eye. He held back a sigh, but he probably shouldn't have expected his brother to pick that detail up on his own. "But we wouldn't be able to tell at all if a basement was hidden underneath of us, and architects can be downright sneaky about hidden rooms when they want to be."
Cloud made a noncommittal response and nodded, then turned from the corner of the table he was standing at and moved toward the door again. Roxas sighed and levered himself out of the chair, stretching his back out before following after him with a frown. Sora was immediately by his side again, bumping his shoulder jauntily. Roxas smiled at him, but didn't bump shoulders back as he usually would. Honestly, he just didn't know where Sora got all of his energy from. Even if Roxas hadn't nearly killed himself on that dragon earlier, he'd still be running low at this point of the day, between all of the fighting and the emotions and everything.
He couldn't wait to get out of this mansion.
Unfortunately, the first floor once again proved to be devoid of either any secrets or any greatly powerful Heartless to kill even after they'd traipsed through both floors twice more. Completely fed up, Roxas veered off into the library as Leon started talking about taking another look at the second floor, and threw himself into the hard-backed chair at the table. A cloud of dust billowed up from the seat, making him sneeze violently several times before it settled down.
"I think I'm actually starting to miss the Superior's missions," he muttered to himself, gingerly shoving aside some dusty paperwork so he could lean on the table. He frowned at what he uncovered, tilting his head a little in the hopes that the strange yellow markings would begin to make sense, but it just looked like a weird half-finished design. This could be what they were looking for, but there hadn't been anything that looked remotely like this anywhere in the house. How were they supposed to complete it?
"What are you doing in here?" Cloud asked, sounding irritated as he stepped into the room behind Roxas. "Leon's having a fit about you disappearing."
"That's nice," Roxas said vaguely, not really caring how Leon felt about anything. "You wouldn't happen to recognize this, would you? It looks like it needs to be completed."
Cloud stepped up next to his chair and looked down at the table for a long moment before stating, very quietly, "I know it," and walking back out of the room. Roxas watched him ago, wondered if he was supposed to follow the taller blond back to wherever Leon was waiting for them, then shrugged and turned around to lay his head on the table as he'd originally planned.
It felt like he'd only closed his eyes for a moment before the other three were back in the library, Sora's habitually noisy flailing announcing their presence long before Leon's terse "move" made Roxas push himself away from the table with a scowl. He stubbornly remained sitting, though, and Sora materialized by the side of the chair to bounce by his side while simultaneously giving him a worried look. Roxas made a face at him.
"This was one of Ansem's symbols, wasn't it?" Cloud asked blandly, and though he was clearly speaking to Leon, his amused look was focused in Roxas' direction. Roxas hesitated a moment, but gave him a face too. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sora doing the same thing, and they were both rewarded with a snort and a roll of the eyes.
"He didn't use it in public often, but yes," Leon replied. He was digging through the papers as he spoke, back turned to the three of them, so Roxas was surprised when he added: "Stop messing around and help me find some chalk or something."
"I swear he can read minds," Sora grumbled, stepping away from the chair and over to the side wall where a small chalkboard hung. "Here, chalk. I hope you like pink."
"…Why does he have pink chalk?" Cloud wondered aloud, taking it from Sora and inspecting it. Then, glancing over at the chalkboard, he added, "and why is it only pink?"
"Whatever," Leon answered in such total apathy that it almost made Roxas smile. "Finish the drawing or give me the chalk."
Cloud raised an eyebrow at Leon and got a one-armed shrug in response before he began drawing on the table. Roxas really had to marvel at their ability to have discussions without saying anything, and that was saying something when he'd once spent an entire weekend mission with only Lexaeus and Zexion for company. He'd thought the two of them had wordless conversation down to an art, but at least Roxas had been able to understand them. He was pretty sure Cloud and Leon had made up their own set of body language that was decipherable only to the two of them.
When Cloud completed the drawing on the table, a large rectangle of light lit up on the ground that encompassed the entire table and half of the chair Roxas was sitting in. With a soft curse, Roxas pushed the chair back as hard as he could, but it snagged on something near the edge of the rectangle and tipped onto its back. He rolled with it and came out in an undignified sprawl just in time to watch the chair drop into the newly formed hole in the floor. He couldn't help the wince when they heard it crash to a hard floor some distance underground.
"That would've sucked," Sora said brightly, leaning precariously at the edge of the hole to look into it. "I can't even see anything down there. Except, like, stairs maybe? Those're probably stairs."
"Why don't I push you in so you can find out?" Roxas asked sweetly as he got to his feet and dusted himself off.
"Because that would also suck."
There was a loud sigh from Leon before the brunet started walking down into the basement without them. Cloud followed with a somewhat disconcerting smirk and a gesture that indicated Sora should come in after him. Sora waited until Roxas strolled up beside him, though, to give an excited bounce and start bounding down the dark stairway.
"Sora, slow down," Roxas snapped irritably, grabbing his brother with one hand as he used the other to summon up a ball of soft light. He sent it a few steps ahead of them before he noticed the faintly impressed look Sora was giving him, but Roxas felt his ire instantly melt away. "Thought I was all flash, huh?"
"You act like you're all flash," Sora pointed out. "When you're fighting, I mean. You're all bright and explodey with your magic, so I guess I thought, uh. Well, this takes a lot more control?"
Roxas laughed at Sora's awkward attempt to be nice. He wasn't surprised that Sora had thought he had no control, though; it was what a lot of his enemies thought after seeing him fight the first time. Of course, for them, it was often a significantly more fatal mistake than it was turning out to be for his brother. "You're not the only one to think I suck," Roxas assured him with exaggerated kindness, grin growing as Sora blushed. "Just be happy you didn't find out you were wrong the hard way."
"What's the hard way?"
Roxas' grin faded. "Well, usually somebody dies."
Thankfully, they were saved from what would probably have been a very awkward silence by coming to the end of the staircase to find some sort of a computer room. Leon was already investigating some of the computers, but Cloud was focused instead on the ball of light that had floated into the room ahead of them.
"You're not a mage?" Cloud asked Roxas, one hand hovering around the edges of the light. When Roxas didn't respond immediately, he continued. "Mages have a limited variety of magic spells, like what Donald and Sora can do. We'd thought at first that you just had a lot of power and a preference for light magic, but you don't, do you? You only have light magic?"
"Uh, yeah," Roxas said a bit uncertainly, sharing a confused look with Sora. Why did it matter what his magic was? "Be careful with that light. It's not stored in anything, so it's kind of like plasma or something—"
"I'm a light element too," Cloud interrupted, but moved his away hand anyway. "You're supposed to be a mage like Sora. Nobodies and Heartless don't get their own elements when they break away, you know; the fundamentals of the person are still there, just not the emotions."
"...Then why am I different?" Roxas asked softly, his thoughts turning inevitably to Sora's new keyblade. He'd thought that Axel's weapons appearing on the fiery keyblade had pretty much cinched his theory that he was a Nobody—it was certainly the only one he had that made any sense—but Cloud's theory countermanded his own entirely.
"Maybe the keyblade?" Sora started uncertainly, but was interrupted as a bunch of lights on the floor lit up.
"We're in," Leon said blandly, though even he was shielding his eyes from the unexpected brightness. Roxas snorted and extinguished his own light, putting his thoughts on Cloud's theories to the side as he slowly took in the small room. There wasn't much besides the computers and the now-broken chair that had fallen from the floor above, except for a door in the far wall. Roxas walked over to it curiously, but couldn't see a handle.
"Can you open this door from the computer?" Roxas asked Leon hopefully. The older man turned back to the computer without responding, and poked at the keys for a minute before the door silently slid open. On the other side was a brightly lit white hallway, lined with what appeared to be broken eggs. "Weird."
"Monster eggs," Cloud said flatly from behind Roxas' shoulder. Roxas turned to shoot him a brief frown (did the guy ever make noise when he walked?), but didn't let himself stay distracted long. "What was Ansem doing this time?"
"Whatever it was, it probably backfired," Leon said. "We should be on our guard. There don't appear to be any Heartless, but—"
Almost as if they were waiting for his cue, several shadows began pouring out of the broken eggs, puddling to the ground before they began coalescing into unfamiliar forms in front of their eyes. Leon actually groaned out loud, and Sora muttered something about him jinxing them, but Cloud just laughed before stepping in front of Roxas and drawing his huge sword.
"Tired already?" he asked them. Roxas, having been tired from the start, stuck his tongue out at Cloud's back, then rolled his eyes as Leon stepped around him as well.
"Mostly of you," the gunblader said, completely deadpan.
"Oh man, they're doing the macho thing again," Sora whined. "I hate it when they do the macho thing. There's no point in fighting now!"
"Well, I could use a break anyway," Roxas said cheerfully. "Wanna go see if there's any games on that computer?" Sora responded by punching him in the shoulder, then bounding into the hallway as well to take care of a smaller Heartless that had somehow managed to slip past both of the older men. Roxas made a face at his brother's back—he'd only been half joking about the computer—but dutifully joined the fight as well. He let the others take on the brunt of the horde, wanting to conserve as much energy as he could for whatever lay at the other end of the hallway, but it still seemed like a depressingly long time before the Heartless were all gone and they were standing a few feet from the door. Roxas leaned casually against the wall next to him and dug in a pocket for an Ether. At the back of the fighting party and slower than usual, he'd been using more magic than he normally would and it was draining him hard.
"Roxas?" Sora's worried tone asked the question that he didn't voice, and Roxas gave him an irritated glare as he finished drinking. Sora made a face at him. "You've had a lot of Ethers today."
"I've used a lot of magic," Roxas said tiredly, the dark look on his face growing deeper. If Sora accused him of being an addict, he was going to have a fit. "Pretty sure we don't have time to let me build it back up right now."
"Just don't want you to get dependent," Sora muttered defensively, not actually looking Roxas in the eyes. He seemed embarrassed to be discussing the very concept of Roxas having problems with his magic, enough so that Roxas almost stopped scowling at him. Almost. "Merlin was telling me about mages who, you know, and it was really scary what happened to them and apparently it's easy to get addicted and, and yeah."
"…How in the world did you survive in the Underground this long?" Roxas asked, amused and honestly curious. Sora gave him an incredibly offended look and raised his arms for what would have been a really long-winded rant if Leon hadn't interrupted.
"Break's over."
"We were having a break?" Cloud asked, bland look not changing in the face of Leon's ensuing glare. In fact, he just continued talking without any inflection whatsoever. "It didn't feel like a break. Not long enough, for one, and I didn't even get to sit down."
"Cloud," Leon said flatly, rubbing at the bridge of his nose in clear irritation.
"Relaxation is important, Leon," Cloud intoned so dryly that Roxas had to bite back a snort.
"…Whatever," Leon finally said with a sigh, turning away from the blond and gesturing widely at the door in front of them. "Let's get this over with."
Like the door at the other end of the hall, there was no handle to open it with, and Roxas wondered for a brief moment if they were going to have to go back and open it manually. Fortunately, the door opened when Leon was only a step away from it, and they all quickly stepped inside the next room. The only thing they were greeted with was a gigantic, partially cracked egg.
"Well, this is weird," Sora stated, grip on his keyblade relaxing as he started walking around the egg. Roxas, agreeing whole-heartedly, secured his own grip and went in the opposite direction. "Do you think it died trying to hatch? Is that even possible?"
"Maybe the Heartless got it," Roxas suggested, scowling at the thought. "It would have been defenseless in here, and we haven't seen anything big enough to be its mother."
"The mother probably wouldn't have been here," Leon said. He and Cloud were still standing in front of the door, both frowning up at the egg. "Ansem was probably experimenting on it, or trying to hatch it for himself. But this doesn't explain the Heartless here. If it's already dead, it's not—Sora, don't!"
Roxas sighed as a hollow knocking sound came from the other side of the egg, followed by Sora's innocent "What?" as if he had no idea why knocking on the shell of a dead monster was a bad thing. Of course, Roxas figured he should have expected Sora to do something ridiculous, but this was a little too much. Did he have no respect for the dead?
"Sora," Leon began testily, clearly gearing up for a spectacular dressing-down when he was interrupted by an ominous cracking sound. All eyes turned to the egg, which made another cracking sound as the cracks on it widened considerably.
"Damn it, Sora!" Roxas had time to snarl before the egg shattered. In the middle of the mess stood what was clearly a baby ice behemoth, though distorted and darkened in the way of the Heartless. It might even have been cute if it wasn't twice as large as anyone in the room and, Roxas knew, several times as strong. The newly born Heartless, on its part, didn't seem terribly impressed with any of them; it glanced at each of the four men surrounding it for before letting out a piercing scream. Worse still was the brief ice storm that started up as if in response to the creature's fear, with wind so strong that Roxas was thrown into a wall by its force. The breath knocked out of him, he crumpled to the floor when the wind died down and simply sat there for a moment, panting. He only looked up at the sound of a muffled banging noise to see, to his horror, that Leon and Cloud had been thrown out of the room and were being kept out by a solid-looking sheet of ice.
"Shit," Roxas gasped to himself, scrabbling to his feet on a surprisingly slippery floor. His movement clearly caught the attention of the behemoth, which let out a loud snort before thrusting itself in Roxas' direction. Roxas threw himself out of the way at the last second, but his landing was less than dignified as fell from his feet again and slid on the sheer ice the behemoth had clearly coated the floor with. "Shit," Roxas repeated again, more tired than urgent this time. Here was a fight he could really use Axel for, but he'd stupidly left his partner long behind. He was going to regret this one, that was for sure.
"Roxas, look out!" His head shot up instantly in response to the call, only to find himself seconds away from being trampled by the behemoth. He threw up his arms as if it would stave off the inevitable, only to suddenly be slammed into from the side. He and Sora slid ungracefully across the room and straight into the sheet of ice keeping their companions out. "Are you okay?" Sora asked breathlessly.
"I think I'd have preferred being run over by the Heartless," Roxas joked, grabbing onto Sora as his brother started making an irritated gesture. "C'mon, get up, we're not beating this thing from the ground." They levered themselves up more quickly than Roxas suspected would have been possible at any other time. The behemoth was bearing down on them again, obviously not having any problem with the ice, which meant communicating any plans was out. Instead Roxas just slapped a hand over Sora's eyes a second before he lifted his other hand and pulled forth a concentrated burst of magic. The laser wasn't anywhere near as devastating as what he could usually manage, and he swore as it cut into the beast's hide with barely enough force to slow it down, though the monster did let out a cry and stop to lick at its wound.
"That's not good," Sora said when he got a look at it.
"I'm too tired for the magic I need to hurt this thing," Roxas said bitterly, turning his gaze to Sora's weapon. "Looks like we're depending on you for this one. Even weak fire magic…"
"Weak?" Sora sputtered, looking so offended Roxas had to laugh. His humor was cut short as the behemoth snorted again, a sound he was already associating with the monster rushing at them.
"Stop being offended and cast!" Roxas snapped. To his credit, Sora didn't argue further, instead throwing off what Roxas was certain was his strongest fire magic. Unfortunately, Sora at his strongest wouldn't have even matched Axel when the redhead was only messing around, so what Roxas felt should have been a one-hit attack only slowed their enemy down. It also clearly made the beast much angrier as it barreled across the room at them, and Roxas found himself grabbing Sora and shoving against the wall as hard as he could to get them out of its way.
"This sucks," Sora moaned as they slammed to a stop against another wall. Roxas just rolled his eyes, spinning around to get the behemoth in his sight again, and gestured for Sora to cast another spell. "I mean, it really, really sucks," Sora continued whining even as he somehow managed to get off two fire spells after another. "I think I've been turned off ice skating forever."
"Oh, shut up," Roxas muttered, his wish momentarily granted as Sora dug an Ether out of his pockets and downed it. Then he swore as the monster, momentarily winded from the magic being thrown at it, leapt at them again and he once again had to hastily shove himself and Sora out of the way. This time, unfortunately, they were stopped by a shard of the egg tripping them rather than a wall, and they landed in an undignified sprawl in the middle of the room.
"Seriously?" Sora asked, the whine having left his voice in favor of irritation. Roxas moaned in agreement and briefly entertained the thought of just lying there while he was trampled to death. "What does it take to stop this thing?"
"Axel would've already killed it," Roxas said tiredly, sitting up and ignoring the surprised sound Sora made. "Fire again. I've got an idea."
"Oh, good," Sora sighed, lazily throwing his spell at the behemoth. Roxas scrambled to his feet immediately, using Oblivion as extra leverage, and then rushed after the spell. "What is wrong with you?" Sora screamed at his back, but was quick to follow him, and together they half-slid and half-jogged over to where the fire spell was already dying out. Undeterred, Roxas shoved as much magic into his keyblades as he could handle before he attacked. Sora, a step behind him, lit the behemoth up with another weak fire spell before he fell in beside Roxas.
The remainder of the fight was a lot more ridiculous than Roxas liked to think about. The icy ground had them slipping all over the place, and more than once each brother had to drag the other one away from a swinging paw that he otherwise would have slid right into. Still, between Sora's fire magic and Roxas' light magic flickering along his own weapons, they managed to tire the behemoth down enough that it was actually vulnerable. Sora was the one that got it with its guard down, nearly cutting off the monster's head, and Roxas had to slide them both out of the way as it started to collapse on top of them.
"Finally!" Roxas snapped, dropping his keyblades as they slid to a stop and trying not to collapse to the ground himself. He was completely drained of energy for the day, and if he didn't get to relax soon he was probably going to collapse. So when they realized the ice barrier was still up despite the Heartless being dead, Roxas took one look at it and made the decision to just sit down where he was and announce to Sora that he was completely done for the day.
"I thought you said you were fine," Sora responded, sounding half worried and half annoyed. Roxas shot him a brief glare before gesturing pointedly at the ice barrier. He wasn't really looking forward to dealing with Leon and Cloud again, but he really wanted out of this room. He watched Sora melt the barrier with only half of his attention, though he wasn't really thinking of anything in particular. He was just so tired that he zoned out completely, and didn't register anything else until Sora was at his side levering him off of the icy ground again. Leon and Cloud had entered the room and were both giving him indecipherable looks.
"Most of the Heartless disappeared," Cloud eventually announced and, as if that was their cue to leave, Leon spun on his heel and started walking away. "We cleared the hallway while Sora was taking down the barrier, but the mansion's probably still packed. You look tired."
"He's an idiot!" Sora burst out before Roxas had really even processed the seeming non-sequitur. "I told him to rest after that stupid dragon, but he kept insisting he was fine, but he's not! He's not. Are you?"
"I think I'm going to strangle you," Roxas replied conversationally, tugging his arm out of Sora's grip. His brother gave him a look that was part hurt and mostly anger, so he rolled his eyes and shoved passed Cloud to follow Leon out of the building. "Relax, would you? I'm not going to drop dead or anything. Fall asleep walking, maybe."
"That is not fine!" Sora called after him, but Roxas waved him off. He'd have time to worry about his health when they got out of the mansion.
The way back to town was a lot calmer than the way in had been. Though the Heartless were still swarming the forest, there was enough less of them that the fight didn't seem never-ending. Roxas, as a matter of fact, barely fought at all, dodging around the Heartless as much as possible instead, and as a consequence he was actually the first one through to town. He hesitated briefly at the hole in the wall, not wanting to leave without making sure Sora was okay, but his decision was pretty much made for him when Donald and Goofy stepped through to greet him.
"Where're the others?" Donald asked brusquely, brushing past Roxas impatiently to look out at the thinning crowd of Heartless. "Is Sora okay?"
"Sora's fine," Roxas replied irritably, waving a hand in the general direction of some lightning magic flashing a few feet away. "There was an ice behemoth at the end, but we killed it, and now the Heartless are thinning out. We split up on the way back because there wasn't as much trouble."
"This is still plenty of trouble!" Donald snapped back moodily. With an impatient glare at Goofy, he cast a fire spell in the direction of Sora's flickering magic and waddled into the fray. Goofy hung back another moment, though, giving Roxas a strangely paternal look as he put hand on his shoulder.
"Sora can take care of himself, y'know," the dogman said softly. "You should get some rest."
"Well, thanks for not telling me how awful I look, I guess," Roxas joked, a little stunned by the kindness. Goofy just patted his shoulder, smiling as he ran into the horde himself. With a bemused shake of his head, Roxas turned back toward town to do as Goofy had suggested. Sora would be fine without him for a few hours.
A/N: This chapter is nearly twice the length of my usual chapters. I'd like to say it's because I haven't updated in a year, but honestly it's because I'm too lazy to edit in a good ending point/cliffhanger. I'm sure you're terribly disappointed. (P.S. Terribly sorry for any typos/grammar problems/general terribleness. I'm just going to blame being tired, yeah?)