Author's notes/warnings!
This particular Chapter depicts a character Going through a mental/traumatic breakdown, if that sort of thing makes you uncomfortable it may be best for you to skip this chapter.
I would like to stress that the thing this character is experiencing is not PTSD and was not intended to be interpreted as PTSD. If it comes off that way then I'm sorry.
Author's notes/warnings over
The gummi ship stops at it arrives at the desert world. Roxas and Xion, do their usual preparations before they leave to explore the world when Namine chimes in.
"Hey, guys. . ." Namine says shyly. The two turn around to face their companion.
"Is something wrong?" asks Xion.
"I was just wondering. . . Could I come with you guys?" Namine asks nervously
"What? Why?" Asks Xion, a tad confused.
"I just thought it would be nice to try and help. . ."
"Namine. . . I'm sorry. But you don't have a keyblade, the heartless are too dangerous for you to come with us." Roxas explains, trying not to hurt her emotionally. "Once we've gotten rid of the heartless, you can join us in any world you want, how about that." Namine smiles,
"I would like that," Namine responds. Roxas nods his head before rejoining Xion. The two materialize their keyblades before disappearing in a flash of light. Namine sighs as her false smile fades. She turns and takes her usual seat at the front of the cockpit. She opens her sketchbook and grabs a pencil before taking a deep breath and look around the room. "No matter where I go, I always get stuck in one room huh?" Namine smiles, realizing the Irony of the whole situation.
Roxas and Xion open their eyes and find themselves in a lavish room, filled with priceless objects made of gold. Even the walls and floor of the room are gold.
"Woah. . ." Roxas says in disbelief, he takes a step back and nearly knocks over a pot.
"Hey! You break it, you buy it!" Says the familiar peddler. Suddenly his face changes as he recognizes the two. "Oh! Why Hello there, friends. It has been a while since I've last seen you two."
"Woah, you must have made off like a bandit after selling that lamp. . ." Says Roxas in surprise.
"No, no. . . I am just an honest salesman, and this is the fruit of my labor." Says the Salesmen. Roxas and Xion have a quick flashback to their escapades in the cave of wonders, but choose to put that to the side and just let the man pretend he's right.
"Alright. Have you seen any guys in black coats while we were gone? Maybe the name Organization Thirteen rings a bell?" asks Roxas.
"Hmm, no, I can not say any of that is familiar to me." Says the peddler.
"Alright. Thanks!" Says Xion, grabbing Roxas's hand and exiting the Peddler's shop. "I guess we'll have to ask around then." Upon exiting, they see Aladdin, Abu, and Iago
"Stop! Don't let him get away!" Aladdin yells, they push the two aside, and run into the peddler's shop. Roxas and Xion run in to see what's up and find that the peddler is nowhere to be found.
"What the- What's going on?" Asks Roxas,
"Can't believe it. . . That stupid peddler tried to steal the lamp back! And he released Jafar from out of the lamp!" Aladdin exclaims. The two gasp. Jafar was one of Maleficent's most powerful lackeys, a grand sorcerer turned all-powerful genie, only stopped by Sora and Aladdin, who sealed him in a lamp. "I'm Sure Jafar wants to take over Agrabah again, we'll need to be careful." Says Aladdin.
"When did he escape the lamp?" asks Xion.
"Iago saw him sneaking around near the palace, and watched him entered the room where we sealed him away," Aladdin explains.
"Yeah! But by the time I got there, He had already released Jafar!" Squawks the parrot.
"Do you know where he might have gone?" Asks Roxas,
"Um well, He attacked me when he saw me. I flew away and when I turned around I saw him fly to some ruins!" Exclaims the parrot.
"Guess that's our lead." Says Roxas.
"Is it a good idea though? He could be waiting for us to show up." Says Xion,
"We don't have much of a choice though . . ." Says Aladdin, The group exits the peddler's shop. They make their way through the Bazaar when Roxas and Xion feel intense pain in their skulls, and they collapse. The two open their eyes and get back on their feet.
"What the- why are we at Twilight Town?" Asks Roxas. The two keyblade wielders stand outside the closed gates to the abandoned manor.
"Wait, is this-!?" But before Xion explains, The cloaked figure emerges from the woods.
The two turn to look at a man in a black coat approaching them. Xion's eyes widen as the figure approaches.
"No. . . you're not real. . . YOU'RE NOT REAL!" Xion shouts as she steps back and clutches her head.
"Xion!?" Roxas turns to his significant other with concern. Xion falls to her knees as she clutches her skull. Roxas looks back at the cloaked figure. Roxas takes a step to the side and stands in front of Xion, using himself as a barrier between her and the mysterious figure. "Who are you!? What are you doing to her!?" Roxas yells, his voice filled with fury, and his eyes burn intensely as he stares at the figure. The figure laughs and removes his hood, revealing his dull blonde hair and bright green eyes. Roxas recognizes him well, the figure in front of Roxas is number IV of the Organization, Vexen.
Vexen summons a large blue shield and jumps back. He waves his hand and a large circle appears below Roxas. Strange patterns of ones and zeroes swirl around him as a nobody symbol appears in the center of the circle. Roxas jumps away from the circle, leaving Xion vulnerable. Vexen laughs as he casts an incredibly powerful blizzard spell. Intense wind and snow swirl around the arena, freezing the two in place. Data circles appear below Roxas, while Vexen continues to approach the distressed Xion.
"Xion!" Roxas shouts. He casts the strongest fire spell and can and breaks the ice, before dashing and striking his cracked keyblade, known as Fallen Kingdom, at Vexen, who manages to block the attack with his large blue shield, before jumping back and summoning two large snowflakes that spin around rapidly like buzzsaws. Roxas managed to block the two whirling flakes, but he had neglected to protect Xion, who was knocked back into a wall. Roxas looks at her, before turning his anger to Vexen. He slashed repeatedly at Vexen's shield, Vexen stood his ground, but eventually, the shield shattered into many pieces, like an icicle falling on the pavement.
Roxas attacked Vexen with incredible force, using his anger and hate to fuel him as he slashed away at the one that causes Xion so much pain. Roxas was so focused on destroying Vexen in fact, that he had neglected to look below him, at the data circle that had been collecting his data for the past couple of seconds. Suddenly darkness swirled from the data circle, and Roxas was launched back. He looks at where he once stood to see a dark replica of him standing there instead. The anti-copy attacked Roxas who managed to block its attack and launch it back, Vexen re-summoned his shield and threw whirling blades at Roxas as the anti-copy attacked him. He blocked the anti-copy's attack, but this left him vulnerable to the snow-blades, which knocked him away to the opposite end of the Arena from Xion. The anti-copy turns to attack him when he's stopped by Vexen.
"Leave him! Get my replica!" Commands Vexen as he points to Xion. The anti-copy turns and charges at Xion. Roxas quickly gets up from the ground and stabs his data copy through the chest, before throwing it at Vexen. He uses himself as a barrier as the two foes stand back up.
"I won't let you hurt her anymore!" Yells Roxas. The two gemstones on his necklace turn dark as darkness swirls around Roxas. Roxas's skin turns dark and his eyes glow yellow as his pupils disappear. Roxas's Rage consumes him as he willingly enters Anti Form. He charges at the data replica of himself and shreds through it with nothing but his bare hands, tearing out chunks of darkness from the copy's body, until it disappears into a cloud of smoke. Roxas turns his attention to Vexen and thrashes wildly as he attacks the organization member. He runs circles around Vexen and claws at him when his shield isn't blocking him. Eventually, Vexen's shield breaks once again, and Roxas claws and scratches at Vexen, Vexen writhes in pain from all the darkness, but Roxas keeps going, beating him senseless, well after he's knocked unconscious, and he doesn't stop until Vexen completely disintegrates, not a black speck of dust in sight.
Anti-Roxas turns to Xion and charges at her when he suddenly stops, resisting the dark instinct to kill everything in front of him. Xion looks to see the dark being reach out to her. Roxas trembles, barely able to move as he struggles to stop himself from harming his beloved. Xion, with tears still running from her eyes, Reaches out to Roxas and grabs his hand. Roxas stops struggling as the amount of dark vapor releasing from him increases. His skin and clothes go back to normal, as the yellow glow in his eyes disappears. He falls to his knees before looking into Xion's eyes. Xion breaths rapidly as she looks around for Vexen
"Where is- where is-!?" She breathes even faster as she clutches her head. Roxas quickly kisses her on her forehead before embracing her tightly.
"It's okay, it's okay. He's gone." Roxas says calmly.
"But I- He created- I'm just a-" Xion cries, unable to finish anything she tries to say.
"No, Xion. It doesn't matter what you were. You're who you say you are. How we're created, what we're intended for doesn't define us, it doesn't define you." Says Roxas. He runs his fingers through her hair, Her breathing stops for a moment before she begins to breathe slowly, and her tears begin to fall slower. "You don't have to struggle on your own anymore. You have me, and I have you. We help each other, not just because we're friends, but because we're more than that." Roxas says as he lets her go so he can look her in the eyes. "We can forge our own paths now, together. We're not constrained to who we used to be. So let's forge a path together, okay?" Xion manages to smile, even while tears still run down her face.
"Thanks, Roxas. I needed that." Xion says, leaning closer to give Roxas a kiss on the cheek before hugging him tightly. For a moment, everything is fine. Suddenly though, everything is not fine, as the two experience intense pain in their skulls, and collapse. They open their eyes to find themselves face down on the desert floor of Agrabah.
"Woah! Are You two okay?" Aladdin rushes to their side.
"Y-yeah. Just tripping over each other" Xion says, as she gets up and wipes the sand off of her clothes and legs.
"Anyway, where are we off to?" Asks Roxas.
"You forgot already!? To the ruins! Over there!" Iago faces the direction the ruins are in and flies off. The rest of the gang follows closely behind.
They make their way to the vast ruins. They look around from the cliff's edge but see nothing.
"Now what do we do?" asks Aladdin.
"We're too high up to jump down. . ." Xion states, ruling out the possibility of jumping. Suddenly though, the answer appears before them. The magic flying carpet flies onto the scene, and falls to the ground, inviting them to climb on. The group gets on as best as they can, and take off. They don't fly for too long before they run into a water-like apparition that resembles a human Jafar. The apparition quickly flies off, and the group chases after it. The Jafar apparition waves its hands in the air, summoning dark clouds from which heartless emerge. Aladdin focuses on steering the flying carpet while Roxas and Xion take out the heartless. They follow the Jafar Apparition to a large red tower surrounded by sandfalls. The apparition disappears in a cloud of smoke as it approaches an entrance.
"I guess we'll have to go in." Says Roxas. The group steps off the carpet and into the ruined chamber. They climb the spiral stairs and into a large open room, expecting a fight, but they find nothing.
"Iago, are you sure this is the right place?" asks Aladdin. The parrot flies slowly to a collapsed pillar on the side of the room, he looks to the ground and trembles a bit.
"Iago?" Roxas asks. Iago finally turns around in a panic.
"Ya gotta understand. It wasn't my idea!" shouts the bird nervously.
"Iago, what are you saying?" asks Aladdin
"It was Jafar. He made me bring you here." The parrot exclaims. "You don't know him like I do! He- he can be very convincing!" The bird said. Xion looked down at the bird, his panic state was all too familiar to her at this point. "He said if I didn't cooperate, he was gonna-" Aladdin takes a step forward towards the parrot, but before he can do anything, Xion quickly walks to the parrot and crouches to be on his level, before petting the top of his head. "What are you-?" The parrot is confused at such kindness, especially after his betrayal.
"It's okay, it's okay. . ." Xion says, thinking back on events not too long ago. "He doesn't control you anymore, You don't have to do what he says. . ." Xion says soothingly. Aladdin looks confused at Xion, and is about to speak, but sees a piercing glare coming from Roxas, and chooses not to. "I know how it feels better than anyone to let the past control you. I know it's hard to break old habits, but I know you can do it, that WE can do it." Xion says confidently. The parrot looks at Xion, and then everyone else. "Do you think you can tell me what Jafar is doing right now?" Xion asks as she takes her finger off the bird's head. The bird thinks for a second before shooting straight in the air in a panic
"He's attacking the palace! Right now!" Iago exclaims.
"Quick! We have to hurry!" Aladdin shouts. The group sprints down the stairs and hops onto the flying carpet, they quickly fly off and make a B-line to the city of Agrabah They run to the palace entrance, to find Jasmine in chains, and in front of her is a familiar figure.
"You're precious Aladdin should be whispering your name with his last breath right about now. . ." Jafar says, cocky as ever.
"What was that you were saying, Jafar?" Aladdin shouts. Jafar turns to see the large group in front of him, his eyes burn with rage as he looks upon Iago.
"You dare defy me! You useless bird!" At first, he aims at the parrot, before smirking and changing to a random target before firing a red laser from his staff. That target happened to be Xion. Iago quickly dashes in front of Xion, taking the laser at full force before falling to the ground.
"Iago!" The group shouts, but Jafar quickly interjects
"You'll all be by his side very soon!" exclaims Jafar, as he's consumed by dark red clouds. Suddenly he grows many times larger than he was before, even larger than Ursula after usurping King Triton! He was even larger than the great palace. He took on the form of a red muscular genie, with glowing yellow eyes. He quickly grabs a tower from the palace and throws it at the heroes below. They brace themselves for the oncoming pain, but the flying carpet quickly swoops in and gets everyone away from the crash zone.
"We'll need way more room on here if we want to fight Jafar." Says Aladdin. He looks around and steers the carpet to be closer to the edge of the city, he grabs Abu and Iago, before hopping off. "You two can take care of this. Right?" asks Aladdin. The two keyblade wielders nod. "Alright. Then you take him out! I'll try helping everyone I can in the city." Aladdin says, before running back into the city, leaving Abu with Iago, while Roxas and Xion fly off towards the powerful genie.
Jafar uses powerful magic to grab to palace towers, almost telekinetically, and throw them at Roxas and Xion. the flying carpet manages to steer itself out of the way, allowing the two keyblade wielders to focus on the threat at large. The two slash at the genie's body to little effect, the genie swipes at them, but Xion instinctively casts a reflect spell, blocking the attack and reflecting the kinetic force back at the genie. Jafar shows visible signs of pain and the two take advantage of this.
Xion casts multiple thunder spells while Roxas gets in close to slash at Jafar's face, wounding him. Jafar recovers quickly and swats them away. They're sent flying but the magic carpet flies faster and catches both of them. Jafar waves his arms around and explosive fire appears out of nowhere. The magic carpet weaves around trying to not set itself on fire, while also focusing on trying to reach the powerful genie. They get right up to the genie's face as an explosion goes off right next to them. Xion again reflects the attack and stuns the powerful genie. They once again take advantage of the distracted genie and attack them with everything they have. Jafar swipes them away but they wave around his fingers and make long slashes across his face. The genie groans in pain and puts one of his hands on his face, he attempts to swipe with the other but Xion casts the strongest magnet spell she's ever cast and is able to stop the hand from moving entirely.
The two hack and slash at the genie, causing him great amounts of pain. The magnet spell eventually wears off and Jafar enshrouds the area in swirling darkness. A large amount of rubble flies into the air and is thrown with great speed at Roxas and Xion. The two envelopes themselves in a red and yellow aura, drawing their keyblades, Oblivion, Oathkeeper, Missing ache, and Pain of Solitude the two keyblade wielders slash through all the rubble before using their combined strength to launch back a piece of rubble at Jafar, stunning him and removing all the swirling darkness.
Finally, The two keyblade wielders slash at his face in an X formation before stabbing him in his eyes. He shrieks as he puts his hands to his face. The two put their four keyblades together and call upon a massive thunder strike, finishing off Jafar once and for all. The genie writhes in pain as red sparks fly off him.
"No. . . How can I BE defeated again, by a pack of filthy street rats?"
"Mess with a rat, deal with the whole infestation," Xion remarks as the two fly off away from the genie. He's engulfed in vast amounts of energy as he shrinks, before exploding into vast amounts of red sparkling dust, that slowly fall to the ground before disappearing entirely.
Roxas and Xion land on the ground next to Jasmine, just as Aladdin comes running to the palace, revert to their regular forms and pull out their keyblades, they aim them at the princess's shackles and free her from imprisonment. As Aladdin arrives, so does a familiar blue figure.
"You guys went mano a mano with Jafar, and you didn't invite me?" The genie asks
"Sorry, genie. Things happened kinda fast." Aladdin explained
"Aw, and I had some new moves I wanted to show off too." Says the genie.
"Wait! We still need your help!" Says Xion.
"Yeah, who's gonna fix Agrabah?" asks Roxas. The genie looks around at the destroyed environment.
"Oh yeah!" Genie shouts. He flies into the air with excitement. "One super-duper spruced-up Agrabah comin' right up!" large swirls of pink light goes around Agrabah, and in a flash, the city is as good as new.
"And, voila~. Next time let me put in a few swimming pools, ay' Al?" The genie says before disappearing to do whatever he does when he's not around.
"I guess Agrabah's alright now." Says Xion
"Yes, all thanks to you," Jasmine says with a smile. She looks around before asking something. "By the way, Wasn't Iago supposed to go take you to the ruins to stop Jafar? How did he get here?" Asks Jasmine.
"Well. . ." Roxas is about to explain what really happened when Aladdin interrupted.
"Jafar tricked him into taking all of us there so that he could swoop right in and attack Agrabah." Aladdin lies.
"I'm not surprised. Jafar is cunning. Well, I'm glad you all came back in time to stop him" Jasmine replies. "Well, I should get going. I don't know what else Jafar has done while you all were gone." Says the princess, before walking off to check on her people. Once she's out of sight, The two keyblade wielders inquire as to why Aladdin lied.
"I just kind of felt bad for the little guy. Plus he did take a laser for you. So I can't exactly stay mad at him for long." Aladdin explains. "But that was a one-time thing! Once you two leave, I'll make sure he's on his best behavior." Everyone laughs before Aladdin heads off to join Jasmine. With Roxas and Xion alone once more, they intertwine their hands and raise their keyblades to the sky, before disappearing in a flash of light.
The two reappear in the gummi ship and see Namine drawing away on her sketchbook, each stroke made with confidence and without mistake. She stops drawing upon noticing their return, before smiling and waving.
"Hey, you two? Are you guys okay?" Asks Namine.
"Yeah. Jafar barely put up a fight." Roxas remarked.
"That's great and all but I was referring to the. . . other thing." Namine didn't want to spell it out for them, not knowing if Xion had fully recovered from her mental breakdown just yet.
"Don't worry Namine. I'm fine now." Xion says, she squeezes Roxas's hand for a moment, and he returns the action.
"What about you? You haven't said anything at all while we were gone." Roxas notes.
"You two looked like you had things under control, so I chose not to interrupt," Namine explains. She quickly turns to the terminal. "Roxas, do you have another torn page? I was thinking of visiting Winnie the pooh again." Says Namine.
"Oh uh- yeah," Roxas says, as he pulls a torn page he found from out of his pocket. He's taken aback by her straightforwardness. She doesn't seem to be entertaining any idle chit-chat. Which is fine, but not usually how Namine does things.
"Alright then. Take your seats! To Hollow Bastion we go!" Namine says, preparing for blast off. The two keyblade wielders take their seats as the ship accelerates to high speed. While waiting, Namine pulls out her sketchbook and continues to draw that one sketch she's been working on for so long. The picture shows a multitude of Shadowy creatures surrounding three Roxas, with his Fallen Kingdom Keyblade, Xion with her Kingdom Key, and Namine, with her own golden keyblade.