Vagabond Hearts: True
Looking over my notes and overviews of the series, I've decided that, in addition to the usual denial of ownership of the Kingdom Hearts mythos or its characters, I should also point out that I don't own any of the Final Fantasy mythos (mythi?) or their characters.
Also, before you ask, yes: all these time-traveling remarks have a point, one that will be revealed fully later on in the greater story arc. Remember, this story is currently planned as a trilogy, and there may be more books after that. But it's the second one that involves Hex's trip into the past, as mentioned in my profile.
That said, enjoy chapter two of Vagabond Hearts: True.

Chapter Two:

There was nothing. Nothing but the darkness. All around him, Hex saw, heard, felt nothing but darkness. He knew he was falling, though he wasn't sure how he knew. He couldn't actually tell, and he didn't feel like he was falling. There was just a desperate, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, the only thing that assured him he himself was still there in the darkness. After a moment, or maybe an eternity, he realized that he was trying to scream. But there was no sound, and the darkness simply seemed to overtake him the more he tried. Finally, he gave up, he shut his mouth and eyes, ignored the feeling in the pit of his stomach, and Hex Nightwise let the darkness take him where it would.

********

Hex shot up with a jolt and a yell, taking a wild swing at the thing bent over him. He wouldn't go down, he wouldn't be devoured by some beast. He lashed out madly, hitting nothing but not stopping, not seeing his target but feeling it was there, until finally he tracked it down but its frightened protests. He hit straight on, and it let out a light, almost feminine yell.
He quit swinging for a moment, and realized that the reason he couldn't see his target wasn't because he was still lost in that darkness, but simply because his eyes were shut. He opened them and took a mad look around, until his eyes fell upon a pale, dark-haired girl not much younger then himself, nursing a reddened cheek.
"Oh! Oh, crap, I am so sorry!" Hex said hastily.
The girl didn't answer, she only shook her head. When she looked up at him, Hex saw that her tear-filled eyes were very unique: her left eye was blue, and her right eye was green. She only looked at him for a moment, still saying nothing, before rising and leaving the room.
Left alone, Hex took a minute to look around. The room was a bit foggy, or maybe steamy, judging by the pools of some strange liquid scattered haphazardly around the room. He couldn't tell what it was, exactly, his vision seemed to be blurring in and out. He realized that he himself was in a pool of the liquid, but it was comfortably warm, and he didn't want to move. It wasn't thick, or at least didn't feel thick, but its deep shade of green obscured his own submerged body from his vision. He remained in the pool for a few moments, until the girl returned with another young man.
"I'm glad to see you're awake, Hex," the young man said casually.
Startled that this stranger knew his name, Hex leapt out of the pool. He was suddenly very nervous about where he was, and who these people were. He stood there for a moment, trying to look threatening despite being naked and unarmed, while the young man and the girl he had hit simply stared at him. The fact that he was friggin' naked suddenly smashed its way into his thought processes, however, and his sudden lunge for the towel set next to his folded clothes made him look less like a trained warrior than a massive spaz.
He hastily tied the towel around his waist, while the girl suddenly realized she had been staring and looked down. Hex noticed she was blushing, and that didn't help, either. Completely and totally thrown, Hex finally gave up trying to take charge of the situation.
"Well," he said, "You know my name and you've seen me naked, so I guess my introductions are made. Mind telling me your name?"
"My name is Locke, Locke Cole," the young man answered. "This is Yuna." The girl looked up briefly, waved, and then looked back at the floor.
"Well, Locke, Yuna," Hex laughed briefly, "Very awkward to meet you."
"We've met," Locke said.
Hex looked at Locke for a moment, then said simply, "That explains why you know my name, I guess."
"Yeah, you told me," Locke nodded.
"You also told him you would hit me, and that you would be naked," Yuna suddenly added in a surprisingly clear voice. "But I forgot."
"Mm, sorry about that punch," Hex said. "Really." Hex then realized that he was actually having a conversation about having had a conversation with someone he had never met, and snapped back to his senses. "Wait, when did I tell you all this?"
"At the same time you told me to meet you here," Locke answered matter-of-factly. "Just before you and Crono skipped out on the end of Hollow Bastion. But, you were right, we made it out okay, and here we are, waiting for the next step in stopping the Heartless."
Hex had no response. He simply stared at Locke for a full minute, certain the grey-haired young man with the cocky grin and absurd head band was completely insane. Finally, Hex snapped his jaw shut and shook his head.
"So, at some point in the past, I told you to meet here to help me stop the Heartless?"
Locke nodded simply.
"Despite the fact that I've never met you," Hex continued, "and only just saw a Heartless for the first time?"
Locke nodded again. This time, however, he also added, "You haven't actually taken the trip into the past yet."
Again, Hex was struck speechless, standing there with his mouth open in a way he was dimly aware must look very comical. He finally managed to stutter the word, "Oh."
Locke laughed again. "You also told me that you wouldn't believe a word I was saying, and that you wouldn't really want to know the details yet."
"Well," Hex said, with a single shake of his head. "Seems I was right."
"But you do want to know where you are," Yuna chimed in. "And how you got here."
Hex nodded. "That I do."
"You are at the Mana Tree, and you yourself never quite understood how you got here," Locke answered.
"Not exactly the bundle of useful information, am I?" Hex shook his head. "I'm, um, gonna go ahead and get dressed, now."
Yuna looked up at Hex, and she was blushing again, but she didn't turn away until Hex had looked at her very pointedly for a moment. Finally, he said, "Not like I mind you seeing me naked, I just thought I'd warn you."
With that, Yuna turned around very abruptly and stared at the wall. Hex noticed, however, that a mirror showing his own reflection was on the wall to her left. Hex glanced at Locke, and Locke shrugged. Hex returned it and simply began dressing. She probably wasn't looking, anyway.
Hex clothes had been cleaned and mended very well. The grey undershirt he wore beneath his club shirt showed no sign of the wound that winged Heartless had dealt him. He pulled the shirt on first, and Locke politely looked away when Hex dropped his towel and put on his black jeans. He topped it all off with his black club shirt, decorated in electric green tribal designs. The designs were mostly simple borders forming lightning strikes, except for the hawk-like wings on the back. He strapped his armor on over that, heavy shoulder pads and bracers legs. Finally, he fastened his spellhands on.
"You can look now," he said to Yuna. "Although, since you know so much about me, I think it only fair that you tell me if you were looking." Yuna only looked at him silently for a moment, until Hex nodded towards the mirror. She then resumed her intent study of the floor.
"So, Locke," Hex said, stepping towards the pair. "I assume I told you why I was here, at least."
"Yeah," Locke said, still with that half-cocked grin. "To pick up your Keyblade and set out after those Elemental Hearts. Only way to end the threat of Chaos you accidentally created back on Hollow Bastion, I think is what you said."
Hex was struck dumb and speechless for only the third time in recent memory before finally stuttering the word, "Oh," again.

********

"I was right," Hex said to Locke and Yuna, stepping out of the hollow trunk of the Tree and into the sprawling village built in its branches.
"Right about what?" Yuna asked.
"I really don't want the details..." Hex finished. He looked around, all around him. There was an entire village built right here, nestled in multiple levels on three or four branches of the tree. Above, Hex could make out what seemed like a hundred more branches, so thick with leaves that he couldn't see the sky. A similar view obstructed the ground from sight.
The village itself was swarming with a number of strange creatures, two different species. The first group appeared to be a bunch of white teddy bears. They had large red bulbs hanging off their heads like ornaments, and noses to match. They had small, red wings, as well. The wings didn't appear to be strong enough to allow the creatures to fly, despite the fact that they couldn't have been more then a foot and a half tall, for the most part. However, Hex saw a number of them simply hovering around town, apparently without effort.
The second group was less remarkable, but Hex found them oddly endearing, being a cat person. These creatures were basically humanoid lions, roughly three feet tall.
As they walked through the village, Yuna and Locke explained that the white bear creatures were called moogles. The little lions were called moombas. Locke explained that the moombas were native to the Mana Tree, but the moogles had immigrated there. It seemed that moogles were one of very few races, besides humans, who were native to many Kingdoms. When Locke mentioned this, Hex was suddenly reminded of a race of creatures that Crystal had mentioned, creatures named "mogs" that had lived in Neon before humans had built the city. These moogles, however, had all traveled here from other Kingdoms, Kingdoms that had fallen to the Heartless.
Locke also explained that his own Kingdom had fallen to the Heartless, that it had possibly been the first Kingdom to fall some years before. Hex was a little wierded out by the story, however, since much of it involved him and his failed attempts to save the Bastion, attempts he had not yet made. But he hardly listened to Locke as he spoke, brooding over Crystal now that he had remembered her, wondering where she was.
Finally, the three arrived at their destination. Built far out on one of the large tree branches, the building didn't strike Hex as part of the village. The construction was different, seemed forced onto the tree where the rest of the buildings seemed very much a part of the tree as a whole.
"That is the Orphanage," Yuna explained. "It's where I'm staying."
"You're an orphan?" Hex asked.
"Yes, just like you," Yuna answered. Something about the way she answered, however, struck Hex as a little odd, like he had capitalized the word "orphan" when he said it.
"Are there many others?" Hex asked.
Locke's smile finally flickered for a moment, and when it returned, it was a bit sadder. "Too many others," Locke answered. "Often, when the Heartless take a Kingdom, they take all its people along with it. But there's something about the hearts of children..."
"Many of them survive the fall of their Kingdoms," Yuna interrupted. "We don't know how, but they seem to gather here, at the Mana Tree."
"And that's how you ended up here?" Hex asked her.
"More or less," Yuna said. "Though I didn't grow up where I was born. I have no idea what Kingdom I came from originally."
"Like me," Hex muttered.
"So Locke says," Yuna smiled. Hex looked at Locke, but Locke just shrugged.
"And who runs this place?" Hex asked Yuna. "You?"
"No, Terra's been caring for the children here since just before my sister and I arrived."
"She came here with me and the others, like you suggested," Locke added. At this point, Hex was getting used to being told he had done things he hadn't.
"So, what are we here for?" Hex asked them.
"Three of the orphans accidentally found the way into a secret chamber in the tree beneath the Orphanage," Locke answered. "They're going to show us where it is, since that's where you're going."

********

Inside the Orphanage, Hex was immediately set under siege. He really liked kids, and it seemed many of them had heard he was coming, so he got plenty of attention. Locke led him deeper into the Orphanage, which was larger then Hex had originally thought, though he decided that much of it must have been hidden by the foliage-sky all around the Tree. Finally, they came to the end of a wide hallway, and stepped into an office-like room.
"Oh, Hex, hello." The girl who spoke wasn't much older then Hex. She sat cross-legged on the desk, her green hair tied up into a ponytail, her skin glowing lightly purple beneath her red and green clothing.
"You must be Terra," Hex said, nodding a greeting.
"And this is my sister, Lulu," Yuna said, pointing towards a girl standing in the corner of the room. The girl wore a black, single piece dress. It was short, ending just above her knees, and had long sleeves that belled out at the openings. The dress had a high neck, and it had a decorative slit in the shape of a cross running from her neck to just below her belly button, and across her breasts. She wore high boots, and her hair was as black as her clothes. Her skin was paler then Yuna's, and her eyes were a deep shade of red, almost like Damon's. Hex didn't see any real physical resemblance between Lulu and Yuna, save that both had a very exotic beauty about them, and was about to say something about when Lulu spoke up.
"We aren't actually sisters," Lulu said in a calm, even voice. "We just grew up together, and we're from the same Kingdom, originally."
"I suppose you have a lot of questions," Terra said to Hex.
"More the a few, yeah," Hex smiled. "But they can wait, it seems we have more important things to worry about. And, judging by the number of kids here, we are running out of time."
Terra smiled serenely. "You said you'd say that." She looked over Hex's shoulder at the door. "Oh, Relm, did you find them?"
A young girl of maybe twelve walked into the room, followed by a three-foot-tall mechanical doll. The doll seemed to be modeled after the moogles, though it was larger and more bestial. On its head rode a black and white cat wearing a cape and crown.
The girl herself wore a red scarf wrapped around her head, and her overalls and waist sash were covered in paints of different colors. Paint brushes stuck out of her pocket, and she carried a large sketch pad on her back.
"Cait Sith and I couldn't find them," Relm said in an important tone. "But we did find Gau and Nanaki, and they said they knew where to find them, so they should be here soon."
"So you pawned off the responsibility," Lulu said.
Relm only smiled guiltily and left the room, Cait Sith in tow.
"Who are we waiting for?" Hex asked.
"Three new arrivals, our newest arrivals, actually," Terra said. "They are very spirited and adventurous -"
"Impulsive and independent, you mean," Lulu interrupted.
Terra looked annoyed as she answered. "Lulu, it is their spirit that brought them here, rather than allowing them to fall with their Kingdom. Just like you."
"But I don't have as much of a problem with authority as they do," Lulu returned.
"They are used to taking orders from Wakka," Yuna said. "And he is very responsible. You just have a crush on him, that's why you're harder on him."
Lulu looked at Yuna incredulously. "He is fully two years younger then us, Yuna, and -"
Terra cleared her throat pointedly, then, and all eyes turned towards the door. "Wakka," Terra said cheerfully. "Where are the others?"
"Waiting at the entrance already, Miss Terra," Wakka answered with an accent.
"Very well, will you take Hex there, then?"
"Of course," Wakka said, and turned. Hex followed after him, but turned back after a few steps. Locke and Yuna stayed in the office.
"Aren't you guys coming?" Hex asked. He didn't know them well, and he didn't know this place well, either. But they knew him, and he seemed to feel more comfortable when they were with him.
"No, this you do alone," Yuna said.
"Because -"
"I know, I know," Hex interrupted Locke's thought. "Because I said so."
Locke looked at Hex for a moment, and then smiled and nodded.
"Don't ya worry," Wakka said, thrusting a thumb at his chest. "Ain't nothing in the tunnel me an' my friends can't handle."
"I'm overwhelmed with faith," Hex said as they continued down the hallway. When Wakka wasn't looking, Hex began mouthing spells to himself.

********

Wakka walked quickly, despite the fact that he dribbled his oddly- shaped ball as he walked. Hex had asked about it, but when Wakka had launched into a detailed explanation of a game called "Blitzball," Hex had stopped him. Wakka was happy to oblige, and thrilled Hex with stories of encounters between his companions, himself, and the Heartless during the final days of his Kingdom, the Destiny Islands.
This, Hex was happier to listen to, and he found that he truly liked the kid's spirit. As they entered the basement of the Orphanage, however, Wakka's story took a more somber tone. "I just wish I knew what happened to Sora and the others," he finished sadly.
Hex offered assurance that "Sora and the others" were alright, and told Wakka of his own encounter with the Heartless. Wakka listened intently until they came to the end of a basement hallway, where two other kids were waiting.
Wakka introduced them as Selphie and Tidus. They stood over a series of broken planks, hastily fit back into the spots in the floor they had been torn from. Looking at the damage, Hex had to ask, "How, exactly, did you find this hidden chamber?"
"We were, uh, digging for treasure," Tidus answered sheepishly.
"Oh, promise you won't tell Auntie Terra?" Selphie asked, tugging at Hex's shirt.
"Of course, I promise I won't," Hex assured them.
Breathing a collective sigh of relief, the three children excitedly began removing the boards to reveal the opening beneath.
"Don't ya worry about a thing," Wakka said as Hex climbed into the hole.
"Yeah, we'll stop any Heartless who come this way," Tidus said.
Hex looked at the three. Tidus had only a wooden sword, and Selphie seemed armed only with a jump rope. Wakka had no weapon other then his Blitzball. But Hex smiled at each of them. It suddenly dawned on him that these kids were probably about the same age he had been when he had begun his own adventures as a Clan warrior. These three were certainly more childlike, perhaps more innocent, or even naive. But the fact that they could carry such hope in the face of the overwhelming threat of the Heartless gave rise to a surge of hope in Hex's own heart.
"I'm sure you will," he said, before releasing the edges of the hole and falling into darkness once again.