Sorry if Lexaeus is a little OOC. I haven't played COM yet.

Wow. I didn't know that the rock line would be so popular. And yes, Demyx has been chased by a lynching mob. Well, now he has. Or will. Why lynching? I live in Georgia. We did lynching, not shooting.

As always, point-outs on gramer/ missing words/ homophones/ mispells is greatly appreciated! I can't think right now, but thank you to whom ever it was that pointed out some stuff from the last chapter. I think. Might be getting my fics mixed up.

The Olympus Coliseum. The gathering place of all the toughest warriors of the worlds. Strength and endurance were tested in trying competitions called cups, and the champion was a awarded a trophy to gloriously brood over for a whole year. A place of heroes.

So what the hell was Lexaeus doing here?

True, his title in the Organization had been the "Silent Hero", but he was pretty sure that wasn't what had dragged his undead ass out of eternal darkness. It certainly hadn't signed him up to compete in the Hercules cup. He didn't even know what a Hercules was! And here he was, chopping his way though a supposed semi-final and wondering if this was Hell or not. If it was, it was a poor one.

His thoughts were cut short as the last opponent limped off the arena, leaving him standing in the center of the ring with his huge tomahawk on his shoulder. The crowd began cheering wildly as the next fighter stepped up, and Lexaeus could tell he was the favorite. The hero was very muscular, with short orange hair and appeared to be wearing a…dress? Lexaeus adjusted his grip on the tomahawk as the invisible barrier went up around the ring that kept the fighters in and the bystanders out.

At least he knew what a Hercules was now.

- - -

"See? I told you this would be gay!"

Demyx crossed his arms and glared at the sunlit world beyond the safe shade of the doorway. The only reason the harsh light wasn't on him was due to the convenient placement of a pair of huge stone statues on either side of the door. Behind Demyx and Zexion was a long staircase leading down into a purple cloud obscuring the Hell that they had just left. In front was a large courtyard-thing with lots of orange sand and eight burning braziers, four on each side. The opposite wall had yet another pair of huge-ass statues guarding another pair of doors. All in all, it was very heroic looking and very, very gay. At least in a Nobody's opinion.

Zexion sighed and stepped off the shadowed steps and into the hateful sunlight, pupil constricting painfully as the amount of light filtering through the blindfold was increased. The silver-haired man stopped and waited for his eyes to adjust. Behind him, he could hear Demyx curse as he was also temporarily blinded.

"Come on," Zexion muttered, heading for the opposite doors. Demyx muttered something and followed, trying not to get any of the bright orange sand in his boots. It was harder than you would have thought, as the sand seemed determined to invade the comfortably sweaty inside of his shoe with its horrible gritty texture, regardless that the top of the boot was just below his knee. Maybe there were holes in them. Anyway, once the sand got in, it would be almost impossible to get rid of without washing the boot out. While Demyx could do that easily, it wasn't any more fun to walk around in wet shoes than sandy ones. And water made shoes stink.

Demyx yelped as he ran into Zexion's back, the older Organization member having stopped without his notice. He fell on his butt and rendered his past endeavors useless, getting sand in not only his boots but also his pants. Great. Demyx looked up to find Zexion's back to him, the silver-haired man having paid no attention to him what so ever. Instead his attention was fixed on the double doors in front of them, and so Demyx figured that it would be a good idea to follow suit and also stare at the doors like he wanted them to spontaneously combust. Unfortunately only Axel could do that, so the doors sat innocently under the blonde's glare without even a hint of smoke. Oh well. That's what he got for controlling water anyway. But back to the door topic…

Now that he wasn't focused on preventing evil sand from entering his foot space, Demyx noticed the sound of what appeared to be a large crowd screaming. He had only ever heard a large group of people sound that way once, and that made him nervous. The image of a lynching mob, burning torches and various pointy implements in hand floated to the surface of his brain, and the musician made an odd strangled sound that sounded like a cross between a giggle and a choke. Zexion "looked" at him curiously.

"Zexy, they're not gonna come after us, are they? They're cheering for a match, right?" He swallowed nervously, getting up off the sandy floor of the Coliseum and ignoring the scowl he received from Zexion at the nickname.

"What makes you think the people in there will come after us?" the older Organization member asked. Demyx gave him a slightly sick look.

"Experience," he said cryptically. "We need to scram, now." Before he could be asked what he meant, the large wooden doors blew open. A figure cloaked in black tore out of the opening, barely avoiding being grabbed by the many hands that reached out fast the doorway. Their angry shouts could be heard clearly now, and Demyx paled a few shades. Nope, he hadn't been wrong at all. Zexion gave a start as he recognized the man in the black robe.

"Lexaeus!"

Lexaeus did an impressive 90-degree turn as Zexion hailed him, using his forward momentum to reach the two fellow Organization members. Demyx had already opened a portal through the darkness and was looking rather impatient to leave. Lexaeus couldn't blame him either.

"Lexaeus, what did you do?" Zexion asked. The brunette was taken off-guard for a moment by the blindfold Zexion wore, but shrugged it off as 'to be explained'.

"I sorta dismembered their greatest hero. Some guy named Hercules or something," Lexaeus admitted, scratching the back of his head sheepishly as Zexion palmed his face. Behind them the angry mob had began to discover that they all couldn't fit through the door at once and had backed off slightly, letting people through the previously jammed exit. Demyx pulled on the back of Zexion's cloak.

"C'mon, let's go. Now!" The blonde whined. Without any further words the three jumped into the portal and out of the Coliseum.

The mob, having finally moved all its participants outside, was now at a loss as for what to do. The guy they had been chasing was gone. One of the members, a guy named Bob, scratched the back of his head with his knife.

"So now what do we do?" He asked. Mob members looked at one another for an answer. They couldn't not do anything. They were a mob! Mobs had to torch and destroy and kill innocent furry animals! A member in the back spoke up. His name was Steve.

"Meaningless battle!"

The mob members looked at one another and nodded. That would work. With a chorused yell the people fell upon one another in a meaningless struggle for power. At this rate they'd get elevated to riot status in no time.

- - -

Radiant Garden. Formerly known as Hollow Bastion, it had once been ruled by Ansem the Wise and had been a place of prosper and beauty. That is, before Ansem had begun experimenting with the darkness in the human heart and had therefore almost single-handedly become responsible for all the bad shit involving the Heartless and Nobodies. He hadn't done it alone, though. In fact, he wouldn't have even continued his research if not for the urging of his six apprentices. Those six had later become the original six Nobodies.

Yuffie wasn't thinking about that. No, the only thoughts running through the ninja's brain was how the hell she was going to avoid Squall "it's Leon" Leonheart for the rest of the day.

Alright, so maybe throwing a smoke bomb at the gunblade wielder hadn't been the brightest idea she had ever experienced. It was sorta fun at the time, though. And he deserved it!

As a member of the Restoration Committee, Yuffie had a responsibility to the people of Radiant Garden. Meaning that she shirked that duty whenever possible. This particular morning she had woken up, glanced out the window, then abruptly decided that the world wasn't worth it today. Oddly enough, Squall hadn't liked that decision too well, and had come to Yuffie's house with the purpose of dragging her out of the building and forcing her to actually work for once. So was it really any wonder that the half-asleep ninja had reacted with a self-preservation instinct and had lobbed the smoke bomb she kept under her bed in case of such a threat? Squall should just be thankful she hadn't grabbed her Conformer off the wall and chopped his head off with it. Anyways, Squall hadn't taken to the attack very well and Yuffie had barely managed to slip out the window before he grabbed her. Luckily she always slept in a decent shirt and a pair of shorts in case of another event like the Heartless invasion or now if Squall tried to invade her privacy.

So now she was a fugitive. A wanted person in Radiant Garden. And what better place for a criminal to hide out than under the bed? The bed happened to be Merlin's, and it was his house she was hiding in. She wouldn't be found for a while, unless Cid decided to come in and eat his lunch there. The chances of that were highly unlikely and so Yuffie would be able to sleep the rest of the day away in peace. She snickered at her plan before sneezing violently. Hadn't Merlin ever heard of sweeping every now and then?

A loud, meaty thud literally made Yuffie jump and bang the back of her head on the underside of the bed. She let out a little yelp and curled into a semi-fetal position, both hand on the back of her head while she cursed fluently. If Cid could hear her, he would've died of a cigarette-swallowing-induced-heart attack. And if he survived that, he actually might've watched what he said around the ninja. Growling, Yuffie scrambled out of her hiding place and grabbed her Conformer, fully intent on beating the bloody pulp out of whatever had scared her.

Where the sound had come from was blocked from view by several stacks of book, making it impossible to see the culprit. No problem. With a loud war cry and a high leap, she closed the distance between her and the origination point. Near the peak of the jump she got a glimpse of her trouble maker, and the fierce expression on her face turned to one of pure shock. It stayed that way as it suddenly and violently met the rough wood paneling of the ceiling.

Yuffie hung that way for maybe one or two seconds, long enough for her face to leave a nice reminding mark. Then she fell to the floor, knocked out cold.

Actually, the written version for this chapter is up to 15 pages of notebook, or roughly 7 pages of HTML. And it's only around 2/3 of the way done. So I decided to split this chapter into two parts. And besides, this way I can stick to schedule: one member per chapter.

Thank you to all my reviewers! This fic received an amazing response, and that really helps.

In other news: Kenzie has gotten me hooked on a band called Panic! At The Disco. It's like the techno-alter-ego of Fall Out Boy. I've been listening all night to the only two songs I could download. Check it out!

Next chapter: Xemnas is found, but he's not quite the same…

Review, please! Yoroshiku!(which means until later)