I can assure you that not all of my chapters will be as angst-y as the last…so don't kill me or anything if you didn't like it. Thank you for the reviews as well. I appreciate it.
I don't own Kingdom Hearts. If I did…then…I dunno…
Here's Chapter 4…Thanks for reading…
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Chapter 4 – Meeting
Roxas' eyes fluttered open. The room was still dark, as he had last seen it. Everyone but Sora had gone to sleep, and it was probably his turn to drive, since he was second best at it. Riku probably was the worse however.
Getting up and rubbing his sleep-deprived eyes and yawning, he trudged across the room to the door. On his way, his eyes moved over to where his brother and sisters were sleeping soundly.
A shiver ran up his spine, as if something was not right here, but he shook it off and left to the control room.
Sora was there, yawning loudly and piloting skillfully, even though he had not slept for several hours now. When he heard the flip-flap noises of Roxas' slippers, he turned around and grinned happily.
"So now YOU get to be burdened with this." Sora said pleasantly, getting off the chair and flourishing towards it. "Be my guest."
Roxas only frowned at him and began driving.
Sora smiled happily, but frowned abruptly. As Roxas began to become even more engrossed in driving, he headed towards the room where he had sent Axel to reflect on his thoughts for a while. Yes, even Sora could be serious sometimes.
Opening the door quietly, he found the room completely dark. He entered the door, which surprisingly did not slam close as soon as he let go of it. Instead, the shaft of light that came from the open door shone on the ground, revealing nothing more but the room.
"…Axel?" Sora questioned, now entering the room, his eyes adjusting to the darkness.
But when he came in, he only found the man asleep, sprawled out on the bed breathing quietly. A strange feeling ran through his mind, and he picked up the sheets that had been tossed off the bed. Placing them over Axel, he suddenly froze as a scorching hot pain ran through him.
Tripping over and falling to the floor, he lay there, moaning as the pain subsided, but continued nagging at him. He opened his eyes several minutes later.
The man he had fought at the castle, why was he remembering new things about him?
They had fought before. That was what his thoughts had told him. He had fought him. But he still wasn't sure why. It was something about Namine…
The pain had brought him memories somehow.
What was going on?
Behind him, Axel stirred. A flame trickled from his hand, raced down off the bed and shot towards Sora. Reacting, Sora saw the flame in time and jumped back, just to have the fire plunge foreword again. Slamming the door shut, hoping the flame wouldn't come out, Sora grabbed Roxas, who was the nearest to him. By the time he had gotten back from the control room to Axel's room, there was a huge scorch mark forming on the other side of the door.
"Uh…Roxas, why don't YOU try to do something?" Sora asked, bowing gracefully before sliding away.
"What!" Roxas squealed, but opened the door. A flame burst out at him like an angry lion, but was deflected in time by Sora's Keyblade.
"Axel! What are you doing in there?" Sora screamed as the fire began glowing even more. The entire room was rolling with flames, the embers trickling upwards to the roof of the room. Axel was surprisingly sleeping through the entire thing, not realizing that the fire was even there.
Several seconds later, Sora found himself flying through the air as Roxas returned with a fire extinguisher that seemed to have a mind of its own, and was squirting in different directions. Finally the fire was gone, and Axel's 'room', if that was what one could call it, was left drowning in white puffs of the fire extinguisher.
When Axel finally woke up, he got a good talking to from both boys, who looked extremely ticked. Axel, not remembering what had happened, stared only confusedly at them. Both began yelling even louder and furiously after that.
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"This isn't Disney Castle either…" Sora muttered as they flew past another planet rolling with vegetation.
Swearing loudly, Riku slammed a fist onto a table. "When are we getting there? We've been flying for two or three days now! When are we getting there?"
"Patience!" Sora said sage like. "Young grasshopper, you have yet to gain the art of…patience…"
Sora received a hit on the head, and began bawling angrily before nearly crashing into an asteroid.
"Fine. The next place we go to, we stop for a break." Sora finally obliged to Riku's intensely loud protests.
To their surprise, a planet appeared in sight in no time, and Sora steered closer. The 'planet' was covered in clouds and water. For a second, a flash of light illuminated in Riku and Sora's brains all the way in the back of their heads. Destiny Islands? The voice asked uncertainly, but were unheard by both boys.
As they got even closer, they plunged through the clouds and landed ungracefully…
…in the middle of the ocean…
"Oh GREAT Sora, just GREAT. Out of ALL the places you had to land us, we end up in the middle of the OCEAN!" Riku nearly exploded, trying to control his anger, but losing the fight.
To their mass relief, the Gummi Ship was suddenly carried by a wave and into a beach. To their disappointment, most of the door was blocked off by sand. But as Namine and Kairi went towards the windows, just coming out of bed after the 'crash', they noticed several people staring back up.
"Hey, there are people out there." Namine pointed out.
"Well, DUH, Captain Obvious." Kairi teased.
After several minutes of digging through sand, the six exited the ship to be greeted by many curious people.
Sora began drabbling about why they came, but Axel's eyes were only on the crowd. Well, in particular…one person in the crowd.
A small boy about Sora's current age was standing in the midst of the people, a look of distaste in his eyes. But what surprised Axel most was how familiar he looked…
Like Zexion…
The boy suddenly turned around and stalked off into the growth of the forest nearby, nobody really noticing him leave.
Bending over to Riku, he whispered: "Hey, don't get all over reactive or anything, but I need to go somewhere. I probably won't be back for a bit, but make sure Sora doesn't go crazy."
Riku only nodded, not really caring. Axel quietly moved around the crowd and into the growth where he had seen the mini Zexion vanish.
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Zexion's footprints were hard to trace. The boy had cleverly hidden his trail by getting rid of his tracks the best he could. But of course, Axel noticed where he had pushed plants aside and where branches had been broken and all. Traveling even deeper into the forest, the undergrowth grew thicker, blacking out the sun mostly. He finally reached a clearing, where he saw a tiny figure bent next to a tree. Walking quietly over, he suddenly snapped a branch, flinched, and suddenly found himself flying into the air the next second, ensnared in rope.
"What the…" he growled, getting up from his tangled prison.
Looking down, he saw the real Zexion enter the clearing and stare up at him carelessly.
"Well, what's this?" he muttered to himself before moving the fake Zexion, which turned out to be a dummy, away. "Looks like I finally caught something."
…This Zexion has a freak sense of entertainment… Axel thought, sweatdropping.
"Now…what to do, what to do…" the younger boy was now pacing back and forth, muttering quietly and inaudibly to himself. "It would have been better if I caught an animal though…"
What? He's comparing me to ANIMALS! Axel thought infuriated. And plus, how can a kid capture me?
Remembering something suddenly, he grinned and placed a hand to the rope. The rope began smoking until a hole burned through, and exploded through the whole net. Axel fell to the ground gracefully somehow, startling Zexion who turned around.
"You think you can – "
Axel's sentence was never finished, as Zexion suddenly threw a fist sized rock at him, hitting his head. No blood came out.
I must feel real unreal. Wonder why…
But nonetheless, the rock hurt, and he staggered over slightly. This gave Zexion the chance to do something twice as worse. Taking a piece of fruit from a tree, which happened to be tomato red, he threw it skillfully at Axel's face.
Not screaming, but growing even more furious by the second, Axel found wet dripping fruit bits all over his face. His face began turning red, in fact, as red as the fruit itself.
He felt blood trickle down his face.
Well now he was feeling the effects of the rock…how fun...
Zexion wasn't done though. In fact, he now began pelting fruits even more relentlessly, totally staining Axel's coat more than it needed. After all, it was already dirty from his swimming in the lake when he had first come. He found himself moving backwards quickly, until he finally found the boy right up in his face, suddenly pushing him with considerable force into a steel cage. Alright, where the heck did he get a steel cage? Axel thought confusedly.
"Ok, now that that's done with…" Zexion said suddenly, walking away from where Axel stood, infuriated at being beaten by a kid.
Of course, he still had tricks up his sleeve, didn't he?
"Geez…" Axel growled to himself. "Stupid kid…"
His chakrams formed without warning, and he found himself slashing through the steel bars with ease. This time Zexion was far from prepared. Axel was already down on him, knocking to the floor with one blow. A large bruise formed where he had been hit, but in that second Axel was pulling his weapon back, Zexion was up again, kicking him in the shins.
"Oh-" Axel shouted as the mini Zexion began punching him in the stomach.
Finally, he deflected a blow with his chakram, and slashed downwards at him. There was a gag, and Zexion fell to the floor, a wound down his arm, not fatal, but definitely a bad one.
"Zexion!" Axel suddenly blurted, and was down at the boy's side.
The boy only glared at him, tried to get up, but fell back down.
"How do you know my name?" he spat in disgust, holding his arm away from Axel, who had reached for it.
A thousand answers ran through his head. He could lie. He could tell him that a villager told him. He could tell the truth. He could have him think he was crazy though.
Then again, lots of people think I'm weird already… he thought, and turned towards Zexion, who was now wiping his wound off with his shirt.
"…Uh…I knew you in our last life…" Axel tried to explain, only to get a stare from Zexion. "Ok, yeah, I'm crazy. So what? I'm telling the truth!"
Zexion continued staring at him and suddenly got up, leaving.
Wait. Where's he going? I'm not letting a punk like him leave after damaging my pride and dignity! Axel thought, now enraged once more, his blood boiling. Or I could just prove to him my worth…yes, much more easy.
Swooping down on the smaller boy, he grabbed him and went flying through the air. Zexion wriggled and struggled in Axel's grip.
"Let go!" he hissed, and Axel obliged. At least, after swooping high up in the air and then dropping him.
Screaming in his fall, Zexion began to fall to the floor just to be caught again.
"You idiot! What do you think you're doing!" he growled, twisting around once more.
"Doing what you say." Axel laughed, and ducked under a tree branch, arriving at the beach before landing down on the sand.
Zexion brushed himself off, stared at the blood for a moment, and ignored it the best he could. They were on the other side of the island, and there probably was no nurse or something anyways. Pulling out a potion that he had nabbed off of a drawer, he looked at Zexion warily before approaching him.
Zexion flinched when he felt his cold fingers lock on to his left arm where he had gotten hurt, but he didn't struggle, seeing what it did to him last time. His fingers ran down the bloody wound, applying the liquid at the same time. A cool sensation ran down his arm, and he shivered.
Looking up, he saw Axel was not staring at him, but somewhere far off in the distance.
Zexion looked quietly down again. Axel looked down now at him.
"I know I might sound out of place, not knowing you currently and all…" Axel said thoughtfully. Zexion looked up, his lone eye staring back. "Do you remember that castle, with all the white, and the thirteen floors? Do you remember anything from the past about a boy named Sora? Or perhaps, even Riku? Do you remember me, or Roxas, or anyone else? Do you remember Kingdom Hearts?"
The words came out so fast, and Zexion only stared. White castle. Thirteen floors. Sora. Riku. Roxas. Kingdom Hearts-
A crimson slash erupted in his brain. He fell to the ground, screaming. Axel grabbed him and held a hand to his head unwillingly. The pain suddenly went away, and Axel found himself staring at his hand, which was glowing red.
Zexion was gasping quietly on the floor.
"Remember anything?" Axel asked curiously.
Zexion panted several times before replying.
"White…castle…thirteen…floors…Riku…and…Sora…Castle Oblivion." He replied. "I…I don't know…how I…know…this…but I just remembered…what was the last…word you said?"
"Kingdom Hearts?" Axel asked questioningly.
"Nope." Zexion looked away embarrassedly suddenly. "I guess…I shouldn't have overreacted when I saw all you people…" now looking at the waves lapping at the beach, he continued, "I mean, I have this strange fear for outsiders. I get a whiff of their scent, I smell all these strange things. I ask my parents if they smelled funny things, but they always said no. It's just that, I smell an outsider's scent, and I'm overwhelmed with thoughts. I smell hopes, desperations, battles, and desires. I don't understand why, but I'm the only one like that. I'm the only one weird."
Zexion stopped, but suddenly continued again. "That's the first time I've said so much."
But Axel had ignored him.
"But you're not alone." Axel replied. "I know there's more of us out there. To be precise, probably eleven more to be precise."
Zexion stared in confusion at him. Axel laughed.
"How did I get out of the nets? How did I get out of the cage? Did you ever wonder that?"
He held out his chakram, which he had kept out.
"And how did I get these weapons with me inside that cage?"
Zexion was now gaping at him.
"It's not magic. It's our souls. I'm sure in this world however, you aren't the Zexion I know." Axel ended abruptly before lifting Zexion up to his feet. The sun was now hovering over the ocean in a sunset.
"We better get going. Before anyone starts to worry."
Axel plucked Zexion up and jumped through the air, until he glided to the north side of the beach where the Gummi Ship had landed. However, there was nobody there, except for Riku who was sleeping near the Gummi Ship.
Placing Zexion to the ground, he walked towards Riku and snapped his fingers. Riku snored on. Axel kicked sand in his shoes. Riku snored even louder. Axel's patience was growing thin, so he finally stomped on his feet in a desperate attempt.
"Yagh!" Riku squawked, grabbing his foot in pain. "What was that for? Oh, it's just you Axel."
Axel saw Zexion, his brow furrowed, obviously trying to memorize the name.
"Everyone's gone to the village. It's not that far away, just a short walk across the beach. Well, I'm just staying and guarding, even if the door's locked. After all, I don't care for 'parties'." Riku yawned, stretching out and falling back to sleep.
"Then…should we go?" Axel asked, looking down at Zexion, who only nodded.
But before Axel left, Zexion already far ahead, he looked down at his hand, which was still pulsing red. What was this strange new instinct and power filling in him?
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Wow…I guess that's another chapter done…some more to go. Hope you enjoyed. Yes. I hope you enjoyed. I don't think I did too well on this chapter. I was in a kind of hurry. Sorry about that.