THIRTY-SIX: ATLANTIS(3)
The bridge collapse had left the expedition team scattered and hurt, while Roarke was assessing the damages and who was still alive, Namine woke up with a chunk of rock stuck over her body.
She tried to move it, but she couldn't and to make matters worse, she felt a sharp pain in her side.
Breathing heavily, she was about to scream when a hand was moved over her mouth. Turning her head, she saw a person wearing a mask before her.
That person quickly removed the chunk of rubble stuck over her and picked her up. "Where are you taking me?" she asked in confusion.
No response came as she was carried off. "Hey wait! Where are you going?!" Milo called out as he chased another masked individual, who had seemed to have also grouped up with the one that held Namine. "What are you doing with her?!" he asked while he continued to run after them.
Roxas heard Milo's yelling and decided to follow after him.
"Who are you?!" Milo called out from the edge of a cliff as Roxas, followed by the only remaining drilling rig emerged through a wall.
Everyone came to a halt when they saw it… The massive cascading waterfalls and the island that floated seemingly over an endless void.
"Is that-" Roxas was cut off by Helga speaking up.
"Atlantis…" She walked towards the cliff edge.
"Milo, you really came through for us." Sweet patted him on the back, but their peace was interrupted by the sudden arrival of several masked people all armed with curved spears.
Roxas immediately summoned his keyblades as Roarke reached for his weapon.
"Holy cats- Who are these guys?!" he demanded to know.
"T-They gotta be Atlanteans!" Milo took a step forward.
"Well whoever they are, someone better start talking before I start fighting." Roxas glared forward with his keyblades at the ready.
Milo took a step forward. "Where'd you take his friend?" They didn't respond to that. "Oh right." he spoke up in Atlantean.
"They took Namine?!" Roxas grit his teeth now before Milo placed himself between them and they began conversing with each other.
Soon the tone of the conversation changed and the woman he was talking to removed her mask along with the other Atlanteans who approached the group with a more amicable attitude.
"Where'd you take Namine?" Roxas asked.
"Two of my people brought her into our city to be healed of her injuries." the woman Milo was speaking to assured him.
Roarke took a step forward now. "We are explorers from the surface world. We come in peace." he declared.
The woman smiled. "Welcome, to the city of Atlantis!" she gestured towards the suspended city in the distance.
"Come, we must speak with the King." she took Milo's hand, leading him along.
As most of the group began following the Atlanteans, Helga pulled Roarke aside. "Commander, there weren't supposed to be people down here. This changes everything."
"This changes nothing." he assured her. "In fact, I'll send most of our men back to put together what they can so we can make our leave when the time comes."
As the two began to approach a truck, Mog quietly floated off ahead to catch up with the others.
The sound of Atlantis's distant cascading waterfalls, as well as the waves crashing against the beach were the sound that awoke Axel who sat up and looked around frantically, confused.
As he scanned around, one thing he wasn't expecting to immediately see was one of Subject X's Fencer nobodies, floating idly towards the foliage. "W-What?" he grunted while rubbing his head as a familiar face stepped onto the beach. "X…" he pulled himself to his feet now.
"Lea…" she looked him in the eyes as she caressed the head of her Fencer while approaching him. "You shouldn't have been so reckless back there."
Rolling his eyes, Axel groaned. "Well I'm sorry, Mom." he joked.
She was fighting it, but Axel could clearly see a smile forming on her face. "Heh, need to purge yourself again?"
"Whether I need to right now is irrelevant to the current mission I've been tasked with." she crossed her arms.
"Why'd you save me?"
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Because we're still friends, aren't we?"
"So you do care about me, after all." Axel chuckled.
"Listen, Lea. I saved you once as a courtesy, don't expect me to show you this kindness again." X warned him.
The redhead grunted. "I won't." he looked around at where they were. "So some kind of underground world, huh?"
"A civilization lost to time." she stated. "Of course, securing the pure heart in this world isn't my job this time. Which is why I had the extra time to rescue you back there."
This confused Axel. "So there's a pure heart here and that isn't your job?"
"No." X took a deep breath. "I've been tasked with eliminating Xion."
This immediately ticked Axel off as he summoned his keyblade. "And you think I'm just gonna let you do that?!"
"I'm only giving you this one warning, Lea." she looked him in the eyes. "Stay out of my way."
"Like hell I will!" Axel ran up to her and grabbed her shoulder now. "I came out all this way looking for you, to bring you home and to help restore your memory, and you want to just go and hurt another one of my friends?! This has to stop, X. This whole organization thing. I don't care what you, Xigbar, and whoever else you're working for wants, I just want you to come home with me, so we can finally live our lives for ourselves, and not for this damned organization!"
Her hardened gaze faltered a little at that. "Lea… I-" the eyes on her fencer nobodies flickered red for a moment when she was about to continue and her gaze quickly returned back to how it was. "I have a job to do." she stated coldly, her hands were balled up into fists. "Please, stay out of my way. I don't want to hurt you." With that, she quickly pulled herself away from him and ran into the jungle.
"X! Wait!" He ran after her through the jungle.
As she ran, she created obstacles to try and slow Axel down, glass platforms Axel stepped on would shoot upwards, and glass shards would fall his way when he got closer to her as they started to near a temple.
"Please! I just want to help you!" he insisted while vaulting over a pillar as she held her hand forward and created a glass staircase that she began running up, Axel could only follow her from below.
"You can't do anything!" she yelled out at him while turning around at one point and pointing her hand at him, launching a shard of glass his way that he barely caught with the teeth of flame liberator.
"X!" Axel threw a chakram back at her that shattered the next glass platform she had created to run from him, causing her to fall.
She hit a loose brick in the wall and slammed into the ground hard as Axel ran to reach her, only for her Fencer nobody to jump out in front of him.
"Out of my way!" he yelled as the Fencer launched glass feathers at him that he did his best to dodge and deflect, but their detonation launched him back further as X sat herself up on the ground, glaring at him.
"I am loyal to Organization XIII, first and foremost." she declared as Axel dodged a heavy swing from the Fencer's blade arm while countering with a slash across its chest that made it fumble back.
"I don't care who you say you're loyal to! You're my friend, first and foremost and I won't let you hurt my other friends because of some orders!" Axel argued back at her, ducking and weaving from stabs aimed his way.
"Believe me, being the person stuck with the icky jobs isn't good for your conscience. Sure you might not truly have one yet, but it isn't pleasant to think about how many people you've hurt once you inevitably do get your heart back. All that does is fill you with guilt and the desire to atone for past mistakes!" The Fencer now attempted to cut Axel with one of its wings, only to have that wing severed by him.
"That something you get memorized, Lea?" she asked in an almost mocking tone as the Fencer punched him in the face, making him back away again.
"Your damned right it is!" He transformed his keyblade into chakrams and held them out. "As your friend, I feel like it's my job to prevent you from making the exact same mistakes I did when working for the organization!" The Fencer spread its wing wide and all of its feathers pointed in Axel's direction.
Looking behind it, Axel could see it was X giving it this command with her hand pointed forward, likely to launch its entire ammunition supply right at him.
"You're not my keeper Lea, you never were." She looked him in the eyes as the feathers began flying and Axel hurled a chakram that circled around him while he ran forward with the other. "As far as Xemnas told me, you were nothing more than a footnote in my story! Empty promises of breaking me out, day and day again! At least Isa told me to temper my expectations! A-And at least he… He made more of an effort to save me than you did when you met them."
Axel let out another yell as his held chakram became engulfed in flames and he sliced through the Fencer's body, destroying it and catching his orbiting chakram with a heavy breath. "So that's what this is about… Them."
"When Xemnas told me that you replaced me and Isa with Roxas and Xion, I didn't want to believe them, but he showed me. He showed me the truth, that you gave up on me!" X stomped her foot down as Axel dropped his chakrams to the ground.
Before she could even react, he hugged her.
"I didn't want to give up on you, X. But the deeper I got involved with the organization, the more I realized… I couldn't… I wouldn't let myself become as corrupted as Isa had let himself be. He let himself get too close with Xemnas in the hopes that he'd get to meet you again. He compromised his integrity as a person."
X shoved herself away from him. "And what? So you'd rather give up on me then?!"
"No, I wanted to save you, but I didn't want to lose myself in the process… Hell, even Isa realized where he was wrong once he had been brought back into the fold and he's still trying to right his wrongs." Axel stood with his guard lowered now. "I wanted to believe that with Roxas and Xion at my side, we'd be able to bring you back home together. But looking at it now, I realized this whole adventure turned into a me thing… Now all I've done is just put everyone in danger."
X conjured a dark corridor. "Lea…" she stepped towards it. "You're a damn fool."
"I know," he conceded, watching as she entered through the portal and it closed behind her, leaving him standing in the Atlantean ruins by himself.
The massive stone doors into the King's throne room swung open as the woman who introduced herself as Princess Kida led Roxas, Roarke, Milo, Mog, and Helga into the throne room.
Roxas, Milo and Mog were quick to be polite and bow before the king, Roarke and Helga didn't move from where they stood as the King and Kida began arguing.
"Your majesty…" Roarke bowed and began to approach the throne. "On behalf of my crew, may I say, it is an honor to be welcomed into your city."
"Um, excuse me, commander." Milo cringed a bit as Roarke kept walking towards the King.
"You presume much, to think that your kind is welcome here." The King stated. "Especially not when you've brought the accursed Keyblade into my palace."
"The keyblade?" Roxas asked, standing up. "How do you know about that?"
"Sir, with all due respect, we've come a long way looking for-" Roarke was cut off by the king.
"We know what you have come here looking for, and you will not find it here," King Nedakh stated. "Your journey has been in vain."
Roxas grit his teeth. "What about my friend?! Where's Namine?!" he demanded to know.
"Once she is fully healed, she will be returned to you and you may leave." the king assured him. "As for the other keybearer you likely seek here…"
"We're peaceful explorers! Men of science!" Roarke tried to reason with the King.
"Yet you bring weapons into my throne room."
Roarke's eyes glanced around the room while he tried to think up a rebuttal. "Our weapons allow us to remove obstacles we may encounter."
The King leaned back on his throne. "Some obstacles can't be removed with a simple show of force. Return to your people, you must leave Atlantis at once."
He stood up now and glared down in Roxas's direction. "As for you, keybearer. You are permitted to locate the other troubling Keybearer who wanders my city, bringing destruction with her. But once she is located, you must both leave as well."
"Understood your majesty." Roxas bowed his head. "That's the only reason I came down this far. That and to protect the pure heart of your world."
"This world's pure heart is well protected as long as they remain within the gate's of my city." King Nedakh assured him.
The King's mission for Roxas was just the excuse Roarke was looking for. "Your majesty! We can help you out! With my resources we can help Roxas here locate this other keybearer."
"Very well, you are permitted one night's stay to search the city for this keybearer, whether you succeed or fail, you will leave my city no later than tomorrow." The King decreed, dismissing everyone from his throne room, Milo turned and looked to Kida who frowned regretfully at her father's sudden decision.
"She is here…" Roxas crossed his arms in thought.
"This other keybearer the King mentioned." Roarke stopped him. "They're like you, right?"
"Yeah, I suspect it's my friend Xion who's been keeping a distance from me on purpose."
"So the King and his daughter don't exactly see eye to eye…" Milo explained. "The princess likes us just fine, but the King? He's clearly hiding something… And he especially didn't like Roxas."
"Oof." Audrey grunted while walking over. "What, he don't like your pretty face or somethin'?"
"He doesn't like my weapon and the trouble it brings." Roxas sighed. "I'm beginning to agree with him in that regard." he started walking ahead.
"Where are you going, Roxas?" Roarke asked.
"Commander, I need to check up on Namine, make sure she's okay before I start my search." Roxas explained before a hand was put over his shoulder.
"We don't have a lot of time for dilly-dallying kid. We should start now." Roarke insisted. "As for the King, we should find out what he's hiding."
"If only we had someone who spoke the language here who could help us." Helga smirked while staring in Milo's direction.
"Go get 'em Tiger." Audrey playfully elbowed the speechless Milo.
As everyone split up, Mog decided to go off in his own direction. "Gotta find Namine… Gotta find her and tell her that the commander-'' a hand over Mog's mouth silenced him.
"I don't think you got anything that needs to be said, Kupo." Xigbar remarked as he emerged from the corner Mog turned away from.
Commentary: And first contact has been made with Atlantis. A more interesting point I wanted to introduce in this story was the Atlantean King being familiar with the keyblade since it seems weird that King Triton was familiar with the keyblade as well and I figured it'd tie into the KH aspect of the lore a lot more.
To really no one's surprise, Axel is alive and well thanks to X pulling him out of his ship at the last minute via dark corridor.
Mog is also very well aware of what Roarke's up to but it doesn't seem like he'll get the chance to warn Namine about it.
