THIRTY-NINE: DISTORTED RECOLLECTION
The lake in the Heart of Atlantis Chamber might have truly been bottomless as the Crystalized Xion kept sinking further and further down.
What the possessed Kida had uttered to Roxas, the words weren't clear to her in the slightest due to the language barrier, but they sounded reassuring for some reason.
As she sank further into the depths, she felt her consciousness start to drift away from her crystalized body…
The sound of water was all she could hear as her eyes opened wide and she looked around. Where was she?! The walls around her were white and there were computer screens across from her in this room.
"Wait this is-" before Xion could complete her thought, the familiar form of Vexen stepped out from a nearby door with Subject X standing beside him.
"Our current progress on the first of our replicas, aptly named No. i." Vexen began to explain.
"No. i… The imaginary number." X crossed her arms.
"Yes. We gave her that designation due to what the Superior has in mind for her."
"I see…" X put her hand on the glass of the tank Xion was suspended in. "No i… You'll serve us well." she smiled. "She'll need a name when she joins our ranks, won't she?"
"Our superior is more than capable of coming up with that." Vexen reasoned.
"I'd like to pass a suggestion along, if possible." she looked at Xion, seemingly making eye-contact with her. "Xion."
Again, Xion would feel herself awake, this time in a slightly more familiar environment than before, sitting up in her bed, she looked around, and found herself to be inside of her room in the Castle That Never Was again.
"Was that all a dream?" she pondered aloud, holding her head and looking out the window at the Organization's Kingdom Hearts. She decided she needed to step out to see what was going on around the castle outside of her room, maybe Roxas and Axel would know what's going on.
As she exited her room, she saw another hooded Xion walking down the corner of the hall and scratched her head. The rec room was the other way. That didn't matter, she just needed to find her friends. She ran in the direction of the rec room now.
Upon entering the rec room, it was like she stepped back in time, the usual organization members she saw in that room were all present, Axel, Roxas, Saix, Luxord, and Xigbar.
She decided to approach her two friends first. "Roxas, Axel!" she caught them in the middle of a conversation.
They didn't respond to what she was saying almost like she didn't exist.
"Guys, come on, I'm right here, there's no time for messing around!" she attempted to grab Axel to get his attention, but her hand went right through him.
"Do you not remember how they all forgot you?" The other Xion asked her aloud.
"You again." Xion held a defensive stance as everyone in the room slowly began to disappear, one by one until it was just the two of them standing in the rec room.
"You were nothing to them, not even a memory."
Balling her hand up into a fist, Xion held her hand out to summon her keyblade but found herself unable to. "What, what's going on here?!"
"Looking for this, Xion?" her doppelganger held up the Kingdom Key in front of her. "Funny how you think wielding this sham of a weapon qualifies you as a keyblade wielder."
"Like you're one to talk." Xion argued back. "If I'm just some puppet using a fake weapon, then you're even less than that!"
"But am I really now, Xion?" darkness began to pool around the rec room, the floor dragging Xion down.
"W-What're you doing?" Xion asked in a panic.
As she sank further down, she could see the sinister smile on her alter's face. "Jogging your memory…"
The next place Xion felt herself wake up was in Nothing's Call, on the ground, she tried to move but found herself unable to at all.
What is this?! Why can't I move?
Approaching footsteps alerted her to something that was wrong before she felt herself get picked up off the ground, looking down, she'd be able to see Axel on the ground.
Wait, is this when?-
She could only watch as she was carried through the Castle by Xemnas, him walking into the rec room and unlocking a hidden door there that took them to the Proof of existence. He put his hand against Saix's room entrance, converting it into another copy of the entrance into Vexen's room.
Everything went black for her for a moment before she awoke on a table in an operating room in the Castle That Never Was. Xemnas was standing over her, as was X.
Again she was unable to move…
"Are you ready to begin the operation?" Xemnas asked X who produced a device from her hand, it looked like the devices Roxas had been placing around the various worlds recently.
"Yes." X answered as Xemnas summoned one of his Ethereal Blades.
A smile formed on the man's face. "You'll be serving a greater purpose shortly, my Keyblade Wielder."
She wanted to scream but couldn't as she saw Xemnas's blade descend on her.
Waking up again, Xion would find herself standing at the clocktower, walking around the corner and approaching a downtrodden Roxas.
This moment. She thought to herself.
"Yes, this moment indeed." The other Xion stepped out from around the other corner. "The moment you decided to end your life in some grand 'heroic' sacrifice. To ensure your friends would live."
"Why am I here?" she asked as the other Xion walked up to her, past Roxas and pulled her hood from her head, revealing that she currently resembled Sora.
"Because, Xion. You were always meant to be the substitute for Sora."
A sharp pain in her head, made her stumble back a little. "No, you're lying!" Xion felt her footing slip and she fell, her eyes wide as her double watched her, still with that grin on her face.
The next place Xion felt herself awake was out of a pod in the World That Never Was, she felt blank, empty, and hollow again.
"The data we've gathered shows this puppet was created to serve the organization prior." Vexen explained, looking at her with his arms crossed as Saix took a step over, looking at her.
"Her name…" The man paused for a moment. "It's…Xion."
"Xion…" she parroted.
"Yes, that's your name." Saix reminded her.
Time slowed to a halt again and Xion stepped out of her past-self. "Saix was helping me the moment I returned because he felt terrible about what he did to me before." she stated as her double stepped out of her as well.
"Yes, he did have a weaker will than previously thought."
Time began to move again as another set of footsteps approached the room.
"Is my new vessel ready?" the familiar voice of Master Xehanort spoke up.
Saix balled his hands up into fists. "It's waiting right here for you." he stepped aside as Xehanort summoned No Name and with a wave of his free hand, forced a fragment of his heart into Xion, making her stumble back for a moment, a crooked smile forming on her face before suddenly she held her head and screamed for a moment, returning to her feet, looking as blank as she did before.
"Why are you showing me this?" Xion asked.
The other Xion walked around her before removing her hood. "I'm showing you this, because this is the moment I was born."
Yellow eyes locked with blue, the other Xion had revealed herself fully, her hair was bleached white and her eyes matched Xehanort's exactly.
"It wasn't my programming." Xion put a hand over her heart. "It was Xehanort's heart! You're just… The fragment of Xehanort's heart he put into me!"
"Well, you are right in both regards, Xion." Xehanort's heart fragment admitted. "You see, when I realized the purpose you were originally created for, I knew that power was intrinsically a part of you. That it would always be there, no matter how much you ignored it. All I needed to do was to trigger your memories of that power and wait until you brought yourself on another adventure."
"So you were just using me this whole time." Xion looked away. "I was a fool for even giving you a voice in my head."
Pureblood heartless began spawning in the room all around her. "Don't feel too terrible Xion. After all, now that we're here, all your suffering can end and you can just go back to sleep."
She turned away, leaving Xion in the pod room with the pureblood heartless.
As a Neoshadow jumped for her, a blinding light suddenly came from her hand, looking at it in shock, she would see that it was the Oathkeeper keyblade. "Oathkeeper?" She looked the weapon over and a memory flashed into her mind of Roxas tossing her that weapon back when they were fighting the Mystical Lancer.
"I'm only borrowing this." She declared while preparing her fighting stance.
Another pair of Neoshadows charged her directly, but she rolled under their attack. "THUNDER!" she shouted out, blasting all the surrounding heartless away from her with Thundara magic.
A pair of Dark Balls appeared now and one of them slammed right into her arm, knocking her away while another one attempted to fake her out by vanishing, but a well timed Reflera barrier stopped this attack in its tracks, destroying them both.
With her borrowed keyblade in tow, she exited the pod room, expecting to see more of the Castle That Never Was, but what she saw instead was a floating amalgamation of various places she had been. Places including Twilight Town, The World That Never Was, Radiant Garden, The Keyblade Graveyard, and several of the other worlds she had been to.
"Where are you?!" Xion shouted out, hoping to get an answer from her double.
"Why don't you come and find me?" her own voice taunted her from a distance as Xion took a step towards the edge of the room.
"Fine, I will." Xion took a deep breath and jumped forward, landing onto a floating chunk of the Medieval Highlands world.
Jumping off the cables connecting two chunks of the City of the Dead, Xion landed atop a building she recognized from Twilight Town. "I wish I had an idea of where to even go out here." she admitted. "Other than forward."
Looking around, she caught a glimpse of a building from the Dark City crashing into a floating Neverland Island, destroying it.
"Well there's as good a place to start as any…" she jumped for that building, barely grabbing onto a corner in time.
As she landed atop it, several nobodies and heartless appeared around her, dusks, creepers, shadows, red nocturnes, and a large body.
"Of course. Never easy, is it?" she grunted while deflecting a fireball into a Dusk and starting to run around this wave of enemies.
The Large Body slid after her and was gaining on her as she neared the edge of the building, thinking quickly, she jumped into the air and vaulted off the Large Body, landing in a tumble on a pillar from Agrabah's cave of wonder.
The dusks and Red Nocturnes weren't letting up their pursuit as more fireballs came her way and she jumped onto a floating piece of street and quickly pointed her borrowed keyblade forward while jumping again. "Freeze!" she shouted, successfully blasting apart a couple of the Red Nocturnes as she landed on the staircase from Twilight's View.
The dusks landed on the staircase and attempted to cut at her with their tendrils, one barely grazed her head as she quickly spun around and swatted it off the stairs with a swing of Oathkeeper.
The other kicked at her, sending her off the stairs.
As she fell, she started looking around frantically, barely managing to hook her keyblade onto a floating tree's branch.
Pulling herself back up, she looked around, before spotting something ahead. "Is that?" She quickly sprung off the tree and began making her way to the Twilight Town Clocktower.
As she landed on the clock tower, she would see Axel and Roxas both sitting there.
She outstretched a hand, but then remembered, they weren't real, they couldn't be real.
"I'm really lost, aren't I?" she admitted while sitting down beside the illusions of her friends.
Strangely enough the illusion of Roxas held out a stick of sea salt ice cream for her. Taking a hold of it, she took a bite, it tasted as good as she remembered.
"You know, Xion…" Axel spoke up. "You're only as lost as you think you are."
"Axel?" she was confused now as she turned to face him.
"Not Axel, more like your memory of him. But I'd say you got me memorized pretty well, Xion." he teased with a chuckle.
"Roxas?" she asked him.
He nodded at her. "I'm just your recollection of Roxas, just like Axel here is."
"Then can you help me? Help me find a way out of here?" she asked in a hopeful tone.
"We can show you the way, but once you get there, you'll be on your own." Axel warned while standing up, helping Roxas up as well.
"Let's go then." Xion nodded, letting them take the lead.
"So, if you guys are the way I remember my friends, does that mean the others like Namine, Sora, and Riku would be here too?" Xion asked as she ran up a floating chunk of labyrinth wall from the Keyblade Graveyard, taking Roxas's hand as she reached the top.
"In theory, yes. But with your heart as fragmented as it is, it's only your strongest memories that are okay." Axel further explained.
"So Namine's not as strong of a memory for me as you guys, then, huh?" Xion remarked.
Roxas shook his head. "I wouldn't say that, you've just known Axel and I longer than anyone else, so of course we'd be in your head pretty well, along with likely any organization member you spent extended time with."
"Like Xemnas?" Xion nervously looked around as Axel ran forward and cut through a pair of Skull Crackers with his chakrams and landing onto their wayfinding ship from Motunui.
"Well like your friends, Xemnas does hold a pretty predominant place in your heart, but he wouldn't manifest as openly as us." Roxas assured her.
"How much further?" Xion asked.
"Just a few more jumps ahead." Axel confirmed.
The final platform Xion landed atop with the memory versions of Roxas and Axel appeared to be just outside of the Twilight Town Mansion gate, which was currently locked.
"So this is as far as you, go huh?" Xion looked between her friends. "Thank you two."
"No, thank you for keeping such a good memory of us, Xion." Roxas smiled.
"We're always here when you need us, even when things are at their most hopeless…" Axel saluted as Namine then appeared at the gate.
"I can open this for you, but once you enter through it…"
"I know." Xion affirmed and nodded.
Namine smiled at her. "You have a better memory of me than you thought, huh?" she teased as she then touched the lock on the gate, letting it vanish as Xion approached, getting blinded by a light.
Xion now awoke in her heart station, drifting down towards it, where she could see her double was waiting for her. "Took you long enough, Xion. It must have been nice seeing your friends for one last time."
As she landed, she glared at the other girl, who now wore the same exact clothes she was wearing, but obviously looked different in hair and eyes. "It won't be the last time." She summoned Oathkeeper. "Because I'm going to destroy you here, and return to them."
"Awfully confident in that aren't you?" the other Xion summoned the stained black Kingdom Key, but it slowly began to corrupt more until it became No Name. "My true keyblade will work far better than that sham, don't you agree?"
"Xehanort." Xion took a step forward. "Your time has long-since ended."
"Maybe it has… But that doesn't mean I'm going to just let my ambitions rest. There is plenty I can achieve with even one remaining vessel."
Taking her battle stance, Xion locked eyes with her. "This is where your ambitions stop."
"You'll be the one in chains soon…" Alter Xion immediately tossed her keyblade at Xion, forcing her to raise up Oathkeeper in defense to deflect it.
"A predictable move." Alter Xion had warped to her keyblade and kicked Xion in the chest, knocking her away.
Looking around, Xion saw Alter toss her keyblade again, warp to it, and toss it around her.
Bringing up a Reflera barrier was the best move she could have made.
No Name bounced off the barrier and Alter Xion caught it.
"FIRE!" Xion shouted while running around the arena, Alter Xion deflecting the orbs sent her way and countering by sending a pillar of light her way that she quickly moved to block, but it cut through her defenses, knocking her to the ground.
Alter Xion again threw her keyblade and warped to it, attempting to strike Xion while she was down, but the other girl raised Oathkeeper above her head just in time to block the attack, quickly pulling herself back to her feet.
The other Xion warped back in a flash of light. "DON'T MISS!" she shouted as several lasers started circling Xion, forcing her to roll away from them, she still got clipped by a couple of them.
"Force!" Xion shouted, attempting to hit Alter Xion with Gravity Magic, but it had no effect as she warped out of it and swung her keyblade at her, knocking Oathkeeper out of her hand and over the ledge of her heart station.
Xion attempted to summon it back, but found herself unable to all of a sudden.
"What? No!" she saw the smirk forming on Alter Xion's face.
"Now you'll see!" She began slashing rapidly at Xion with a powerful Ars Arcanum combo before swinging upwards once, knocking her higher into the air and slamming her down onto her heart station.
Xion stumbled from the heavy hits she just took and fell to a knee just as dark chains began conjuring all around her and her heart station began to pull her in.
"I'll be sure to come back to reinforce those chains like you did with me all that time." Alter assured her. "Although these chains might just be too powerful for you to even imagine escaping."
As she kept struggling, one single thought kept her going. "I'm… Going to see my friends again."
More chains restrained her body as Alter Xion crossed her arms. "You never will."
"No…" Xion grit her teeth as tears began flowing down her cheeks. "You're lying." she felt her heart station stop dragging her down now. "I will see them again, because… Because they want to see me again too!" She stood up again.
"It doesn't matter if I'm chained up inside of my own heart, or they forget me… Or even my body acts against my will. That doesn't change the biggest truth out there… That my friends and I… Our bond…" she was starting to rise out of her heart station again. "Our bond is one that can never be broken!" her sigil appeared in front of her now, the sigil that her, Axel, and Roxas had gotten back from Xemnas.
"But that's- That's my-" Alter Xion's eyes went wide as the chains around Xion began to collapse into a dark mist around her.
"I never really understood what Sora meant when he said this in the memories of his that I received… But now I do. My Friends… They're MY POWER!" she shouted as the dark mist around her dissipated and a new weapon appeared in her hand, it was a keyblade, but it wasn't the Kingdom Key. It held a different design, one adorned with sharp edges and a familiar floral pattern that almost resembled the blade her corrupted self-wielded back when Xemnas tampered with her, but it was a beautiful weapon instead of just a simple sharp one.
Astra Florum… That name came to her mind. That's what she'd call her keyblade.
"That's impossible! You're just a puppet! Holding onto a fake weapon!" Alter Xion attempted to argue back at her.
"The way I see it… The only sham I'm looking at is standing right in front of me." Xion assumed her battle stance again. "It's time you get out of my heart, forever."
Alter Xion grit her teeth and assumed the familiar battle stance of Master Xehanort. "You're just nothing more than a puppet!"
No more words were needed between these two as they immediately got to it, rushing towards the center of Xion's heart station and clashing their weapons.
Xion pulled herself away from the next heavy swing and sent out light pillars towards Alter Xion who warped around them and quickly tried to trip her up by throwing her keyblade and warping to it.
She was prepared this time with a blast of Fira Magic that impacted Alter Xion the second she reappeared, making her stumble before Xion charged forward and struck her directly with Astra Florum.
Alter Xion let out a scream as a couple of more strikes came her way before she quickly warped backwards to get away from Xion.
Gritting her teeth in anger, she warped back and attempted to hit Xion with an overhead strike that was repelled with Reflera, launching her away several feet.
"C'mon!" She yelled, tossing Astra Florum at Alter Xion again, the blade knocking her back towards the edge of the platform.
Alter Xion glanced back at where she was backed into and jumped backwards, tossing her keyblade behind Xion who quickly turned around only to get surprised with a tackle from Alter who warped back at her, knocking the weapon from her hand and grasped her throat with a hand and conjured a dark orb in the other.
Xion wrestled with her double, managing to get a hand under her chin and start pushing her away.
Alter Xion let out a yell before throwing a punch out towards Xion who brought her keyblade up in time to block the attack, effectively ending this grapple with a swing of her keyblade that Alter Xion jumped back from.
Calling No Name back to her hand, Alter Xion raised her keyblade up. "Now You'll see!" She yelled while attempting to rush Xion with the same Ars Arcanum attack that she had beaten her with the last time.
Xion matched each strike blow for blow with well-timed blocks before the last strike still launched her up into the air.
With a smirk on her face, Alter Xion saw an easy hit. "Time to finish you off!" she swung downwards at Xion, but the other girl flipped around her.
"That all you got?!" Xion taunted before hitting Alter Xion with a twisting counter that slammed her onto the Heart Station.
Holding her arm, she glared up at Xion who was just landing on the ground and quickly pulled herself away in desperation.
"Here we go!" she called out, raising No Name above her head as Xion's heart station erupted into pillars of light that blinded the other girl.
She was gone in a flash and Xion was looking around before suddenly several light pillars began to circle around her. Rolling forward quickly she dodged them before they could all come down towards her and pulled up Reflera in time to block them as they came around for her.
The moment her barrier dropped, Alter Xion had reappeared and swung at her, the two again clashed weapons as Xion tried to counter that attack before it struck, resulting in Alter backing off.
The two began warping around the arena, sending light pillars in every direction, while just barely missing each other before they both appeared in front of each other with several pillars beside them and stabbed at each other, their weapons colliding and bouncing off of each other, but Xion was slightly quicker to catch her footing than Alter Xion.
"I Won't give in!" she called out as light pillars began to circle around Alter Xion, each one hitting its mark as she jumped at her doppelganger, slamming her keyblade down onto the ground in front of her, knocking her up into the air while light erupted around her.
Alter Xion was disoriented from this hit and barely had any time to react to Xion charging straight through her once, the first hit knocking No Name from her hand.
Turning around quickly she didn't see where Xion went but, soon she was passed through again by another strike from Xion.
This repeated a few more times, each strike from Xion whittling away at her more before finally the girl reappeared right in front of her.
"BREAK!" she shouted, engulfed in light while charging through her with her keyblade pointed forward.
Alter Xion screamed as Xion landed behind her, swinging her keyblade to the side.
She landed on her knees and held her chest now while glaring back hatefully at Xion.
No Name began to fade away, meaning her time was up.
"It's over." Xion dispersed Astra Florum and turned to face the fading Alter Xion. "Now get out of my heart."
"No, I'm- I can't fail!"
"You already have." Xion took a step over to her. "You'll always fail, can't you see that's your part in all of this, Xehanort?"
A slight chuckle escaped from Alter Xion's mouth. "No, I suppose I can't." She looked Xion in the eyes before she vanished entirely out of Xion's heart and Xion took a deep breath, closing her eyes while feeling herself begin to drift up from her heart station.
The crystal that Xion's body had been transformed into was starting to crack further and further until it shattered.
However, what shattered appeared to merely be an outer shell around the real Xion who quickly opened her eyes and looked up. She began to swim upwards, she knew her friends needed her.
Commentary: Here we have it, the big Xion chapter a LOT of this story has been building up to. In a sense this chapter isn't really an Atlantis chapter because it's mostly set in Xion's heart, but you could theoretically look at it as one still since Xion's body is still in Atlantis.
One of the big things I planned for this story was giving Xion an original Keyblade, rather than her wielding the Kingdom Key as she always has in canon, but I wanted her to have to earn it, to have to go through some kind of trial, and this was it.
Its also important to note that Xion was able to tap into her third and final limit break attack here, an attack aptly called Final Break. Will she use it more often than her other ones? Probably not right away, I imagine this use was more of a "Spur of the moment" type of deal as in she hasn't truly unlocked the ability to tap into it at will yet.
One scene I surprised myself with was Xion's "My friends are my power" Moment as I didn't really think I'd be giving her a moment like that here, but I'm very much glad I did as it just makes things feel that much more like a proper KH game.
With all that said and done, we'll start to wrap things up with Atlantis in the next chapter.
