C05

LOCATION: Dining room of Organization XIII headquarters, The World That Never Was
DATE: Saturday, November 24th 2X60
TIME: 0745 hours

"You look like you're in a good mood."

Naminé blinks, turning to find Axel a few steps behind as they heads towards the meeting room for their first agenda of the day. She looks around, noticing Roxas by him though Xion is nowhere to be seen.

"Um, yeah," she responds dimly. Thinking back to Sora's shocked expression as he ate the toothpaste-filled Oreo, she can't help the smirk stretching across her face. And a part of her wants to boast about her achievement. "Have you heard of filling Oreos with toothpaste?"

"You mean the food prank?" Axel blinks. "Well, yeah, sure. It's a super old prank."

According to her research, it's also the most popular one. "Well, I got Sora to eat one," she says.

Naminé beams at both boys, who stare at her with shocked expressions. They look at each other.

"Did you—"

"No, she just—"

"What the—"

They turns towards her, and Axel speaks with a giddy grin. "Naminé! You're outgrowing your Miss Goody Two Shoes reputation!"

"I don't have that reputation," Naminé refutes but in the moment, she honestly can't care less about that. She just successfully pulled off her first and only prank! One point for karma, cause yes, what goes around does come around, Sora.

"Why do you hate this guy?" Roxas asks.

"He's been messing with me all week. You haven't noticed?" Naminé exclaims. Roxas shrugs, and she can see how minding his own business, he might've completely ignored her confrontations with Sora. It's also somewhat comforting that maybe not that many people noticed her getting embarrassed.

"He's from HB, which doesn't help," Axel adds.

"Yeah," Naminé agrees. "He's like every stereotype of HB: lazy, spoiled, doesn't take things seriously at all."

"You're really worked up over one guy," Roxas comments.

Naminé thinks she hears judgment in his voice and turns towards him with a raised brow.

"You were the one who told me to express my feelings," she reminds him. "So I did."

"This was Roxy's idea?" Axel cackles, clapping his friend's shoulder. "That's amazing. Who knew you could be so petty?"

"I—" Roxas falters for a moment, turning from Axel to Naminé. "I was thinking more like...talk to someone about it."

"...well, I did. I told him how I felt."

"Naminé the savage!" Axel smirks. "Remind me not to get on your bad side."

"You do you, I guess," Roxas yields. "Anyways, have you seen Xion?"

"Xion? Don't think I've seen her this morning. She didn't eat breakfast with you guys?"

"Nah, she woke up before either of us and we're not sure where she is. She sometimes wanders off on her own and doesn't respond to texts, which is super annoying." Roxas scowls, checking his phone.

Axel shrugs. "Anyways, I'm sure we'll see her at the meeting. Thanks, Naminé."

The two boys fall back a little to put some space between them as they continue towards the meeting room.

Part of Naminé thinks it must be nice that someone cares enough to notice that you're missing.

She quickly shakes off the clinging loneliness. She doesn't deserve to complain about things wrong in her life when there are actual lives at stake.

Finally arriving at the meeting room, Naminé realizes this is one of the events that hosts both Land of Departure and HB. Given the complex history between their worlds and general wariness on both parties' behalf, it's not surprising that each world picks one side of the room and does their best to stick to it. While Naminé's instinct is to be front and center so she can properly hear the speaker, she feels self-conscious with HB present, especially thinking about Sora. Speaking of…

She catches sight of him dawdling at the tail-end of his group as they enter the room. It occurs to Naminé how appearances are truly deceiving, because for all intents and purposes, he looks like an ordinary guy. Certainly not someone she'd argue with for no particular reason. She considers herself an ordinary person too, so she's still not sure how they've wound up in so many disagreements.

Obviously, it's all Sora's fault.

Sitting with him out of her line of sight, Naminé focuses on the presentation as the lights dim and a member of Organization XIII steps towards the front of the room.

"Welcome everyone. We are honored to host our esteemed guests from Land of Departure and Hollow Bastion. Gummi ship travel is not without its costs and dangers, so on behalf of the entire Organization XIII, I would like to express our utmost gratitude at your demonstrated sincerity and interest in our work."

The speaker bows, and Naminé along with everyone from Land of Departure dips their heads in return. From the corner of her eye, she notes the lack of gestures from Hollow Bastion and figures that disrespect suits their absolute disinterest in anything beyond their own benefit.

"Unfortunately," the speaker continues, "our director is currently overseeing an important ongoing trial and could not be here today. But we have the principal investigator for projects on the topic of interest, so I'll hand it over to Dr. Vexen."

Dr. Vexen looks the part of a mad scientist with his disheveled hair and crazy eyes. He begins with a cackle, eagerly looking around the room. "I'm so excited there are so many people who share my interests! Hopefully I can shed some light on this new enemy I'm sure you've either witnessed firsthand or heard of by now. Let's start with this! Who can tell me what this is?"

The presentation switches to the next slide, featuring a picture everyone is familiar with. Before Naminé can even raise her hand, she hears someone from HB call out, "Heartless!" She shoots them a look, still shocked by their absolute disregard for any semblance of rules. Is everyone from HB so rude?

Dr. Vexen moves on with his presentation, proceeding to the next slide with another picture. "How about this?"

Naminé hasn't seen the exact object in the picture before, but the design looks familiar enough. "A Keyblade?" someone guesses.

"Correct," Dr. Vexen grins. "As we know, Keyblades are weapons of our hearts, so each individual's Keyblade looks a little different. Keyblades are also our frontline weapon against Heartless. Magic and other weapons may weaken them, but you need to penetrate the body of a Heartless with your Keyblade for them to disappear. And who knows what happens after they dissolve like that? Maybe they simply reform another Heartless after some time and that's why there seems to be no end to fighting these creatures..."

An uneasy silence settles in the room. Naminé considers Dr. Vexen's words—is he right? Will there really be no end to this fight? Do they have to live in fear for the rest of her life?

Dr. Vexen chuckles. "I digress. Pure speculation on my part without any evidence. My apologies, I shouldn't speak to what I don't know. Let's move on with my actual research: now, what is this?"

Naminé has never seen the so-called invincible enemy, but she infers this is what it looks like. The picture is low resolution, but it looks like a silver-colored humanoid being with a wiry, well-toned body. It has no face but there is a symbol imprinted on the top of its head and a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. Its arms and legs taper off to sharp tips, likely also powerful weapons. Naminé can't even imagine how the field agents must've felt when they encountered this enemy for the first time. And Team Disciplinary Committee chose combat instead of escape?

"No guesses?" Dr. Vexen exclaims in a shrill voice when no one speaks. "I was curious what each of your worlds had learned about this new being. While I have my own research to share, we were also hoping this would be a collaborative learning space, as I'm sure you each have valuable expertise to offer."

After a long pause, someone from her side of the room raises his hand.

"Terra here, one of the instructors from Land of Departure. Our team hasn't personally encountered them, but we've seen reports about this new enemy that's invincible against our standard Keyblade attacks. It also moves super fast and as you might guess, it uses its entire body as a weapon."

"Adding to that," one of the representatives from HB continues, "we've also received reports in the past few months about these creatures. With our defense system, we've mostly been able to avoid direct confrontations. Our limited findings align with what was said. Additionally, we have our suspicions that these creatures possess a higher level of intelligence than Heartless, based on a few demonstrations of learned response to our defense system."

Naminé's eyes widen at the last statement. The only way for an invincible enemy to be even more frightening is for it to be an intelligent, invincible enemy. That's not...fair, is the only word she can think of but doesn't wholly capture her feelings of helplessness.

"Excellent." Dr. Vexen grins. "I wasn't aware of the intelligence aspect and would be curious to test that. So, working off of what you've provided, allow me to share our findings for these beings we have named 'Nobody.' Our current hypothesis is that Nobodies come from a similar source as the Heartless. According to several reports, Nobodies always appear with Heartless, so we assume they are related in some way. In that sense, if Keyblades are effective against Heartless, we believe they should also work against Nobodies."

"Unfortunately, we have a number of failed attempts and multiple casualties that speak otherwise," their instructor in charge, Zack, states in a rare serious voice. Naminé thinks of the girl from Team Disciplinary Committee and makes a mental note to get an update.

"Indeed, Nobodies are dangerous because of their powerful offense and equally hardy defense. That tough exoskeleton appears near impossible to penetrate. However, every creature has its weakness. I believe we simply haven't found it yet," Dr. Vexen says.

"So are you gonna teach us how to defeat these monsters or not?" someone from HB hollers. The impatience in his voice is palpable and only further heightens the tension in the room. Indeed, the entire selling point of this mission had been a hope for a solution. Instead, it feels like they're just going in circles describing a lot of theoreticals and speculations.

"I want to present a few of my current working hypotheses," Dr. Vexen states, and his word choice doesn't escape Naminé. "Unfortunately, given the volatile nature of Nobodies, it's hard for me to procure test subjects to conduct trials and prove my work. However, that's why we've requested the attendance of both your worlds. With your assistance, I believe we can uncover the secret of these beings and how to defeat them."

That's when Naminé realizes: this has all been a pitch. Organization XIII needs resources to continue their work, and they've invited the two worlds most likely to support them. It feels bad being tricked, but this had been a sketchy lead in the first place. Tempering her expectations, Naminé tries to take everything said with a grain of salt.

Once Dr. Vexen gets to explaining his theories, Naminé realizes it truly is just that—a theory. He spends an hour talking about so many theoreticals that Naminé can't even follow him. There's so much conjecture that the huge skeptic in her imagines none of this will actually hold up in real life. Naminé can't even begin to wonder how they'd test some of these ideas.

"Now I know what you're thinking. How are we going to verify these theories?" Dr. Vexen says, startling Naminé that he's addressing the question probably on many people's minds. "I certainly don't want to send agents out there counting on mere speculations to save their lives. But I will say that for the past few months, since the first sighting of Nobodies, my team and I have been working relentlessly to uncover the secret of their apparent invincibility. To my knowledge, we are the only ones with any semblance of progress made on developing theories to combat these fearsome enemies. I cannot guarantee efficacy, but as the saying goes, I do believe having something is better than having nothing."

Murmurs arise in the crowd, and Naminé realizes he's right. They have nothing on the Nobodies now. Encountering one is essentially signing your own death certificate. Even if Dr. Vexen and Organization XIII only have untested theories to offer, that's still better than facing them unarmed. Naminé would feel better having ideas in her back pocket to try out.

The entirely too long morning presentation finally comes to an end. The thought of food motivates Naminé as she heads towards the dining room, where boxed lunches await. Well, it's better than nothing—certainly better than having to sit through another minute of Dr. Vexen's half-crazed rambles.

She ends up at a table with Axel, Roxas, and Terra, who's one of the two instructors for their mission. As a DiZA alumni and a friendly guy in general, Terra unsurprisingly gets along pretty well with Axel and Roxas. Even though he's probably a decade older than them and technically their superior, the boys chat like they're all classmates. Maybe they know each other from other missions, since Terra does supervise several different field teams.

"Do you believe what he said?" Roxas asks.

Axel shrugs. "Honestly he lost me halfway through. Too many 'if's and 'hypothetically speaking's."

"Yeah, if I'd known he was gonna go full on theory, we should've brought someone doing Heartless research," Terra remarks. "Hoping they'll give us the highlights later."

"I don't wanna run around fighting Heartless with a 'maybe this'll help, maybe not.' I need a little more certainty than that," Axel says.

"Just our lives at stake," Roxas points out. "Plus, the part when he started talking about the evolutionary origins of Heartless sounded like bullshit."

"Roxas!" Axel reprimands. "It sounded...like a lot of conjecture."

"Which he did include in his disclaimer," Terra points out.

"I'm curious, Terra. Do you think DiZA will wanna invest in whatever project they're working on?"

Terra thinks about it for a moment. "Honestly, Dr. Vexen had a point when he said something's better than nothing. I know just having theories isn't ideal, but you guys are essentially defenseless right now. We have to give you some sort of weapon, even if the weapon might not work. Or maybe it will."

"What if this is a huge scam?" Roxas asks. "Like it's all bullshit, and they're just trying to swindle our money."

"A fair point," Terra concedes. "I guess that's the part we have to figure out. Organization XIII has been around for a bit, and I think they played a part in Hollow Bastion's recent defense system update. I wouldn't completely discredit them as shams, but you're right—you can never be too cautious."

A wayward "Terra!" drags the older man away from their table, leaving the remaining three to eat mostly in silence. Belatedly, Naminé notices the absence of WINNER's last member.

"Did you guys find Xion?" she asks.

Roxas grunts. "Kinda. She finally texted to say she's fine, just a little jetlagged. Then I saw her sneak into the meeting room like 20 minutes late, and she slipped out halfway through. I mean, we're all pretty out of it and she got to skip that mind-numbing presentation?"

"We're trying to cut her some slack," Axel says pointedly, shooting Roxas a look. "She always has trouble sleeping, and I think the jetlag's a little worse than she thought."

"That sucks, I know she was looking forward to enjoying the away mission," Naminé murmurs. "Hopefully she's catching up on some sleep now."

A shadow looms over her, and turning towards her side, she realizes Sora's standing near her for some reason. Eying him suspiciously, she watches as he sets a box of pastries on their table.

"Dessert. You want custard or jelly?" he says, nonchalantly taking a bit of his.

"Are these donuts?" Axel peers in the box curiously.

Sora glances at him. "Yeah. Out of everything, who knew this world would have great donuts? I recommend the jelly ones."

"No one asked for your opinion," Naminé snipes. "I want custard."

Sora readily hands her a donut while Axel and Roxas have a debate about which filling is superior. As Naminé is about to bite into her donut, she belatedly realizes Sora is hovering nearby. Her eyes dart towards him, meeting his gaze and drifting down his face.

That weirdo—is that a hidden smirk?

The thought comes too late and she takes her first bite.

BLEARGH—

Her eyes widen as she lurches forward, mouth barely preventing her from throwing up on the table. Though that means this disgusting taste lingers in her mouth. What the hell is this? There's some custard, but it's mixed with some sickening thick creamy taste that's suffocating her.

A few packets of mayo are tossed onto the table in front of her. Turning to face Sora, she narrows her eyes at the obvious culprit, all but beaming with pride.

"Oh hey, I saw you really like mayo with your sandwich so I got you some more. In case the mayo in the donut wasn't enough. How's it taste?"

That was...mayo in her custard donut?

Oh my god that is disgusting.

Sora grins, kneeling so he's at her eye level. "Just wanted to thank you for those Oreos this morning, Naminé. Karma, right?" The smile remains plastered on his face, while his words are anything but friendly. She wants to throttle him, but they're in public and this disgusting concoction is just accumulating saliva at this point and she can barely think straight because everything is so gross.

Finally she throws up in her empty chip bag and gurgles with some water. She hears Sora cackle, evidently proud of his childish accomplishment. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, Naminé shoots him her most ferocious glare.

"What's wrong with you? Why're you messing with me?"

Sora raises a brow. "You were the one who started this prank war."

Prank war? He wants a prank war?

"Watch your back," Naminé says with narrowed eyes, "or you're gonna embarrass yourself and HB in front of everyone."

Sora grins. She's one step from slapping that smirk off his face.

"Try me."


A/N: Hullo, and welcome to what I'm calling the info dump chapter that provides plot exposition. I tried to sandwich it between two more lighthearted sections, so let me know what you thought about this chapter! Hopefully it provides some clarification of the plot of the story (but not answering all your questions yet)!

My favorite part to write in this chapter was Roxas' shocked response to Naminé taking his advice of 'express your feelings' literally: "I was thinking more like...talk to someone about it." Not start a full-out prank war, geez Nams.

This might be a good time to state that this story is an AU, so the theory behind Heartless, Nobodies, etc. are loosely based on canon but I'll be taking some/a lot of creative liberties. Tbh I've only played KH2 and never 100% understood the mechanics behind Heartless and Nobodies (does anyone understand Nomura's mastermind thinking?). Let me know if there are any glaring contradictions in this fic and I'll do my best to explain things!

Anyways, the plot thickens and the prank war continues! Let's see where our protagonists end up in the next chapter! As always, I would love to hear what you're enjoying about the fic or what parts I could work on improving. I always appreciate readers who take the time to leave their thoughts—thank you for supporting me and my writing!