C06

LOCATION: Nihille Hotel, The World That Never Was
DATE: Monday, November 26th 2X60
TIME: 1345 hours

3-3.

The score between her and Sora is tied.

Not for long.

(Not that Naminé's really keeping track, just—y'know.)

She watches from around the corner, eyes trained on Sora's silhouette. He's on his way back to his room, which she recently found out is in the same hotel Land of Departure is staying at. At least someone had the foresight to put the two worlds on different floors.

Sora stops for a moment and Naminé ducks around the corner, her heart racing in her chest. After waiting a moment, she takes a peek and sighs in relief, noting he hasn't sensed anything amiss and is continuing down the hall. Drawing a deep breath, she dashes forward to keep an eye on him.

He stops in front of his hotel room and fiddles with the keycard to open the door. Naminé watches with bated breath as he opens the door—

"GODDAMMIT, NAMINÉ!"

Naminé runs up to him, peering over his shoulder to admire her handiwork. It certainly hadn't been easy blocking the entryway with plastic cups filled with water. But looking at her masterpiece and the shocked expression on Sora's face makes everything worth it.

"Are you serious?" Sora whirls around to glare at her. "How'd you get into my room?"

Naminé returns the expression. "How'd you get into my room and set up that airhorn behind my door? I almost had a heart attack when it went off!"

"Well you slipped that alarm clock in my bag and it went off at four in the morning! My roommate almost killed me!"

"That's cause you placed a whoopee cushion on my seat during that presentation the other day!"

"Please, you were the one who snuck out my hardboiled eggs with raw ones, and it got all over my shirt!"

The two of them glare at each other, until a loud exclamation down the hall reminds them of the next item on their itinerary. It's yet another presentation by Organization XIII about one of their theories—a drag at this point—but Naminé has maintained perfect attendance with no tardies (though she has 'left early' a few times). This isn't school by any means, but Naminé won't let Sora ruin her record.

"Bye idiot," she mumbles, heading towards the elevator. She doesn't hear Sora's exact reply but figures it's a lame attempt to get the last word in. Whatever, at least she's winning.

Not that, y'know, she's actually keeping score or anything. That'd be childish of her, and she's definitely way more mature than Sora, uh-huh.

Reaching the meeting room with one minute to spare (goddammit, Sora), she quickly takes a seat close to the entrance. Interestingly, the projector isn't set up and Dr. Vexen is nowhere to be found.

"Um, hi everyone. I've been asked to talk a little about my research today…"

Naminé looks around curiously. She doesn't see anyone at the front of the room, but someone's definitely speaking.

"I'm—wait, they can't see me at the back? Oh, should I really stand there? Okay, here we go…"

Naminé stares as...is that a kid jumping onto the podium? What the hell is going on? He's absolutely drowning in his enormous white lab coat. Is he actually a researcher at Organization XIII?

"Hi. Um, I'm Hiro, and I work on a different research area than Dr. Vexen. I want to present my research and then show you a demo in our lab."

Putting aside Naminé's disbelief that a kid is presenting (he looks 12, for god's sake), she's a little curious about the demo that's a breath of fresh air from all the presentations they've listened to so far.

"But first, we need to start with some postulates about the essence of Keyblades that allows us to fight against Heartless. First, if we consider their anatomical composition…"

It takes Naminé a moment to register that this kid is actually correctly using technical terminology, at least to the best of her knowledge. Is he a genius? The likely answer is yes, Naminé realizes as she's understanding less and less of his scientific babble. Organization XIII's specialty must be long theoretical spiels that are guaranteed to lose their audience by the end of their presentation.

At the hour mark, Xion sneaks into the room. Naminé waves and is joined by the dark-haired girl.

"Hey. What'd I miss?" Xion asks.

Naminé sighs. "Don't ask me. They have a kid presenting today, but he's a genius and lost me maybe 20 minutes in."

Xion cocks a brow at the presenter but otherwise seems content to just settle in. Naminé figures she's isn't absorbing anything anyways so she turns towards her new seatmate.

"How're you doing?"

"Me?" Xion blinks. "I'm doing well. How about you?"

"I'm good. I heard you weren't sleeping well?"

"Ah, yeah, the jetlag was a little worse than I thought. But I'm fine now, I think I've adjusted. As long as I take a few naps here and there." She grins happily.

"I'm glad to hear that. Not sleeping well is the worse," Naminé empathizes.

"...how long's this presentation?" Xion asks.

Naminé sighs. "They have our schedule blocked off for another 30 minutes. He also said there's a demo, so I thought I'd try to stick around for that."

"Demo of?"

Naminé blinks, eyes blearily trying to focus on the presenter. "I wish I knew, but I don't understand a word he's saying. Oh, wait."

Naminé watches hopefully as he appears to be winding down from this talk. Thank god, are they moving onto the demo? Otherwise she's ready to leave.

"Let's head to the lab for our demonstration."

"Perfect timing," Xion grins as she and Naminé rise to their feet. "I really hope we're gonna get something a little more helpful from this."

Naminé sighs. "I hope so too."

Following the Organization XIII staff through the building, they head towards one of the lower floors that appears to house their research facilities. Entering a room with intricate wiring on the floor and walls, Naminé wonders what this demonstration will be.

"Alright, first I will need a volunteer." The presenter, Hiro, looks around eagerly. "Anyone? I guess I should specify, anyone who can wield a Keyblade?"

Everyone is painfully silent until Xion finally raises her hand. Namine watches as Xion summons her Keyblade with a swish of her hand.

"Great, now I have one of our research assistants with a Keyblade of her own." Hiro gestures at a young long-haired woman by his side. "Stand a little closer together...okay, good. Now, volunteer, please tell us how you feel."

Xion blinks, narrowing her eyes at him confusedly. "Uh, normal?"

"Normal, okay. Focus a little."

"On what?"

"On your feelings. Tell us more about what you feel."

"Uh. Like I said, I feel normal. A little tired."

"Not physically. Focus on our staff here." The Keyblade-wielding staff member steps forth somewhat timidly. "Now, tell me how you feel."

Xion stares intently at the staff member who looks like an ordinary person, at least from Naminé's point-of-view. The staff member raises her Keyblade, and perhaps taking that as some sort of cue, Xion raises hers as well.

Naminé gasps when their Keyblades begin to glow.

"What's this?" Xion exclaims, taking a step back. The glow abruptly fades, and everyone looks from Xion to the Organization XIII staff member's Keyblade.

"This is the phenomenon I mentioned during my presentation," Hiro says. Ah, Naminé should've paid slightly more attention. "For now I'm calling it Synergy based on the fact that two Keyblade wielders sometimes react to each other's powers. There's still lots to research to do, such as how much of Synergy is innate versus nurtured, or how to concretely measure the Synergy between two people. We've observed that our staff member here has above average Synergy with a wide range of people, so there appears to be a lot of variation in baseline Synergy potential. But if we're able to harness this increased energy to strengthen our weapons, it presents another unique opportunity to combat Heartless and Nobodies."

Silence.

Then, the audience breaks into tentative applause. And Naminé joins in, because for once during this mission, she finally feels a glimmer of actual hope of combating Nobodies.

Why didn't they start with this presentation?

The audience members eagerly begin raising their hands to ask questions.

"Why don't we see this happen between all Keyblade wielders?"

"What do the glowing Keyblades mean?"

"Do you think this is a reaction between Keyblades or is it something else?"

Hiro appears a little flustered by the barrage of questions. "Uh, like I said, there's still a lot to investigate about this phenomenon. It might even be wishful thinking that it'll help in fighting Heartless and Nobodies. That's why Dr. Vexen had me present towards the end of your schedule...anyways, it's just another possibility we're suggesting that hasn't been tested in real situations. But we want to show you that we're working on a lot of different approaches to the problem of Nobodies. Maybe the first or second one doesn't pan out, but something will. Something must."

Hiro sounds so hopeful in that moment. And when a kid tells you to have hope, what else can you do?

The entire room, Naminé included, bursts into excited cheers. Right, she can't let herself think this entire mission is a waste of time. People are doing their best to find a solution, and she has to believe something will work.

Something must.

Suddenly, a loud blare rings throughout the room. Everyone looks around confusedly, most of all the clueless guests. Naminé notices the Organization XIII staff looking rather flustered.

"Well, that's funny," Hiro begins nervously. "That alarm's for a Heartless invasion."

The room bursts into loud chatter as to what this means. What protocol does Organization XIII follow? Does The World That Never Was get a lot of invasions? What are they gonna do?

"Um, what're we supposed to do? Oh, right." Hiro nods, as if to reassure himself, before speaking. "All the guests, please follow us to the nearest bunker. We'll have to hide and wait out the invasion…"

"Hell nah," someone from HB stands up. "Why should we hide when we can fight them?"

"Yeah, we can take them out! That's what we're all trained to do!" one of his buddies exclaims.

"Aren't you LODers ready to fight like whenever, wherever?"

The attention settles on Zack as Land of Departure's instructor in charge. After a pensive silence, he finally speaks.

"It would be poor etiquette to insist we as guests know what's best for the hosts of their own world," he begins.

"Seriously? You're just gonna watch while Heartless invade their home?"

"No need to take my words out of context," Zack says with a placating smile. "Of course we're all trained for these situations, but it'd be rude to assume control of the situation if our hosts have their own way of dealing with things."

"We really don't," Hiro offers with a sigh. "We usually just wait things out and hope for the best."

"That's horrible," Xion murmurs.

"Sounds like you're out of excuses to back out," someone from HB jeers. "Or do you guys actually have no idea how to fight?"

"Yeah, do LODers actually know how to fight Heartless or are you all just a bunch of cowards?"

"What do you say?" Zack looks towards Hiro.

"Well...we could use some help. Otherwise we're stuck in the bunker for anywhere from two to 20 days."

Naminé balks. 20 days in an enclosed space with people from HB? That sounds like a nightmare.

"Well, I guess it can't be helped." Zack shrugs nonchalantly with a smirk. "We'll show you how it's done at Land of Departure so you can eat your words."

"Hell yeah," Xion mumbles excitedly, and even Naminé agrees these idiots from HB need to take their condescension down a notch or ten.

The first decision unanimously made by both worlds is to crudely divide the building in half for each world to take one side. Naminé can't help wincing at how there's absolutely no strategic reason to do so. It just gives both of them an additional border to worry about. But even she knows that this is probably the best way to decrease interactions and possible conflicts between the two worlds.

Once the two groups confirm their responsible sides, they break off to discuss among themselves how to proceed. To Naminé's knowledge, fighting Heartless on unfamiliar territory is rare, and a lot of time is spent pouring over provided maps and blueprints to understand the landscape. Everyone eagerly participates in the discussion to optimize their strategy.

"I think it makes sense to focus our defenses on this staircase." The lead operator points at the main entrance of the building. "If they get into the lobby, there's so many paths for them to splinter off into that it'll be impossible to keep track."

"That's assuming they haven't infiltrated the building already by the time we take action," Naminé points out, "and that we have enough manpower to hold them off there. The entrance is an open playing field and we'll be exposed."

"We can take'em," Axel says confidently. "We've got two senior field teams. We'll show'em what we've got."

"I think guarding the entrance makes sense," another operator chimes in. "That way, OATS can keep an eye out from the upper floors."

"I still think it's risky," Naminé insists. "We don't know how many Heartless there are, so it's possible we'll be spread too thin to actually stop Heartless from getting in."

"Well then what do you think we should do?" the lead operator asks flippantly.

"The bunker's in our half of the building, and I assume the staff is gonna use it. We can guard the perimeter around that. Much less ground to cover."

"You wanna fight the Heartless after they've invaded the building? What's the point?"

"The point is we can pick them off one by one," Naminé states. "The narrowed hallways will limit how many Heartless can swarm at once."

"That's basically no different than their original plan of holing up in the bunker."

"I think we could handle the entrance," Xion pipes up. "Strategy aside, we've got six team agents that can all operate pretty much independently at this point."

"Plus, Zack can pull his own weight in a pinch," Axel adds cheekily.

"Cause you sure as hell can't pull mine," Zack returns with a smirk. "Naminé, can I talk to you for a second? Terra, run through the checklist for preparing for Heartless encounters with them."

"Yessir."

Zack drags her out of the room and to a secluded corner in the hallway. Naminé draws a breath. Her last encounter with school faculty is a sore memory and doesn't bode well for her current situation.

"Naminé. You're technically an audit for this mission, right?"

"Um, yessir." She has a vague idea of where this is going.

"Right. I'm sure you understand why we have assigned lead operators for each mission. Too many cooks spoil the broth, you know? There has to be someone that makes the final call on tactics and strategy. If everyone has an opinion, we'd never be able to decide on anything."

"Yessir," she nods, dreading what he's about to say.

"Now, from a third party's perspective, it can be confusing for you to voice all your concerns and disregard the actual lead operator of the mission. In fact, it can ruin his credibility, which would be bad for everyone. We need everyone to trust in the judgment of the lead operator. I'm sure you've been in his shoes before. There's a reason we have this power hierarchy—things go more smoothly when everyone knows who's calling the shots."

"I understand. I'm...sorry for speaking out of turn."

Zack sighs and smiles weakly. "I understand where you're coming from, and don't get me wrong, you bring up a lot of good points. But you're not the only good OATS operator at DiZA. You gotta believe in your classmates, many of who will be your colleagues in the future."

"...yessir."

"Let's just give them a moment to figure out their plan, okay? Maybe you can take a quick break and grab some water or something."

So, once again, she is being benched despite her best intentions.

It hurts a lot more than she'd expected.

The first time it had happened, she could write it off as a one-time thing, but twice is the beginning of a pattern suggesting something is wrong. Specifically, something wrong with her. She doesn't know what's changed in the past few weeks—she's stayed on top of schoolwork, she's gotten mostly positive feedback on her practicals, and she's still a good OATS operator.

Right?

After 10 minutes with her thoughts, Naminé figures she's given them more than enough time to figure things out. She believes her future colleagues are more than competent. Sure enough, once she's back, everyone's on their feet and getting ready to head out. Before she can join them, Zack accosts her and gestures towards Hiro along with the rest of Organization XIII's staff.

"We're gonna have you and the tech students hole up in the bunker just to be safe. You can never be too careful," Zack says with a kind smile.

She can't even be in whatever makeshift OATS room they're gonna use? She literally has to hide while everyone does the fighting for her? She's not helpless.

"...okay," she mumbles, since she doesn't want to get scolded again. Following the staff and some members of HB, they enter a nondescript room. Someone pulls aside the rug, which reveals a removable floorboard hiding an underground entrance.

Everyone falls in line to enter the bunker, which is exactly as abysmal as it sounds. The one unexpected feature is a few monitors that display live CCTV camera footage throughout the building. There's exactly one that shows the lobby of the building, and through reflections on the glass windows, she can sorta make out silhouettes of her classmates positioned outside the entrance.

With nothing else to do, she grabs a seat by the monitors so she can watch the events unfold. It's impossible to get an accurate read of the situation from her subpar viewpoint, but the lack of action in the lobby suggests they're successfully holding off the enemy. Maybe her worries had been unfounded and this is simply a tiny pack of Heartless to take care of. That would be the best case scenario.

With the lull, she picks up on a side conversation on HB's side.

"Tifa says they're holding things down on their end, but there's more Heartless than expected and it's getting hard to stop them from getting through."

Naminé's head darts towards the speaker, a nameless girl from HB.

"Okay, I'm heading out."

Belatedly, Naminé realizes it's Sora tightening his laces and standing up. "I can sweep the building for any individual Heartless before we lose track of them."

"You don't know the layout of this building," the girl points out. "And I can't guide you, or it'd just be the blind leading the blind."

"C'mon, Rhyme, you know I'm great at fieldwork. The only reason Tifa benched me is cause everyone else has their teams."

"You're gonna get hurt," the girl declares with a haunting certainty in her voice. "Going into a mission without backup or at least an operator is shooting yourself in the foot before you've even begun."

"Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence."

"I have to tell Tifa. She won't let you do this and—I don't want anyone to get hurt," the girl repeats firmly.

"She's not my captain," Sora says defiantly and then softens his tone. "You know I can handle myself, and someone's gonna have to take care of the Heartless that have gotten into the building. Or else they'll hurt someone. C'mon, you know I can do this."

While paying attention to their discussion, Naminé happens to meet Sora's eyes. She feels an instinctive frustration rise in her stomach, given their ongoing animosity. But she notes his serious expression, lacking any hint of humor, and realizes he is wholly focused on the task at hand. This is professional Sora, a side to him she didn't even know exists.

Sora, the idiot from HB, who's gonna hurt himself like the girl says if he blindly stumbles through the building.

Something prompts her to speak. Naminé isn't sure if it's her professionalism rising above their personal conflicts. Maybe it's true altruism driving her to protect others. Or maybe she's simply jumping at a chance to prove her worth given recent snubs. Stepping towards Sora, she lets the words fall out of her mouth.

"I'll be your operator."


A/N: And so, the plot thickens. This is, after all, supposed to be a fic for me to flex my action-writing muscles, so we'll be taking a quick break from the more lighthearted stuff! (But you know me, hijinks will always happen and the lighthearted stuff will def be back.)

The Synergy stuff is obviously not from canon and also not very well-explained (yet) cause in this universe, they're still trying to figure out what it is. Do stay tuned for more! Fighting Nobodies is tough business in this AU world because suddenly, Keyblades aren't working as well as we'd like. It's hard to imagine how to come up with a solution to this problem without unnecessarily endangering people's lives.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about this chapter or this fic as a whole! Please leave a review with any comments you have, I would really appreciate knowing I'm not just writing into a void. Thank you again for the reviewers who took the time to leave their thoughts! I'm excited to share with everyone where this fic is headed!