Silver Linings

Chapter 6: It Is This World That Is Insane

A/N: Getting started on Chapter 6 the night before returning home for the weekend probably isn't a good idea... Anyway, while Riku is investigating the Heartless Manufactory, and while Lambda's fleeing from Phil, legendary pervert-I mean trainer of heroes, Relius Clover is making a profound discovery. Kokonoe's not out of the loop anymore, either. The two continuums draw ever closer...

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

With Riku...

The catwalk led to a computer terminal in a room overlooking a vast, artificial chasm lined with capsules and generators. Unlike Sora, Riku had a computer in his room on the Destiny Islands, so he knew that typing "Ansem" into the search box should have come up with a password prompt. But when he tried it, he got a very different message, spoken over hidden speakers in the room: "USER ACCESS DENIED BY THE MCP. YOU HAVE 3 WARNINGS LEFT BEFORE DRASTIC ACTION." Riku decided to leave the terminal alone before this "MCP" followed through on its threat. Instead, he walked over to the far door. Flipping up his blindfold, he saw that it had a hand scanner next to it. Riku laid his hand on it, certain that he would be rejected and have two warnings left before "drastic action."

The scanner console beeped, the buttons turned from red to green, and displayed the message, "WELCOME, XEHANORT." The door in question slid open with a hiss.

"Who in the worlds is Xehanort?" Riku had a guess, and it was hanging on the wall back in the messy office in larger-than-life oils. But why would he pick a pseudonym like "Ansem?" Did he just like having fewer syllables? Well, this was the first time Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, had done anything remotely useful for Riku, even if it certainly wasn't Ansem's idea. Riku stepped through the door and descended some stairs to the floor of the enormous outer room. This empty space had a few strange, gun-like devices pointing down at it. Whatever they were supposed to do, Riku stayed clear of them as he walked to the center of the platform, but they didn't react anyway.

What did react was the platform itself. As soon as Riku stood in the exact center of the room, part of the floor began to descend like an elevator with Riku on it. Intrigued, Riku waited for the elevator to stop before going even further down on a winding staircase. After a while, Riku stopped questioning the mysteries of this place, and started cursing out the inventor of spiral staircases for allowing a stairway this deep to exist.

"If I ever end up meeting the person who designed this lab, I'm going to push him down these stairs to show him the error of his ways. If it turns out this room was designed by Ansem, or Xehanort, or whatever he is, that'll be even better... Darkness take it all, how many more stairs can there be?"

It took ten minutes to reach the bottom of the stairs. The door at the end opened to a stark white corridor lined with sealed white doors, not that Riku could see them through his blindfold. However, he could sense the weird symbol posted in between pairs of doors. "This must be the symbol of the Nobodies..." The doors themselves were locked tight, and nothing could be sensed beyond them. Riku continued down the hallway until he reached the large, decorated door at the end. He pushed it open and examined the room beyond.

There was a throne in the middle of the room. Chain-like designs pulsing with energy ran from Nobody emblems on the walls over the floor to the throne, on which sat an empty suit of blue armor. And clutched in its right gauntlet was a Keyblade.

Riku didn't recognize the design of this one, but this had to be its base form, because the blue Keyblade with triangular designs on the teeth had no Keychain. Riku reached down and attempted to pry the weapon from the armor's grasp. It gave way easily-clearly the armor was empty, and not about to animate itself to attack Riku. Phew.

The instant Riku had a firm grip on the mystery Keyblade, it vanished from the room. It didn't reappear where he'd found it. Attempting to summon it only called Riku's Soul Eater. "I guess it's not mine, then. Whoever you are, I guess you want me to be the 'delivery boy' for the true wielder of your Keyblade." Riku spoke aloud to the empty armor. He felt a little silly, but also knew this had to be done right. "I'll do my best, then. I probably deserve the grunt work, after what happened the last time I was in this castle. Let me know when I've found the right person." Riku turned and left the room, looking back from behind his blindfold as the doors slid shut and sealed the room. He went on his way, until... "Why, oh why does this place have so many stairs?!" He resigned himself to a long climb out of the secret basement.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVV

With Lambda...

"Hey, hey, hey! Levitatin' is cheating! Now you get an extra seventy laps!" At least Phil wasn't ogling the poor Prime Field Device right now. "Now get sweating already! I'll just enjoy the show..."

NOPE. "Seventy?! You know, I was going to explain that I've never met any-"

"Less talking, more running!"

"...But now I'm going to just leave. Bye!" Lambda opened a Corridor of Darkness ahead of her on the oval-shaped course. Getting more lost was a trivial concern if it meant she didn't have to spend one more second listening to Phil.

"...Geez, they're all the same. Every last chick in Greece, blind to greatness..."

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Lambda emerged from the Dark Corridor in a normal-seeming room. To closer observation (and not even Observation with a capital O), however, there were several oddities that made the whole room seem...off. All the furniture was slightly undersized, so if Lambda were to sit in the chairs, she'd be squished between the armrests. Some objects, like a flowerpot in the corner and a book on a table in the opposite corner, weren't objects at all, but cleverly-shaded two-dimensional pictures. Lambda tried to remember if she'd seen this place before. Error. Memory files quarantined. Open quarantine? Y/N? N.

Now she remembered...enough, anyway. She'd locked those files away herself, because nothing in Wonderland made any sense. Lambda resolved to spend as little time here as possible, but opening another Corridor here was almost bound to lead somewhere even worse. Like Atlantica, maybe... Lambda shuddered at the thought. Instead of trying to leave the world just yet, she searched for potential exits to this room. There was a hole behind the bed, and shoving the bed made it flatten into the wall, revealing the hole. However, Lambda couldn't squeeze through the hole afterward, unless she got smaller, somehow. Ridiculous. Where would an idea like that come from? Then she realized that such a nonsensical solution might actually work here. She turned back towards the central table, and right on cue, two bottles of unidentifiable liquid appeared in puffs of smoke. Lambda ran the two liquids through every chemical and spectroscopic analysis routine she could think of, but nothing could determine what was in these bottles, or even differentiate between the two. All she had to go on were the labels on the bottles. The blue label had a big yellow silhouette of a tree on it, then an arrow pointing right, then a smaller tree. That was probably the right one, but she checked the red one just to be sure. Yes, the red label was the same as the blue one, in reverse order. She picked up the blue-labeled bottle, flipped open its lid and tipped a gulp of the contents into her mouth. "Here goes nothing..." Lambda experienced a few seconds of extreme dizziness. When the disorientation passed, she stood only a few inches tall, and had somehow ended up on top of the table. "Don't question it, just move on... Oh dear, I'm talking to myself now..."

"Oh dear! Oh dear, oh dear! I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!" A bipedal white rabbit rushed past below Lambda carrying a comparatively oversized gold pocketwatch, and ran through a door that was previously only big enough for a doll, but now Lambda was doll-sized, too. That thought struck a little close to home as Lambda jumped off the table and tried the door herself.

"Ow, ow, ow! Did you have to wake me up by twisting my knob? Wouldn't a 'hello' have sufficed?" The Doorknob grumbled, badly startling Lambda.

Lambda pulled off her hood to look the Doorknob in the eyes it apparently had. "Sorry, I thought you were just another inanimate doorknob. Generally, doors open when I twist the knob. It was a misunderstanding."

"Oh, you have those? This isn't a good place for you, then... Good night. This door is locked, so don't twist my knob again. There's a perfectly good detour behind the bed, you know..." The Doorknob yawned, closed its tiny yellow eyes, and went back to its perpetual nap. Lambda gave up and went through the hole she'd exposed earlier.

The area beyond the pitch-black "depths" of the hole behind the bed was a well-kept rose garden, though "depths" had to be put in quotation marks in this case because the pitch-black part of the tunnel was only as thick as a sheet of paper. The square root law of radiation dispersal apparently held no more force here than any other physical axiom. Lambda was getting a headache again. She didn't have time to dwell on it, though, as a more pressing alert hit her consciousness: Time disruption detected. Subjective time halted throughout visible range. As a unit designed to function in the Boundary, where time was less of a line and more like a ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, Lambda was equipped with a keen ability to know when time wasn't functioning like it should. That description of Boundary time wasn't something Lambda came up with on the spot, and it wasn't a programmed definition. It was probably another way Wonderland was getting to the Murakumo Unit's sanity. The actual time-stopping field didn't seem like one of this world's usual "quirks," though.

"Summoning Lux Sanctus! IDEA Engine linked! Murakumo, activate!" Lambda armed herself in time to whip around and see the Dark Corridor forming behind her. Out stepped a man with short, blond hair, a bit of facial stubble, and a strange white symbol on the piercings in his ears. He wore the Black Coat of the Organization, of course.

"Ah, so you felt it! Very unusual... Normally, no one notices time stopping around them unless something else was moving at that moment. I set this up to block any local madmen from interfering with our meeting, but it seems I also lost the upper hand. Now you know my trump card, after all."

"Why are you people following Riku and me around?" Lambda asked, since it seemed that the newcomer wanted to talk first and shoot later-a nice change of pace from the Heartless.

"We were only informed of Riku. It seems a rather crucial piece was missing from our board this whole time! Even so, it seems strange that the two of you are separate. A single pair is the weakest set, but it would still be a better bet than your current odds."

"Do you always talk in game metaphors... Um, what's your name?"

"I never tip my hand before my opponent."

"I'll take that as a 'yes' regarding the metaphors. I'm Lambda-11. Now will you tell me your name?"

"Quite so. I am Luxord, Number X in Organization XIII. You and Riku must have been among those who eliminated our comrades at Castle Oblivion, weren't you?"

"What if I was? Each of them was clearly asking for it. We were only personally responsible for eliminating Lexaeus, and that was more Ansem's doing than Riku's. Zexion got the worst beating of pretty much anyone we fought there, but he got away just in time to be absorbed by the Riku Replica. You Organization members have the worst luck."

"Perhaps they did, but Lady Luck is my ally. And I'm always on top of my game. My orders are to observe this world for future exploits, but all of us have been told to be on the lookout for the imposter who wears our coat. And if any one of us finds him...or her, as the case may be, we are to, and I quote, 'terminate with extreme prejudice.' Let's begin, shall we? I'll take the first move!" From a pocket of his Black Coat, Luxord drew a weapon that was perhaps even more ridiculous than Zexion's book: a standard deck of fifty-two playing cards. As he flung them forward, they enlarged and shot towards Lambda with deadly speed and razor-sharp edges. A papercut would have been the least of Lambda's worries, if she'd been standing where she started. A quick sidestep brought her clear of the swirling cards, and she launched a Sword Summoner at the Gambler of Fate to test the waters. Interestingly, the summoned sword was green, not red like they'd been up until now. Lambda guessed that the IDEA Engine was the cause, and ran a background diagnostic as she dodged the completely unscathed Luxord's next barrage.

Combat readiness diagnostic complete. IDEA Engine online. Synchronization with Lux Sanctus: Murakumo: 25%. Synchronization with self: 15%. Overall synchronization: 20%. Projected synchronization rate will improve when attacks connect with hostile targets. Update: Sword Summoner unavailable while IDEA Engine is linked. Sword Summoner EX available. Applies kinetic force at a 90 degree angle upward relative to the angle of impact. Simulations indicate increased viability of aerial combos and anti-air applications. Exige Needle available. Launches a summoned sword downward at a negative 30 degree angle from midair after leaping backwards. Use to increase distance from target. All other Ars online and functional; discrepancies in optimal usage may exist. Recommend further experimentation at earliest opportunity.

So this would be like learning to fight all over again? Lambda's existing battle protocols were optimized for the old version. She archived them in case she ever lost the IDEA Engine, and got down to "further experimentation" with Sickle Storm against Luxord. The spinning saw appeared a short distance away, spinning in place. After a second, it zipped toward Luxord, who caught it on a giant card he placed in front of himself like a wall. The saw ground against the impossibly durable sheet of cardboard for a second before disappearing.

As Luxord dropped his guard to be able to see Lambda's next move, he realized it was already coming at him. As Lambda expected, but coming as a complete surprise to Luxord, the green sword that stabbed the Nobody head-on knocked him into the air, leaving a single stab wound that didn't drag downward as he was lifted up. The next sword lifted him higher and dragged him slightly towards Lambda, who jumped into the air and levitated there as she sent in more swords to pierce Luxord form all sides. Finally, she knocked him to the ground with Crescent Saber, which she noted traveled through a wider arc than before. IDEA Engine overall synchronization: 40% Damage output increased by a factor of 1.2. Each sword would deal more damage than the last and less than the next.

Luxord certainly noticed that much as he was slammed into the well-trimmed grass, leaving a trail of mud as he skidded a few feet back. He staggered to his feet. "Impressive! You play the game well. I'm not going all in on odds this long. I look forward to our next encounter...Lambda." He formed a Dark Corridor behind himself, and walked backwards into it with a dramatic spreading of his arms as he flipped his deck back together. As his presence vanished from Wonderland, so did the field that kept time frozen in the area.

"You there! Suspicious person!" An authoritative voice called from an adjoining section of the garden. Another card came through, though this one had a head, limbs, and a heart-tipped spear. This particular 5 of hearts card wasn't one of Luxord's. "Did you inflict that unsightly damage on the grass?"

"Uh...I guess smacking Luxord down onto it counts as me doing it," Lambda offered. "Is that illegal here? I didn't know."

"Hm...I actually don't remember any laws about that, but if the Queen of Hearts heard about this, heads would no doubt roll anyway. Help me spread this over the mud! Quickly, before she sees it!" Suddenly the card was cradling a carpet made of well-trimmed grass under the stick-thin arm not gripping his spear.

"Sure. I'm not sticking around long, but I'd hate to cause any heads to roll over this." Lambda grabbed one end of the carpet, and together they laid the new patch of grass over the mud. Lambda cut up the corners of the patch to make the carpet fit seamlessly.

"Thank you, stranger! You probably just saved my life!"

"But it was my fault the damage happened in the first place!"

"Only if she saw it. But if I laid out the carpet as it was, she would notice anyway, and then she'd be doubly angry. You'd better be on your way; I hear this is an open trial day."

"Trial?"

"You probably want to know, but you'd be better off not looking," A voice called from the corner of the room. No one could be seen or sensed there, however.

"Who's there?!" Lambda called.

The card soldier sighed in relief. "Perfect timing, as usual! The Cheshire Cat can answer any questions you have, if he feels like it. I've got to get back to my patrol, or it's off with my head next!" The card scurried off to another section of the garden.

"He doesn't seem to like his job much..."

"Of course not! One stumble and his head will tumble!" The voice again! This time, the owner was clear...sort of. The purple, widely-grinning cat under one of the arches had most of his body visible, but every other stripe on his entire body was missing. "It's a scary, dangerous, and dirty job, but someone has to do it. We can't have the Queen not have her way!"

"Why, though? She doesn't sound like a very good Queen."

The Cheshire Cat grinned even wider, though such a thing seemed impossible. "Of course she isn't! any sane person could see that! Lucky for her, we're all mad here."

Lambda nodded. "That much, I noticed. So, if you have all the answers, can you tell me which world I should go to next?"

"I can." No further answers were forthcoming.

Lambda tried again. "Will you tell me?"

"I will." The Cat fell silent again, grinning his infuriating grin.

"Ugh. Fine, we'll do this your way. Which world should I visit next?"

"That would depend on your choices. What you choose is always the most important thing. Two worlds have answers to your other questions, the ones you haven't asked me. Different answers reside in different places, of course. Will you choose the town of endless sunset and brain freeze, or the castle of old secrets and rusty pipes? If it were me, I'd stick with the train-ride tickets behind Door Number One."

"Twilight Town, then. Thanks."

"Oh, no need for that. Go on, then! Off into the Darkness! 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves..." As he began reciting some nonsensical poem, the Cheshire Cat faded away one paw at a time, and then his stripes disappeared in a spiraling motion until only the grin remained. The grin also vanished from sight as Lambda formed a Dark Corridor to Twilight Town.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

In Relius' underground lab beneath the 1st Hierarchical City of Ookoto...

"Fascinating... If the Time Break need not be accessed from the Realm of Darkness, then it stands to reason that our end of the rift could form on this side of the Cauldron as well... Yes, a brilliant success!" Relius crowed as he Observed the jagged edges of the rip in reality known as the Time Break. When he pulled Terumi back from the Heart Timeline, he'd come out of the Cauldron, but not out of the Boundary. An entirely new Time Break had formed right where the Cauldron marked the border between the Boundary and the lab. It probably only appeared there because that was where Relius expected Terumi to appear. And even as he watched, the distortion expanded, its asymmetrical edges widening to encompass the whole rim of the Cauldron, and then beyond. "Simply fascinating! The plan may need to be revised to take this new data into account. If the Time Break continues to spread, inevitably this world and that one will create a Collision Zone. We could do away with this insane world, and whatever other worlds exist on the other side, comfortably ahead of schedule!" It was the part after that destruction that Relius was concerned with. The void such an event would create... It would be a perfect foundation upon which a master Architect could work his craft! "First, some controlled testing, to determine how much more quickly the Time Break spreads in various circumstances..." So many lovely experiments, none of which had been done before!

Relius Clover believed himself to be above the petty aspirations toward the ascendant bliss of "Heaven" held by the human masses. After all, here Colonel Clover was, putting work in to achieve that ideal world, and what were the masses working toward? Of course, that was a trick question as well as a rhetorical one. Their work would become entirely pointless soon, no matter what they were doing. Izanami would see to that, one way or another. In deference to their pact, Relius decided to contact the Imperator and inform her of this new variable. He doubted She could see the possibilities here-Hades: Izanami had never had an original thought before, and would never decide to change tactics based on the power of a superior argument or the acquisition of new facts.

That was why he would work covertly after giving her the information necessary to reject his proposal. Relius had many extra tricks under his cape that would let him run this operation behind the curtain, a curtain that was itself hidden by the curtain of the NOL's puppet organization. He called the Phantom to his side. "Phantom. Send a message to the Imperator: A new avenue has revealed itself that may accelerate the coming of Doomsday."

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

In a makeshift lab beneath the Akitsu NOL branch office...

Kokonoe gaped at the readouts on her screen. First the Imperator shows up out of nowhere, then Takamagahara got its brains broken, then there was that business with Ragna's arm (although that had provided some lovely data), and now this? What the hell was Relius doing in Ookoto? This wasn't part of her projections of the enemy's next move, and with Relius involved, it had to be something bad. Except... she had seen these readings before, when salvaging Nu-13's soul. Kokonoe had thought they were the typical random weirdness one had to deal with when working in the Boundary, but no. This was a very unique, specific weirdness, one Kokonoe could potentially exploit. For one thing, two-way tunnels between any two points on the two timelines was an excellent alternative to teleportation. Temporal distortion would make it something less than instant or predictable, but that made it perfect for laying a trap wherever she wanted!

"Time to roll up my sleeves and get cracking! Tager! Bring me another silver vine pop!"

"*Krzzt* ...Yes, Kokonoe. TR-0009 Tager, commencing mission."

"You know, you don't have to say that every time you bring me a lollipop. It's not some epic mission."

"...I was trying to convince myself that it was." Tager lumbered into the room with the requested candy.

Kokonoe grabbed it and stuck it in her mouth with a minimum of wasted movement."Okay, wait right there. I've stumbled on the discovery of several lifetimes, and you get to test the new Time Breaker feature I'm installing in your Artificial Causality Weapon."

"...When will you install that?" Tager asked guardedly.

"And... Click!" Tager spontaneously shut down. "This is my favorite part of the day..."

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

A/N: As you probably guessed, what Lambda will find in Twilight Town is another encounter with Xion, who's still stuck on the Veil Lizard assignment and heading up a creek without a Keyblade. That's where Tager's headed, as well; like attracts like, where the IDEA Engine is concerned. As for Riku, he'll be stuck where he is for at least one more chapter. Merlin can point him in the right direction after he's done trudging up those stairs.