A/N: Hello again friends, another chapter for you! I'm happy with the pacing of how these chapters are coming out, which is something I hope to keep up, but writing times are unpredictable. Hopefully you all enjoy, and feel free to check out my facebook fanpage that's linked in my profile, or the Zee/Axel AMV that's linked there too!

Chapter XVII: Seldom Dared Dream

There's no relief,
I see you in my sleep
And everybody's rushing me,
But I can feel you touching me
There's no release,
I feel you in my dreams
Telling me I'm fine

Where...

Darkness surrounded him, but not the usual yet uncanny nature of the darkness the Nobodies harnessed, but natural darkness. A night-drenched land that seemed to stretch infinitely in every direction... The only features were knee-high grasses and cattails that blew gently in a barely there breeze. The plant life danced about him as he looked around, finding no trace of mountains, cliffs, trees, roads or any sign of life to speak of. Just him there, nobody else but The Flurry of Dancing Flames. Axel didn't recall how he got there, in fact the last thing he remembered was getting home to the castle late at night after making an emergency visit to the Commercial District. It had been so late when he even just ventured out that he had to beg the Dusk running the store he went to to stay open passed closing hours just for a bit. Axel was lucky that Dusk was so lenient about the rules... and also that Dusk knew it could be easily replaced if it pissed off Axel and ended up dead.

It's so dark here, I've never been to a night land like this... Axel thought, Wait a minute... Night... Night means stars!

Axel nearly broke his neck as he rapidly looked straight up, with a grin spreading across his face with equal speed. There above and around dotting the endless blackness were tiny twinkling white specks in the sky – it was no mistake, he found a star-filled sky... Now the problem was getting Zee to this place, which looked impossible as it was since he had no idea how he even got there in the first place. His head sank from high to low in no time, punctuated with a deep, groaning sigh.

"Can't believe this." He muttered, raising his hand to his face and rubbing his forehead as if this ordeal were giving him a literal headache, "The perfect place and I'm having an amnesia attack."

"What is am-nee-sha?"

No way, it couldn't be. If Axel had a heart it would have exploded out of his chest in delighted shock. That voice was unmistakable, he didn't have to see to know who it was, but he turned around without hesitation anyway.

"X-Xirena?!" He exclaimed.

And there she stood, just as he expected. The violet headed girl nodded excitedly with a sweet smile, sending her locks bobbing up and down around her face. It was hardly important at the time, but it was just a reflex at this point for Axel to answer any question she presented to him.

"Well amnesia is when you lose some amount of memory. Either a little or a lot." Axel explained, "See I said that because I forgot how I got here... Which... Wait, how did you get here?"

"Um." Zee began, but after a pause she shrugged her shoulders, "Beats me! I just got here."

"Huh..." Axel said, shoving his hands in his pockets and pondering, "None of this makes any sense..."

Something in his pocket stole his attention away from the bizarre situation, however. In his right pocket he felt an object in it that he fingered at curiously for a moment. Axel couldn't possibly discern what it was just by feeling through his glove and swiftly pulled it out. In his hand laid a light blue, silky ribbon.

"Th-Thanks a bunch, man!" Axel exclaimed as he ran passed the Dusk operating the store.

The sign above this store indicated that it served a much different purpose than the music store. It wasn't as flamboyant as it lacked neon lighting, it was one of those 'simple but effective' signs. The ornate letters on it read 'Duskan's Clothing and Accessories.'

"Alright what's for hair what's for hair..." He panicked, racing around the store trying to find hair clips like Demyx suggested.

The Dusk had followed Axel, just to make sure he didn't pull something shady like shoplift or screw up the tidy shelves the Dusk had painstakingly organized on a regular basis. The Dusk hovered up to Axel's shoulder and gave him a polite tap on the shoulder. Catching the red head's attention, the Dusk pointed to a section that was obviously labeled 'Hair,' but Axel had no time to feel stupid, he had a mission to accomplish.

"...Thanks again." He uttered, striding over to the indicated section with a twinge of embarrassment that he pushed down.

He dove into the hair items with no damn clue what to do. He saw hair clips of great variety – some plain, some fancy and some straight up gaudy. Plain clips wouldn't do, but none of the fancy ones stood out to him and there was no way he'd buy one of the gaudier monstrosities. Scanning the area, he saw a table nearby that could save him. Heading towards it proved a good idea, as it became abundantly clear that what he needed would be here. The table was full of ribbons, hair scarves and wraps. His eyes looked over the table only briefly before he made his decision, picking up a cyan, silky piece of slim-cut fabric.

Staring at it for only a moment, Axel thrust his hand out straight towards Xirena, who looked puzzled.

"It's a gift." He spoke, "For your hair."

"A gift for my hair? Neat! It says thank you."

"Not literally like that but whatever works." Axel laughed as Xirena plucked it from his hand.

"It's such a pretty color!" She marveled, holding it up in front of her face closely.

"I thought it'd go nice with the purple." Said Axel, who noticed all she was doing was staring at it, "Need help?"

Axel took the ribbon back and stood behind her, tying the ribbon so it sat in her hair offset to the side – her hair was too short to really ponytail, especially with a ribbon.

"There! Perfect."

"Thanks Axel." Xirena said.

"But I got something even better..." He said, walking out in front of her with his back to her, pointing up, "Check it out Zee, there's your stars."

No response.

Eh?

Axel turned around and now found himself even more shocked than when she appeared, because Xirena had now disappeared into thin air. He looked in every direction, a deep panic settling in his mind. There was nothing, just like before she showed up, there was absolutely no trace of anything in any direction.

"Xirena?" He called, answered with nothing, so he elevated his voice to a piercing scream "XIRENA!"

"XIRENA." Axel shouted, shooting up in his bed, "What the?! I'm home?!"

This situation grew more strange by the minute, but he had to say, being here felt much more real than where he just was. The other place, the field of night, felt unreal and had a dream-like quality to it. That's because this was reality, and where he just was... was not.

"Was I..." He murmured, "Was I dreaming?"

Late nights or not, every day was a work day, and after a jarring subconscious experience Axel was oddly motivated to get out of bed that day. He'd planned to tell Zee all about it either later or if they got put on a mission together. But something stopped him dead in his tracks when he entered the Gray Area. As it were everyday, some of his comrades were dotted around the room with the usual suspects – Zee, Demyx and Rex – bundled together. Axel's throat tightened when he saw them, though. Nothing was overtly wrong with the picture of the three of them together, but one small detail was enough to drive Axel bonkers if only for that small moment.

Xirena was wearing a blue ribbon in her hair. The blue ribbon.

It was tied exactly how he did it in the dream, and if that weren't confirmation enough, he shoved his hands into his pockets and felt around – nothing. No ribbon at all. That was HIS ribbon for her for sure.

"I gave it to her in the dream and it crossed into reality?" He said under his breath. Xirena's voice carried over to him as she spoke with her other friends.

"...And then I just woke up with a ribbon in my hair!" She said, sounding like she was at the end of an explanation.

"Well heeeeeeeeeey there guys..." Axel said as he moseyed on up to his friends.

"Axel! Axel!" Xirena exclaimed, "I had the neatest dream last night and you were in it!"

"I guess you could say I did too." Axel countered, "Night time? Big field with nothing but tall grass? We both were there? I gave you a ribbon? There were stars?"

"Yeah! Yeah! Except I didn't see any stars."

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME Axel thought, chewing hard on his cheek.

"So you two had the same exact dream... and Zee wakes up with a ribbon in her hair after you gave her one in the dream, the same exact dream the both of you had." Demyx pondered, stroking his chin and pacing, "The obvious conclusion is that Zee's dream power manifested itself and she visited your dreamscape, Axel."

"Huh?" Zee, Axel and Rex all said.

"Like a dreamworld kinda place!" Demyx clarified, "We all have pretty straightforward powers except for Zee-mama, right? I have water, Axel has fire and Rex has wind... but dreams? How do dream powers work?"

"You know..." Axel responded, "You're right. I've never seen her use her dream powers before, anyone else?"

"Obviously not me!" Demyx said.

"Same. Haven't seen anything out on missions or at all." Rex confirmed.

Xirena looked worried as her friends gossiped about her honestly baffling power.

"This doesn't sound good..." She said.

"Nahhh this just means we have something to discover! A mystery to solve! If you can wander into other people's dreams, imagine what else you can do!" Demyx excitedly pondered, "If only we knew how to trigger her power so we could do experiments... Hey, maybe Vexen cou-"

"No, we should just leave it alone." Axel insisted.

"Ohhhhh come on Axmaster, aren't you the least bit curious after what happened to you? She walked into your dream and took something back from it to the real world!" Demyx, who seemed to be the only one with his mind blown by this, went on, "Who knows how far dream power extends... and how it could be used."

"Yeah, it seems like it could be dangerous..." Axel warned, "We know nothing about it..."

"I-I didn't do it on purpose! I swear!" Zee wailed, her head falling into her hands, "I don't know how I did it, I just found my way there... I'm sorry Axel."

"No no no Zee, don't apologize." Axel urged, shoving Rex away and sitting next to her, "You didn't do anything wrong, we're all just kinda... confused and curious."

"Oh... oh ok." Zee said, her hands slipping down and back to her lap.

From the shadows of the hall, Saix stood out of sight from the others, but he had a perfect view for himself. A perfect view of Axel and Xirena interacting in a sincere way, something you wouldn't expect to see in a 'fake' friendship with someone you find 'annoying and stupid' like Axel had assured Saix several times already. Saix grimaced, his doubts in Axel rising again. Even worse, the fact that they were hanging out together in their dreams suggested they actually were quite close, closer than Saix could have ever expected. His nostrils flared and a growl rumbled in his chest – Axel must have lied to him, which lead to Saix wasting no time in figuring out how to strike back at him for his lie.

"Maybe..." Demyx began his next conjecture, "It just automatically happened because you two are super close and stuff? Maybe she did something she was unaware of? There's gotta be a way we can figure all this out."

"I really don't think we should be playing with fire like that." Axel insisted again, "Who knows whether it could be dangerous or not."

"Whatever she can do, it's weird someone like... her... is given such a complex power." Said Rex, "But at the same time it's pretty useless, huh?"

"Don't say that!" Demyx shouted, "Nobody even knows anything at all yet! I'm telling you, testing is the way to go."

"HOW BOUT THIS." Axel spoke loudly, to take control of the conversation, "Let things happen naturally and we'll report anything back to you, ok?"

"Mrehhh fine, fine." Demyx lamented.

"I think it's better that way too." Xirena piped up, "Dreams are special to people... I don't wanna just go running in on that without control of who or when. I wish I knew what I could do."

"Hey." Axel nudged her playfully, "Save 'that' for later."

Demyx and Rex exchanged curious glances as what Axel said registered with Xirena, who laughed quietly with him. Rex rolled his eyes, already over it, but damn was Demyx a curious little nerd.

"Ehhhh what's all 'that' now?" He probed.

"'That' is none of your business, that's what." Axel sternly replied, but in a still lighthearted manner.

"Alright, alright..." Demyx reluctantly surrendered, "You two and your little secrety secrets."

While all the levity was coming to an end, the doom and gloom known as Saix approached the group. With his clipboard in hand, he scanned the day's orders and cleared his throat loudly to gain the group's attention.

"Time for work." He said flatly. He was honestly happy to give out the tortuous work he had planned but his voice would never reflect that, "Rex and Xirena, Deep Jungle for recon."

"Ugggh..." Rex groaned, "I hate that filthy place..."

"But there's vines there! I swung on them last time and it was really fun!" Xirena said gleefully, "I'm excited."

"You can break your neck swinging on vines hon but I'll sit that out, thanks."

"AHEM." Saix cleared his throat yet again, "Demyx and Axel, Agrabah to eliminate a large Heartless."

Saix knew Axel, and everyone really, hated Agrabah. He also knew that Demyx would be a nuisance to him all the way through the mission and Saix took great joy in that. However, he didn't expect Xirena to be jovial over going to the Deep Jungle – he hadn't heard of these vine swinging shenanigans until just now. This was all miniscule in scale compared to what he was brewing as punishment for Axel though, he didn't have a solid way to go about it yet, but he planned on pulling no punches.

"Well then?" Saix said, "Get to work!"

Everyone hopped up off the couch and paired up, heading for two corridors of darkness generated for them by Saix. Saix watched as Xirena and Axel waved good-bye to each other as they separated into the different voids with their partners. Saix grunted in displeasure quietly with his hands gripping the clipboard so hard it was at risk of being snapped.

"I wish..." Axel said as he followed Demyx into the corridor, "Wish we went to Wonderland."

"Eh? Why's that?" Demyx said as the path to the Gray Area closed behind them.

"Just something I wanna look for is there." He replied honestly.

"I bet it's for Zee!" Demyx teased, pulling a sigh from Axel.

"You're not wrong, I'll give you that..."

Surprisingly, Demyx left it at that, which was a relief for Axel. Divulging every last detail of his life to that nerd got tiring.

"Heh." Demyx laughed, "Say, when are we having band practice and auditions?!"

"Band practice numero uno: pick the songbird!" Demyx announced.

They had to quickly pick up a power strip on the way home to plug in all the electronics since outlets were scarce in their rooms, no way would they have enough without a power strip. While they had purchased them, microphones were being skipped over for the audition since they decided to do it in Demyx's room and there was no need for amplification in there. Rex, as per his petty wishes, was going first.

"Hello peasants." He said as he stood before his 'judges,' "I am going to be performing and impressing you all with Pillow Talk by Zayn Malik tonight."

Xirena being the supportive friend that she was, clapped for Rex to cheer him on, but Axel and Demyx were less generous on their cheery offerings. Demyx sat with a boom box next to him, and was nice enough to nab the karaoke tracks for the songs picked out. Without further ado, Demyx eagerly pushed 'play' on the CD and prepared himself...

"CLIMB ON BOAAAAARD" Rex wailed dramatically and unintelligibly, "WE'LL GO SLOW AND HIGH TEMPOOOOOO"

For nearly three and a half minutes this went on. Rex's struggle vocals weren't exactly what Demyx was looking for in the band, and the fact that Rex was trying to pull some kinda 'sexy' act during his song made everyone uncomfortable. Once that three minutes of torture was up, Rex stood proudly in front of them all.

"Is there any NEED to audition any more?" He scoffed with his hands on his hips.

"Well, you know, to be fair to Zee and all..." Demyx semi-lied.

"Blah blah blah whatever we all know how this will end." Rex prattled off.

Xirena stood up to give her Rex a place to sit and Demyx fiddled with the boombox to get to Zee's song. In the quiet meantime, Axel plucked away at his bass strings a bit to get a feel for the instrument. After a moment, Demyx looked to Zee and gave her the thumbs up.

"Oh ok." She said and cleared her throat, "My name is Xirena and today I will sin-"

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

To say it was knocking was an understatement. It was more like a desperate, rage-filled pounding up against Demyx's door. All four of the friends froze in fear when the first pound hit, certain of what would be on the other side. Without much hesitation, Axel silently volunteered to go handle the situation on the other side. As he passed by her, he instructed Zee to go sit back down, and she obliged without question. The pounding was near constant until Axel swung the door open swiftly.

"What is all that noise?!" Saix shouted.

"You pounding on doors and shouting." Axel replied with a smarmy smile.

"Don't get smart with me, Axel." Saix scolded, pushing passed the unsuspecting red head and into the room.

Saix growled as he approached the other three, taking in all the room had to offer. Various instruments, a couple of amplifiers, microphones and other such musical necessities... It wasn't a pleasant sight to the Berserker, in fact it was almost sickening the amount of fun that could take place with all that equipment. He'd only expected to scold them for loud singing, he had no idea they had all this equipment with them, which only added to their potential 'sentence.' With a huff, he turned back to Axel.

"All of this, get rid of it." He ordered sternly.

"W-Wha? But we just got it!" Demyx whined from behind, "We just wanna have a fun band thing, that's all."

"It wasn't a suggestion, Demyx." Saix said, looking over his shoulder, "Disband the band, get rid of this garbage and don't be such nuisances ever again, or you'll be Dusks for months."

Without any further words, Saix stormed out of the room and slammed the door shut behind him. First he finds out about Sunny, and now they made the mistake of doing this music thing in their rooms rather than go to Zee's Void of Reverie where loud music couldn't be heard. Clearly nobody had thought of that, least of all Zee. But surely if they were able to successfully hide a pig for as long as they had now, they could hide their band equipment, right? But trying to get it all to the Void of Reverie without being seen somehow would be more difficult than the pig when it came down to it.

"Well guys I guess that's it..." Demyx lamented, "We could hide the instruments for now and just not use em, maybe we can do it again in a few months once he's forgotten about it and we'll just be smarter about it."

"Wishful thinking, Demyx." Axel said, "We're already risking our skins with Sunny, we shouldn't push it with him."

"Just for the record," Rex piped up, raising a finger, "I would've gotten the singing part, right?"