Yay! People are really gonna be happy now that Roxas is back in the Castle...for a while at least. I'd like to give a special thanks to one of my best friends, Becca, for creating the group of pirates in Dr. Schmitty's office.
Roxas was finally starting to loosen up. After a couple minutes, he had learned to call all three of them by their names: Demyx, Katex, and of course Axel. Katex and Demyx laughed a lot, and Roxas knew he should be laughing too. After all, he had always been a laughy person, and they still expected him to act like he normally did. He was obviously not acting normal, and he could tell that Axel was noticing. Axel kept staring at him interrogatingly, as if he were trying to figure out what was wrong.
When the questions were less about himself, and more of just stories about their past experiences, Roxas was able to smile, sometimes even laughing. It was hard, though, because, while he was trying to just have fun and act normal, he was also busily memorizing as many facts about the members of Organization XIII as he could.
"You know what this reminds me of?" Katex brought up, laughing. "That time when Vexen's crazy experiment blew up on us, and Axel and I switched bodies."
Note to self: Roxas thought, Vexen's experiments are dangerous.
"That was funny," Demyx announced, hardly able to hold in his amusement.
"No it was not," Axel countered. "I suddenly had these strange additions to my body," he gestured to where a girl's breasts would be, "and every time I'd bump against them, she'd slap me. I never knew how strong my hands were until she was slapping me with them."
"That was the funny part," Demyx stated. Axel's eyes filled with rage, and he tackled Demyx from across the room. Axel had started to form a little bit of fire too, but Demyx drenched both Axel and himself in water, ending the small fight. Everyone was laughing—that was the first time for Roxas since he got there—and Axel glared over at Katex before sitting back next to Roxas on the bed.
The next time Roxas laughed was when a small silence arrived, and Demyx took the chance to mention to Roxas, "You know what I just thought of? That time on your birthday when we couldn't find a cake anywhere, so I blindfolded you, and took you down to the Underworld, and I didn't take the blindfold off until we'd snuck up behind Hades. And I tried to make you blow out his hair like it was a candle."
By that time, Roxas had broke out in laughter, but Axel interrupted, "Wait, I don't remember this."
"That's 'cuz you weren't there," Katex giggled.
"It didn't work, did it?"
"Nope," Demyx answered. "Roxas got to laughing too hard and could hardly get out one puff before Hades heard us. Then he got really mad, and his hair got even bigger, so I had to dump some water on his head and make a run for it before he killed us."
"What made you think of that?" Roxas questioned as soon as he could breathe again.
"Isn't it about time for your birthday again?"
Roxas smiled. How could he not even remember that?
Then, a while later, the dreaded question came up. "So, what was it like, having a heart an' all?" Demyx wondered.
Roxas's mind went blank. He stared at them, mouth gaping. When he noticed they were all staring at him in expectation, he smiled. Sora's voice came into his mind, You have to think faster Roxas. What was it like to not have a heart?
I don't remember, Roxas responded in his mind.
It was just this morning, goof. Before we came here, we were separate. How was that different from now?
"I passed out," Roxas said, accidentally out loud.
"What?" Axel asked.
Demyx tried to make it an answer, though, exclaiming, "So that's why you'd never hear me when I was talking to you!"
"What? That time fighting Sora in the Underworld? No, I heard you. I passed out when we separated, Sora and I."
"You separated then?" Axel questioned, as if he were noting it in a list of symptoms to why Roxas was acting weird.
"Yeah, duh," Roxas replied, slightly lying. "Why would I bring him back here?"
Demyx threw his hands up. "Wait, wait! Back up. You heard me, but you completely ignored me? What were you doing?"
Roxas thought back to that moment, once again unable to come up with an answer on his own. What should I say? He asked Sora.
You're the one who didn't talk to him, Sora replied, It's not like I was forcing you. Just tell the truth.
"The truth…I had…no clue who you were," Roxas answered.
Demyx looked surprised, but Axel broke in, "I knew it!" When Demyx and Katex looked like they wanted an explanation, he continued, "You didn't know that? How many times have I told you, Roxas doesn't remember us? Got it memorized now?"
Roxas tried to protest, insisting that he remembered his three friends, but they were all being louder than him. "But he remembers us just fine now, doesn't he? Don't you Roxas?" Katex countered.
Roxas was still shaking his head and mumbling, "No." Then, it registered what she's said, and he assured, "Yeah, I remember now…Axel, Demyx, Katex."
"And how long did it take you to figure that out Roxas?" Axel demanded. "Thirty minutes? At least ten, just to relearn our names."
"I knew your name the instant you walked through the door," Roxas replied, offended—or at least trying to be offended. He was kind of trying to act like the way he had seen Demyx react when he was accused of having no heart. It seemed like a good reaction.
Axel took the picture that was still resting in Roxas's lap. "How long would it have taken you to find that on the back of this picture?" He opened the frame and removed the picture, reading from the back of it, "To Axel, from Katex."
Sad that he couldn't convince Axel, Roxas shook his head and whispered, "No…I remember…I remember you Axel."
Crossing his arms across his chest, Axel ordered, "Tell me something you remember about me."
Roxas thought for a moment before responding, "We fought each other in the basement, and I won." He emphasized the winning part.
Axel's shoulders slumped. "Was that the first thing you could think of?"
"Well, you beat me in 'the struggle' in Twilight Town."
"Enough with the fighting already. Can't you remember anything better? Like…eating sea-salt ice cream on top of the clock tower?"
"Oh, that stuff is good," Roxas agreed. He was really excited because he was actually remembering things, but then it dawned on him. Maybe he'd never forgotten Axel except…"Now was that before or after the fight?"
Axel was about ready to answer in a really frustrated manner when Demyx interrupted, "Is everything you know about Twilight Town? What can you remember about me?"
Another moment of silence filled the group as Roxas thought about how to answer. "There was this one time," he began cautiously, "in the Underworld, when we tried to blow out Hades' hair…"
"I just told you that," Demyx reminded.
"I know," Roxas mentioned lightheartedly, "that was a joke." He added to himself, Something meant to kill time. He wasn't remembering Demyx, though.
Right before the silence of Roxas's thought would have become awkward again, a voice screamed through the air, "All members, please report to the meeting room…Roxas, please report to the meeting room."
Demyx and Katex climbed to their feet and left the room—Katex sliding away on some sort of surf board. Roxas went to follow, but Axel stopped him in the doorway.
"You don't really remember, do you Roxas?" He questioned.
"Yes I do," Roxas countered, looking back to his red haired friend. "I swear Axel, I remember you."
After a moment, Axel smiled like he had an idea. "Then, you lead the way to the meeting room."
"Okay," Roxas agreed, following in the direction Demyx and Katex had gone.
Axel grabbed him by the back of his shirt, turning him the opposite direction, and correcting, "We'll go this way."
"But—" Roxas pointed to their two friends.
"Yes, this is the long way, but we'll get there nonetheless…that is, if you remember."
Roxas took a deep breath, let it out, and walked. He had no idea where to. He just hoped he'd find the right place by chance. He didn't.
Ten minutes later the voice roared through the halls again, "Roxas and Axel, report to the meeting room NOW!"
Axel sighed, rolling his eyes, and brought Roxas to the meeting room.
"Whoa! Doctor Schmitty, who's this? It's like Drake's identical twin!" A young lady exclaimed, looking down at the sleeping Wesley and then to her friend who really did look almost exactly the same.
Schmitty glanced up from a red haired girl's sliced arm that he was bandaging together. "Oh that's Wesley…you know, my infamous friend." He quickly tied a knot in the bandage, which made the girl wince slightly. "I've always been perplexed by the similarities in their appearance. They're not related in the slightest."
Drake wandered over to see his look-alike, and when Schmitty finished working on the girl, the two of them went over as well. Schmitty sighed, "I hardly ever see him when he's not unconscious."
"What happened this time?" The lady who noticed him at first asked.
Schmitty shrugged and then pointed over to the corner, "Those three brought him in. Apparently, my name was the only thing he said before he passed out."
Everyone else looked to the corner where two anime boys slept, leaning back to back on each other, and one anime girl sat at a desk, focusing on a map.
Drake looked back to Wesley before commenting, "Well, they're not too helpful, are they?"
"I heard he was being chased by Roronoa Zoro," the redhead whispered.
"Sacre bleu!" Exclaimed a dark haired girl from a chair in another corner. Everyone had heard of him before, and a fear filled them all.
"Chased?" Drake wondered, "Do you think he's still following him? What if he comes here looking for him?"
"We'll definitely have to be prepared to defend ourselves," the redhead decided, already drawing her sword.
A moan came from one of the two sleeping boys. "So much noise," he complained, stretching and yawning, "Can't you see we're trying to sleep?" Then, he opened his eyes and saw the sword. He was instantly to his feet, dropping a hand on one of his three hilts and letting the other sleeper fall to the floor. "Is there danger somewhere?"
The other sleeper woke for a second, but was quickly sleeping again, groping around for a while for some sort of pillow before convincing himself that the floor was comfy enough. The first girl explained, "Phoenix just said that Roronoa Zoro could show up here any minute. That famous pirate hunter…here…not good."
The man's face lost all excitement as he replied, "Yeah, that wouldn't be good, would it?"
Drake noticed that there was no sense of fear at all, so he questioned, "Ye do know who he is, don't ye? Ye've heard of 'im before?"
The man sat down casually in a chair to think. "Yes, I do believe I've heard the name a time or two."
"And you're not afraid that he might show up here?" The redhead—Phoenix—inquired, not seeming too frightened herself.
"Not concerned in the slightest, no," the man answered, leaning back in the chair with his arms behind his neck. "Why would he show up here, of all places?" Then, he added in his mind, It's only the most famous pirate hospital. Why would I want an injured pirate when I could fight a live one?
"Because he's chasing Wesley," the first girl explained again.
A small smile crossed the man's face. "Chasing Wesley? Is that really what you think? I wouldn't do that…no it's worse than that. The Organization is after Wesley."
"Organization XIII?" Schmitty asked in shock.
"You're Roronoa Zoro!" Drake realized, having been the only one to catch that part.
Everyone else looked to Drake, and then to the man in the chair, exclaiming as well, "You're Roronoa Zoro?"
Zoro sighed, "Don't any of you know I don't hunt pirates anymore? I am a pirate…a Straw Hat pirate."
Drake glanced over to Luffy who was still sleeping and wondered, "As in, that's your captain?"
"Uh…yep. We met up with Wesley when we were breaking into Lionel's castle, and he was breaking out. Figured you'd like to know we're working together." After everyone's expressions relaxed, he added, "Though I'd still like to fight him, just once, for the experience. I've heard he's pretty good."
"With a sword?" Schmitty asked just to be sure he'd understood. "Aye, he's fast, even in this condition. The instant he wakes up, he'll be able to beat any one of us."
"That's surprising…a bit," Zoro mentioned thoughtfully. "He lost so easily when we were fighting Organization XIII."
"He lost? Or he lost focus?" Schmitty demanded. "He's rather easy to distract considering he's spent his entire life distracting others. What exactly happened?"
"Well, yes, I suppose he was distracted…but I still don't know."
"We'll test him then," Schmitty suggested.
"What?" His friends questioned in shock, Phoenix continuing, "You're proposing that he fight Wesley?"
"Why not?" Schmitty asked. "He'll handle it fine. And not just Zoro…all of you."
"You certainly have confidence in your friend," Drake noted, slightly sarcastic.
Recognizing everyone's doubt, Schmitty replied, "None of you have ever seen him fight."
Wesley could hear everyone talking around him. He couldn't understand what they were saying, but slowly he opened his eyes with a moan. The first thing he saw was a saber soaring down toward his head. Quickly—remembering that he'd lost his sword—he reached behind him to grab one of Zoro's hilts. He definitely had enough to share. He held the sword with two hands to block the attack, noticing for the first time that they weren't swords at all. They were katanas.
Looking up, curiously wondering who was attacking him, Wesley saw himself on the other end of the saber. Shocked for a second, he almost missed a second attack coming from another of Zoro's katanas. He quickly moved his weapon to deflect Zoro's blow, then took Zoro's last katana to stop his twin from making an advance.
"I thought you were on my side," Wesley stated to Zoro, sitting up in the bed. Then, he turned to his twin, "and who are you?"
"We ah your woorst nightmare," the French girl stated coming at him with a third sword. Wesley pushed both boys away from him and rolled to his feet to make fighting easier.
His twin continued, "And your task is to rescue your friend." He pointed to the corner where another girl was holding a knife at Schmitty's throat.
Wesley looked around to assess the situation. Besides the people already mentioned, a red haired girl stood halfway to Schmitty as a sort of last resort. Wesley knew—if this was really real—the dark haired girl would kill Schmitty before he finished the fight. Realizing he had no other option, Wesley grabbed a dagger from his waist and threw it at the girl. It hit the wall behind her, not even a centimeter above her head. She honestly looked very scared as she gasped, sighed, and collapsed to the floor.
"Mission accomplished," Wesley announced as Schmitty got away.
His twin glanced over for a second, slightly perturbed that the dagger had gotten so close to her head, but responded as if it hadn't bothered him at all, "Now we're just angry."
Wesley hopped off the bed, right between the three swordsmen who were trying to fight him, stating, "I don't feel like fighting today. Let's just—"
The saber slashed down toward him again, and he deflected the blow without even looking at the man attacking him. A second later, Wesley spun around and slammed his fist across the twin's face. The twin fell to the ground, shocked, as Wesley shouted, "Stop trying to kill me! I'm not in a good mood!"
Then he turned back to Zoro. "Have ye decided I'm worth enough money to turn me in?" He asked, holding his hands out as if they were in cuffs. "Go ahead. It's not like anyone else who ever offered to help me followed through with it. It was my mistake for trusting you in the first place."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Zoro broke in. "This was not my idea. Your friend over there wanted to show me how good you were with a sword. That's all." He pointed to Schmitty.
Wesley looked to Schmitty questioningly, and Schmitty responded with an embarrassed smile like it hadn't exactly turned out the way he'd hoped. Then, Wesley smiled too, but it was his mischievous smile.
"You wanna play with fire?" He inquired, implying he was willing to join the dangerous game. "I'll show you my best…though, being injured, it's not likely I'll be able to win." Holding both of Zoro's katanas up, he positioned himself in the fighting stance.
"It's not likely you'd win either way," Zoro bragged.
Slightly offended, Wesley attacked first, but it was easily defended by Zoro. "Don't be so sure of yourself," Wesley ordered. "You may be the best in the East, North, West, and South Seas, but the Caribbean is a whole different story."
"Is that so?" Zoro questioned, pushing Wesley away from himself.
"You tried so hard to deceive me into fighting hard. I'd best give you a run for your money," Wesley stated, boredly spinning the katana in circles in his hand as he waited for Zoro to make the next move. Zoro did charge Wesley, and they fought for a while.
Zoro was the one who eventually had to back out for a second, making the excuse, "I'm much better when I have all three of my katanas."
"Are you?" Wesley asked mockingly. He stabbed the two katanas that he had in his hands into the floor, took a step back, and gestured in a way that meant bring it on, commenting, "I'll fight all three of you…barehanded." He was finally starting to feel like himself again.
The two others approached to also join the fight as Zoro grabbed his katanas and mentioned, "I heard you once fought an entire ship of Spaniards with your hands behind your back, but I never would have expected it was true…until you said that."
Wesley raised his eyebrows, mixing a bragging and questioning look that said, "Well you'll find out, won't you?" His twin shrugged from behind him. If he wanted to fight all three of them, Drake wasn't going to deny him that pleasure, so he slashed again with the saber.
Acting like he didn't know anything was going on, Wesley waited until the last second to do anything, but in the knick of time dodged to the side, immediately jumping over a slice from the dark haired girl. Even Zoro missed Wesley when he attacked with all three swords. A while later, Drake and the dark haired girl came at Wesley from opposite sides, and all Wesley had to do was take one step back in the last moment and hold out a foot to trip them. They both missed, jabbing their swords into the floor to avoid hitting one another.
While they were both stumbling, Wesley casually reached a hand to either side of him and pulled the two swords from the floor. He once again spun each weapon in a couple circles braggingly. Then he readied himself to fight Zoro once more with a smile.
Zoro commented, "You're just showing off."
"I thought that was what ye were askin' me ta do," Wesley joked. "And I only fought three Spaniards with me hands behind me back. There just happened to be no one else on the ship that wanted to fight me."
And so the fight continued, finally just Wesley at his max and Zoro at his max. After quite a long time of hard fighting, Zoro knocked Wesley's saber away. Wesley ran to get it. Since it was closer to Zoro than to him, Zoro won. Figuring he had a moment, Wesley stopped to catch his breath. Zoro gave him a small look that asked, "Are you tired already?"
"Told you…there's…no way…I'd win," Wesley stuttered through heavy breathing. "Who could possibly…defeat a man…who can direct an attack…with his mouth?"
"Don't give up yet kid," Zoro replied. "The battle's not over yet…and it's not so much how many swords you have as it is the skill with which you use those swords. I once defeated a man with six swords…and then, I was also defeated by a man with only a dagger smaller than the one at your waist."
Wesley laughed slightly and then prepared himself to fight again, this time with just his sword. "That would be an honorable story to be able to claim as your own."
Bravely, Wesley charged in. He was able to hold off all of Zoro's attacks with just his one sword, but that was what he was good at with the sword: defending himself. When he got a chance, he tried a little offensive move and actually sliced a cut across Zoro's leg. Zoro winced for a split-second, but it was all the time Wesley needed to slam Zoro against the wall and stab the sword into the wall next to his head.
"Well played," Wesley complimented, "but whenever one plays with fire, they will always be burned." Then, Wesley just walked away.
A few seconds later, Zoro pinned Wesley to the wall, noting, "Where I learned to fight, you never leave your opponent alive. You shoulda killed me when you got the chance."
Wesley looked straight into Zoro's eyes and responded, "I've never killed a man in my life. Why would I start with you who lost so unfortunately and had just gotten through saving my life twice?"
"Because that's what ends a match," Zoro answered.
Wesley smiled. "I grew up where fencing was an art and children fought each other to pass the time. Nobody won or lost, you all just stopped when it was time fer supper."
"Food!" Was suddenly shouted through the room by the sleeping boy in the straw hat, who had since woken up. "Did I hear food? I want meat!"
Zoro looked over to his simple minded friend with a sigh. Wesley took advantage of the distraction and slipped out of Zoro's reach, grabbing Drake's saber and running out the door. He stopped short when he saw a man just outside the door angrily walking toward the hospital. He had blue hair, an 'X' across the bridge of his nose, and he wore the same black cloak as everyone else Wesley had been running from.
Wesley sighed. He'd rather be going against his so-called friends that were trying to kill him. At least only one of them was magical. Zoro came running after Wesley, but when he saw Wesley nervously gaping at the approaching villain, he silently gestured the rest of the group over. They all arrived, and the dark haired girl gasped.
"Saix," escaped her mouth in a hush.
"How much do we know about him?" Zoro whispered.
There was a moment long silence as everyone thought. It was eventually filled by the dark haired girl explaining, "He fights with some sort of fantasized claymore. It's not so much the way the weapon looks as it is the way he uses it. He fights…almost kinda like Wesley."
Zoro sheathed his three katanas and tied them around the petrified Wesley, shoving him a little forward. "Go ahead Kid."
Wesley turned around, able to mutter, "Wha-? ME!"
"Yeah," Zoro replied. "You two are evenly balanced in technique."
"But the magic…" Wesley protested.
"Just because you don't understand it doesn't make it magic, Kid. You can beat him…with just one sword you would have beaten that girly pink one, and look, you have three."
"I can't use all three."
"Then don't," Drake answered, realizing the practicality of it. "Keep the third one as a backup in case you lose one."
Zoro turned Wesley back to face Saix, insisting, "Now go," because Saix was getting close enough that they couldn't spend more time planning.
Wesley stepped out into the street, seeming like his mind was completely void of all thought, but in reality it was racing with complaints. After all, he was the exhausted one, the injured one, the one who lost the last battle, the one who they promised to protect, the one who was afraid of Organization XIII…he could list a thousand more things, but that would do him no good. He would still have to fight. Closing his eyes, he began to clear his mind for the battle. All of his concentration would have to be devoted to defending himself from that claymore.
Saix walked up to Wesley, stopping a few feet away from his target. Looking at the blank expression on Wesley's face, he greeted, "So, seems your friends have finally decided to sacrifice you."
Wesley opened his eyes, looking up at the strange man who was a couple heads taller than him, and smirked. "Not exactly," he countered with a small chuckle as he drew two of Zoro's katanas from their sheathes.
Seeing that Wesley was prepared to put up a fight, Saix formed his own weapon. It kind of looked like a mixture between a backwards sword and a giant lollypop because of the way it got fatter at the circular end. Saix made the first attack. That was just his personality. Wesley caught the claymore in the intersection of his two katanas, but the force was powerful enough to push him backwards a few feet. Before Wesley had any time to adjust to the method of fighting, the next attack came…and then the next…and then the next. All he had time to do was deflect and back up, deflect and back up…over and over and over again.
Saix quickly realized that simply his power would not make it through Wesley's defense, so instead of slicing down at Wesley's head like he had before, he threw it down to Wesley's feet and backed away. A second later, the thing blew up in Wesley's face, throwing him to the ground and kicking up a cloud of dirt. Before Wesley could stand up, Saix appeared through the dust cloud with another one. He threw that one at the ground as well, giving Wesley less than a second to roll away from the explosion.
The force of it still hit his back, but there wasn't a moment to notice that. He had to immediately reach for the katana he'd dropped and stop another slash from another claymore that had mysteriously appeared. A battle like this seemed almost useless to Wesley, simply slowing down the time it takes to die, but he somehow found the strength to return to his feet between two strikes. The battle once again came down to Wesley standing there letting Saix hit the intersection of the swords, over and over and over again.
Just when Wesley thought he might give in under the force of the blows, an idea came to him. He knew he couldn't make an attack with a sword in his mouth like Zoro could, but he could probably just hold it there. Slowly, and gradually, he moved the sword from his left hand to his mouth, keeping his hand on the hilt for a couple blows to make sure it would work. It hurt his jaw…a lot, but if he put the other katana behind it, the force of the blow was lessened quite a bit. After waiting a second, he quickly drew the third katana and slashed at Saix's legs at the same time as Saix came down on the intersection point again.
Saix jumped back in surprise that he'd actually been hit. Wesley immediately dropped the third katana from his mouth and bit down on his hand for a second in pain. He didn't wait too long, though, so he wouldn't lose the advantage he'd just gained. Taking just one of the katanas, Wesley tackled Saix. Saix kicked Wesley off before he could be struck again, throwing another one of his explosive claymores at him, but Wesley dodged the explosion easily, coming at Saix from the back as he tried to stand up.
The blow had barely hit Saix when he whirled around and slashed Wesley across the arm with yet another claymore. It was Wesley's right arm, though, and Wesley was left handed, so Wesley got the chance to attack once more before he had to deflect again. Saix was starting to slow down, however, because the hits he'd received were beginning to weaken him. They fought on for a little while like that before Wesley got another idea. There was a large boulder to the side of them, and Wesley wanted to get on top of it.
He faced his back to it and then let Saix think he was winning again by letting himself be pushed towards the rock. When he finally got there, he jumped on top of it and then jumped off the back to hide behind it. Saix came around to the back looking for him, but Wesley wasn't there anymore. A second later, Wesley appeared behind Saix—who knows how he got there—but in his hand he held a grenade. He pulled the plug, stuffed it down Saix's cloak, and then scrambled to the other side of the rock to wait for the explosion.
He knew it was over when the people still standing in the doorway of the hospital began cheering. Nervously, and with eyes watering, he peeked back over the rock. When he saw nothing there, a horrified look came over Wesley's face as he demanded, "Where is he? I thought we couldn't die."