It had happened a few months ago. It was then that a civil war ended. To anyone with any sanity, the war seemed to emerge from nothing.
Though the aftermath was real enough.
To put it in the best terms, Lumina had lost to several people who referred to themselves as "The Senate." From there, the City became its own independent country, and was dictated by The Senate.
They started making changes right away.
The first thing to happen was complete isolation. No one was allowed to leave the city and no one was allowed to come in, thus effectively preventing help from coming in from the outside. The drafting happened next. All strong and able bodied men and children were taken next. No one knows what they were used for, but all knew that they were never seen again.
Taxes were inflated to astronomical amounts, sending the once lustrous City of Lumina into a state of poverty while senators live the life of celebrities. The ones who sided with the Senate were given much better living conditions than the rest of the city and became Guardians or scientists working inside the strange laboratories of the Senate.
It was because of this that the Hearts Resistance was formed. All the teens in the group either had their families taken away (The girls were all in this category) or they were to be drafted, but escaped in the nick of time. They all agreed that things needed to be changed.
Sora couldn't wait until things returned to the way they were.
"Sora!" Kairi yelled into his ear.
He jumped out of his own world in shock and looked up to the girl looming above him.
"Did I zone out again?" He asked.
Kairi nodded and tried to look frustrated, but she couldn't hide the smile appearing on her face. She was wearing skinny jeans and a white shirt with a pink jacket at the moment.
They were found standing on the roof of the local supermarket. It was a spot Sora came to often after getting breakfast from the bakery below. The resistance was supported by many in Lumina, so they often got food and other things for free, even though wanted posters of all the members were pasted all over town.
"Hey, it's not funny!" Sora exclaimed, but he wanted to smile just as much. He jumped to his feet, so he was taller than Kairi and pulled a small card out of his pocket.
"So, what did the Boss want us to do again?" Kairi asked, peering over in an attempt to see the card.
"Why is Riku the boss again?" Sora asked, envy clearly heard in his voice. Sora liked being in charge of things, so the fact someone beside himself was in charge made him angry. It was made worse by the fact that his childhood friend was the one to lead.
"We all agreed that he had the best idea of how to lead." She replied calmly.
"Well, whatever," He said, letting out a puff of air in frustration. "Anyways, we need to visit our Intel base to see what the Sens have been up to."
Sen was a short form of Senator that was used often by many citizens.
"Oh, good!" Kairi said cheerfully. "It's been awhile since I've seen Naminé!"
A small smile came to Sora's face as he grabbed her hand. "Well, what're we waiting for?" He chuckled.
With a bright smile from Kairi, they made their way to a ladder at the end of the roof and climbed downwards. If they were to get some time off, they would need to finish the mission quickly.
"Ummm…Axel, is this really a good idea?" Roxas asked nervously. At the moment, they were standing in an alley close to the Senator district. Roxas was wearing his usual white jacket and black shirts and pants. Axel, on the other hand, he wore classic navy jeans with a black leather belt. He also wore a long sleeved red shirt with a black flame decal on front. He was in a typical slouched posture leaning against the wall with his hands in his pocket.
"Relax Rox," Axel smirked. "All we gotta do is go around the back, listen in on the Sens' meeting and report back to Intel. Got it memorized?"
Roxas nodded, but his still looked a little worried. It was rather unusual for Axel and Roxas to be on a mission for just the two of them.
It also didn't help that Roxas suspected Axel had come up for this mission by himself.
" Now, from here, we need to get to the back of the Senator complex. It would be best if we had disguises though…" Axel rambled on.
At the mention of the word "disguises", Roxas was prepared to flee. Axel was a bit of a schemer, but any one of his schemes involving disguises usually ended in disaster. It was a bigger problem that Roxas was already there.
There was no hope of escaping.
Roxas was shocked back into reality when Axel began shaking him.
"Earth to Roxas, it's time to get started. Can't have you zoning out on the mission, got it memorized?"
With those words, Roxas was dragged into another hair brained scheme.
For a resistance group made of mostly teenagers, they seemed to know what they were doing. This much could be told by the fact that there were 28 hidden bases scattered around the city in case it was impossible to return to the main one. The fact they had an Intel base told many things about the group as well.
It was true that Riku was decided upon as the leader of the resistance, but he had a lot of help.
Sora would never let him forget that.
But, despite Riku's abilities at leading a group, he was by no stretch of the imagination the best at everything. Sure, he knew how to create plans.
But when it came to gathering information, Zexion was king.
When Sora and Kairi walked up to the "abandoned" communication tower, Zexion knew exactly which path they took, how much time they had wasted goofing off, and he knew exactly how many steps they had taken to get there.
He was that good.
"Can someone go and bring Sora and Kairi up here?" Zexion asked, never pulling his nose out of the rather large book he was reading.
No one was surprised anymore by Zexion knowing they were already there.
Zexion kept his hair going at a diagonal down his face, covering one of his eyes. His preferred clothing choice was a pair of jeans and a black hoodie. He didn't care for fashion that much and would much rather spend his time reading than talking to someone.
"I'll get it," An eager voice called from the corner. A young girl around Sora and Kairi's age jumped from her seat and ran to the small elevator that had power fed to it through the a little "tweaking" with the powerline, as Yuffie would've said.
At the bottom of the tower, Sora was looking up with a large smile. It had been awhile since he had time to visit Intel.
"Head up in the clouds again, Sora?" A quiet voice asked.
"Naminé!" Kairi squealed with glee.
She ran towards one of her closest friends and embraced her in a firm hug. Naminé didn't hesitate to hug back.
"Hi, Kairi," Naminé said with a calm smile. " C'mon, Zexion is waiting for you."
Sora just shrugged and walked onto the small lift of the dark and metallic tower. Before the Sens had barged in, the Com Tower had always lit up at night with bright colours, to show how they were always working.
That was one of the things Sora missed about the old Lumina.
Before he knew it, Sora was being lifted up the elevator towards the Intel base. He wasn't surprised to see Zexion laying lax on a chair with his face burrowed in a book.
"Ahh, Sora, I can't say it's really a surprise to see you here…" Zexion mumbled.
Sora, resisting the urge to slap their Intel leader across the face, walked over to Zexion and held out the card, waiting for Zexion to take it. Kairi had disappeared with Naminé into the back room, most likely to see the art gallery that had built up.
"Is Riku planning something large back at base? This is a rather unusual request…" Zexion said, suddenly getting more interested as he leaned forward towards the panel on the ledge of the window. He flipped up a white laptop that had been set up and, after waiting for it to load; he searched through several files and finally came to what he was looking for.
"Here we go… The Heartless factories… I wonder what they do? Or, what is a Heartless, for that matter?"
Sora rolled his eyes. "I have a feeling you're going to tell me…"
"A Heartless is a type of creature that feeds on other people…" A quiet voice came from the other doorway.
Naminé had emerged from her room with a sketch book in her hands. She clutched it close to her chest and walked over to Sora with Kairi trailing right behind her.
It didn't take her long to find the page she was looking for. A small black creature with glowing eyes was depicted on the page. It looked rather harmless on paper, but based on how she described it, they were probably quite the opposite.
"So that's what Riku's planning," Kairi spoke up. She seemed rather unfazed by the picture, but Sora wasn't either.
" I forwarded all of the Intel to the his computer. Well, I believe that's all you came for," Zexion said quietly, still making no eye contact. He waved them away, without as much as a grunt.
If you hadn't figured it out, Sora despised Zexion.
It was then that something occurred to Sora.
"Hey, Zexion… Do you know what happened Cloud?"
Zexion, surprisingly, he actually put the card from Sora into his book as a book mark and put it down. His emerald eyes meeting with Sora's clear blue eyes.
"I have no idea."
Roxas wasn't enjoying the plan that much. Thankfully, Axel had decided that hiding their faces with ski masks was a better disguise than what he normally chose. But besides that, nothing good had really happened.
Much could be said by the fact Axel was using him as a footstool to look over the walls of the Sens district.
"Axel…" He grunted through gritted teeth, trying to keep his attention away from the leather boots digging into his back. Roxas probably would've knocked him of by now if he wasn't so heavy.
"Shaddup!" He snapped back. "They're just about to start, so stay quiet! Got it memorized?"
Roxas, groaned. But he complied. He could tell they had started talking by the fact Axel was actually being quiet for once. Sadly, Roxas couldn't hear anything from his position on the ground.
Laying on the ground did give him some time to reflect on things, seeing as there was nothing else to do.
Roxas had grown up in Lumina with Sora's family. They were cousins and his only family left, so that's where he was sent when his mom had passed away. He was only five at the time and it was the only place that Roxas had ever called home.
Which is why he was fighting so hard to protect it.
He had met Axel a year or two later and they had been friends ever since. Axel may have like fire a little too much, but Roxas was always the one to get out of trouble. And well, that had been getting much more difficult than it used to be.
"Uhh, Rox," Axel whispered. He had jumped off Roxas' back without him even noticing. "We gotta go. Now."
Roxas didn't even have a chance to stand up. Axel had already grabbed him and pulled him away at breakneck speed. Roxas managed to recover his footjng and kept up with the red-head.
"Axel, what happened? " Roxas asked quickly.
A sly, yet nervous smile came to his face, which made Roxas worry. Axel was never nervous.
"Things are about to get difficult, my friend…"
From the top of the Mythril Corp. building, a shadow of a tall man stood, his face covered by a black mask. He stood there, constantly waiting and thinking. There was something that he was prepared for. Something that he wanted. Something that he knew he could get in the city.
"Orichalcum…" He muttered. Then, with a final look over the city, he walked towards the direction of the setting sun and disappeared from site.
He came to get what he wanted, and he wasn't leaving without it.
Even if everything had to die first.
Author's Note: Thank You for the reviews! I'm glad people liked it. I was trying to go for something new and refreshing.
When it comes to the cast, relax, I have plans for many of them. (Read: I'll put them in if a situation demands it, but I do have roles that need to be filled…)
I plan to update at least once a week, so stick around for more… HEARTS RESISTANCE.
Bye!
-FrozenXIII'sFire