Whaddaya know, it's another snapshot! Behold the product of my deranged mind, lightning on the horizon as I drove home for Spring Break, and wondering if the Nobodies could overload themselves. Enjoy!
The Greater Nobodies, being primarily elemental beings, were in the curious position of having to balance the energy in their bodies. Like power conduits, they could be over-loaded, and such a thing would be disastrous, possibly even deadly- or so Vexen said, and he was generally to be trusted on matters concerning the health of the Organization, though not on anything related to fashion- so it was necessary to ensure that a sufficient amount of energy was released on a regular basis. During the course of a normal day, most members didn't use much of their elemental power, but on most missions, it was generally necessary to kill, maim, pillage, burn, sneak, steal, or otherwise do something nasty and probably impossible for the typical being to do, and therein lay the release of elemental power. Every now and then, however, circumstances led to the buildup of power within an individual, and then it was necessary for that power to be released in other ways.
There were many ways to go about doing this, ways like sex and battle and training to exhaustion, but the greatest and most effective of the ways was also the most beautiful
There was a world where magic did not exist and the residents did not question strange occurrences. In this world, there was a city of glass and stone built in the valley between a rocky mountain range and the sea, and to the east of this city, a plateau rose from the earth. While the land around the plateau was rich and fertile, the plateau had few natural resources and was largely left alone by the local population. A few houses dotted the north end, where it was lowest and some enterprising individual had installed an pipeline to bring water in from a river in the nearby mountains, but the rest of the land was barren, empty, and as close to deserted as any place in an inhabited world can be.
It was here that some members of the Organization came to release pent-up power.
The Organization had been experiencing a dry spell of late. The missions Xemnas had been assigning called for stealth and silence and diplomacy and non-violent behavior, which left little room for the baser elemental magics to be used. Finally, when the strain of controlling themselves was becoming too much, a handful of Nobodies excused themselves from the castle for the day and made their way to the quiet world.
Axel and Demyx got there first and staked out a space to work in, an area of flat stone some fifteen by fifteen feet, worn smooth by previous visits. They began to undress, laying their clothes under an over-hanging stone in a jumbled heap of them that had been put there for that and other purposes. When they were down to the tight regulation pants and any jewelry they chose to wear, they moved to opposite corners of the square and began to stretch, ignoring each other.
As this small ritual took place, other portals opened, disgorging several other Nobodies, each of who had their own way of preparing for what was to come.
After several minutes, Demyx and Axel advanced towards the center of the square, a location marked by nothing except the confidant knowledge that this was the center. Shimmering waves of heat distorted the air around Axel, testament to the sudden spike in his body temperature. Demyx's skin was covered in a thin coat of water that glistened in the sunlight, casting wobbly shadows on the ground. His footsteps appeared on the dry stone for a few brief moments before Axel's advancing heat faded them away.
A bolt of lightning lanced out of nowhere, striking between them. The resultant explosion of thunder was deafening. Axel and Demyx didn't bother to look for the source- Larxene, naked on top of a pillar of stone she had coaxed Lexaeus into raising for her, had called it down.
As the last echoes of the thunder faded into the thick summer air, Axel lunged at Demyx, the heat around him moving with him like a wave swelling before the shore. Demyx darted out of the way, his watery skin following after a moment of delay. Steam rose from where the heat and the water met. Demyx stopped a safe distance from Axel and smiled at him, urging the redhead to come after him again. Axel did, leaping at Demyx with hands outstretched. He got one on Demyx's shoulder, which produced a loud hiss and a plume of steam that rose over their heads.
Larxene sent another flash of lightning down at them. They leaped apart, Demyx baring his teeth in a silent growl, and paced at opposite sides of the space. In a breath, Demyx was on the other side, wet hands sliding down Axel's bare chest to the hard curves of his hipbones, wreathing them both in a cloud of steam. Axel pushed him away and they returned to where they had been, with the empty stone between them.
The lightning became more frequent, a heavy, erratic presence that charged the air on the plateau and made the other Nobodies present shiver with anticipation. Following on the tail of the lightning, the thunder became a beat that Axel and Demyx moved to, rushing at each other as the earsplitting thunderclaps dictated.
As time passed, the steam rising into the air from the frequent touches between Numbers Eight and Nine began to raise the humidity, making skin stick to clothing and more steam roll off of Axel's body, sweat that vaporized as soon as it was produced. Larxene lolled on her pillar, eyes shuttered and face loose in an expression of pure carnal pleasure, one delicate hand directing the lightning.
High above the dancers, the temperature began to drop. Lazily draped over the stone pile, Vexen manipulated the heat into a cooler presence, forcing the moisture in the air to begin condensing. A thin fog formed on the ground, a few inches of pale wisps that swirled and broke around Axel and Demyx's feet. Overhead, the sky began to darken.
The dance Demyx and Axel performed would not have been accepted in by any known discipline of the art known to the worlds, save maybe native, though there was no culture that had a dance quite like this one. It was primal in a way that mere humans could not even begin to grasp, going back farther than ancestor and animals, taking its power and emotion from the elements themselves. Axel's fire danced with him now, faint tongues of it licking agasint his skin in the hollow of his throat, the curve of his palm, the small of his back, hungry and quick as it had ever been. His steps were sudden and hard to predict, close together and often coming in rapid sucession, sending him across the space in a short burst of jerking movements. Demyx moved just as quickly, but smoothly, often extending his body in long, sinuous movements that were as sensual as they were powerful. His control was slipping as Axel's was, the watery skin covering his thickening in places and dripping onto the hot stone. He slipped across the dance floor to hold Axel to him for a moment, chest to bare, heaving chest, then vanished in the steam and reappeared halfway to the center, eyes wild and dark, water reforming over his sternum.
The chill in the upper air was starting to descend to a more easily accessable level, leaving a glittering dew on the ground outside the square of stone Demyx and Axel danced in. As it came, the clouds gathering in the sky darkened further, to the angry purple of heavy storms. Larxene's lightning came from them, now, lancing down faster in an almost regular pattern.
On the edge of the plateau, Xaldin grinned a wide, predatory smile and raised his hands. A breeze kicked up, whispering across the dusty place and disturbing the mist on the ground. It played in his dreadlocks, pushing them away from his sweaty face and making the mostly-restrained bunch shake. The clouds began to move, slowly at first but picking up speed, out towards the city.
Axel and Demyx were touching more and more often now, the great leaps and mad dashes replaced by bare-handed grappling. They were rapidly vanishing in the cloud of steam being produced by the contact, but gaps in the tendrils of hazy white revealed quick glimpses at what was going on in the center of the circle- a long, pale hand carded through thick blonde hair, drying it out for a split second before water flowed up to cover it; a slender, leather-clad leg wrapped around a lean, muscular thigh; a bare back with a tangle of ancient characters and snaking lines of shadow tattooed on it arched in a smooth, perfect curve; eyes the color of a stormy sea flashed in a quick turn of gently tanned skin; a thin-lipped mouth smiling a secret, knowing smile; big, bony hips rolling to the cascading peals of thunder tearing the air around them; a seashell necklace swaying agasint a thin chest.
Vexen was standing now, eyes on the sky, fixing all his attention on the subtle shifting and changing of the temperature of the air. A moment's distraction could ruin his efforts, though he moved faintly with the pounding thunder that reverberated in an empty place in his chest, remiding him what it was like to have been human once. Behind him, Xaldin had closed his eyes. The light breeze had grown to a heavy wind; down in the valley, the first gusts of the storm were whipping the water in pools and ponds into little waves and making trees bend and thrash. At the shore, the water was turning to a white froth, waves crashing onto the sand far harder than before and leaving a scattering of flotsam for beachcombers to pick through in the near future.
Demyx's hand darted up, cupped the back of Axel's neck, and pulled the redhead down into a searing kiss. Axel's heat poured into him, warming him to bloodheat and further, until it seemed he would turn to steam like the water that coated his skin. In the same breath, Demyx's water flowed to cover Axel in a clear wave, replentishing itself as quickly as it was burned away, until Axel was covered completely. For an infinite second, the pair stood together in the cloud of steam, contained within a thin layer of hot water, pressed together from mouth to chest to long legs.
Then the storm broke. The clouds pulsed once, a bright flash of light deep within the thick masses, and the first bolt of natural lightning struck the mountains. Larxene screamed in delight and went limp on the pillar, left boneless and blissful. Far from her, at the crumbling edge of the cliff, Xaldin roared his defiance to the winds that jerked themselves from his hold and went tearing out towards the ocean, then fell back onto the stone. The rain came down in a sudden, shocking deluge, breathtakingly cold for an instant before slackening to a steady fall and becoming a more appropriate temperature. It snowed breifly around Vexen, who had sat back down with his head fallen back, feeling the water on his skin. Axel and Demyx collapsed, falling away from each other and lying still, back to back, while the rain water pooled around them.
For nearly an hour, there was no sound or movement on the plateau. Then, slowly, the five Nobodies picked themselves up. Vexen, Larxene, and Xaldin went to the square where Axel and Demyx lay, watching them silently until Demyx stirred. He sat up, one hand pressed to his temple, and looked up at the roiling mass of clouds overhead, already releasing sheets of rain on the city. Lighning lit up the plateau for a moment, then faded.
"Wow," he said softly to Axel, who had rolled onto his knees and was shaking water from his ears. "I think we went a little overboard this time."
"But it was so good," Larxene purred. She had not yet put her clothes back on and ran one hand down her wet body, ignoring the men standing on either side of her.
"It always is," Xaldin chuckled. He took the clothes from where Axel and Demyx had left them, offering them to the dancers. It didn't matter that they were wet now- everyone was wet, and the clothes were only ever tucked away to avoid Larxene's lightning.
In a city of stone and glass on the edge of an ocean, a great storm raged itself into silence, the clouds vanishing out to sea. The residents delighted in the unexpected rain and assumed it was just a freak storm system that some idiot at the weather station hadn't noticed.
Five Nobodies left the quiet, magic-free world and went to another world, one where magic was commonplace and there was a diner that didn't care if its patrons were soaking wet, so long as they paid.