I enjoyed writing this chapter; it's dark, it's gritty, it's twisted...just like the recesses of my soul (which I found out today is a terrifying place to be during a game of Cards Against Humanity) anyway hope you enjoy :D
I stared at the figure in front of me, unable to tear my eyes away from the face that was on one hand so familiar but on the other completely unrecognisable. Lea's eyes, which were usually so bright and full of laughter, were now cold and hard. His face seemed harder as well – more world weary and unfeeling; like he seen things that someone our age shouldn't have to see. He didn't seem like the same person I'd met all those years ago and known my entire life; he didn't seem like my friend anymore.
"Long time no see Lumaria." Lea said. Even his voice was different; cold and unfeeling with none of the warmth it had once held. It was as if we were old childhood rivals squaring up to each other at a reunion not best friends who had lived together for the past few years.
"Lea…" I chocked, my voice sounding hoarse and my throat suddenly bone dry. I swallowed. "when did you get back?" I asked trying not to sound too frightened but in reality I was terrified. A few weeks ago Lea had left with Isa to go and find the other missing people and now here he was dressed in the same outfit I saw The Trio who had dragged Myde away wearing. What had happened to him?
"Not too long ago." he replied in the same voice that could shatter glass. "I had some business to attend to and I thought I'd pay my best buddy a visit."
"What kind of business?" I asked as I unconsciously tightened my grip on the knife I was still holding. Normally as soon as I noticed that it was Lea standing in front of me I would have put it down but there was something keeping me from letting it go; I didn't feel safe around him, not as he was now.
"Just business." Lea smiled and that smile sent shivers down my spine. It was the smile of a predator about to strike in for the kill.
"Where's Isa?" I asked, thankfully still managing to keep my voice from cracking.
"Isa?" Lea asked and a look of genuine confusion flashed over his face. It was quickly replaced by a smirk of recognition. "Oh Isa, he stayed behind. He's busy getting to know the new boss."
"What about the others?" I asked stalling a little as my eyes darted around for an escape to the corner I had found myself backed into. "Ienzo, Braig and that lot, did you find them?"
"Sort of." Lea smirked again and the blood in my veins ran cold. I had no idea what he meant by 'sort of' but I was absolutely positive that it couldn't be anything good. I didn't know if I wanted to tackle that issue yet so I decided I'd ask him another question that was plaguing my mind.
"Why are you dressed like that?" I asked taking another look at the black leather cloak with huge metal chains fastening it at the front, the boots that could probably shatter bones and the gloves that, when the hood was pulled up, kept the entire body covered.
"Helps me move around without being seen." he replied still wearing that same smirk. He took a step towards me and I flinched. As soon as he clocked the movement his smirk widened and I immediately cursed myself. I hadn't wanted him to know that I was afraid of him and now it was pretty damned obvious. "Hey," he said in an attempt to sound calm and soothing. "why so jumpy?"
"Lea you disappeared." I told him suddenly finding a tiny shred of confidence. "I didn't hear from you for weeks and now you show up out of the blue, dressed like that and saying you're back in town on business."
"I am back in town on business." he shrugged.
"What business Lea?" I asked my voice rising in pitch. "You're an artist! So why are you dressed like you're an extra in The Matrix and talking about moving around without being seen? Where the hell have you been?"
"I've been around." he said as if that explained everything.
"Lea!" I exclaimed, imploring him to tell me more and stop being so unreasonably cryptic.
"I don't go by that anymore." he snapped, suddenly angry. "My name is Axel."
"Axel?"
"A – X – E – L." he said spelling it out for me like it was difficult. "Got it memorised?"
"Lea I don't understand!" I cried. "What the hell has happened to you?"
"I've been chosen." Lea – Axel – stated.
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" I asked. "Did you go off and join some kind of cult?"
"It could be construed as that," he said and I couldn't help but think that the Lea I knew had never used words like that before in his life. "but we prefer to think of it more as an organisation."
"Organisation?" I asked thinking this was sounding more and more like some kind of brainwashing cult.
"The Organisation for the Elite and Powerful," he explained. "created by Xemnas; The Superior."
"Xemnas?" As soon as I heard the name I realised I recognised it. I had heard it only the night before when Cassijxe had told Lexxa and Djarnox to take Myde back to Xemnas and he would decide his fate. I also remembered her referring to him as The Superior when Lexxa had questioned their orders. "Do you know what happened to Myde then?" I asked and I surprised myself by the hardness in my own voice. Lea laughed humourlessly.
"He's useless." he stated. "I don't know why on earth Xemnas chose him but he did so who am I to question it."
"What do you mean 'chose him'?" I asked. This was all sounding too much like a cult for my liking and if it had changed Lea's behaviour this drastically then it couldn't be anything good.
"Xemnas choses everyone who joins." he replied and it sounded as if he genuinely believed that Myde or any of the others in the Organisation had had a choice in their initiation. I thought about what I had seen Lexxa do to Myde and I wondered if the same thing had been done to Lea, it would explain his sudden personality shift. "In fact he'd like to extend a welcome to you as well." Lea told me.
"Well tell him thank you but I'm not interested." I replied surprised at my own bravado. I was usually the one who went along with everything because I was too scared of confrontation but this time I wasn't going to back down. I wasn't going to let anyone control me and I'd try my hardest to break Lea out of the spell that this Xemnas person seemed to have him under.
"I don't think you understand," Lea said, his voice dangerous. "this isn't a negotiation. You can't turn down an offer to join The Organisation; if Xemnas asks you to join then you join."
"Then it's not really asking, is it." I pointed out. "It's being forced and I'm not going to bow to peer pressure."
"Well look at you," Lea smirked spitefully. "Lumiria's finally growing a spine. It took you long enough."
"Can't you see what this has done to you Lea?" I asked glaring at him. "You never used to be like this."
"I've told you before my name's not Lea anymore, it's Axel." he stated.
"Fine Axel," I replied a little sarcastically. "but I preferred you when you were Lea." There was a pause as we both sized each other up and I suddenly realised that, if I was desired as a member of this Organisation, it was he who had come to recruit me and not the girls I had seen the previous night. "So if you've come to ask me to join The Organisation why was it you Xemnas sent and not The Trio?" Axel smirked and let out a soft, dark snort of laughter.
"Xemnas said their usefulness had reached its end." he stated. I thought this through for a second; The Trio had obviously been in Radiant Gardens last night when they collected Myde and again in the early hours of the morning to collect Rould. When he first arrived Axel said he was here 'taking care of business' so did that mean…
"What did you do to them?" I asked.
"What do you care?" he countered and that was enough of an answer for me. Evidently Xemnas (whoever he was, I still had no idea) recruited people into his Organisation and used them until he had no use for them anymore then got one of his other lackeys to dispose of them so he didn't have to dirty his hands. "So," Axel asked breaking me out of my thoughts. "are you going to come with me?"
"The answer is still no." I replied coolly. Axel snorted derisively.
"Well if you won't come willingly…" he began but before he could finish I tightened my grip on the knife and lunged at him. It felt wrong; going to attack someone who had been my best friend throughout the vast majority of my life, someone I considered to be more a family member than my actual family. I had to rationalise to myself that the man in front of me wasn't Lea anymore; sure, he looked like Lea but it wasn't him.
Before I could land the blow, however, Axel caught my wrist and twisted it harshly. I cried out in pain and dropped the knife. Axel smirked, his eyes becoming dangerous; now I had no weapon and no way of defending myself against him. He used his grip on me to throw me out of the kitchen and into the rest of the flat. I landed against the windowsill and cried out in pain before turned to face my assailant as he stretched out his arms and two large circular chakrams appeared in a flurry of flames.
"What the fucking hell?!" I cried in astonishment but the sound was drowned out by the loud crackling of more flames suddenly appearing out of nowhere. Axel lifted his eyes to look at me and I could see a fire dancing in them which hadn't been there before and I knew that this was what he had been hoping for; he relished the fight and if he had to strike in for the kill then he was going to make sure he enjoyed that as well.
"If you won't come willingly I'll send you back to Xemnas in a thousand pieces!" he shouted and lunged at me. I dodge out of the way and ran back towards the kitchen intending to retrieve the knife but before I could pick it up a chakram whizzed through the air and its points stuck in the floor, the knife in between them. I went to grab the blade again but with a click of Axel's fingers flames burst around the chakram and I quickly drew my hand back. I whirled round to face the pyromaniac again.
"Why are you doing this?" I shouted over the flames as sweat began to trickle down the back of my neck. The flat was so hot now I could barely see Axel over the heat waves coming off everything. I could see some of the trinkets Lea and I had picked up over the years beginning to melt on the windowsill and some of the photographs of us beginning to burn. I felt tears prick the corner of my eyes; if Axel either succeeded in dragging me to The Organisation or if he simply killed me and burnt the place to the ground every single trace of mine and Lea's lives would be erased. Nothing left of us but a few photos our parents had and grieving friends and relatives. "What's in it for you?"
"I'm just following orders." he shouted back as he held out his hand and the chakram embedded in the floor flew back into it. He caught it with ease and turned both of them on me once again. "Superior says I've got to bring you back; I gave you the option of coming willingly and you refused so this is the way we've got to do it."
In a strange and twisted way he was right. Unlike The Trio with Myde he had given me the option of agreeing to go with him. He had told me what was happening and because I had said no he was having to use force. My recognising this still didn't mean that I was going to 'come quietly' as it were – I was going to fight for my freedom if it killed me. Axel lunged for me a second time and once again I dodged it, darting back to the windowsill and looking for something, anything I could use as a weapon.
I was too busy looking and didn't see Axel lunge for me a third time and he caught me, pinning me to the windowsill with the spikes on his chakrams. I watched in horror, knowing what was coming next, as he peeled off one of his black gloves advancing towards me. I tried to struggle away but the chakrams had me well and truly pinned in place. I was suddenly scared, all the earlier bravado I had felt had left me, and there was nothing I could do now except plead for my life.
"Lea," I said, my voice trembling slightly. "please…"
"Sorry," he replied although he didn't seem that apologetic. "boss's orders, nothing I can do." Without a second thought or another look Axel placed his hand over my chest where my heart was and, as a black smoke like substance surrounded his fingertips, plunged it into my chest.
The pain was unlike anything I had ever felt in my life. It was like every single cut, every single bashed knee, stubbed toe, every single time I drank so much I had to have my stomach pumped and when my appendix burst when I was nine all rolled into one as pain surged through every cell in my body. The feeling of Axel's hand inside my chest was the strangest thing I had ever experienced but where I would have be marvelling at the oddity of the sensation all my mind could focus on was the searing, blinding pain that had my eyes wide and my mouth open in a silent scream.
As I felt Axel's hand grasp my heart I felt my entire chest clench and I suddenly found it very difficult to breathe. With a tight grip around it and the same smoke like substance swirling around his wrist Axel removed his hand from my chest, taking my heart with it. Seeing my heart clutched in his hand, still beating and dripping slightly onto the floor, was another bizarre experience. It left me feeling hollow, like I was still a whole person but something was missing and it was a something that I no longer knew the feeling of; like I had forgotten that I ever had it but knew that I must have done.
Having seen the exact same thing done to Myde was nothing compared to the feeling of actually experiencing it for myself. When Lexxa had removed Myde's heart from his chest and it had turned black in her hand the effect had been almost instantaneous. Watching my heart slowing turn from a blood red to the black of midnight in Axel's open palm was the longest torture I have ever had to live through. It seemed as if it would never end and all the while I was struggling to breathe and my chest felt as if it was calling out to my heart, begging for it to be joined back to the rest of my body. Every nerve, every cell was screaming in pain and I felt as if I would die if I didn't get my heart back soon.
After what seemed like an eternity I saw, through hazy distorted eyes, that there were no longer any red patches on the lump of flesh that used to be my heart. It was as black as tar and as I stared at it I felt as if I was staring into an abyss of hopelessness and despair. As I stared at it I felt as if every ounce of happiness had been sucked out of me, every loving feeling I had towards anyone was gone and I was left completely numb. On the other hand I no longer felt any pain; I no longer felt sorrow or guilt or anything at all. I felt hollow and empty, like a shell washed up on a beach.
Then, a lot faster than he had removed it, Axel plunged my heart back into my chest and a new wave of pain hit me. Raw, unrelenting, unforgiving pain surge through my body once again, clawing at my chest and making it impossible for me to breathe. I couldn't think, I couldn't react, I couldn't focus on anything but the pain of having a heart consumed by darkness thrust back into my body. Eventually I felt Axel's grip around it lessen and I looked down to see his hand retracting from my chest and the black smoke fading away.
I retched at the new sensation passing through me, like nothing but pure darkness was being pumped around my body, but nothing came up and I felt my vision slipping as Axel stood back and I fell to the floor in a crumple heap. I managed to look up, my vision fading in and out of focus, and saw the same substance that had surrounded The Trio when they disappeared with Myde forming around Axel's hand and a black leather cloak identical to his appear once it had vanished. With a small smirk he dropped the cloak on top of me and before my vision failed and I passed out completely I heard his voice loud and clear through the haze.
"Welcome to The Organisation, Marluxia."