A year to the date since Roxas had left the Organization. One whole year, and still no sign of him whatsoever. It had since started to become quite unbearable just being in the World That Never Was. There were rumors and doubts floating around, especially about Xemnas and Axel- two who seemed to be falling farther and farther into some sort of pit of desperation to get the missing number back into their ranks.
It was a year to the date that a pulse echoed through the worlds, a wave, the first breath or heartbeat of a waking dead it seemed.
It hit Axel first, standing atop a building in Twilight Town, a look somewhere between excitement and anxiety alighted upon his features at his finally finding Roxas. The look quickly faded as he suddenly felt hot, his body temperature rising until it became a searing pain through his entire being. But as quickly as it had come, it faded, leaving him sweating and breathless, leaning dangerously over the side of the building. He righted himself, placing a hand over where his heart had once been, observing the distortion of the air from the heat just above his flesh. The whole empty space ached, even more so than normal, throbbing in pain as though it had a pulse still. A confused look this time, and Axel turned, opening a portal back to the World That Never Was. He needed answers.
The next victim would be Larxene, standing ankle-deep in snow on the side of a tall mountain, enjoying the biting, frigid air of the surrounding clime. Some long, serpentine creature was threading its way through the clouds, dancing gracefully from place to place, leaving a light fall of snow in its wake. It was in the midst of watching the creature's graceful movements the pulse caught her, striking her like lightning; fast, vicious, completely out of the blue. Her vision flooded white, and the next thing she knew, she was on the ground, body convulsing with an overflow of electrical impulses, ears ringing. The air around her sparked, small currents jumping to and fro around the gaps between body parts. Finally, the seizing stopped, and she slowly clawed her way to her knees, snarling angrily as the disorientation left. Something had made her electrocute herself. That something was going to pay dearly. Another round of spasms took her, and she fought hard to keep the contents of her stomach in place. When those stopped, she quickly summoned a portal, got to her feet, and stumbled through, her balance completely off and her chest screaming in pain.
Xigbar was next, deep in the twisting caves of the Underworld, using the small, glowing spheres that flew around the area as target practice in competition against some of his Sniper Nobodies. Naturally, he was winning, but only by a narrow margin. He took a deep breath to steady his aim, and the pulse hit, sucking the air from his lungs and pulling his body in every direction at once. His ears popped from the sudden lack of air pressure, a painful thud that sent an even more searing pain through him than the tearing sensation being felt by the rest of his body. But, like Axel before him, just as soon as it had hit him, it was gone, leaving him gasping and shivering, and wondering when it was he'd managed to float upside down. Hundreds of silent questions concerning his health assaulted his mind from the lesser Nobodies, but he shooed them all away, opening a portal beneath him.
Luxord was soon to follow, combating a handful of Heartless in an unbearably hot desert world, trying to stay as much in the shade as he possibly could to not over-exert himself. He had no idea where the nearest water source was and wearing a thick, heavy, black leather coat does nothing for ventilation. The wave hit him, and everything froze. A Heartless floated in mid-air in the very corner of his peripheral vision, though try as he might, he couldn't make his eye move to the side. It seemed as though only his brain was still working. Time had completely stopped, and no matter how hard he tried to command it to start up again, nothing would go. Finally after an eternity and no time at all, the world seemed to slowly catch back up. The Heartless slowly floated towards him, gaining speed, its claw raised for a vicious attack, but Luxord was faster, slicing it in half with the card already in his hand. It didn't take long for the group of Heartless to go down, and even less for Luxord to retreat through a portal.
Demyx was the last one out to be hit, strolling merrily through the blackened, macabre landscape around him, humming a little tune to himself from behind his drawn hood. Everywhere he looked, nightmarish little creatures would run around, dancing, playing tag with the guillotine off to the side. He approached the fountain in the center of the town, the grotesque monster on it vomiting up foul-smelling, green water. The whole place seemed to take itself too seriously, and at the same time, not seriously enough. Demyx planted himself on the edge of the fountain and contented himself to watching the strange beasts play about, seemingly without any fear of attack from the Heartless. One of the small creatures approached him, asking if he'd like to play with them. He took a breath to reply, but the pulse hit him at the same time. His vision swam, and his chest burned with the pain of inhaling something other than air. He was on his knees in but a second, violently coughing up salty water. It continued for many seconds after that, until there was no water left and instead he was just left in a fit of wet, rattling coughs so hard it made him sick. A crowd had since gathered, and were pointing and talking about him. He stumbled to his feet, opened a portal (the spectacle making the crowd cheer), and clumsily entered it, still coughing and choking.
He emerged in the hallway outside the rooms to the members' rooms, and as he looked around, every one else had as well, save Saix and Xemnas. Axel and Luxord looked well enough, though Axel's skin was an unhealthy shade of red, Xigbar was leaning against the wall, gasping for air and clutching the sides of his head as though there was something wrong with his ears, and Larxene sat huddled against the opposite wall, a hand over her face and extremely tense. So perhaps he wasn't the only one who'd been hit by the... whatever it was.
Another fit of coughing overtook him, once again leaving him on his knees with his face buried in his arms against the ground. He remained like that for a few moments afterwards, willing the pain and nausea to go away, hands clenched and toes curled in his boots against it. Something warm alighted on his back- a hand, he knew- and he immediately sought out the owner of it, lunging at them and wrapping his arms around them, not really caring who it was. Like a wounded child he clung to the black coat, eyes squeezed shut, trying to use them as a way to make the racking pain in his chest go away. He nearly sighed in relief as the person he was holding on to returned the embrace. He'd gambled right that it was Larxene.
"What happened to you? You sound sick..." she whispered down at him. He shook his head.
"Got... a lung full of water..." he rasped back, his voice abused from the violent spasms of his diaphragm.
"Well then," Luxord stated from somewhere that seemed far removed, his voice dull. It was only then Demyx noticed his ears felt like they had water in them. "It would seem we've all become victims of our own element."
"Not so loud, Luxord. Please..." Xigbar's voice, unnaturally soft, sounded in the area. Demyx turned to look at him.
"We think the vacuum of 'space' tore his eardrums, or at least badly damaged them," Larxene explained quietly. "I was here when he first came in... he was bleeding out of his ears. He can hear sounds, painfully sensitive to them, in fact, but he can't actually make out words."
That was news. Nobodies didn't really bleed, any blood coming from them was merely leftover from what they didn't lose when their hearts were taken, sitting stagnant in their shells of bodies. Though certain, deeper wounds would bring forth a small trickle of the sanguine liquid, bleeding usually never happened as such deep wounds were usually avoided with them.
Demyx looked up to find Larxene's eyes still closed. He furrowed his brows together, whispering a question in return. "What happened to you?"
She shook her head. "Lightning. Must've come at me from right in front... my eyes hurt. It's not impossible to see, but everything looks... like I've been staring at something really bright for too long."
Another coughing fit overtook the water elemental, and he barely got his hands up to his mouth as it racked his body. As it finally died down, he noted a coppery, metallic taste in the back of his mouth. That wasn't good.
"I think we need to go to the Superior now..." Demyx stated, as loudly as he could.
"No one has recovered yet," Axel started to say, but was interrupted by a snarl out of the most mild-mannered one in the room.
The Nocturne slammed his hand, palm-down on the floor, and then dragged it across the smooth surface, leaving a streak of dark red in its wake. The man looked up then, fear darting through his sea-colored eyes, even as a small, dark droplet of the same red substance clung to the corner of his mouth.
"Holy... nothing..." Larxene said quietly, one eye cracked open to observe.
"Yes..." Demyx said, his voice soft and calm again. "So can we please go figure out what happened to us?"
Axel nodded, and approached Xigbar, putting his hand on the taller man's shoulder and pointing towards the exit. Xigbar nodded, carefully, and teleported out. Axel followed him, while Luxord remained behind to ensure Larxene and Demyx could make it out by themselves.
The Superior was already expecting their return, nodding to each of them to find a place to seat themselves in the spacious 'office'. Xigbar, Demyx noted upon arrival, was being escorted out of the room by Axel, no doubt to be filled in later when he could hear again. Saix paced in agitation behind Xemnas' desk, golden eyes glowing in the dim lighting of the room. Whatever had hit them must've gotten to him, as well, as he tried to walk off the lingering effects of berserk.
When all members that could were seated and accounted for, Xemnas stood up, hands behind his back, eyes closed in thought. All waited for him to speak first.
His first words would surprise the Organization the most.
"Sora has awakened. Roxas has regained his heart."
A double take from most greeted his words, though Axel just visibly slumped in his chair. Saix snarled.
"Well, it couldn't be that hard to pinpoint where his heart went, it never really got pulled completely into Darkness," Larxene pointed out. "Unlike the rest of ours."
"He is still a traitor to our cause," Xemnas continued. There were so many things wrong with that delusioned statement Larxene wanted to correct, but she knew better and held her tongue. Xemnas really had lost it. "He abandoned us to retrieve his heart, and in the process we have lost the one tool needed for getting ours."
Another laugh from the feisty female of the group. "Why don't we just find the Keybearer and make him do Roxas' job for us? Then it wouldn't matter if Roxas is gone, right?"
"Wrong. While we can make the Keybearer our pawn, which is what we plan to do, we must, in the meantime, devise a way to get our Roxas back to us," Xemnas replied, surprisingly lacking the impatience Larxene thought she would hear from him.
She opened her mouth to ask why, but was cut off by Luxord. "What about our... current states? You have seen the damage done to us all, you have probably experienced some of it... what caused it?"
Xemnas sighed. "I could not tell you. It happened at around the same time the lesser Nobodies informed me that Roxas had become whole once more, however, I don't think that was the precise cause. It may have been something our enemies set into motion, or it could be something else entirely..."
Axel grunted, annoyed. "You mean we might be losing our hold on our shells. Whatever magics our hearts left us to let us retain human form are fading?"
An uneasy silence settled over the Nobodies.
"I believe that may be the cause. Whatever happened, all of us slipped in control of our elements, and not consciously. Our time may be running short," Xemnas replied with a nod. The tension in the room suddenly spiked. "Whatever the case, that pulse of energy interrupted our... flow as it were."
"W... what are the chances of it happening again?" Demyx asked, voice unsteady from his place in the back of the room. He was still holding onto Larxene, but his grip seemed to have relaxed.
Xemnas shook his head. "I could not tell you."
Demyx's hand twitched shut, and bunched together the leather of Larxene's coat. "S... so how much time do you think we have left?"
Another shake of Xemnas' head. "Once more, I could not tell you. With the Keybearer awake again, it has pushed things into an overdrive. Kingdom Hearts is far from complete."
They weren't going to get too much information out of him, the Nobodies could tell, though Luxord was now very curious indeed.
"We'll be alright, though... right?" Larxene asked after another uneasy silence.
"You aren't fading yet, you will recover," Xemnas replied curtly.
"Unless that pulse of... whatever happens again," Demyx grumbled, with a sigh.
Xemnas nodded. "I am having the lesser Nobodies look into it. I may ask one of you to accompany them. As of right now, though, in your conditions you all will be worthless in the field. Take the rest of today to recover. We'll see tomorrow how well we may proceed." He dismissed them with a wave of his hand.
Larxene practically dragged Demyx through the portal, ignoring everyone else in the room. When they were both safely back in his room, she let a snarl of frustration. "My god! We go in there for answers, and not only does he completely change the subject, when we finally manage to get him on topic he has absolutely no idea either. I thought he was supposed to know everything about what goes on among the Nobodies..."
Demyx removed his shoes and settled himself on his bed before he answered. "He has been acting strange lately... and what was it with him and Roxas?"
The lightning elemental threw her hands up in the air. "Seriously! Roxas goes and gets his heart back. What does Xemnas say? 'We have to get Roxas back'. Why! That's what I want to know. Isn't the point of Kingdom Hearts and most of what we've been doing so far to get our hearts back? So Roxas gets his heart back, and now Xemnas wants to take his heart from him again and drag him back in here with us? Man, I hope Roxas stays where he is, the lucky bastard. This makes no freaking sense." She paused then, her body jerking suddenly and causing her to desperately cling to the post of the footboard. Demyx smiled gently and beckoned her to join him. As soon as her legs would obey her again, Larxene quickly removed her shoes and practically collapsed on the water elemental.
As soon as both were comfortable, Demyx spoke. "I don't understand either. Originally, the Organization was formed to study the heart... and all of its nuances, powers, etcetera. That was back when it was still only six members. As the ranks started to grow, more experiments could be made, and they started... branching out. Or so I'm told. I think once I joined, Xemnas was really starting to understand what it was like to be without a heart- which was something the rest of us already knew, but he was too busy or something to pay attention to. By the time Luxord joined, we were doing two things, collecting hearts for experimentation, and collecting a surplus of hearts to form Kingdom Hearts. Soon, we were collecting hearts less for experimentation, and more for Kingdom Hearts. And then Roxas came along and... well, you know the rest."
"Yeah," She sighed, bringing a hand up to rest on his chest next to her face. "We were pulling like triple duty finding hearts after Xemnas found out the original Door had been sealed."
"But the experiments on hearts kicked back up again after Naminé showed up. I didn't know that until after Axel told me a few months ago," Demyx sighed.
Larxene nodded. "Yeah, Marluxia made a vague passing comment about it... that they were going to perform live experiments on memory and how that connected to the heart. But he wasn't exactly the scientific kind, so I think Xemnas only sent him out there to be Naminé's guard dog and maybe jot down some notes or something."
"Then I wonder what you would've done out there... it didn't seem all that necessary to have more than one person guarding Naminé," the water elemental pondered.
"Hell, I probably would've spent the entire time bored as all get out, maybe occasionally teleporting in to tease the Keybearer for falling so easily into such an obvious trap, even though he really had no other choice."
Demyx laughed then, reaching up to pull at one of her antenna-bangs and chide her. "Of course you would, I wonder why I even asked the question."
She swatted his hand away in response, then slapped him on the shoulder, propping herself up over him. "I'm not that predictable, am I?"
The Nocturne tried to think of a way of telling her yes that wouldn't end with him being electrocuted. "Well, it was just a guess based on how much I know about you."
Larxene 'humphed' and glared at him, to which he put his hands up defensively. Though it seemed one would be the limit on his near-death experiences this day as she looked away, and seemed to get ready to lay back on him. Though she paused soon after. "Wait... your breathing sounds terrible, are you sure the added weight isn't going to aggravate the coughing?"
Demyx laughed, trying not to do it too hard and trigger another episode. "How much do you think you weigh? Lay back down, I'll be fine as long as whatever happened doesn't do it again." She obliged, closing sore, tired eyes, listening to his shaky, unstable breathing and trying to ignore the vertigo teasing the edges of her mind.
"What's going to happen to us, Demyx?"
"I don't know, Larxene. But... I don't like where any of this is going. I'm... I'm not sure what the Superior has planned is... right."
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A/N: Boo. xp
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