Disclaimer: Wakka's balls. There Damaris and John, I said it.

Again, I'd like to give a big shout out to all my fans. You have made this bizarre little idea turn into a great fic. It's now the most popular fic on this site, with over 3700 hits, over 30 favorites and alerts, and over 90 reviews. Thanx much :3! And I'm INCREDIBLY SORRY that I haven't updated in over a month. I've been so distracted and I've had to get some stuff straight in my life…Sonicchica and yuki hibiki are allowed to smack the crap out of me now.

Also, this next world…after Port Royal…was a request from EverlastingOblivion. It's ingenious, really. I don't know why I didn't think of it.

…Have you ever noticed that the chick in the Final Fantasy XIII previews looks like Marluxia? Just a thought.

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The cave was small with small pools of salty water dripping from the stalactites. She was enveloped by the men she had hypnotized, who all had their weapons drawn and their brains thrown in the chum buckets. Their eyes, their faces, everything was completely vacant. She, on the other hand, was the most conscience aeon they had seen yet. Her body was barely covered, her breasts and lower area only shielded by small feathered wings. The back of her was draped in those feathers also, filled with gold and greens and blues. Her hair was short with lemon-lime and sapphire eyes. She smirked at the Flurry of Dancing Flames and the Savage Nymph, boasting her five man army.

In other words, Larxene was extremely pissed off.

"That slut," she growled, "is the thing that got them? I swear, she owes me a free jab in the stomach and a kick in the ass!" She pulled out her kunai and aimed for her head. Axel snatched it away from her just in time.

"You can't just go after it without any plan!" he yelled. "Watch this!" He flung a chakram towards her, and right before it hit her face, the possessed Demyx materialized his sitar and blocked the shot. The pinwheel flew back to him. "She'll use them as shields if she has to. All we need to do is get Demyx snapped out of it and the rest should follow if he can ask her…what do you think?"

"I think we should slam the bitch into the rocks."

"And that's why I'm not listening to you." Axel tapped his index finger on his lips, like a true pondering scholar. They needed a way to bind Demyx, keep him sane, summon or do whatever he does, and not kill the Siren. The whole trip would be a little worthless if it died, right? "We could try talking to it!"

Larxene skeptically looked at him. "Well, if it can smirk at us it should be able to hold a decent conversation, but I'm not saying a word, got it?"

"No, got it memorized!" he grinned. Out of all the people not to be hypnotized…He walked steadily over to her, putting his hands in the air to keep her minions at bay. He had to admit: seeing them in her trance was increasingly freaking him out. There was nothing in them anymore. Nothing. At least he still had his earplugs in. Imagine if he didn't! He'd have to hang himself when Larxene whined that she had to save them all…if she would be able to, that is.

"Oh Miss Siren," he said in his polite voice "before you decide to have my friends chop us up into slave food, may I just ask you a few things about yourself, like…why are you trying to kill us, why are you here, and why aren't you wearing any clothes?"

"I'm glad that you should ask, my pet," she said in a surprisingly sweet voice, "I can't be used as a tool like the other aeons, I want to be loved by a summoner and his guardians, and any other man!"

"Okay, but you don't have to brainwash them to do that!" Larxene shouted. "That's just artificial love! What, no one likes you enough to get the real stuff?"

"Quiet you!" the goddess snarled. "If you're not going to listen to what I have to say, then I'll just capture your heart too!"

"Whoa, hold on a sec. I'm not surrendering him to you until you tell us why you're hypnotizing our friends!" Larxene added. "I may not be your biggest fan, but we'll listen to you!"

"It's too late for that now," she said with a wicked smile. "You two, attack them!" The unconscious bodies of Auron and Wakka rose their heads with vacant eyes and grasped their weapons. Axel made a gulp noise and Larxene drew her kunai out again. They really weren't going to get a break for the summoner, were they! The siren was smart; not using Demyx and Xaldin because they knew their attack patterns already. Axel told Larxene to take care of Auron, as he had seen Wakka fight a few times before. They split up, and the drones followed them.

Wakka hurled his World Champion blitzball adorned in spikes and saws to Axel, who dodged it and watched it bounce off the rocks and back. That was all he could do at that point: dodge. He couldn't hit him, of course, because that would hurt the real Wakka. He watched as Larxene was dodging the heavy Masamune swings lightning fast. Kunai cascaded through the air and were blocked with one hit.

"Axel, I don't think we can do this for much longer!" Larxene cried out.

"No, really? How do you think we can get Demyx sane again?" Axel replied. Larxene pondered for a minute while he evaded a venom kick.

"Sacrifice."

"What?"

"Think about it this way: she didn't pick Demyx or Xaldin to fight us because we know them. Since it's your fault we're in this situation, take off your earplugs and give them to Demyx and we won't fight you. He'll be able to talk to the wind whore and end of story, get it?" Sadly, that was a great idea. Axel was reluctant to agree, since he never wanted to end up like...them if she started singing. As long as wasn't going to attack them, it seemed safe. He ran fast enough to pass Wakka and turned back to his teammate.

"What about you? You'll have to take care of both of these guys. You okay with that?"

"Eh, screw it. This day can't get much worse, so I'll survive." She smiled with that fake cheer, and sent him the message of 'once we get on the airship, I'm going to kill you for reminding me.' Axel took a deep breath and slowly walked to Demyx. The siren didn't seem to notice, as she was controlling Auron and Wakka to have a two-on-one with Larxene. He removed each earplug, his hands twitching slightly, and put them in Demyx ears. There was no response still from his frozen body. Her melodies must have been ringing in his ears, keeping him hypnotized forever.

A good smack should do the trick, he thought. And he did, as hard as he ever willingly smacked someone. Demyx almost fell flat on his face from the impact and Axel smiled when he saw the crystal blue flood back into his eyes.

"What do you think you're doing? I didn't do anything this time!" Demyx shouted.

Axel laughed. "Be more appreciative next time, okay? We're saving you from this aeon, and you need to get her on our side, or we're finished."

"Eh? What do you—" he began, but saw Auron and Wakka aiming at Larxene. His eyes widened.

"She sang and put you under her spell. I didn't know because I had earplugs in the whole time, and Larxene's a girl, so they've been attacking us for a while now." The explanation didn't faze the indignation in Demyx's eyes. His sitar appeared again and he walked towards the goddess.

"How dare you…" he said in a mild and dark voice. She finally took notice of him and saw his furious glare.

"And how did you get out of my trance, my pet? Am I going to have to remind you who rules this island?" she asked in her candy sweet and bitter voice.

"How dare you…do this to them…" his voice trembled. "Aren't aeons supposed to help their masters?"

"Only the ones who are so passive and brain-dead that have gone with the flow so long!" He could care less about her reasoning. Axel joined Larxene in fighting of the two Spira saviors and cringed at their actions. There was still only one thing on his mind.

"How dare you hypnotize my friends! They're not supposed to be attacking each other, we're supposed to be fighting the evil in this world, and all we want is your help! Do you know what it's like to have nothing in your life, then you have the chance to turn it all around, then someone like you tears it all away? Do you know how much it hurts?" He ended, almost to tears, clutching the area where his heart would be. Why was he having these sudden outbursts lately? Everything in his life seemed so real, and so human that taking it away would absolutely kill him. It was like…he had a heart that wretched when he saw Auron swing his sword so Larxene would lose her balance, for Axel to shield her. The siren was even shocked by his response.

"I," she said laughing at herself, "I do. And here I thought a summoner was nothing more that some babbling holy child that took no care to their tools." Axel could hear faint sobbing from her now hidden face. "All my life, the only summoner whoever wanted my help was ruthless, cold, cruel, someone who brought my hopes up and drowned them over and over again. A summoner who never cared about the fact that I was nothing but a weapon to him…tell me then, what is the real reason you want me to join you, the one they call Demyx? What drove you to be a summoner under Yevon?"

"I don't know," he faintly said. "I never really thought about it."

"You must have. For someone to have such conviction in their eyes, there is something that keeps you traveling isn't there?" Well of course there was. He never openly admitted it though. Anyone who thought that all of this was to kill a monster he had never heard of was completely blind. It hurt him to see the past Organization XIII members entranced (well, Xaldin was practically useless at this point) and defenseless against them.

"I want this feeling…" he softly spoke, "I don't want this feeling to go away. Ever since I began this whole thing, it seems like I have people who care about me. I've never had anyone think of me as someone important…it doesn't really have to do with Sin, but Auron said I might as well if I'm here now." It felt so good to spill his desires onto someone. It was like a gust of cool air had filled his chest and cleared his mind.

"So are you still going only because he wishes you to?"

"Yeah…I think I am."

"Then I'll make you a deal," she suggested, with a new aura and a sweeter smile on her face. "Don't give up on those feelings I once had and I will help you on your quest. Do we have a deal?"

"Yes, Miss Siren. I promise." He made his ceremonial prayer and she vaporized into his new melody. Demyx saw Xaldin's face in shock as he woke up. He stared around blankly.

"Why is it that I always have the feeling that I've missed something really important, like some major plot point?" he smugly asked. Demyx only smiled.

He was still watching Axel and Larxene trying to fend off Auron and Wakka, who had cornered them. Their bodies paused before any final blows were dealt. He saw them turn around, with brighter conscious eyes, Wakka's mouth ajar and his face stunned. Auron, wasn't surprised at all, and smirked at Demyx. Of course he didn't want to admit the half-wit saved them all, but at least he did a damn good job doing it. And he…looked disturbingly happy when he snapped out of the Siren's trance. He really did need this summoner thing, even if it might not mean much in the end.

"What the bloody 'ell is going on?" asked the snapped-out and confused Jack Sparrow. He saw Demyx clutching the sheet music and Axel grinning. His face turned sour and he realized his defeat. "I'm never one to come to terms with my mistakes, but I'll let you remember this as the one day you beat Captain Jack Sparrow!"

Axel rolled his eyes. "Sure. And it will be my last."

A day later the Aurochs had given them a trip back to the gummi ship they had cleverly hidden in Port Royal, no matter how odd it was that a gigantic white ship could hide in thin palm tree forest for two days without anyone noticing. Axel had brought Wakka and his second mate, Locke Cole off-deck and through the tangle so that he could say his farewells.

"Now I know that things are gonna get hectic after I leave," he began "and I know that our good first mate Wakka is going to be leaving too, for family reasons. So that means, YOU, Locke Cole, will be the new captain of the Aurochs. And you can't screw up, make shady deals with trading companies, sacrifice your crew for a huge box of gold, and do not go to Taratoga for a good night of fun. Got it memorized?"

"You got it captain! Treasure hunting, kindness, and no scurvy on the privates! You can count on me!"

"Good, and Wakka?"

"Ya captain?"

Axel put his hands on his shoulder. "You sure you don't want to come with us? You still seem a little…shaken up."

Wakka saw Auron staring at him from the foot of the Falcon Peak. "No, it's something I should have done a long time ago. I'll go back to Destiny Islands, pick up a friend of mine…and we're going back to Spira, where we belong ya?"

"Alright, as long as you don't regret it!" Axel walked down to the airship and Looked behind him one last time before boarding. "And remember: we're not stopping until we kill whatever it was that you said…Sin! We're not stopping anywhere!"

Wakka simply smiled and waved as the ship rose into the air and flew back into the cosmos.

I'm glad you think it's gonna be that easy. Hopefully we're just being paranoid…

"Demyx…do you remember the one place that Xemnas said we couldn't toy with?" Xaldin asked as his eyes whirred around the room.

"Yeah, because they'd be on our tracks if we did, right?"

"I think we've ended up I that place."

The hall they were in was filled with luscious strawberry carpet and banners on the walls. Gigantic white doors were set by the banners, and from the windows you could see hedges of castles and cows and mice. Demyx's eyes widened when he saw the mice.

"Wait, I never knew there was somewhere we weren't supposed to be! Since when?" Larxene asked.

"That's because you have no attention span" Axel answered. "He said never come to the castle of…you know, or else the keybearer would become the biggest annoyance of all, along with those animals that follow him around. The king, or whoever he is, isn't one to be messed with sometimes."

"So you mean," Demyx began, but paused. Then panicked again. "We're in the king's castle? What kind of aeon would be wandering around here? And I thought the mouse guy would want to save the world, not hide summons in his throne room!"

"Will someone please explain what you're talking about to me?" Auron sighed.

"It's a long story, and we already don't have enough time. There's a guy…mammal-like figure…who works with Sora and his pals. This is where he lives. If someone sees us, we're dead" Xaldin said. "That's uncertain, but if we want to get in and out of here, we'll have to sneak by every…"

Thump…thump…thump…

Their faces turned pale. Demyx began running in a little circle. "Crap crap crap crap! Where should we go?"

"I thought it was uncertain that something bad would happen." Auron said. "Why don't you just hit them in the face with your sitar? It worked with the mechanic."

"What did you do to a mechanic?" Larxene asked.

"It's a long story with details I'd rather not mention again. Come on, there's a doorway right here!" The swordsman scrambled and his hands wrapped around a brass handle. He pulled it open and the four Nobodies filed in, then he closed it behind him. The stretchy hall was now empty with the echoing of the footsteps to fill its loneliness. Suddenly, those footsteps became louder, and louder, and louder. Then…softer, and softer, and somehow less threatening. They became little pitter-patters of furry feet. Around the corner came a small chipmunk with a honker as big and red as Rudolph's, with a petit wrench in his arms. His steps turned to skips, and he whistled a cheery tune. He paused in front of the door the summoner party had rushed into.

"Hm? I thought I heard someone talking!" Dale pondered. "Oh well, 'guess it was just the wind!" He skipped away from the door and back to the courtyard, where his brother was expecting him to finish tightening the bolts on that new Kingdom Model ship…

At this point in our heroes' travels, you might have a few ideas running through your mind. You could be asking yourself, "Is this author a complete sadist and will have the Fab 5 taken down because they've been caught by royal guards?" Or maybe your considering that the author will have something quite fortunate happen, like a door being unlocked, or the misplacement of a key. Or maybe you believe that this tale is being dragged on just to torture the only completely sane one, Auron.

It's a combination of the two. You'll see.

"Hey, look at that! There's a staircase in there!" Demyx exclaimed after seeing that the throne at the end of the room was off-kilter. Axel shouted a "hello, is anyone down there?" in the dark passage and it boomed in its walls. Xaldin was sitting on the cushy throne, biting off an irritating cuticle, while Larxene tried to push him off. Auron, parted the masters of water and fire and headed downstairs.

"Where do you think you're going? Don't we work as a team?" Larxene smirked.

"Never, did I say that the two of us are on a 'team' and I most likely never will. Things like open secret channels aren't coincidental. Someone's inviting us in." he solemnly replied. Her smirked dropped, and she took the pressure off of Xaldin's ribcage.

"Fine, but no one died and made you king!" Her eyes wandered to Demyx, who watched his savior walk down the stairs and followed him like a lapdog. She smirked, and held her hand out for the other two to wait for their responses. After a while, she yelled "Did you find anything yet?"

"Yeah, there's not much except a door!" Demyx replied. "And there's this huge shiny thing in the middle of the room!"

Larxene sighed. "Auron, if he can, tell him to go into the light, for god's sake."

"The sad thing is that he's telling the truth." Auron said. "We're going through the door. Stay if you want." Axel jumped out of his crouching position and went down the stairs. Xaldin even stood up to follow the rest of the crowd. She hated being pressured into doing something—and in such a passive and nonchalant manner!—and now she felt like she had to care about what happened to Demyx. Damn it, she only tagged along to keep herself from being bored to death! So just so that she wouldn't be alone and wanted dead or alive in Happy Funtime Castle, Larxene went down the stairs into the basement.

The door that the two had mentioned was already open, and had a bizarre grey tone to it, like all the color was sucked from it. Dry like Dracula's main course. Ha, they didn't care if she came or not, did they? Lovely, she thought. Well, if someone was actually following them, there was always the I-told-you-so card

Meanwhile, at a different end of the universe…

"Leeeeeeee-on! Git over here!" Cid yelled at the gunblader from the other end of the boroughs. Ever since that incident when "the man with the guitar and the one with the big sword" knocked him out, he demanded routine security camera maintenance checks and patrol shifts. Those Nobodies could be in any nook or cranny of the city, and it was up to the Restoration Committee to prevent any more tragedies. Well, at least he thought the bump on his head was a tragedy. Yuffie just thought it was hilarious. Leon walked over to the engineer.

"Yes Cid?"

"How're things neer the market place?" he asked in his thick country twang.

"…just fine."

"Alrighty then, keep searchin'" He went back to his camera check ups and twisted the last few bolts back onto the bot.

"Can I ask you something?" Leon piped up again.

"Hm? Sure, just spit it out boy!"

"Did the forecast Aerith read this morning have a chance of showers?"

Now that he mentioned it, the narrow walkway of the borough became a lot darker. How unexpected it was to have such abrupt clouds on such a sunny day. Leon and Cid both stopped their work and squinted into the sky. Neither of them could see thunder cracks or bolts of lightning, and not a single drop hit their skin. That's when Leon saw more of what the cloud was. His eyes widened and his gunblade clattered onto the pavement.

It was…gigantic. Its shape was unidentifiable, yet it struck fear in both of them. It had fins that spanned to the end of time and scales that could pop out and kill you if you stared too hard. They heard it scream, with a loud screech that deafened their minds and rang through the alleys. The townspeople could be heard screaming in the marketplace, and the earth began to tremble.

What was it?

Cid scrambled to his feet and his confused feet and ran to Merlin's room.

"Wait, Cid!" Leon shouted.

"Round up everyone and git somewhere safe! That thing's gonna devour us all!" the mechanic yelled back.

"No, but…what's happening?"

"One of 'em little fairy girls told me 'bout this. As far as we know, it's something called a Sin. Now hurry up and git out of here!" Leon's eye drifted downward and he nodded. He ran in the direction that Aerith and Tifa were in. Sin, it was called. How did it get here, in Radiant Garden? It couldn't have been a Heartless; there was no symbol on its chest and the same goes for a Nobody. This couldn't be happening, he said in his head. He wasn't going to let his home get taken over once more!

As mentioned earlier, this is the part of the epic adventure where Auron is tortured yet again through the magic of wardrobe changes. He looked around after walking into this world, where everything was…black and white. He had to blink a few times when he saw a cow and a chicken walking around. Then again, if a mouse could be king and if in his world you could ride around on a giant yellow bird, then this was normal. There were lots of hills in the background, and they were standing in a patch of grass surrounded by daisies and happy little flowers.

He swore, if anything started singing to him, he was going to turn around.

But there was still the matter of what the three men in front of him looked like. Their skin dyed ghost white and their hair bleached various colors of grey and black, there was something else a little different about them. If there was a word to describe it...it was cute. Cute and cartoony and even a little retro. And even he had to deal with it. His looks didn't matter, but it was his sword. It shrank a little, and it didn't look deadly enough to slice open a teddy bear.

Axel had stood up and brushed his knees off, then he looked at his simple hands and felt his hair, which lost a few of its spikes and most of its texture. "Damn it, what happened to my other finger?" he exclaimed.

Xaldin got up and resumed his stoic, arms-crossed positioned. "Aw, did poor little Axel lose more than his tough guy looks?"

"Yeah, and you certainly didn't lose any of yours!" he smirked back. It was true: quiet, standoffish Xaldin managed to have floppy black braids and blank black eyes. He was pouty, like a pit bull puppy that you just had to say "Aw, what a cute wittle doggie!" at. Now Larxene had passed through the world warp and didn't trip over Demyx's body (who tripped first). Her antennae seemed to bounce even more than they already did and she carried the same facial expression as Xaldin, except it was a little more feminine. She kicked Demyx on the shin and told him to get up. An he, well, as the one who wasn't as cynical as the rest of them, wore the black and white transformation quite well.

"Alright, alright, I'll get up! Just feel this grass, it's all fuzzy!" he smiled. He decided to pet the grass for a couple of second more. He pulled off his gloves for a second, and felt the practically fur grass in the webs of his four fingers. The others looked annoyed, but he didn't care. It just showed him how much they didn't care about the small things in life.

Kupo!

"Aaaaaah, the grass just meowed at me!" he screamed jumping up from the patch and clinging to Auron's arm. They saw what had made the small noise, and it certainly wasn't the grass. It was squished, was fuzzy, white (in this world it was) with two little hands, two little feet, and two little ears, and a large pompom dangling from its head. It felt the pressure lifted from it and shook itself from the ground. Larxene pulled out a kunai and Axel tugged at her arm and gave her the "don't kill everything that moves" look. She rolled her eyes and put it back.

The white creature floated around with its wings and looked at our heroes with curious eyes. "Ne, ne, who are you, kupo?" it asked in a child's voice.

"Eh, I'm Demyx! sorry about sitting on you earlier…" he grinned while scratching his head. "Ah, and these are Auron, Axel, Larxene, and Xaldin!"

"Hey, why didn't I get introduced first? I'm right next to you!" Larxene whined.

"I think he just did it in alphabetical order…by accident." Axel replied. "What are you anyway?" he asked, pointing to the fluffy white thing.

"Ne, I'm a Mog, but you can call me Artemicion! You don't know where you are, do you?"

"Nah, not really," the musician said. "do you?"

"Is it just me or has Demyx been adding 'ehs' and 'ahs' and 'nahs' in his sentences to talk to that cat?" Xaldin whispered to Auron.

"We're in a place called the Timeless River, but me and Choco got here by accident and now I don't know where he went…"

"Choco? Like a chocobos I assume." Auron said. Finally, something that made a little sense to him. He had never really seen a mog or moogle, but he remembered someone he knew had a weapon shaped like one, but it got thrown at Wakka's face after he said an Onion Knight would bring out her smile and a few other things. And why would a mog be with a chocobo anyway? The Nobodies looked at him like he was insane when he could carry a conversation with the creature.

"Yeah, he is! But he went missing after that big cat and the mouse chased us away. I don't want to bother you, but…we'll give you anything you need if you help me find him."

"Of course we will!" Demyx exclaimed and gave him a thumbs-up. "We'll find your whatchamacallit friend and we'll take all the help finding aeons we need!"

"Aeons?" Artemicion asked and tilted his head. "Oh, we can help with that!"

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That's a wrap for now. Sorry again it took so long. I've seen stories with longer hiatuses though. SOME DON'T EVEN FINISH! Okay…sorry. That's right, preview:

Chapter 9: Battle Royale

The summoning party is off to find Choco, but who kidnapped him: the "big cat" or…the king himself? After that, while Demyx, Auron, and Larxene take a walk on the wild side, Axel and Xaldin do a little kidnapping of their own, except it's something a little more important. And in a side-installment, what happened to Radiant Garden? Is Sin really out to destroy every world it touches? Find out next time!