Ienzo had never been to a formal dinner, for his father firmly believed that dinner was family time. Talking was encouraged, unless your mouth was full (something Myde had never quite learned). Even the day his mother died his father still forced the boys to attempt to talk about there day and make general conversation.

Today was different. It was hard to make conversation with Ansem still godsmacked by the revelation of Xehanort's true identity and everyone else picking at their food as if it were poisoned. What they needed was an icebreaker. Luckily for them that was Myde's specialty.

"You guys are lucky that it wasn't Lea's turn to cook tonight. Last time, he tried to make roasted duck and it come out looking like charcoal. That was scary." He said through a mouthful of food. It was a miracle anyone understood him at all, but unfortunately Sora did.

The young boy's eyes grew to the size of saucers. That comment had brought a disturbing image to his mind. In his imagination Sora could picture Donald on a spit over a fire.

"Myde!" Ienzo and Lea said in unison.

Realizing his mistake, the musician quickly tried to correct himself.

"I'm sure it was a different kind of duck. This one couldn't talk. I think." Myde said.

"Shut up!" Lea hissed while kicking his brother under the table.

"What- okay." He said as he saw the look Lea was giving him. It was clear that if Myde didn't take his brother's advice he would soon be worse off then that duck.

Riku stared for a moment at the exchanges around him. It was obvious to him that the brothers truly cared for each other. This kind of picking and teasing wasn't something that was easily forged. He should know.

Riku's relationship with his own brothers was rocky to say the least. The triplets were class A momma's boys who were very immature. They drove Riku crazy every time they came home from collage.

Suddenly Ienzo's face contorted into some mixture of shock, pain, and confusion.

"It can't be." He whispered to no one in particular, while getting up from his chair and running out the door.

No one ever just got up from the table with out excusing themselves, not in this house. That was about as big of a rule as sitting at the table to begin with. to Lea and Myde, Ienzo's departure wasn't normal or natural.

Lea and Myde looked at each other and followed their little brother out the back door and through the woods. Something was wrong, very wrong.

Not wanting to miss out on anything, Sora, Riku and the others followed suite.

Ienzo knew that this was impossible; people couldn't come back from the dead. But he also knew that his nose never lied. If he smelled Terra then he was there.

For several minuets thoughts soared in and out of his brain so fast that he barely had time to grasp them.

'We never did know the out come of Terra's final battle. Maybe... just maybe.'

Under any other circumstances at any other time Ienzo wouldn't even entertain the notion of his survival. How could he when even Terra himself knew the likelihood of his demise? When he had been so sure of his own failure that he left detailed instructions as to what to do if he died.

None of this made any sense! It just didn't. If Terra had been alive he would have said something. He wouldn't have left Ansem to suffer. He wouldn't have let his father blame himself for all those years.

But of course nothing really made any sense any more.

As Ienzo got closer to where his nose was leading him, he could pick out other scents. Besides the strong, slightly musky sent of Terra himself, there were the scents of charcoal, clay, and mold.

That just confused the boy even more. Charcoal was understandable; it just meant that Terra was drawling of had been recently. That wasn't unusual, but clay and mold? Terra always kept as clean as possible, and was severely allergic to mold. He had always been careful to keep it as far away from him as possible.

Ienzo kept running as fast as he could, too immersed in his own thoughts to notice the seven people following him. If he had he would have stopped them. The last thing Ienzo wanted was to let Ansem get hurt again, because if this was some sort of trick it would just shatter him.

The last time Ienzo had seen Ansem he has just accepted that Terra wasn't going to come back and it seemed that the situation hadn't changed much in nine years. Ienzo didn't know what had caused the old man more pain, Terra's death or what it had meant for the rest of his family.

Terra's death had led to Ansem's wife leaving him. It wasn't so much her son's death or her husband's reaction to it that forced her hand. It was the fact that Ansem could not find it in his heart to do the one thing Terra had asked him to.

Maybe it was a type of therapy for the old man or maybe it was he's way of seeking revenge for his son dieing. Either way Ansem had been unable to stop his research on the workings of the heart and everyone paid. Terra had said that there were some things humans were not meant to know and he was right. If only Ansem had listened…

But that was nether here nor there now. What mattered was the fact that Terra was back either as an apparition or for real and it was up to Ienzo to find out which before Ansem saw.

He owed Ansem, and Terra, that much at least.

After ten minutes of running Lea and Myde had led the gang to a clearing in the middle of the woods. It was the spot where the brothers used to play when they were little. The clearing hadn't been used for years and it showed. The ground was over run with dead leaves and grass. The decrepit look was completed by a fallen log in the center.

The only new thing about the area was the young man sitting on said log. He had permanent hat hair and a well-toned body. Even after all those years Lea would still recognize him. Terra. It didn't matter that the pyro had only met him a couple of times. Terra wasn't someone you could ever forget.

"Ienzo, is that you?" The armor less knight asked putting down his drawing pad. His voice was full of relief and confusion as he looked at the scientist. Something didn't add up inside Terra's mind.

The last time Terra had seen Ienzo he was just a child and now… and now he was almost grown. How much time has passed? He wondered, rationalizing that it must have been several years. It was a sobering thought.

If it truly had been as long as he suspected then everyone must have thought him dead. The pain that must have caused.

Terra wasn't an overly prideful person but he knew that his death would shatter his family. He had always been the golden boy, the treasure. He knew he was the glue that held his family together and the last thing he ever wanted was to hurt his parents.

"How long?" He asked, his voice no more then a broken little whisper.

Ienzo stared, ignoring the sound of the people around him. For now it was just him and Terra.

There was something about Terra's scent that Ienzo couldn't place or name. Whatever it was, Ienzo was almost positive that he had encountered it before, but he couldn't place exactly where. He was almost sure that this wasn't Terra. It may look, sound, smell and act like him but it wasn't him. The only left one question: just who or what was it?

"Terra?" Came a frightened little whisper. It was Ansem, who had just came up from the rear of the group.

"Dad?" Terra asked, his voice aghast, for the sight confirmed his fears. "You look… you look so old."

Ansem laughed a little and replied:

"That's because I am old." He sighed and stepped forward, intending to hug his son.

In that instant Ienzo remembered.

"Ansem, don't!" He screamed, causing the scientist to turn and look at him in such a way it broke his heart.

"That's not Terra." He explained.

Everyone stood in shock for a moment. How could it not be Terra?

Terra sighed and closed his eyes.

"Okay Ienzo, I'll play along. If I'm not Terra then who am I?" he asked wearily.

"Not who, what. A gullom. A fake." Ienzo answered, watching this Terra peal farther and farther away from the Terra he had grown up with.

"A what?" He asked, clearly a little more then annoyed.

"A fake. You're not Terra and you never will be so quit pretending."

"How could you say that?" Terra breathed at his once called friend.

"Because it's true." Ienzo replied, his confidence growing. The more and more he talked the more and more he was sure that this was an imposter.

Terra opened his mouth to say something but stopped. His mouth had gone dry. He couldn't form the words to argue. He couldn't move a muscle. It was as if all the moisture in his body had evaporate leaving only a dry figurine that quickly tuned to dust before everyone's eyes.

Ansem felt his knees give way and his body fall. after all these years he had finally had reason for a flicker of hope and it was all fake. All dust. All dead.

"Damn it Morose, that was cruel, even for you." Ienzo said apparently to no one in particular.

"Cruel? Me? Baby, if you think that was cruel then you ain't seen nothing yet." she said while jumping down from the trees.

Morose was clad in a standard issue Organization XIII trench coat and she didn't show her face. It was her own policy. The less people knew about her the better, after all it wasn't like she was on the bad side for the fame.

"You almost had me fooled. Almost. If you hadn't helped Marluxia with his little project in Castle Oblivion, I never would have been able to guess that you were in on this." Ienzo said, his anger more then evident in his voice.

"My dolls have gotten so much better since then, wouldn't you agree?" She asked in a more then slightly sarcastic tone.

"I mean, this one even had Terra's memories. Took you so long to guess too. Hm… you never know maybe my next one will totally fool you. It wouldn't be hard to improve. This one was just a little experiment. The next one will be better. It would be fun to replace one of your friends or even your brothers and see how long it takes you to call them out. " She elaborated, stepping on the dolls ashes. It was clear that she just wanted to get a rise out of the boy. Usually, he would just ignore her, but seeing the broken look upon Ansem's face he knew that she could get away with this.

"You bitch. You will never perfect your little dolls, and you will never be able to play me for a fool again. Did you think I wouldn't be able to smell the clay and mold you use to create those monstrosities? They are poor imitations of those they try to replace." Ienzo snapped. He knew what he was saying was bogus but that didn't matter. What did matter was the fact that she may not be lying. If she could make hey dolls better then that…

"So it was the smell that gave it away. Thank you, that's all I needed." Morose said sounding almost chipper.

For once in his life Ienzo was confused. Why had she just thanked him?

For a moment it appeared that she was going to leave when she stopped, tuned and headed strait for Ienzo, not even giving his brothers time to react. Making sure her sharp finger nails pierced his skin, she grabbed him by the through and hoisted him a few inches in the air. After waiting a few seconds for the venom to wok it's way to the brain, she knew she could then ask him anything and he would answer completely truthful and to the best of his knowledge.

"Was there anything else that made my doll imperfect, anything at all?" She hissed, almost spiting out the word 'imperfect.'

Ienzo tied to fight it but it was no use. His mind was foggy and he couldn't think strait. Soon his mouth began moving, forming sounds, syllables, and words before Ienzo could even think to stop himself.

"The mannerisms were a little off, and the more and more I got closer to reviling his secret the more and more likely it became that Terra was saying those things." He said as if almost in a trance.

Morose let go and opened a portal to the dark. Before she walked through she tossed a small vile of dark green liquid to the floor beside Ienzo.

"Drink up. It's an antidote. I don't want you to die just yet." She said, finally leaving.

"You failed." Thanroe saidas she stepped through the dark portal.

He had watched her little excursion with interest. If she succeeded in fooling those idiots then they would have an invaluable tool. Morose could control her dolls mind and no one would even know it. It truly was an ingenuous plain. Too bad she had to go and fuck it up.

"What makes you think that?" She asked, seemingly unfazed by his harsh tone.

"They discovered your ruse." He answered simply.

That answer caused Morose to laugh.

"Don't tell me you actually believed that it would work. Thanroe, you may have plenty of practice on being a genius that's evil but you are completely inept at being an evil genius. They were meant to. I knew that doll could never fool them, not for long."

"Then why waist all your energy?"

Making one of those dolls drained a lot of energy from the girl. More energy then she was willing to waist on simple entertainment. Their had to be a reason.

"Easy, I wanted to see how long it would take for them to figure it out. I also wanted to find out exactly what gave it away. Why else would I use a truth potion on my nails? It was the smell, for only Ienzo could tell the difference. That little problem will take a while to fix but when I do they won't know what hit them." Venom was dropping from every word and Thanroe loved it. It just made her all the more dangerous.

Thanroe grabbed Morose by the arm and pulled her to him.

"I love it when you talk like that." He said in a husky voice.

Morose just raised an eyebrow and licked her lips before snakeing a hand around his neck and pulling his head down for a kiss.

"Well then baby, you ain't seen nothing yet."

Sorry it took so long to update, I have a lot going on. Of course it didn't exactly help that I only got two reviews (One of which was from my best friend whom I had to badger). Hn, oh well.

I hadn't even planed this chapter until I was writing the last one. But it's become one of my favorites so far (except chapters 14-16). I know I'm probably going to catch hell for giving the bad guy a girlfriend, but hay, evil people need love too. Right?

Random fact that I couldn't fit in the story: if you didn't already know Morose is a synonym for Maleficent . (No they're not the same person.)

P.S. thank you, blackrogue123 for being someone I don't know and reviewing every chapter.

Review or I will sic my cat on you. That's the best I can do because my dog's a pussy.