Chapter 4: Lock on target

"Finally!" Axel burst out with relief and leaned back into the black fake leather office chair he'd been occupying the last six hours.

His neck was aching; giving him tiny sensations of needle-prick pain as he slowly and carefully straightened it out in a full body stretch. He was the only person in the room at the moment. All the others had left about fifteen or thirty minutes ago to get something to eat or drink.

Axel had stayed though.

He'd been too excited to interrupt the work and hadn't even noticed the slowly building hunger in his middle regions. He grimaced as a joint in the tested neck popped into place. He really needed to pay more attention to his posture while at work by the screen.

Axel took another look on the computer and afforded himself a slight smile.

The frustration he'd felt when he'd lost track of the guy earlier that day had caused him a headache close to migraine, especially since it had taken him so long to find him to begin with. But now, he felt he'd been able to make up for that little mistake.

Finally the string of shifting code that kept jumping around on the screen was enclosed in a digital grid locking it's pattern so that he would be able to find it no matter how many times it tried to escape.

These past two years had been a nightmare to Axel, not knowing what would happen or when it would come to an end. Thankfully the organization had been there all along, as a steady reminder of how things had been and how they could be once more.

Axel sighed as he watched the code shift.

Before all of this happened he'd never imagined something like this being possible. His world had been turned upside down in an instant that fateful day, all because of him.

A low growl escaped his lips at the thought of the traitor.

Diz had entered the organization as a saviour, bringing both his wealth and a million of codes and code-cracking systems with him. He was a literal genius when it came to computers. And the organization had welcomed him with open arms as he offered them his help in a time of need.

If he hadn't showed up, Axel was sure they would have been bankrupted and without finances, keeping up their job as the protectors of this world's most dangerous and most important information would have been close to impossible.

Of course, they were a secret association, so none knew what they really did; fighting off threats in the virtual world as well as in the real one.

So Diz's appearance had been more than welcome; a hacker with too much time on his hands who, for a change, didn't want to spend that time creating viruses and making people miserable. He'd wanted to help.

At least that had been his words and that was what they'd all believed.

Looking back at it, they had been nothing but stupid and desperate.

At first, Diz's attention to Roxas had been nothing out of the ordinary. The kid was a wonder of a code-cracker himself, and unusually young for someone in possession of that type of knowledge. He was the one with the key to all of their work, their front warrior.

After a while though, Roxas had started to feel uncomfortable by Diz's constant presence. He'd mentioned it to Axel, but Axel hadn't thought all that much about it at first.

"Give it some time, he'll tire of you soon enough," he'd said and laughed at the joke of someone ever getting too much of Roxas. The blond was handsome in a cute way and his company always lit up the scenery. At least that's what Axel thought.

When the subject had come up again, some week later, Axel had taken it more seriously. Diz had been monitoring Roxas' every move and Axel had started to notice it himself.

So when Roxas came to him the second time, Axel had confronted Diz.

"What are you up to?" he'd asked him after explaining what he'd observed and what Roxas had noticed.

"Oh, nothing special. I'm just fascinated by the key bearer, that's all", he'd replied, using the nickname as if it was a title, a job.

"Well, you're freaking him out, so cool it down a bit, or I'll make sure you won't last very long here."

Diz had chuckled at Axel's threat, as if knowing nothing could harm him.

This had of course made Axel more or less furious. As the organization's personified fire wall, a guard towards unwelcomed visitors, he most certainly didn't like not being taken seriously.

"I'm warning you, Diz; Back off from Roxas, or you'll be toast before you know it!" he'd added to the original threat, but Diz had just shook his head, smiling widely like a maniac.

"So, I should back off, hm? How about you, then? Don't think I haven't noticed your affections towards the kid. Beeing too close to someone in this business makes you vulnerable, Axel. You might actually care if something happened. You might even get hurt."

Diz's words had been stuck to Axel's memory since then. It had been mere insinuations, but he'd discovered the threats right away. And he'd gone straight to Xemnas to warn him.

Too bad for them all, it had been too late by then.

Like a Trojan, Diz had entered with welcomed offerings, lived in silence within their own walls while slowly taking all he wanted from them, and just before leaving, he had let loose the harm intended and revealed himself only after he knew he was safe to leave.

Axel had been the one who'd found Roxas.

He'd been searching along with the others throughout the building with no luck, until he'd returned to his bedroom to get a flashlight and a map over the labyrinth of catacombs underneath the big house.

Roxas had been lying lifeless on the floor, but with no visible sign of harm having been done to him.

Axel had rushed forward to pick him up, painfully aware of his fear for the blond not waking up. He'd been breathing, shallow and almost invisible breaths, but still.

Every day since then had passed in a blur of trying to find out what had been done to him and where Diz had gone to. Other errands had been put to the side, not entirely, but Axel guessed that the hinder towards their work had been what Diz had wanted all along. Why so, one might wonder, but the importance wasn't in his motives, but in his achievement, his deeds.

It had taken them one year to find out what had happened and why Roxas wouldn't wake up.

His soul, his memories and his person and mind had all been somehow extracted and put elsewhere for some sort of safe-keeping.

Axel let out another sigh as he watched the screen.

The screen light bathed his face in its familiar shifting green colour as the codes moved across the black background.

The redhead leaned forward and poked at the string of code that, unlike the rest of them, couldn't move out of sight.

"Found you, buddy."