The story is just getting started here…
I will take out the bars for spacing my notes as well, since they've been disagreeing with me lately~
The awkward silence in the lounge had been broken thanks to Demyx, who was currently nursing his wounds and pride in his chamber, but something still didn't feel right for Luxord. How could they just forget about the fact that four members that were presumed dead had just returned out of nowhere? He just couldn't relax right now. The lounge chair he had seated himself in felt too hard, and his whole body was stiff with tension. Even the glow from the heart-shaped moon wasn't helping to calm his spirits. Glancing around at the other three members, he soon noticed that none of them were interested in him, which was good. He wouldn't want them to be suspicious when he left, after all. All he had to do now was to concentrate…
When he looked about a few seconds later, time had stopped completely. Now was the time to move. He wasn't the paranoid type at all, but he just didn't want his absence to be noticed, because that would mean that he would be asked where he was going, and then he might be followed, and then that would just take too long. He was a man of efficiency, and being stalled just wasn't something he would want right now. He strolled out of the room with an incredibly casual air, and once he was quite far away he snapped his fingers. Time would return in a few seconds, and no one would have even noticed what happened. In fact, if they spotted his empty chair they would just assume that he had left without their acknowledgement and continue on with their conversation. The Gambler had done this many times before, and it never failed him. It was his only trick he could rely on.
He passed the line of doors without any show of interest, but as he neared his room he didn't even stop to glance at it. Instead, he looked over to the opposite side and continued down the dark hall until he came upon Marluxia's chamber. He stopped for a moment, pondering as to whether to enter or not, but he pushed the door open anyway. The room was much like everyone else's chamber, except for the fact that it had a little taste of Castle Oblivion in it, with white flower sculptures and a couple of vases spread around. It was a little bit creepy, but as long as it didn't get in the way of anything important it was fine. Luxord leaned against the far wall, watching his loot closely. He never really viewed anyone as being 'real'. To him they were just tools; some could be the useful entertaining types that one grows fond of, while others could be the stubborn types that just don't work the way one wants them too. So far Marluxia was the first kind of tool.
He had kept the Graceful Assassin's cloak, which had surprisingly remained intact, on the man's body, and had really only seen him when he had lifted the hood off. Which was not a good turn of fate for Luxord; he still couldn't get the ravaged image out of his mind. As far as he could tell, Marluxia was still unconscious, but that was fine. He could wait for an hour or so if he had to, or at least until someone came around and ruined everything. So he waited, focusing his mind on other matters than the present to occupy him.
After about ten minutes the man stirred. Luxord snapped out of his thoughts once he heard a low and familiar groan. Marluxia rolled his body to face the wall that the Gambler was resting on, and now his rescuer was hoping that he would finally be able to talk to the former traitor. Yet there was no response, and instead the neophyte seemed startled, and was feeling around for something. What was he doing anyway? The Assassin rose to a sitting position at the edge of the bed, and was still feeling about desperately with his hands. Then the grim realization struck Luxord: Marluxia was blinded. It was the only logical conclusion, considering his actions at the moment. The blonde cleared his throat a little in an attempt to alert the man to his presence.
In an instant, the long scythe that Marluxia wielded was at his throat. Its blade was now a sickly brown instead of pink, however, and the stem was shorter and a bit wilted-looking. Not even bothering to move his head to the direction of the voice, the Assassin spoke with unexpected clarity for one whose body had been, well, nearly destroyed. "Who is it?"
"It's Luxord, if you'd care to remember." He was unfazed by the threat, and was speaking as eloquently as he normally would. "Could you put this way? I see no reason for it to be directed towards me. You're safe for now, my friend."
The scythe vanished in a shower of dead petals, which withered away into nothing as they fell onto the floor. Marluxia sighed with what seemed to be great relief, and he fell backwards onto the bed. While Luxord could not see his face, he appeared to be very content. "Home is much better than that hell I was in." Marluxia chuckled to himself, as if his statement were some inside joke that only he understood. "Still, I assume that I'll be killed. You know, 'traitor to the goal of the Organization' and all."
Luxord could have sworn that the man was smiling. He moved closer to the bed, as if trying to get at least some idea of what Marluxia was speaking. To his dismay, the neophyte was unreadable. "Well, I do hope that Superior wouldn't resort to such a dreadful option. After all, you could prove useful to us."
"How so?" Marluxia turned towards Luxord's voice so as to look like he was at least listening.
"Well, this 'hell' of yours isn't very exclusive. Other members have been turning up here and there, and we want to know why." Sensing that he would have to use his voice more than anything to communicate, for obvious reasons, he had put more emotion into his words than he normally would have, adding a stern tone at the end.
"I'm sorry, but I don't know the answer to that, but I can tell you what it's like." Marluxia stood up fully this time, though he appeared to be a bit unsteady on his feet. "First of all, it's as if one is suspended in space. I couldn't move at all. It was peaceful at first…" He walked across to the window of his room, which quite ironically was one of the only ones without a view of Kingdom Hearts, and rested his elbows on the sill. "But then the wave arrived. It came as a sudden blast of light; light which burned and flashed and threatened to tear out everything I had. In a way it was almost a choice: I either let it burn away my body or my mind."
"So you chose your body…" This was rather new for Luxord. Marluxia was incredibly vain and quite meticulous about how he looked. In all honesty, he would have expected the Assassin to lose his mind rather than his 'beauty' (Though why he considered his hair color to be attractive was a mystery to Luxord).
However, Marluxia seemed to ignore him as he went on with his tragic tale. "So I let it ravage my body instead, and it was painful. In the beginning I tried to use my powers to shield myself, but the light turned it against me. It was horribly bright as well, so I closed my eyes often to block it out, but after a while it was always dark, whether my eyes were open or not. Eventually it just all stopped, and I woke up here."
If Luxord hadn't been taught good manners as a young child he would have just exited the room at some point. He always hated sob stories, and what he really wanted to hear from Marluxia was a straight-forward answer, not some drawn-out retelling. He knew that the man was a bit dramatic, but this was just pushing it. However, at he got the idea that this place wasn't exactly a peaceful little afterlife. Then, out of all the things Luxord did not want him to do, the Assassin pulled up the sleeve of his coat a little, feeling the flesh beneath.
It was only a small bit of Marluxia that was being shown, but it was obvious that the damage was horrible. The arm was terribly discolored, and it was blotched all over with bruise-like patches over ghostly pale skin. However, the real horrors were the plants. In a cruel twist of irony, flora seemed to be sprouting from his arm, as if trying to perform a slow and torturous metamorphosis of their victim. As if to further the horror, a tiny and thorny rose was in bloom. It was obvious that Marluxia was not doing this for Luxord to see, and so the man was able to turn his head away quite quickly. The only question was if those plants were still growing or not. Would the kill him? He actually doubted it. What was going on with Marluxia right now was just plain unnatural.
However, a sudden loud crash broke the two of them from their deep thoughts, and Luxord looked out the door to see what was wrong. Everything seemed to be okay, but he heard a scuffling noise from the room across them. Perhaps Larxene had woken up, but an inhuman screech immediately dismissed the theory. Forgetting to stop time so he could plan ahead, Luxord ran out of the room, leaving a completely dazed and blind Marluxia to figure out what the heck was going on. Upon reaching the door, Luxord flung it open, only to find a monster.
The room was trashed, and the last shreds of nothingness were fading from where Larxene had once been. Blood stained the walls, and the murderer was right in a dark corner, wearing the woman's cloak like some morbid trophy. It actually looked like her, with the same facial structure, hair, and feminine form, but that was where all similarities stopped. The eyes were large and of a thin almond-shape, and the eyes were a pure, glowing white. The skin was black like a Heartless, as well as her hair. A long, narrow proboscis-like appendage hung from its grinning mouth, with writhing mandibles on the end. It had four arms instead of the normal two, and the fingers were tipped with hooked claws and the hands were armored with chitin. The insect-like legs were unnaturally long and bent, a bit like a grasshopper's, causing the thing to have to use its bottom arms to help it crawl farther back into the corner. It had a long, segmented, half-curled tail as well, which ended in a bulbous stinger, much like a scorpion's, and already dripping with some yellowish liquid. It gave a mad cackle as Luxord approached, and then faded away into a cloud of shadows, much like a Heartless did. By the time Marluxia finally stumbled over to his companion it was gone, and Luxord was silent.
Closing the door slowly, he turned to Marluxia and looked at him grimly. While he knew that the man would have no idea what he was doing, he still needed to feel as if he were taking the proper effort to talk. "We can't keep this a secret any longer."
"What was in there, anyway?" Now Marluxia was starting to regret the fact that he had asked, for Luxord still did not respond to his question directly.
"You'll learn soon enough. I'm going to alert the rest of this predicament, and you'll come with me as well; I fear that this might not be an isolated incident." He grabbed onto his companion's sleeve and pulled, which was obviously a motion for him to follow. Right now questions were flying through his head. How did something like that get through the castle's defenses? What was it anyway, and why did it look so much like Larxene?
As they made their way from the hall, the sound of their footsteps disappeared, and all that was left was the silence and darkness of before. This time, however, it seemed more threatening than calming…
Amazing, no need for the bars in this chapter at all.
Well, as I said in the last chapter, scorpions...
And I do think I shall need to re-enforce my stronghold, lest those rabid Marluxia fans maul me alive. XD
As with before, reviews are very nice. I will answer questions and such with PMs, but I am keeping things very tight for now.