I-I felt bad for leaving you guys without an update for so long, but life is totally piled on top of me big time now. Sorry for slowness!

I originally wasn't going to end this chapter where it's at, but I thought it was an okay place to end.

Prototype

By FlikFreak

Chapter Three: More Questions than Answers

The group split up shortly after the decision to go shopping was made. Pence and Hayner headed for the Library while Olette took Sora with her to the shopping center in Tram Common, Roxas accompanying them for the main purpose of translating for Sora. It wasn't long before they found themselves at Jessie's clothing shop in Tram Common, where Sora very hesitantly followed them through the door.

Are you sure about this? He asked.

"Just do what Olette tells you to and you'll be fine," Roxas assured him in a hushed voice.

Unfortunately, his voice wasn't hushed enough, and Olette spun on him, crossing her arms. "We're only buying him a new outfit, Roxas. If anyone sees him walking around like that, then-"

"Alright, alright, I get it."

The shop was bigger than Roxas had first expected. There was music playing from the speakers set on the roof, and rows of clothing lined the walls, hung off of racks, and were stuffed on shelves. The walls were still brick on the inside, and the floor had been laid over with tiles that were coming up in a few places. Roxas wrinkled his nose a little as he stepped over a section of the floor where some tiles had been ripped up. "You shop here?"

"It's not that bad," Olette replied with a huff. "Sure, this place needs to get fixed up a tad, but it's the best clothing store in the Station Heights district."

It really isn't all that bad, Roxas, Sora added. You can't judge a book by its cover.

"Whose side are you on, Sora?" Roxas moaned.

Olette dragged Sora off to one of the sections of the back of the store and placed the mute boy in front of a mirror before crossing her arms. "Okay, I have to agree that red is a good color for you, Sora; but that outfit isn't stylish at all...plus it's about three sizes too small for you."

Sora blinked, glancing down at his shorts. Shrugging, he nodded in agreement.

"So here's what we'll do," Olette continued, clapping her hands together. "Getting you a new outfit is all good and well, but if it's not comfortable, you need to let me know, okay? There's no sense in getting you clothes you'll have to live with if you don't like how they feel. I'll go get a few outfits for you, so just wait here and I'll bring them all here." With that, she walked off.

In spite of Roxas's previous belief, the entire shopping trip only took thirty minutes. Olette went through the racks quickly, and traversed back and forth between the store and where Sora was. There were countless trips between the dressing room and mirror before they finally found a good ensemble for Sora, consisting of a blue-and red shirt, a black boodie, a pair of large black shorts, zip-up shoes, and gloves. The only thing that stayed the same was Sora's crown pendant, which he absolutely refused to remove, even after Olette's repeated attempts to convince him. In spite of this, Roxas noticed that Sora quite liked his new look.

After a quick run by the checkout, the three of them headed straight for the Station Heights library. Upon arriving at the second floor, they were promtly greeted by the sight of Pence frantically waving them over to the table he was at. Numerous old newspapers were spread out in front of him.

"Did you find something, Pence?" Olette asked.

Pence nodded, eyes wide. "I sure did!" he replied, pulling out one of the clippings from the pile he had found. "I was looking up some stuff about the mansion when I found this article. Take a look."

Roxas took it carefully and held it in front of him, noticing offhand that Olette and Sora were glancing over his shoulder.

Nevras Mansion was determined as the source of a small-scale earthquake yesterday. Although unable to investigate the closed-off mansion closely, scientists have confirmed these readings.

The earthquake left five injured, but was otherwise harmless.

Nevras Mansion was the former home of well-known scientist and engineer Ansem The Wise, whom invented the tram system, developed cures for various illnesses, and donated generous amounts of money toward rebuilding Sunset Station after the Twilight War. He and his family have not been seen for several months and are presumed dead.

"Ansem the Wise lived there?" Olette breathed.

"According to this article he does" Pence shrugged. "Not surprising, really; he had a lot of money to build a house like that."

"Maybe one of his experiments or something caused the earthquake," Olette suggested.

"I doubt it," Pence replied, shaking his head. "It takes a lot more than an explosion to cause an earthquake."

Sora squinted his eyes. Hang on. Look at the date of the article.

Roxas did. "It says April...wait, this article is ten years old!"

Pence nodded. "Yeah. That earthquake the article mentions is the same one that started the hole in the Tram Common wall when we were in elementary school."

That sounds really familiar somehow, Sora mumbled.

"Really?" Roxas asked. "How? I thought you had no memories of your past."

Sora shrugged, sitting down lightly. That's the problem. I don't...at least, I can't reach them right now. That earthquake article rings a bell, but I just can't place it...just like that scientist's name. I've heard of him before.

Understanding the brunette's plight, Roxas nodded and turned to Pence. "Who's this Ansem guy?" He asked. "We know he's a scientist, but I never knew he had a family."

"He didn't," Pence replied. "Not a real one, anyway. He adopted some kids from the orphanage."

Maybe that Ansem guy will know who I am, Sora mused. Where is he now?

Roxas shrugged. "No one knows. He went missing ages ago."

Oh... Sora seemed to sulk a little. Well, maybe we could look up more information about him. If we know more about him, maybe it'll lead to something.

"Yeah." Roxas turned to his friends. "Sora thinks we might be able to find something if we look up more stuff on Ansem the Wise."

Olette bit her lip. "There won't be much in here. He's not exactly a historical figure; he only went missing pretty recently."

"We can always check out magazines and newspapers," Pence pointed out. "He was famous, after all."

It was then that Hayner decided to show his face. The boy turned for the hall past the magazine shelf and quietly made his way to the group. "Find anything, Pence?"

"Yeah," Pence replied. "There's an article about the earthquake from ten years ago. You know, the one that opened up that hole?"

Hayner stared at Pence in disapointment. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"It was centered around the old mansion where Roxas found Sora," Pence explained. "We're going to look up more about Ansem the Wise and see if we find out anything else."

Roxas began counting on his fingers. "So far, we know that he was a rich scientist that cured diseases, invented the tram, donated money to rebuild tram common, adopted children, lived in the old mansion, and went missing before any of us were born...right?"

Pence nodded. "Right."

"Sora said that Ansem's name was familiar to him," Roxas added, "Even though he doesn't remember anything about his past."

"Maybe we'll jog his memory if we find something," Olette suggested. "Let's get started."

Threat level increasing. CommencKKKRRRSSSHHHH.

Prototype regulation failed. Critical error.

Danger. Assimilation commencing.

Roxas was just hitting the enter button when he felt a sudden bout of dizziness. Shaking it off, he hit the enter button on google in search of any information on Ansem the Wise. The results were few, and many of the links were referring to irrelevant things. Only one caught his eye.

Ansem the Wise, well-known scientist and engineer, has not been seen since last weekend when he attended the grand opening of Station Heights Train Station. His adopted children have not been seen either.

Authorities have made efforts to investigate Nevras mansion, but no success has been made on passing through even the front gates. If anyone has any information on the wherabouts of Ansem the Wise or his children, please notify the Twilight Town Police Department immediately. (See picture below)

The said picture, however, was a broken link. Roxas folded his arms in annoyance and checked the properties of the photo; maybe they made a typo in the link...nope, perfectly normal. At least now he knew when exactly this Ansem person disappeared. According to the article, however, his children had not been seen either. If he'd been missing for over fifteen years, then his children were probably at least in their twenties now, but since they hadn't been seen either... Boy, wasn't this confusing.

Futher searching was fruitless, and the group left the library early in favor of doing something far less stressful: eating ice cream atop the clocktower. Sora wasn't too keen on it at first, but he willingly went along after a quick bit of encouragement courtesy of Olette. Though the boy was quite hesitant on climbing up, once they reached the top his fear seemed to evaporate.

The view from up here is really beautiful, Sora commented.

Roxas nodded. "Yeah."

"This is the only place that Seifer can't get to," Hayner said proudly, waving his half-done popsicle in the air as though to prove his point. "It's a tradition for us to come eat sea-salt ice cream up here at the end of the day."

Sora gave the popsicle in his own hand an odd look. So that's what this is called. It's pretty good.

Nibbling at his own snack, Roxas spared a glance at Hayner. "So, you ready for that tournament yet, Hayner?"

As expected, the blonde was pumped. "You bet I am!" Hayner replied, grinning widely. "You're entering this year too, right?"

"Of course I am," Roxas replied.

"You remember our plan, right? We both make it to the finals, and then no matter who wins, we still get the prize."

Sora glanced up. There's a tournament?

Roxas nodded. "It's called Struggle. Hayner and I got through the preliminaries this year, so we're both in the final rounds two days from now."

What's the prize?

"The four crystal trophy, a chance to fight last year's defending champion, and ten thousand munny."

Wow. Maybe I should enter.

Roxas bit his lip and shook his head. "It's too late to enter. The preliminaries were a month or so ago."

Olette must have caught on to their conversation, and she leaned forward a little to add in. "You can always enter next year."

Smiling, Sora went back to his ice cream and stared at the sunset. I think I will. For now though, I'll be fine with just cheering you two.

Even though Sora seemed cheerful, Roxas somehow knew that there was something bothering him. He wasn't sure if it was the glazed-over look in Sora's eyes or the weakness in the smile he was trying to give them. Something just seemed...off. Another bout of dizziness approached, and he found himself leaning back to avoid falling off the tower. After a moment it passed, and he stared at the sunset again. "So, Sora...where're you going to stay?"

Sora shrugged. I can't go back to the mansion.

"Why not?" Roxas asked. Sora shook his head and refused to reply. Even when everyone glanced at Roxas for a translation, he could only shrug.

"Why not stay in the Usual Spot?" Olette suggested. "If you're worried about being found, no one goes there except us."

Pence nodded in agreement. "That sounds pretty good. What do you think, Sora?"

Sounds good to me, Sora replied, smiling.

Roxas returned his gaze to the sunset, and was about to speak when yet another bout of dizziness took him over. Rubbing his head, he pushed himself up. "I think I'm gonna head home, guys. Not feeling too well."

Sora gave Roxas a concerned stare, but managed to work up a smile. Get some rest, okay?

The blonde blinked at Sora. "Why the sudden concern?"

Apparently just as surprised on the subject as Roxas was, Sora just shrugged in reply.

The walk home was lonesome and silent. Roxas took the long way home in order to avoid the Sandlot, and the dizziness only got worse. He was more than happy to finally go to bed, where he promptly fell asleep.

"It's absorbing the natural energy in this house…or rather, it seems to be assimilating it."

"Assimilating? But the only ones capable of that are-"

"Correct," the older man theorized. "There's a friend of mine at the edge of town that may know more, but I'm afraid I've been unable to reach him as of late. His own residence is far more...protected than this one. If my friend agreed to keep it, then it would be of no danger to anyone."

The younger of the two shook his head. "I don't like this."

The older man shook his head. "I realize how you feel. However, we would be putting the entire town in danger if it were to remain somewhere unprotected."

"The city will be...?"

"No, the town itself will be fine. It's the people that I'm worried about. Assimilation holds more danger with its end results rather than what happens during the process. Judging by how quickly the energy in this mansion is vanishing, I'd say that the prototype is far more dangerous than we anticipated. It must be contained at all costs. If not, then it will have to be destroyed."

"But-"

"No excuses. I know it will be hard for you, but we must do whatever we can to ensure the safety of Twilight Town."

The younger person clenched his hand into a tight fist, to the point where his arm shook. Roxas could feel the anger coming off of this person. For some reason, it frightened him. When the younger boy left, Roxas caught a look at his face: he couldn't make it out clearly, but it still seemed so familiar somehow. He swallowed. "What's going on?"

"Nothing you need to worry about," the boy replied. "Dad's...not letting us out of the house for a while."

"Why not?" Roxas asked.

The boy shook his head. "It's hard to explain. You don't need to worry, though. Everything's going to be okay."

"Promise?"

"Promise."