Chapter II: First Encounters
Radiant Garden. It lived up to its name.
Any flower, any plant, any type of shrubbery or vegetation existed within the boundaries of the world in all its glory. Colors were vivacious and near blinding in the sunlight, flowers and leaves shimmering like the many facets of a cut gem. The climate was rarely inhospitable, only ever raining or stormy when the plant life required watering to survive. The buildings and other man-made structures were made out of nature as much as cement and plaster, and the landscaping was always immaculate. And on warm days when the sun shone pleasantly down on the paradise, the aromas of thousands of flora and fauna would ascend and fill the air in a fragrant dance that could intoxicate the senses wonderfully.
But some citizens were far more content to view the gorgeous world through a window.
"Why must I go?!" His green eyes widened in horror. "You know I have the most frightful allergies, Master! Why not send Braig? He's your errand boy most of the time anyway!"
"Enough, Even."
There was instant silence from the apprentice.
"You often complain that I never give you an assignment, but the moment I give you the opportunity, you only complain." Ansem leaned back in his large chair and bit at his Sea-Salt Ice Cream. "Do you want the job or not, Even? I trust that you're competent enough to retrieve a schoolgirl. Or I should I give the task to Braig?"
"N-No, sir!" Even stood straighter, puffing out his chest. "I can go. It is not a problem. Braig could never be trusted with children, that oaf!"
Neither can you actually, Ansem mentally muttered. "Do you know were Ienzo is. Even?"
"Ienzo…?" Even's vibrant emerald eyes suddenly widened in shock. "Oh! He's, ah, most likely down in the lab. Yes, that's defiantly where he is."
"Are you sure?" Ansem's golden-orange eyes bored deeply into Even's, causing his apprentice to begin to tremble.
"O-of c-c-course, s-sir!"
"If you can't handle Ienzo, then you can't handle this assignment."
"Please, sir! I can handle it! You can't send anyone else! Braig would end up shooting the girl, and Dilan and Aeleus would frighten her away! And you don't allow Ienzo to leave the castle."
"You do have a point…" Ansem finished his ice cream and examined the stick, disappointed that it was blank. He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a folder, slapping it onto the surface of his desk and letting slide towards Even. "She's a freshmen at the local high school. Fifteen years old, blue hair, violet eyes, and a knack for science. And from reports from her teachers and the people around her, she's into the eccentric. And we can't have that kind of knowledge go untrained, now can we?"
"No, sir. I guess not." Even opened the folder and sifted through the papers within. There was a picture of the girl, no doubt from the school, along with every report card that she had ever been issued. And all were the same: excellent marks in all fields of math and science, and terrible scores in literature and history. The other classes had average marks.
"Find this girl, her address is inside, and tell her that I wish to interview her."
Even looked up from the folder, blinking in surprise. "Is that wise, sir? I mean, after Xehanort, is it really necessary to take anyone else in? After his talent, anyone else will be a disappointment."
"I'm fully aware of that," Ansem steeped his fingers and gazed off into space thoughtfully. "But I don't want someone of this girl's caliber conducting experiments without guidance. She's several years younger than Xehanort, and I feel that she has potential. It's just an interview, Even. And don't get territorial. I have a place for all of my apprentices. Now go. I want to meet with her before the day is out."
Even collected the folder and exited his master's office with a brisk walk. Oh yes. A place for all of your apprentices. He cast a glare backwards to the closed door behind him. But those places are of varying distances from your inner circle, master. I hope you realize that.
She sneezed violently, rubbing her watering eyes. Radiant Garden was a wonderful place, unless allergies plagued the senses of a person. And no medication could fully counter the effects of the pollen-thick air.
"S'matter, Xenon? Gettin' beat up by a bunch of flowers? You are skinny enough for a plant to punch your lights out after all." The two boys descended on either side of her, one leaning casually on the back of the bench she was sitting at while the other hovered to his left.
Xenon glared back at the speaker, wiping the moisture out of her eyes in annoyance and pushing her glasses back up to their proper place on the bridge of her nose. She met the vibrant blue-green gaze of her heckler, his grin showing off nearly all of his white teeth.
"Seriously. How old are you, Lea? Fifteen or five?" Xenon turned her head to the side and sneezed again. Even though it was autumn, there was no end to the pollen that drifted through the air.
Lea loudly scoffed, rolling his eyes and glancing back to the other teen behind him for support that was not given. He turned back to Xenon. "I'm the same age as you, remember? We've gone to school together since kindergarten. But really, who in Radiant Garden has allergies? You should be immune to this kind of stuff. Right, Isa? Back me up, will ya?" Lea turned to face the other teen, planting his hands on his narrow hips.
Isa quirked one of his eyebrows at his friend before rested his gaze on Xenon, his expression belittling. He spoke very infrequently, but his actions more than made up for it.
"Allergies stem from when an unknown object enters the body that it does not recognize. Unlike you and a lot of other people here, my body sees pollen as a foreign substance and it fights it off once I come in contact with it. And—" she stopped speaking as a sneeze rigorously shook her body. She readjusted her glasses as they had slid down her nose from the force of her sneeze.
"Listen, weirdo, I didn't need a textbook explanation." Lea threw Xenon a glare. "I didn't need an explanation at all, as a matter of fact. Got it memorized?" He tapped the side of his head with his index finger. "So you can just go hide in a classroom and read your textbooks like the geek you are."
"Sorry to disappoint you, Lea, but I don't bite the heads off of chickens."
Lea blinked in confusion, raising one of his slim eyebrows. "Excuse me?"
"A geek. The term is coined from a circus freak that would bite the heads off of chickens and other live animals. And I assure you that I have never partaken in such an action."
"Ew. That's disgusting!"
"She's correct though, Lea. That is where the term comes from." Isa folded his arms over his chest with a nod, tilting his head in the direction of the redhead.
"What, so you're siding with her now? This friendship is so sad." Lea sighed but quickly unsheathed two Frisbees and held them out to his sides before swinging them around the tops of his fingers. "Are you sure that you want to get on my bad side? You know that's just about the worst thing that you could do. Got it memorized?" He grinned mischieviously.
"Jeez, Lea." Xenon pushed her bangs out of her eyes as she shook her head. "Does your confrontational spirit know no bounds?"
"Are you a friggin' dictionary? Does your mind always think like one of those philosophers we learned about in Literature class? Not that I pay attention, but… Really?"
"You should show more respect. I'm certainly going to prosper more in this life than you will."
"So what are you going to do? Get the mathletes to attack me?" He sheathed his Frisbees and pretended to be frightened, shielding his face with his hands. "Oh no! They're gonna cut me with their protractors! Help! They have rulers! I'm gonna get spanked!" Isa let a grin cross his face as Lea dissolved into peals of mocking laughter. "Well, we gotta bounce, right Isa? Places to go and people to see. Got it memorized? See yah, Xenon. Wouldn't want to be yah!" The two walked off, Lea cracking a series of jokes and playfully punching Isa's arm or nudging his shoulder. And Isa just smirked, the perfect balance for his spirited friend.
Xenon took a deep breath and sneezed from the amount of pollen that she inhaled. Lea is so foolish. But he's lucky that he doesn't have to worry about everything I do. He has the chance to be a kid. I don't. I'm expected to be the well-educated adult. And that has as many disadvantages as it has advantages. She shook her head and collected her books, neatly organizing them into her satchel. Slinging it over her shoulder, she made her way through the flower and tree-lined streets, covering her nose and mouth with the sleeve of her shirt to minimize her pollen inhalation.
She walked through the populated streets, slipping between people as they went about their daily lives. She wove through the complex tangle of streets, following the shortest path to her house, a path that she had perfected from years of attempting to stay out of the pollen-saturated air for as little as possible. Avoiding the main street, she stepped over a well-trimmed gardenia bush and walked briskly through a small side street lined with azalea bushes in full bloom with red, pink, and white blossoms. Xenon held her breath.
She quickened her pace, turning several corners and moving deeper and deeper into the outskirts of the city to where the foliage was far less lush. The bright paint dimmed from the houses, the shades becoming deeper and darker. Lime became evergreen, azure became navy, pink became maroon, yellow became mustard, and lavender became violet. There were fewer streetlights on the corners, unlit in the daytime, but the entire aura of the area of the city was ominous.
Xenon continued down one of the gloomy streets, the houses leaning against each other as the root-strewn ground was poor for support. She picked her way through the snake-like protrusions, knowing the pattern well from traversing over them countless times. Her eyes were down, assuring that she would not trip or get her foot caught on any root that might have shifted, knowing that she was nearing her house. She turned down her front path and pulled a keychain from around her neck, unlocking her front door after ascending the steps.
The house was empty and dark, no lights lit except for the few electronic devices that were always plugged in. Xenon glanced down at her watch in the light of one of the windows. Three thirty. I have two hours until my parents get home. She quickly shut the front door and locked it behind her, scurrying about the house and closing all of the curtains around every window. Once satisfied that the area was dark enough, she walked to the back of the house and fumbled with the keys around her neck. She slipped a skeleton key into a door under the staircase and descended into her basement, a chill crawling up her spine. And it was not only because of the decrease in temperature.
She felt her way down the stairway, trailing her hand down the wall, and reached blindly for the single light switch hidden in the pitch-blackness. She found the slight protrusion and flicked it on, blinking from the sudden illumination. The basement was her secret, not even her parents were fully aware of the sort of experiments that she conducted. Notebooks were scattered with loose pieces of paper on different tables, each table specified to one section of her experiments. Some tables contained beakers or burners, one contained a cage of white mice, and another contained a series of vials filled with liquid of various.
But, even Xenon would admit it, she could not specifically identify what she was studying.
Pushing her glasses higher up on her nose, she set her satchel down at the base of the staircase and moved to the table with the caged mice. There were ten of them, active from the sudden light that was present in their usual darkness, and Xenon knelt at the table to better examine them. She pulled a notebook forward, removing the pencil that she always kept behind her ear and hastily wrote the date. She picked up one of the flashlights that she kept at each table and further studied the mice.
Day 17, she wrote in the notebook. Change is nigh nonexistent in any subjects. Only three of the ten show any sort of alteration: a slight discoloring of their eyes. Unlike the normal red present in white mice, their eyes seem to have begun turning an amber color. Something like yellow or orange. Most vexing.
Xenon focused her flashlight and shone it on one of the three with amber eyes. It began writhing, frantically clawing and gnashing its small teeth, attempting to run away from the beam of light. She did the same with the other two and received the same result.
All three subjects resist light. Reason:
She paused, her body tensing. Her mind whirled, searching for a rational explanation. She looked from the mouse to the flashlight she in her other hand, and found that she could only admit defeat.
Unknown.
She hated it. She hated the single word more than anything else. It was a sign of ignorance, a sign of obliviousness. She had prided herself with always possessing the answers when it came to such things. And Xenon hated being bettered by the science or logic.
She tucked her pencil back behind her ear and opened the top of the cage. She reached down and neared on of the amber-eyed mice, only to pause and observe. Unlike the others that scampered away to the opposite side of the cage, the one mouse stood its ground and bore its teeth. Xenon quickly documented the increased aggression. She thoughtlessly left her hand within the bars of the cage as she wrote, only to feel a sharp pinch on the end of her index finger.
She gave a gasp and dropped her pencil in surprise, withdrawing her hand rapidly. The amber-eyed mouse was looking at her, almost daring her to attempt to catch it again. Xenon glanced down at her finger, seeing two puncture wounds from where she had been bitten. Blood slowly bubbled up from the spots and trailed down her finger, dripping down onto the table beneath her.
And her fingertip turned black.
She gasped again, suddenly feeling as if her chest was being crushed. She stumbled back from the table, her back running into a nearby wall. She clutched her chest with her uninjured hand, feeling her throat constrict. She wheezed, sliding down the wall, eye wide with horror.
And she felt angered. Despaired. Betrayed. Anguished. Envious. Everything that had ever been done to her, every negative action that she had ever been met with came to the surface of her mind. And her chest tightened, feeling as if it would collapse in on itself. And she could not breathe, like a dark blanket was smothering her, like a demon was sitting on her chest. There was a roaring in her ears, a monstrous bellow that reached her very core. It filled her, clamping a cold hand around her being, a sensation that made her body quake. She looked around wildly, the lights warping in her vision as they twisted and bled together. The shadows seemed to leap up, growing and writhing in a macabre dance. Hands seemed to reach towards her, groping but unable to touch before recoiling and receding into the ebony mass in which they had stemmed from.
And her eyes found the mouse. It was staring at her, amber eyes brightening to a vivid shade of yellow. It was at the edge of the cage, scratching at the bars and squeaking and squealing. It was trying to escape, trying to get to her, trying to be free from its confines. And Xenon could swear that its claws were growing, that the mesh of the cage was slowly being raked apart.
The lights above her flickered and Xenon gritted her teeth. She felt as if she her body would cave in on itself, as if the weight on her chest would crush her flat. Her violet eyes caught sight of her bitten finger, of the ebony discoloration that had traveled to her palm.
No! Stop this! Leave me alone! Stay away! I don't want this! LET ME GO!
Silence. There had only ever been silence. The roaring in her ears was suddenly stifled the way an electrical machine dies once the cord is pulled. And the icy vise released her chest, the pressure evaporating as if it had never been present. Xenon gasped, gulping air that she had been denied as her chest heaved with its newfound mobility. She slumped against the wall, previously unaware of how rigid she had been, and laid down on the ground, pressing her cheek against the cold stone floor. Every edge of her body burned with white-hot icy pricks, a tenfold worse version of pins and needles.
She felt her glasses slip off of her face as her body shuddered with her breathing, her eyelids becoming heavy. She cast one final glance up to the table, seeing the one mouse had succeeded in clawing a hole through the mesh. But it was now laying motionless at the edge of the table, eyes once again pink. And Xenon closed her own eyes, releasing a sigh before drifting off into exhausted sleep.
-:-:-:-:-:-:-
"Xenon!"
Her eyes flew open with a gasp.
"Get up here! There's someone here to see you!"
She sat up abruptly, instantly regretting the action as the blood rushed out of her head. She blinked through her blurry eyes and felt around for her glasses. She shoved them on her nose once they were located, and looked around in an attempt to remember why she was on the floor of her basement.
Nothing seemed out of place. She rose to her feet slowly to prevent any more vertigo, and looked at each of her tables in turn. The only difference she found was that there were only nine mice in her cage and the tenth was nowhere to be found. There was a hole in the mesh as well, which she quickly bent closed, puzzled by how the mouse might have caused such a rend. And she noticed a mark on her right index finger.
Two minute scars that had not previously been there were on either side of the pad of her finger. She rotated her hand, examining her skin for any other marks when she was interrupted.
"Xenon! I said get up here!"
She jumped at her mother's voice and hastily scampered up the steps, needing to turn back to grab her satchel and turn off the light. She emerged from the basement, shaken for a reason she did not know, which bothered her, and she looked to her mother. The middle-aged woman stood with her arms folded over her chest, her brow furrowed.
"H-hello, mom," Xenon mumbled breathlessly. "You said that someone was here?"
"Yes. He's in the living room." She scrutinized her daughter carefully. "What were you doing down there? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Xenon was fully aware that she was trembling. Her mind was slowly beginning to remember flashes of the odd episode, but her memory was as foggy as her eyes without her glasses. "I'm fine, mom. So who is this person? I never get visitors, so…"
"Just come and see. And prepare yourself. With your interests, you might just pass out."
Xenon blinked in confusion and followed her mother towards the front of the house to the living room. And there, sitting on the couch, was a tall man with long, sandy blonde hair and vibrant emerald eyes. He locked her gaze and Xenon gasped, eyes widening in shock.
"No way. You're… You're…" She thought back to a magazine article that she had read several years ago, an article of Ansem the Wise. And the man before her had been in the article as well, an assistant in a major discovery. The sharp cheekbones and slightly crazed smirk were difficult to forget. "Even."
Author Note: I had a ridiculously difficult time with this chapter. I rewrote it at least three times... and I'm still not entirely satisfied... Anyway, I've had a veeeeeery busy week and I'm going to have an even busier week 'cause I'm in my school play and the performances are this week. I barely had time to write this, so updates may be scarce in the near future. But don't give up on me please! And I want to see if anyone understands why the title is plural... review please! They make me soooooooo happy and I've been having terrible writer's block... so please give me a much-needed boost! Love to all my readers and reviewers! Peace out.
-cagedbird361