And lo and behold, after two years, Organization XXVIII is finally updated! It'll take me a while to get used to this many characters again, but I'll do my best. I had to have all the original OC submissions up just to make sure I didn't totally butcher the characters, too. Oy. Well, on the bright side, I found a way to help me kick my writer's block in the pants (by drawing all the characters, ha ha!)
So ah...yeah. I'll have the next one out quick as I can, okay? Stay with me, readers, I know this isn't my best work but I'm going to get back into the groove!
Disclaimer from here onwards: The only thing I own here is Axille. KH belongs to Square Enix and the other OCs belong to their original owners (because I lost my original list...pleeeeease if you're out there message me!)
With two days left of freedom, Xiyak realized she didn't have much more time to gather her allies. After dinner the previous night, she and Darxet had located and convinced Amenxtthe, Syaxsal, and Cavex to visit the Cave of Wonders with them. Now the five convened in the Dark City, far from the prying eyes of the other Organization members.
"Are you both sure this is a good idea?" Amenxtthe asked them as Xiyak opened a portal, "Won't everyone wonder where we are?"
"That's why we went after everyone went to sleep," Xiyak replied, "At least most of them. We'll go to the Cave of Wonders, get ourselves organized there, and be back here in the morning before anyone knows we're gone."
"And we're only doing this to prepare ourselves in case of a mutiny, correct?" Syaxsal asked.
"Yeah...my question is, why didn't we get the others who were fighting on our side the other day?" Darxet asked, "Marluxia, Larxene, Xaldin?"
"Xaldin's more loyal to Xemnas than he would be to us," Amenxtthe said.
"Larxene was the main ringleader yesterday, too," Xiyak said as they began to walk through the portal, "She would probably get us all erased."
"Marluxia...I'm not sure about him," she continued as the portal took them to Agrabah, "He doesn't seem all that trustworthy. No, it's best to keep to ourselves as neophytes. No matter who fought with or against us yesterday, we can only trust ourselves."
"Alright. I'll admit, I haven't been to this Cave of Wonders before. Would you two lead the way?" Amenxtthe asked as she took Syaxsal's hand, knowing the blind girl might get lost.
"Yes. Come on, it's over this way." Darxet said, heading into the Bazaar.
Axbrem tossed and turned on her bed, unable to sleep. Groaning, she sat up and looked at her clock, blinking at the numbers. Shaking her head, she tossed her sheets off of herself and got up, pulling a work coat on over her pajamas. She left her bedroom quietly, leaving the door ajar before heading down the hall to Leixym's room.
Upon arriving, she saw that the ocean-wielder's door was unlocked and slightly open, and light snoring could be heard from within. Rolling her eyes, Axbrem walked inside and headed over to her friend's bedside, starting to shake her.
"Ly...Hey, Ly, wake up!"
Ly didn't respond, only turning over and burrowing under the covers a bit. Axbrem sighed and grabbed hold of the covers, jerking them out roughly and causing the younger girl to tumble onto the floor on the other side of the bed.
"Ow!" Leixym exclaimed, her head popping up to glare at Axbrem, "Ax? What the hell was that for! I was having an awesome dream!"
"Dream later. Come on, I feel like something's wrong," Axbrem replied, picking up a work coat and throwing it at her.
Leixym caught it and put it on, going to join the older girl at the door.
"Tell me about it. What isn't wrong about disturbing a girl's rest?" she grumbled.
"I'm being serious."
Axbrem looked out, checking to see the hallway was clear, before contiuing down towards Kyrox's bedroom, "None of this adds up, and did you notice how quiet it is?"
"Uh, that might be because everyone in their right mind is asleep," Leixym replied, putting her hands in her pockets.
"No, I mean...you live right next door to Xiyak, and aren't you always complaining about her being up all night doing handstands or something?" Axbrem asked, arriving at Kyrox's door.
"Well...yeah, but she's probably sleeping. Again, it's kind of the middle of the night."
"Would she really be asleep when she's as strung-up about what happened? I don't know if you noticed, but Xiyak's not exactly the type to let bygones be bygones."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are you doing anyways?"
Axbrem rested her hand on Kyrox's doorknob when it suddenly turned by itself. She stepped back, bumping into Leixym, and the seventeenth member of the Organization poked his head out, looking surprisingly awake despite the hour of night.
"Could you two talk any louder? What are you even doing up at this time?" he asked, though he didn't seem irritated.
"We could ask you the same thing," Axbrem said.
"I'm probably in the same state as you: unable to sleep and thinking," Kyrox said.
"Uh, I'm neither of those things?" Leixym cut in, shotting an accusatory glare at Axbrem, "I was perfectly fine with sleeping!"
"I am curious though, why get us together? Do you have an idea?" Kyrox asked, turning back to Axbrem.
"Not an idea, more so a hunch...It's the whole seige. It's like there's a huge piece of what happened missing. Like...we only saw a small bit of the big picture," Axbrem said, "Xiyak doesn't seem to be around, and that concerns me."
"Like I said, she's probably still asleep. Watch, let's go down to her room and you'll see she's still there and not out gathering forces for a mutiny or whatever it is you think she's up to," Leixym said, turning and heading down the hallway, "And when we prove she's not up to anything, can I please go back to sleep?"
"Fine," Axbrem grumbled, pulling ahead. She led the other two Nobodies up to Xiyak's room and knocked softly, listening for any sounds from inside.
She tried the knob and found it unlocked. Curious, she gently turned it and pushed the door open, looking inside. She paused, tense, and Leixym tapped her on the shoulder.
"Um...Ax? What's up?" she asked.
Axbrem stepped aside.
"Empty," she said, gesturing into the room.
Kyrox and Leixym entered the deserted bedroom and looked around. Kyrox walked up to the bed and patted it, turning with a thoughtful look on his face.
"She hasn't been here all night. The bed's cold as ice, even though it looks like it hasn't been made since she started sleeping here," he reported.
Axbrem looked at Leixym smugly and the shorter girl simply huffed and sighed.
"Alright, fine. You were right and she's not here. What do you think she's doing?" she asked, holding up her hands in surrender.
"It probably has something to do with the riot she stirred up at the battle," Kyrox said, "Axbrem, you apparently had an idea in place when you woke the two of us up. What do we do?"
Axbrem looked at them and turned out of the room, standing in the middle of the hall and surveying the closed doors.
"We get ourselves prepared for an attack from them. First things first...we need to report this to someone higher in rank than us," she said.
"Well, that's a lot for us. I mean, Kyrox already has sixteen people above him, and he's superior to the both of us," Leixym murmured.
"I wasn't finished. It has to be someone we know we can trust and we know who has a lot of influence in the Organization," Axbrem replied.
"The Superior?" Kyrox asked, "He's highest in the chain of command."
"Yes, but how trustworthy is he? He wasn't around for the Heartless siege and from all angles it looked like he was prepared to let us get hurt and incapacitated. Only when he was at risk of losing anyone did he appear," Axbrem said hotly.
"Alright, alright...Well, how about Demyx and Axel to start with? Axel's pretty influential and I'd trust Demyx with my life." Leixym said.
"Now you're talking. Come on, I had a few other ideas, too. They're going to be really mad at us for waking them up, but this can't wait another minute."
Axbrem led her friends down the hall to the staircase that led to the upper levels of the dormitories. They had work to do.
"Amenxtthe, I appreciate it, really, but I can walk." Syaxsal insisted.
After navigating through the silent streets of Agrabah (and dodging a few of the city guards), the group found themselves at the entrance to the Cave of Wonders. Amenxtthe let go of Syaxsal's arm, having guided her through the city, and Xiyak jumped onto the cat head's tongue, peering down into the gloom.
"Okay, after we get inside, we should find a quiet, empty, out of the way place to start planning. Maybe the underground caves, or I don't know, the one room at the very, very back behind the Treasure Room. It needs to be a place that's hard to get to and well protected," Xiyak said.
"Well the underground caves are pretty accessible...just go running off an edge and you're there," Darxet commented, "So I'd say we should check out the last room first."
"Alright. We'll go there together. Be careful though, there are still Heartless in here and remember: don't touch anything."
The Nobodies entered the Cave apprehensively, drawing their weapons. Almost immediately, they were besieged by Heartless. Syaxsal used her spear as a javelin and vaulted over a Clay Armor while Amenxtthe used her own staff to begin stirring up a strong wind. The wind knocked Xiyak backwards and she sent a crackle of electricity at a Soldier, dispatching it.
"Can you not right now, Amen?" Xiyak asked, "That's really hard to work with for the rest of us!"
"This is how I use my element, Xiyak," Amenxtthe replied smoothly. She threw a blast of Fire magic into the wind and, using her control over birds, configured the flames into small sparrows. The sparrows attacked the Heartless as separate units, using the wind to get around faster.
Xiyak was spared from making a sharp retort when Darxet's hammer smacked down right next to her, shaking the ground. Xiyak jumped and Darxet pulled his hammer out of the ground, taking aim at another Heartless. Cavex stood in the background, only moving in to supply her friends with potions when they needed it.
"First order of business when we get out of this mess-" Xiyak growled as she gave a solid punch to a Large Armor, "-battle strategy!"
Axel met them in the hallway, pulling a coat on over his black and red pajama shirt. Demyx emerged sleepily from the adjacent room to the waiting neophytes in the hall. Axbrem was tapping her foot impatiently while Leixym went to stand with Demyx.
"Okay normally, I'd have fried you if you woke me up at fuckin' three in the morning," Axel began, "but I figured this is a special occasion. You say Xiyak wasn't in her room and hadn't been in there all night?"
"Ohh, what's the problem?" Demyx asked, yawning, "Maybe she fell asleep in the Grey Area. You neophyte girls have a really bad habit of falling asleep in places that aren't your bedrooms."
"That was one time and we were watching a movie!" Axbrem replied, "Anyways, yeah she's not in her room. We checked the others' rooms too. No Darxet, Cavex, Amenxtthe, or Syaxsal. We haven't gone in any of the older Nobodies' rooms yet."
"Mhm...don't." Axel said, looking around at the corridor, "Larxene would kill you, Vexen would kick you out, Saix would berserk...just don't. Any ideas where the missing neophytes are?"
"Not a clue." Kyrox said, "I was thinking about waking Zexion and asking if he could smell them and save us the trouble of searching, but after what you said I don't think he'd want to."
"Ah, that's the thing about Zexion, though. He's so short I could just pick him up before he harmed me." Axel told them deviously, heading up the hall to Zexion's room, "Just hope the bookish twerp didn't...and he did. Locked."
"Wake up Roxas?" Leixym suggested.
"Exactly how many Nobodies do we need to wake up before we have a sizeable search party?" Kyrox asked.
"Kyrox has a point. Come on, it won't kill us to search the castle by ourselves. Demyx, you and-Hey! Dem!" Axel turned and gave the Nocturne a swift smack to the head, as he had been leaning on the wall and dozing.
"Ah! What? What is it?" Demyx asked dizzily, standing up, "I was totally paying attention."
"Sure you were. As I was saying, you and Leixym go search around the basement for the missing neophytes. Kyrox, you're a big boy. Go handle the floors around the Grey Area. Axbrem and I will check the roof," the Flurry instructed.
"What, and I'm not a big girl?" Axbrem asked.
Kyrox nodded and opened a corridor, disappearing to search the Grey Area. Demyx appeared to still be waking up, so Leixym opened the corridor and dragged him through it. Axel ruffled his protege's hair and took her through another portal to the Altar of Naught.
"We'll start up here and work our way down," Axel said, walking to the edge of the platform and looking down.
"They might be in the Dark City, too…" Axbrem said thoughtfully, looking out at the city, "There's a lot of space and a lot of room to hide out in."
"Yeah...you know, where they are isn't what's got me concerned," Axel said. Axbrem looked at him.
"What worries me is what they're doing. I mean, the siege was pretty rough, sure, but is Xiyak really this paranoid?" Axel asked.
"She didn't seem like that when we first met," Axbrem said honestly, "But you know, maybe it isn't so much the paranoia as it is the worry. I think she really trusts you older Nobodies...at least most of you...so the siege kind of shook that in her. You know, I don't think any of us neophytes gave her a reason to worry. Maybe that's why she trusts us so much."
"Well that's great," Axel said sarcastically, "I did absolutely nothing wrong and now I'm hunting for a neophyte who obviously doesn't want to be found."
"Well, you can't exactly blame her."
"'Scuse me?"
"I mean...you were gone most of the day, after scaring off Axille. Then you popped up out of nowhere in the middle of the battle. I didn't think about it much because, well, I was really close to losing my life there, but now that I think about it...it's kind of fishy," Axbrem told him,"Look, I'm just saying you're not exactly guiltless. Where were you all day? If you took a dark portal anywhere, you would have ended up in the Hall of Empty Melodies with the rest of us."
"I got held up elsewhere," Axel said, growing slightly irritated, "Hunting Axille down wasn't exactly easy you know. Kid isn't aces at making dark corridors, so she had to have gone out on foot."
"If you were so angry about how useless she is, why bother looking for her anyways?" Axbrem shot back.
"Because..! You know what, we don't have time for this. Come on, let's keep looking for Xiyak."
Axel opened another portal and Axbrem followed him through it, staring bad-temperedly at the ground.
Xiyak perched herself on one of the stone podium structures in the Lamp Room, her exhausted group slumped on the ground before her.
"So," Darxet panted, "we should just run all the way here and lock the Heartless out next time?"
"Until we get stronger and more organized, I vote for fleeing," Cavex murmured, checking her stores of Life Code.
"Speaking of getting organized...Amenxtthe, was that gale-force wind really necessary?" Xiyak asked, looking at the blue-haired teen.
"I don't quite see what that has to do with organization, but yes it was. There isn't much wind that passes through this cave and my birds fly faster with a tailwind," Amenxtthe replied coolly.
"Next time, give me a chance to get a few good hits in before you go throwing me off balance?" Xiyak questioned.
"Hey, come on, Amenxtthe was fighting her usual style…" Darxet said, eager to intervene in case of a worse argument.
"It's inconvenient for the rest of us." Xiyak replied, jumping off her perch to stand in front of them, "Which reminds me...Earlier I said the first thing we'd do is battle strategy. Come on, let's get started."
"How do we do that?" Syaxsal asked, "We locked out the Heartless."
"Instead of Heartless, I thought we could fight lesser Nobodies. Dusks, each other's minions. Yeah...Amenxtthe can fight mine, Darxet can fight Syaxsal's, I can fight Cavex's, Cavex can fight Amenxtthe's, and Syaxsal can fight Darxet's." Xiyak said, smiling as she summoned five Dusks and two of her lesser Nobody type, Acrobat.
Amenxtthe shrugged and stood up, summoning five Dusks and two of her bird-like Avians. Cavex followed suit, summoning up her Healers. Syaxsal stood and called out two of her Centurions. Darxet summoned his Artificiers. The Lamp Room was divided into five separate battlefields and the neophytes called last minute encouragement to each other.
"Syaxsal, careful! They're slow but they have really heavy weapons!" Darxet called.
"Cavex, those wings are not just for show."
"They're really agile, Amenxtthe!"
"The Centurions emit very bright light...you'll know when they're about to attack."
"Xiyak, even though they're called Healers they only heal each other. Be careful!"
The lesser Nobody breeds advanced and soon the Lamp Room was alive with battle.