A week later.

"Roxas, I was wondering if I could borrow Axel during your chemistry period? I would only need him for about, hm, an hour or so." Mrs. Mae-Lin asked Roxas sweetly, pulling Axel out of an amusing daydream of having both Roxas and Sora on his pillows. It was completely unrealistic and never going to happen… but a man could dream.

"Uh… sure, ma'am." Axel frowned at that, looking at the teacher. Her hair was styled into curls today and she was wearing a pretty, pink, yet conservatively cut dress. She smiled at him and he smiled back, suppressing a bit of uneasiness.

Mae-Lin made him uneasy not because she was a bad person, but because she was a very good person. She was always reminding the class that he and the other bodyguards were people. In particular, she was making a point of calling on him in class, since he could almost always answer the questions. It was making Axel uncomfortable. It would have been a lot worse if it hadn't been for the fact that his abilities in all the other classes were so abysmal. The students joked about him being Mae-Lin's pet, but no one really resented him for it. They didn't really take him seriously anyway… no matter what Mae-Lin said, he was just a bodyguard after all.

"Axel, I want you to fill these out to the best of your ability. Can you do that, please?" Mae-Lin passed him a sheaf of papers and a pencil. Axel blinked, but shrugged, picking up the pencil and getting started. It was mostly a lot of logic questions, and he was good at those. Also some manipulation of objects, but he'd always been good at that too… although the questions got more challenging as it went on. By the end, he was having to really work at it and he wasn't certain of his answers at all. "That's enough." She picked up the sheets, giving him an encouraging smile. "Thank you, Axel." He blinked, puzzled, but didn't know what to say as she gently shooed him out of the room.

"What did she want you for?" Roxas asked, curious and a bit concerned as Axel joined him in Biology. Axel shrugged.

"She wanted me to take a test. It was weird… all kinds of logic questions and stuff. I can't really see the point to it." That had him mystified.

"That sounds like an IQ test! I wonder why she would want you to take one?" Sora said cheerfully, and Axel was about to ask what IQ meant when the lesson started. By the end of the period, he had forgotten about his question.

It didn't seem very important.

The next day.

"Roxas, Axel, could I see you after class please?" Mae-Lin requested, and they exchanged a glance as Lex snickered behind them.

"You guys are in trouble." He whispered, sotto-voice, and Roxas hissed back.

"And you're a retard." Axel grinned at the annoyed tone, but nodded to Mae-Lin. She nodded back, and began teaching the class again. Once class was done, he and Roxas stayed, confused but willing. If they missed the monorail, they could always take a later one. They ran quite regularly. "Roxas, if you don't mind waiting outside, I would like to speak to Axel privately." Roxas hesitated, clearly wanting to refuse, but obedience to teachers was too strongly ingrained. Axel shifted, wishing he could ask Roxas to stay… but that would probably get him into trouble. Mae-Lin stood, walking over until she was in front of him. "Axel, we need to talk." Her expression was determined.

"Oh?" He said warily, and she nodded.

"Yes. Axel, that test I gave you was designed to measure your intelligence. Did you know that you test out at the genius level?" She said gently, and Axel blinked. "You are a very bright young man. Why are you wasting your life this way?"

"Wasting…?" Axel repeated the word in disbelief, then shook his head. "Ma'am… you don't understand. This was an opportunity for me." Mae-Lin leaned closer, her hands on the table.

"Perhaps, but what about the loss to your world? What could you have done there, to make it a better place for everyone? Axel, it isn't right that we drain away the best from other worlds. This needs to stop. I've been organizing a petition, and I want you to help." Axel stared into her face, feeling her sincerity, and felt sick. She was a good person doing what she thought was right.

And she didn't understand.

"My world… wouldn't have lost anything. My world killed me." He said woodenly, standing up. "Ma'am, you don't understand. I'm dead to them. They didn't want me… or what I could do." His breath was coming quickly, too quickly, and he could taste soot. He could smell… no. That was an illusion. Closing his eyes, he forced back the vile memories.

"If I don't understand, tell me Axel. Tell me what I don't understand." The compassion in her voice, the desire TO understand, was completely genuine. And that undid his control. Reaching up with a shaking hand to wipe away tears, he began to explain…

Axel sat at the foot of the old lighthouse, peering intently at an old scroll and occasionally making notes.

He was fourteen years old and working on his thesis. He was doing a very involved, intricate research paper on the genesis of the genii myths and the possible tie ins with the ancient Andulian gods. Axel had an interesting theory on that and had managed to dig up some intriguing evidence. It was a new take on an old subject, and he thought it would make his mother proud, whether she agreed with him or not.

His mother was the Chief Librarian of the Library of Ages. It was the biggest and oldest library in the world. There were dozens of under librarians, all of whom spent their time cataloguing new finds and making copies of important works so they could be spread across the globe. It was all done by hand, so it took forever, especially illustrations. But they persevered. It was their duty and their pleasure to spread knowledge to the world.

Axel loved it. He'd known since he was a small child that he wanted to follow in his mother's footsteps. He loved the smell of books, he loved reading and finding out new things, he loved writing papers and coming up with new possibilities and researching them… he loved learning about ancient languages and people… he loved it all. The library had always been his home. It was all he had ever wanted.

Glancing up, he noticed something odd on the horizon. Something that shouldn't be there. Ships? But the town was a small one. They hardly ever had any traders, let alone more than one ship! Surely his eyes were playing tricks on him. Carefully rolling up the scroll, Axel stood and looked intently over the water.

His eyes weren't playing tricks on him. There were sails, coming closer… many sails. Axel suddenly swallowed. Were they pirates? He'd heard stories about pirates, but never imagined he would actually see them. But no… that couldn't be it. No pirate fleet had so many ships. This was like an army! Maybe they were just passing through? Axel felt faint with relief. Surely that was it. They were just passing through to some other naval battlefield.

But his eyesight was too good for that illusion to last. Axel swallowed again as he saw the ships turning. He only knew about naval operations from books, but he'd read the diary of an admiral once. So he knew the way ships moved to expose their broadside armaments. He also knew what those kind of weapons could do if they were fired into an unsuspecting town. The range on the cannons was huge, and the town didn't even have walls.

"N-No…" He whispered, horror making him feel faint. This couldn't be happening. It was some kind of horrible nightmare. Then the flashes began and he could hear the booms… and the sudden explosions behind him. And reality descended with a vengeance. "NO!" He turned and ran into the town, dropping the scroll in his haste.

People were trying to flee, and Axel had to fight against the current, struggling against a tide of panicked townfolk. The town was burning. A magical shell exploded over the crowd behind him, shredding the people. The screams rolled over him but he ignored it. He had to reach the library. He had to find his mother, he had to save the books!

The library was in flames. Horror and nausea rippled through him as he saw how engulfed it was. There were still librarians inside, desperately throwing books out of windows in an effort to save them… but it was futile. The books were burning. Pages flew in clouds of sparks as part of the library collapsed, and Axel screamed.

"MAMA!" He called up his fire elemental and would have run into the burning building, despite it being certain death… but a familiar voice stopped him.

"Axel." He turned to see his mother, running towards him but she was… she was… his eyes skittered over her, unable to take in what he was seeing. He could smell her, could smell the sickly sweet stench of burnt flesh and the horrible reek of burnt hair and her face… he couldn't look at her face.

"M-M-Mama…" He lifted his hands, wanting to touch her but how? Where? She was… She slammed something hard down in his left hand. It felt like a cube, and his hand closed over it convulsively.

"Axel, baby. So… sorry…" She slurred the words out, her voice rasping and faint. Then Axel heard the dreadful whining sound.

"MAMA!" The shell exploded behind her and she died instantly, torn to pieces by the shrapnel. Her blood exploded over him as the same fragments that had killed his mother hit him in the chest, slamming him to the ground. He would have screamed if he had had any breath, but he was choking on blood. His own blood and his mother's blood. And the books were burning. Rolling over, Axel tried, delirious with pain and grief, to save the books. He had to save the books.

But his body could not be denied, and he collapsed into unconsciousness.

When he woke up next, the fires were dead. Everything was dead except a few looters and slavers, out to collect new merchandise from the shattered town. And none of them were going to bother with him. Axel took a deep breath and felt a gurgling, sucking sensation in his chest. He didn't know a lot about wounds, but he knew enough to know it was a miracle he'd lasted this long. He wasn't going to last much longer.

"This one…" Axel squinted, turning his head to the side as something blocked out the light. "Such power. Such desire to live. Do you feel it?"

"Yes, Mongo. But those injuries. Can we heal those enough for him to be fit for duty?" A female voice said. Hands, hard yet oddly gentle, turned him over and touched his chest. Axel whimpered weakly at the pain but didn't protest.

"If we begin now, I think so. Boy, would you give up your freedom to live? Would you leave this place behind forevermore?"

"…Yes." He so wanted to live. Something hard was placed against his lips, and he swallowed weakly, feeling the tingle of magic. A healing potion. Someone was healing him in return for his freedom. The female voice began chanting, and more healing power ran through him like a clear, crisp stream.

He wanted to live. Wanted it so badly. Freedom was a small price to pay.

Axel finished his story, vaguely aware that Mae-Lin was weeping. His own eyes were dry now, but there were sparks in his hair. Fires like the fire that had burnt his town. His library, his mother, his life.

"You see." He said, his voice harsh. "That's why… we don't care about our worlds. My story… it's bad but not the worst. I could tell you some of the others. A girl I knew… she was a lesbian. Got found out with her lover. They were both raped and-"

"Please stop!" Mae-Lin cried, and Axel blinked, sliding to a halt. "I-I'm sorry. It's still not right that you're bought and sold like property but I see… I see why you accept it. I see why you don't care about your worlds." She sniffed, rubbing her face. "Do you know… why they burnt the books?" She swallowed. Even saying those words felt dirty, obscene. Axel shook his head wearily.

"No. Mongo and Kilsera wouldn't let me stay to find out. They took me to the Twisted World and I never looked back. What good would it have done anyway? The library would still be gone. Hundreds of years of work, wiped away in a night." Axel's voice was pained, resigned. "I just went on. They had to do a lot of work on me, you know. I would wake up screaming… I was afraid of fire. I couldn't summon my own fires. They put so much healing into me, put me back together… I owe them all so much." Axel rubbed his face with a hand. "They earned every penny they got from me."

"Axel…" Mae-Lin sounded helpless for a moment, then her voice firmed. "Maybe the petition isn't a good idea. I'll have to think about it. Maybe… instead, if your father allows it, we could start a charity in the Twisted World. Start allowing genuine immigration." Axel blinked at the thought. It was downright odd, but…

"You could buy slaves, maybe, and free them. Genuine slaves, not indentured servants… the Twisted World trades a lot of slaves to places that are into that sort of thing." Axel said cautiously, and Mae-Lin winced.

"Not to here, surely?" She asked, and Axel shook his head.

"Oh no, of course not. Vexen would never do that, it's illegal. Only indentured servants come here. But you could buy them, bring them here and free them and teach them and, well, whatever." Axel shrugged a bit helplessly. "It's just an idea. Most slaves really have no chance." There was a huge difference between being an indentured servant and a slave. Axel was actually getting paid, although it wasn't a huge amount, and if he saved up he'd have quite a nest egg when his contract was done. It was all in his contract.

"I'll have to think about it. I'm so sorry I put you through this, Axel." She sounded very remorseful, and Axel smiled weakly, reaching out to take her hand.

"It's okay, ma'am. You needed to understand." He squeezed her hand for a moment, then let go. "I really need to go ma'am. Roxas is waiting for me."

"I understand. See you tomorrow, Axel." Axel nodded and walked to the door, opening it and seeing Roxas. Roxas looked at him, his blue eyes wide and full of tears, and Axel blinked as the blond hugged him.

"Roxas… oh. You were listening?" He said softly, and Roxas sniffed, nodding and burying his face against Axel's chest. Axel held him for a moment, gently kissing his forehead before he let go. "C'mon Roxas, lets go home." He wanted nothing more to get home and start to read a book.

To reassure himself that the books were still there.