So, I only own one character in this chapter. The two OCs I'm introducing belong to other writers. The first, you'll probably recognize from Shire Folk's Annals of Darkness. And the other belongs to Spirit Okami.

Roxas: "He's probably been waiting for this intro for a while, hasn't he? But you update soooo slowly."

I'm aware of that, Roxas. Now just do the disclaimer.

Roxas: "A bit touchy today? DarthKingdom doesn't own Kingdom Hearts, Disney, Square Enix, or anything else, including these new characters."

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Chapter 85: New Recruits

Castle Oblivion was just as it always had been.

A huge, dark, eerie structure in a realm where little else existed at all, its bronze walls were as imposing-looking as they had ever been, and its great towers stretched defiantly into the grey oblivion all around it.

Lights still shone faintly from the few windows of the castle, despite that fact that the Chasers and Organization XIII had abandoned it so long ago.

Nothing should have been there. And yet, there was someone.

Serndask moved calmly toward the castle along the white sort of walkway leading to it. He made no noise as he passed over the powdery white substance covering it. It had been a long time since he'd seen this place.

As he approached the gates, he pondered a few things to himself. The loss of the Assassin Nobodies had forced him to reevaluate his plans somewhat. The Brotherhood of the Dark needed to grow its ranks to increase its chances of victory against the Keybearers.

That had been nearly two days ago. By a measure of chance, Klaxam (who, apart from Sephiroth seemed to be the only one not to have disappointed him within the recent months) had been able to recruit another new member to their cause. Ironically, this same member was positioned at the apparent next stop for the Keybearers.

So, he had come to think of recruiting somebody else. Somebody of sizable power rested within the halls of Castle Oblivion, and it was time for him to wake up.

When he was about level with the gates (still obscured in that fog of Darkness that always seemed to linger around him) something truly rare occurred.

The space directly in front of the castle gates rippled, as if in a heat haze. Next, small amounts of Darkness seemed to gather to that area. Silvery sparkles appeared inside, and started to take on a specific shape. After a few mesmerizing minutes, there was a bright flash of silver light.

And then, kneeled down before him was the form of a woman. She was of about average height, and had vivid blue hair. She was wearing a set of dark blue armor that seemed like it could take some punishment, but still be comfortably form-fitting. She had a metal combat skirt that stretched to just past her knees. She was wearing metal gauntlets, and fingerless black gloves. She wore a metal headband-like headpiece with the Nobody crest on it, and the same went for her metal neckband.

Serndask smiled to himself, scarcely believing his luck.

The woman got to her feet, and looked warily about. When she noticed him, she dropped immediately into a well-used fighting stance. Two impressive, gleaming silver battle axes appeared in her hands.

But Serndask wasn't at all afraid of this woman; this newly-born Nobody hadn't a chance against him. Yet he could feel a great deal of power emanating from her. She'd definitely prove useful.

So he came closer to her. "You feel nothing."

The woman seemed surprised that he knew this, but of course it was a ruse. She could feel nothing, after all. There was a sudden emptiness where her heart had once been.

And it was already tearing her apart.

As a look of uncertainty came to her face, Serndask smiled to himself. He had her already, but he had to play the part.

"Do you want a purpose?"

She looked at him, still not totally trusting him. Her axes were still in hand, and he had to respect that. One should never trust too easily. But she seemed interested.

"I can give your new life meaning."

The woman looked at him closely, and then finally dismissed her weapons. She knelt down in front of him in the fashion that any knight may have.

"Do you swear your service to me? For as long as you draw breath?"

"Yes." She finally said. Her voice sounded much too mature to be coming from the lips of one so young. This might have been one woman who had been forced by circumstance to grow up far too fast. She was rather like the young Keybearers, in some respects.

Not that Serndask particularly cared about these details. Sympathy was for the weak of heart.

He lifted his hand. In front of the woman's face appeared a set of floating, bluish, transparent letters. They formed a name.

At a gesture from Serndask, the letters began to spin in orbit around the woman's head. They moved faster and faster, until they became a blur that resembled a shining ring around her.

Serndask stuck out his hand. A large, golden letter 'X' appeared among the letters, abruptly stopping the others in midair.

The words now formed a brand new name. 'C-O-S-S-E-X'

The Nobody looked at her new name as if in a trance, and repeated it to herself in a voice just above a whisper. "Cossex..." As soon as she did, the letters turned a vivid scarlet.

"A brand new you." Serndask said with a smile.

He walked past her to the front gates of the castle. The newly-dubbed Cossex followed right behind him. With a gesture, the gates eased open with a loud creaking noise.

They walked into the huge entrance hall, Cossex following slightly behind Serndask. In the pure white hallways, the black fog surrounding him stood out like a sore thumb. He walked purposefully to the other end in silence. The heavy doors behind them closed when they were half-way across.

When Serndask reached the doors leading to the next floor, Cossex finally spoke. "What am I?"

She would learn from somebody sooner or later. So, Serndask thought he might as well inform her himself. "You are a Nobody. Your heart has been taken by the great Darkness. And without your heart, you can feel nothing."

"You reside in neither Light nor Darkness, and so you do not exist."

And so, the bombshell had been dropped. It was a hard truth, but she'd just have to live with it if she wanted to continue her existence.

"And what exactly are you?" She asked. In her voice, there was nothing to betray the horrible feeling that she no longer mattered.

It wasn't a question that Serndask had been asked in a while. "I'm not something that you meet very often."

He left it at that.

It took them nearly thirty minutes to reach the top floor of Castle Oblivion.

Not far now.

Serndask walked to the far end of the pure white room. At the end was the last doorway they'd need to pass through. Serndask placed one hand on each door. Tendrills of Darkness spread to cover each of them.

Slowly, the doors hissed open.

"What's in there?" Cossex asked.

Serndask was quiet before saying, in a voice of barely concealed excitement "The Room of Awakening."

Xemnas never thought to look right in here. It's almost funny.

The two walked into the final room of Castle Oblivion, and into a strange area. The ceiling and walls could no longer be seen. Instead, there were nothing but grey clouds everywhere. They stood on a circular area of highly polished white and grey stone with elaborate patterns. There were four tall pillars bordering it.(1)

Serndask walked into its center, knowing that this was the very area where Marluxia had met his end the first time. He folded his hands together, and Darkness came to them. He raised his hands, and Darkness spread to cover the entire platform they stood on.

For seconds, there was nothing, and then the Darkness cleared away to reveal totally new scenery. There looked to be only clouds of various shades of blue, with patches of pitch black. He and Cossex appeared to be standing in the center of an array of huge, spinning grey rings. They felt like they stood on something solid, but there was nothing there that they could see.

He observed the rings with mild curiosity. The patterns engraved into them seemed to be pulsing very faintly with white light.

"Xyran!" He summoned.

Those rings suddenly began spinning much faster. The glowing coming from the patterns grew brighter and brighter. This continued for several minutes, before the rings stopped without warning.

The white light blasted from the rings into the center of the room directly in front of Serndask. Gradually, the light faded away. Lying on his back directly in front of Serndask was a teenage boy.

He had slightly spiked blonde hair that would look slightly familiar to anybody that knew Cloud Strife. He was wearing a black jacket with a hood. He had a grey shirt on with an emblem on it that resembled a silver cross with blue spirals around it. It was repeated on the shoulder of his jacket. He had blue jeans with another silver cross on it.

His eyes eased open, and they were dark blue.

"Hello there, Xyran." Serndask greeted calmly, as the rings all around them began to spin slowly again.

Suddenly, the boy named Xyran was gone. He reappeared several feet away, and he was holding a familiar weapon.

Clutched in his right hand was Lexeaus's massive tomahawk. It was almost half his size, and yet he was holding it as if it were only the weight of a baseball bat.

Perhaps out of an obligation to protect her new master, Cossex summoned her twin axes, and leapt in front of Serndask, landing in a steady fighting stance. He didn't bother telling her to stand down, though he seriously doubted that Xyran would prove a danger to him in his current state.

Maybe I'm in for a little show...

Xyran rushed at Cossex, actually spinning the heavy tomahawk around his head as he approached her. He delivered a downward slash at her head, which she blocked with one of her axes.

Despite her deceptively frail-looking appearance, she was able to catch the blow fairly easily, it seemed. Using her free weapon, she aimed a slash at his waist, but he wasn't there any longer. He'd teleported around her, and this time was holding Saix's claymore in his left hand.

Still without any visible strain on himself, he aimed a horizontal slash at her legs with the claymore, which she leapt over easily. Cossex took a few nimble steps backwards away from the descending tomahawk, and then leapt forward with one axe aimed at his throat.

He teleported away from the attack at the last instant, reappearing high above her. He had Xigbar's two guns in his hands. He fired down at her, spraying energy bullets down onto her.

Cossex ran out of the path of the projectiles, agilely avoiding them, and then leaping up at Xyran. Serndask was pleasantly surprised to discover that she was flying.

The boy dismissed his guns, and summoned what appeared to be Vexen's (though now Bariss') shield. He caught each of the blows she aimed at him with the shield in his right hand. In his free hand appeared one of Axel's chakrams.

Once her stream of attacks had lessened slightly, he slashed at her face. But, she displayed her continued agility by snapping her head backwards to avoid it.

Xyran backed away quickly, and dismissed both weapons. He shot out his hands, blasting her several feet back with a sudden gale of wind from nowhere. Cossex tumbled out of control for a moment, and finally regained her balance. She landed on one of the rings that was still moving silently around them. Serndask noted that the patterns that had been on them were now gone.

She only had a moment to get her bearings, when she saw Xyran shoot at her again. She kicked off of her temporaty perch as hard as possible, and back towards the 'ground.' Xyran landed where she had stood moments before.

He was now holding a strange-looking spear that hadn't belonged to any of Organization XIII. The blade alone was almost two feet long, made of black metal. It seemed to be seeping a dark bluish mist. The four-foot long handle was made of what seemed to be a shining black metal. The end opposite the blade was also slightly spiked. The weapon's name was engraved into the handle in dark blue, written in a language that few in all the worlds knew. 'Edge of the Storm.'

Xyran spun the spear in front of him for a moment, and it crackled with white-hot electricity. He pushed himself off the edge toward her, and swept at her midsection with a powerful, two-handed blow.

She hurriedly leapt back from it, narrowly blocking the follow-up strike. She slashed at his head using both weapons, only for it to be caught by his spear. Xyran threw her weapons off of his, and stabbed at her stomach.

Cossex weaved aside from the blow, and pinned his weapon to the 'ground' with hers. Displaying acrobatic flexibility, she kicked at his face with one booted foot. He fell backwards with a red mark on his forehead.

Cossex took one step forward with both axes raised, but then received a strong bolt of electricity to her chest from the tip of the spear.

She was thrown back nearly fifty feet, her weapons falling from her grasp. Xyran got back to his feet, and ran toward her, gripping his spear tightly in both hands. She had barely enough time to get back into a kneeling position, call her weapons to her, and block the downward strike.

Xyran pulled his spear away quickly, and struck horizontally at the two axes with enough force to knock them from her grip again. He pulled his spear back, ready for the killing blow.

Then something curious happened.

Cossex shot out her hands, and shouted, "Mind Crush!"

The effect was instantaneous. Xyran dropped his weapon, and clutched at his head, feeling suddenly as if his brain was going to crawl out of his skull. He fell to the ground, trying to hold back his scream behind his lips.

As he was thrashing about on the ground in unbelievable pain, Cossex picked up her fallen weapons, and walked towards him to deliver the strike that would finish him.

A long black tendril of Darkness shot out, grabbing her wrist. She followed its source back to the black mist in which Serndask resided.

"That will do, Cossex. Now release him."

She nodded, and released the hold that she'd had over Xyran. His convulsions abruptly stopped, and he lay there for a moment, gasping for breath. Serndask stood over him again.

"That was a very impressive display, both of you." He said. "But now perhaps you'll listen to my offer Xyran?"

Xyran got up off the ground, and grabbed his spear. Though this time, he made no effort to fight him. "So you're not here to kill me..." He shrugged. "Thanks for setting me free, but what do you want?"

"It's quite simple. I want you to join my Brotherhood."

"Thanks, but no thanks pal." He walked past him without looking back.

This wasn't unexpected, so Serndask didn't even turn around when he said, "Running away? Just like you ran from Organization XIII?"

Xyran stopped cold in his tracks. "I don't know what you're talking about, man."

"Don't lie to me, boy." Now Serndask walked toward him. "I always know. I know for a fact that you were the Organization's apprentice."

Xyran turned his head just a fraction of an inch. "And I have need for your unique talents."

"If you know that I was with the Organization, then you know why I left." He kept walking. "I'm leaving."

"Oh, I know why you left... But what if I can give you your heart back?"

"The Organization promised as much, and things didn't work out so well with them. Whatever happened to them while I was gone, anyway?"

"Dead now. Thanks to the Keyblade Master."

"Well, I'll have to send him a thank-you card later, then. That whole bunch of rejects was willing to tear every last world apart to achieve their own ends. Axel was the only decent one out of the bunch."

"I'm partially inclined to agree. But I can grant you what they couldn't."

"Yeah, yeah. Return my heart. Buddy, I told you, I've heard it all before."

"I know that you have a very specific reason for wanting your heart back, Xyran."

He had been walking away again, but then he stopped in his tracks. Cossex noted that his hand began to stray toward his jacket pocket. When he spoke again, his voice was dangerously low. "If you touch one hair on her head..."

"You'll do what?" Serndask smiled to himself. He had him now. "Join me, or your pretty little friend dies a painful death."

The air in the Room of Awakening was suddenly much hotter. Xyran's pure imitated anger was heating the place to tropical temperatures.

"Fine."

"I knew you'd come around to my way of thinking eventually Xyran." A large corridor of Darkness opened behind Serndask. He turned around and walked through. "Come with me."

Xyran turned around, and grudgingly walked toward the corridor. He would have felt surprise when Cossex placed her hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her, and was met with sympathetic eyes.

He sighed. "I've just made the biggest mistake of my life, huh?"

Cossex squeezed his shoulder. "It's always darkest before the dawn."

Enemies no longer, they walked through the corridor.

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I like these guys. And as you can see, they have a lot more story left in them. Stay tuned!

(1) Okay, so this probably isn't the actual room, and Ven may not be in there, but I wrote this way before Birth By Sleep came out.

And please leave a review.