In a dark room, only lit by computer screens Kayaba Akihito sat in his chair, looking at the multiple monitors around him. For all intents and purposes, the first day was going well. A few of the monitors were showing news feeds from the real world, all of them discussing the events of the day, showing live footage of the players being transported to hospitals where special wings were being prepared to accommodate the new patients. Of course, there was also a manhunt underway for Kayaba, but they wouldn't find him, he had made sure of it. He then turned his attention to the monitors that were displaying the game worlds. In Twilight Town, players were forming parties, grinding on the base level mobs that inhabited the area. He was even able to view certain players from their POV, due to a bit of coding in the game that allowed him to patch into game capture card data. A few of the screens around him were compiling aggregate data, displaying information such as the highest leveled players, those with the most Munny, average enemies killed so far, the most popular weapons in the world (Sword, Chakaram, and Knives being the top 3) and the number of players in each faction. So far, the players were preforming as Kayaba expected. No one was focused on the larger goal at hand yet, as they were still in the first world and hadn't encountered either of the Champions. Many of them were probably working with players that would become their sworn enemies very soon.

"Oh, look at that, both of your champions are starting to make headway on their goals." A snarky voice observed behind Kayaba

Kayaba turned his attention to a monitor to his right; Braxton was fighting his way through Castle Oblivion, dispatching Nobodies that Kayaba had stocked in the area, providing Braxton with a challenge to occupy himself with until he could present himself before the other players. He watched Braxton intently, noting his fighting style, the way he quickly sidestepped incoming attacks and counterattacked with his Keyblade, and the special gift Kayaba had given him…

"He truly is an adept fighter, I'm not surprised he became the-" Kayaba began thinking before he was interrupted by a loud shouting coming from the main monitor in front of him

"-couldn't have given us a normal boss! YOU HAVE TO GIVE US HIS OP ANTI-FORM! When I find you I'm going to shove this Keyblade so far up your ass-" The monitor blared. Kayaba turned his attention to the screen.

"Kid's got spunk, I can't wait to get my hands on him!" the voice said again, this time closer to Kayaba, to the point where he could feel the heat that the owner of the voice radiated.

"Ah… yes, the rebel." He mused as he saw Nox taking on Anti-Riku, one of many bosses that inhabited the World that Never Was. He also noticed there was another black-coat with Nox. Kayaba pulled up the player information on the newest member of The Organization and started scanning the document.

"Nice, so there are now two rebels to worry about. You know, you could just give them to me and we wouldn't have to worry about them anymore…" Kayaba's guest began

"Thank you again for the offer Hades, but that would go against the entire point of this experiment." Kayaba responded sternly. "Now, if you will excuse me, I've tired of your company." He then snapped his fingers, and the grey-skinned, flame haired god of the dead disappeared in a mess of binary code.

He then turned his attention back to the monitor and watched as Nox and Essix continued their battle against the first boss of the World that Never Was.

"Impressive Nox, you've already recruited another to your cause. You may actually start a notable resistance to my plan. It's to bad it's pointless, but the thought is nice." Kayaba mused. He then cracked his fingers, out of habit more than necessity, and began writing; he had a lot of work to do, and a lot of system announcements to write.

-Kingdom_Hearts_Online-

"Fuck"

That's all Nox could think as he saw Anti-Riku lunge at him and Essix, a quick look showed that his first health bar was only in the yellow. He had faced his fare share of bosses in the Beta. Hell, most of them he had beaten pretty easily. However, none of them had been Keyblade wielders, let alone the Anti form of Keyblade wielders. When Anti-Riku was within range, Nox cast a quick reflect spell, staggering his opponent who stumbled back, giving Nox and Essix the opening they needed. They rushed at the opponent, Nox reaching him first and slashing at him with a quick combo that left red gashes in Anti-Riku's torso. The force of the blows knocked the boss back to where Essix was waiting and delivered a blow to the boss's back. As Anti-Riku turned to face his new attacker, Essix delivered two slashes to its face, leaving a red X on the shadowed face. The blank eyes that stared back at Essix widened and Anti-Riku unleashed a flurry of attacks with his keyblade. Essix began trying to deflect the attacks, to little avail as his health bar began dwindling. Nox rushed over to his friend, firing off Blizzara to try and distract Anti-Riku. The blast of ice rushed at the boss, and connected with his back, dealing almost no damage. In frustration and desperation, Nox threw his Keyblade at the boss. It flew forward, spinning as it went and connected with Anti-Riku's back, sinking in and starting to deal continuous damage, whittling away at his health bar. The boss turned away from his current target and rushed at Nox, activating his Dark Aura technique. Essix, meanwhile fell to his knees, his health very close to being gone. Nox could do little but silently curse as Anti-Riku attacked him with blinding speed, slashing him again and again and cutting away chunks of his health. The pain was immense as Nox mustered the concentration to summon his keyblade back and block Anti-Riku's onslaught.

"Okay" Nox grumbled, coughing up red pixels as alarms blared in his ears. "Now you've really pissed me off!"

Nox slashed out at Anti-Riku, hitting his weapon away and opening the body up for a 5-hit combo of diagonal slashes. It was capped off by an upward cut that knocked Anti-Riku into the air where Nox jumped up and unleashed an aerial combo that caused devastating damage as the boss was hit back to the ground. Nox then dived at him, preparing to unleash another flurry of attacks, but Anti-Riku was ready for him and sidestepped the attack. Nox turned around and brought his Keyblade up in time to intercept Anti-Riku's attack. Their Keyblades locked as they stared at each other. Nox noticed that Anti-Riku was down to his last health bar, and it was in the red.

Nox narrowed his eyes and pushed with all of his strength, trying to push Anti-Riku away, but he was met with the boss planting a boot in his gut and kicking him back. Nox clenched his gut, tried to bring his keyblade up to defend himself, only to have it swatted out of his hand. Anti-Riku then delivered an upward slash to Nox's chin, knocking him onto his back. His head hit the damp street and he tasted iron in his mouth. Anti-Riku loomed above him, ready to deliver the killing blow. He raised Oblivion over his head and…. stopped and looked down at his chest. The tip of a sword was protruding from it. As Anit-Riku's health depleted to zero, he exploded in blue and green pixels, revealing Essix with his sword outstretched and panting heavily.

"Well that was good timing." Nox remarked as he cast a Cura spell. Immediately he felt strength surge back into his body and his HP steadily increased into the green area. As he stood to his feat, he noticed Essix's health returning as well, and that his health bar seemed to be substantially longer than it was a few moments before.

"How many levels did you just gain?" Nox asked in awe, noticing that he had gained two levels himself.

"Well I'm now level 11, so you do the math." Essix replied. "I also got some loot, Riku's Blindfold, it says it increases my speed by 2, my defense by 3 and when I get to level 30 it will let me use Dark Aura and Dark Firaga." He then equipped the item, causing his eyes to be covered by a grey blindfold.

"Can you still see through that thing?" Nox asked

"Of course he can, I wouldn't make any rewards take away players sight." A dignified voice said.

Nox turned around and found himself face to hood with Kayaba Akihito, sitting in what seemed to be a more utilitarian chair.

"Now, before you get slash happy, I should explain that this is a pre-recorded hologram. Now, congratulations on beating the first boss in this world! It's a lot of progress for one day, and I'm guessing you're going to need items and a place to rest so…" Kayaba then snapped his fingers, and a few of the buildings that were surrounding Nox and Essix glowed a bright white light, and then when it faded, signs appeared above the doorways. "You can go ahead and rest in the Skyscraper. This area has now turned into a safe zone since you defeated the boss inhabiting the area." He continued, and then unceremoniously disappeared into a stream of data.

Nox looked at Essix "Lets go get some rest, we're probably going to have a long day of grinding ahead of us tomorrow." The two friends then dragged themselves up the steps of Memories Skyscraper and through its doors where they were greeted with a room full of beds. They both looked at each other and flopped on the two that were in front of them, getting some much needed rest.