NWZ: Hello, Everyone! Here is Chapter 2 of Kingdom Hearts II: Final Rebirth! Now, I've noticed that not a lot of people are voting for what Xion's weapon will be, so I've decided that I will not show what weapon she will wield until after the Virtual Twilight Town arc. Also, for those of you asking if Roxas and Xion will live or not, that would spoilers now, wouldn't it?
But I digress, this chapter will not contain much action, considering that the second day was just a way to introduce the mini-games, but I shall add a twist of my own to this part of the arc. Anywho, on to the disclaimer!
DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN KINGDOM HEARTS, OR ANY OTHER MATERIAL IN THIS FIC. THEY ALL BELONG TO THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS. OTHERWISE I WOULD BE A MILLIONARE.
NWZ: Alight then! And once again, thank you Conceptualist for Beta'ing this story. Now, enjoy!
Chapter 2: The Second Day, Scattered Memories
Once again, Roxas dreamed of his life. Not Roxas' life, per say. The life that he dreamed of; it was Sora's life.
Roxas did not know when the dreams began, or why he dreamed about the life of a boy he didn't know. But the recent dreams about Sora were different from usual. The previous day, he had dreamed about Sora's life on his island home with his friends. But that life had changed forever, as his home had been swallowed by the darkness and Sora had been separated from his friends.
Tonight, Roxas dreamed of Sora's time in Traverse Town, the first world that Sora had experienced aside from his own. Sora had learned about the Heartless, along with their attack on other worlds. He had also learned of the Keyblade, the weapon that the Heartless feared, and that he was the only one who could wield it. Along the way, he had met Donald Duck, a duck mage, and Goofy, an anamorphic dog who wielded a shield. The three agreed to work together to fight the Heartless threat, along with finding each other's lost friends.
Afterwards, the dream went white, like usual, only for new images to appear. What was different about these images, though, was that Sora was not in them. Instead the images showed Roxas himself, dressed in a black coat and wielding Sora's Keyblade. Like the dreams about Sora, there were voices scattered all around.
"The Keyblade, such a marvelous weapon."
The scene switched to a white, round room, with thirteen occupied thrones. Roxas was in one of the thrones, as he watched another person in a black coat in the center of the room. The scene switched to that of Roxas himself in the center, hearing a voice in both instances.
"Let us all welcome one of the Keyblade's chosen."
The dream continued, this time showing Roxas and the coat-wearing figure in another room.
"Number XIV's name is Xion."
The scene switched to Roxas and the coated figure in the Sandlot. The figure then spoke in a familiar voice.
"Roxas. Your name. It's Roxas, isn't it?"
It changed again, this time to the two in the Back Alley; where the coated figure lowered her hood, revealing the face of a familiar girl.
"Good luck to both of us today," said a smiling Xion.
The dream continued, showing images of Roxas and Xion together. Mostly the two hung out on the clock tower eating ice cream, talking about random things. Others showed them in strange places. One image was of Roxas being knocked aside by a giant Heartless, only for Xion to summon a Keyblade to finish it off.
"...I did not expect that," Roxas' own voice sounded. The two then laughed together.
The next scene was not as light-hearted, for Xion admitted that she could not summon the Keyblade anymore. It switched to the two in a grand ballroom, where Xion handed a Keyblade to Roxas. Apparently Roxas lent his Keyblade to Xion in the hopes that she could remember how to summon her own. And it worked. Xion could summon the Keyblade once more.
The scene then switched to the two sitting on the clock tower once more.
"A friend?" Xion asked. "Do you think I could be a friend too?"
"Of course!" Roxas' voice responded. Xion smiled, then the dream faded to white.
Roxas jumped up from his slumber, looking around wildly. He then remembered that he was in his room, along with the events of the previous day. He looked at his right hand.
"A key, blade?" He questioned. He then wondered about the second half of the dream. What was with the white rooms, and how come Xion and him were dressed in black coats? It seemed so real, yet he knew that it had to be a dream. He then remembered that Xion was in his house. "I'd better check up on her."
With that said, Roxas got out of bed and changed clothes. He then went for the guestroom where Xion was sleeping, and knocked on the door. "Xion," Roxas called. "Are you up yet?" He then opened the door to find Xion still asleep in the bed, dressed in only a large shirt that went down to her knees. 'Why do I have that thing again?' Roxas idly wondered. He then went to the bed and shook Xion with his hand. "Xion, wake up. You can't sleep all day."
Xion's eyes opened at those words. She then looked up at Roxas. "Roxas," She spoke. "I had a strange dream."
"Well, we can talk about it later," Roxas proposed. "Now, get changed.I'm going to make breakfast."
"Okay," Xion responded. She waited until Roxas left the room and closed the door before she started to take off the overly large shirt. "Why did Roxas tell me to always wait until he's out of the room before I change clothes, anyway?"
After Xion had changed into her outfit, she found Roxas in the kitchen, setting two plates down onto a table. Roxas then looked towards the amnesiac girl. "Well? Aren't you hungry, Xion?" Xion nodded her head and sat down at the table. She looked at her plate to see a simple plate of bacon, eggs, and buttered toast. She then began to eat. "So, how is it?" Roxas asked.
Xion swallowed down the piece of toast that she had bitten in to and replied, "It's great!"
"That's good," Roxas smiled. "So, tell me about this 'strange dream'. What was it about?"
Xion stopped eating to answer his question. "Well, I saw myself in a strange place, where everyone wore black coats. And you were there too, Roxas! And sometimes, we were on the clock-tower, here in Twilight Town, eating ice-cream!"
Roxas was surprised at this description, for it sounded a lot like the second half of his dream. "Was there anything else?" he asked intently.
"Well," Xion thought for a bit. "We were both wielding the Keyblade, but I lost it at one point. But then you helped me get it back!" Xion suddenly got quiet. "Still, I feel like that happened before. Were those memories?"
"I don't think so," Roxas denied. "It was probably just a dream. I mean, I've been in this town for as long as I can remember. And the only time I remember ever having the Keyblade was when I fought that thing." Roxas paused for a bit. "But, how did you know its name?"
"Huh?"
"The Keyblade," Roxas explained after seeing Xion's expression. "You knew what it was called when it came to my hand. How did you know that?"
Xion placed her hand against her head. "I don't know. Maybe it just came to me?"
"Hmm." Roxas wanted to ask more, but he didn't want to push the girl too much. "Let's not worry about it right now. Come on, eat your breakfast before it gets cold." With that, the two finished their breakfast, locked up the house, and then went on towards the Usual Spot.
When they had gotten to the Back Alley, Roxas spotted a stick on the ground. "A Keyblade," Roxas pondered. He then picked up the stick and swung it around like a sword.
"Roxas." Xion caught his attention. "What are you doing?"
"Oh, um, nothing Xion," Roxas excused hurriedly. "What was that about?" Roxas then threw the stick over his head[;] accidently hitting a man dressed a familiar black coat. "Oh!" The man looked in his and Xion's direction. He then walked off without saying anything. "Sorry, about that," Roxas replied weakly. He then recognized the coat.
"Hey wait! Where did you get that-?" Roxas ran after the man, only to see that he was long gone. Xion had followed Roxas, for she had also recognized the coat. The two were confused, but decided to think about it later and continue to their original destination.
When they entered the Usual Spot, Hayner and the others gave them each an ice-cream bar, sea-salt flavored. When Xion tried it, she said that the taste was familiar. When the others asked if she remembered anything else, she replied that she couldn't. Though she did look at Roxas when she mentioned that the taste was familiar. The blond realized that she was probably referring to the dream, but didn't say anything about it.
"Hey," Pence suddenly spoke. "Do you guys think that we'll always be together like this?"
"I sure hope so," Olette replied.
"Huh?" Hayner let out intelligently. "Where did that come from?"
"Oh, um, y'know," Pence replied uncertainly. "Just thinking out loud."
"Well, I doubt that we can be together forever," Hayner explained. "But isn't that what growing up is about? What's important isn't how often we see each other, but how often we think about each other. Right?" Xion lightly gasped. For some reason, she felt like she had heard those last few words before.
Pence laughed. "Get that off a fortune cookie?" he joked.
"That's it, no more ice cream for you!" Hayner replied angrily. "Man, today is turning out to be a drag."
"Maybe it's because of yesterday's memory thief?" Olette suggested.
"Nope, y'know what it is?" Hayner asked rhetorically. "We don't want summer vacation to be over, that's all." He then sat up. "So how about this? We all go to the beach!" That statement caught everyone by surprise, especially Olette.
"What?! What about our homework?" Olette asked incredulously. "We agreed that'd we do it today!"
"We'll do it later. Later!" Hayner brushed off. "We haven't been to the beach all summer and we can't give up a chance because of something stupid like homework!"
"'Let's go to the beach'?" Xion spoke, surprising the others due to her silence throughout the conversation. She looked as if she was concentrating on something.
"Xion?" Roxas was concerned when he saw the look on Xion's face. Xion gasped in surprise and stood up.
"I remember!" she exclaimed. "A friend of mine told me, 'On our next day off, let's all go to the beach'!"
"Really?" Roxas and the others were shocked at this, for they didn't have any clues towards Xion's past up to this point. "Do you remember who told you this?"
"No," Xion's head dropped at this, but came back up seconds later. "But I'm sure that we planned to go to the beach together."
"And there's another reason for us to go!" Hayner declared. "If Xion has been to the beach before, then maybe we can find some clues to her past there as well!" Olette could not really find an argument to this. Roxas, on the other hand, did see one problem.
"Hayner," he said. "Maybe you've forgotten, but we're broke. And I can't use the funds for my parents outside of necessities for my living arrangements."
"Maybe you forgot, I'm smart!" Hayner fired back. "Don't worry, I've got it covered. Follow me!" He then ran out of the Usual Spot. The others followed after a bit of uncertainty. Roxas was thinking about what they had just learned.
"Xion might have been to the beach before. Maybe this trip will do some good for her memory." Roxas and the others found Hayner in Market Street, standing in front of a familiar poster. "Hey, isn't that a poster for the Struggle Tournament?" Roxas wondered. The five teens gathered in front of the poster.
"Yep," Hayner answered. "Just two days to go!"
"'Struggle'? What's that?" Xion asked.
"Huh? Oh that's right." Roxas turned towards Xion. "Well, remember how me and Seifer fought yesterday?" At Xion's confirmation, Roxas continued. "Well, think of it like that, but each of us are carrying 100 orbs on us each. Whenever we get hit, we drop a number of orbs. The goal is to get as many orbs from your opponent before time runs out. The winner is decided by who has the most orbs, or by a knockout. You got all of that?"
"Yes, I got it." Xion had another question though. "But what's a tournament?"
"That's where a lot of people compete to see who's the best at Struggle," Hayner explained. "It's decided by several matches. The winner of each match fights the winner of a different match. This continues until the Finals. Whoever wins that gets two prizes; the Four-Crystal Trophy and a chance to take on the Reigning Champion, Setzer!"
"Wow," Xion was amazed. "Are you two going to fight in this tournament?"
"Of course," Roxas answered. "We've been training for this for a long time."
"Roxas," Hayner grabbed his attention. "You and I have to make the Finals. That way, no matter who wins, we all split the prize."
"You two are going to clean up!" Pence encouraged.
"Go get 'em!" Olette cheered.
"It's a promise!" Hayner declared. "Now, let's get down to business. One ticket to the beach is 900 munny. How much for the five of us?"
"4500 munny," Olette answered.
"And 300 each to spend there," Hayner calculated. "What's that for all of us?"
"1500 money," Olette answered again. "A total of 6000 munny."
"To spend on what?" Roxas asked.
"Pretzels, of course! What else is there?" Hayner questioned.
"Well, there's always watermelon," Roxas offered.
"Too pricy," Hayner rejected. "They're around 2000 munny apiece."
Roxas was quiet for a few seconds before he answered. "Pretzels it is."
Hayner nodded his head at that. "So where were we?"
"We need 6000 munny altogether," Olette reminded him. "But all we have is..."
"I have 800," Pence counted.
"...650," Olette shared.
"I've got around 1000," Hayner offered.
"150. Sorry," Roxas apologized.
"I don't have any," Xion looked downcast.
"Don't worry about it!" Hayner tried to cheer her up. "Right now we have 2600 munny! We just need another 3400."
"Make that 4050," Olette corrected. The boys looked at her as if she had grown a second head. Seeing their confusion, she elaborated. "Okay, everyone who owns a swimsuit, raise your hand!" Only Xion did not raise her hand.
"What's a swimsuit?" the amnesiac girl asked. The boys looked sheepish at this question.
"Don't worry, Xion," Olette assured. "I'll help you buy a swimsuit, while the boys take care of the rest."
"Well, I guess that'll have to do," Hayner conceded. "This is for Xion's sake too. Okay, Pence, Roxas, while Olette helps Xion get a swimsuit, let's find ourselves some odd jobs and earn some dough! We have till the train leaves to earn 1350 munny each." He then ran off in search for offers. "Meet at the station with cash in hand!" he yelled back to them.
"Didn't he say he had it covered?" Pence questioned.
"Whatever," Roxas dismissed. "Those pretzels are sounding pretty good. And we've got to find any lead we can for Xion." He then turned towards the girl in question. "Right?"
"Thank you Roxas," Xion said. After a bit more chatter, Xion went with Olette to the shopping center while Roxas and Pence went to find a job list.
After a good hour of working the different odd jobs around town, the boys managed to earn enough munny for the trip. In that same time the girls managed to find a swimsuit for Xion. Xion wanted to show what it looked like to Roxas, but Olette told her to keep it secret till they got to the beach. Xion didn't understand why, but she agreed with the other girl's judgment.
Once everyone had finished their assigned jobs, they all met up at the Station Plaza to count out the earnings. "Nice work guys," Olette congratulated. "Adding to what we had when we started, we now have." She then pulled out an orange pouch which they put all of the munny into. "Ta-da! 6000 munny!"
"Sweet!" Hayner exclaimed. The other two boys just clapped in their own mini-celebration. "I'm touched. Can you please allow me to feel how heavy that pouch is-"
"Roxas, hold onto this," Olette cut Hayner off as she handed the pouch to Roxas. "Don't let Hayner touch it." The boy in question shouted indignantly. "Let's get tickets before the train leaves," Olette declared before she ran towards the Station entrance, Pence following not too far behind.
Hayner had calmed down by this point and stood still for a moment. "We can't be together forever," He said with eyes downcast, only to smile as he continued. "So we'd better make the time we do have something to remember." Roxas was confused by his friend's statement, only to be caught by surprise a moment later. "Gotcha!" Hayner then ran towards the entrance by himself.
"Roxas." Said boy turned towards Xion, who was smiling. "Thank you for doing this."
"No problem," he responded. The two then started walking towards the entrance themselves, only for Roxas to fall behind. Xion looked around in surprise at the sound of Roxas falling and espied a very familiar stick. It was then followed by a man in a familiar black coat grabbing Roxas by his left arm. Going by his build, it was the same man from earlier that day.
"Can you feel Sora?" The man asked in a deep voice.
"Roxas!" Xion cried out. The man turned towards her, confused. Now that Xion got a look at him, she felt as if she had met him somewhere before.
"Roxas! Xion! Three minutes!" Hayner's voice cried out. The two turned towards Hayner's direction to see their friends just staring at them. It was then that they realized that the man in black had disappeared. The two were confused but didn't have the time to contemplate it, so they simply ran into the station.
Minutes later, instead of being on the train for the beach, the five friends found themselves on the top of the station's clock tower, eating ice cream. Apparently, the pouch containing all of their munny had been stolen! Roxas and Xion suspected the man in black, but from what their friends told them, there was no man in black. They thought that Roxas just tripped and lost it. Either way, without the money, they couldn't make it to the beach. So they instead went to the clock tower to have consolation ice cream.
Roxas was feeling depressed and hadn't eaten even one bite. "It's melting," Olette informed.
"Sorry," Roxas apologized.
"It's okay," Xion assured. "To tell the truth, I don't think that my friend and I actually ever made it to the beach."
"So that wouldn't have helped after all," Hayner clarified.
"Still," Xion looked towards the sunset. "This view certainly feels familiar. I feel like I've watched the sun set hundreds of times before."
"Huh, I guess that means that things didn't turn out all bad," Roxas contemplated.
"That was certainly weird though," Pence stated.
"You said it," Olette agreed.
Roxas was silent for a moment before quietly saying: "Can you feel Sora?"
Restoration at 28%
"Namine," DiZ's voice called out. "Hurry!"
The scene once again comes upon DiZ and the man in black within the laboratory. The man in black was currently throwing the pouch that he had taken from Roxas up and down in his hand. "Is it really that hard to make a beach?" He asked dryly.
"Expanding the area would give the enemy another entry point," DiZ explained.
"And this?" The man referred to the pouch which he had stolen.
DiZ turned towards the other man. "We could always buy some sea-salt ice cream." He then laughed rather emptily. "Objects from that town must be kept out of the real world. You can delete that."
The man hid the pouch within his coat. "So what have you learned about the girl?" The man questioned.
DiZ stiffened at this question. "...I am uncertain." At the other man's silence, he explained further. "I have run multiple scans on the girl, but the system is confused. For some reason it recognizes her as both a program and someone from the real world."
"How is that possible?" The man asked, masking his surprise easily.
"I don't know," DiZ admitted. "I have never come across such an enigma before."
"Perhaps I have," The man suggested. DiZ looked surprised at the other man's suggestion. The man explained. "When I saw that girl, Xion, I recognized her. No, it's more than that. The moment I looked at her face, it was as if memories that disappeared just suddenly returned to me."
"Are you suggesting that Namine had something to do with this?" DiZ questioned.
"I'm not sure, but it would be a good idea to ask her about Xion." The scene fades after a look at a strange device.
NVZ: So what did you think? Now I know that it doesn't seem to have changed much, and that it is rather short, but the major changes will happen next chapter, I promise. Though I won't be able to update much due to school starting, so it could take a while. Anyway, please Read & Review.