CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Leading the way, eyes gleaming, his hands aflame, Axel guided the four of them to the elevators, which were, surprisingly, still running. After all, Demyx wanted Axel to come to him, didn't he? He never would have had the patience for a floor-by-floor search; Demyx wanted nothing more than for Axel to join him.

Riku used his card to open the doors, the car still in place from when Axel and Roxas had descended. "Okay, there are two elevators," Riku said, sliding his card rapidly into the reader on the inside. He pointed to it. "With that in there, no one can operate this car but us. This also means that in order for him to reach the broadcast room to make that announcement, your friend –"

"Demyx," Axel interjected, hopelessly.

"…Demyx, and whoever is with him, is using the other elevator." He headed back out into the gloom, lit only by the elevator lights, and the waning flames that Axel had summoned, and was letting extinguish now that they had actual light to go by. He pointed at the other elevator, the floor count above illuminated at floor eleven. "That," Riku said, "is where the broadcasting room is."

"But who else came with him?" Roxas muttered. He shot a look at Axel to see if his hackles were up at the comment, but Axel was just… worried. Scared. Sick to his stomach. And kind of… overheating, from the use of his powers.

Stepping back into the elevator, wiping a sheen of sweat from his forehead, he wearily answered back, "That's the question, isn't it?" He leaned against the railing beside Roxas, tilting his head back and steadying his breathing, both because he was freaking out a bit and also to try and cool himself off. Now was not the time to have a literal meltdown.

"You okay?" Roxas instantly queried, but reluctantly let it drop when Axel slid him a look that said… a lot. No, was the shortest answer. No one else needed to worry about the long answer right now, not even Roxas. They had more immediate things to concern themselves with.

"What do you think?" he asked Riku, flapping his t-shirt, which was starting to grow damp from perspiration. "What are our chances of just heading for the main doors?" He knew the answer before he asked it, but someone had to put it out there.

"No way." Riku shook his head firmly. "The exits will be guarded." He leaned against the opposite railing beside Aerith, who was massaging her hands together anxiously. They all kept an ear out for the other elevator car arriving, as they tried to figure a way out of this.

"How did they get in?" Aerith asked, fearfully.

"Cloud, maybe," Roxas murmured, an idea that made everyone grimace. But the possibility existed, since clearly Cloud wasn't Cloud.

"You're sure he's not… himself?" Axel had to ask, just to make absolutely certain. It would make life so much easier if it was all just some big miscommunication.

But Aerith looked him straight on, and said with the utmost conviction, "Cloud. Would never. Voluntarily use pixie dust on me."

That was a pretty strong endorsement. He sighed, and muttered, "Shit."

Riku was staring at the floor, gripped by regret. "I should have realised. I should have thought about it, if I'd just stopped for one second to think about it properly…"

It was Roxas who grudgingly said, "Look, man, it's not like Ansem gave you a lot of choice. Yeah, you could've thought about it more," he bluntly added, in case Riku thought he was being let off the hook, "but you were being controlled. What could you have done on your own that wouldn't have ended up with you forgetting Sora?"

Riku absorbed this, nodding slowly but with twist to his mouth that said he wasn't going to be forgiving himself any time soon. That was fine, though. Again, everything else was secondary, and now that Riku had got that out of the way, they could resume troubleshooting. "What if Roxas just unzips us from the building?" he asked, the others blinking at the wording.

"…If you mean Roxas's ability to travel between spaces," Riku cautiously replied, "then that's no good. Ansem didn't just make it a rule, he enforced it. The entire building is inaccessible to or from the outside, except by the cards we're issued."

"So that means someone got in with a card?" Roxas frowned. " But the one I gave Axel got voided."

"I know," Riku said, tensely, having already considered this. "But again, what if it wasn't? What if Cloud got to Leon?"

"Leon?" Axel echoed.

"He's head of our security detail," Roxas explained, Axel wincing slightly as he realised that his new… co-worker, for lack of a better term, was possibly same guy he managed to piss off to gain access to the building the other day. "But if Cloud is compromised, and Leon was supposed to void the card, then…"

"There's a chance he set this whole thing up so they could gain access," Riku murmured, to Aerith's distress.

"But… Cloud wouldn't…!"

"Lady," Axel said, his voice gentle but knowing, "if Cloud really is… one of them… then you have to drop everything you know about him. Forget it for a while." His voice fell quietly. "Because if Xehanort has him –"

"Xehanort?" Aerith repeated, her confused apprehension causing Axel to frown. "Oh, no, you don't know," she murmured, touching her mouth. Tucking her fingers into her palm, she told him, "I'm not worried about Cloud being possessed by Xehanort. There's someone else… another god, called Sephiroth in this cycle. He can… use Cloud. Use him to do… awful things."

"Wait, what?" Axel sharply demanded. "There's another god who can possess you?"

Uneasily, Riku shook his head. "No, this is… unique, to Cloud and Sephiroth. This is an old battle."

"So where does Demyx fit into this?" Axel asked, with bewilderment. Everything was getting fucked to hell and he was rapidly losing track of why, how, and possibly where. He fanned his face with a hand, but now that they were in the elevator car, the small space was starting to heat up and the air was getting warm. God, what a frustrating after-effect.

"Sephiroth is an… ally of Xehanort's," Aerith answered. "They share hereditary as gods of war."

"But Sephiroth still agreed to the… cycling?" Axel pointed out, flapping his shirt again, wetly this time.

"Sephiroth isn't just a god of war," Riku told him. "He's the reincarnation of a of god of war and death. So he considers the death of the gods to be inevitable and willingly goes along. Except…"

"Except," Aerith heavily finished, "when Cloud enters the picture."

There was a distant explosion from above, the four of them wincing as the elevator car shook and its lights flickered. Since they were already at the bottom of the shaft, there was no fear of any stereotypical dropping-elevator scenarios – but there was a fear of getting stuck down here.

"Who the fuck," Axel complained, as Riku jabbed a button and the doors slid shut, "makes a building with no stairwell? Does this man's hubris know no bounds?"

"And it's illegal," Roxas pointed out.

"Ansem? Bound by mortal laws? I think not," Axel replied, before panting and squatting down, wiping a hand over his sweat-filmed face. The others in the elevator were starting to look uncomfortable, too.

"Is this gonna happen… often?" he asked, blinking and winking through a stinging, salty droplet of sweat that entered his eye.

"The first few times," Riku informed him. "After that, you're basically adjusted."

"First few times," Axel repeated, puffing out his reddened cheeks and tipping his head back against the elevator wall. "And this was time number two. Fantastic."

They came to a halt on the second floor, Riku's apparent choice of destination. With the doors parting, he had started to summon his power in case of a fight, he and Aerith setting out purposefully once the coast was determined to be clear, Roxas and Axel following more slowly behind. He had felt the sting of Riku's power before, and was in no rush to repeat the exercise. That said, Riku hadn't actually unleashed on him, and there was absolutely a part of Axel that was hoping he'd get to see what that looked like between here and wherever they were going.

But nope. There were never any bad guys around when you wanted them. Axel leaned against the wall as, by the illumination of the open elevator, they found the door they wanted, and discovered the card readers still active. Apparently, only the lights had been affected by the blackout.

He staggered as they entered the room, getting hit by a wave of pure wooziness. "Oh, boy." He bent over, the heat rolling off him in waves as he carefully eased to his knees.

"Water?" Roxas offered, because apparently they were in some kind of locker room and Roxas's had a half-used bottle in it. Axel gulped it down, but it was like taking a sip in the desert. He closed his eyes.

"I'm just gonna. Take these clothes off? Sorry, Aerith," he gasped, immediately peeling off everything but his boxer-briefs, lying mostly-naked on the floor, until Riku turned his powers so that just the edge of his storm was touching Axel, and oh, god, it was a cold breeze. "Oh, thank you," he sighed.

"Don't thank me yet," Riku replied. "I'm not staying." Axel peeled his eyes open and looked up at the trio, gathered around and peering down at him with varying degrees of empathy. Aerith was now holding onto a heavy flashlight and a long, carved staff wrapped with green ribbon and small, white flowers. Riku was holding –

"Holy shit, why do you have a sword?" Axel gasped.

"Because it's a fight?" Roxas answered, easily spinning and then gripping "Two fucking blades?" Axel screeched.

"We're gods," Riku said, wryly. "Bullets don't exactly work."

"Have you tried?" Axel demanded, ignored by all but Aerith, who bobbed down to feel his forehead and tut.

"What a fever," she observed. "You're staying right here while we sort this out, all right?"

"Like hell," Axel determinedly answered, and started pulling himself up by the door frame, before nearly passing out halfway and slithering back down. When Riku settled his powers back down and started to leave, it was all Axel could do not to grasp his foot and beg him to remain. Roxas knelt beside him and placed a cool kiss on his forehead.

"I won't let them have you," he softly promised, and stood up, leaving Axel there to writhe on the ground, the door swinging shut as they left him there in the darkness.

The last thing he heard was Roxas saying, "I'll cover this floor," before they were gone, and Axel wanted to fight, to yell, to say 'anyone but you!' Because if Demyx got here, he wouldn't hesitate to get rid of Roxas, the pebble in his shoe. Not this Demyx. This Demyx… was crazy. Was that what the memories of a god held? Madness? Vincent sure as hell hadn't seemed too mentally sturdy, and he only remembered some stuff. But then, there was Kairi, and she hadn't seemed so bad. Sad, but happy enough with her existence as it had been before… before he had shown up, at least.

Goddamn it. Axel rolled onto his back, sweating rivers and glaring into nothingness. This was bullshit. The whole god deal – it wasn't fucking worth it. So what if he could summon fire? He was sure that'd be real useful in the future, but for now, right when he was needed, he was useless. And he never even wanted to have the power to change people with his music; it was way too much responsibility. Why couldn't he just have played? Why couldn't he have stayed that way?

In his fever, in a state of sensory deprivation, he saw a vision of Roxas ripple past his eyes. Oh. Yeah. He was… he was worth it, wasn't he? He was even worth this, probably. But it didn't make it any less painful to be so helpless at such a time of need. Demyx was here, for god's sake. Axel had to get to him before Roxas could. Or anyone else, for that matter. If it was Roxas, he could end up killed by Demyx, but if it was anyone else, Demyx could end up dead instead.

He closed his eyes, as if that mattered in the darkness, and clenched his fists. He wasn't going to do it. He refused to allow either possibility to take place. This was his goddamn body, and he wasn't going to let that god shit get in the way of what he wanted. It belonged to him. He owned this god shit.

Yeah.

It was His god shit.

His eyes flashed open, and everything was light, his flame-wreathed hands careful not to set anything ablaze as he carefully got dressed again, then exited into the hallway. That was as far as he could get on his own, without a black card, but Roxas should have been around here somewhere. He said he was going to be. So where was he?

He stopped short as a sword-tip touched his back, turning to face Roxas, who frowned at him and twirled the blade away, asking, "What the hell are you doing back up?"

"Not letting anyone die," Axel said, flames licking from his throat, Roxas looking stunned in the brief moment he had before Axel reached out and slammed his head into the wall. He watched Roxas fall impassively, then picked his unconscious body up and carried him over one shoulder as he returned to the elevator doors and pressed the button to summon the car. He glanced over, saw that the other one had yet to be used since Demyx's announcement, and used Roxas's card to rise to the eleventh floor.

When the doors parted, he heard clapping, and Demyx, in a hallway lit entirely by iridescent orbs of water, exclaimed, "Finally! I was starting to think everyone was just going to ignore me! It made me a little sad," he sighed, summoning further bubbles of water into existence, where they bounced against the others and spread out, at which point Axel realised… he had entered a minefield. Each of these orbs… they could potentially kill either Axel or Roxas.

He looked at the closest of the orbs, then past them and down the hallway at Demyx. "I don't want to fight you," he called strongly at Demyx, but the blond's response was to mock-cry and produce another volley of orbs, the hallway filling up quickly. Soon it wouldn't be possible to move forward without touching one of them.

"Oh!" Demyx noticed as Roxas started stirring on his shoulder. "What happened to your little boyfriend?"

"I knocked him out," Axel said, and slammed Roxas sideways into the wall, the kid letting out a soft grunt before going limp again. "And now I'm coming for you."

"Oh, you tease," Demyx playfully answered, flicking the orbs to bob in his direction. "You know I could never share you with anyone else!"

"I know," Axel said back, and for a moment, Demyx hesitated.

"Wh-huh? What do you know?"

"That you never wanted to share me," Axel replied, turning his head slowly in the direction of the memory, and, finally, Demyx realised something was different.

"Wait, what is this? Who are you? Are you still… Axel?" he uncertainly asked.

Axel stared at him, then with a single blink, caused each of the watery bubbles to become dense clouds of burning mist. He held Roxas back inside the elevator to protect him from the brunt of the burning, but he heard Demyx shriek. When the worst of it had passed, he strode through the evaporating steam to where Demyx was crouched, shaking on the floor. Axel touched the top of his head, intending to smash him facedown into the floor, when he sensed – the needles. They were long, and dark, and pierced Demyx from every side and angle. He gripped Demyx by the gelled spikes of his hair and wrenched him, yelping, to his feet. He gazed flatly into his eyes, and forced Demyx to do the same. That's when Demyx's eyes widened and he understood who he was looking at.

Awed, he whispered, "Lea?" but Axel shook him hard, once, silencing him with the pain.

"You're a mockery of yourself," he announced, looking Demyx over critically. "How could you let yourself become… this?" The flames were back in his words, his expression bordering on disgusted, Demyx looking… shit-scared, was probably the best estimation. "It's this sort of weakness," he went on, mercilessly, "that led me to choosing Ventus over you. Aqua, you have fallen."

Demyx had been… wordlessly weeping, but at the name Aqua, his eyes pulsed yellow, and he hissed, "Aqua isn't home, bitch. It's just me, little old Demyx. Wanna fight about it?"

"I don't need to fight you," Axel said, then let him, Demyx dropping to the floor. "Seeing you now… who could possibly want you?"

Demyx froze, the expression on his face one of… the deepest, sharpest pain he had ever felt in his life. Axel watched on passively, tilting his head to study this – broken excuse of a creature.

Then he heard, direct into his ear, "That's not something you tell your ex," and Roxas kneed him in the chest as hard as he could.

Axel went down with a wheeze, landing hard. Roxas kept his footing, bounced to a better position, then slammed the toe of his shoe into Axel's gut. The man doubled-over breathlessly, then puked up his breakfast. Roxas stood over him, panting, taking out his phone as the flames sputtered from Axel's hands and turning on its flashlight, shining it around at Demyx. He was… on all fours, pulled into himself, shuddering. Roxas watched for a moment, then took a couple of steps towards him. He stopped when Demyx sharply turned his face away.

"Keep away," Demyx rasped. "Or did you want me to thank you?"

Roxas took in his piteous form, and said resolutely, "I'm sorry that Xehanort got to you first. I should have noticed you sooner. We're working on getting you back, Demyx. Axel loves you."

He watched as Demyx's shuddering turned to shaking, and after a second he realised that Demyx was… laughing. When Demyx turned and snarled, his eyes a golden glow, Roxas was ready and slammed him in the face with the flat of his foot. He winced as Demyx's head bounced against the ground. "Sorry," he rather uselessly offered the unconscious body, before turning to Axel and puffing out a sigh. He held up his phone and shone it on the groaning man, rolling in his own vomit. "And let's take a look at you," he called out sarcastically, heading back towards him. "Wouldn't Mama be proud?"

Axel was choking on a mixture of vomit and what Roxas hoped was a bit of his own blood. He stopped a safe distance away and asked, "Well? Be ye human? Or art thou a god?"

Axel coughed and continued to squirm, but had enough sense of self to thrust a middle finger out at him, Roxas nodding positively at the response. He took a couple steps closer, then crouched and scrunched his face up. "I'd come closer, but you really reek of puke right now. It's turning my stomach."

"Yeah," Axel rasped deeply through the stomach acid, "I wonder what brought that on."

"Let's say it plainly, okay?" Roxas said, with a shrug. "The old gods were assholes of the highest degree. I just got a good glimpse of one, and you know what? I wasn't so fond of him." He reached out and carefully patted a non-vomit-stained section of Axel's hair. "I'm glad you're you, Axel. Don't try that again, okay?"

Axel wasn't even aware that he had really tried anything, but he supposed his… his sense of helplessness may have overflowed, may have tapped into some… ancient part of his identity that he hadn't known was there until now. So that was what it meant to join Xemnas, was it? Allowing that part to remain in control? He peered through the gloom at Demyx's huddled figure. Aqua, he'd called him.

He raised himself, achingly, from the floor. His stomach was killing him, as was his chest. The entire torso area was just a train-wreck. Each breath held a slight wheeze in the background. Closing his eyes against the brightness of Roxas's phone, Axel offered, "Um. I'm really, really, really sorry."

"Really?" Roxas asked back, tilting his head. "Are you really sorry, Axel?"

He hesitated. "…Yes?" he chanced.

"Good," Roxas answered. "In that case, you can drag this sack of shit out of here, can't you, sweetheart?"

Oh, god. Roxas called him 'sweetheart'. Roxas had never called him 'sweetheart'. Roxas would be nauseated by sincerely calling someone 'sweetheart', which meant that Axel was in… fairly deep shit, judging by the acidity of the tone used. Ohhhh, he'd gone too far. Oh, shit, he'd slammed Roxas's head into a wall. Twice. Oh, god. Oh, god. The longer he dragged Demyx by the light of Roxas's phone, the more he recalled of his brief time as… Lea.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

They reached the elevators, returning to the one they had travelled by to reach this point. Inside, Roxas pressed the button for the ground floor. Reluctantly, Axel said, "I thought Riku said the exits were going to be –"

"Riku didn't say anything I can't change," Roxas cut him off, pleasantly, before adding, "dear."

Oh, shit.

Axel shut his eyes "Roxas, I really am sorry about –"

"Is now the time to have that conversation, Axel?" Roxas asked, words terse but voice maintaining its artificial nicety.

…He supposed not.

The elevator dinged, and opened to the lobby. "Toss him," Roxas instructed. Axel looked at him questioningly.

"Toss…?"

"Demyx, yes," Roxas confirmed. "Toss him." He raised his voice, to echo though the broad entrance, "Did you hear that, you Nobody fucks? Your friend is here. Come claim him." He looked pointedly at Axel, who, under his intense gaze, lowered Demyx awkwardly to the ground.

"…Sorry about this," he called uncertainly into the deserted-looking lobby, Roxas slapping the back of his head.

"Don't apologise, damn it, they're the enemy," he scolded, the pair gasping as a spike shot so close to Roxas's face, it drew blood. It smashed into the back of the door, Axel slamming the button to close the doors, he and Roxas flattening themselves against the sides of the elevator car as the doors slid shut. There were several loud thuds as further projectiles hit the doors, then the entire car shook as, with a crash, a particularly long, sharp spear pierced the thick metal. Axel weakly said, "Oh," as Roxas slammed the button for the sub-basement. To Axel's astonishment, the spikes snapped, then crumbled as the elevator lowered. Looking down, then at the stabbed back wall, he realised, as mist flowed downward from it…

"It's frozen." He hovered a hand near the one lodged in the back wall. There seemed to a battle between the heat he radiated and the eternal iciness of the spear. Eventually, by pushing, Axel was able to overwhelm the ice just slightly and begin to melt it. But it took – effort.

"Goddamn," he breathed, Roxas kicking at the crumbled ice on the ground, holding a hand against the thin slice on his face.

"Fucking Vexen," he grumbled.

"Vexen?" Axel echoed.

"One of the ones who defected to Xemnas's side," Roxas said, pulling his hand back and checking to see if he was still bleeding before the elevator again halted. Axel readied himself, tired and in pain, for whatever was on the other side… but the doors didn't open.

Frowning, Roxas instructed, "Hit the 'open doors' button." Axel did as he was told, but again – nothing. They just… stood there for a minute. Then, Roxas went to the vertical join of the doors, listening intently to see if he could hear anyone on other side. Placing his lips to the crack, he called, "It's us, guys! Roxas, and Axel."

When nothing continued to occur, Axel leaned over his shoulder and loudly added, "Uh, we haven't been turned into Xehanort puppets."

Roxas rolled his eyes. "You idiot, don't tell them that," he complained, "they'll just think that's what Xehanort made you say."

"Okay, sorry!" Axel backed off, hands held up in surrender, still cowed from the encounter upstairs. Even so… he reached out to Roxas's face and smeared away a line of blood with his thumb, Roxas meeting his gaze, a complex, shifting grade of emotions passing back and forth like his breaths. Quietly now, Axel said, with a hitch in his voice, "I am… so sorry that I hurt you. God. I can't believe that that was… Lea." He pulled his hand from Roxas like he was reluctantly releasing something precious, Roxas's expression turning compassionate.

"Axel…"

They jumped as the dented, silver doors parted, Yuffie groaning, "Can we please not have to witness whatever this conversation is?" from the other side, a crowbar in her hands. Behind her, glowered… Leon. Ah. In the flesh. When he spoke, yeah, Axel – Axel recognised him as the guy from the buzzer outside. Whoops. Bad first impression.

"So, considering your saccharine topic choice, can we assume the pair of you are yourselves?" Leon rumbled, which was when Axel noticed that the guy had… a gigantic fucking gunblade, trained squarely on them through the gap Yuffie had made. Well. At least someone was onto the right idea.

Past them lay the room filled with monitors, Axel realising that this must be… command central, or something. The monitors were everywhere, showing every possible on every possible floor, including in the elevators. So even these had remained on, with the lights off and burning candles planted all over the place. And that meant… that their conversation had been a public matter, rather than the rare intimate Axel had thought they were sharing.

"Yes, it's us," Roxas loudly declared, "now can we please get out of here? My boyfriend is exuding a lot of heat."

Which was when Axel noticed, that, yeah, hey… he was… drenched. Just dripping with sweat. The fever hadn't ever actually broken; he'd just gone into overdrive for a minute there.

"Oh, sh-" He didn't even get to finish speaking before he collapsed out onto the metal flooring, dead to the world for a while.