A/N: Man this Radiant Garden Arc has gotten so long, it might as well be its own season.

Lab Rats II

KAIRI: It's been so long since I had so much as seen my big brother. I just had to see him, just once.

It's been two weeks since lockdown. Kai was still frustrated with the circumstances. But as much as he hated to admit it, all his testing with the scientists were proving useful, as he's been starting to get the hang of his dark powers, mainly his beast. He's currently able to transform at will, but can't hold it for very long without losing control of himself. His dark powers outside of this mutation still need work, although he just recently discovered his ability to summon his Muramasa katana. He also remembered the first time he transformed more clearly now, including the light he had sensed that led him right to Kairi. He sensed the same light every time he transformed during testing, and while caged he secretly trained himself to sense it in his human form. It took more patience than he would've like, but he finally managed to get it to work, albeit he could only sense the light when he's actively trying to. And he hoped to whatever god may be up there that the light was indeed Kairi, especially after all the talk he heard about her light.

Outside of Kai himself, the scientists had recently managed to find a way to painlessly extract small samples of the light from Kairi's heart for testing. They used that light to test the vulnerability of the Chaos Program subjects that was first observed from when Dhampir tried to absorb the little girl. As it turned out, every subject was indeed vulnerable to light to some degree, though it varied from person to person. For example, Dhampir was proven to have the most vulnerability out of all of them, while Gigas appeared to have the most tolerance. Kai however was an interesting case, as it appeared that he was more tolerant in his human form and more vulnerable in his Lycan form.

In the testing chamber, four subjects stood facing each other. On one side stood Ryu/Reptile and Jack/Cyclops, while on the other side stood Kai/Lycan and Lightning/Avatar. After being experimented on, Lightning's appearance didn't change that much aside from some dark tendrils on her skin spreading out from under her shirt reaching up her neck and down her left upper arm. They awaited instructions until Even sounded on the intercom.

"Alright, Lycan! Today we're gonna try using partial transformation in battle. I want you to focus on changing only your arms as you fight. And Avatar, similarly I want you to try conjuring only one part at a time. Is that understood?"

The two just nodded. All four then summoned their weapons, Ryu his large sword, Jack his crossbow, Lightning her gunblade, and Kai his katana. Kai then raised his left arm and concentrated hard before it transformed into his beast claw.

"Now then, begin!"

With that Reptile immediately leapt over to Lycan and they clashed swords. "Come on, Hikaru!" the psycho said as he raise his reptilian claw. "Let's rumble!"

Ryu then swiped his claw, only for Kai to leap away. The redhead then responded in kind by coating his claw in dark flames and swiped back, but the violet-head's arm's tough-armored scales blocked the attack.

Meanwhile, Cyclops aimed his crossbow at Avatar with his mutant eye. "Let's if you really were worth snagging," he said as he shot a magic bolt.

Lightning then concentrated her power as her chest began spewing darkness. A magic glyph appeared in front of her and out of that glyph popped a phantom chest plate, which blocked the bolt. Her experimentation gave her the ability to call upon the darkness from her own heart directly in the form of an armored phantom.(1) A full body phantom puts a heavy strain on her heart, so she's been working on summoning its separate parts.

"Not bad," Jack said before he smirked. His eye flashed as energy orb appeared above the girl. The orb exploded, knocking onto the ground as the phantom chest dispelled. "But not good enough!"

Avatar quickly pointed her gun and began shoot magic bullets as she stood back up. Cyclops dodged the bullets before firing a laser from his eye. The girl avoided it, before her chest emitted darkness again, as a glyph appeared right next to the boy. He noticed it too late as a phantom gauntlet popped out, punching him in the face and sending him crashing into a wall.

"Very clever, Avatar!" Cyclops said as he dislodged himself from the wall.

The two then began shooting at each and occasionally using their chaos powers to trip each other up.

Back to Lycan and Reptile, the two of them kept slashing at each other with their swords and claws. But then a spike suddenly jutted from the wrist of Ryu's mutant arm and slashed Kai's right arm, disarming him and leaving a deep gash on it.

Kai shouted in intense pain as he grabbed his arm. Then his eyes flared red with anger as he then gathered a lot of darkness into his transformed arm. He then swipe his claws, unleashing a massive wave of darkness and blasting Ryu away, sending him crashing into Jack and them both into the wall.

After that, Kai was breathing heavily as he was resisting the urge to fully transform. He was calmed down when Lightning placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Alright, I believe that'll do for now!" called Even. "Cyclops, return to your look out duty! We'll get the rest of you back in your cells as soon as we treat Lycan's wound."

Lucky and Kairi sat in the apartment after another session of testing.(2)

The human insect watched Kairi petting Dawn on her lap, noticing the depressed look on the little girl's face. "A-are you okay?" she asked.

Kairi paused her petting before answering. "I miss my brother..."

Lucky looked down sympathetically. "I-I know. I'm s-sorry things have to b-be this way."

"I don't know if he's alright or not."

"I-I'm sure he's f-fine. He's a t-tough k-kid, you know."

"But he's all alone with them. And they didn't promise to not hurt him..."

"Y-Yeah..." Lucky fiddles with her fingers wondering what she should do. She really wanted to cheer the five year old up. But how? She thought for a minute until she decided there was only one way she could. It was risky, and she didn't wanna think about the possible consequences. But she didn't want the poor girl to be so sad. She took a deep breath before saying, "I-I c-c-can sneak y-you to th-the lab t-tonight."

Kairi perked up and shouted, "Really?!"

"Shh!" the pinkette hushed the girl. "W-w-we have t-to be qu-quiet."

"Sorry," the red head whispered before hugging Lucky. "But thank you. You're the best fairy ever!"

Lucky blushed, still getting used to being called that, as she hugs back. "Y-Y-You're w-welcome."

Lea, Isa, and Even escorted Kai, Lightning, and Ryu back to the cells.

They entered the hall to see Dhampir holding a pink crystalline arm. A slight whimper could be heard as the vampire used his absorption powers on it. Slowly, the crystal arm turned into a normal skin arm with small patches crystal on the skin. Dhampir then let go of the arm. "There now, you should be fine for a while, Crystal," he spoke to the owner of the arm, Serah.

Serah's experimentation gave her the ability to incase her body in a highly durable crystal. Unfortunately, due to a major defect, she is unable to control it properly, causing her to slowly crystalize herself unconsciously. She needs periodic syphoning of her powers in order to prevent her from turning herself into a helpless statue. (3) "Why does this have to hurt?" the girl asked.

"Can't be helped unfortunately." Dhampir then turned to Lightning, who glared at him. "She'll be just fine. See? As long as you just cooperate, I'll continue to prevent her from turning into a statue."

The Lightning grunted in frustration. She wanted nothing to do with these creeps, but because of her sister's situation she had no choice but to obey. She walking into her cage right next to Serah's, the door being shut by Isa.

Ryu chuckled as Even put him in his cell. "It's entertaining to see that Hikaru isn't the only one whose a slave to his own sister. Huh Farron?"

"No one asked you, Ryu!" shouted Lightning.

"You know, I'm personally happy with this arrangement," the Dhampir said. "It provides me with free sustenance." He chuckled as he walked away.

Kai walked into his own cell, as Lea shut the door. "Your arm gonna do alright?" the fire-head asked.

"I'll live," the quiet boy said bitterly as he looked at his now bandaged arm.

Lea sighed. "Listen, I'm sorry you have to go through all this."

"Oh shut up!" Lightning exclaimed. "Like you two traitors have any idea what we're going through."

"They weren't going to let us go, Lightning," Isa said firmly. "If we didn't agree to be their assistants, they would've experimented on us too."

"Alright, enough talk!" said Even. "You two come with me. We've got more training for you."

Lea and Isa nodded as they followed the scientist out.

Kai looked to Lightning. "I'm sorry you two got caught up in all this."

"Don't apologize. It's not your fault."

"But I could've tried to stop them but..."

"You were looking out for Kairi. I can't blame you that."

"Why?" Serah asked as she started to sob. "Why did Bruta just let them take us? She was supposed to be a hero."

Lightning grunted in frustration. "From what you told me, apparently she cared more about keeping what made her a hero rather than our lives. Are those creeps even capable undoing our experimentations?"

Ryu then laughed. "Highly doubtful! I remember one time that they actually did try to remove a subject's chaos powers, and it didn't end well for the subject. Hahaha! It's quite pathetic really. Gigas is following their instructions over whats probably an empty threat!"

"And what about you? Ryu! Why do you always seem willing to stay locked up in that cage?!"

"Every subject seems have their own reasons for following those scientists' directions. Crystal can't get a handle on her powers. Dhampir owes Xehanort for prolonging his life. Cyclops is grateful of them for improving his eye. Insetto is too ashamed of her hideous appearance that she can't bring herself to show her face again. And Lycan and Avatar are here because their sisters are being used as leverage." The violet haired boy then looks to Cloud, who had been sitting quietly in his cage. "Diablo I'll admit I'm a bit stumped. You seem to have no excuse. I bet you could break out anytime you wanted."

Cloud was silent for a moment before saying, "What's the point? Nothing will change. Zack is dead. Sephiroth is on the loose. And this stupid wing they gave me by infusing that traitor's darkness with my own. I'm sick of the looks everyone gives me because of it, whether its the looks of pity from Tifa and Aerith or the looks of fear and distrust from everyone else. And what can I do? I can't go after Sephiroth as I am now. All I could do was take their judging looks. It's...better for me this way."

Reptile couldn't help but chuckled. "So you're here because of defeat! How weak! You are no different from Insetto in that regard. As for me? I rather enjoy what they've given me. The power of this new arm thrills me so much. So yeah, I'm willing to play along with them as long as I'm entertained. Their excuse for keeping me caged, unlike Cyclops and Dhampir, is that they consider me too...unpredictable to be trusted to roam around freely. I don't mind though, this just allows me enjoy the plights of all the unwilling subjects. The whole lot of you are just so much fun to watch." He then proceeds to laugh, like the lunatic he's been these days.

The others just glared at him, except Serah who shuttered in fear.

Lea and Isa were alone waiting for Even to give them their next lesson.

Lea sighed. "Man, this isn't right."

"I know," replied Isa. "But what else can we do? One slip up and we're as good as dead."

"What a drag! We just come in here to check up on Kai and that prisoner girl, only to wind up in this situation."

"And if that wasn't enough, we've searched every cell we could find, and that girl is nowhere to be found. It's like she vanished into thin air. The most I could find was a redacted file about Subject X. And that's about it."

The fire-head groaned. "It's like we went through all this trouble for nothing." He then looked down in sadness. "For all we know she could've been one of those failures in the lab."

The bluenette sighed. "Indeed. But we've already gotten ourselves deep into this, so we have no choice but to play along for now, while we try to figure out a way out of this situation."

Skadi just couldn't get what happened last week out of her mind.(4) First she had to deal with a never-ending stream of Heartless, and then she had to watch someone she thought was her friend take two people for his "secret lab". The memory of how some of the previous experiments ended up looking haunted her with the fear that she'd end up like a monster too. Instead she ended up gorgeous, strong, and noticeable despite the markings up and down her arms and legs.

So why did she feel so empty now?

Did it have something to do with that girl? The more she thought about it the more it made sense to Skadi. The look in her eyes, seeing the faux hero associated with the castle guards. Skadi felt like she had betrayed that kid, but what else could she do? She had been given several orders that included not helping the people find their missing children, and she knew where those kids were!

Well, those who were alive.

The doubt was creating such pain in her heart. Was she in the right? Why was she worrying about this? Skadi had never cared about right or wrong before, so why was it eating her up inside? Was it because she was being a hero for the people? But was it true or was it just a show to give them hope? The girl needed answers, and right now there was only one place she could go to get them.

As Skadi approached the door, she found herself hesitating. She hasn't been home since she went in for her special surgery, and they were probably worried sick about her. The strong girl knew she was going to get chewed out for this, but her need for answers was stronger than her fear. Taking a breath, she knocked on the door a few times before she stopped. Any more and the door would've gotten a hole.

"Coming, coming." She heard a familiar voice inside. As the door opened, the woman's jaw jaw dropped at the sight of the altered girl. "Skadi? Is that you?"

"Hi, Mom." She waved at her.

Mrs. Thurston's face read a mixture of emotions like she was trying to decide which one she wanted to feel. Finally her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared up. "Young lady, where have you been and what in heaven's name happened to you? Actually, you march right inside and you give your explanation to your father and I!"

Skadi began to wonder if this was a mistake, but there was no turning back now. With a sigh she walked inside the house and watched her father get up from the table. Skadi had no doubt his intention was to scold her and yell. A part of her felt like she deserved it for what she—

"Young lady, do you have any idea what your mother and I have been through? We've been worried sick not knowing what had happened to you. We thought you had been kidnapped like all the other kids., or killed. We might not have ever seen you again! And what in the world happened to you? Why are you so tall and dressed like a… a…" Mr. Thurston couldn't find the right word to describe his daughter's appearance.

"A harlot. You look like a harlot, with your clothes and tattoos." Mrs. Thurston frowned at her. "What happened? And the truth, Skadi. Only the truth."

Taking a seat, Skadi opened up. "I was asked to volunteer for an experiment. They offered me a chance to become everything I ever wanted to be. I'm tall, people notice me, and I'm popular. I say I got a good deal."

Shaking his head, Mr. Thurston said, "And are you satisfied? Now that you have everything is your heart full?"

"That's just it. I thought it was. I've been helping out around the town—"

"You're the hero we've been hearing about? The one they call Bruta?" Mrs. Thurston's jaw dropped. "The neighbors have been talking about you for the last few days, but I didn't think it was you. You hate working."

With a nod Skadi explained, "I thought it would be easy to do, but every time one of the monsters show up I'm the sole source people turn towards. They expect me to destroy everything that comes to Radiant Garden. It's just been 'help us', 'save us', and the list goes on."

"Then why do you do it?"

Burying her face in her hands, she answered, "I thought it was an easy way to get people to take notice of me, and to like me."

"Skadi, there's no easy way to become popular. At least not in a way that's long lasting or fulfilling. From what it sounds like you're not really trying to be a hero. You're trying to be an idol."

"What's the difference?"

"An idol is someone who only seeks to be lifted up and worshipped by the people, while a hero does what they do because it is right. Often they are ignored or are hated for what they do, but in the end they follow their heads and do what is right because it is right."

His words caused his daughter to think. Is that why she felt empty inside? Because she wasn't truly helping people? Was everything just a show for her? Then maybe the only way to feel better inside… was to disobey orders. "Mom, Dad, the people who did this to me… it was the castle guards."

Their faces paled at that. "What?"

"One of them came to me and offered me a chance to become this. I took it. While I was there I saw others brought in and put them through the same process. However, it didn't turn them into heroes. It turned them into monsters. These 'tattoos' as you called them are actually a side effect of the experiment, but this is nothing compared to what I've seen on the other subjects. I saw a boy with a reptile's arm, and another with grotesque eye."

Mrs. Thurston swore at that.

"And I turned a blind eye. I thought… I was scared of losing what I had gained. I've been warned that if I didn't do what they said they would change me back to what I was. You have any idea how frustrating it was to not be noticed by anyone except people who wanted a quick laugh? I don't want to go back to that."

Skadi was surprised by Dad as he embraced me. "Skadi, remember what I said, a hero does what is right even if they get hurt. Sometimes being a hero means you have to suffer so others won't have to. You know you did something wrong. The question is, what will you do now?"

"What she's going to do now is she's going straight to her room, and she's staying there until the end of time!" Mrs. Thurston ordered. "And no arguing!"

Later that night, Lucky and Kairi slipped out of the room, quietly sneaking through the halls. They soon came to the lab, and found Kai's cell, where he slept.

"W-wait here." Lucky told the younger girl before she went over and lightly taped on the cell bar as she whispered, "K-Kai? K-Kai. Wake u-up."

Kai stirred awake, shaking his head before looking up. "Huh? Lucky? What are you doing down here?"

"A c-certain someone really w-w-wanted to s-see you." The bug girl motioned for Kairi to come, and the little girl scampered.

"Kai?" she said.

"Kairi?" The boy got up and ran over to the cell bars. The moment he saw her, he felt relieved. She didn't appear to be hurt at all. He also took the opportunity to open his sixth sense, confirming that the light he had been sensing was indeed coming from her. "What are you doing here? It's not safe for you."

Kairi couldn't help but smile at the sight of her brother, having not seen him in weeks. "I missed you... I was scared that they hurt you?"

Kai put a hand through the bars and patted his sister on the head. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me. It's you I'm worried about. Are you doing alright?"

"Yeah! Lucky has been taking care of me. But, you never told me you knew a fairy."

Lucky blushed again, and Kai couldn't help but chuckle at the comment. "I guess I just never knew she was."

Little Kairi then noticed the bandage wrapped around his arm, and she softly gasped. "Big brother..."

Kai looked at the bandage. "It's nothing. Just a little...accident. Don't worry about it."

This did not seem to comfort her. "They did hurt you... the bad men."

The brother sighed at his sister's worry for him. "I'll be fine. It's just a scratch." He then put his hand on her cheek. "Look... I can handle whatever pain they need me to, just as long as they don't hurt you."

Kairi reluctantly nodded before handing him a small wad of plastic wrap. "Here... Lucky and I made cookies earlier."

"Thanks." Kai took a cookie out and took a bite. "It's good." He said, which made the girl smile. He then looked down. "Listen, I'm...really sorry...about all this. Me being in here, and you being stuck at home. I wish I could stay with you, but they want me here, and they promised not to hurt you if I didn't fight."

"Why are they doing this? Why can't they just leave us alone?"

"I don't know... All I know is they want me for my darkness, and you for your light."

"My light?"

A chuckle from another cell, startled everyone. "Boy, aren't you special for a little brat. All those guys do is talk about how interesting you are, kid... they'll probably be more interested in the fact that you two came down here against their orders." The occupant revealed himself to be Ryu. Kairi, remembering him and startled by his mutation, let out a shriek and latched onto Lucky. Ryu laughed at this. "How amusing! But I suppose it make sense for you to seek her protection from me, given that she's as much a monster as I am."

Kairi felt the older girl tense up at that comment. "Lucky is a nice fairy who takes care of me!"

"Fairy? Hah! Don't make me laugh! All she is is a bug girl freak show! Just like how your own brother is a vicious werewolf boy!"

Lucky looked away and began to sob. Kairi glared at the psycho. "Stop it! You're mean!"

Reptile chuckled again. "I'm only telling the truth. Those guys turned all three of us, and several more, into freaks by tampering with the darkness in our hearts. Lucky's so called 'fairy' form came from her own darkness. Nothing nice about that. But, what could a stupid tiny brat like you understand?"

"I understand that you're a jerk! Lucky is nice and pretty!"

"Whatever... but all that won't stop Braig when I tell him that you two tried to escape and free Kai."

Kai's eyes turned red as he glared at the disgraced trainee. "Don't you dare!"

"What are you going to do about it? Bust out of there and the agreement to keep your sister safe is null and void," Ryu said. Kai grunted in frustration, prompting the psycho to smirk. "Come on, Wolf Boy! I dare you! I double dare y-" He was cut off when he suddenly got sprayed by a potent dose of Lucky's pheromone, causing him to passed out quickly.

"A-a-and s-stay down," the bug girl stammered out.

Kai took a deep breath as his eyes returned to normal. "Thanks for that."

Kairi was amazed at what just happened. "Wow! Was that some kind of fairy dust?"

Lucky rubbed the back of her head. "K-k-kinda. You c-can call it s-sleeping d-dust."

"Cool!"

"Thank you for shutting him up!" Cloud called from his cell, having been awoken by the commotion. And he wasn't the only one.

"No kidding," called Lightning. "That creep just loves to run his mouth."

Serah then ran up to the bar of her cell and saw a familiar face. "Kairi?"

The red head girl gasped as she scampered over to her friend. "Sarah? What are you doing here? Did those bad men take you too?"

"Yes! Both me and my sister. They did things to us. Look!" She shows the crystalline patches on her skin.

"Whoa! Pretty diamonds!"

"It's not so pretty when these diamonds could turn me into a statue at any moment. If I don't get regular treatment, I'm done for."

"Oh my! I'm so sorry!"

Serah patted the little girls head. "It's okay. I'm just glad to see you're alright. Everyone has been worried: Yuffie, Rydia, Palom and Porom."

Lightning then looked at the insect girl. "So you're Lucky Holt huh?"

"Y-yes," Lucky answered.

"We had searched for you after you were reported missing."

"I-I know. I was th-the one who qu-quelled Kai's b-b-beast while y-you were s-s-searching in the c-caverns. B-but...I just c-couldn't let anyone s-see me like this."

"Well...it's a jarring sight, I'll admit. But you really don't look that bad to me, all things considered. Trust me, Ryu, Jack, and Ejder are far worse looking than you. You shouldn't let that psycho's words get to you."

Lucky looked at her fellow pinkette, someone else who didn't judge her appearance.

"She's right!" said Kairi. "Like I said before, you're nice and pretty."

The bug girl just couldn't help but be touched.

Kai looked at the unconscious Ryu before looking away from everyone. "Kairi, Lucky, I think you two better get back to our apartment before you get into any more trouble."

The little girl looked at her brother with concern. "But..."

"Go, please."

Kairi looked down for a moment, she wanted to spent more time with him, but it was clear that his mind was made up. She put her arms through the bars gesturing for a hug.

Kai looked at her again and hugged Kairi through the bars. "Please stay safe, Sis."

"I will. I love you, Big Bro."

"I love you too." The boy then looked to Lucky. "Please take good care of her."

Lucky nodded. "I-I will."

"Thank you, Lucky, for everything."

The bug girl smiled, "Y-You're welcome, Kai." Lucky then took Kairi's hand and walked her out of the lab, while the two siblings waved goodbye to each other.

Kairi turned to the older girl. "Thank you. You're the best fairy ever."

Lucky giggled, "And y-you're the s-s-sweetest little girl I've ever m-met."

They arrived back at the apartment and Lucky put Kairi to bed, but the little girl was bouncing on the bed.

"I'm too excited to sleep. I finally saw my brother!"

"C-Come on, K-Kairi," said Lucky, "it's way p-p-past your b-bedtime."

"I know! But I'm just so happy that I got to see him! That he's okay! How can I go to bed now?!"

"I kn-know, but you r-really do need to r-rest." The pinkette sighed before an idea popped in her head and made her smirk. "D-do I need to g-give you to some of my s-sleeping dust?"

The red head paused for a second before she giggled. "Maybe..."

Lucky giggled back. "O-Okay. Y-You asked for it." She then brought her fist up to her mouth before she opened her palm and blew her dust onto the girl's face."

Kairi felt her eyes drooping. With a soft yawn she said, "Good night... my Lucky Fairy..." And with that she drifted off to sleep.

Lucky couldn't help but smile. "G-Good night, L-Little Angel..."

KAIRI: I was so happy to have finally seen my brother. I was so grateful to Lucky for doing that for me. I felt content. If only I knew that it wouldn't be long before our lives would take another unfortunate turn.

Meanwhile:

The next morning, Laguna was walking through the streets after ending the Recruits' training session early, sighing in exasperation. It had been two weeks since the castle locked down without warning. Nobody knew what's going on. No one was let in, and nobody ever came out. Not even Merlin the Wizard could enter it due to the special seals that prevent teleporting into and out of the structure. Even the guard that were left outside when the lockdown occurred didn't have so much as a clue. The whole town felt uneasy. The only thing keeping anyone from panicking is the mysterious super woman who's been driving out the monsters. Laguna couldn't help but feel disappointed that the other guards have been doing very little since Bruta showed up. Strong or not, there's only so much a single person can do on their own.

With everything that's been going on it was hard even for Laguna to be his usual chipper self. Between the castle locking down, the mysterious disappearances, including Cloud, Lightning, Lea, and Isa, and the fact that not even Kai has been allowed out of the castle to attend recruit training. Even he couldn't deny that something was going on and it was very concerning.

He soon entered a bar where he sat with the town's engineer, Cid Highwind.

Cid sipped his drink before saying, "Any word?"

"Nothing," replied Laguna, "not so much as a letter explaining the situation."

The engineer grunted in frustration. "What kind of ruckus is going on in there? What the hell is Ansem doing?"

"I wish I knew. And if I'm being honest I really don't like it. Between the castle lock down, the monsters, and the disappearances, I can't help but think that something terrible is about to happen really soon."

Cid scoffed, "This coming from Sir High Spirits? That's not good!"

Laguna sighed. "So how is your project coming?"

"Managed to put together a bunch of passenger ships capable of transporting bunches of people. I gotta admit, those Gummi materials that mouse king supplied us are working wonders. They should come in handy in case worst comes to worst."

"At least there's some good news. Though I hope it doesn't come to that."

"Sir Laguna!" called a voice. The guard looked to find a couple staring at him with a stern expression. He recognized them as one of the couples whose kid went missing. If he remembered correctly, these were the Thurstons. "We need to talk to you."

Xehanort stared intently at a monitor as the other scientists enter.

"Even, Ienzo, I'd like you to see this."

The two looked at the monitor and Even couldn't help but chuckle. "Oh my. It looks we've got a couple of naughty children, don't we?"

Ienzo held his chin in thought. "Perhaps this will change the results of some of the tests. Kai has not seen his sister in some time. While we have claimed that she lives, he has had no proof. How will he act now after seeing his sister alive?"

Xehanort smirked. "I suppose we'll just have to wait and see. Perhaps we can overlook Insetto's disobedience just this once, but not without a warning."

"Though, this does explain why Reptile wouldn't wake up this morning," said Even "Insetto hit him with a large dosage of her pheromone."

"It is proving to be quite potent," said Ienzo. "We may need to develop a countermeasure for it in case she grows a spine."

"I already have a countermeasure, so no need to worry about that," said Xehanort. "Even so, if we need to, we could use Kairi against her. She seems to care about the girl, and we see that here. She was willing to risk her own safety to allow the siblings to see one another."

"I've heard them talking. Kairi seems to think Insetto is a fairy."

Even scoffed at this. "Child naïvety, if you ask me. Kids these days tend to think monsters are cool."

Xehanort thought for a moment. "I say we question all of them about last night and see what we can glean from it."

"Somehow I doubt they'll tell all that much," Ienzo pointed out.

I agree," said Even, "and we want to really see how this experience impacts their testing, so we need to not meddle much. However, Ryu, once he awakens, will probably tell us everything he heard."

"Good point," Xehanort conceded. "We shall do that then. Lycan has thus far been our most interesting subject. Any clue to what makes him tick, I'll take."

Soon, Braig and Cyclops arrived in a dark corridor. "Yo Xehanort!" said Braig. "We have a problem!"

"What is it?"

"Our giant rat has squeaked!"

Xehanort's eye narrowed. "Gigas?"

"That's right," said Cyclops. "She actually had the gall to visit her parents, and now they're speaking with Laguna at this very moment. I'm certain she told them what she knew."

"Well, that is most unfortunate," said Even

"So what are we gonna do?" asked Ienzo.

Xehanort thought for a moment. "Compared to the other subjects, Gigas knows very little. And Laguna may be a happy-go-lucky buffoon, but he isn't stupid enough charge in heads first. I'm sure we'll have at least a few days before he and the other left out guards try anything. More than enough time for a few more tests. That aside..."

...

"...I do believe this kingdom has outlived its usefulness."

A/N: Chilling final words eh? May as well consider that the prelude to the finale of the Radiant Garden Arc.

Footnotes:

(1) This is based on Lightning's ability to summon the eidolon Odin in FFXIII

(2) The scenes involving Lucky and Kairi were role played with Kristen Verne.

(3) This is based on Serah's misfortune of turning into crystal in FFXIII

(4) This scene was written by DinoWriter23. Fun fact: This scene, and a quick discussion with Dino, has led to me deciding to take Skadi's role in a different direction than I was originally planning.