Status – Unfinished

Chapter 52

"Your mission is to figure out why no heartless have been turning up in the world. Spend no longer then a week doing this, if you have not found anything by then, return." Roxas, Xion, Neox, and Calixa all stood there nodding at Saïx as he explained the details of their next mission. "Suitable outfits have been placed in Number Thirteen's room. You may take twenty minutes to pick out your outfits then report back here to depart."

"Yes sir," Roxas replied, "Come on guys," he led the way toward his room.

"Suitable clothes?" Neox mused. "That's means our uniforms aren't appropriate clothes for this world."

"Dang…" Calixa did not look happy. "Last time we went on a mission like that, we had to wear the strangest clothes ever. And I'm not really interested in finding out that I'm somehow connected to this world as well."

"Cali you got nothing to complain about. After all you at least got to choose this mission," Neox told her with a trace of bitterness in his voice.

Calixa swung her head around to send the boy a glare. "It was either this or going undercover as a maid in Halloween town. And there was no way I was going anywhere near toilets in that world."

"If you had gone, I probably would have snuck off just to spy on you. That would have been amusing to watch."

Calixa's face glowed red with anger and she moved toward Neox, likely with the mind to do him some harm but Roxas held her back. "Don't worry," he reassured in an attempt to end the icy air that fell among them. Neox and Calixa's friendship has suffered some tension ever since Calixa was promoted to Senior Member. Xemnas promoted her because she was doing extra well on her missions, and it had extra benefits like being able to choose your missions and even a small salary.

It was plainly obvious that Neox was jealous and no one really blamed him. Everyone was sort of jealous of her now. He pretended to me happy for her, but went out of his way to show everyone that he could do anything that Calixa could do and always tried to do it better. Their friendship always being a little bit on the competitive side, Calixa countered this by trying to do everything better then Neox. This continued on until now where the two of them are constantly attacking each other's faults. Its more unfortunate for Calixa because she had more faults then Neox, so she often got emotionally beat up without anything to counter his attacks.

"Axel's been to this world before. He said its an old times world, kinda like Bàli's home world; here all the girls must wear dresses and stuff, and there's no modest dress code like that other world," Roxas continued.

"I hate wearing dresses…" Calixa complained.

"At least it should be more comfortable then wearing these coats," Xion reasoned

"Yeah, and the dominate language is English, so you don't have to worry about finding out your fluent in another language," Roxas teased.

"Ha-ha," Calixa fake laughed glaring at him.

Roxas just stuck his tongue out at her, and continued. "Also the world has some magic in it, so we can use our powers without drawing too much attention to ourselves."

"That's good, it's always so annoying trying to do missions and hiding our powers at the same time," Neox said, deciding to go to his now normal default of pretending that Calixa wasn't in the room.

They arrived at Roxas's room, to find Axel of all Nobody's waiting for them. "What are you doing in here?" Roxas asked curiously.

"I'm here to give you fashion advice," he teased in an "I'm dead serious" way.

"Since when do you know anything about fashion?" Xion asked.

"Since I've been to this world before," Axel replied ruffling Roxas's hair.

The four of them took this moment to look around the room at the various clothes scattered about. Calixa's first thought however, was that the clothes didn't look much better then the clothes they had to wear in Tzva'i Leumi. At least she wouldn't have to cover her hair this time. "So great fashion master, what should we wear?" Calixa asked sarcastically.

Ignoring her snide comment, Axel helped each of them pick out outfits that would suit the fairly cold weather in the world Middle Earth. Calixa and Xion had to wear old fashion looking dresses, and the only thing they could use to defend against the cold were long shawls. Neox and Roxas at least could get away with wearing men's jackets. "The shawls can also wrap around your head," Axel explained.

"What!" Calixa almost shouted. "We have to cover our hair again?"

"Consider yourself lucky Cali, now you have an excuse to cover your eyesore of a hairstyle," Neox commented sounding more cold then he actually intended it to be.

"I'll have you know, that my hair is almost half way to the length it used to be!" Calixa defended glaring coldly at him.

Axel jumped in before Neox could retort. "No Calixa, woman use it to keep the sun out of there face."

"You might want to use it to cover your entire face, you wouldn't want to scare anyone with that face," Neox teased. He had intended it to only be a joke, but with all the other cracks he made that day, he had finally crossed the line for Calixa.

Her face turned a similar shade of her hair. "Oh? Are you offering me one of your own tactics. I had no idea you had to cover half of your face with your hair to make it less obvious how ugly it is," she replied with venom dripping from her voice.

"Shut your face Cali, what the f- is your problem!" Neox yelled face now beat red.

"I'll tell you what my problem is. You've been a jerk to me ever since the Superior promoted me. Just admit it, your jealous that for once I'm actually better then you at something."

"Ha, like I would want to be good at doing missions, and being the superiors a—kisser. Not to mention that you eat nothing but rabbit food. I would never want to be you."

"I'd rather be a rabbit then a PIG!" Calixa shot then started making pig sounds while making hand gestures like she was stuffing her face with food. "You've always been such a jerk to me. Ever since I've known you, I don't even know why we were ever friends in the first place!"

Axel finally jumped in-between them. "Ok that's enough. One more word out of either of you and I'll tell the superior that you two can't work together, and one of you will be transferred to another mission."

Both younger members remained silent, and an awkward silence fell among the group. Axel then picked up some cloth bags, "Here, take these to put your stuff in."

"What's wrong with our regular backpacks?" Roxas asked taking a dark brown bag.

"Same reason you can't wear the organization uniform."

Everyone left the room to pack there bags and get dressed, before heading back to the gray area. Once they stepped through the portal and into the strange world, all were happy with taking Axel's fashion advice. Despite the shining sun, the air was very chilly as if it might snow if the air got moist enough. "Brrr!" Xion shivered wrapping her shawl more tightly around her.

"I feel sorry for you girls, I'm cold even in this heavy jacket," Roxas commented shivering a little himself.

Calixa looked around. She had never been to a world before with so much open land. Several yards away from where they appeared was a small village, "I guess we better start there," she suggested.

The others agreed without comment, and they headed over to the village. They had barely arrived at the outskirts of the village when the most horrible sound greeted there ears, making everyone in the village stop in there tracks. It sounded like a mix of a young girl screeching at the top of her lungs, and a pig squealing for its life. "What the hell was that?" Neox asked looking around.

As if a spell was suddenly broken, everyone around there started running for cover, screaming in terror. "I'm not liking the looks of this," Xion spoke worriedly.

The four nobodies took there battle stances and summoned there weapons, looking around cautiously. By now everyone had taken cover in there houses, and they were the only ones still out in the open. Suddenly something black appeared flying over the treetops. As it got closer, they could see that it was a black figure that was riding some sort of dragon like creature. The thing let out another scream, so loud it was worthy of Calixa's defense mechanism. The scream tore at there eardrums, making each one of them drop to there knees, hands clamped tightly over there ears.

The creature must have seen them, because it started flying right toward where they lay on the ground. "Run!" Roxas yelled jumping up and running away, with the others following suit.

Unfortunately Xion ended up tripping over her feet and landing hard on the ground, as the dragon like creature landed mere feet from where she lay. The girl screamed at the top of her lungs, making Neox turn around to see what was wrong. "Leave her alone!" he screamed running toward the creature with his keyblade drawn.

Xion crawled away from the monster, underneath a nearby wagon. "Neox!" she screamed as the boy jumped at the figure, imbedding the keyblade deep within its side.

Both Neox and the figure let out scream of pain, but the creatures loud squeal completely downed out Neox's scream. The boy fell back, and landed on the ground writhing around in pain. The creature was wounded by the blow, but it didn't seem fatal enough to stop it from fleeing. None cared to much where the creature was going, all they cared about at the moment was finding out what happened to Neox. He was still lying on the ground screaming in pain while holding his left arm. "Neox! Baby what's wrong? Where does it hurt?" Xion asked anxiously, kneeling beside his writhing body.

A woman came running out of one of the houses. "We must get him inside quickly," she said without ceremony. She quickly picked the boy up, "Quickly, come with me," she ordered running back into the house.

Sorry about the AN right in the middle of the chapter, but there is a whole scene missing right in this spot. I believe I was going to come back to write it, and never got around to it. Basically I believe that they go to this Lady's house and she tell the group about the Nazgul's and how Neox is now under the "Black Breath" and would die until a skilled healer could bring him out of it. If your only familiar with the Lord of the Rings movies you probably don't know much about the "Black Breath" since its barely touched upon in the movies, but its described in detail in the books. Anyone interested can google the information or better yet read the books! They are great.

Anyways that night while Calixa is asleep, Galadriel appears in her dream to tell her that the only one who could save Neox is a man named Aragorn who is at Helm's Deep. The story picked up when she wakes up.

Calixa awoke with a start, and was confused for several moments as this wasn't her room. It took her a moment to remember that they were on a mission, which was why she wasn't n her room. It must have been either late night or very early morning by the fact that it was still dark out. It took her that long to remember why she felt so anxious and miserable. Neox was in a deep sleep on the other side of the room, infected by something called "Black Breath" and was likely to die.

The very thought brought tears to her eyes, and she couldn't help but think of the last thing she said to the boy. I don't know why we were ever friends in the first place… She really hadn't meant what she said. She was just so angry with his comments. The girl's thoughts then traveled to the mysterious dream she just had. That woman had told her that the heir to the King of Gondor was someone named Aragon, and he was in Helms Deep, could that be true or was it just the dream. "Maybe I should just check," Calixa whispered to herself, and pushed the sheets back.

She quietly slipped out of the bed she was currently sharing with Xion, trying to be careful not to wake the other girl, and tip toed over to the map hanging on the wall. It took several moments, but her eyes finally fell on a small area in Rohan labeled "Helms Deep." It was very far away from Meharen's village, and for sure would take days to travel there on foot, if you didn't sleep. It was too bad she didn't know what it looked like, then she could just create a portal to that area and bring this Aragon back.

Knowing that she couldn't do anything about it now; Calixa headed back to bed, intending to talk to Roxas and Xion about it tomorrow. A groan from the other side of the room made her look over at Neox. The boy was thrashing around in his sleep, obviously in some sort of nightmare. Meharen said that he would continue to sink into darkness until eventual death, which could happen in a matter of days. "I don't have time to wait until morning," she said out loud.

Neox had very few hours left, she was just wasting them by sleeping. If this was going to be done, she was going to have to act now. After a brief debate with herself, on weather she should wake anyone up, Calixa jumped out of bed deciding it was better to slip out quietly before anyone had a chance to change her mind. Neox didn't have time for any of that. The carrot head quickly grabbed her bag, shawl, and took the map off the wall stuffing it into her bag. Then she went over to where Neox was sleeping. The boy was no longer thrashing around, but a mumble of distress still escaped his lips at times

Calixa shyly grabbed his ice cold hand. "Don't worry Neox, I'm going to find this Aragon and bring him back here," she told him knowing that he probably couldn't even hear her.

She knew that all she had to do was find Helms Deep and Aragon, and she could create a portal back here easy enough. Just as long as she could find Aragon before it was too late, everything would be ok. "S-So please just hang in there until I get back ok," she continued, voice choking up. "I swear I didn't mean what I said to you. You're the greatest friend I can ever remember having."

A little voice in her head shouted something about wasting time, and she knew she had to go. "Good bye Neox," she kissed his hand. "I'll be back… I promise."

She then picked up her bag, wrapped the shawl around her shoulders and ran out of the house. She did not stop running or look back until her legs were forced to collapsed under her from exhaustion. By then the village was long out of sight. Once she caught her breath, she continued on at a slower pace. She had to keep moving, even if she went at a snails pace as long as she kept moving she was still getting somewhere.

ORGANIZATIONDAYS

The sun had been up for at least an hour, and Calixa was tired, hot, sweaty, with sore feet. Going by how cold it seemed since first entering this world, Calixa never thought she'd take Axel's advice in using the shawl to wrap around her head, to keep the sun out of her eyes. But after walking all night, she had produced enough endorphins to make her wish she was shorts and a tank top. And the sun was blinding and very hot, beating down at the top of her head. So she was happy to wrap the cloth around her head, and was surprised on how much it really helped.

She finally came across a large river, and was grateful for the excuse to sit down and soak her aching feet. It was also a good place to check the map, all she had to do was find a river on the map that was close to where she started and be able to figure out where she is.

She had to walk along the bank for several minutes before finding the perfect spot where she could sit down on some clean grass, and put her feet in the water without touching any dirt. Carefully taking off her shoes and socks, and lifting her dress up a little ways she placed her feet into the cool water while sitting on the side of the bank. A sigh of relief escaped her lips, at the feel of the cool water rushing between her toes and soothing her aches.

After a few seconds, Calixa pushed the shawl back behind her head, and pulled the map out of her bag. She was pleasantly surprised at how far she had gone in just a night, she was pretty sure she knew where she was. There was only one river she could hit coming from Meharen's village, and that was Celduin river. The bad news was that she was going to have to cross the river, in order to get to Helms Deep.

But she would have to deal with that later. First things first, was she was thirsty after looking at all this water. And she hadn't drunk anything since leaving the castle yesterday, she was overdue for hydration. After placing the map back inside the bag, she dug though the contents until she found her water bottle.

"DAMNIT!" Calixa swore at the top of her lungs.

Of course the water bottle would be empty. "You are an f-ing idiot Calixa! Why didn't you think to fill the bottle before leaving the castle? Or at least check to make sure it was filled before leaving the village!" she continued to berate herself for probably too long considering her borrowed time.

After wasting several precious minutes, Calixa finally got herself under control. "Oh what am I going to do now?" she asked herself, feeling her mouth getting dryer by the second.

She went though her options in her head. I could go back to the village and get a refill at the well, which would waste too much time. Or I could abort the mission and go back to the castle, which could also waste too much precious time. The carrot head sighed as she realized there was only one option what wouldn't waste any time. And that was to just drink the water that was right in front of her. She had heard about some of the diseases people caught from drinking river water, but at the moment she cared more about Neox then her own heath.

Taking a deep breath, Calixa cupped her hands together and brought up some of the water to drink. At least it didn't taste bad, it actually tasted good – even better then the tap water at the castle. She took another drink with her hands, and then filled her water bottle up with the water. With that out of the way, she put her shoes back on intending to continue. Her stomach growled hungrily as she stood up, reminding her that she also hadn't eaten anything since leaving the castle as well. But it was a known fact that you can last much longer without food then water, so she would deal with the food problem later. Perhaps she'd eventually come across some berry bushes or something.

Once again Calixa wasted time walking the bank to try and find a spot where she could cross without getting too wet. After probably 20 minutes of walking she was just about to give up, grit her teeth, and swim across, but she finally came across an area of shallow water with stones she could jump across. If she was careful then she'd be able to only get the bottom of her shoes wet.

Making sure her bag was placed securely over her shoulder, Calixa started making her way across the river jumping from one rock to another. She held her arms up to keep balanced, and went slowly, for the rocks were quite slippery. Despite her attempts to stay dry, the girl ended up slipping on one of the rocks half way across the river and fell all the way into the water. She quickly surfaced, but was already being swept down the river by the current. Instead of trying to battle the current, she only focused on swimming to the other side, which was the smarter of the two options.

It didn't take to long to get to the other side, and crawl out of the water. Of course now she was soaked to the bone, with her the bottom of her dress covered in mud. "Well so much for not getting wet…" Calixa commented to herself while wringing out her shawl.

She knew that there was nothing she could do about the mud that was now in various places all over her. There was no time, and no place to change or shower. The bag was still over her shoulder, though somehow she knew that everything in there was now ruined, including the map. She opened it up to look anyway, and was presently surprised that the inside was lined with some sort of animal skin, which protected the contents inside. Normally that would have completely grossed her out, but now she was counting her blessings. "Thank you Kingdom Hearts…"

ORGANIZATIONDAYS

It was early evening when Calixa was finally forced to stop, on the account that she would collapse if she didn't stop to at least rest for a moment. She sat down on a lone patch of grass breathing deeply, "I-I'll j-j-ust rest a few minutes," she said inbetween gasps.

As her breathing started to slow, her eyes began to droop. It was then, when she decided to just lie back in the grass – only for a moment, to regain her strength. Sleep tugged at her being, but she didn't have time to sleep, Neox didn't have time for anything like that. It was a short battle, and Calixa finally lost as sleep overtook her.

Calixa awoke again hours later, to bright sunlight shining down on her. She laid there confused for a few moments, she wasn't used to waking up to sun light. "Shit!" she swore to herself when realization finally hit her.

Neox was dying miles away, and she was supposed to be heading to Helms Deep to find this Aragon. Going by the placement of the sun, she must have slept the night through. How many precious hours did she lose? Was Neox already dead? Was she too late?

She didn't have time to be asking such questions. Calixa jumped to her feet, snatched up the bag, and continued on without much ceremony.

Over the next couple of days, Neox continued to slip further and further into darkness. He didn't even come conscious anymore. The only signs of life he ever showed was the occasional mumbling in his sleep, which he would do less and less as the time passed by. Calixa meanwhile continued on her journey, only stopping to eat any edible food she would come across, when she met passing travels to ask them where she was on the map, or just collapsing from exhaustion.

She had managed to ration the river water in her water bottle to last for awhile, but she was about to run out, and would have to refill it somehow. She was still too far away from Helms Deep to be able to survive on what she had left. By now, the sun could no longer be seen over the dark clouds that covered the sky the day before.

Now she seemed to be approaching a treeless wasteland. She could see out for miles, and the air didn't exactly smell very fresh either. Her left food suddenly sank into unnaturally warm water, which soaked right through shoe and sock soaking her foot. Calixa pulled it out so fast, one watching would have thought she was just shocked. Taking a better look around, she saw that she had entered a swamp.

What was worse, was that she could see what looked like a decaying corpse mere feet from where her foot had just been. Calixa gasped as her stomach suddenly lurched, the world began to spin, and black specks started to form in front of her eyes. She slowly sank to the ground, taking deep breaths, willing herself not to pass out. She had just stepped in death rotting water. Her stomach finally lost the battle, and she threw up what little she had eaten that day, along with stomach acid. That was not enough however, her entire foot felt like it was covered in crawling ants, and the world was getting darker by the second.

"J-Just calm- down Calixa. You'll be- be ok," she choked through gasping breaths. If she passed out now, more time would be wasted. Time that Neox didn't have; she had to somehow stay conscious.

After several minutes, the black specks began to fade as the oxygen returned to her brain. The world had finally stopped spinning, and she no longer felt as if she was about to pass out. However her foot was still tingling unpleasantly, which probably meant the horrid dead swamp water must be in the process of decaying her foot. But she would have to deal with that later.

Stomping her foot on the ground a couple times to make sure it could still hold her weight, and then continued on through the swamp. Calixa went much slower then she would have liked to, making sure she didn't accidently step into the water again, and trying to avoid looking at the dead faces in the water.

She suddenly noticed that she wasn't the only one there. Three figures were off in the distance, all were very small, no taller then Neox. And one looked like a crouching, sickly looking creature, which was crawling around on all fours. It wasn't long before they crossed paths. The three figures turned out to be all male, and she would have thought them little kids if they didn't look so old in the face. Perhaps they were midgets. The third one she didn't even no where to start with what he was. He was almost completely bald and looked like he hadn't gotten any sun or a decent meal in months. Not to mention the only thing he was wearing was a loin cloth.

"Who are you?" one of the figures with red curly hair asked, moving protectively in front of the other figure that had dark brown curly hair.

"Well who are you?" Calixa asked, they didn't look like anyone who might do her harm but she couldn't be too careful.

The red haired figure opened his mouth looking angry but the dark haired figure put a hand on his shoulder, "Sam, that's no way to speak to a lady." He said gently then looked at her giving a smile. "We are Hobbits of the Shire. I am Frodo Baggins son of Drogo Baggins. This is Samwise Gamgi son of Hamwise Gamgi, and the creature is Gollom."

Calixa just stared at him, thinking that he really didn't need to give all that information. But they seemed nice enough so she opened her mouth to give her own name but instead a question came out. "What are hobbits?"

I can't remember too many details I had for the rest of this. I know that it ended with Calixa making it to Aragorn and convincing him to come back with her and Neox got saved. Next chapter a direct sequel to this one.