The Roxas Chronicles

[Mizagium]

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[Mizagium]

Chapter Six: At the Castle Doors

The Corridor of Darkness opened and closed, depositing Roxas and Axel outside a large castle. Pillars jutted up on either side in near rows. Statues rested on top of them.

“I’ve been here before,” Roxas said absently.

“You have?” Axel exclaimed. “I haven’t…” he sounded a little hurt, but Roxas didn’t notice.

“Yeah, with Xaldin.” Roxas said more sure of himself than before. “Before I left the Organization.” He started walking toward the castle, leaving Axel to quickstep to catch up.

“What did you guys do here?” Axel folded his hands behind his head. He observed the castle. It was big, but not that big. The Castle That Never Was was much bigger. He smiled. Even Castle Oblivion was bigger. He shook his head, he didn’t like thinking about that place, not after what happened…

“…Axel!” Roxas had to shout to get Axel’s attention.

“Sorry,” Axel offered, scratching his head. “What were you saying?”

Roxas exaggerated a sigh. Axel grinned. “I was just saying that Xaldin and I were sne there to arrange for capture of a powerful Heartless and Nobody.”

“What kind?”

“I don’t know, I left after my part was complete.” He pointed at the castle. “We’’ just have to ask Xaldin.”

The two made to enter the castle. The reached the grand stairs leading to the large doors when a group of Shadows materialized around them. Roxas summoned the Keyblade and Axel his Chakrams as the Shadows leaped at them. The Heartless were weak and easily dealt with.

“What are they doing? Xaldin’s supposed to be in control of them here?” Roxas exclaimed.

“Maybe he’s napping?” Axel offered with a grin. He thought it was funny. If Roxas thought so, he didn’t show it.

“Still…” He looked up at the castle again. What kind of being lived in the castle that would produce a Heartless and Nobody powerful enough to send Xaldin, a senior member, after it? And why were the Heartless attacking fellow Organization members? He was so deep in though that he didn’t see the Neoshadow materialize and leap at him.

“Roxas!” Axel shouted, but he couldn’t react fast enough. Roxas looked down in time to see a lance shoot down out of the air and impale the Heartless. It took him a moment to realize what just happened. Then he realized who it must be.

“Xaldin!” He spun around and there was Xaldin hovering off the ground surrounded by five of his six lances.

“Hello Sora, Axel.” Xaldin said as the sixth lance returned to him, then vanished along with the others. He dropped down to stand on the ground. “What are you two doing here?”

“Is that all we get?” Axel demanded. Xaldin glanced in his direction but, seeing Axel grinning, turned back to Roxas. “Xemnas sent us, said you needed some help.” Axel said before Roxas could.

“I don’t need your help.” Xaldin walked past them. “You can go back.” He dismissed them with a wave of his arm.

“If you don’t need help, why did those Heartless attack us?” Roxas asked flatly. Xaldin stopped. “I thought you had control of the Heartless here, now that Maleficent was dead?”

“I do,” Xaldin said coolly without turning. “But you brought the Keyblade with you. You know how much they hate it.”

“But I thought they were afraid of it.” Axel offered. Roxas shot him a look. “Wouldn’t they stay away from it and its weilder?”

“Yes, but they must not think of Roxas as much of threat.” Xaldin chuckled. Axel grinned wide. Roxas didn’t think it was so funny, but said nothing. When Xaldin was finished, he spoke again.

“Then you got the Hearltess and Nobody you were sent to get?”

Xaldin straightened up. “I’m working on it.” There was a hint of annoyance in his voice.

“Maybe the three of us could work on it, then?” Axel moved forward. “Work smart not hard, eh?”

Xaldin huffed. “That might be the smartest thing you have ever said.” He looked way. “All right, come on then.” Roxas followed, but Axel lagged.

“Hey what do you mean ‘ever’?”

[Mizagium]

Chapter Seven: Bastion of Hope

“So, you’re the FAMOUS Riku?” the man named Cid clapped the hooded figure that was Riku on the back and grinned. Leon had led DiZ, Namine and Riku to the house of a man named Merlin, who turned out to be a sorcerer.

“Famous?” Riku kept his hood up, knowing that his form was that of the man that destroyed many worlds. He also knew he came form this particular world.

“Hell yeah! Ever since he washed up in Traverse Town, all that kid ever did talk about was finding you and, uh, that girl… what was her name? She came here for a while, but…” Cid pulled back his hand and scratched his chin.

“Kairi? Kairi was here?”

“Yeah! That’s the one!” Cid grinned again. Then his eyes were drawn to Namine. “You know, you kinda remind me of that girl. What’d you say you name was?”

Namine’s eyes widened. “Namine. I don’t think I’ve ever met this Kairi person,” She looked quickly as DiZ who remained as stoic as ever. Cid shrugged and leaned against the wall.

“So, you’re all friends of Sora?” Leon asked again so that the ninja girl, and the girl in the pink dress could hear.

“That’s right.” Namine answered. “He met us out there in another world, one called Castle Oblivion.” She indicated DiZ, as well as herself.

“Castle Oblivion… That sounds familiar, but I don’t ever remember going to that world, do any of you?” Yuffie, Aerith, and Cid all shook their heads. “Sorry. Does that mean Sora finally found you, Riku?”

Riku shifted uncomfortably in his stance. What should he tell them? That he fought Sora over Kairi’s Heart he contained? That he opened himself up to the Darkness and became Ansem? “We…found each other. In Twilight Town. Another world.” He said plainly.

“Another world…wow, Sora did a lot of adventuring without us, huh?” Yuffie sounded a little hurt.

“But where is he now?” Aerith asked. Riku had been dreading the question since they arrived. What could they say?

“He vanished.” Namine answered before he could.

“Donald and Goofy, too?”

“Yes.”

“How?” Leon butted in quickly, more than a little suspicious.

“We don’t know. That’s why we came here. He went off and never came back.” Namine sounded confident, more than Riku would have thought. So confident in fact, that Leon, Cid, Yuffie, and Aerith believed her.

“Just vanished, huh? Sounds like what happened to the worlds. Do you think maybe that Heartless got to him?” Yuffie was worried now.

“No way! Sora’s too strong for the Heartless to git to ‘im! Besides, he’s got the Keyblade!” Cid declared loudly. While raising everyone’s hope briefly, it only made them think that something ELSE got to Sora, something stronger than the Heartless. “Ah, hell, I didn’t mean it like that…”

“We know.” Leon puzzled it all over in his mind. “Where could he have gone? It’s not like him to just up and leave like that.”

“That’s why we came here: We were hoping that maybe you all could help us look for him.” Namine was looking more and more like an expert liar to Riku; and he liked it.

“We’d love to, but… but we’ve got our hands full trying to rebuild the town. People keep showing up suddenly with no memory of where they were. And Heartless still pop up and try and undo everything!” Leon slammed his fist against the wall, frustrated over their poor situation. “Seems like we need you help, as well.”

“Maybe we can help each other then.” DiZ spoke for the first time. He stepped into the center of the room, commanding all attention in posture as well as in his voice. “At the very least, we need a place to stay and plan our search. Perhaps you can provide that. In exchange, we three are not terrible fighters, and I’m pretty handy with machinery.” He nodded in the direction of the computer at the back of the room. “A device like that is a mere toy to me.” All eyes were on him, listening to his every word. He loved the attention; he missed having it like back when he was… “So, we’ll help you rebuild and defend this town, and you’ll let us stay here and help search for Sora.”

“That’s more than fair!” Cid declared after a moment of silent contemplation. “We got plenty of space up in the castle! And we sure as hell need some help with Ansem’s computer!” Riku saw the slightest change in posture in DiZ at the mention of Ansem’s computer. “Having a few extra hands around will make the rebuilding go by faster, and then we can find Sora!”

Leon looked to Yuffie, then to Aerith. Both nodded. “All right. We’ll help each other then. Let me go see if I can find a room in the castle. Come with me.” As he led the three out Cid hollered something.

“Hey, you! You in the red bandages, you said you knew about computers and machines?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Well, you min giving me a hand with this old thing real quick-like?”

“Of course.”

Riku and Namine stood on a balcony that opened from both of their rooms. The sun was setting far off and the sounds of the Rising Falls could be heard far below. “Where’d you learn to lie like that?”

“I didn’t lie.” Namine said plainly. “I just didn’t tell them everything.” She looked at him. Hard. “Its true that we don’t know where Roxas went off to. And we DID meet him in Castle Oblivion. I just twisted the truth.” She looked away, resting her arms on the balcony. “If we told them the truth, they wouldn’t trust us.”

“Hmm.” Riku considered that. “So we stay here in Hollow Bastion?”

“Until we have a better idea of what to do.” Namine turned her head at Riku. “I know it must be weird to come back here, especially in that form.”

“What? How’d you -?”

“I control Sora’s memories, in case you forgot.” He actually had. He stared into the sunset, but turned back after feeling Namine tap on his arm. When he looked at her, she reached up lowered his hood, revealing his – well, Ansem’s – face to the sun.

“Remember: You aren’t like him.” She smiled, then turned and walked to her room.

[Mizagium]

Chapter Eight: Beauty and the Heartless

Xaldin led Axel and Roxas through the empty halls of the Castle, large, vaulted passageways lit by candles placed at regular intervals. Elegant staircases and magnificent oil paintings punctuated the otherwise stark interior, but did little for the prevailing sense of loneliness.

As they rounded a corner, Xaldin stopped and held a hand up. After a moment he pushed them against the wall as a young woman paced by. She had long brown hair, wore a plain blue-and-white house dress, and even then could Roxas see how beautiful she was. “Locked in his room…” she muttered, disappearing from view. “…Where is everybody?” A door swung open beyond their sight, then swung closed and the lock caught. The three detached themselves from the wall and continued on.

“Who was that?” Axel asked after a moment, greatly impressed.

“The girl who could very well upset my plans,” Xaldin said with a scowl.

“Her name’s Belle,” Roxas offered.

“Belle… Belle… that sounds familiar.” Axel tapped his head thoughtfully.

“She’s a Princess of Heart,” Xaldin told him. Axel nearly stopped in his tracks. Roxas bumped him on his way past.

“Your jaws hanging.”

“Wait, so… Aha! You’re keeping her away from the guys whose Heartless and Nobody you’re trying to get, right?”

“Basically.” Xaldin never broke stride or looked back at Axel, who found this slightly annoying.

“C’mon answer my questions with more than just a single word! I mean, it’s really – ah!” Xaldin was suddenly in Axel’s face, six lances hovering in the air around him.

“You talk far too much, Axel,” Xaldin was obviously trying to intimidate Axel, but after the initial surprise, Axel stood unwavering, meeting Xaldin’s glare. Roxas watched for a moment until Xaldin’s lances vanished with a burst of light. “Watch yourself, Number VIII.” He turned and led them away.

As they continued, Axel made a point of making faces at Xaldin behind his back. Roxas struggled to keep from bursting out laughing. At one point Xaldin sighed, but never looked back. Finally, Xaldin stopped beside a seemingly plain door. “Here.”

“Here, what?” Axel demanded, making Xaldin snarl soundlessly at him.

“Here is where the man is keeping himself. The man whom we are trying to take his Heartless and Nobody from.” Without waiting for a response from Axel, he opened the door. The room was small; chairs lay broken in corners, paintings and curtains hung slashed. And at the far end of the room something sat hunched over. It was large and brown, with horns on its head and a long, purple cape. It was muttering something to itself.

“Xaldin, is that you?” it asked, tuning slightly back so that Roxas and Axel could see part of its face.

“Yes, I am here.”

“Have you seen Belle?”

“Yes, I have. But she does not want to see you.”

A great eye lowered sadly, and turned back. Xaldin led the other two closer to the Beast, allowing for a better view of what he was hunched over. It was a rose suspended in the air, with a glass jar over it. Several petals had fallen off. The Beast placed an arm between it and the three Nobodies protectively, possessively.

“Easy, my friend,” Xaldin soothed like a serpent, “I do not want your rose, I only wish to help you.”

The Beast glanced suspiciously at Roxas and Axel, and Xaldin gave them a signal to leave. Roxas left without a word, but axel grumbled the whole way out. When the door shut behind him he elevated his complaints to a vocal level. “What the hell? He brings us here to help, then sends away? Come on, that’s not cool.”

“Well, nothing else we can do here,” Roxas shrugged, sitting on the floor.

“Well, we could go have a look around. Since this castle’s basically gonna belong to the Organization anyway, might as well learn the layout.” He pulled Roxas to his feet and led him off a random hallway. They became disoriented very quickly, as all the hallways looked the same, albeit with different paintings, but they were not looking at them. Roxas was impressed with the size of the castle, but felt it paled in comparison to the Castle That Never Was.

“Sora?” a voice came from behind them. Roxas spun around; it was Belle.

“I’m not Sora,” he said lowly and fiercely.

“Oh, sorry, you just looked so much like him…” she trailed off, looking around. “Oh, have either of you seen the Prince around?” Apparently she did not find two strangers in Black Cloaks wandering around the castle strange at all.

“The Prince?” Axel sort of pushed Roxas out of the way in order to get closer to Belle. “There’s a prince around here?” He sounded almost disappointed.

“Yes, but…he doesn’t look like a prince; he looks more like a… a…”

“A beast?”

“Yes! Have you seen him?”

Axel glanced back at Roxas, unsure of what to do now. “You were hitting on her, you figure it out,” Roxas whispered quickly.

“I wasn’t hitting on her!” he whispered back.

“Only ‘cause you didn’t get a chance!” Axel made a face and was about to say something when two voices could be heard from down the hall.

“…reasonable, Your Highness. She said she didn’t wish to see you…” Xaldin.

“I must here this for myself, Xaldin.” The Beast.

Axel’s previous face was replaced with a momentary panic, if Belle meets the Beast, it might render all of Xaldin’s work null and void. His Chakrams appeared in his hands, as did Roxas’s Keyblade. They nodded to each other.

“Oh, there he is – ah!” Axel grabbed Belle round the middle and carried her down the rest of the hall to where he guessed her room was. He was right. Roxas flung the door open, Axel threw her in, shut the door, and stepped back. Roxas pointed the Keyblade at the keyhole of the door; a beam of light extended from the end of the Keyblade to the keyhole. The sound of a lock clicking into place could be heard. Xaldin and the Beast came around the corner as their weapons vanished.

“Is she in there?” the Beast demanded. Roxas and Axel nodded dumbly. A faint mumbling along with a soft pounding emanated form the room. “What is she saying? Xaldin?”

“Can’t you here her, Your Highness?” Xaldin was doing everything he could to keep the Beast on his side, even placating his Royal Ego.

“No. Can you?”

“Of course. I am the Whirlwind Lancer. Wind obeys my command, and I command it to carry the sound to my ears.”

“Tell me what she is saying.”

Xaldin paused for a moment, as if listening to the wind. Even a child could tell that he was not doing anything except concocting his own speech, but the Beast was blinded by anger. Only then did Roxas notice a figure floating above the Beast: a large, spherical creature with horns, and chains draped around it. A Heartless. Roxas nudged Axel and pointed to it; his eyes widened. “Shadow Stalker.” He mouthed. Then Roxas understood. The Beast was on the verge of Darkness, only Belle’s Light could save him at this point, and Xaldin was working on pushing over the edge.

Finally he spoke. “She, she says that,” he paused, as if not wanting to deliver the bad news, “That she no longer wishes to see you. That you are a monster, a beast, and that she never loved you.” With these words, the Beast began breathing heavily, looking at his hands, and muttering to himself.

“No…she…never…but, she said…no…Belle…AH!” he slammed his mighty hands (paws) into the floor, causing the wood to crack, leaving two rather large indents. His teeth bared, he screamed (roared), turned, and fled.

“After him!” Xaldin shouted, and the three raced after the Beast. Unable to keep pace with a creature that could use four limbs to move, they fell behind.

“Where’s he going?” Roxas asked.

“Just follow me!” They ran down halls and stairways. Lesser Heartless and Nobodies detached themselves from the shadows and raced along with them. Shadows, Neoshadows, Dragoons, Dusks. Roxas even spotted an Assassin or two, and found himself wondering if could still command his Samurai Nobodies. But now was not the time.

Their chase came to end in a massive ballroom. It was round, at least a hundred feet in diameter with tall columns that raised up to support a finely painted ceiling depicting cherubs and angels. In the center of the floor lay the Beast, above him, the Shadow Stalker Heartless. After they entered, a loud cry shook the room and the chains fell away from the Shadow Stalker. It began to grow in size, falling to the floor beside the Beast. When it stopped, it was the size of the Beast, crawled on four limbs, had a cape-like appendage that was red, and shuffled about nervously. A Dark Thorn.

The Beasts body squirmed, then fell still. Darkness seeped up form the floor and engulfed the body. Then it flattened, and vanished. Leaving the three Nobodies alone with the Dark Thorn, the Beast’s Heartless. The Dark Thorn lunged at them, but Xaldin’s lances knocked it back and pinned it to the floor.

“Oh, no you don’t. Not after all the work I went through to get you,” he taunted the thing. He produced a chain from his robes, similar to the one around the Shadow Stalker, and tied it around the Heartless’s neck. “Come on now, you’re coming with me.”

“Where’d the body go?” Axel asked without thinking. “Never mind, Twilight Town, right?” Xaldin nodded. “Xemnas gonna be there to pick it up?” Xaldin nodded again. “Then I guess we’re done here.” Xaldin nodded a third time. “Can you at least say something?” But he was already gone; a Corridor of Darkness opened up, swallowed him and the Dark Thorn, and closed. “Damn.” He looked back at Roxas. “Not bad for a first mission back, huh?” Roxas smiled politely. Axel nodded, opened a Corridor of Darkness, and stepped inside.

Roxas waited a moment longer, thinking briefly of the woman they left locked away in her own room. He shook his head, chuckled, then stepped through the Corridor back to the Castle That Never Was.

[Mizagium]

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