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Entry tags:
❪ test drive #4 ❫
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YOUR STORY BEGINS  The Storm came. You only remember darkness, but you don't remember much after that. All you know, perhaps, is that it was cold. You don't know for how long you slept, but the dreams were short, at least. You remember the expanse of stars and the universe that came in view. Every world and solar system ever known was displayed in your dreams in careful, pristine detail. You have also witnessed The Storm, which has devoured a fair portion of these galaxies. It was a dark, thick smog — ominous in appearance and ever foreboding. Your Earth and similar planets were immersed in The Storm. Somehow, you knew it would be the last you'd see of it. That was when she told you what happened, and how you could help. You knew that you'd be living somewhere new, even though you never asked for it. The details here weren't clear, but you knew you'd made a deal with Darma. Not long after, you'll wake at Thesa Station — your body is still cold. It all felt like a dream, but somehow, you knew it wasn't — now, will you keep that promise you made to Darma? PROMPT: THE STORM  CW: death You were awake on Thesa Station. But at some point you, like many other new arrivals before you, wandered into the Observation Deck. Ordinarily, this is where images of The Storm are replayed to remind Refugees of the fate they have escaped. The Natha Orbiters' technology has evolved. They are aware of your gaps in memory. You may have doubts of The Storm even existing, or of your world's destruction. Though they do not wish reliving those last moments on anyone, they have created an experience that will do just that. Before entering the Observation Deck, you are warned that what follows will not be for the weak of heart. As soon as you step in, you will find that the walls around you begin to transform and expand. Welcome to the Planet Cespi, in the Circinus Galaxy. Unfortunately, we were not able to save this world from The Storm's Consumption.
These are its last memories. You are surrounded by blue, grassy hills as far as the eye can see and a pleasant breeze. The atmosphere is thick with a sickly sweet smell. Before you lays the scene of a quiet village, with its residents going about their everyday lives. You aren't alone, either, with an equally confused stranger (or perhaps you know each other?) surveying the scene. Then the world grows completely silent for a full minute. You and your partner are unable to make a sound, verbal or otherwise. Without warning, a deafening roar fills your ears and forces you to double over in pain. The villagers run out of their homes in a panic, finding themselves in just as much pain and confusion as you do. Where there was no sound before, now there is too much for a normal human body to process. Look up. An expanding mass of energy is swallowing everything you can see. It consumes the earth, the atmosphere, the depths of space — and it is getting closer. Your only hope is to outrun it, if you can. The people in the village certainly try to, racing past you. Their fear is very real. Their bodies are very real. You may be able to run from it for a time, only able to catch glimpses of this dark and sinister force swallowing everything and everyone. The earth rumbles and separates beneath you. Electricity surges through the sky, and then through your very body. You fought hard, but it is impossible to outrun the Storm forever. You too will be consumed. Your death is quick, but not painless. What were you thinking, before you took your last breath? You awaken back in the Observation Deck, next to your new friend. PROMPT: TRAINING MODULES  While it’s all nice and well to familiarize oneself with Thesa Station, it is most advised that new arrivals venture out a bit. Not physically. No one is quite prepared for that yet. However, there will be several virtual reality training programs set for those who dare to be adventurous. For those who aren’t and don’t dare, well — good luck, all the same. Once seated and appropriately strapped in, the system will automatically whir to life. 1. When you enter the Natha's newest program, at first nothing loads. You might think this is an error as you look around in apparent total darkness, only able to see your own virtual body if you look down, but soon enough a voice comes to life as if speakers have turned on somewhere. Long ago, the lands of El Nysa were dominated by the ancestors of the dragons who now live among the people, tamed. It was pretty dangerous! How about a little history lesson? And then the simulation comes to life—
2. Let us now travel forward in time, shall we?  a. The Olympian settlement around you is quiet — until the screaming starts.3. And now, the present.  After all those enlightening scenes, the simulation finally brings you to a more quiet area of Olympia. You are deposited out somewhere in The Outlook, a place the very first group of refugees had to trudge through before they found their homes. You've arrived in the early evening — but sunlight is waning, and soon you'll be under a sky full of stars. Luckily, their old campsites aren't too overgrown. The intention here is to get you familiar with some of the local flora and fauna. What sorts of plants will you encounter? Do you find yourself under a Verillum Tree, suddenly compelled to be painfully honest and truthful in conversation with a complete stranger? Find yourself behaving erratically in the presence of Whistleweed? Or perhaps you'll have to break the spell of being trapped in a Vena Amoris' vines... with a kiss. PROMPT: STASIS UNIT  You have found the massive section of Thesa known as the Stasis Unit. There’s no special access required to enter this part of Thesa Station, but refugees are warned that it may not be for the faint of heart. Here, in large pods that nearly cover every square inch of the space, are all of the people the Orbiters have managed to rescue. Your loved ones, your greatest enemy, your next door neighbor — you might find them here. These people are in a state of deep cryosleep. Due to the damaging effects of The Storm, their bodies are not yet ready to be awoken. PROMPT: OMAGE
Upon receiving your mobile phone, you will be asked to set a username. Voila, you can now access the network! You can choose to send a message to the entire network, specific usernames, or you can try out the Orbiters’ service, Omage, which connects you to a random user. They thought this might be a good way for their new guests to make friends with each other...
Connecting to server... PROMPT: WILDCARD
You are welcome to write any scenarios in Thesa Station! Characters have been granted temporary access to the Observation Room, and are encouraged to study it carefully.
FINAL OOC NOTE
These threads may be carried over as game canon if players choose! Players are encouraged to submit TDM threads as application samples, but they are not required. Please direct any OOC questions to the questions thread below! An AC-length thread may be submitted for 2 NATHA ORBITER REPUTATION POINTS after acceptance here. Please submit by February 18th.
We will no longer be providing overflow posts. In an event where the post hits CAPTCHA, players are advised to move threads to an overflow post on their character journals or create their own catch-all post. These threads remain eligible for REP. There will be an application cap of 60, and no reserves. Please read here for more information. |
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He holds the grumpy expression for a moment longer before shrugging with a laugh. It's one of those things. Friends steal their friends food, it's how it goes. It's just... one of those unwritten rules. He's relieved that Lea feels comfortable enough with him to go for it.
But then Lea mentions Castle Oblivion and Sora sets his fork down. He almost wishes they didn't have to do this now that they're getting along, there's a lot of difficult things he's going to have to tell him and honestly, the sooner he tells him everything, the easier it's going to be.
It's just not going to be easy in the telling.
Sora picks up his fork, carefully takes another mouthful of purple bacon mash and chews thoughtfully. He could drag this out, try some of Lea's sour glitter soup and discuss the intricacies of alien cuisine, but that's not going to do either of them any favours.
"I don't want to fight either. You saved my life. And... you're Roxas' best friend. I can't change what's happened, but I'm going to do whatever it takes to fix things." He pokes the prongs of his fork into the mash, leaving indents behind. "I don't remember what happened. Riku's told me a lot of things, and I needed to thank Naminé... but I still don't know everything. I know my memories were broken, I know they needed to be fixed and I needed to sleep until they were."
He sets his fork down and looks at Lea, his face open and earnest.
"I know the Organization did some bad things but I can't... I know you're not a bad person. Xemnas was using you all, and Xehanort was using him. He's the real enemy. You aren't. You're Roxas' best friend, and I know I'm not Roxas and I don't want to be, he's him not me, no matter what anybody else says. But I saw him not long ago. I was dreaming, and he showed me everything. I know it sounds crazy, but I remember things that happened in that year when you were together in the Organization."
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He stops short when Sora continues, though, and slowly stops the fidgety swirling of his spoon in the soup. What the hell is Sora on about? He hadn't even been all that close with Roxas when he'd had to go to CO, so how could Sora possibly know that they had been best friends? When Sora straight up admits that Riku told him what happened, Axel can't decide if that clarifies anything or just makes it muddier.
"Naminé?" he echoes, and lowers his eyes a bit. He doesn't really know what even happened to her, and had he the heart to do so he would probably feel bad about that. He had let her escape from the castle, sure, but where had she gone? He guesses anywhere is better than in Marluxia and Larxene's clutches. Or Xemnas'.
Sora's sort of talking a mile a minute now, and Axel sets his spoon down, holding up one hand as if to slow him a bit.
"Now-- Wai-- Hang on a--"
He wants to say that he knows he isn't Roxas, and he would never have even assumed as much. Okay, sure, maybe he could drag Sora into a Corridor kicking and screaming and the kid would lose his heart and Roxas would reappear. Maybe. But he knows if he ever did anything like that the first thing Roxas would do is kick his ass into the next life, right? (Is it worth the risk? Maybe?) He wants to say that Sora's right about one thing: he doesn't want to be his enemy, or Riku's, and not just because he's pretty sure they can both wipe the floor with him if they set their minds to it (those stupid overpowered key swords of theirs. So unfair). When Sora says that he remembers the things that happened during the year Roxas was a part of the Organization, though, Axel is struck completely dumb.
The spoon and the glittery soup completely forgotten now, Axel lowers his hand and narrows his eyes a little, searching Sora's face for any sign that he's just screwing with him. That doesn't seem like the sort of thing Sora would do, really, but... the kid can't possibly be serious. Turning his head slightly to squint at him, Axel folds his hands together and leans forward.
"Excuse me, what?" he asks, his voice low and his tone sort of flat. "Are you telling me that Roxas told you a whole year's worth of memories... in a dream." It's hardly even a question, and as soon as the words leave Axel's mouth, he's laughing softly, almost giggling at the absurdity of the very idea. "That's a good one, champ," he says, shaking his head and picking up his spoon again. "You almost had me going, there. Did Riku put you up to this, to mess with me?"
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"Marluwho?" he manages to get out before Lea starts to look at him like he might start examining him clinically and picking him apart for clues and as he leans forward, Sora instinctively leans back just a tad, keeping some semblance of personal space between them.
With Lea looking at him this closely, Sora suddenly twigs to the presence of those funny purple tattoos under Lea's eyes and... had he had those back in the tower? He hadn't, had he? Perhaps they're make up... oh wow, okay, they're the exact same shade as the mash bacontato...
Wait no, focus Sora!
Lea doesn't believe him, and honestly Sora's not sure he can blame him for that either. It is pretty farfetched, and he lived through it all to do the telling. He hasn't even got to the most outlandish parts of it all yet- Lea doesn't even know about his Keyblade.
"No... no I promise, I'm dead serious. Riku doesn't even remember this stuff happening so how could he put me up to it?"
Honestly, at this rate the diverging timelines are just going to give him the mother of all headaches.
"Ask me something if you don't believe me! Something only Roxas would know. Go on, I'll prove it."
He's desperate to convince him, and he'll even push away the surprisingly moreish plate of purple mush to show how dedicated he is to the cause.
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Eyes narrow, but not in a sinister manner, Axel regards Sora sternly for a moment, then wags his spoon at him again.
"All right," he says, twisting the spoon in his fingers and thinking for a moment. Something only Roxas would know? Hmmm... "Okay, riddle me this," he says then, and takes a moment to carefully balance the face of the spoon on his nose. "Very early on, when Roxas was still pretty new to the Organization, he was pretty spacey. Like... super spacey. Like tell the kid something and three seconds later he's forgotten it spacey." He crosses his eyes to look at the spoon, then pulls it off of his nose and wags it at Sora again. "When I asked him if he had my name memorized, what'd he call me?"
No way anyone else knew that, and he didn't think it was likely Sora would be able to guess.
Time to put an end to this silly little ruse.
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Should I say somethin-
Lea asks him the question though and Sora's immediately back focusing on the matter at hand. What had Roxas called him that first time? He tests his memory- or rather Roxas' memory- and thinks back to stark white corridors, talking alongside Axel as he was then, talking about going to a meeting room. There had been Dusks that Axel had chased from the room before.
"Have you memorized my name yet?"
"Access."
For some reason, even though it's the moment of truth and he's depending on this as proof for Lea to believe him, Sora can't bring himself to look at him or his slightly sparkly nose. But then he steels himself and looks up, glitter and all, and meets Lea's gaze dead on.
"Even though you told him just before. He called you Access."
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For approximately eighteen seconds, all Axel can do is stare, and then he removes the fork from his mouth, fish still resting on the tines, and he sets the fork down on his plate and stares at it for another seven seconds before lifting his head.
"How..." He looks at Sora intensely, but it's intense confusion, not anger or accusation. One doesn't have to know Sora all that well to know the kid would be hard pressed to bring harm to anybody without a darn good reason, so he's pretty sure Sora didn't wring that information out of Roxas somehow. That does leave the burning question, however, "How the hell did you know that?"
And of course, Sora... already told him that. But really, Roxas telling him stuff in a dream? That's just a little too far-fetched... He shakes his head a little in utter disbelief.
"Seriously, there's... there's no way..." He runs a hand back through his hair and pushes his plate aside, the tip of his nose still a little sparkly from the soup, but at the moment that's the least of his concerns. "How are you even awake?" he asks then. "You said it yourself, that you had to sleep for like a year to get your memories straightened out. So I guess if Roxas told you that in a dream, maybe that's not the most insane thing I've ever heard, given your sleeping habits, but..." For that matter, Sora does look older, taller. "Sora, what... how...?"
Words are hard.
"How much time has passed?" he finally manages, shaking his head again. "Something really doesn't add up here." He wags a finger at him. "All right, okay, all the rest of this I could... probably find a way it makes sense, somehow, but I gotta know: how in all the worlds do you know the name Lea?" He shakes his head again. "I mean I haven't gone by that name in... in ten years. Not even Roxas knows that name."
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Sora takes a deep breath and exhales audibly with a soft 'whew' as he does so. He could see it in Lea's face that he had got it right, that it was a true memory of Roxas' and in truth, he's relieved for the confirmation. That part of his nightmare was real, Roxas' memories had really happened, it hadn't been a dream within the dream. Not that he had doubted that part, but he had wondered...
But now comes the hard part. The explanations, the difficult news he was going to have to break. If Lea thinks that saving his life happened in Castle Oblivion, then that means he hasn't lost Roxas yet. He hasn't lived to sacrifice himself for Sora.
How do you even begin to tell someone that they died?
"Silly. Just because you have a next life..."
"I... couldn't wake up until Roxas came back to me." Is that even the right way to put it? "And... I woke up a few months ago."
The guilt is written plainly over Sora's face and his chest still hurts, even knowing now that Roxas was content with the choice he had made. There had been no other way then, Sora knows that, but if he could fix it. And Axel had been Roxas' best friend; he'll let Lea fill in the blanks, he can't bring himself to say it out loud. It's too sad.
"The first time I remember meeting you, you told us what Xemnas and the Organization were after. You'd taken Kairi... but you told me you were sorry about it and then we fought together when we were attacked by Dusks. You saved me then, because you wanted to see Roxas and you said I reminded you of him. You put everything into your last attack so me and Donald and Goofy could get away and I couldn't save you."
He's watching Lea so carefully now, sincerity and apology open in his expression. This can't be easy to hear for him, it's certainly not easy for him to tell.
"But... Riku and me, we defeated Xemnas and after that, we went to try and become Keyblade masters and well, Riku totally aced it, of course but me, I got into trouble so this part I don't remember 'cause I was asleep, I only know what Riku and the others told me. Xehanort- you know Xehanort, right? Anyway, he tried to turn me into one of his vessels and then you showed up because you'd got your heart back and you saved me, but you told us your name wasn't Axel anymore. It was Lea."
Sora takes another deep breath, this time the tension leaves his shoulders.
"So now we're all on the same side because we've got to stop Xehanort because he wants to remake the χ-blade by having the Thirteen Darknesses fight the Seven Lights and I guess maybe Master Yen Sid thinks you're going to be one of those now because you've got a Keyblade too."
He laughs awkwardly to break the tension.
"I think that's everything... more or less."
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"So you really are from the future," Axel says, a little befuddled by the very idea. He kind of figured Roxas would eventually have to return to Sora--really, it had always been anomalous that Roxas had existed in tandem with him at all--but he knew for a fact that it hadn't happened months ago. Months ago things had still been fairly okay within the Organization, and he and Roxas and Xion had spent their free time eating ice cream in Twilight Town. And since Axel was 99.9% certain Sora didn't have it in him to lie about something like this, the only explanation was that Sora was from some point in the future that Axel hadn't lived yet.
... Well, that's far out.
He scrunches up one side of his face then.
"Kairi?" he echoes, and shakes his head. "Why would I...?" He stops himself and holds his hands up. "Forget it, my motivations are a mystery even to me half the time," he admits, but when Sora continues, the sheer gravity of what he's saying hits him like a ton of bricks. Put everything into his last attack? Couldn't save...?
He had died?
Axel just stares at Sora for a moment, and the kid looks so damn sorry Axel can't even find it in him to make some sarcastic remark to hide how freaked out his is about this. As a Nobody, he's always known he's on borrowed time, but to learn that he apparently dies... well, heroically, helping Sora of all people, it's kind of a lot to wrap his head around.
"So that's what you meant when you said I saved your life?" he asks, and then holds on for the next hill of this roller coaster as Sora continues. Xehanort? Xehanort... that name rings a bell, maybe he's read it somewhere, but he can't quite place it. "Vessels?" he says, shaking his head. "And I...?" Okay he's pretty sure his head is just going to explode now. So he actually does manage to get his heart back? How? Especially if he's, you know, dead? Oh, wait, maybe that's what Sora meant about saving his life. He apparently has done a lot of saving Sora, who knew?
He just waits for Sora to finish, steepling his hands together in front of his nose (which is still a little sparkly), and when Sora says he's done, Axel is quiet for a long moment. He stares down at the table, then up at Sora, then down at his plate, then back at the table, then takes a deep breath and exhales in a whuff.
"Wow," he says, rubbing his face with both hands. "That's... a helluva recap episode. Um." He threads his fingers together and regards Sora like a puzzled student might a professor. "So, couple questions," he says, and then counts one finger. "A, okay, this one's not a question, but good on you for defeating Xemnas, cus that guy's a major jerkwad." He counted another finger. "B, vessel what?" Another finger. "C, how do you remake a Keyblade, and why does Darknes get like six extra players on the field, that is totally not fair and I demand a recount." This time he holds up one hand, all four fingers raised and his thumb folded across his palm. "And D, I've got a whatnow?"
The dying he can swallow. The kidnapping... yeah sure. The saving Sora multiple times, okay, that's... he could do that. But a Keyblade? Him? He's no hero, what the hell would someone like him be doing with a Keyblade?
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"Okay so... A- thanks. Now I know what he put you guys through, I'm just sorry we didn't beat him harder. B... uh, yeah. Vessels. Riku said that- okay wait, hold on."
Sora shifts in his seat and tries to look around for something to help illustrate the point he's about to make, because this part is tricky and he wants to make sure that he's got everything set out right.
"Actually before I do B, let's do C: I don't know and yeah, I totally agree! But they're the bad guys and we already know they don't play fair so this is just another one of those things we're gonna have to smack them in the nose for."
Sora appears to be surprisingly upbeat in the face of the abysmal odds against them. On the subject of noses, even after rubbing his face, Lea's still got glitter on his. This is definitely not the right time to tell him, Sora's going to have to do it later.
"D, you've got a Keyblade and believe me, me and Riku were just as surprised as you were about it, but you know what? It's really cool, it's got this big whooshy bit that looks like fire, but you're gonna need some practice with it."
And now, back to B. Sora taps his mouth with his finger as he ponders for a while how to phrase it, frowning as he does. It's new, fresh information, so it should be the easiest bit to explain but it's just so darn crazy, it doesn't seem possible.
"Right. B. Beeeee. So... There's like, four Xehanorts who are actually Xehanort. Or, you know, parts of Xehanort at one time. Master Xehanort, Xehanort's Heartless, Xemnas and - oh yeah also there's this other Xehanort who is Xehanort but he's Xehanort from the past who's in the now now." He starts reeling them off on his fingers one by one as he does. "So that's four, but Master Xehanort needed more so I think that's what the Organization was meant to be for, he was going to put bits of his heart into you guys so you would become a part of him too, so you'd be become Xehanorts. Only it didn't work out like he planned so it's just Xigbar and Saïx who are with him. So that's... uh, six. We don't know who the rest are, but the good news is I'm not one of them, thanks to you, heh heh."
Although it had been a heck of a close call, too close for comfort really.
"So... yeah. Riku's a Master now and I've got to take the exam again so I can be a Master too and get even stronger."
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"Okay, I... wait." He counts two fingers, then stops and twists his wrist. "Hang on, there are Xehanorts who aren't Xehanort?" he asks, shaking his head. "Is he having an identity crisis?" Who is Xehanort, anyway? He knows that Xemnas isn't actually the Nobody of Ansem, because he grew up on the world where Ansem had once ruled. He knows about the--wait, Xehanort... was one of Ansem's... He snaps his fingers. "The apprentice!" he says, pointing at Sora like he'd just answered a quiz question. "But... hang on, Xemnas doesn't look much like that guy, he looks like..."
Axel still thinks Terra bears an odd resemblance to Xemnas, but you definitely don't get Xemnas from Terra plus an X, and Terra doesn't seem like a bad guy. Even without his heart, Axel still believes he's not really unlike who he'd once been, so that doesn't really add up at all. He counts his fingers again.
"How the hell are there four of him? Wh--in the past?" He holds both hands up and shakes his head, planting his palms against his crown for a moment. Yup, definitely a migraine coming on. That's when Sora says something that cuts through all the rest of the noise and confusion, and Axel physically startles, his hands falling away from his hair.
What had he just said...?
"S... Saïx?" He shakes his head again, but this time in something more like horror. "That... He can't..."
Become Xehanorts. He doesn't really understand it, but if that apprentice guy had been somehow turning members of the Organization into vessels, shadows of himself, that would explain why Saïx was so starkly not Isa. Axel doesn't really hear the rest of what Sora says. He'll come back to the Keyblade bit later. For the moment, he just sort of stares at his hands, something like abject horror on his face.
Saïx had somehow been tainted by this Xehanort person, poisoned to become a piece of himself. How had that happened? How could he have let that happen? He had always told himself that Saïx had changed, that Saïx wasn't acting like himself, that Isa never would have been so cold and terse and unkind, heart or no heart. Isa had been sarcastic and biting and a little too dry sometimes, but he'd never been unkind, and Axel suddenly wonders how he could have ever thought Isa would just change that way of his own volition. He had seen the changes, and instead of trying to help his old friend, he'd simply resented him for his strange new attitude.
He presses the heel of one hand into his eye socket and exhales shakily. He had lied to Roxas, he had all but handed Xion to Xemnas on a plate, and he had forsaken his oldest companion when he'd probably needed a friend more than anything else. Light, he's gonna go down in history as the worst friend ever.
His food completely forgotten now (he feels kind of sick to his stomach, to be honest), Axel can't quite look at Sora in the moment. It's not Sora's fault, he knows the kid had nothing to do with it, but somehow he can't bear to look at those eyes that are so much like Roxas' now that he understands the full breadth of his own stupid mistakes. How much of everything that's gone wrong is in part his fault?
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It doesn’t mean he’s oblivious to when people are hurting around him, and as he watches Lea struggle with what he’s just been told and visibly wilt with the information, he feels a little bit of that hurt too.
Sora knows what he’s about to ask is probably a very pointless question. He’s just spouted a mass of quite frankly crazy sounding new information to Lea that the poor guy has no control over, most of it is bad news and more than a little unnerving. Seriously, who wants to hear that they’d been used by a shady, creepy old guy who’d tried to completely control them? It still gives Sora the serious creeps. He sits quietly, watching Lea’s reaction and honestly feels terrible to see him so bothered by it, even if he has no idea of the extent of the mental turmoil that’s going on inside his head. Sora has memories (well, Roxas’s memories really, he’s not sure if he can say that he’s the one doing the remembering here) of Axel saying that Saïx wasn’t all that bad and whether that’s true or not remains to be seen. He’d certainly not seen anything to support that but Axel had always tried to be fair towards him, which was something.
“Hey, are you okay?” He asks the pointless question gingerly, wanting more than anything to put a hand on his shoulder and offer a shred of comfort, but his instincts are telling him to keep his distance.
Of course he’s not. It’s such a dumb question. Lea won’t look at him, and Sora feels terrible. Getting all this bad news from someone who had quite literally stolen his best friend has got to be like an added sucker punch to the gut. It’s all so up in the air, Sora can’t even give him the assurances that everything will be okay because at this point, Sora doesn’t even know. The world’s been swallowed by a storm and he doesn’t know how he can fix things. Inside, he can’t escape the tiny, nagging feeling that there has to be some sort of connection, there are connections everywhere after all. But how can he go about proving it? And how can he make a distance.
“I don’t know if I can help, but I want to. If I can. ”
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He knows Roxas and Xion had hated Saïx with... well, as many fibers of their beings as may have been capable of such a thing, and there had been a part of him that hated that. With Saïx being the way he had become, though, he knew it was too much to ask for them to give him the benefit of the doubt. Isa had always been kind of a jerk, it was true, but Saïx had kicked that into overdrive, and he had set his lasers on the kids more often than not, and Axel had come to resent it. In doing so, he had come to resent Saïx himself, and... Light, had he just made things worse? Had there been a point before which he could have still saved him, brought back the Isa he'd known all those years ago?
Sora's voice cuts through his thoughts, and Axel glances up, something raw and bleeding in his expression even as he's trying to tell himself he can't actually be feeling this pain. He exhales sharply--it might have been trying to be a laugh--and shakes his head. No, he's... really not okay, not at all, but it isn't Sora's fault. If anything, it's mostly his own, and while he's been at least partially aware that his actions were to blame for what happened between him and Roxas, he had never realized that he'd wronged Isa along the way as well.
His food long forgotten now, Axel is quiet for a moment, then rubs his chin in thought before giving Sora a weary, half-forced sort of smile. It's thin and shallow, but he's trying.
"Kid, don't look at me like that," he says. "You didn't do anything wrong, okay?" He takes a deep breath and blows it up toward his hairline, then leans forward to rest his brow against the heels of his hands, his elbows on the table. "That's just a helluva lot of crap to process, and I'm not even sure I'm properly equipped to."
Though he guesses that if he feels this lousy with no heart to actually feel with, it's a small blessing. If he had his full range of emotions, he'd probably be 75% more of a wreck.
After a moment, he realizes something was conspicuously missing from Sora's story, and lifts his head again.
"What about Xion?" he asks. "You... said Roxas gave you all his memories in a dream, but... Xion was dead set on going back to your heart already anyway, is..." He still hasn't been able to find her in the room filled with sleep pods. Is she even there? Or... "Did she make it?"
BARRELS BACK IN HERE NOW I AM ALL MOVED AND IN POSSESSION OF A TAGGING BRAIN
Sora's so very serious about that part. He knows there's not an awful lot he can do or say to change the past - or Lea's future really- but if he can do anything at all to make it easier for him, he'll do it, and he'll do it with all of the enthusiasm and willingness that he he possesses. And then something occurs to him.
"Oh shoot, I didn't even ask. Is it okay to call you Lea? I mean, I'm still getting used to it myself, I can call you Axel again if you want to be Axel. Or Lea. Whichever you want, I know it was weird when people kept calling me Roxas before I knew who he was, and Roxas is Roxas, not me."
Does it work the same way for Lea and Axel? Hmm...
But then Sora gets asked a new question and it's his turn to be confused. He looks startled for a moment, then he frowns as he tries to rack both his memories and Roxas' and he finds... nothing.
"Xion?"
Who's Xion? He's never even heard the name before, there's not even a twinge of familiarity. He looks at Axel blankly, confused and at a loss to explain why. She must be important if he sounds so concerned about her.
"I'm sorry, I don't know- who's Xion?"
/o/
"Man, this time paradox crap is giving me a headache," he complains, rubbing his brow and shaking his head. "I guess bein' friends sounds like a way better option than the alternative, though," he says, giving a weak laugh. "You hit hard. I remember that very clearly." He looks kind of put on the spot when Sora asks about his name, though, and for once in his life, Axel legitimately isn't sure how to respond. "I... Uhm."
He's quiet for a long moment, then looks at Sora, something perhaps oddly sincere in his eyes, and shakes his head.
"It... it's Axel," he says, and lifts a hand to stave off any potential rebuttal Sora might have in the moment. "For now," he amends, lowering his eyes and frowning at the table. "I'm not sure what I think about all this, but if you know that name, then what you say has to be true. The only others who would know that name... you wouldn't have heard it from them, so you must have heard it from me. Which means I do get my heart back at some point, and..." He hesitates, then blows out a sigh before lifting his eyes to look at Sora again. "That name... goes with my heart," he says, his expression grim for a moment before he breaks into his more trademark crooked grin. "Better wait 'til I deserve it, got it memorized?"
When Sora looks utterly baffled then, though, the grin fades almost instantly.
"Wh... whaddaya mean 'who's Xion'?" he asks, shaking his head. His tone isn't angry, it's just completely flabbergasted. He searches Sora's eyes for any hints of deception, but he already knows there won't be any. Sora probably couldn't lie if his life depended on it. "She's..." Axel's voice just kind of fails him for a moment as the gears in his head turn. He knows, he realizes. He knows why Sora doesn't know who she is. Xion was created to be the vessel for Sora's memories of Kairi. She was literally made of Sora's memories. It only serves to reason that once she became a part of him again, those memories would reintegrate and... essentially disappear.
He just hadn't actually expected that to actually be the result, he guesses. Why... why does his chest feel so tight all of a sudden?
\o\
One can banish the heart from the body, but the body will try to replace it the first chance it gets, for as many times as it takes.
Axel has a heart. They all had hearts.
Someday he'll tell him that, he wants to tell him now but with everything else Sora's throwing at him today, would this be too much? Would Axel think it all just too good to be true and laugh in his face? Sora doesn't want that. He doesn't want Axel to think that he's laughing at him, he wants him to trust him. Sora nods quietly before he answers.
"Okay. Axel it is then. But I think you deserve it now, for the record."
But then it comes back to Xion again and Sora doesn't know what to do. Axel's flummoxed, he's looking for answers that Sora just can't give him and the look on his face... His own chest aches and he feels his head pounding for a second but it doesn't help. He doesn't know who Axel's talking about.
"I'm really sorry," he says, and his voice feels tight in his throat as he speaks; his tongue feels too thick and clumsy and he can't for the life of him figure out why. "Axel I don't know any Xion. I- huh?"
Something hot slides down across Sora's cheek and his fingertips come up to brush against the path of the tear that's just fallen from his eye.
\o/
"No, it's..." His eyes flick to Sora's briefly, then away again. "It isn't your fault," he says. "It's kind of a complicated situation, but... I mean you didn't do anything wrong, so you don't have to apologize."
He makes a mental note, right then and there, to write down everything he can think of about Xion as soon as he can procure a notebook or something. Technology can be wiped. Memories can be wiped. But if he writes it down on paper, that won't disappear of its own accord. That way, if time marches on toward the future Sora is from, maybe Xion can still be a part of it, even if it's only in the pages of a book.
Sora makes a confused sound then, and Axel looks up at him again, then gives a start.
"Are you--?"
He watches the kid swipe a tear from his cheek, and then he just stares at him for a moment. Maybe... maybe there's a chance that Xion hasn't completely disappeared from the future after all. If she's gone back to Sora's heart, maybe memories of her are still there, somewhere, locked away like hidden treasure somewhere in the depths of Sora's subconscious.
Ugh, this is all so confusing.
Axel shakes his head, quickly this time, like he's trying to clear it, then sort of waves a hand at Sora.
"Hey, come on, don't... do that," he says awkwardly, and then ventures a hesitant sort of smile, pulling at the back of his neck. "I never know what to do when people cry." He blows a sigh up toward his hair, then holds Sora's gaze for a moment before looking down at his hands. "I'll tell you about her," he says. "Sometime. Not... not right now." He's still reeling from Sora's side of this whole insane story. "But sometime." He looks up again. "She wasn't really supposed to be here," he says, frowning. "Like all of us Nobodies aren't really supposed to be here, I guess. But she was here, and... she's still here." He taps his temple. "So even if no one else remembers, I've still got her memorized."
For now. And with luck, forever; he's absolutely buying a notebook somewhere, come hell or high water.
no subject
He points at the coat, then uses his free hand to roughly gesture at her height as he sniffs, a side effect of his unexpected waterworks.
"But the thing is, she looked just like Kairi used to, only her hair was black. She looked... she looked really sad, like she wanted to say something but she couldn't, and then she ran from me again."
He looks at Axel carefully, trying to work out whether or not he's about to laugh at how dumb it all sounds.
"I don't remember ever meeting her before. I mean, I definitely met you and Xigbar and the card guy and that kooky water guy and the guy with all the spears and Saïx and of course Roxas, but I never met her. I'd have remembered, right? If I'd met another girl who looked just like Kairi."
Sora hasn't made the connection yet, and maybe he won't, but as it stands, he pinches the bridge of his nose and shrugs.
"Man. I'm gonna get a headache trying to work all this stuff out. Things always gotta be confusing, huh?"