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The Twilight Alliance - Part 2

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The Twilight Alliance
Chapters 1 to 3 can be found here: oceanred.deviantart.com/art/Th…
Epic Fanfiction Challenge
Kingdom Hearts
WIP
Chapters: 6
Total Word Count: 19,360
Words To Go: 30,640
Chapter 4 Word Count: 3,409
Chapter 5 Word Count: 2,832
Chapter 6 Word Count: 3,039



Chapter 4 - Master of Deceit

Clink, went the empty glass on the smooth, polished wooden counter. Minuscule bubbles slipped idly down its cold side, collecting in a white, foamy pool at the bottom. It was quickly refilled, picked up again and drowned in one go.
Clink, went the empty glass on the smooth counter, once again.
He shifted on his stool, and the old wooden slats it was made of groaned uncomfortably in protest. All around him, there was a general chatter arising from the other people sharing this room with him. Somewhere, there was the occasional clatter of dice being rolled onto a table, and sometimes, the odd clink of a cue hitting a ball. The entire atmosphere of the place was one of ease and good humour.
However, good humour was the last thing that he was prepared to feel right now. He felt the smooth convex curve of the glass with his slender gloved hand, thinking.
"Can I get you another?" The barman asked, walking over to the stranger with a dripping pint glass in one hand and an old tattered towel in the other. He shook his head, still exploring the curves of his empty glass. "Well then, there is the issue of, em, munny, before you leave,"
The cloaked man nodded, leaning down to pull some coins out of his pocket. He placed them quietly on the table.
"Keep the change," He muttered as the barman greedily scooped the glittering munny up in a large hand. Then he stood up with a flourish, pulling his coat tightly around him, and strode out of the pub door into the rain.
It was strange, how everybody was always scared of him now. It was understandable - he always wore his long, black leather coat with its hood up, and he could never let anyone see his face. He hated having to hide this way, because it wasn't his nature. He wished he could have played for them and made them smile, but instead they scattered like terrified sheep whenever he was near. But if anyone saw him now...
Demyx cursed the boy who had destroyed his body. He cursed the way that he had been forced to fuse with a such a twisted being as a heartless, just to have physical form, and the way he looked now. The black tints at the end of his hair would have been easy to cover up, or just left alone, and the bright yellow colour that had turned his turquoise eyes spring green hardly had people staring wide-eyed at him. It was the way nobody could see his face because they would be able to see right out the other side of his head that left him hiding in the darkness.
He wandered down to cold streets, water splashing up his boots as he stepped in and out of puddles. All around him his element glittered; it fell relentlessly from the sky, and poured off the sides of buildings like a swarm of insects. A beautiful, glittering creature that flowed smoothly, everywhere, along every surface, subtly shaping its path. The melodious nocturne took a swift turn left, and a few streets later, reached the sea. It didn't stop there - he waded right in until the swirling black water was up to his waist. He briefly checked back to see if there was anyone else nearby, but it was nearly midnight and the beach was deserted. He finally pulled down his hood, letting his hair down. He had let it grow significantly since his time in the organisation, so the back was now long enough to tie back, and now he could no longer be bothered to gel up the top, so he'd let that grow too, and now it just hung loosely around his head. He didn't feel the need to have good hair if no one was going to see him.
He pulled off his damp gloves, stuffed them into his pocket and studied his hands. Behind them, he could see the ripples in the water that were emanating from him, and they created strange patterns on his chalky skin.
The alcohol hadn't helped his situation. If anything, he was thinking even more clearly than before.
He thought about his companions from the Organisation - Xigbar, Axel, Roxas. Where were they now? Had they, too, fused with heartless and were hiding their faces from the rest of the world? Were they alive, or dead? What if they were also standing alone, somewhere, in some other world, contemplating their pointless existence?
He thought about searching for them, but the truth was that he didn't know where to start. Would they be looking for him? Somehow, the musician doubted it. The only one who he was really friends with was Xigbar; and the old man probably had more on his mind than looking for Demyx. Axel would be lamenting Roxas's loss, because he was certain that the boy didn't exist anymore. The others didn't care - he knew that.
Where would they be if they were still alive? Demyx had chosen Port Royal because it was easier not to get noticed; because it was always raining at this time of year. He knew that it was even harder to hide in the daylight because of the way that the sun managed to make him even more translucent and glittery than he was in the dark. He thought briefly about which worlds were as gloomy as this one, or at least one whose residents wouldn't be concerned by a translucent man.
He summoned his sitar and began to play; a sad, slow melody that whispered out across the calm sea, reverberating against the high cliff faces that lay around the harbour that he was standing in. It bounced back, echoing in the silent night. It was a tune that Demyx had written just the other day - all his older songs had been cheerful to the point of annoying the hell out of the elder nobodies, but they didn't suit this cold, murky world. He smiled as he remembered one particular melody that nearly had Vexen popping a blood vessel. Then, irrationally, he felt his fingers change their rhythm and begin to shape a new song, or rather an old one. It was one that he hadn't written, but remembered from his years as a nobody. As his fingers danced across the strings, he began to sing the lyrics, at first quietly, but as he began to gain confidence, he sang louder. He threw his voice out across the sea, and would have thrown his whole heart into the song if he still had one. The rain, once so forceful, began to quieten down, and eventually stopped. The clouds parted, opening up the heavens as his audience. The sudden illumination shone down on him like a spotlight and it made his skin shine like a lantern. Then, as the song ended and silence returned, he heard clapping from a way behind him. He spun around, mentally kicking himself. How could he have been so stupid as to have made so much noise and completely revealed himself? He quickly threw up his hood in the hopes that the stranger hadn't seen the way he was shining.
"Amazing show!" The woman called, and Demyx didn't recognise her voice. He stayed put, way out to sea. "Are you a spirit?" The strange person continued. "Play another song!"  
"Are you drunk?" Demyx called back. "Or just mad?"
The young woman began to wade out to sea, and Demyx panicked. Since he'd waded out into the cold water, the tide must have risen significantly, but of course, he could float in the water so its increased depth didn't bother him. However by the time that this lady reached him, the water would go over her head and she would drown. Hopefully she would have enough sense not to go that far, but Demyx couldn't be sure. She had to have been seriously drunk to accept his strange appearance, so who was to say that she wouldn't just carry on walking towards her.
"Don't come any closer!" He yelled. "You'll drown!"
She blundered on regardless. By now the water was up to her waist, and she still had several metres to go. Fortunately, however, she seemed to notice that the sea was getting deeper and stopped.
"Sing me another song," She said, more quietly this time. "Please. Your music is beautiful. Why do you wait until the night to play? I've seen you here before,"
Demyx stared, surprised. He had no idea that someone had been following him all this time as he'd played in the sea.
"What do you want me to sing?" He finally asked, walking towards her for a few steps. He noticed her features for the first time - she was pale, angular, with long, waving blonde hair, which was dripping wet from the rain. He also noted that, strangely, at her side was sheathed sword. He didn't think that women usually carried around such weapons.
"I don't mind," She pulled her skirts around her, shivering. "Anything,"
He positioned his hands on his sitar, all the time thinking about what he should play. Eventually he decided on a song - another one that he'd written himself. As he began to sing, he felt himself relax. All the time, she silently stared at him with expectant brown eyes.
This wasn't so bad. Even if she hadn't seen his face, she would have noticed how the sitar was visible through his hands. And yet, she accepted him. She must have been very drunk indeed. When the song finished, he lowered his sitar and it dipped into the calm water, sending ripples out across its surface.
"What are you?" The lady said, and her tone of voice was almost accusing, so much that Demyx involuntarily took a step backwards. But her soft expression belied her voice. She sighed as Demyx did not reply. "I'll try again, then. What's your name?"
"Demyx," He replied, somehow trusting this odd woman. "Yours?"
"Elizabeth." She replied, walking a little closer. The water lapped around the bottom of her ribcage. "Now, about my first question,"
"I don't really know," Demyx admitted. "It's complicated,"
She smiled, the sort of smile that meant that she knew that there was more to tell.
"All right, then."
"I have to go," Demyx said.
"Where?"
"I don't know," He admitted, unable to find an alibi quickly enough.
"You don't know much, do you," Elizabeth laughed. "Are you one of the merfolk, then? You seem the type, but I never realised that they'd be transparent,"
"Yeah," Demyx lied, using her answer because then he didn't have to come up with one of his own. "Well, I'll see you around," He fell backwards, dipping smoothly into the water and disappearing beneath the surface. As soon as he was under, Demyx opened a portal to the corridors of darkness, and fell through.
The wind picked up again, and howled in protest to the cold night air. Storm clouds gathered once again over Port Royal, and broke, spilling their load down in a torrential downpour. Darkness returned once the moon's light no longer shone, and the sea became a raging monster, swirling and crashing angrily onto the shore.

Demyx regained his balance carefully in the swirling darkness of the corridor, and wondered where to go next as he pulled his gloves back on and let himself dry off. Perhaps now wasn't the best time to start looking for the others, but he had to have begun at some point. Where would one of the others most likely be?
He opened up a portal leading to Twilight Town, and stepped through. It was unlikely that he'd find Axel here, particularly at this ungodly hour, but it was an idea. He couldn't care less whether the pyromaniac wanted to see him or not, because he needed someone to talk to about being... whatever he was.
Perhaps, if he found one of the other former nobodies, they would have answers. A disguise for their appearance. Or a way to reclaim their bodies or whatever they were missing now. He remembered, vaguely, Vexen or someone explaining to him what make up a person. There was the heart, controlling emotions and controlled by memories, which was what he had lost to the darkness so many years ago. What heartless - stupidly named though they were - essentially were, just hearts lost to the darkness. Then there was the soul, giving the person life and presumably a place to store the memories. Demyx couldn't exactly remember what a soul was for. And finally, the body - his body had been destroyed, when Sora killed him - which gave the person physical form. Not for the first time, he wondered why he wasn't dead. Surely, without his body, his soul should have just disappeared or gone to the next life or whatever. Why hadn't it? Because, if that was the case, then wouldn't there be hundreds of beings like him wandering around?
Perhaps the reason for him staying alive was that he needed something else to properly die - his heart. Maybe the whole point was that if you took away one of the three parts of a person, then it would throw off the entire balance and mean that the remainder couldn't live - or die - properly. Demyx walked the dark streets of twilight town, contemplating his theory. It was certainly viable, he thought.
He turned a corner, and saw a flash of translucent white disappear out of the corner of his eye at the end of the road. Confused, he followed it, turning another corner only to see a trail of fabric slip around yet another building. He broke into a run to catch up with, and ran out into the main square. To his right, the magnificent bell tower watched over the entire town, and beneath -
The ground was crawling with heartless, nobodies and another strange creature that Demyx hadn't seen before. They were nobody shaped, but a sort of black-but-white kind of grey and hollow, yellow green eyes just like heartless. They were translucent, just like him, and on their chests they bore an emblem that suddenly felt so familiar even though he was sure he'd never seen it before. He reached out to touch one, half expecting his hand to go right through it - but it skittered out of the way before they made contact. The assembly of creatures didn't seem interested in him; instead they were all crowding around the bell tower. Demyx stared up, trying to see what they were all so preoccupied with, and gasped as he saw the man standing on the top of the tower, perilously close to the edge. Demyx considered yelling at the man to get down, not to jump, to say at least something, but then he realised that it was just the person that he'd been looking for.
"Axel!" He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled the former nobody's name, wading through the strange hoard of creatures towards the tower. "Axel, it's Demyx!" He hoped that he would see some recognition in the other's face, but of course he was too far away. Could Axel even hear him from up there? He hollered his name once again, and suddenly the red-haired man had jumped from the tower and was flying through the air, literally. Axel seemed to have unfolded huge, shining wings from nowhere and were cruising down on them. He landed in front of Demyx and the wings disappeared without a trace.
"Demyx!" He exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
Demyx was trying to work out where the wings had come from.
"What did you do?"
"Oh, that trick - neat, isn't it? All the other nonentities had wings, so I figured it would be pretty lame if I didn't, so I took a jump off the tower, and sure enough, there they were. I can call them out whenever I like now,"
"Nonentities?" Demyx was saying, hardly listening to Axel's tale. "Is that what we are now?"
"Yeah - a soul fused with a heartless. King Mickey and his gang were here a while ago, and I overheard them talking about it. They don't know that the Organisation isn't as dead as they had hoped, though, but I think that they suspect it,"
"Right. I did wonder,"
"So where've you been?"
"Port Royal. God, it was awful. I hate having to hide myself from everyone," Demyx motioned to his face, where the folds of his hood were just about visible through him.
"Oh, that's the place Luxord went to, right?" Axel said. "Wait, you're actually alive. That means that all the others are! I didn't know if, you know, you properly died if you got defeated by a keyblade. Which would have meant that it would be just me and Vexen," He shuddered comically. "Have you found anyone else?"
"No, I hoped you would have done," Demyx admitted.
"I just stayed here. Considered looking, but who else is there apart from Roxas? And God knows what happened to him. Probably stuck inside Sora or something,"
"I hate that boy so much," Demyx snarled. "He thinks he's so good, but he's no better than the rest of us. Thoughtlessly killing us all, even when we're doing nothing wrong, does he think he's some kind of God or something? Deciding who lives and who dies? It's his fault that we're like this now,"
Axel looked surprised at his outburst; perhaps he hadn't realised Demyx's darker side.
"Woah, chill, man. He was just doing what he thought was right," Axel scratched the back of his head absent-mindedly, jostling the spiky locks of bright red hair there. Unlike Demyx, he had kept his old hairstyle right down to the two loose strands of hair that stuck out at his hairline.
"Maybe he should have thought a little harder," Demyx said, but most of his anger had subsided and his usual personality was showing through. "Sorry, Axel. I didn't mean to snap at you like that,"
"Nah, it's ok. I can understand why you'd be annoyed," Axel laughed. "Oh, just realised. Vexen is going to slaughter me if he finds me, for killing him,"
"You killed him?" Demyx was shocked. He hadn't got on too well with the cranky old scientist, but this news was surprising.
"They didn't tell you?" Axel was surprised as well.
"Nobody knew what happened at Castle Oblivion. We just got news that Sora had arrived, and then there was a break down in communication. Next thing that we knew, you were all dead, until you turned up about a month later, with not much to say about what had happened anyway," Demyx said. "It's always been a great, unsolved mystery."
"Oh. Well, of course I wasn't going to tell Xemnas all the gory details. Basically, Marluxia and Larxene were trying to take over the Organisation, and they needed Sora for their plan, but Vexen was going to reveal to Sora that he was being used. So, of course, Marluxia couldn't have that, and ordered me to kill the bugger. It wasn't too pleasant, but I had to keep up the appearance of being with Marluxia right until the end." Axel explained.
"Seriously? I thought that Marluxia was just your average nice guy," Demyx replied. They had wandered down another street and arrived at a dead end filled with boxes and an old, broken sofa. There was a scattered collection of odd memorabilia on an old table, spilling out onto the floor, of the group of friends that usually hung out there.
"He seemed to go through some serious personality shift when he went to Castle Oblivion. But that's hardly unusual, right? Us heartless people do it all the time. What people mistake for a personality is just all made up, isn't it?" He sighed sadly, brushing his fingers past on old photograph of the gang grinning manically.
"Yeah. I guess so," Even their fate was taking its toll on Axel, who never took anything seriously enough.
"Well. We'd better get some sleep, if we're gonna hunt for the others tomorrow. Come on, I'll set you up in the flat I've got downtown," Axel gestured for Demyx to follow him, and they wandered back off again, into the black night.


Chapter 5 - Catnap

"RIKU!!! WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING!!" Sora yelled, pointing with a shaking finger at the boulder spiraling towards them. The boy in question swerved, barely scraping past the flying rock.
"Don't distract me, Sora," Riku replied coolly, but there was agitation in his voice.
"Maybe I should have let Riku go first," Jiminy admitted.
"I said, don't distract me!" Riku yelled, turning around to shout at the little cricket. He had to spin upside down for a second to avoid a convoy of other gummy ships, and the others fell into a crumpled heap on the floor when he righted himself. "What turning should I take?" He exclaimed suddenly, noticing a junction up ahead. "Quickly!"
He turned right, instinctively, just as Jiminy pulled out his map and said "left,"
"Can I turn around?" Riku asked, looking back at the ships behind him and quickly dodging a couple trying to overtake.
"No, we'll have to go to a different world. I don't know which ones are down this way," Jiminy looked hard at his map. "We'll have to go to Pride Lands instead of Port Royal,"
"That's ok, I wanted to see Simba again anyway," Sora grinned.
"Sora, do you have friends everywhere?" Kairi asked.
"Everywhere I've been," He replied. "Anyway, we can go back to Port Royal, right? Check out the sightings of a transparent man there. It would be another one of the Organisation,"
"Yes, that shouldn't be too hard," Jiminy replied. "Riku, look out,"
Riku, who had been looking over his shoulder to listen to the conversation, turned back to find his vision obscured by a huge boulder. He tried to dodge, but there were too close.
"RIKU!!" Was the last thing that he heard Sora yelling before they went spiralling down, smoke pouring thickly out of the engine.

Sora tumbled out of the wrecked ship, coughing from the smoke and landing in a heap at the bottom of a small grassy mound of earth. Riku followed, stumbling outside.
"Riku, you're so stupid," Sora complained as he helped Jiminy and Chip n Dale away from the gummy ship. He looked around. "Where's Kairi?"
Riku looked around.
"She must have landed somewhere near here," He said, staring out across the grassy plains that made up the Pride Lands.
"We have to find her!" Sora said, panicked. "What if she gets attacked by a heartless or a nonentity? He still can't hold her own that well!!" He stood up, and began to yell her name in the hopes that she would hear.
"Wait a minute there, Sora! You have to change your form before you can go anywhere," Jiminy reminded him. "Did Donald show you how?"
"Yeah," Sora said, holding his keyblade high above his head. There was a blinding flash of light.

"How am I supposed to carry my keyblade now?" Was the first thing that Riku said as he studied his new form - a thick-set white lion who's mane flopped over his eyes. Sora - now a smaller brown lion, with his crown-shaped necklace still around his neck shrugged.
"I just fought with my claws last time," He admitted. "Come on, we need to find Kairi before she gets into trouble. Maybe we should go and see Simba; perhaps he'll be able to help,"
"Remember that she'll still be in her human form," Jiminy lamented. "We should find her before we talk to Simba,"
"Who's Simba?" Riku asked, confused, making Sora laugh as he slid down a steep slope onto more grass.
"He's one of my friends from this world," He explained.
"Do you make friends everywhere you go?" Riku asked, shouldering his younger friend into a ditch. Sora laughed as he got back up again and wrestled Riku to the ground.
"Come on!" Jiminy called up from the ground. He'd fallen off Sora's shoulder when the two boys had began fighting. "We need to find Kairi as quickly as possible!"
Sora quickly got back up, a sheepish expression on his face for forgetting his duty.
"She might have fallen into the jungle," He motioned to the vast forest of foliage about a mile off.  "Let's check there,"
"Sure," Riku changed direction to face the jungle, and began to run towards it, Sora following closely behind.

---

It was the perfect place to be - crowded with just the right kind of company, yet undisturbed by everyone else. It was a bright, colourful world, with more shades of green than you could shake a stick at, plus a myriad of other colours as well. Vines drooped lazily from branches of tall trees and flowers sprouted from every nook and cranny. Somewhere nearby, a waterfall splashed over rocks into a small, glimmering pool, and the occasional dragonfly would flitter past. Here, the fauna and flora came in every shape and size - it was a place so diverse that it could take years just to identify each species of moss growing on a single tree. And that was why he loved it so much. He'd found that in populated areas, despite their obvious benefits in the form of beds and good food, he'd had to hide from everyone because of his appearance; here, there wasn't a soul within miles to care about that fact that he was see-through. Sure, the diet (mostly fruits and nuts) had taken some getting used to, but now it had become a tiny haven to him; it was home.
Of course, having gone without seeing another person for the best part of two years, he'd had a lot of time to think - about himself, others around him, the things he'd done to people, the things that others had done to him - but in the end he decided that now that it was all over, it honestly didn't matter. The point was that somehow, miraculously, he was alive. He hadn't been grateful enough for his second chance at life, so he needed to be doubly thankful for this one.
It was another quiet, undisturbed day, the kind of day that he had come to expect. And yet, there was an expectant agitation in the flora that surrounded him, a premonition of sorts that something was about to happen. At about midday, he felt movement of a larger creature than just another bug. Leaves were being systematically pushed out of the way, and the creature only had one set of legs - yet it was too big to be a bird or a pesky meerkat. He took refuge, unseen, in the leafy trees and waited for the trespasser to arrive.
He was surprised to recognise the girl who came through into the small clearing, but there was no mistaking that face, so similar to Naminé's, and the shoulder-length reddish brown hair. He jumped silently down from his post.
"Can I help you?" He said, startling her. She swung around sharply to face him, gasping.
"I- What are you doing here?"
"I could ask the same of you," He decided not to reveal that he knew her name. After all, they'd never met before. She frowned at him, as if she was trying to act strong, but her stance showed that she was ready to run if he made any unwanted moves.
"Who are you? One of Organisation XIII?" She must have noticed that his bare skin looked as though it had a strange mottled green quality from all the plants visible behind it. He smiled, however. Malicious though his intents may have once been to the keyblade bearers, he meant them no harm now.
"I was. I don't believe that we've met before," He extended a slender hand. "My name is Marluxia. I believe that you are Kairi,"
Kairi nodded, a little confused, but she took the hand and shook it firmly.
"Why are you here?" She finally asked. "Why aren't you with the others?"
Marluxia looked genuinely surprised.
"They're alive? It seems logical, I suppose, but I never thought that they'd join together again,"
"We saw Saïx at Hollow Bastion," Kairi told him. "He mentioned something about "we", I think. I thought that he meant that Organisation XIII was back together,"
"How curious. Perhaps they are. But they wouldn't want me in their new Organisation."
"Why not?"
"I betrayed them in a bid for power," Was there the tiniest hint of regret in the nonentity's voice? "Anyway. Are you with Sora and Riku? I don't sense them anywhere near,"
"No, the gummy ship crashed and we got separated from them." Somehow, despite his friendly demeanour, Kairi wasn't sure if she could trust this man or not. There was some part of her that was trying to tell her that he wasn't to be believed - but she wasn't sure how right that part was. After all, they'd never met and he seemed to be alright. And Saïx hadn't tried to hurt them at all, either. It seemed like the former nobodies had had a change of heart and had abandoned their evil ways. It certainly was an encouraging thought.
"Do you want me to take you to the edge of the forest? I know this area well, and it's all to easy to be lost for hours trying to find a way out," He gave another shy smile, probably one that wasn't used too often, to show that he meant no harm.
"Uh... If you could, that would be great. Thanks," Kairi let him lead the way, and he made his way nimbly through the leaves, occasionally holding overhanging branches out of the way for her or helping her over thick logs and roots that lay in their path. All the time, he was being helpful, but Kairi couldn't help but be suspicious of her, and that feeling at the back of her mind just wouldn't leave her alone.
"How far is it to the edge of the forest?" She asked, trying to sound conversational. Marluxia paused a little, eyes closed, face tilted up towards the thick canopy above them.
"Just a few hundred metres. We should be able to see the end soon," Marluxia held out another branch and Kairi ducked underneath his translucent arm.
"Ok. Thanks."
"Anything else?"
Kairi let out her personal anguish, preparing herself to run if he didn't react well.
"I can't trust you. There's something inside me that's screaming at me, telling me that you're going to turn around and do something to me and-"
He interrupted.
"Naminé?" He laughed. "I should have guessed that you'd be in there somewhere,"
In spite of herself, Kairi responded to the name. And yet, what Marluxia was saying didn't make any sense. "Don't worry," He continued, looking at her but past her at the same time, as if there was someone behind her she couldn't see. "I've changed. I'll leave you alone once you've met up with the others,"
Kairi couldn't decide who he was talking to - but she was the only one there, aside from him. Perhaps living in this forest for so long had made him senile. Naminé was the girl that Kairi had met in the World that Never Was; her nobody and as far as Kairi knew, she was dead.  
"She lives inside you," Marluxia said. "Come on, we haven't got far to go,"
Kairi followed, confused. What exactly had he meant?
But then they were at the edge of the forest and she could see two lion cubs running in the distance, calling her name.
"That's Sora and Riku," Marluxia informed her. "Don't tell them I was here, ok? I don't want to cause unnecessary fuss,"
And then he was gone, indistinguishable from the dense world of plants behind her.
"Sora!" She called, cupping her hands around her mouth. The smaller lion, brown, with a scruffy spiky mane, turned around at the sound of her voice. The other one turned straight after, and they both bounded towards her.
"We thought we'd never find you," Sora exclaimed. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," Kairi assured him, ruffling his mane a little. "One of the forest's inhabitants led me out," She pointed back towards the jungle, but there seemed to be no sign of anyone having been there. She couldn't even make out the path that Marluxia had led her through.
"That's funny. I didn't think that anyone lived there," Sora said, tilting his head to one side in thought. Kairi led him away from the plants a little bit.
"It was one of Organisation XIII," She admitted quietly, because even though Marluxia had requested for her not to say anything, she didn't feel right keeping anything from her friends. "He's been living here for a while, so he offered to show me the way out,"
"Organisation XIII?" Sora exclaimed. " We have to go find him!"
"No, he said that he didn't want to cause trouble. He just wants to be left alone," Kairi tried to stop the energetic lion cub from entering the forest.
"Who was it?"
"He said his name was Marluxia," She said, and Riku frowned.
"That must have been one of the ones from Castle Oblivion," He eventually said. "Well, we shouldn't bother him if he's not causing any harm,"
"What if the rest of Organisation XIII are looking for him?" Sora asked.
"That has nothing to do with us. Let's just leave it for now, and carry on with the job that Mickey asked us to do,"
"Alright then. We'll go to Pride Rock and meet Simba now,"
"Wait!" Said a little voice and it was Jiminy, perched in between two clumps of fur on Sora's head. Kairi jumped.
"Oh, sorry, Jiminy. I didn't see you there,"
"Our gummy ship is broken, right? And I don't think that even Chip 'n' Dale will be able to  mend that damage. So we can't get off this world,"
"That's a point," Sora said.
"But we know that Organisation XIII can use portals, so maybe this Marluxia fellow can help us go to the next world, or back to Hollow Bastion to get our ship repaired,"
"Not yet, though. We need to rid this world of nonentities first, and anyway, it's not safe for us to use darkness corridors," Riku muttered, falling into step with Sora who was already making his way towards Pride Rock.
"No, of course. But it's a thought," Jiminy insisted. "Sora, you need to change Kairi's form," He deftly changed the subject.
"Oh yeah," The brunette lion carefully used the keyblade to change Kairi into a lioness. Finally ready to set off, they hurried away to the pride's home.  

---

Marluxia sensed a disturbance in the darkness corridors just as he was making his way back to his home. It was far too large just to be another pack of shadows, and it seemed to be somewhere near Pride Rock. He tried to ignore it, because now the Keyblade bearers were here and they could take care of it, but if it was one of those creatures from-
He shuddered, pushing the thought right to the back of his mind. Sora would be able to deal with it. After all, he had defeated him, the mighty Lord of Castle Oblivion. Marluxia felt his lips twist up into a wry smile as he remembered his old title. How far away from that was he now, living alone in an impenetrable jungle with nothing but the plants for company. Not that they were bad company at all, considering.
He felt a twinge of difference in the balance between darkness and light - the fight must have already begun. He imagined the battle between the Keybladers and the strange creature that he was sure they would now be facing. He had no idea what the weird translucent beings - he being one of them - were called, but something told him that they were more powerful than either heartless or nobodies.
Subtly but noticeably, the balance changed again and Marluxia knew that the Keybladers were one man down. Sometimes, he was grateful for his increased sensitivity to changes in light and darkness in a world, because now he knew who had the upper hand in battle. Right now, it wasn't Sora and his friends.
He dithered on whether to intervene. He still had his Organisation coat and boots somewhere, and perhaps he could just leap in and help without them knowing who it was. But it had been a long time since he had fought anything. He summoned his scythe experimentally and performed a few graceful sweeps, its blade slicing effortlessly through the air. Another slight shift, another Keyblade bearer unable to fight. It was time to take action - after all, he owed a debt to Sora for deceiving him so much in Castle Oblivion, even if the boy didn't remember it. He quickly donned his coat, pulled up the hoot and shoved the boots on over the top of his tattered trousers. That done, he opened a shimmering black portal and stepped through.


Chapter 6 - Reunion

After having spent so long without fighting, the art came back to him almost naturally as he leaped out of the portal, attacking the beast immediately. Kairi was already down, and Riku was in critical health. He threw a potion that he'd been keeping in his pocked to Kairi, and she revived and returned in with the fight. The huge translucent creature that they were battling with angrily swung around to face the new threat, and Marluxia hit it right between its glowing yellow eyes. It stumbled backwards, defense thrown off for a few moments, and Marluxia managed to throw a spell - a black arc which whipped out from the path of his scythe - before it regained its balance. It retaliated faster than he expected, and he was thrown back against the towering side of pride rock. He had to think fast if he was going to stand a chance of defeating the monster - even his strong attacks were doing little to lower its immense HP. He quickly rolled to the side as it threw a punch, and instead its fist hit the rock, denting it slightly, and making the whole structure shake with the strain. Sora was fighting back, but the creature was barely even registering him. Its eyes were focused on Marluxia alone.
It tried to punch him again and he barely dodged in time, ducking below its huge fist. He quickly ran away from the wall, towards the main body of the monster, and then leaped up onto its leg, attacking it with several combo shots before he fell back down again. Riku had rejoined the fight, and was taking the lead; Sora was staying out of its range and firing long distance spells until his magic ran out, when presumably they would swap around. The strategy seemed to be working - susceptible to magic, the creature's health was going down, but the short range attacks that Riku was throwing on it kept it too distracted to come after Sora.
Marluxia helped out by slamming shock waves into the ground, upsetting their opponent's balance. Whilst it was down, Riku managed to deal more damage to it by targeting its face. Marluxia noticed that Sora had run out of spells, so he continued the barrage with his own magic. Once Riku had taken over, he ran back to help Kairi, who was battling against a few heartless that the creature had summoned, but she seemed to be doing fine on her own; despite being physically weaker than the two boys, her speed made up for that.
Sora had been caught unawares by the monster, and after taking a particularly bad blow, his health had dropped to critical. Marluxia covered for him as they struggled to destroy the creature. Finally, however, Sora summoned one last fireball and it shuddered and toppled over. As it faded, the released heart and soul combined and moved on.
Marluxia dissipated his scythe and rested his hands on his thighs, breathing deeply.
"Marluxia," Kairi said, walking over. He looked up, surprised that she'd remembered his name so quickly - usually nobody ever could.  "Why did you come back?"
Marluxia coughed a little, and then stood. He was much taller than even Riku.
"You looked like you could do with some help," He shrugged. "I'll be going now, if you don't need me any more," He made the gesture to leave via a darkness portal, but Riku stopped him, expression guarded.
"Wait. Why did you intervene, anyway? Why did you help Kairi out of the forest?" He demanded, hostile and untrusting.
"I owe you a debt for what I did in Castle Oblivion, even if you don't remember it," Marluxia explained, but in truth, he wasn't quite sure if that really was it.
"Since when did you have a conscience? Sora was in a come for more than a year because of you!" Riku yelled angrily. Marluxia glared back at him, patience waning.
"Riku, calm down. He hasn't done anything wrong," Sora tried to stop the argument. Riku looked pointedly at his younger friend.
"Sora, you're so naïve. Don't you think it's a little suspicious? We keep running into unnaturally strong nonentities, when Leon even said that they aren't particularly strong. And then, suddenly, one of the former Organisation turns up and helps us out!"
"I promise you, this time I have no ulterior motives. I haven't even had any contact with anyone else since Sora defeated me," Marluxia tried to convince Riku.
"I defeated you?" Sora questioned, confused, but nobody answered him.
"Remember, he might be the only way for us to get off this world," Jiminy quietly reminded Riku. The oldest of the keyblade bearers looked carefully at the former nobody. Like Saïx, he was slightly translucent, and the tips of his hair were dark purple - presumably that ridiculous pink tinted with black. He was wearing his old Organisation coat, but the leather was crumpled and faded, with odd tears dotted over it. It fabric loosely off his body; it looked like he had lost weight since becoming a nonentity. His trousers were in an even worse condition than the coat, full of holes and rips.
"Don't you want to become human again, though?" He finally asked. Marluxia looked away, across the vast plains of this world. In the distance, he could just about see where the desert began.
"I've given up hoping that that will ever happen. I'm content with living out the rest of my years undisturbed,"
"Then why help us?"
"Because I have a debt to clear! Look, all this Q&A is very interesting, I'm sure, but I really ought to be going," Marluxia prepared to open a portal again.
"Wait, don't listen to Riku," Kairi interrupted. "Look, we need your help. If you could do us just this one last favour, we won't disturb you again,"
"What do you want?" Marluxia asked.
"We crashed our gummy ship beyond repair, so now we can't get out of this world. But you can use darkness portals. If you could take us back to Hollow Bastion..."
Marluxia contemplated it.
"Very well. Meet me here in an hour, I'll need to go and get some things,"
"Aren't you coming back?"
"If these creatures are on the loose, then you'll need all the help you can get to destroy them all. I'll help kill them independently from you. It's more interesting than waiting around in a forest, anyway," And then he was gone.
Kairi smiled smugly at Riku, as if to say "I told you so,", and Riku glared back.
"I still don't think we should trust him," He said. "After all, he was part of the Organisation,"
"Who's to say he can't have changed? He helped me out of the forest and again with the nonentity," Kairi replied.
"She has a point, Riku. Stop worrying. What's the worst that could happen?"
"He could abduct us," Riku suggested, earning evil glares from his companions. "Fine, but I can't help but feel like we're walking straight into a trap here,"

Marluxia returned with a bag stuffed full off odd bits and pieces.
"Hollow Bastion, right?" He opened up a portal, gesturing for the others to go through before him. "Be careful - there's a lot of heartless around in the corridors,"
Riku summoned his keyblade, Way to the Dawn, instinctively, preparing himself for the swarms of shadows that greeted them as they stepped into the murky, swirling darkness. Marluxia quickly opened another to lead them away from the strange place, and they stepped through into the blinding midday light of Hollow Bastion.
"Thanks," Sora said to the tall man beside him. Marluxia pulled his hood up so nobody would see his strange features.
"It was nothing. Good luck, Keyblade Bearers,"
He summoned another portal and slipped through. Soon only the faintest whispers of darkness where left where he had been.
"Weird," Sora said. "Why was he so helpful?"
"I don't know," Riku admitted. He had been sure that the nonentity had been planning something. He looked out across the road to the small parade of shops and house behind them. "Well, we'd better go and see Leon and Yuffie,"
"No need," Said a feminine voice behind them. Sora spun around to see Yuffie standing, grinning, on one of the town's defensive walls. "Why are you back so quickly?"
"Yuffie!" Sora called up to her. "Riku crashed the gummy ship and we couldn't repair it,"
Riku glowered in embarrassment at him, making Yuffie giggle. "It's at the Pride Lands right now,"
"Ok, I'll send Cid to collect it. He won't be happy," Yuffie jumped down and landed with a thump. She began to run off, and Sora, Riku and Kairi followed as she led them to Merlin's house, past the busy square in the centre of the town where all kinds of stalls were set up, and people were selling their wares. "It's market day today," Yuffie explained. Occasionally the Claymore system was activated, but the residents of hollow bastion weren't concerned.
As they walked in to the Hollow Bastion Restoration Committee's "secret hideout" (courtesy of Yuffie), they were greeted by Cid and Aerith.
"Where's Leon?" Yuffie asked conversationally. Cid wiped his nose.
"Got a problem in the castle, think it could be even more heartless. He went to check it out," He said. "Why are you guys here? Not that I ain't glad to see you, but I thought you were off fighting the nonentities,"
"Riku crashed the Gummy Ship," Sora was quick to snitch on his friend, who tried very hard not to be noticed as Cid stared comically angrily at him.
"I'll fix it for you on one condition - you never do it again, ok?"
"Kairi, you'd better be good at flying," Riku commented, and Kairi giggled.
"I can't be much worse than you," She teased, and Riku glared mournfully at her.
"Shut up,"
"You have to admit, though, you're even worse than me!" Sora grinned. "Thanks for your help, Cid. We owe you one,"
"You sure do. There's a spare gummy ship out the back," Cid returned to the Computer and continued to tap furiously on the keyboard.
"Oh, The King left a message. He'd like you to go to Twilight Town - apparently there have been a few sightings of the nonentities there,"
"Sure thing, we'll get to it. Come on, it's Kairi's turn now,"
Aerith led them to the flight platform where the gummy ships were being kept.
"Be careful," She said as they boarded one of the strange vessels. "Good Luck,"

---

"Y'know, I woulda thought that Xigbar would have gone to Port Royal as well, seeing as he's into the whole pirate thing," Axel was saying to Demyx. They were perched on top of the Bell Tower, watching over the whole town as it continued its business in eternal twilight. Demyx was wearing his full Organisation uniform unwilling to let anyone see him, but Axel was dressed more casually in a sleeveless beige shirt with white trim, loose scarlet arm warmers and black cargo trousers. They were whiling away the hours contemplating the whereabouts of the other members - for Demyx's sake, specifically Xigbar.
"Well, if he was there, he would have snuck by right under my nose," Demyx replied. His eyes followed the path of the little train as it chugged out of town to the beach. "Where else would he be?"
"I don't know.. Land of Dragons, maybe? He met Sora there, right?"
"Yeah. We could try, I guess." Somehow, Demyx doubted that he'd be there. It didn't seem logical that the place that he'd met the keyblader would be where he was now - but the Melodious Nocturne was running out of options. "But what if he didn't fuse with a heartless? He could just be a lost soul somewhere, wandering around,"
Axel looked thoughtfully across the horizon.
"It's a thought. But I think I just fused instinctively, without even thinking about it. Probably everyone else did as well," There was a pause in the conversation as each thought about the possibilities. Axel didn't like not knowing where everyone else was. It wasn't really because he was worried about them, because he'd never really been friends with anyone other than Roxas, and he knew right where the blonde boy was at the moment. In fact, it surprised him how glad he was to see Demyx; the musician might have been annoying but at least it was someone to talk to. The reason was that they probably knew how he'd betrayed them, and if they had grouped together again there was every chance that they were planning to move against him. He let his mind wander, thinking about Castle Oblivion and how he'd managed to double-cross pretty much every one of his accomplices; he wondered why, if they'd been alive all this time, they hadn't come back to get him.
"Hey, look, there's Sora," Demyx said, pointing to a trio entering the square. "And his friends,"
Axel snapped around to look at the new arrivals. They hadn't noticed them, and seemed to be bickering amongst themselves.
"Shall we go and say hello?" Axel grinned, turning to address Demyx.
"May as well. Perhaps they'll know where some of the others are," But Axel had already leaped off the tall building, and was soaring down to greet the keyblade bearers.

"Axel!" Sora recognised the former nobody right away as he landed in front of the three friends.
"Yo," Axel saluted, smirking. "Good to see you finally got it memorised," He laughed at some personal joke that Sora didn't understand.
"Why are you here?" He demanded, keyblade at the ready.
"Woah, woah, put the giant key away," Axel said, holding up his hands. "I come in peace. Honest. Just wanted to have a little friendly chat."
"Are you with Saïx?" Riku asked.
"Nah, it's just me and Demyx here," Axel motioned to his companion, who had landed unsteadily a few feet away. "Dunno where any of the others are. Did you want Saïx specifically?"
"We saw him at Hollow Bastion," Kairi said. "We thought you were all back together now, apart from Marluxia,"
"Flower boy? Where's he?"
"He was in the Pride Lands, but we don't know where he is now," Sora filled him in.
"Have you seen Xigbar?" Demyx interrupted, hoping for news.
"That's the guy with the eye patch, right?"
Demyx nodded excitedly, but Sora just shook his head apologetically. "Sorry. It's just you, Saïx and Marluxia."
"That's ok," Demyx said, trying to hide the disappointment in his voice. "It's just that we were looking for him. Well, if you do find him somewhere, tell him that Demyx is in Twilight Town,"
"Sure,"
"What are you doing in Twilight Town, anyway?" Axel asked.
"There were some nonentity sightings - that's you," Kairi explained. "So we came to check it out. You're not causing any trouble, though, and there aren't that many heartless or anything so we'll probably leave soon,"
"That's because here, they don't come out until the night," Axel explained. "When it's dark, whole swarms of them just appear, and start roaming about everywhere. They're wrecking havoc. Also a couple of times a really strong nonentity's come along, and we haven't been able to defeat it. It's like it's coming here specifically, though, which is weird. The others are more intelligent than heartless, sure, but they're not all that clever, or strong. But these ones-"
"We've met a couple like that as well," Sora interrupted. "One at Hollow Bastion, and one in the Pride Lands,"
"Perhaps there's someone manipulating them. Maleficent, for example," Riku suggested.
"There's an idea," Axel said. "Why didn't I think of that?"
"Because you're stupid?" Demyx ventured, ducking unsuccessfully as Axel took a swing for his head.
"Well, we'd better get going. We need to find Hayner and the others," Sora said, laughing as Axel and Demyx battled it out. "See you later?"
"Yeah," Axel grinned as the keyblade bearers walked off down another street in search of more of Sora's friends.

"Looks like they've all changed," Riku noted once they were out of earshot. "Maybe it really does have something to do with having a dormant heart inside them,"
"Demyx was very different," Sora noted. "He was really annoying before,"
"Just like you then," Riku teased, earning himself a punch. Sora was laughing, though.
"Don't you two ever stop arguing?" Kairi sighed, finding herself the peacemaker once again, just as they turned down another road, this one a little cul-de-sac. At the end Hayner and his friends were laughing and joking.
"Hayner! Pence! Olette!" Sora called, and they all looked up.
"Sora!" They all ran over to greet him. "And Kairi! So this must be Riku, right?" Hayner said, waving.
"Yeah. Riku, this is Hayner, Pence and Olette," As each name was said, each person waved so Riku knew who everyone was.
"We have some sea salt ice cream left. You want some?" Pence invited them to come and sit down as Olette got out the cool bag with the ice creams in. She gave one to everybody, and finally settled down with one herself.
"So what have you guys been up to? I never heard from you again after you went to that weird alternate Twilight Town," Hayner said, mouth full of ice cream.
"We went back to our home," Sora said. "But we gotta save the world again now, from the nonentities,"
"Are they those creepy transparent things that keep popping up everywhere?" Pence asked.
"Yeah," Sora said. "They're souls from nobodies fused with heartless,"
"Sounds complicated," Olette laughed.
"Sounds cool," Pence grinned, trying to help himself to more ice cream, but Olette swatted him away. "How long are you gonna stay here?"
"We'll probably leave tomorrow. Apparently all the heartless come out at night here,"
"That's right, there's always hoards of them around the bell tower," Pence said. "People say it's haunted,"
"Or there's a really powerful monster in there and all the heartless and stuff are drawn to its power," Hayner shuddered. "C'mon, let's finish those ice creams,"
Olette handed them all out as they talked and laughed together, wasting time away before the night arrived.
The Twilight Alliance
Chapters 1 to 3 can be found here: [link]
Last Update: 11.11.08
Chapters: 6
Total Word Count: 19,360
Words To Go: 30,640
Chapter 4 Word Count: 3,409
Chapter 5 Word Count: 2,832
Chapter 6 Word Count: 3,039



Finally got Chapter 6 done! The end of this came pretty naturally, so fingers crossed, I have my inspiration back! No idea what to write for the next chapter, though. :/ I might have Xemnas and Saix finding another Org member... who knows? I also need to put Maleficent in soon, because I need to get on to the main plot soon. D;
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Monartha's avatar
"Oh, just realised. Vexen is going to slaughter me if he finds me, for killing him," O RLY AXEL?

I am gonna comment here for a few more times, seems like it. XD

Well if you don't want me to repeat myself here, I'd rather just shut up about this one. Except for that Axel is epic.