[KH] The Thirteenth Changeling, ch. 4 (Stash ver.)

The Thirteenth Changeling, a Kingdom Hearts fanfic by Raberba girl
The Fourth Day

A/N:  This was my first time writing Xion, and she kind of came off as an annoying wimp...but I did a much better job with her in Christmas at the Castle, so don't think that this is the only way I'm going to be portraying her in my writing.

Shoes squeaking fiercely on a gym floor; sweat-soaked bangs getting in his eyes; fighting hard to keep the ball away from his opponent.  Dodging, dribbling, split-second decision, going for the shot as delighted screams from the watching girls pierce his ears....

"Not again!"

"Heh, I win.  Ice cream's on you again."

"Grr!  Why are you always better at everything than me?!"

"I dunno.  Maybe 'cause I'm made of awesome?"

"Aw, knock it off!"

Watching a sunset, salty sweet taste on his tongue, best friend at his side, everything supposed to be so perfect, and yet the constant gnawing at the back of his mind...restless, stuck here, have to get out, have to see the world....

"Hey, Riku, I met this girl...."

Playing basketball alone.  Why am I alone?

Sora?  Sora

Not Sora.  This boy staring at me with lifeless eyes, Sora's parents acting like that complete stranger is their son.  He's not Sora he's not Sora he's NOT SORA why won't anyone believe me--

He's gone.  He's gone.  Where is he?  This isn't what I wanted, this can't be what he wanted, someone help me, someone tell me where....

It's real.  Faeries are real.  Faeries are freaking real, and...they're monsters.

Get rid of this guy, have to kill this thing that isn't Sora...can't do it...can't kill it when it's staring at me like that....

Get rid of it...shove it through the gate, back where it came from....

Disappear.  Give my friend back, and DISAPPEAR.

Roxas jerked awake, breathing hard and chilled with sweat.  For a minute, he could not move.

Then he cautiously eased out of bed, forcing his legs to stay steady enough so he could stand.  He pressed a hand against his heart, feeling as terrible as if he had lost Hayner, Pence, and Olette...really lost them.  As if they had been kidnapped or something, yanked out of his life without a word of warning or explanation.  The impulse was too strong to resist, and Roxas started dialing their numbers even though it was not much past five o'clock in the morning.

Hayner snarled something unintelligible at him and hung up.  Pence did not answer.  Olette did, though she sounded groggy.  "H'lo?"

"Hey, Olette?  Olette??"

"Mmm...ah...Roxas?" she mumbled.

"Olette, are you there?  Are you okay?"

"Ugh...what's up?" she said patiently, sounding like she was trying to make herself more awake.

"Olette...you're okay, right?  You're at your house?"

"Yeah...Roxas, did something happen?"

He felt ridiculous.  "Um...no."

"...."

"I'll see you at school."

"Roxas?" she said incredulously.

"I'm glad you're safe," he said, then jammed his thumb against the End Call button, wincing at his own stupidity.  "I'm being a paranoid idiot."

He lowered himself back down to the edge of his bed and just sat there for a while.  "They're okay," he murmured soothingly to himself.  "Nothing happened to them...."  He sighed.  "Except that they're being seduced to the Dark Side or whatever."

He began to remember his dream in more detail.  "Wait...wait a minute - that was a Sora dream!"

He was astonished at the realization.  All his other Sora dreams had been like fantasy movies, with Sora traveling to rejoin his weird battle companions in so many different worlds, fighting monsters and using magic and whatnot, then returning home at the end of the day to, of all places, the land of faeries.  This dream had been so different...Sora had still been definitely Sora, but he was just a normal kid, playing basketball in the real world and eating ice cream with his friend.

'His friend...Riku?'

Riku was the guy who had been watching him the day before, the one who might be that girl's boyfriend.  This time, Roxas had dreamed that he was Riku, not Sora.  "What is going on?!"

In the dream, Riku had lost Sora.  In the dream, Riku had been so angry....

"Faeries are...real?"  Roxas felt a chill.  "Faeries?"  Could it be possible?  Jewel-bright eyes, too pretty faces, magically appearing in classrooms, boys floating in midair....  "There's no way."  A violent shudder ran through him.  "There's...there's no...."

Roxas was early to school again.  He sat and watched the football team, mentally daring any of the new students to come near him.  Sure enough, at one point he looked over to see Axel standing on the other side of the bleachers, watching him.

Their eyes met and held for a while.  Then Roxas tilted his head inquiringly, prompting Axel to sigh, grin a little sheepishly, and amble over to sit next to him.

For a while they did not speak.  Then Roxas laced his fingers behind his head, lay back on the row behind him, and asked the sky, "Are you guys faeries?"

Axel scoffed.  "Why in the world would you say that?"

Roxas's eyes slid toward him.  "You hesitated."

"You're trippin'."

Roxas abruptly sat up again and turned his full attention to the boy beside him.

Axel, unexpectedly, was regarding him with a faint smile.

"Don't look at me like that," Roxas said harshly.

The smile did not falter.  "Roxas.  You got something you wanna tell us?"

Roxas felt a sudden stab of fear.  "N-No."  He leaped to his feet and backed away.  "I'm not cooperating.  I don't care.  I don't wanna know."

The smile faded.  Axel's eyes now looked old, far older than a teenager's should have any right to look.  "You can't run forever, Ven."

Roxas felt something like panic.  "Stay away from me!"  His breath caught.  "Stay away from my friends!"  He turned and headed at a fast pace toward the building where his first class was.  'Roxas,' he chided himself, 'why did you lose it?  What the heck?  He didn't even say anything worse than normal, and you're acting like an idiot.'

He was so busy trying to pull himself together that he collided with someone.  There was a feminine gasp, and papers went scattering across the floor.  Grumbling, Roxas automatically crouched down to pick them up.  When he raised his head, he found himself staring into a girl's face.

She stared back at him, her movements frozen.  He finally recognized her - Xion, a weird gothy kid who always ate by herself in a corner of the cafeteria and skulked at the back of classrooms, apparently trying to pretend she was invisible.

"Um...sorry," he mumbled.

"It's okay," she whispered back.  Their eye contact broke.  She took her things back from him and practically fled.

He watched her go with a frown.  Her eyes...the same brilliant sapphire as his own, the same kind of inhumanly beautiful shade as the eyes of Axel and the others.  Yet he had never thought of her as a threat before (actually, he had never even thought about her at all until now).  Still didn't.  Something about her seemed...a little off, but she had been around far longer than the creeps had.  She also did not act like she was hunting him or playing a game, she was just as mousy as before.

"Whatever."

Roxas restlessly wandered the school, suppressing the urge to flip off anyone who looked at him.  Eventually, Olette arrived with Saïx, and Pence came in with Demyx, and Hayner sauntered in laughing about something with Luxord, and off they were to another school day, another round of weirdness that seemed like it would never end.

"So, what, you and Hayner broke up?" Roxas asked Larxene pointedly as they were lounging around during homeroom.

She glared at him.  "I am not talking to you, you little creep."

"That's my line," he replied bitterly.  Sighing, he looked over at Olette, who was drawing something on Saïx's palm; at Hayner, who was exclaiming over the card game Luxord had started with him; and at Pence, who was arguing amiably with Demyx over song lyrics.

"I'm telling you," Pence insisted, "they had to alter the line in order to avoid arrest during the social turmoil of the Reformation--"

"But it doesn't make any sense now!  Sticking a line about computers into a song about dragons and flowers...."

"That's because the whole thing is an anti-government allegory, except the only part anyone picked up on at the time was the line about 'storming the castle wall,' so they rephrased it in hacker terms because only a fraction of the population would recognize it back then."

"Dude, stop being so smart, you're throwing off my groove."

Roxas rolled his eyes.

History was a free period to work on their projects.  Roxas rebelliously did not move when they were given the assignment, but merely sat in his seat, waiting.  Hayner, now obsessed with Luxord instead of Larxene, did not even glance over at him.  Eventually, Zexion came over and set down a stack of books on his desk.

Roxas looked at them with disinterest.  "Hello, partner," he mumbled resentfully.

"I picked up some research materials," Zexion explained, sweeping his arm over the books.

"That's great," Roxas droned.

Zexion paused, then leaned his chin on his hand thoughtfully.  "Axel said that you asked him an odd question this morning."

A hot feeling came over Roxas.  Taking the top book from the stack, he opened it, took hold of one of the pages, and slowly tore it out, watching Zexion defiantly.

The other boy frowned, disapproving.  For a long moment, their eyes met in challenge.  Then Zexion sighed, took the injured book out of Roxas's hands, and ran his finger along the edges of the torn page.  "I changed my mind.  We ought to use the Internet for research instead."

Roxas barely heard him.  He was too busy staring as the page seemed to mend itself in the wake of Zexion's trailing fingertip.  "Y...You just...!"  Wildly, he looked out at the others without thinking, then froze.  They were all watching him.

Xigbar idly spread and bent his fingers - which seemed to curve in the exact opposite direction, as if they were being reflected in a mirror.  Xaldin made a small gesture, and every paper on his desk suddenly swept to the side, as if caught in an indoor breeze.  Lexaeus touched the surface of his desk so that the area under his fingertip turned to stone.  Saïx's eyes changed color from sea green to freaking gold; Axel, grinning, suddenly seemed to have a handful of flame that did not burn him at all.  Demyx, also grinning, cupped his hand so that water began filling his palm out of nowhere.  Luxord's cards were dancing between his hands without him touching them, and Marluxia was suddenly trailing pink flower petals with every movement.  Larxene twirled a knife through her fingers that seemed to crackle with visible electricity.  Somehow, the entire rest of the class, including Hayner, Pence, and Olette, seemed completely oblivious to these impossibilities.

Roxas lurched to his feet, his ears ringing from the sound of the chair legs scraping across the floor.  Oh, and now everyone was staring at him, as if he was the weird one instead of the freaks all around him.

"Roxas?" Hatsumoto-sensei said questioningly.

Roxas stumbled for the door.  "I feel sick."

"I'll escort him to the nurse's station!" Axel's voice rang out in a sing-song tone.

"Stay away from me!" Roxas shouted.  He practically fell into the hall outside.  He thought he was running, but he kept tripping, and he seemed to be moving way too slowly for that.  He managed to make his way outside.  'What was that what was, faeries, no, magic, can't be, so impossible, I'm normal I'm human I'm not like them....'

He did not go to the nurse, of course.  Scared as he now was of Vanitas, he did not want to be out in the open.  He eventually ended up near the soccer field, where he slid down the outside wall of the gym and watched players getting bossed around by their coach.

He stared at them without seeing them.  Gradually, he noticed that he was not alone.  He looked over to find that girl, Xion, huddled a little farther down the wall, looking miserable in her P.E. uniform.  He studied her for a minute.  "Why aren't you on the field?" he finally asked.  He did not want company right now.

Her eyes slid nervously toward him, then away.  "I...I wasn't feeling well."

"...."

"...."

"Why aren't you at the nurse's station, then?" he finally asked.  Without waiting for an answer, he added thoughtfully, "I feel awful.  I'm not at the nurse's station.  We're two of a kind, aren't we.  Sick people in the wrong place.  People can't do impossible things.  Normal people can't."  He looked at her.  "Do you believe in fairies?"

At last she stared at him full on, her eyes wide.  "F...Fairies?"

"It's impossible, isn't it," he said, as if agreeing with something she had said.  "Fairies don't exist.  They're not real, just make-believe."

"Oh!"  The noise she made sounded like she had been hurt.  "Don't say that.  Please don't say that."

Roxas frowned, confused.  "What?"

Her next words were spoken in a shame-faced whisper.  "I've believed in fairies all my life."

There was a silence.  Then Roxas matter-of-factly got up, dusted off the seat of his pants, and started to leave.  "Drop by my history class, then.  You'll love it there."  Even though he did not look at Xion as he walked away, he could feel her uncanny eyes staring after him.

The jittery feeling did not leave him until he had walked twice around campus, been caught by a teacher, was chewed out for skipping class, and dragged to the principal's office.

Then his senses suddenly sharpened as if he had walked onto a battlefield.

Xemnas smiled at him from behind his desk.  "Well now, Roxas.  Playing truant, are we?"

"...."

"I understand that my charges made some unwise displays earlier, in your history class."

"What do you people want?" Roxas growled.

"What do you want, Roxas?" Xemnas countered.  "To be trapped in this town the rest of your life?  To live out your days unfulfilled, empty, your memories lost?"

"You're not making any sense," Roxas said through gritted teeth.  "My life was fine before you guys showed up.  I was...happy."  He had not really felt happy at the time, had not realized how good he'd had it before.  Yet now, his old, uncomplicated life seemed irresistibly appealing.  With all his heart, we wished he could go back.  "Who are you people?"

Xemnas simply regarded him for a while.  Roxas squirmed.  Then the principal smiled and said, "Are you truly being honest when you say you don't miss your past?"

Roxas had the distinct feeling that Xemnas was referring to an entirely different past than the one Roxas actually longed for.  "Let me go."  It came out more imploring than he had intended.

Xemnas laughed, but then he said, "Very well.  Go on home, Roxas.  I see that you are feeling unwell.  I hope that you will return tomorrow refreshed and...ready for school."  He seemed amused.  Roxas felt resentful, but was not about to turn down the opportunity to escape.

He edged out of the office and then headed off campus at a brisk walk.  He could not believe that he had been let off the hook so easily, that Xemnas had just let him go home like that, but....  Well, he would take what he had for now, and deal with the consequences later.

He was being watched again, but the sensation of his flesh creeping made him think that it was neither the beautiful girl nor Riku this time.  Roxas looked around, and was horrified to see Vanitas, lounging in the shadow of a building with those scary golden eyes fixed right on him.

"You ever see him again, you run, got it memorized?"

Roxas stood frozen for a moment longer.  Then he fled.

Mistake, mistake, it was a mistake.  Vanitas's laugh rang out behind him, wild with delight.

'No, no, no...!'  Roxas veered away, but it was no use, Vanitas had given chase.  Within seconds, he was suddenly in front of Roxas, with a speed that was clearly inhuman.  "Don't--!"

Roxas's cry was cut off as Vanitas seized and dragged him out of sight behind the corner of a building.  "You can't kill me here, people saw you grab me, you're real easy to identify, the police will--"  His frantic babble was choked off as black-gloved hands tightly encircled his neck.

"You are so ir-re-sist-able."  He squeezed harder.  For Roxas, each breath was a battle.  Then the fingers unexpectedly loosened, though they did not release him entirely.  "I want to kill you so bad," Vanitas said longingly.

"Why?" Roxas managed to ask.

"Well.  It'd make Terra mad, you know.  He's the one that did this to me."  Then he smiled.  "And it'd just be fun."

'If this Terra guy is his enemy, then he might help me,' Roxas thought.  "Ter--!" he started to shout, as if he could actually call someone up just by speaking their name.  The black grip choked him off again.

"Nah ah ah, not yet.  This would be a pretty awkward scene for my old master to walk in on.  Heh, especially considering that he's off following my false leads half a universe away from here."

'Can't talk him out of this,' Roxas realized.  'Have to fight.'  His hands clenched into fists, as if he held a weapon.  'Fight with...fight with what...?'  It was getting hard to think.

"Sora!"

Vanitas turned toward the shocked cry.  Roxas fell to his knees, coughing violently as he gasped for air.

"...Sora?"

A young woman stood at the other end of the alley, staring at them in amazement.  Her eyes were a getting-way-too-familiar shade of sapphire, her gauzy blue clothing very beautiful but of a strange style that no normal person would wear out on the streets.

"Help me," Roxas croaked at her.  Then, belatedly realizing that he had just asked a girl to confront a murderous psycho, he amended, "Run away."

The woman frowned at him.  "You...you look familiar."  Her eyes widened as they took in his condition, then darted back to Vanitas.  "Sora, you did this to him?!"

"Stop calling me that," Vanitas snarled.  "I'm NOT Sora - I never was."  A weapon suddenly materialized in his hand, and he lunged at her.

Roxas watched, horrified, but the woman seemed completely prepared.  Her own hand was filled with a flash of light and then a similar weapon, which she easily brought up to block Vanitas's attack.  They fought briefly in the cramped space, and Roxas was astonished at how well she held her own.

Then Vanitas pulled back, floating in the air again as he gazed down at them in disgust.  "Master's calling me...."  His eyes narrowed.  "I'll be back for you, Seelie girl."  Then he vanished in a swirl of darkness.

Roxas warily watched the young woman's approach.  She came to a stop before him, staring as if he was a ghost.  "Roxas?"

He blinked.  "You...know me?"  He blinked again.  His head was starting to hurt, like things were sliding around inside it.  "I...I know you...you're...."  Sudden pain stabbed through his skull and he cried out, clutching his head.  "Aqua!" he gasped.  "Aqua!"  She had looked after him, taught him how to take care of himself.  She was the only thing he had known back then, and he had clung to her as if she was his mother until...until....

"You left me," he choked out, his voice nearly a sob.  "You told me...you told me I would never see you again, and you left...."  It did not make sense.  He had lived in Twilight Town all his life, hadn't he?  Why was he suddenly remembering his arrival here, mere months ago?  How could he have forgotten her so completely until now?  "Aqua!"

She reached out, a compassionate expression on her face.  Her touch seemed to soothe the pain.  "Roxas...I'm sorry.  I was commanded to care for you when Naminé brought you here, at least until you were able to survive on your own.  But I could not stay, you were never my true charge.  For her sake, I did what she asked for a little while, but my job is to protect her and her sister, not you.  You are...my enemy."  Her voice was sad.

"You made me forget," he accused tearfully.  "You...you erased my memories?  You erased my memories?!"

Her gentle touch turned firm.  He gasped and tried to pull away, but could not.  "Yes.  I'm sorry, but I must alter your memories again."

"Please, no!  Aqua, you can't...."

Her conflicted expression was heartening, but in the end she said, "I will not make you forget completely again...but I am not part of your life anymore, Roxas.  From this moment, you will rarely think of me, if at all.  That time is long distant."

"Aqua--"

When he opened his eyes, he was lying on the ground.  He must have passed out for a few minutes.  Gasping as memories of Vanitas's attack came flooding back, Roxas scrambled to his feet and found that the woman who had saved him was still nearby, watching him.

He stared at her.  "You look familiar."  He frowned, trying to remember.  "Do I know you?  I do, don't I?  I met you before, a long time ago...."

She gave him an appraising look, then straightened and said in a clipped, formal manner, "I am called Aqua.  I am captain of the Seelie royal guard, and I was summoned here by my mistress, who has been missing for some time.  Tell me, do you know where I can find the Lady Naminé?"

Roxas stared at her.  'Perfect.  She's nuts.'  He paused.  'Though if she's crazy, then I must be, too....'  Considering that he recognized both the names Aqua and Naminé from his freaking dreams.  "Um," he said out loud, "no...sorry."  He added awkwardly, "Thanks for helping me."

She bowed.  "It was my duty."  Then she raised her head and spoke again, her voice softer and no longer sounding like she was reciting memorized lines.  "That creature was not our Hero of Light - he was clearly Unseelie.  You must beware of him in the future, mortal."

"Believe me, I'd like nothing better."

She studied him a minute longer, then nodded.  "Very well, then.  I will resume my search.  Farewell."  She strode past him into the street, where Roxas watched her pause, look around, then suddenly change appearance so that she was wearing a blue sundress and no longer stood out so remarkably.

"Yup.  I'm definitely going crazy."

To be continued....

Author's Note:  Sorry for the erratic spellings of the words fairy/faery/Faerie/etc.  I have a reason for each and every one of them, but the explanations are really long and boring, and they're not even important enough to go into, anyway.