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Chapter Text

"Heal! Heal! Heal!" came a soft, desperate voice under a dark hood as she tried to force the magic out.

Beside her, another hooded figure rifled through his pockets trying to find a potion, an elixir, anything that would heal the third figure in front of them.

The third figure lay motionless as dark wisps floated up off his body. He was already starting to fade.

It wasn't supposed to end up this way.

How could things go so wrong?

It started when Axel made the choice to be honest with them. Because of the mess of Sora's memories that were inside them, Xion and/or Roxas could cease to exist, and if there was some way they could stop that from happening, Axel was all for it. But to do that he'd need them to work with him, and they wouldn't be able to do that without all the answers.

Still, there were a lot of things Axel didn't know about how Xion was made, but it seemed like a good start to find out.

Breaking into Vexen's old lab was easy.

Finding out that the higher members Organization wanted Xion to fully absorb Roxas and made her like that on purpose was less easy to comprehend, but at least the notes included a method to stop the effect should the Superior change his mind.

Actually using the notes to stop it was tricker. Neither Roxas nor Xion had a scientific bone in their bodies, and Axel hadn't been to school in a decade and hadn't been the best student at the time either, but somehow, thanks to a dictionary, several double-checks, and a couple of leaps of faith, they managed it… they think.

Accidentally stumbling on Xemnas' notes for his actual plans for Organization XIII. His experiments with time travel and exactly how he was planning on inserting his own heart into all of them. That was harder to swallow.

Getting out of Vexen's lab with this information alive… That was starting to look close to impossible.

The rest of the Organization was just outside the room, flinging their weapons and powers at them through the door, and sending the lesser nobodies in to attack. As it was, the three of them had already exhausted their magic fighting back and were running out of options.

"How did they know we were here?" asked Xion as the three of them crouched behind an upturned desk that had once housed several beakers of who-knows-what chemicals. They were now all shattered on the ground around them, and they could only hope they weren't toxic or flammable.

"Musta been some security we didn't know about," said Axel standing up to launch his chakram over the desk at their attackers. "And with those notes, I can see why."

"They can't know we've found them, though!" said Roxas. "For all they know, we just walked in here and didn't see them."

Axel let out a snort. "Trust me, Roxas. They're paranoid enough not to risk it."

"WATCH OUT!" shouted Xion, and Roxas ducked just in time to avoid one of Xaldin's lances skewering him.

Axel made a strangled sound in the back of his throat at the sight, and said, "Okay, that's it. We're out of here!" He raised his hand and opened a Corridor of Darkness. "Go on, get through it!"

Both Roxas and Xion crawled towards the corridor, but in seeming to realize they were trying to escape, the rest of the Organization's attacks increased in earnest.

One such attack, from Xemnas if the red bolt was any indication, hit one of the experiments next to his time travel notes, making the experiment begin glowing ominously.

Axel knew a coming explosion when he saw one, and this one looked to be a doozy. "LOOK OUT!" he shouted, throwing himself over top of Roxas and Xion, covering them and tackling them into the corridor just as the experiment detonated.

All three of them cried out as the experiment rocketed them through the corridor. But Axel's cry was the loudest of all and sent a chill down the other two's spine as they recognized it.

It was a cry of pain!

The corridor dumped them out onto a cobblestone street.

Roxas groaned as he ended up on the bottom of the pile. "You okay?" he asked his friends.

"I'm fine," said Xion from where she was sandwiched between Roxas and Axel. "How about you, Axel?"

Axel didn't reply, nor did he make any move to get off them.

"Axel?" asked Roxas, worry creeping into his tone.

Axel let out a pained wheeze.

"AXEL!" shouted both keyblade wielders.

Scrambling to get out from underneath him without hurting him, the two were horrified to see the back of Axel's coat ripped to shreds and his back underneath it didn't look any better.

"Axel… no!" whimpered Xion at the sight of it. She quickly pressed her hands to the injuries. "Heal!" she said, trying to call on her exhausted magic to repair it, but the healing green glow didn't come.

"Heal!" said Roxas beside her, but nothing happened for him either.

Axel was hurt, and they had no way to heal him.

"W-We need to get help," said Roxas as he scrambled to lift Axel so his arm was around his shoulders, and Xion hurried to do the same on the other side.

"Help where?" Xion asked. "We don't even know where we are?"

Between them, Axel groaned and opened his eyes. "R-Radiant Garden?" he muttered.

"Axel?" asked Roxas hopefully.

"We're in… Radiant Garden," Axel slurred as he looked around with hazy eyes. "But… how? It was destroyed."

Roxas and Xion looked around at the world they'd landed in for the first time. Despite it being night, there was still something bright about the world. Flowers were growing all around, fountains babbled merrily in their ponds, and a tall ornate castle loomed in the distance.

"Pretty," Xion muttered distractedly.

"If you know this place, do you know where we can get help?" asked Roxas urgently.

Axel groaned and gestured vaguely in one direction, and the younger two hurried to follow it.

The three limped as best they could through the empty streets, searching for something or someone who could help them.

But there was no one there.

Finally, Axel pitched over as they walked through an alleyway, dropping out of both the younger two's arms.

They hurried to try and pick him up again, only to freeze as they noticed dark whisps were beginning to flake off of Axel's form.

"No, no, no, no, no!" said Roxas as he began searching his pockets for any healing items, and his eyes scanning the streets for a Moogle.

With a desperate gasp, Xion fell to her knees next to their friend and pressed her hands to his wound. "Heal! Heal! Heal!" she whispered desperately.

But it was no use.

As another wave of dizziness passed and knowing he didn't have much time left, Axel turned his head to look at them, and despite the pain, his eyes widened in surprise.

Roxas had tears streaming down his cheeks as he searched around them for any chests that might hold items or a Heartless he could kill for HP orbs, and Xion was still trying to heal him despite how her words had turned to sobs.

"You're crying," Axel said.

The two of them stared at him in surprise, both at the fact he was talking, and what he'd said, seeming to notice their own tears for the first time.

Their confusion grew even more when they saw Axel smile a bit at the sight of it. "Then you do have hearts," he managed to say. "Need hearts to cry, after all."

"Axel," said Xion in a broken tone.

"Just hang on," insisted Roxas. "We'll- We'll-"

"You'll be… fine," Axel managed to say. "Don't need me or the Organization anymore."

"That's not true!" Xion protested.

"Axel, don't go," said Roxas. "We still need to get you your heart."

Axel managed to let out a weak chuckle. "Funny… Spending time with you… made me feel like I had one…"

With that, Axel faded away completely, leaving nothing behind.

Xion let out a devastated scream as she sobbed, and Roxas surged to his feet, summoning his keyblade and attacking the trash bins and anything else in the alley in a rage of loss. Wishing the things he was destroying was Xemnas and the other Organization members.

IT WASN'T FAIR!

When his anger was finally abated, Roxas dropped back down next to Xion and wrapped an arm around her still shaking shoulders.

"He's gone," Xion whimpered.

Roxas hugged her tighter. "Who else are we going to have ice cream with?" he asked hopelessly.

"I don't know," Xion replied.

They stayed huddled there and miserable the rest of the night.

Meanwhile, in a house several blocks away, a boy with spiky red hair shot up out of bed.

"Roxas," he said breathlessly as ten years' worth of memories suddenly floated around in his head and showed him faces of people he'd never met. "Xion."

Another face floated through his mind. This one familiar, and yet not at the same time with an x-shaped scar and glaring yellow eyes.

Suddenly worried for his friend, the boy shot out of bed. "Isa!"

Chapter Text

Needless to say, Isa was not happy that morning.

Well, he was never happy that early in the morning, but this one was worse than usual.

"So let me get this straight. You had a bad dream and just had to wake me up to tell me about it," he said dryly as his best friend Lea paced in front of him.

Lea paused and scratched the back of his head. "Yes- No- I don't know. It just felt so real."

"You dreamed you were ten years older, an assassin for an evil cult, didn't have a heart but did have 'Awesome fire powers', and you were basically a father-figure to an amnesic kid and a puppet who both fought embodiments of darkness using giant keys, and all that sounds real to you?" Isa asked in disbelief.

Lea glared at him. "Hey! Don't call her a puppet."

Isa closed his eyes and sighed. "That's what you took away from it?"

Lea thought it over a minute, then added, "Well, I was more of a big brother than a father to them, but otherwise, that's pretty much right."

Isa couldn't hold back a chuckle at that. "Good for them. I'd hate to see how messed up they'd be with you for a father."

"Hey!" Lea squawked indignantly. His face then fell. "I just- I can't get this out of my head, ya know."

"Sounds like you got it memorized," said Isa, not taking it too seriously.

Lea shot him a dirty look.

Holding up his hands in surrender, Isa switched tracks. "It's not as if you can test to see if it was real."

Lea's expression lit up. "Hey! What if I can! At the end of the dream, it was hard to tell because I'm pretty sure I was dying or something, but I know the three of us ended up here in Radiant Garden, and I think I remember where. All we need to do is go and find them!"

"Didn't you also say Radiant Garden was destroyed before that, and it shouldn't have been possible you were there," said Isa skeptically. "That inconsistency really lends itself more to it being a dream, you know."

"Maybe, maybe not," said Lea, already heading for the door. "Can't hurt to go and look."

Isa stared after him as he went, then sent one last longing glance at his bed before sighing and following after him. "You owe me for this," he said as they headed out the door.

"You got it," said Lea as he led the way. "Ice cream's on me."

For the umpteenth time that day (and it wasn't even dawn yet), Isa stopped to stare at his friend. "Ice cream? For breakfast?"

Luckily, the weird duck guy who sold the ice cream apparently didn't believe in closing hours ("Why close ma' shop when more customers can come an' pay anytime?" he'd explained when Isa asked), and happily sold Lea four bars of sea salt ice cream.

"You're really going all out with this," Isa remarked as he carried the ice cream bag and followed Lea, who was trying to find the alleyway his dream-self had died in (now wasn't that morbid).

"Look at it this way, Isa," said Lea as they walked. "If I'm right, then there're two kids out there who think I'm dead and we get to cheer them up. If I'm wrong, we each get two ice creams. Win, win."

"Well, can't say no to extra ice cream," Isa had to agree.

Lea pointedly ignored the implication they wouldn't find the dream kids.

Finally, they reached the courtyard where Lea was pretty sure they'd first landed at the end of the dream. "Okay, it was around here somewhere."

Isa hummed in acknowledgment, looking like he was ready to be proven right and move on.

Retracing the hazy memory of his steps, Lea followed the last remnants of the dream until he was standing outside the alley where it happened and froze.

Isa stopped next to him and his amusement dimmed at the sight of his face. "You okay?"

Lea took a deep breath. "Yeah, just need… just need to psych myself up for this. I mean, even if it was a dream, I still, like, died here. That's… that's pretty freaky."

"We don't have to do this," Isa said in concern.

Lea shook his head. "Yes, I do," he said firmly and walked into the alley.

The first thing he noticed was that the alley was a mess. Dented trash cans and ripped apart bags were scattered around like some kind of fight had gone down.

It didn't look like this in his dream. Maybe Isa was right, maybe it was just-

Catching sight of a dark lump at the end of the alleyway cut that thought off in an instant. Closer inspection revealed it to actually be two dark lumps. Or rather, two hooded figures in long black coats huddled together.

Could it be…

Knowing he'd look really stupid if this just turned out to be some homeless people, Lea cleared his throat and asked, "Roxas? Xion?"

The two figures' heads snapped up and both looked at him, their faces impossible to see under the shadows of their hoods.

For a moment, no one moved as they all just stood there staring at each other.

Feeling uncomfortable, Lea opened his mouth to say something, but a pair of delighted cries rang out before he could.

"AXEL!"

As one, the two figures surged to their feet and tackled Lea in one of the tightest hugs he'd ever been in.

Lea, needing to be sure, reached up to tug off their hoods and took in the familair-but-shouldn't-be short black hair of Xion, and Roxas' blond spikes before hugging them back.

Neither of them even seemed to notice as they were bombarding him with questions.

"Axel, how are you here?"

"Where'd you go?"

"Are you alright?"

"We thought you died!"

"Did you shrink?"

"Whoa, whoa, one at a time," said Lea, feeling more than a little overwhelmed at the undeniable proof that his dream was definitely not a dream and the sheer amount of questions being asked.

Roxas reluctantly pulled back, but Xion hugged him tighter for a moment before stepping back too.

Lea tried to think of some explanation (even though he was still pretty lost himself), when the sound of a cough reminded him there was one more person in the alley with them.

Isa, who looked just as boggled as Lea was feeling that these two were, in fact, real, and gave them an awkward wave. "Uh, hi," he said.

Roxas scowled at the sight of him and moved to stand in front of Xion, who wilted when she saw him there. "Saïx?" she asked in a small voice.

Too late Lea remembered that Isa's cult future-self had been a real jerk to her.

"Not exactly," said Lea, stepping over to put his hand on Isa's shoulder. "This is my best friend Isa, and my name is Lea." He then flashed them his signature smirk and added, "Got it memorized?"

Xion frowned in confusion, but Roxas was still looking ready to fight Isa if he made one wrong move.

"Look," said Lea, hoping to smooth things over. "I'm not entirely sure what happened, but I woke up this morning with, like, ten years of memories stuffed in my head, a lot of them with me being this Axel guy, and I think… I think we all have a lot to talk about."

"Does it have to be with him?" asked Roxas reluctantly.

Sensing their hostility, Isa lifted up the bag he was holding as a peace offering. "I brought ice cream," he said.

The two keybearers exchanged a glance hearing that.

"Well..." said Xion. "Okay."

One long explanation later with all of them up to speed (hopefully), the four of them found themselves sitting on a high garden wall watching the sunrise as they ate their ice cream breakfast.

"I like sunsets better," Roxas remarked off-hand as they watched the sky grow lighter.

"So what do we do now?" asked Xion as she licked her ice cream. "Do we still need to go to Sora?"

Roxas scowled at the idea, and Isa still looked like he didn't fully understand that part of the future mess.

Lea, meanwhile, snorted. "Why would you?" he asked. "In this time, Sora's got all his memories. He doesn't need you or his Nobody to be whole, he already is. Heck, he's probably just a little brat that doesn't even have a keyblade right now."

Xion looked relieved to hear that. "That's good," she said. "I was okay with disappearing if it meant saving Roxas, but… I didn't want you to forget me."

"Nothing wrong with wanting to be remembered," said Isa. "This guy's determined to be remembered by everyone he ever meets," he added with a teasing elbow jab into Lea's side.

"What's wrong with that?" asked Lea indignantly.

Roxas had a funny look on his face. "I just realized," he said. "If this is the past and the Organization hasn't started yet, then I'm the first Nobody around. Would that make me the Superior when it gets started?"

Xion giggled at the thought, but Lea and Isa exchanged an uncomfortable look.

"No offense," said Isa. "But after hearing about what your future holds, I'd really rather this Organization you're talking about never gets started."

"Same here," said Lea wryly. "I like having a heart. I'd rather not go and lose it like Axel did."

"Well, maybe that's something we can do," said Xion thoughtfully between bites of ice cream. "We can stop Organization XIII from ever happening."

The boys all looked at her in surprise, before their expressions turned contemplative.

"Could we even do that?" asked Roxas.

"Ya know, I bet we could," said Lea, a grin growing on his face. "I mean, all the original Organization members got their start right there." He pointed his half-eaten ice cream over at the castle. "If we want to stop the Organization from happening, we'd just have to stop the experiments they were doing that lost them their hearts. Or maybe just stop all of them, period."

Isa looked amused. "What? You want to start a rebellion against Ansem the Wise?" he asked incredulously.

"Well, why not?" asked Lea. "That's the stuff that led to the Heartless, leading to us becoming Nobodies, leading to that mess Roxas and Xion just left behind. Maybe it's better if it all just stops here."

The humor fell of Isa's face, and he looked thoughtful over at the castle. "Hmm, it could be a good way to get her out of there too. Especially now that we know that becoming apprentices won't work."

"Her?" asked Xion, looking confused.

"There's a girl trapped in the castle," said Isa. "We met her once after sneaking in. They're treating her like a lab rat in there."

"We've been trying to break back in to break her out ever since," added Lea. "And if my memories from Axel are right, we were still trying to find and save her even in the Organization, but we never did."

"That's disappointing to hear," said Isa.

"So we're doing this?" asked Roxas, looking at the castle as if he was ready to storm it that instant and tear it down with his bare hands (looks like he still wasn't satisfied with just trashing the alley after Axel faded away). "Because I'm in if you are."

Xion nodded. "Me too. Seeing what they made me to do, I don't want them to hurt anyone else like that."

"Being the jerk minion of some heart-obsessed creep doesn't sound very appealing to me either," said Isa.

Lea finished off his ice cream and saw a 'Winner' stamped on the stick. Grinning and pointing it at the castle, he said, "Looks like we've got ourselves a rebellion."

Chapter Text

As it turns out, breaking into the places when you have a magic key that unlocks anything and a pair of friends who are used to sneaking around without being seen made getting into the castle a lot easier.

Getting the girl was something they'd accomplished on their first trip in, and with her now off in the stars on a Gummi Ship to find her lost memories, they could focus on saving Radiant Garden.

By making things as hard for Ansem the Wise's apprentices as possible.

Which leads to why Xion was frowning at Lea's plans for their current break-in of the labs. "Um, Ax-er-Lea, I get us stealing all of Vexen's-"

"Even," Lea corrected as he shoved a desk a couple of inches to the left.

"Even's notes," Xion corrected quickly. She and Roxas still often made the mistake of calling the apprentices by their Nobody's names, but they were getting much better at it with Isa. "I get that. But why do we have to move everything a little bit to the left? That doesn't look like it'll do much."

Lea shot her a mischievous grin. "Trust me, Xion. It'll do plenty."

At that moment, Isa hurried in and whispered, "They're coming! Hide!"

Hearing that, Xion and Lea quickly stopped what they were doing and crawled into the air ducts above the lab to hide, Isa right behind them.

Peering down through the grate, they watched Even enter the lab with Ienzo in tow, not looking like he was in a good mood.

And promptly banged his leg against the desk Lea had moved with a muttered curse as he passed, then promptly tripped over a chair and went sprawling.

Seeing that, Isa bit his lip to keep from laughing and Lea had to bury his face in his arms to muffle his snickers, which grew even louder when he caught a glimpse of Xion's face and saw realization dawn over it about what Lea's plan had been.

Not wanting to be caught, the three quickly crawled through the vents to where they could make their exit, Even's angry shouts upon finding his research stolen echoing after them as they went.

No one ever said rebelling couldn't be fun.

"Do you ever miss being Axel?" asked Xion one day out of the blue.

Lea had to stop and think about that. "Hmm, not really. Axel wasn't too different from me. Just the no heart thing made it easier to do, er, icky things that I'd rather not think about," he said, trying hard not to think about some of the worse things Axel had done as the Organization's assassin.

Shaking his head, Lea continued. "Axel's basically just me but taller." He paused and frowned. "Now that I think about it, I do miss being tall."

Their conversation was cut off when Roxas and Isa hurried over to them with their arms full with large boxes. "We filled all the apprentices' rooms with frogs, and stuck magnets on their computers so they can't put in that new security system Ansem was talking about," said Isa. "Now let's get out of here."

As they snuck their way back out of the castle, Xion got a better look at just what Roxas and Isa were carrying. "Wait, is that Ansem the Wise's sea-salt ice cream stash?"

"It is," Roxas confirmed.

"He wouldn't let us leave without it," added Isa dryly.

Lea huffed a laugh. "Roxas, I'm starting to think you have a problem."

Roxas just hugged the boxes of ice cream closer to himself and said, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

To hide the fact it's them that have been sneaking into the castle to cause trouble, the four of them would occasionally stage very bad break-in attempts so they'd get caught and look like they weren't sneaky enough to be the more troublesome masterminds.

No one would suspect the same people slipping in and out of the castle without a trace would be the same kids dumb enough to attempt the old pizza delivery ruse.

"For the last time, no one in this castle ordered pizza," said Braig, looking more amused than annoyed.

The four kids standing in front of him holding a pizza box and wearing fake nose glasses for a disguise exchanged a look.

"Are you sure?" asked the blond one. "Maybe we should go in and ask."

Braig laughed at that. "Nice try, better luck next time, Tiger," he said as he slammed the castle door in their faces.

Roxas took off his glasses and scowled. He hated that nickname.

A week later had Braig running down the castle halls yelling his head off as a full-grown tiger chased after him.

"Okay, how did you do that?" asked Lea, one part freaked out and one part impressed.

"I finally figured out how summons worked," said Roxas nonchalantly as they watched the show, having already finished their sabotage.

"Wow!" said Xion, looking excited. "Can you show me next?"

"Sure," said Roxas.

Finally, there was a loud ripping sound, and the tiger came over to them carrying Braig's pants in his mouth.

Roxas grinned and patted the tiger's head, making it purr. "Good boy, Rajah."

Isa made a mental note to avoid their bad side if this was the consequence.

His decision was proven right when Xion's first summon turned out to be Hades' giant three-headed dog.

Xion absolutely loved him.

Awkward was a good phrase for Isa's relationship with Roxas and Xion.

It took them a couple of weeks to stop giving him suspicious looks, and even then they'd still slip up and call him Saïx from time to time, though it was growing rarer by the day. Lea confided in him that his (evil?) future self hadn't been the nicest to either of them and sharing a face with that guy wasn't doing him any favors.

Not that he didn't give them his own suspicious looks too. They just appeared out of nowhere and were instantly best friends with his best friend and had this whole shared history with him that Isa had no memory of. It wasn't hard to be jealous, not that he'd ever say so.

Still, for the sake of Lea's happiness, they all shared an unspoken agreement to try to get along. It didn't stop things from being awkward between them whenever one or both of the keybearers were around Isa without Lea present.

Such was the case Isa found himself in now.

It had become a habit for all of them to meet on that same garden wall they'd planned their rebellion on to eat ice cream and watch the sunset every evening. Usually, by the time Isa arrived Lea was already there with ice cream in hand and ready to act as a buffer between him and his time-traveling friends.

This time, however, Roxas sat there alone with the ice cream bag beside him, clearly waiting for the rest to arrive.

Hovering a little ways away, Isa debated with himself if he should come back later when Roxas turned and caught sight of him.

Knowing he couldn't just leave now, Isa bit the bullet and went up to sit next to the blond.

Roxas said nothing. Just handed him an ice cream, and continued to stare off in the distance as the sky began turning colors.

The silence between them stretched on, and on until Isa felt compelled to break it.

"Do you ever wonder what our actions will do to affect the time stream?" he asked.

Roxas looked over at him in confusion, his ice cream halfway to his mouth. "What?" he asked.

"You and Xion are from the future," Isa said. "Do you ever worry that changing things here in the past could cause the two of you to disappear? It played a pretty big role in your creation, after all." It had been something he'd been wondering for a while now.

Such a thing clearly hadn't occurred to Roxas, if his alarmed expression was anything to go by. "What? I haven't- No," he said, struggling to come up with a response. "You don't really think that would happen, do you?"

Isa shrugged. "Honestly, at this point, probably not. We've already changed things from what Lea remembers. If you were going to disappear, it would have happened sooner."

Roxas let out a sigh of relief but still seemed on edge.

"Truthfully, I hope it doesn't," Isa continued, staring out at the purple clouds overhead. "Lea would be devastated."

"..." Roxas was silent for a long moment, then asked, "What about you?" he asked.

Isa looked at him in surprise.

"Would you be sad?" asked Roxas curiously. "We are friends, right?"

Isa blinked at him in bewilderment. "I didn't think you thought we were friends," he said.

Roxas nodded to the ice cream in both their hands. "Axel told me friends eat ice cream together, and talk and laugh about stupid things. That's what we do here, don't we?"

Isa actually had to laugh at that. "That sounds like something Lea would say."

Roxas smiled. "See, you're laughing about something stupid."

"You mean Lea, yeah that does sound fitting," said Isa, making Roxas snicker as well.

"I heard my name, who's talking about me?" said Lea as he and Xion finally came up to join them.

That only made the two of them laugh harder, much to Lea's confusion.

Still, Xion must have overheard at least part of their conversation, because while Lea was distracted, she whispered to him, "I'm glad we're friends. I like you better than Saïx," leaving him rather speechless.

Privately, Isa hoped their attempts to change the future didn't have any effect on the keybearers being there.

He really would be sad if they disappeared.

Chapter Text

Small dark creatures were beginning to show up in Radiant Garden.

They weren't Heartless and seemed to have nothing to do with the apprentices' experiments (though they were eager to study them when given the opportunity, and the four friends had to work harder to destroy their research), but they were a nuisance, and something Roxas and Xion could sharpen their skills on.

"I've got fifteen!" Roxas called as he cut through one creature with his keyblade.

"Seventeen for me!" said Xion as she fired a spell out of her own keyblade to destroy another.

Roxas let out an indignant noise hearing he was behind and hurried to fight more of the monsters.

As it was, Isa and Lea couldn't do much more than watch. Isa's baseball bat and Lea's frisbees didn't make nearly as much of a dent on the creatures as the keyblades did, something both weren't too happy about. Lea especially, thanks to the memories of being able to toast creatures like these with fireballs dancing in his brain.

Man, he wished he could still do that.

He was so caught up in future memories, he didn't hear Roxas or Xion cry out when one of the creatures managed to get past them and was lunging at Lea with sharp claws.

Acting on instinct, Lea swung his frisbee at it, hoping to at least knock it back so he wouldn't get slashed.

Only he was no longer holding a frisbee, and the creature disappeared as it was cut by sharp spikes.

The entire battle paused as the four friends took in the sight of Lea holding a familiar chakram in his hand that looked a little too big for him. Even the Not-Heartless things seemed to stop and stare.

After a few moments of shock, Lea's face split into a massive grin. "Oh yeah! That's what I'm talking about!"

And with that, he dove into the remaining monsters, determined to beat both Roxas and Xion's scores as they and Isa tried to make sense of what they were seeing.

Soon enough, all of the monsters were finally gone and Lea couldn't be happier with his new (old) toys.

"Now all we need is to get you a claymore," he said to Isa. "Then we'll really be cooking with fire."

"A claymore, huh," said Isa, looking at his bat thoughtfully. "I like the sound of that."

(High above them, Vanitas watched the two unknown keybearers with interest, especially the one that looked like Ventus.)

(He decided to say nothing to Xehanort just yet. It would be good to have a back-up plan.)

Lea was frowning in deep concentration as he and Isa walked through the gardens.

"What's wrong?" asked Isa.

"One of my future memories," Lea said, his brows pinched. "There's something kinda important that's going to happen today, but I can't quite remember what."

"More monsters?" asked Isa.

"There's a big one that shows up, but it's handled and that's not quite it," said Lea, scratching the back of his neck. "What was it?"

Catching sight of a familiar spiky blond head ahead of them, Isa said, "Maybe Roxas will know." He then cupped his hand to his mouth and called, "Hey, Roxas!"

The spiky blond head looked up, and the expression on the owner's face was annoyed. "Okay, seriously, who is Roxas? People have been calling me that ever since I got to this wor-er-here. I'm not Roxas, I'm Ventus!" cried a boy who looked remarkably like Roxas said in exasperation.

Finally, the event Lea had been trying to remember came rushing back. "Oh yeah, him, that's what it was," he said thoughtfully, confusing both Isa and Ventus at the same time.

Finally remembering how he'd made fast friends the last time around, Lea gave Ventus a grin. "Sorry, you look like our friend. That's Isa, and the name's Lea. Got it Memorized?"

Ventus seemed to calm down some hearing that, likely happy to finally have an explanation for being called the wrong name. "Oh, uh, hi. Like I said, I'm Ventus, but call me Ven."

Lea's grin widened. "Nice to meet you, Ven. Wanna join our rebellion?"

Ven could only stare at him in bewilderment, and Isa smacked his forehead.

Xion didn't know why the Not-Heartless monsters were attacking this little girl, but at the moment she was too busy fighting them to care.

The little red-haired girl hiding behind her let out a whimper, only strengthening Xion's resolve.

There weren't a lot of monsters, but it was difficult to fight them while also protecting someone. If she made the wrong move and they got around her it wouldn't be pretty.

Which was why she was very relieved when a blue-haired woman came running up and offered to fight them off, allowing Xion to get the girl to safety.

Once they were a good distance away, the little girl beamed up at Xion. "Thanks for saving me, your name's Xion, right?"

Xion nodded, "That's right." It seemed she and Roxas were gaining a reputation in the town.

The girl smiled wider and ran to gather a small bouquet of purple flowers and began weaving them into a flower crown. "This is for saving me," she said brightly, holding the crown out to Xion. "They're called shions. Like you!"

Xion gently knelt down to let the girl put the flower crown on her head with a smile. "Thank you."

The little girl looked around and said, "The monsters are gone. I'm gonna go give some more flowers to the nice lady."

"Okay, be careful," said Xion as she stood up again. "What's your name, anyway?"

"I'm Kairi!" the girl called over her shoulder as she darted away, leaving Xion staring after her, stunned she'd just met the person her very appearance was based on.

Roxas was practicing skateboard tricks on a railing when a voice called out to him. Or, at least, he thought it did. The name was all wrong.

"Ven?"

Roxas looked up to see a tall man with brown hair and bits of armor on his clothes coming towards him with a stern expression. "Huh? Me?" he asked. It had to be him the man was talking to. There wasn't anyone else around.

"What are you doing here? You were supposed to go home, Ven," the man scolded. "Come on, I'll take you home."

As the unknown man reached for him, Roxas employed one of Axel's earliest lessons on how to deal with people he didn't know.

"STRANGER DANGER!" he shouted at the top of his lungs and bolted away on his skateboard as quickly as he could.

Terra stared after him in shock, wondering what the heck had just happened. "What?" he asked bewildered.

The empty street gave no reply.

Ven wasn't exactly on board with their rebellion, but they did manage to convince him to break into the castle with them. That's when they caught sight of someone he knew skulking around where he shouldn't be.

"What's Master Xehanort doing here?" he asked.

Lea and Isa did a double-take at the name. The one apprentice they hadn't been able to mess with-er-rebel against. The one who started it all.

And the one they'd been most looking forward to prank-uh-rise up against.

Following Ven's gaze, they caught sight of the man in question. While the yellow eyes and white hair were familiar, everything else was all wrong. He looked far too old to be the man in Lea's memories.

"Guy must find a fountain of youth or something," said Lea as they watched him go up to Braig to talk about something.

"What?" asked Ven.

"Nothing," said Lea, never taking his eyes off the men as they left. "Let's follow them."

What followed was nothing short of bizarre.

"Who is that guy? Why did Master Xehanort let him tie him up? And who is that supposed to fool? Master Xehanort is a keyblade master, it'd take way more than chains to keep him locked up!" whispered Ven, who was clearly growing more confused by the minute. Their hiding place on an upper balcony had a clear view of what was going on, even if little of it made sense.

"Looks like a set up to me," said Isa dryly.

"But for who?" asked Ven, looking honestly stumped.

The answer came a few minutes later when a brown-haired man Ven identified as Terra arrived on the scene for Braig to taunt into a fight while Xehandort called advice down to him.

"Is- Is he trying to get your friend to use darkness?" asked Isa in disbelief at Xehanort's words. "Something we all know would probably end badly for him."

"He's setting Terra up!" hissed Ven, looking furious. "Why that no good-!"

Pulling out the bag of prank supplies they'd brought for their castle break-in, Lea held them out to Ven. "So how many things do you think we gotta chuck at the creepy old guy before he gives up the ruse and outs himself?" he asked with a smirk.

Ven, who was looking rather vindictive, grabbed a rubber chicken out of the bag without hesitation. "Bonus points if you hit his stupid bald head," he said, throwing it at the still tied up Xehanort. No one messed with his friends and got away with it.

The chicken was a direct hit! The rubber bird bouncing off his cranium stopped Xehanort in the middle of his darkness endorsing monologue and threw off the entire tone of Terra and Braig's fight.

It was then ruined completely when a small speaker that made fart noises followed a moment later.

Several headshots later, a very fed up Xehanort burst free of his chains with a wave of darkness (making it clear he could have escaped any time he'd wanted but hadn't) and his subsequent swearing of vengeance on Ven, Lea, and Isa had the three all running for the exit.

Terra, now very unlikely to trust anything the old keyblade master said, made his escape during the distraction to both find Ven and get an explanation from him and protect him from a now furious and humiliated Xehanort.

And just like that, the future was forever changed.

(Meanwhile, hidden in a dark corner, Vanitas was laughing his ass off.)

Ven stared at Roxas.

Roxas stared at Ven.

"Oh, that's why people kept calling me Roxas," said Ven.

Roxas scowled. "This isn't going to be another Sora thing, is it?"

Friends can be made in the oddest of circumstances.

But those ones are usually the best.

Chapter Text

"Does Radiant Garden have a beach?" asked Xion one day while watching the sunset.

The boys all looked at her in surprise.

"Uh, no, we don't have a beach," said Lea.

"There's a pool, and a lot of fountains," offered Isa. "Why?"

Roxas, meanwhile, knew what she was talking about. "Oh right, Axel said we'd go to the beach together someday."

Xion nodded. "It just occurred to me that we never did get to do that. I'd like to go to the beach in that world again."

"The one where you got all the seashells?" said Roxas.

"Yeah," said Xion with a sigh, pulling one such seashell out of her pocket to show them.

Now that they were talking about it, Lea did remember Axel promising that to them, but they'd never gotten the chance. "Well, why not go tomorrow?" he asked.

The two keybearers perked up at the suggestion, but then Roxas frowned. "How? We only know how to get there using the Dark Corridors, and we only have two coats to protect us."

Lea opened his mouth to answer, but closed it again a moment later, not having one.

Thankfully, Isa spoke up instead. "I have an idea."

Isa's idea was surprisingly simple but effective.

With the Dark Corridor open, one of the boys would wear Roxas's coat and go through, and then Xion would carry it back for the next boy to use.

Soon enough, all four of them were standing on Xion's favorite beach on Destiny Islands.

They finally made it, just as they said they would.

"We forgot to bring bathing suits," Lea griped after the initial awe of being at a beautiful beach on an entirely different world wore off. Xion had been quick to hurry to the shoreline to look for more shells for her collection, dragging Roxas along after her.

"That is a pretty dumb thing to forget," remarked Isa. He then frowned. "Wait, do Roxas and Xion even have bathing suits?" They'd bought the two more clothing aside from their Organization uniforms, but he didn't think swimwear was among them.

As Isa thought more, he added, "Do they even know how to swim?"

At that moment, a particularly large wave crashed onto the shore, sucking Xion out to flounder in a surprisingly deep tide pool, and leaving Roxas freaking out on the shore.

"I guess that answers that question," Lea couldn't help but remark as he and Isa quickly jumped in to help the girl back to shore.

The whole process left all four of them soaking wet.

Guess they didn't need bathing suits after all.

They really should have seen it coming.

Roxas and Xion both knew this island had something to do with Sora's memories, and Lea should have remembered it from Axel's memories of Castle Oblivion. Isa's the only one with an excuse for his ignorance since he had no idea to watch out for it.

Still, for some reason, it didn't occur to any of them that coming to Sora's homeworld might lead to them meeting the boy in question.

Which is how, when Xion was reaching for a particularly pretty conch shell, her hand intercepted another, smaller hand reaching for the same shell, and the both of them froze.

Xion could only stare at the little brown-haired boy as memories flowed through her head, memories that she knew weren't hers and hadn't thought of since arriving in Radiant Garden flashed across her eyes, and somewhere deep in her gut she knew the little boy was seeing them too.

Oh No!

These memories made her. If he was taking them, did that mean she was going to disappear?

The memories abruptly stopped when Xion felt someone grab her arm and yank her away from the little boy.

"Xion! Are you okay?" Roxas was asking, concern written all over her face.

Xion shook her head to clear her racing thoughts. She didn't feel like she was about to disappear, and Roxas just said her name, so he wasn't forgetting her.

"I'm okay," she said finally. "I think…"

They both glanced over at the little boy who could only be Sora, who was still sitting frozen in the sand.

Then, suddenly his eyes filled with tears, and he took off across the sand like a shot, shouting "RIKUUUUUUU!" at the top of his lungs.

The four teenagers stared after him as he ran.

That could have gone better.

"What did you do to Sora?" demanded a little silver-haired five-year-old with a glare that didn't look nearly as menacing as he clearly thought it did and made even worse by Sora clinging to his side like a teary octopus.

Hard to believe this was the kid that would grow up to be the Organization's imposter.

"We didn't do anything," said Roxas defensively. "He just started crying on his own."

Xion, who was looking guilty and knowing exactly why Sora was crying, held out the conch they'd both been reaching for and offered, "He can have the shell if he wants."

Sora let out a loud sniffle and managed to give them a sunny smile. "No thanks," he said. "I don't need a shell. I found Riku."

"Found?" Riku asked, looking utterly confused.

"Yup!" cheered Sora, hugging Riku tighter. "I found Riku!"

Riku could only stare at him in bewilderment. "Did I miss a game of hide'n'seek?"

"I wanna see Kairi."

Those were the first words out of Sora's mouth after they managed to calm him down and give Riku the bare bones of an explanation that his five-year-old mind could understand (though he was still pretty confused).

Still, they all had to stare at him for those words.

"Who's Kairi?" asked Riku.

"She's our best friend who we haven't met yet. You'll like her, she's nice and pretty," said Sora like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He then looked back at the world's visitors and added, "You said you were fixing things in Radiant Garden, and that's where Kairi's from, so if we go with you we can see her. And if we go to other worlds now, Riku won't go all dark 'n evil 'n stuff to get there when he's bigger."

"What?" shouted Riku, looking alarmed, no doubt wondering just what his future-self had done.

While Isa and Lea were trying to work out four-year-old logic, Roxas and Xion had no problems with it. "Sure, we can take you there sometime," said Xion. "I actually met Kairi a few days ago. She gave me a flower crown."

Sora beamed.

Riku finally managed to get his head together and blurt out, "Sora, we can't go with them, they're strangers."

"They're not strangers," said Sora like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He then pointed and added, "He's my little brother."

They were all surprised when they saw his finger pointing at Roxas.

"Huh?" was Roxas's articulate response to that declaration.

"How do you figure that?" asked Isa.

"You said he's my Nobody, right," said Sora brightly. "He came from me, so that makes him my little brother."

"I don't think Nobodies work like that," said Lea, sounding amused.

"Wouldn't that make Sora Roxas's father or something instead," Isa muttered too quietly for anyone else to hear.

"Shouldn't Roxas be the big brother?" asked Riku. "He's bigger than you."

"But I'm older," Sora protested with a pout.

"No you're not, he's..." Riku argued before trailing off, realizing he had no idea what Roxas's age was. Glancing at Roxas, he asked, "How old are you?"

"Three hundred and sixty-five days," Roxas said honestly. "I've kept count."

There was a beat of silence.

"Uh, how old is that?" asked Sora.

"One year, exactly," answered Isa.

"HA! See, I am the big brother!" Sora crowed. "I'm four! That's older!"

Xion giggled at the look on Roxas's face at hearing that.

"Shoot! I didn't realize it was your birthday," Lea exclaimed. "And that means Xion's birthday is in, like, a week."

"Oh, it is?" asked Xion. Between the time travel and everything else, she'd honestly lost track of time.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" cheered Sora.

"Uh, thanks," said Roxas, still looking like he didn't know what to think of this. "What do you usually do on birthdays?"

"Go out with friends to do something fun. People who care about you give you presents, and eat cake," Isa explained.

Roxas looked around. "Well, I'm with my friends, and we came here to have fun, so I guess we're doing it right."

"But we didn't plan on it," Lea said in exasperation. "We didn't know to get presents for you."

Xion looked down at the shells she'd collected since getting there and picked out one of the biggest ones she'd found. "Happy birthday, Roxas," she said, handing it to him.

Roxas took it with a grin.

"That's not what I- Never mind," said Lea with an amused huff. "We'll be sure to get some ice cream cake later and make it official."

Both Roxas and Xion's heads snapped in his direction and began looking at Lea like he'd just handed them all the secrets of the universe.

"There's ice cream cake?!"

"So, you remember being you but bigger now, right?" asked Lea carefully. Sora had deemed it unfair Xion was the only one who'd gotten Roxas a birthday present, and had dragged Lea off to find one for them to give him, instructing Isa and Riku to do the same.

"Yup!" said Sora. Then he frowned. "Kinda. Not all of it. It's really weird."

Lea chuckled a little hearing that, knowing exactly what Sora meant. "Makes sense you don't remember everything. Xion was only made from a portion of your memories, not all of them." He then reached up to tap a finger against his forehead. "Still, I can relate. I've also got a bigger me's memories floating around in my head. He actually met bigger you. "

Sora looked up at him in surprise. "Really?" he asked.

"Yeah. I doubt you remember that. Just as well, he was a jerk to you anyway. Sorry about that," said Lea, scratching the back of his head.

"Why?" asked Sora innocently.

"A lotta reasons," admitted Lea. "Mostly he was trying to help his Isa and protect Roxas. I try not to think about it."

Sora frowned, then brightened. "I forgive you."

Lea blinked. "That easy, huh?" he asked. "You don't even know what he did."

"Yup," said Sora. "You were trying to help your friends, so I forgive you."

Lea shook his head. This kid's heart was too big for him.

Isa didn't know how he'd gotten saddled with searching for a hasty birthday gift with a five-year-old, but compared to the rollercoaster his life had become since Roxas and Xion showed up, this was actually pretty tame.

The same could not be said for poor Riku, who was only just getting a taste of what was to come if he stuck around.

As it was, the little boy had been frowning and kicking up sand ever since Sora had instructed them to find presents.

"Something wrong?" Isa felt compelled to ask.

"Big me sounds like a stupid-head," said Riku bluntly.

Isa had to hold in a laugh at that out of nowhere comment. Coughing to try and cover it up, he quickly said, "Why would you think that?"

"Because he is!" Riku insisted. "From what Sora said, he did some bad darkness stuff, then ran away and made Sora cry. Sora's my best friend, I wouldn't leave him behind. Big me is dumb."

This time Isa couldn't hold in a laugh, making Riku give him an affronted look.

"Sorry," said Isa. "It's just, I feel the same. From what Lea, Roxas, and Xion have told me, my older self sounded like a 'stupid-head' as well."

Riku's scowl fell off his face, and he looked up at Isa curiously. "How do you fix it?" he asked.

Isa huffed. It was honestly a question he'd been turning over in his head ever since they'd found proof Lea's future memories weren't just a dream. The closest he'd come to an answer was this, "Take the warning, and do my best to make a better future."

Riku nodded at those words and took them to heart.

No matter what happened in the future, they'd strive to do better.

In the end, Roxas's other presents consisted of a pet fish caught in a plastic bucket and a wooden toy sword that someone had lost on the island.

With those and a sea-salt ice cream cake, he considered it the best birthday he'd ever had.

Never mind it was the only birthday he'd ever had.

He had his best friends, a heart, his existence wasn't being threatened, and if they kept messing with the Apprentices, Organization XIII would never happen and the worlds would likely be all the better for it.

He couldn't be happier.

Chapter Text

Ven never knew he could feel so exhausted.

Beside him, surrounded by the dead keyblades in the aptly named Keyblade Graveyard, he could tell Terra, Aqua, and Mickey felt the same.

It had been a close fight. Too close. Xehanort, despite losing Terra's trust at Radiant Garden, had still tried to force the darkness in his heart to grow. Thankfully, being aware he was being manipulated had Terra more on guard, and refused to give in to the temptation when confronted by it.

It had cost Terra, and he was the most beat-up out of all of them, but he was still himself.

Though finding out Xehanort's master plan had been to body snatch Terra was too creepy to think about for long. Made even worse by the fact that he seemed to be encouraging Vanitas to do the same to Ven.

And Vanitas did make a valiant effort to do so, but when confronted with Ven and Aqua fighting together to stop him, he'd backed off.

"This isn't going to work," Ven's apparent dark reflection had said snidely the moment he realized the battle was lost.

"What?" Xehanort had demanded, looking at his apprentice in fury. It had been very apparent things were not going as planned for him, and he was not able to recover without his preordained devious schemes. "Vanitas, do what I created you to do and forge the X-Blade!"

But Vanitas had smirked at his master with an air of someone who'd lost all respect for him. "Thanks, but no thanks, Chickenhead," he'd said casually. "But I have other candidates to play with."

And with that, he'd vanished, leaving Xehanort alone with four keyblade wielders who were all very angry at him.

Considering Xehanort was none too happy about the entire situation either, he'd stood his ground and attacked.

The fight was long and arduous, but in the end, Xehanort had retreated spouting dark promises that this wouldn't be their last clash, leaving the four friends exhausted, bruised, and battered, but alive, and that was more than they'd thought they'd have at the start of this battle.

It wasn't over, but they were safe.

For now.

Still, Ven couldn't help but ponder Vanitas' parting words. "I wonder who those 'other candidates' are?"

"Are you sure this is going to work?" asked Roxas skeptically.

"Sure it will," Lea said confidently. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"Please tell me you didn't just say that," Isa groaned.

"Why? What's wrong with him saying that?" asked Xion worriedly.

"You'll see," Isa replied cryptically.

Before them, four-year-old Sora, who was sitting on five-year-old Riku's shoulders so the two boys could fit into Roxas' Organization coat, asked, "Do we look cool?"

Because the arms were too long for Sora, the hood flopping over his eyes to blind him, and Riku's face poking out between where they'd pinched the coat shut with safety pins, they absolutely did not look cool.

"Sure you do," Lea told them, lying through his teeth.

The four friends had come to Destiny Island to make good on Sora's request to see Kairi. Given that would mean taking small children through a corridor of darkness to get there, they'd spent the last several days pondering how to actually do it, before landing on the same plan they'd used to get themselves between worlds, and stuffed both boys into Roxas' coat for Xion to ferry them through.

Xion hovered nervously beside the two children, her hands out to catch them if they lost their balance. "Are we sure this is the best way to do this?" she asked.

"Short of stealing another gummi ship, unfortunately, yes," said Lea.

Seeing Roxas gain a thoughtful look, Sora thrust his hand out to shake his finger at him, not that it could be seen under the flopping coat sleeve. "No, little brother," he scolded. "Stealing is bad!"

"What if we just borrow it," Roxas offered, having long given up on not being Sora's 'little brother'.

"No stealing!" Sora said, his enthusiastic hand gestures nearly toppling him and Riku over. "Cid is my friend! (Or he will be.) We're not taking his gummi ships."

"Sora! Watch it!" Riku squawked beneath him as he worked to keep his balance with Sora's flailing.

Isa sighed. "Just get them through the corridor before they fall over," he said to Xion, already feeling exhausted, and it was only the beginning of the day.

With one last hesitant glance at the wobbly children, Xion carefully escorted them through the corridor.

The three boys left on the beach waited with bated breath until Xion finally returned with Roxas's coat in hand and a smile on her face. "Safe," she said. "Who's next."

Kairi was spending a typical day picking flowers in the gardens when suddenly she heard her name being called.

"KAIRI!"

The little girl turned around just in time for an excited boy with brown hair to tackle her in a hug, making them both fall into a bed of Chrysanthemums.

Kairi looked up at the boy, who was beaming beside her. "Hi!" he said. "I'm Sora. I'm gonna be your best friend."

Kairi blinked at him. "What?" she asked at this enthusiastic proclamation of friendship.

Sora got back to his feet and helped Kairi out of the flower bed just as another boy with silver hair came running up. "And this is Riku," Sora said, gesturing at the new boy with a ta-dah pose. "He's going to be your best friend, too."

Kairi stared at them. "What?" she repeated.

"Sora did you really just knock her down," Riku scolded, casting her an apologetic glance. "You don't do that to girls. She isn't going to want to be friends with us now." He then turned to Kairi and added, "Sorry about him, he's silly."

Sora's face fell dramatically. "Oh no!" he said, also looking at Kairi worriedly. "I was just really happy to see you. I'm sorry! Please say we can still be friends."

Kairi stared at both of them for a long moment as her brain caught up to what was going on.

Then, she burst out laughing, startling both boys so much they stumbled backward into another flower bed.

Still giggling, Kairi reached out to help them up. "Okay, I'll be your friend," she said. "I'm Kairi, but you already knew that."

Both boys grinned widely at her, and each took one of her hands so she could pull them back to their feet.

And with that, a lifelong friendship was formed.

From a distance away, the Radiant Garden Rebels watched the three children play together.

"And now all is right in the worlds," said Lea with a satisfied nod. "If Castle Oblivion taught me one thing about Sora, it's that he'd do anything for those two, and they'd do the same for him."

"It's good to have friends like that," said Xion with a knowing grin at the rest of them.

"Is anyone else concerned that we technically just kidnapped two children?" asked Isa dryly.

"We did?" asked Roxas, confused.

"Well, we certainly didn't get parental permission before bringing them to an entirely different world," Isa pointed out.

"Aw, we didn't kidnap them," said Lea waving off the concerns. He then patted Roxas on the shoulder. "And we've got Sora's brother here to supervise, so it's family approved."

Roxas and Isa both shot him unimpressed glares, though each for their own reasons.

Xion, however, had been keeping an eye on the kids and noticed someone else was watching them too. "Who's that?" she asked, drawing her friends' attention.

They looked to see her pointing up onto one of the high terraces next to the castle where an old man was looking down at the playing children with narrowed eyes.

A very familiar old man.

"It's Xehanort!" Isa hissed.

"You mean Xemnas?" asked Roxas, his eyes narrowing up at the old man.

"Yeah, looks like he still hasn't found his fountain of youth," Lea muttered.

"I don't like the way he's looking at them," said Xion warily. The entire time she'd noticed him, he hadn't taken his eyes off the children, though which one he was watching was hard to tell.

The boys all nodded in silent agreement. The way he was eyeing the three was creepy. Or maybe that was just his face… No, that just made it extra creepy.

Glancing at the other three, Isa offered, "I'll stay here and watch the kids. I think the three of you have a score to settle."

Lea, Roxas, and Xion all nodded, then turned to head towards the steps to the terrace, careful to keep their movements natural so as not to catch Xehanort's attention.

"So what are we going to do?" asked Roxas as they made their way around towards the old man, and then hid to observe him from behind. Xehanort didn't seem to notice them, his eyes still glued down below.

"Dunno," said Lea. "If Ven was right, he's pretty powerful, and he sure made an impression last I saw him. I don't know if we'd beat him in a fight."

"Should we fight him?" asked Xion. "He hasn't started the Organization yet."

"No, but he did try to trick that Terra guy into using the darkness. So I doubt his intentions are all that great," said Lea. "We'll just have to give him an extra special surprise."

"Plus, with the way he's looking at Sora and his friends. Remember, Axel told us that if we ever saw someone looking at us like that we should either kick their butt or run," added Roxas and Xion nodded in agreement. He then frowned. "What is he interested in them for?"

"Nothing good, I'll tell you that," said a new voice behind them.

The three jumped and wheeled around, only barely managing not to make any sounds that would alert Xehanort to their position.

Behind them, leaning against a wall, dressed in dark clothing was-

"Sora?" all three of them asked in bewilderment.

Except… it wasn't… Sora was down in the garden playing with his friends. And to their knowledge, Sora had never had black hair and yellow eyes. But the teenager standing before them now really did look an awful lot like an older version of Sora (sounded like him too, from what Lea could recall).

Said teenager blinked at them in confusion at the name. "What?" he asked.

Roxas recovered first. "Sorry, you just look like my Som-er-my brother," he said lamely.

The boy raised an eyebrow at them. "Funny you should say that, 'cause you sure look a lot like my brother. I think you know him? Goes by Ven?"

"Ventus?" asked Lea in surprise. "I didn't know he had a brother."

The boy shrugged. "We don't get along that well," he said nonchalantly. "Sibling rivalry and all that. Name's Vanitas. So why are you stalking hunched, bald, and creepy over there?" he asked, jerking his head in Xehanort's direction.

The three teenagers tensed and glanced back over at Xehanort. Thankfully, he hadn't noticed them, too busy lost in thought.

"It's… a long story," said Xion, wondering how they could even begin to explain their circumstances to an outsider.

"In a nutshell, that guy-" Lea said pointing over at Xehanort, "-Did a whole bunch of stuff that screwed all of us over while trying to do some crazy experiment, and we want to make sure he doesn't get the chance to do it again."

Vanitas raised an eyebrow, then nodded. "Yeah, that's definitely something he'd do. But do you really expect to stop him with rubber chickens and fart boxes?"

"Heard about that from Ven, did'ja," said Lea. "We weren't totally prepared to see him that day, but it worked didn't it. The old jerk didn't manage to pull one over that Terra guy because of it."

Vanitas' lip quirked hearing that. "That is true." He then leaned in with interest. "So what's your plan this time? I heard something about an extra special surprise."

The three blinked and exchanged a glance. Then Lea told him what he'd been considering.

Vanitas' expression morphed into a smirk and he cackled. "Oh, I need to see that."

Xion and Lea exchanged another glance, and Roxas raised an eyebrow. "You in?" he asked.

Vanitas' smirk grew into an evil grin. "I'm in."

Xehanort's eyes were locked firmly on the children below, his mind scheming.

One of them, the girl, was a Princess of Heart. Even from a distance, her pure light was radiant as she frolicked in the flowers. Xehanort could see great potential in that light. If he could somehow harness it, and combine it with Vanitas' pure darkness, then perhaps the X-Blade could still be forged.

It would be tricky. A small girl was nowhere near as strong as Ventus, and the balance had to be just right. As it was now, her light, bright and pure with youth and innocence, could possibly banish any darkness Vanitas contained. Or the opposite could happen, and Vanitas' darkness would consume her, snuffing her out.

Yes, balance would be key, but it would be worth it.

The girl's playmates also were of some interest. Xehanort was quick to disregard the little brown-haired boy, as he didn't seem to be of any use, but the silver-haired one, now he was interesting. The old keyblade master could sense he had already been marked for succession. Someone, Terra if he was not mistaken, had claimed the boy as his apprentice, and for that, he would make a very good pawn indeed.

But how should he utilize this new game piece? He was too young to be a new vessel, though there were some merits in the unexpectedness of such an act. Still, the risk to his and the child's lives made it more of a contingency plan than an initial one… For now, at least, when he was older… perhaps.

Another option was to take the boy hostage. If Terra had marked him as his apprentice, then the boy must mean something to him. Perhaps enough for him to give in to the darkness, allowing Xehanort to claim his vessel. And if he played his cards right, he may even manage to manipulate Ventus into joining with Vanitas for the X-Blade as well.

Yes, there were many possibilities, many ways to salvage this situation at hand with these children. He just needed to decide on his next move, and the game would be his.

He was so lost in his ponderings, that he barely noticed the world around him.

He definitely didn't notice the bucket of foul-smelling glue until it landed upside-down on his head, covering him in its contents.

Or the ripped feathered pillows that followed after, but then, his head was stuck under the bucket for that part.

Xehanort would never admit to the indignant squawk he let out while he tried to pry the bucket off of his head, but couldn't due to the slippery feathers and the strength of the glue.

Above him, no doubt in one of the castle towers, he could faintly hear the sound of laughter and someone saying, "You were just supposed to dump the bucket, not drop the whole thing!"

To his absolute fury, he could hear his wayward apprentice respond. "Are you arguing with the results?"

"Heck no! This is better than I thought," the first voice replied, laughter evident in his tone.

Vanitas and his companions would pay dearly for this.

It seems the children in the garden below him had also caught sight of him, because he heard one of them call out, "Hey look, guys! On the wall! It's a bucket chicken!"

That only caused Xehanort's traitor apprentice and his companions above him to laugh even harder.

Xehanort seethed!

And the darkness responded.

Above him and below him, he heard yelps of shock and fear, no doubt at the sight of darkness swirling around him (though no doubt not nearly as intimidating as it normally was given the bucket and feathers).

Xehanort was perfectly willing to unleash the darkness onto all of them, but before he could-

'CLANG!'

'CLANG!'

'BAM!'

Xehanort went down like a sack of potatoes as two keyblades and a chakram flew through the air and struck his bucketed head one after another.

Dimly through his ringing head, he heard voices calling for the castle guards. His last conscious thought was that explaining this to Braig when he bailed him out was going to be a nightmare.

And then the mighty Keyblade Master Xehanort fell unconscious.

Vanitas hadn't smiled this much in… never!

The closest he'd ever gotten before was when he'd laughed at this group and Ventus' pelting Xehanort with their prank supplies.

It was even more exhilarating to be part of the group doing the pranking.

"This is the greatest day of my entire life," Vanitas said reverently as he and the other three hurried away from the castle tower they'd snuck into to drop things onto Xehanort.

"Had a real bone to pick with that guy, huh?" asked the redhead who'd introduced himself as Lea.

"You have no idea," Vanitas said, his tone bittering. Being Xehanort's apprentice was no easy feat. It was more like torture than anything else, especially when compared to the cushy training Ventus had gotten from Eraqus. He hated them all the more for that.

His expression then brightened remembering the ridiculous sight Xehanort had made when getting bashed over the head with the others' weapons. That was a memory he would treasure forever.

"Serves him right for being creepy about the kids," Xion said, bringing Vanitas back to the present.

That gave Vanitas pause. "Kids?" he asked. "What kids?"

"Roxas! Lea! Xion!" came a shout, and a small blur came running to them and bowled over Roxas.

Vanitas blinked down at the sight of what looked like a tiny version of himself chattering worriedly at Ventus' odd (and now winded) double as he sat on his stomach.

Guess this was Sora, Roxas' brother. Though, at least these weird mirror people looked like they had a normal sibling relationship. Being split from one person made defining things weird.

Also, he hated Ventus. These two seemed to care about each other.

(A few blocks away, some Unversed were spawned from his jealousy.)

Another teenager with blue hair came running up to them with two more children in tow. "Are you guys alright? That guy started being freaky, so I got the kids out of there." He smirked. "Also, Sora was worried."

"I noticed," Roxas groaned as he sat up with Sora still on top of him.

The other two children, meanwhile, had caught sight of Vanitas and were looking up at him with wide eyes.

Great.

Kids.

Vanitas did not do kids.

"Why do you look like Sora?" asked the silver-haired boy.

"Why does Sora look like me?" Vanitas shot back.

The boy's face scrunched up thoughtfully as if this was a legitimate question.

The girl, however, hadn't taken her eyes off of him. "You're broken," she said, in a voice that was both cluelessly innocent and yet all too knowing at the same time.

The rest looked at her in confusion, and Vanitas' face twisted into a dark scowl.

He opened his mouth, fully prepared to tell the little girl where she could stick her observations when she darted forward and hugged him around the middle.

"There, there," she said, patting him on the back as much as she could with her tiny arms. "You'll get better."

Vanitas was stiff as a board under her hug.

He! Was being hugged!

Had he… had he ever been hugged before?

No, not as Vanitas, and even when he and Ventus had still been one and the same… it had been a long time.

Too long.

So long he barely remembered it.

It was… nice!

The two little boys with the girl decided to follow her lead and hug him too, leading to Vanitas finding himself trapped at all sides by captors that barely passed his hips.

The kids' four teenage babysitters all were snickering at him, no doubt finding his shell shocked expression funny, but for once Vanitas couldn't find it in him to care.

There was something… something in him… that felt warm in a way he hadn't felt since the split.

Eventually, the hug broke up, and Lea suggested they all get ice cream (to the kids and Roxas' clear delight), and Vanitas found himself being dragged along to join them.

And now, sitting on top of a garden wall and watching the sunset with four teens and three children, Vanitas could only eat his ice cream and ponder his next step.

He'd come here to scope out if either Roxas or Xion would make a good replacement for Ventus in forging the X-Blade. Jury was still out on that judgment, but today had been… fun!

Maybe it was worth sticking around… at least a little longer.

If nothing else, he'll get to make Xehanort miserable.

And that would make however long it takes totally worth it.

Chapter Text

So, the Radiant Garden Rebellion had a new member.

He was… interesting…

("He's freaking feral is what he is," Lea muttered once when no one was listening.)

Vanitas somehow seemed to have even less of a clue about human social interaction than Roxas did when Axel had first met him. And given that Roxas was basically a zombie at that time, that was saying something.

Unfortunately, unlike Roxas at that time, Vanitas was too proud to ask questions about it and grew prickly if someone implied his lack of understanding.

Or maybe it was just that Vanitas seemed prickly about everything.

Even so, he had great ideas.

"Why did we never think of this before?" asked Lea as he tried his best to smother his laughter from their hiding place.

"This is better than the tiger and the Cerberus," agreed Isa, uncharacteristically giggly.

Roxas and Xion looked like they were going to protest on their summons' behalf, but then looked at the scene before them, snickered in unison, and had to admit he was right.

Vanitas preened. "You're welcome," he said.

Below them was the picture of utter disaster. Items were being flung, Ansem and his apprentices were running scared, and there were white feathers everywhere.

At the center of it all was the large gaggle of very nasty geese that Vanitas had insisted they sneak into the castle, where they proceeded to attack everything in sight.

It was pure chaos that only an evil mastermind could come up with.

Sometimes, however, Vanitas's ideas were a little too dangerous.

"No," said Isa, shooting down his most recent idea immediately.

"Aw, why not?" asked Lea. "Sounds like it would be funny."

Isa groaned and rubbed his head. "No, Lea, we are not switching the labels on the chemicals in the labs. That's just asking for disaster."

"Oh yeah, how?" Vanitas challenged.

"Didn't Vexen yell at Demyx for doing something like that?" asked Roxas, frowning at the memory.

Xion thought a moment and nodded. "Oh right, he said that the chemicals he was working with could be really nasty if mixed wrong. Like poison the castle or blow us all to Kingdom Hearts nasty."

"Still sounds funny to me," said Vanitas, clearly not caring about the possible consequences of that. He then frowned and asked, "Wait, who are Vexen and Demyx?"

Isa shrugged, and the others only said, "Nobodies."

Vanitas frowned in confusion but didn't push further.

Lea, now realizing what a bad idea that was, offered a compromise. "How about instead we just safely dump all the chemicals and switch them with colored water? How does that sound?"

Isa, Roxas, and Xion nodded, and Vanitas scowled but didn't argue.

Much.

"I still think them blowing themselves up would be hilarious," he griped.

"Sure it is, buddy," said Roxas, not meaning a word of it.

Vanitas perks up at the word 'buddy', and doesn't complain any further.

Though they all wonder why he ran off to yell, "IN YOUR FACE, VENTUS!" at the sky a second later.

(In the Land of Departure, Ventus sneezed and got the sinking feeling he was wrong about something. But what?

And why did he get the sense Vanitas had something to do with it…)

"Why didn't we think of this sooner?" asked Isa as they snuck into the castle once again. "If we want to stop them from researching hearts, this should have been the first thing we did."

"We both try to avoid regular libraries as much as possible, and Roxas and Xion didn't even know what a library is," replied Lea as they snuck around another corner.

"We do so," said Roxas indignantly. "Belle has one. We saw her in it. We just didn't know this castle had one too."

"What is a library, anyway?" asked Vanitas.

The rest of them stopped to stare at him, and Vanitas glared back just daring them to ask why he didn't know already.

"It's a room or building with lots and lots of books in it for people to read," Xion answered.

Getting his answer, Vanitas' hackles lowered. "Huh," he said thoughtfully. "I think I've seen those around."

"I'm more surprised you're not wondering why we're stealing their heart research," said Isa.

Vanitas's expression darkened. "Don't need an explanation there. Messing with hearts is bad news. End of story."

"Got that right," agreed Roxas as he tapped the door to the castle's library with his keyblade and let them in.

Only to freeze in his tracks and cause the rest of the group to crash into his back.

Peering out around him, they all stalled themselves at the sight.

The youngest apprentice, Ienzo, was sitting at a table in the library, staring back at them from over the top of a large book.

There was a silent standoff as both sides measured each other up.

The Radiant Garden Rebels really had no idea what Ienzo would do. Because of his young age, he had mostly been exempt from their pranks on the apprentices and guards. He'd occasionally get caught up in their bigger hijinks, but unlike all the adults he hadn't been targeted specifically.

Ienzo didn't look at all surprised to see them there. His one visible eye staring at them on an expressionless face.

Then, to their surprise, he didn't make any sound or do anything to alert the guards.

Instead, he silently pointed in the direction of one of a set of shelves, and following his finger, the teens all saw that he was indicating the very section of the research they'd wanted to steal.

Looking back at the kid, Xion gave him a warm smile. "Thanks," she said.

"But if anyone asks, we were never here," added Lea, holding a finger up to his lips.

Ienzo nodded and went back to his book.

And when the other apprentices loudly began loudly shouting upon finding all the research being suddenly replaced with cookie recipes, he didn't say a word.

"So what are we gonna do with all this?"

"What else? Burn it!"

Isa was pretty sure Vanitas was becoming a bad influence on his friends.

Case and point, when Lea gleefully agreed with Vanitas' plan to dispose of the heart research they'd stolen, Roxas offered to help, and Xion thought it might be fun.

Seeing he was outvoted, Isa didn't bother to argue and instead said, "Okay, but we do this outside the city, so we don't burn everything else down in the process."

Lea beamed at him. "Awesome."

Admittedly, the bonfire was pretty fun. Especially when Vanitas chucked some extra books into the air for Xion to cast spells at, and Lea brought out marshmallows for s'mores.

Ienzo was glaring.

Even didn't seem to notice his glaring as he continued to lecture Ienzo about the importance of being careful and not experimenting without an adult present.

Nothing he was experimenting with was in any way harmful, and he was taking all the scientific steps necessary to do it properly and take detailed notes while he was at it. He didn't need supervision. Plus, he'd been wanting to do this experiment for weeks, but all the adults had been too busy to help him, so he took matters into his own hands.

All of it added up to Ienzo totally not deserving this lecture and having to wash dishes in the kitchens for the next few days as punishment.

To make matters worse, the reason why he was getting this lecture and punishment was smirking in amusement just behind Even. Ienzo would have finished his experiment already with no one the wiser if Braig hadn't ratted him out.

Stupid Braig. Ienzo had never liked the jerk.

He'd show him.

A few hours later, Ienzo spotted the Radiant Garden Rebellion was standing a little outside the castle, looking like they were discussing how best to sneak in.

Perfect.

Ienzo quickly snuck into Braig's room and very conspicuously opened the window to catch their attention. Shooting a very pointed look at the rebellious teenagers, he left them to do what they did best.

Braig was quite furious to come back to find his room had been turned into a winter wonderland. And even better, a little bit of planted evidence had him convinced Even was the one who did it.

As he watched the two adults yell at each other, Ienzo was satisfied justice had been served.

This was too hilarious to watch, and if it wouldn't blow their cover, Lea would have wished they had popcorn. As it was, he and his friends kept silent in the vents as they watched the show.

Below them Ansem the Wise was straining to open a jar. Unfortunately for him, the Radiant Garden Rebels had superglued the container shut. Still, watching him struggle was surprisingly entertaining.

Finally admitting defeat, Ansem turned to a scowling Even (who had already tried to open the same jar with no success). "Even, would you fetch one of the guards? It would seem we need their assistance."

Even shot the jar a dirty look and nodded, striding out of the room past Ienzo, who was watching the whole thing looking as amused as Lea felt.

The first guard Even found was Braig, a fact he seemed far from happy about.

The reason why was made clear when Braig opened his mouth. "Maybe should think about leaving the lab on occasion and hitting the gym," he teased snidely. "Then little things like stuck lids wouldn't be a problem."

Even scoffed, Ienzo glared, and Ansem's polite smile turned strained at the comment.

With a smug grin, Braig took the jar and tried to twist the lid.

It didn't budge.

Braig frowned and twisted harder, but it remained firmly in place.

Soon enough he was straining just as much as Ansem had been and getting nowhere.

"Perhaps you should consider hitting the gym," Even said snidely as he left to get a different guard. "Then little things like stuck lids wouldn't be a problem."

Braig shot Even a glare but didn't retort. "Can I just shoot this thing off, or is it one of those things that would explode if I did that?" he asked Ansem in annoyance.

"The latter, unfortunately," said Ansem, sounding like he had considered it too.

Next up was Dilan, who, despite being stronger than Braig, didn't fare any better and was soon glaring at the jar as well.

When Even left again to fetch Aeleus, Ienzo waited until the adults were all too busy complaining to notice him, and snuck over to stand under the vent where Lea was hiding. One look at the kid's face made it clear what he wanted, and while it would kind of undo all their sabotage, the results would be too funny not to.

So, carefully so as not to be seen, Lea pulled out a bottle and dropped it down to him.

Ienzo caught it, rubbed some of the contents on his fingers, and scuttled back to his spot without anyone noticing his movements.

A moment later Aeleus entered the lab and took his own crack at opening the jar.

Despite being the biggest and strongest among them, the jar still refused to budge no matter how hard he strained against the lid.

That was when Ienzo walked up to him and tugged on his coat-sleeve in clear askance to try.

Seeing this, Dilan snorted, "You never gave the kid a shot?" he asked more as a joke than anything else.

Aeleus, seeing no harm in it, knelt down and handed the jar to Ienzo.

"He is a child," said Even. "If we couldn't open it, there's no way he could-"

At that moment the lid came off in Ienzo's hands with a loud 'Pop!'

The scientists and guards all stared slack-jawed as Ienzo held the now open jar up proudly.

In the vents, the rebels smothered their giggles.

Aeleus, though surprised, smiled and ruffled Ienzo's hair in congratulations.

"Aeleus must have loosened it," Braig said defensively.

"Yeah, that must be it," agreed Dilan, not wanting to admit they'd been beaten by a nine-year-old.

Ienzo shot them a dirty look hearing that, and placed the jar on a table, and left.

Which was convenient, as he took the nail polish remover he'd used to open the jar with him, and the apprentices and guards soon found out that all the jars in the lab were super glued.

Not one of them could be opened.