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Only three months ago, Maliaur had been free. A refugee, certainly, with his homeworld destroyed at the hand of one of his own kind, but he had been alive and free — and slowly amassing power to challenge she who had destroyed their world and betrayed all, enemies, allies, and kin.
Now he had nothing — not life nor freedom nor even his own name. The so-called Superior didn't know what he was, but he did know the power of names. He had stripped Maliaur's name from him, rearranged it to his liking and put his mark on it, then presented it to him as though he should be grateful to be worthy:
Marluχia.
None of the others had noticed, but then, they were only mortals.
After three months, Marluχia knew what only χemnas and χigbar knew: that the Organization was a sham.
He supposed he couldn't fault the others for their ignorance; after all, he had learned to read politics at his nursemaid's knee, and was well-acquainted with detecting the true holders of power.
χigbar wielded far more power than anyone suspected of so lackadaisical a man. Luχord had informed Marluχia that their numbers within the Organization indicated the order in which they joined, rather than rank.
χigbar was number II.
He was also prone to eavesdropping, invading personal space, and placing the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons. He had a major, albeit indirect, influence upon the way power flowed within the Organization.
Marluχia took great care not to vex the gold-eyed Freeshooter.
He was also careful not to annoy Saïχ, who handed out their assignments and had recently been officially appointed χemnas' second-in-command. He'd noticed that many of the Organization took personality cues from their elemental abilities, and creatures of the moon could be... mercurial.
Meanwhile, Marluχia did his best to cultivate the impression of one who was far more interested in puttering around his garden than in joining the latest power struggle — especially now that Luχord had politely requested a flower clock to help him stabilise the flow of time in the World that Never Was.
Knowing the congenial blond was confined to the Castle until that point, Marluχia agreed.
It certainly didn't hurt matters any that Luχord was more willing to explain things than certain others — matters such as the boy the Founders had failed to bring in for several years.
"Demyx told me about it," Luχord admitted one afternoon, as he and Marluχia dug up space for the flower clock. The slight upwards tilt to his lips indicated pillow talk, and Marluχia made a mental note to mind his tongue if he ever took the Gambler to bed. "He made a deal with Zexion — a favour in exchange for him trying to capture the prince and his bodyguard."
"Oh?" asked Marluχia, filing that away. As far as he could tell, Demyχ and Zeχion stayed out of each others' way. An alliance between them, even a temporary one, was intriguing.
Luχord, however, shrugged. "He wouldn't share the details, apart from some grumbling about inadequate reconnaissance. I can only assume he ran afoul of the natives. Hollow Bastion may be a fallen world, but it remains whole."
Unlike Marluχia's.
He suppressed a sigh of irritation, deftly changed the subject, and didn't allow himself to brood on it. He did, however, file the information away in the back of his mind — against the day he was inevitably sent after the elusive prince.
And sure enough, a scant few weeks after his conversation with Luχord, Saïχ sent him to Hollow Bastion with the mission to retrieve Prince Rufus. Keeping Luχord's warning in mind, Marluχia crossed over.
Her presence suddenly overwhelmed him, and he stopped himself just short of speaking her name aloud. He refused to even think it; to draw her attention now could prove fatal.
His mind reeling, he suddenly recalled Veχen scornfully speaking of Hollow Bastion's new ruler — no, conqueror! She ruled by right of conquest, so why was the Blooded prince still...
Oh.
Oh.
That changed matters entirely.
Marluχia was not returning to Never Was with Rufus. And why should he? he rationalised. After χaldin and Demyχ's failures to capture the Blood prince, a new strategy was clearly necessary— and he knew just how to achieve his goal.
Rude lay in the shade of an overgrown cherry tree, one eye open and scanning for trouble. Branches rustled overhead, occasionally gently showering him with leaves as Reno prowled through them. "If you drop any cherries on me, I'm coming up there to kick your ass," Rude said conversationally.
"You don't know fuckall about climbing, Chocorider," Reno retorted, grin evident in his tone.
"Nah," Rufus called lazily from where he was tossing cherry pits to the chocobos. "He'll just shake the tree 'til you fall out."
Rude chuckled, and the leaf shower moved left of him. There was only so far Reno would provoke him, and the line had moved back in the years they'd been with Rufus.
At least things had been relatively quiet since they'd picked up Elena — almost too quiet. It had been three years since the twin encounters with Demyx; nearly five since Xaldin. Oh, the Organization occasionally sent the silvery Dusks to harass them, and the Heartless were always a menace, but they hadn't seen a single black cloak in all that time. It made him nervous.
Something suddenly changed.
Rude's other eye snapped open, and he sat bolt upright, trying to see what it was.
"Fuckin'—" Reno yelped, and suddenly his rustling turned violent. "Rufus! Get away from the tree!"
Rufus rolled away immediately, and Rude tried to follow suit only to find himself firmly anchored in place by the tree's roots.
The Organization!
The thought flashed through Rude's head in the same instant he realised he and Reno were trapped.
"Elena!" yelled Tseng.
On the heels of his cry, Elena shrieked, "Freeze!"
The tree at Rude's back shuddered, then grew suddenly cold as Elena's spell spread through it. At once divining her plan, Rude threw himself against his bindings, and was rewarded with a sharp crack as half the roots broke. Two dozen smaller cracks echoed his, like the fireworks he barely recalled from New Year celebrations, then Reno plummeted from above, trailing curses as he went.
And then, like twisted déjà vu, Tseng yelled Elena's name, and the girl shrieked. But there was fear in his voice, and pain in hers. With a roar, Rude lunged forward again, and the rest of his bindings shattered. Like Reno, he rolled free, albeit with less grace, and came to his feet.
Elena was down, crimson slowly spreading over her white shirt. Tseng stood over her, every muscle straining to hold back a scythe taller than them all. With a wordless, enraged snarl, Reno bounded forward to help, leaving Rude to retreat back to Rufus' side.
"Get me closer," Rufus demanded quietly.
His eyes on Elena's still form, Rude said, "No." He hated himself even as the words left his mouth, but Tseng had impressed on all three of them that Rufus' safety came before everything else.
Rufus disagreed.
"Do it, Light damn you!" he exploded, still soft-voiced. "Reno and Tseng are leading him away!" And that, at least, was true; Reno ducked beneath the cloaked man's arm to deal him a solid blow to the ribs, then darted away as Tseng fouled the scythe's retaliatory blow with his spear. Elena was already out of the weapon's reach, despite their assailant's unusually long range.
"I'm going with or without your approval," Rufus added implacably, and yes, just as Tseng had taught them to protect Rufus, he had taught Rufus to respect them.
Rufus would be safer with Rude than without him.
"Thunder!" Reno bellowed, a snapshot of lightning from his pipe buying Tseng room to lead the cloaked man even further away from Elena.
"Fine," Rude growled. Keeping himself between Rufus and their newest Organization assailant, Rude led the way to where Elena lay bleeding. Looking down at her, seeing the way her shirt had been sliced open, Rude suddenly thought that the stranger had pulled the blow he'd dealt her.
The weapon was easily half again as tall as Elena; its blade nearly a metre long. The way he wielded it, holding the shaft near the bottom as though it weighed no more than a feather, gave him a reach of nearly three metres.
"Heal!" Rufus snapped, more angry than afraid, which in turn confirmed that Elena wasn't in danger of dying.
Something here was off.
Smelling cherry blossoms, he braced himself just in time — hundreds of tiny pink petals sliced into him, leaving him bleeding from hundreds of tiny cuts.
"Heal!"
Mint exploded in his nose and on the back of his tongue before he could tell Rufus to save his strength.
Rude growled. The cloaked man was more powerful than Demyx had been — so why was he pulling his blows? He could tell the man had the same ease in battle as Xaldin, wielding magic alongside his weapon with no apparent strain — skills that even Reno and Tseng lacked.
Hissing in fury, Elena aimed her rowan wand over Rufus' shoulder. "Freeze!" The blizzard spell sent a gust of cold air through the rends in Rude's tattered shirt as it bypassed him; Tseng and Reno dove to either side of the Organization man, who raised a defensive barrier—
But he wasn't the target.
Ice spread across the grass like the incoming tide, prompting a startled oath from their opponent. He raised his shrouded head and snarled at them, and Elena dropped her suddenly-flowering wand with a shriek.
Bounding forward, Reno slid across the ice with more speed than grace, swinging his pipe against the cloaked man's spine as he went by — only to belly flop onto the ice, tripped by the scythe.
Their opponent raised a black-gloved hand, and the ground in front of Rufus, Rude, and Elena suddenly exploded into massive briars; the force of the spell threw all three of them back to the frozen cherry tree.
Elena rolled off of Rude, her face a mask of fury, and extended her empty hand. "Fire!" she yelled, and a circle of flames surrounded her. Without her wand as a means of channelling her magic, the spell was far weaker than usual.
However, she and Rude had practised this technique.
Stepping into the circle beside her, he growled, "Fire!" boosting the power Elena had called forth. Then the two of them stepped back, and he punched the now-much-larger circle.
Trailing flame, the wheel spun towards their opponent, who scoffed and deflected it into the sky with his scythe, then dealt Reno a blow to the gut. Reno dropped like a stone, and he planted a booted foot on the redhead's chest.
The scent of cherry blossoms filled the air again, and they all saw Tseng brace himself for an incoming blow—
Again, hundreds of cherry blossoms materialised; again, all of them converged on a single target: Tseng. But this time, they cut like knives.
"TSENG!"
Somehow, their leader remained on his feet, though he wavered like a drunken man.
Laughing, their opponent removed his hood at last, revealing a cruel expression and feathered hair the same colour as the cherry blossoms evaporating into darkness.
"You're certainly a strong one," he said, sounding as maliciously gleeful as Maleficent at her worst. "There's a lot of Xaldin to you."
Tseng bared his teeth, despite the blood dripping from hundreds of cuts.
Snarling, Rude started forward, but more briars erupted from the ground, twining around him, Reno, and Elena—
Elena screamed, mingled pain and fury in her voice, and tore herself free.
The man's scythe came up again, a third gathering of cherry blossoms ready.
"Heal!" yelled Rufus, but Tseng was out of range, and he was out of mana.
The cherry blossoms shot forward, but Elena dove behind the dubious shelter of the frozen tree, which shattered upon impact. The girl stood her ground as the splinters fell, her ruined shirt stuck to her flesh by her own drying blood, tightly grasping one of the frozen branches.
"FREEZE!"
She was exhausted as Rufus, but her spell held more power than she had ever brought to bear before, more power than he knew her capable of: power drawn from her life's blood, enhanced by her new wand.
Grass frosted over as her spell burst through the wall of briars, striking their enemy in the chest with enough force to knock him off his feet. He sat up, a startled expression on his face and a hexagonal pattern of frost where the spell struck him, and Rude prayed to any listening god he wouldn't see Elena trembling.
But the man only sneered, gracefully rolling to his feet and slamming his elbow into Tseng's belly. Their leader went limp, falling only to be caught by the man and hauled over his shoulder.
"Call me Marluχia," he taunted them. "I'll be back for your prince."
And then he was gone, opening a dark portal and stepping through.
Elena collapsed a second later, and Reno took over. "Rufus," he choked out, one arm over his stomach, "get 'er an ether an' a potion, quick!"
Rude hesitated, but a fierce look from Reno sent him on Rufus' heels.
Elena was dangerously pale. Swearing, Rufus pawed through his pack until he found their tray of ethers. Popping one out, he prised her jaw open and forced the blue cube inside. "Chew," he ordered. "You'll feel better."
The girl made a weak face, but obeyed, and chased the ether down with a potion. Still exhausted, but in better colour, she leaned back against the Prince. "What do we do now?" she whispered.
Rude knelt, and Rufus helped Elena climb onto his back. The three of them moved slowly after Reno, who was calming the spooked chocobos. "We rest," said Rufus, his eyes dark with rage. "And then we plan. The Organization may have Tseng, but they will not keep him."