Prologue:
Interlude III: Axel
The dark was still clinging to his clothes in wispy curls from his corridor when the Lancer found him.
Your presence is requested.
Axel had been tired in oh so many ways, more than ready to stretch out in his own bed for an hour or two and catch a few winks, but those four little words sharpened his senses and straightened his spine.
He wasn't ready for this, damn it. There were so many questions he wanted to ask the old men -- what the hell being at the top of his list -- and he hadn't figured out yet how to phrase them to get the information and keep his half-life.
Before meeting the witch, he'd thought this would be so easy, a fucking rescue mission -- that he'd slip in through the digital town's security system, find Roxas, remind him who he really was, and rip his way back out again. He knew Xemnas would be... not impatient, because impatience was way too close to feeling something, and Xemnas didn't do that (none of them were supposed to do that), but... expectant.
Man, and he'd thought his biggest task would be getting the old man to keep his coat on.
He really, really should have known better.
They were already there, waiting for him, but only two of them. Numbers I and III. Otherwise the meeting room was empty.
It was a bad sign. They all had their little purposes in the Organization, and the top brass were no exception. Xemnas had his grand vision and his goals, didn't like to bother with the nitty-gritty implementation details like talking to subordinates; he left that to his seconds. Xigbar was a little more down-to-earth -- he remembered that there were degrees of failure. If you messed up on a mission and it really wasn't your fault, he was the one who'd mediate for you, make arguments in your favor, try and make sure everyone kept their heads at the end of the day.
And Xaldin, well. He did everything else. The boring work -- the dirty work. The Organization's own little executioner.
First the witch, and now this. What the hell was going on here?
"You came back without him."
Axel took care to control his breathing. "Would you go with someone like me?" A smirk, self-deprecating, but still calm. Even, reasoned, spreading his hands helplessly. "He doesn't remember anything, okay? It's not his fault." Not desperate. Not grasping at straws.
They only gazed down at him -- at least, he assumed they were gazing down at him. With the hoods up, it got harder to tell. He'd used that to his advantage before. He didn't like thinking about why they might have been doing it now.
Finally, softly, in that horribly smooth and distant voice of his, Xemnas murmured, "Erase him."
The empty place in his chest seized, went cold, skipped the beats that usually meant nothing. "What?" Erase him? The words echoed senselessly in his head and he had to keep speaking, had to drown them out. "Aren't you being a little hasty?"
He was still looking at Xemnas, but of course the response came from Xaldin. "That was an order. Why the hesitation?" Something in his tone had turned calculating, and Axel could sense the trap, felt the edges of it right before the other man continued lightly, "Your judgment was so swift and merciless the last time we found ourselves betrayed."
Harder to control his breathing now. The implication was like a knife at his throat. Axel wet his lips and snapped, "This is different! He didn't betray us! I just need more time." Fuck, he hoped he wasn't lying.
"If he won't return, then he will face to face the consequences." Xaldin did not move, but the shining length of a deadly lance shimmered into existence at his shoulder. It hovered, rolling gently with his words as if on a billowing current. "If you refuse to carry out these orders... the consequences will be yours to face."
And then the lance was flying through the air, so fast it was only a gleam of light, and half a second too late he realized that it was coming straight at his head--
--but he did not close his eyes, did not flinch, and waited for the dull choonk of metal embedding itself in the white marble of his throne. It came, and he felt the breeze by his ear, on his neck. Tauntingly close.
Even then he could have made a joke out of the whole thing, stretched his mouth into a grin or maybe said something cool like, Think you missed there, or Watch the hair, old man.
But Xemnas moved, a silken gesture for silence, and Xaldin too went still, dissipating his weapon to make way for a far more effective threat.
The sensation of their boss's power gathering was hard to describe but unmistakable, and Axel felt his mouth go dry as it shivered over him, into him, through him. Oh god. It made every last inch of his nonexistent being crawl, and he could feel the pull, the nothingness in him that responded to the nothingness in the air above them, that wanted to strip away from his bones and go to it--
"Okay!" The useless thing was pounding violently in his chest, he couldn't hear his own voice over it, only barely knew what he was saying. "Okay! I got it! I'll do it. I'll do it..."
He had seen past members of the Organization reduced to Dusks. He had seen their bodies twist, and he had heard their garbled, incoherent screams.
Xaldin studied him a moment longer, but seemed satisfied, and then they both vanished, leaving him alone to tremble and shake and slowly recover.
Fuck, he thought with a bitter twist of his lips. I'm sorry, Roxas.
NEXT >>> Prologue (Part 13)