genessia | A new arrival in the 'hood, action, OTA, Kingdom Hearts Spoilers are almost guaranteed.

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A new arrival in the 'hood, action, OTA, Kingdom Hearts Spoilers are almost guaranteed.

Xion had awoken, in the pod, terribly confused. She gave everything a quick glance, then shoved it in her pockets. Pulling her hood over her face, she made her way out, and got as far as the hologram. She stood and listened to what it had to say, her small back tense.

She shouldn't be here. She shouldn't BE. She somehow doubted this was where Namine was supposed to have sent her. Somehow... Somehow something had gone wrong. Very wrong. She took a map and looked at it, frowning. She shouldn't be kidnapped. Had someone tried to stop them? Was that why she was still here? Still existed as a separate entity?

She shook her head under the hood. She had to figure this out. But first, she had to find somewhere hidden. She didn't pull out the necklace, or the device, leaving them in her pocket, along with the pamphlet. She grabbed a map and shoved it in her other pocket, with the money, then turned to look around, looking for a place to hide....

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She considered. "Maybe we should start with that, then? Seeing the other worlds? Seeing where the dangers might be?"

Lea nodded. "Was thinking of doing that tomorrow anyway, so yeah, good idea," he said. "Where to first, though? Fayren, Nova City, Everglade, or Attleton?" He gave Xion a questioning look, as if asking if she had any preference.

She considered. "Which is the most dangerous, and which is the least?"

"Hmmm... If I had to guess, probably Everglade would be the most dangerous," he said. "It's got a bit of a reputation, and that's where more of this place's creepier residents tend to live. Though Fayren might give it a bit of a run for its money, depending on what part of it you were in. And Least Dangerous would probably be Attleton, based on what I've read and heard."

"So we should probably explore Everglade and Fayren first?"

If they could level up there, then the other worlds should be easy.

Lea shrugged. "If you want," he said. "I don't really have a preference. So which would you rather check out first, Fayren or Everglade? Or should we just flip a coin?"

"...Fayren." Cause it sounded more like fire and he'd like that.

"Alright," Lea said. "Fayren it is. We can look into the Potion thing while we're there."

"Now though, we better finish our pizza before it gets cold," he said. "Pizza is one thing that it's a little hard to reheat with fire magic."

"Alright," she said, nodding. She took another bite. "Why would it be hard to use fire magic to make this hot again?" she asked, her mouth full.

Lea ate another bite of his own pizza, though he had enough manners to swallow before replying. "It's too dry," he said. "It's easy to reheat something like soup or tea; that's mostly liquid and in a container. And I could probably actually cook a pizza with fire magic if I had too."

"But cooking dries out the crust enough that trying to reheat it with fire magic would most likely just burn it. Not only would the burnt bits taste bad, but the smell of burnt bread is pervasive and not really something you'd want in a restaurant."

She had less manners. Sorry, Lea. "I guess I never thought of that. Never really ate much other than ice cream, though. And we never wanted that to get hot...." she gave him a small tentative almost grin, not sure if he'd laugh about that, or be upset, or what. This might already be the longest conversation the two of them had ever had without Roxas or some crisis involved.

Lea didn't laugh but nor was he upset. Mostly he just looked puzzled. "Then... well this might sound like a weird question, but how do you work?", he said. "I mean, I figured even a replica would need food because a body needs fuel to work, and you can't exactly plug yourself in or something."

Pause. "You can't, can you? I mean, not that there's anything wrong with that if that's the case, but..."

"I don't know. I never thought it was weird...." she said thinking about it. "Did Roxas need to eat more than just ice cream?" You're talking to someone who spent more than a month in a coma and woke up like she had just been taking a nap. No life support, no atrophying, and.... no way for Lea to remember that.

"Well yeah," he said, shrugging. "Just because we lost our hearts didn't mean that our bodies worked any differently. We still needed to regularly eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, and all that. The price of being strong enough to retain a human form."

"I mean, even when Roxas was in a coma for awhile, the Dusks had to take care of him," he said. "Make sure he had food and water and all that. As nice as it would be, people can't subsist on just ice cream."

Okay, now you had her full attention in a way you hadn't yet. "Wait. What? If I wasn't there, why was he in a coma? The coma was my fault? If I...." she stopped and closed her eyes, shaking her head, shoulders slumping. "I...was only erased from memory, not actual history... Of course. He passed out...and I'm sure you had no idea why.... I wonder if he remembered the shells.... what he remembered for why.

Lea frowned a bit, even more confused. "Well, I was at Castle Oblivion at the time, so I didn't find out about him passing out til I got back," he said. "But I don't see how you could be responsible for that, unless you hit him over the head or something. Given the timing, it was much more likely that he passed out because Naminé was altering Sora's memories during that time."

She shook her head, and took a deep breath. "I... was made... from Roxas. Sort of. And sort of from Sora. Roxas and I.... I don't think they meant it, but we sort of shared strength, and health, and power..." She closed her eyes, setting down the pizza. "I used to think I was a failure... and in some ways I am. Was."

Deep breath.

"Am."

Her hands closed into fists on her lap. "There was a long while when I couldn't summon my Keyblade consistently. Or at all. They were losing patience with me, they were going to turn me into a Dusk. But Roxas... Roxas was at the peak of his game, and I had my magic... so you suggested we ask to be partnered up. And it worked, for a while. They didn't know that Roxas had the only Keyblade. And for a while, he even let me use his, to try to remember what it felt like to hold one. By the end, the last day we were given... I could summon my Keyblade again."

She lifted a hand over the table, eyes still closed, and called in her Keyblade. It appeared in her hand and she opened her eyes, looking at it. "We thought it had worked, that I was getting better. And I was."

"Roxas was getting worse. There was a period when I was in a coma, and he seemed untouchable. Though I only know about that from what I've overheard. But as I got stronger... he got weaker. We didn't make the connection at first, but we figured it out eventually. My Keyblade... is somehow his Keyblade. They're linked. My strength is his. When I worked, when I pushed to get stronger, I wasn't getting stronger the way other people do... I was stealing his strength. Roxas passed out, because I overwhelmed him."

They Keyblade vanished and her eyes closed again, as she let her hand drop. It hurt. It hurt then it hurt now. Why did it hurt? "I took strength from him.... and left him helpless. That was why Roxas was in a coma. That was why his strength waxed and waned. Because I was a broken puppet, tied too tightly to him and Sora...."

Her hands closed tightly in her lap.

"It was my fault," she whispered. "I hurt Roxas. I worried you."

Lea put his own pizza down, listening thoughtfully to the story. After she was finished, the thoughtful look remained for a long moment as he wracked his brain for some memory that would either confirm or deny what he'd been told. But there was nothing. Nothing regarding Xion at least.

Finally, he shook his head. "I don't think so," Lea said. "I don't remember anything about what you described with you and Roxas, but I remember about when Naminé started altering Sora's memories. You may have had access to a larger amount of power while Roxas was down for the count, but the chances of you being the cause of it are pretty slim, given how early on it was."

"The rest... I'm not sure about," he said. "I believe you, but given how much I kept from Roxas, I might not have given you the whole story either. There might be circumstances that neither one of us knows about right now because I never told you and my memory wound up erased. So I'm not gonna go assigning any blame until I remember everything that happened." If he ever did, but he didn't really want to consider that possibility.

"I don't know how long you were with him after I left, so it's hard to tell how early or late it was," she said softly, thinking about it. She was the one to blame. Wasn't she? She had to be. She had worked so hard to try to get stronger.

She looked up at him. "I know you kept a lot from us," she said softly. She didn't sound upset about it in the least. "You did it to protect us. I don't know if Roxas ever realized that, but I always knew. Sometimes you had to act as though you were working against us, but I always saw through it. I knew. That's why I will always trust you," she added, softly.

Lea looked uncomfortable at the last bit, but didn't comment on it for now. The first part though... "Well, if you're a Replica, then that means you had to have been there since before me and the others left for Castle Oblivion," he said, "because Vexen died there and no more Vexen meant no more Replicas after that. And that was just over three weeks after Roxas joined the Organization. So you couldn't have been there too long. And if you had been draining a lot of Roxas' power that soon, it would have probably been noticeable more constantly. So your presence was most likely just a coincidence then."

"Maybe..." she said. But she didn't think so. Lying to protect her was very much an Axel thing to do, so it might be a Lea one also. Only Namine would know for sure....

She still sounded skeptical, and unfortunately, Lea didn't have enough information to say for certain one way or another. He didn't think she'd been the cause, but he had no way of proving it. Maybe when and if he remembered more, but not now.

Still he gave her a reassuring smile and a pat on the shoulder. "C'mon, let's just finish our pizza," he said. "Then I'll show you here we're staying for the time being, and tonight, we can find a spot for ice cream. Sound good?"

She nodded. "Alright." Ice cream certainly sounded good.

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A new arrival in the 'hood, action, OTA, Kingdom Hearts Spoilers are almost guaranteed.

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And gonna try and wrap this one up, I think. X3

Alright