Chapter Text
On the west side of Twilight Town stood Eventide University. Near the university stood a plaza. Bordering this plaza stood an old, venerable theatre known as the Alexandria. Within this theatre stood Roxas, who was pretty sure he’d misunderstood.
“You’re… sure you mean me?” he asked.
The man he was talking to – tall, muscled but very thin, with thick dyed-silver hair and a propensity for midriff-revealing shirts – scoffed. “Am I sure about whom I want to cast in my production, as the director? Yes, Roxas, I’m fairly sure.”
Roxas resisted the urge to glare. Kuja, despite his relatively young age, was a well-regarded director. As such, his supercilious attitude and relatively abrasive interpersonal skills tended to go unremarked upon. If that had been all there was to him, Roxas would’ve kept his distance immediately after their first meeting; fortunately, Kuja also had a track record of being fiercely protective of his casts and crews. Anyone who’d ever worked with him would praise his management practices and call him a dick in the same breath.
He also, for some reason Roxas couldn’t put his finger on, reminded him of Zidane Tribal. Roxas wasn’t sure why; the difference in personality was like night and day.
“You want me to play the lead role,” Roxas said, to confirm again. “Kuja, you realize I’m still in school, right?”
“And?” Kuja asked, rolling his eyes. “Since when has that ever been an indicator of ability, Roxas?”
“Always?” Roxas said.
Kuja let out a bark of laughter. “My, you’re still young.” Kuja couldn’t have been a day older than 30.
“But, Locke is–”
“Locke is playing the villain,” Kuja said, “because frankly your voice isn’t deep enough. Oh, I would have loved to see you ham it up, but you can’t hit those notes.”
Alexandria Theatre had an agreement with Eventide University’s drama department, in that they accepted drama students in their productions to provide experience, exposure, and most importantly, course credit. Roxas’s first performance had gone better than had been expected of him, due to his experience with Zidane, and he’d moved up to a main cast role the following year. Now in his third year, it was still unheard of for him to be cast in the lead role over several professionals, such as Locke Cole.
But, that was Kuja’s decision to make, and his reputation had come from his ridiculous decisions returning massive dividends. Something told Roxas he was the only person in the cast who would be seeing this as at all odd.
He still felt the need to make sure Kuja was thinking this through, though. “Celes is… a lot taller than me.”
Kuja scoffed. “And?”
“Well… this is supposed to be a romance…”
“I repeat: And? You think no one will believe a couple where the woman is taller than the man? Trust me, Roxas, people eat that sort of dynamic right up. And let’s be realistic: Odds are good that’ll be true for you in any sort of romantic lead role,” Kuja said.
Irritation surged through all five feet six inches of Roxas… but he was right. “All right,” he relented. “I guess I’ll just have to trust your decision.”
Kuja clapped him on the shoulder. “As well you should. Run along home now; we’re done for the night. I’ll expect you to start memorizing your lines before our next rehearsal.” The next rehearsal was, of course, the following evening.
“Right,” Roxas said. This was a “jump, and ask ‘how high’ on the way up” scenario, but he was used to it by this point. “Goodnight.” But Kuja had already walked away.
Sighing and shaking his head, Roxas made his way out of the theatre. The sun hadn’t set yet, but as this was Twilight Town, it never would. He checked his gummiphone – it wasn’t too late. He had time to walk home.
Axel and Isa had purchased a house in Sunset Terrace, which was typically a tram ride, but Roxas liked to stretch his legs every once in a while. He did still practice with his Keyblade, and could hold his own, but unlike some of his friends, he didn’t want his whole life to revolve around it. Xion, on the other hand, was still intending to take the Mark of Mastery exam, though she’d had to push it back several times due to school obligations. Yen Sid, who apparently had his own school obligations, didn’t seem to mind.
Axel, on the third, mystery hand, had no such intentions, but was making use of his Keyblade every day. At some point, Roxas would have expected Axel to notice that he was doing the work of a Keyblade Master anyways, even without the exam, but evidently not. Although, in fairness, Axel’s track record of noticing things that involved his own behaviour was… spotty, at best. As Isa could attest.
Growing up hadn’t changed Roxas’s life as much as he might have feared. Most of the changes had been positive; he’d gained much more than he’d lost (having both not had much to lose, and losing it anyway before getting what he could back). He still saw Hayner, Pence, and Olette when their schedules aligned (Pence and Olette also attending Eventide, while Hayner now worked full-time with Lenna at Café Hiryuu). He and Xion were still together, and nobody cared what they were doing behind closed doors.
Honestly, Roxas’s life was pretty great. And the only thing he really had to do was enjoy–
A flash of pink swept through the corner of his vision. Roxas blinked, and turned.
Crouching on the roof corner of one of the nearby buildings was a pink… thing. Roxas didn’t get a good look at it before it darted away.
Slowly, Roxas sighed. “…Crap.” Well, he had wanted exercise.
On some level, he recognized that weird shit happening in Twilight Town was not his problem. On a higher level, he recognized that weird shit happening in Twilight Town would always be his problem, and that he wouldn’t be very happy with himself if he just ignored it.
The slight issue was that unlike every other world Keybearers lived on, Twilight Town maintained its original World Order. Axel mainly did his work in the sewers, away from most prying eyes. This meant that Roxas couldn’t exactly go chasing that pink… thing across the rooftops without inviting questions he didn’t want to have to answer.
However, he wasn’t without recourse.
Ducking into an alley, Roxas unzipped the bag he’d been carrying. From it he pulled his Keyblade Armour vambrace. Strapping it onto his left arm, he opened a Dark Corridor and tossed his bag through it; it would land in their house’s living room, none the worse for wear given it didn’t have a heart. As far as he was aware.
“Focus,” he muttered to himself, and engaged the armour. As the ivory plates covered his body, he summoned Oathkeeper. Now sufficiently anonymous, he headed for the rooftops.
Once Roxas had reached the same level as the pink thing, he cast his gaze about, trying to find it again. “You were over by Station Heights, heading away from Market Street…” he muttered to himself.
With some difficulty, he figured out the thing’s most likely route, and took a running leap off the side of the building. Flowmotion aura suffused him, and Roxas rose up again, bounding across the gaps between buildings like an acrobat.
He had little difficulty spotting the pink thing, as it was soaring through the air.
“How the hell is nobody noticing…” Roxas trailed off. It was late, the thing was moving fast enough that it was possible to miss it if you blinked, and of course, humans simply very rarely thought to look up. Odds were someone had noticed, but what could you do?
What could you do, if you didn’t have a Keyblade?
Roxas shot himself forwards, following in the pink thing’s wake. Every once in a while it would touch down on a roof, in order to get its bearings. That was Roxas’s chance, if he could just catch up…
The chase continued for several minutes, until the pink thing set itself down above the pet store. Roxas stopped across the street, hidden from view for a minute by the shop sign on his building’s roof.
“Are you… cleaning yourself?” he wondered, confused. The pink thing now had a leg raised to its head. Roxas had walked in on Thomas bathing enough to recognize a cat grooming when he saw it. The pink thing was decidedly not a cat, but still, the similarities…
Roxas shook himself. This was no time for treating the thing like a cat. The trouble was, he couldn’t think of what else to call it. They’d passed over several groups of people (who had, indeed, not looked up), and the pink thing hadn’t so much glanced in their direction. That was not Heartless behaviour; a Heartless would’ve beelined it right for whatever heart was the nearest, and Roxas’s job here would consequentially have been a lot less complicated. Nor was it a Nobody; at least no variety Roxas had ever seen.
In fairness, even with all his time in the Organization, he’d never seen the Reaper or Ninja Nobodies that had supposedly been assigned to Marluxia and Larxene, and even now, he wasn’t sure what Vexen, Zexion, and Lexaeus’s assigned Nobodies even were. But this thing didn’t feel like a Nobody to him. And Roxas figured he had a relatively unique perspective on the matter.
Given that the pink thing hadn’t actually hurt anyone that Roxas had seen, despite plenty of opportunity to, he couldn’t simply assume it was an enemy. It could just as easily be a very lost and confused Toon. That raised a host of other questions, but if that hypothesis proved correct, they were questions for later.
Roxas figured his best bet was simply to cast Stop on the pink thing and get a better look at it. It wouldn’t do any lasting damage, no one would get hurt, and if it was a Toon Roxas could just apologize afterwards while getting them home.
“One shot at this,” he muttered to himself, glancing over the sign again. The pink thing seemed fine sitting where it was for the moment. Up until now, it had given no indication that it had noticed Roxas following it, but Roxas also hadn’t made any hostile moves towards it. Which was about to change.
Roxas took a deep breath, stepped out from behind the sign, and leveled Oathkeeper at the pink thing. “Sorry about this. Stop!”
A glowing orb of diamonds and Roman numerals surrounded the pink thing, and flashed. Roxas jumped over to the pink thing’s roof, ready to find out what the pink thing actually was.
Once he’d touched down, the pink thing turned to look at him.
What. “Stop!” Roxas called again. The spell hit the pink thing just as the first had, but like the first… it seemed to have no effect.
The pink thing tilted its head, and unfolded itself. Despite the failure of the spell, it seemed that Roxas would be getting a close look at the creature regardless. The pink thing stood a few inches shorter than Roxas himself, about the same height as Xion. It appeared to be a girl, thin and tiny, and covered with pink fur – Roxas could tell because she appeared to be completely naked, though about as anatomically correct as a doll. The fur on her arms and legs darkened starting at her elbows and shins, and came down into large, bright yellow talons on her hands and feet. Her mane-like hair reached past her waist, and seemed to flow with a life of its own. Matching tufts on her arms and legs also seemed to move of their own accord.
The creature’s yellow eyes, set into red sockets, watched Roxas closely.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “Wasn’t sure who you were. We’ve got a problem in this town with Nobodies.” It occurred to him that he was making an assumption. “Uh, these white monsters, they move in weird ways? You probably haven’t seen them, my friend has a full-time job clearing them out.”
The girl-creature didn’t respond.
“Can you… talk?” Roxas asked, frowning. She seemed to have a mouth and human facial features, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.
The creature tilted her head.
“Oh… kay,” Roxas said. “Um… I promise I’m not trying to hurt you. So I’m going to put my Keyblade away, and then maybe we can talk? I think I can make a letter board, I have a notebook.” Oathkeeper vanished with a flash of light.
This was a poor idea.
The sudden flash seemed to startle the girl-creature. She sunk into a crouch and hissed at Roxas, which was all the warning he had before she leapt at him.
Unprepared for the sudden assault, Roxas fell over backwards. The armour protected him from the creature’s claws, though he took a few good hits to his head. “Dammit, I’m trying to help you!” he shouted, but the creature seemed disinclined to listen. Desperate, Roxas took a leaf out of Isa’s book and created a Dark Corridor underneath himself. Sinking through, he popped out right-side-up a few feet away, closing the Corridor before the creature could also fall through.
“Right,” he said, resummoning Oathkeeper. “The hard way.”
The creature leapt at him again, but this time he brought his Keyblade up to block the strike. “Yeah, yeah, tire yourself out,” he muttered to himself. He still didn’t think he actually needed to hurt her; if anything, he’d probably spooked her with the vanishing weapon. Letting her wear herself down would be the easiest.
There was a part of him that figured maybe the chain magic that seemed to come with Keyblade Mastery would actually be useful to pick up someday.
The creature faltered. “All right,” Roxas said. “Now, maybe can we–”
She whipped a foot up and kicked him in the head.
Roxas fell backwards, stunned both literally and metaphorically. Blinking through the hazy vision, he saw the girl-creature lift into the air and shoot away, outside of his field of view. Groaning, he cast Cura over himself and took stock of the situation.
“She… pretended she was tired so I’d lower my guard,” he mused out loud to himself. “So she’s not an animal, she can think. Or… maybe she’s a very smart animal.” His head still hurt.
Roxas took a good look around the area, but it was no use; in the time it had taken to get back to his feet, the girl-creature had vanished. “Shit,” he said. Oh well. He could at least spread the word, get people to keep an eye out.
Speaking of which…
Roxas made his way back down to street level and banished his armour, pulling his jacket sleeve down over the vambrace. If anyone asked, he could just say he was from the theatre; it wouldn’t even be lying, really. With a sigh, he headed back for home. As he walked, he pulled out his gummiphone.
“Hey, Pence?” he said, once the call connected. “It’s Roxas. Are you still cataloguing weird shit that happens around town? Cause I’ve got a doozy…”