[Solo RP] Axel's Nightmare
((ooc: I use dialouge from the first new cut scene in Final Mix+. No spoilers but I know some people don't want to know anything until they play it, so I'm warning in advance. Also; it's a little long.))
He had barely fallen asleep when he first felt something odd. It was as if someone was running freezing cold ribbons across his chest. He twitched in discomfort but didn’t wake up even as the pressure of the ribbons grew. He shuddered as the first ribbon stopped its across motion and instead pushed itself through his skin. His eyes snapped open as more of the fingers joined this action, pushing through him searching for something.
With his eyes open he could finally witness what was attacking him. On a hill he hadn’t seen since another lifetime, surrounded by black shadows. He felt very weak, frozen, all his energy expended from trying to fight them off. Each finger clawing at him felt like a shard of ice, increasing in intensity as it burrowed deeper under his skin.
The clawing fingers in his chest finally found what they were looking for. Fighting among each other as they tried to grab onto his heart and pull it out. A neo-shadow took supremacy and pulled to draw the heart from its place. There was so much pain…no…the pain was leaving…but an…emptiness grew with each inch. Cold…
He wanted the pain back, anything would feel better than this emptiness…the emptiness didn’t feel at all. He tried fighting back against this empty non-feeling with greater urgency…trying to fill the increasing cold. A scorching hot feeling grew in the empty place where his heart once was…it hurt…a lot. He latched onto that pain, it hurt so much, but anything was better than empty, and as he focused it grew. The shadow finally finished its slow pull, taking his heart completely from his body…and the fire in the empty cavity exploded outward following it. Covering him, his attackers, the hill, everything.
…
He opened his eyes again to black. Flames surrounded the edge of a large circle radiating an intense heat that would have killed anyone else. He was alone in the circle, everything besides the flames dark and silent.
A lance shot past his head, cutting some of his hair as it went past and was stuck in a non-wall behind him. “Get rid of him? Isn’t it early for that?” He heard himself say, in the dream state knowing exactly what was going on, though his conscious mind hadn’t caught up yet.
“It’s an order.” A figure appeared before him, flames casting shadows on his hooded black coat. “Why are you hesitating? You deal swift merciless judgment to those who turn their back on the organization.” The figure raised his hand and the lance released itself from the non-wall, grazing his cheek as it floated back to his master.
He turned his head to look behind him where he ‘knew’ Roxas was standing. He was there in his black coat with the hood up, standing impassively as always. He turned back to Xaldin trying to plead, “He hasn’t turned his back on us…Eugh!” The next thing he knew he was on the ground, side and back in considerable pain, and Roxas with his hood still up was standing in an ending battle pose in between him and Xaldin.
“If you oppose these orders, you will be the one to pay.” The larger hooded figure disappeared into black wisps, leaving him alone with Roxas who was turning to attack again. He dodged out of the way when the second attack came, calling his chakrams as he did and turning the ground into molten flames. He was in Twilight Town, though the sky was still black and the circle of flames covered anything else that would actually allow him to know that. Roxas waited as he raised himself to a fighting crouch, readying his chakram and prepared himself to kill.
Keyblade met chakram as both lunged at each other furiously. For every strike there was a parry followed by another strike. The heat intensified as the fight continued, and the silence was broken by more than just the clanging of metal on metal. Voices started coming from outside of the ring of fire. Some from this life, some from the last…each giving an order. Growling in frustration at the noise he attacked more furiously, engulfing his chakram in fire as the keyblades were engulfed in light. The voices grew and intensified with every strike. It only irritated him more, causing him to fight harder trying to drown them out with the sounds of their weapons, fewer parries more strikes, but it only made the voices become louder.
...One strike was not met with the sound of metal… the voices silenced instantly.
He looked up…and found not the shadows of a hood, but two wide blank blue eyes, staring at him. Roxas was no longer in his coat; instead he was covered in the black pants, tank top and boots he wore underneath. Without the coat he could see exactly where his chakram had landed, the grisly affect it had, and of course those eyes staring at him. The expression was somewhere between hurt and contempt.
The boy fell…the weapons and fire disappear as he hits the ground leaving only a black expanse once again. The only things left in the blackness are himself, the body of his friend in front of him and the slowly spreading pool of blood. Something in the back of his mind struggling against this nightmare reminds him that nobodies don’t bleed like that as they die…the blood stops pooling but doesn’t disappear; Roxas does. His body fades into black wisps until only he and the blood are left in this emptiness, as a cold wind starts blowing.
The wind intensifies bringing him to his knees, gripping the floor as he shivers. He groped around blindly trying to find something to ground himself against the cold…his hands found warmth, in the blood. He looks at the pool again, shuddering not only from the cold. The liquid starts to loose its warmth.
His eyes widened as his hands became stuck in place, the blood becoming ice, slowly creeping its way up his arms, a stabbing pain with each inch. The wind picks up again, where the flames had once been in the circle there were now mountains of ice. More ice was spreading from the circle, covering the floor and making its way toward him…he couldn’t get away from it. The floor of ice started crawling up him, even as the ice on his arms covered more and more of him.
The ice finally encased all of him…sinking deeper…searching…like those cold fingers had. The flame that had replaced his heart was covered by the ice. There was no fighting it this time. He was left with only emptiness again.
***
Axel’s eyes shot open, but he couldn’t move. His mind was working overtime trying to analyze the dream and his reaction to it, but it wasn’t having much luck. Not trusting sleep again, Axel spent the rest of the night laying there, staring at the ceiling.
He had barely fallen asleep when he first felt something odd. It was as if someone was running freezing cold ribbons across his chest. He twitched in discomfort but didn’t wake up even as the pressure of the ribbons grew. He shuddered as the first ribbon stopped its across motion and instead pushed itself through his skin. His eyes snapped open as more of the fingers joined this action, pushing through him searching for something.
With his eyes open he could finally witness what was attacking him. On a hill he hadn’t seen since another lifetime, surrounded by black shadows. He felt very weak, frozen, all his energy expended from trying to fight them off. Each finger clawing at him felt like a shard of ice, increasing in intensity as it burrowed deeper under his skin.
The clawing fingers in his chest finally found what they were looking for. Fighting among each other as they tried to grab onto his heart and pull it out. A neo-shadow took supremacy and pulled to draw the heart from its place. There was so much pain…no…the pain was leaving…but an…emptiness grew with each inch. Cold…
He wanted the pain back, anything would feel better than this emptiness…the emptiness didn’t feel at all. He tried fighting back against this empty non-feeling with greater urgency…trying to fill the increasing cold. A scorching hot feeling grew in the empty place where his heart once was…it hurt…a lot. He latched onto that pain, it hurt so much, but anything was better than empty, and as he focused it grew. The shadow finally finished its slow pull, taking his heart completely from his body…and the fire in the empty cavity exploded outward following it. Covering him, his attackers, the hill, everything.
…
He opened his eyes again to black. Flames surrounded the edge of a large circle radiating an intense heat that would have killed anyone else. He was alone in the circle, everything besides the flames dark and silent.
A lance shot past his head, cutting some of his hair as it went past and was stuck in a non-wall behind him. “Get rid of him? Isn’t it early for that?” He heard himself say, in the dream state knowing exactly what was going on, though his conscious mind hadn’t caught up yet.
“It’s an order.” A figure appeared before him, flames casting shadows on his hooded black coat. “Why are you hesitating? You deal swift merciless judgment to those who turn their back on the organization.” The figure raised his hand and the lance released itself from the non-wall, grazing his cheek as it floated back to his master.
He turned his head to look behind him where he ‘knew’ Roxas was standing. He was there in his black coat with the hood up, standing impassively as always. He turned back to Xaldin trying to plead, “He hasn’t turned his back on us…Eugh!” The next thing he knew he was on the ground, side and back in considerable pain, and Roxas with his hood still up was standing in an ending battle pose in between him and Xaldin.
“If you oppose these orders, you will be the one to pay.” The larger hooded figure disappeared into black wisps, leaving him alone with Roxas who was turning to attack again. He dodged out of the way when the second attack came, calling his chakrams as he did and turning the ground into molten flames. He was in Twilight Town, though the sky was still black and the circle of flames covered anything else that would actually allow him to know that. Roxas waited as he raised himself to a fighting crouch, readying his chakram and prepared himself to kill.
Keyblade met chakram as both lunged at each other furiously. For every strike there was a parry followed by another strike. The heat intensified as the fight continued, and the silence was broken by more than just the clanging of metal on metal. Voices started coming from outside of the ring of fire. Some from this life, some from the last…each giving an order. Growling in frustration at the noise he attacked more furiously, engulfing his chakram in fire as the keyblades were engulfed in light. The voices grew and intensified with every strike. It only irritated him more, causing him to fight harder trying to drown them out with the sounds of their weapons, fewer parries more strikes, but it only made the voices become louder.
...One strike was not met with the sound of metal… the voices silenced instantly.
He looked up…and found not the shadows of a hood, but two wide blank blue eyes, staring at him. Roxas was no longer in his coat; instead he was covered in the black pants, tank top and boots he wore underneath. Without the coat he could see exactly where his chakram had landed, the grisly affect it had, and of course those eyes staring at him. The expression was somewhere between hurt and contempt.
The boy fell…the weapons and fire disappear as he hits the ground leaving only a black expanse once again. The only things left in the blackness are himself, the body of his friend in front of him and the slowly spreading pool of blood. Something in the back of his mind struggling against this nightmare reminds him that nobodies don’t bleed like that as they die…the blood stops pooling but doesn’t disappear; Roxas does. His body fades into black wisps until only he and the blood are left in this emptiness, as a cold wind starts blowing.
The wind intensifies bringing him to his knees, gripping the floor as he shivers. He groped around blindly trying to find something to ground himself against the cold…his hands found warmth, in the blood. He looks at the pool again, shuddering not only from the cold. The liquid starts to loose its warmth.
His eyes widened as his hands became stuck in place, the blood becoming ice, slowly creeping its way up his arms, a stabbing pain with each inch. The wind picks up again, where the flames had once been in the circle there were now mountains of ice. More ice was spreading from the circle, covering the floor and making its way toward him…he couldn’t get away from it. The floor of ice started crawling up him, even as the ice on his arms covered more and more of him.
The ice finally encased all of him…sinking deeper…searching…like those cold fingers had. The flame that had replaced his heart was covered by the ice. There was no fighting it this time. He was left with only emptiness again.
***
Axel’s eyes shot open, but he couldn’t move. His mind was working overtime trying to analyze the dream and his reaction to it, but it wasn’t having much luck. Not trusting sleep again, Axel spent the rest of the night laying there, staring at the ceiling.