EP

[freezeitwithice]

Days in Castle Oblivion have a tendency toward the featureless. Vexen's view rarely changes; if he emerges from the stark and sterile world of his laboratory, it is to wander the stark and sterile halls of the upper levels, or at other times the darker but similarly repetitive - if convoluted - hallways of the basements. The neophytes rarely visit

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[freezeitwithice]

It does not take long for the Academic to spot his subordinate. The small Nobody shares his fondness for knowledge and things like reading, even if Vexen himself is the only one to have retained his former identity as a scientist proper. That's not to say he's close with the Schemer - he never has been particularly, and while Even had harboured an unvoiced lust for one former apprentice he'd never formed unshakeable bonds like Dilan and Braig or Ienzo and Aeleus seemed to - but he's reasonably at ease with him. At least, he can ask questions and be relatively certain of receiving truthful answers.

Trust him, no. That requires a heart. But he can have some confidence, because Zexion is at least a founding member, and has given him no indication of foul intent.

Long legs eat up the distance quickly as he crosses to Number VI's booth. A penchant for observation makes identifying him a matter of little thought for Vexen; the posturing of the body or particular cut of a member's coat is more than enough information, even if the body beneath is completely shouded in black. The Academic is not unwise enough to have passed up learning such means of recognition, given the inherent facelessness of Organization XIII.

Not to mention the inherent self-serving and backstabbing nature of many Nobodies. Know thyself.

The crisp scent of snow probably clues Zexion in to his presence before Vexen stops at the booth and actually speaks.

'Good... day, Number VI,' he says politely enough. It's hard to judge time here.

[cloakitwithplot]

Zexion's hand holding the pen froze in place over the long theorem of quantum metaphysics, halfway between writing ℵ, leaving the symbol incomplete.

He doesn't look up. Not even when Vexen greets him. And Zexion is usually suck a stickler for manners.

He resumes his writing a moment later, voice trailing in the same distracted but no less lecturing tone from his youth.

"You were destroyed thus it is an impossibility for you to be standing here speaking to me, IV. I would say good afternoon to you as well except you clearly are another hallucination and I'll not to speak with my hallucinations because it only acknowledges and encourages them."

[freezeitwithice]

If you're going to find out that your inferiors have plans to kill you, and that they're going to succeed unless something is done about it, Vexen can think of far less abrupt ways to break the news. He pauses, frowns, and then leans forward the slightest bit to rest his hands on the table.

'I assure you, Number VI, that I did not feel the least bit destroyed when I got out of bed this morning. Perturbed, yes, but not destroyed.' He does enjoy his sleep, after all, even if he doesn't necessarily need it these days.

There's nothing imaginary about the sudden, bone-deep chill that seeps through the immediate area.

'Now, would you care to clarify that statement?'

[cloakitwithplot]

If anything, Zexion works that much faster at his equations.

"It is entirely possible that - assuming you are not a hallucination or an illusion my subconscious has brought forward without my bidding - you are from an earlier place in the time-stream, a predicament I found myself in some time ago as well when I first arrived." he explains as he practically crawls half-onto the table to reach at the far away sheet, make more notations. His pen is smearing but he doesn't seem to care. This is important.

"As such others would claim that giving you information on the future would create a paradox from which our existence may be written out, but I am disinclined to maintain my current existence as I am and beside that point-" he looks up to Vexen only then, but it's entirely possible he's not actually looking, as all that can be seen is a dark shadowed area under the hood.

"Nature does not make such errors, only men do. Paradoxes are by their very nature illogical, nature is not so fragile."

[freezeitwithice]

Fortunately, Even had grown accustomed to Ienzo's peculiar sort of verbal diarrhoea early on. The man never said in ten words what could be said in ten hundred and that still holds true, it seems; even the Academic himself isn't so verbose.

Right now, he's also in no mood for it. He is in a strange bar, with a babbling child who's suggesting that he may be from an earlier point in time - hadn't Mia mentioned the potential for different points in time existing here? - and that in Zexion's own existence, or non-existence, the Academic is, in fact, dead.

This is not shaping up to be a particularly enjoyable discussion. Especially not when all Vexen wants is some answers and a ticket out of here. Too much has happened; he needs to think.

Kida is here, and she's supposed to be stuck underground many, many thousands of miles away.

'Very well. Leaving aside, then, divulging what may happen in the future, which you have in fact already done, let us consider the basic questions that you may answer. If you must persist in the belief that I am in fact a figment of your over-excited imagination, then it will still do no harm to enlighten me as to where I am, how I came to be here in the general sense, and how I may effect a departure.'

[cloakitwithplot]

Zexion holds up a hand to Vexen to stop his speaking.

"I would tell you regardless. I don't believe in paradoxes. They are a scientific impossibility." He leaves the table to grab the satchel he has stashed away under it, digging through before he produces a series of papers. Reports.

"You die in Castle Oblivion. When your experiments fail, XI takes control and orders you to defeat the Hero. You come too close to revealing XIII's existence to him and VIII eliminates you."

Zexion offers the papers to Vexen.

"I have reports consolidated from VIII and XII's memories of the situation, as well as my own."

[freezeitwithice]

'I would not go so far as to say that. A paradox may indeed seem to contradict itself and all applicable modes of logic, but may still contain an element of truth at the most basic, inherent level.' Perhaps not a scientifically verifiable answer, but though he answers to science and logic, Vexen is forced to admit that there are certain things that it cannot explain in their entirety. There is something to be said, after all, for a soul and a heart working together in tandem.

Vexen accepts the reports and flips through them, silent for a moment as he skims their contents. Then, because he has been in the Organization for long enough to know that there are no favours between those who would not be considered close 'friends', only incurred debts, he asks, 'And what does this information cost me?'

[cloakitwithplot]

Things change when you get a heart.

"Only that you use the information, and be certain that Le- ...that V lives as well." He lives anyway, Zexion knows, but one can never be too careful.

[freezeitwithice]

Vexen will learn that the hard way, if he is so fortunate as to find himself complete again. There is a big difference between having one the first time, and having one again after ten years without.

'Then you may consider my debt to you paid.'

He would be a fool not to make use of any means of avoiding the end that Zexion has described, and he is not the sort who would leave a man he had once called 'friend' behind.

He will no doubt learn, in time, that Zexion is well aware of Lexaeus's survival. But for now he is willing enough to give his word, which means a lot more than that of some, that he will do what he can to ensure that the SIlent Hero makes it through as well.

[cloakitwithplot]

"Very well." Zexion agrees amiably enough, managing somehow to keep his hands from shaking. Somehow.

"I would not presume to ask you to stay here, where time has no meaning. You and I are both men of science at our core, and this place only offers so much to be discovered. You would have to return eventually, as I did."

Even if Vexen is a hallucination (still not convinced otherwise), Zexion finds it a cold comfort (ha) to have someone to speak to that is not pressuring him to feel or recover.

"As for the nature of paradoxes-" Zexion begins, returning to his table, to his work. "Say you are faced with a path you do not recognize, and you usually go left when lost. It is reasonable to assume that you would go left here. Before you can follow-through with that decision, however, yourself from the future comes to you and says that you should not go left- terrible things happen down that way. Now assuming that no reality-shattering events occur from meeting 'yourself', you heed your own advice and go right.

In that case, the future that occurs should you have gone left never happens, and the you that came back to warn yourself never existed, and this no one told you to take the other path, so you would go left. It is much more reasonable to assume the theory of branch realities, with every decision made branching off into a new reality for every choice. Infinite worlds."

[freezeitwithice]

'I do not think that I would be able to stay here without returning, at least periodically,' Vexen admits. 'If nothing else, it is oppressive to one such as myself.' It's far worse for Xemnas, of course, who reacts to light in a way not dissimilar to how Riku reacts to darkness, but it's not wholly pleasant for Vexen, either. 'Besides, I am not certain whether this place could provide me with all that I require.' The bulk of Vexen's equipment is his own design, after all, and at this point he doesn't even know that this place could serve him up almost anything he desired.

As for pressuring Zexion to feel, Vexen considers the man's emotional state to be his own. He will provide aid if asked, for what good the assistance of an emotionless being would do, but he is also not the sort to press. Particularly not when he himself wouldn't even be able to feel happiness at a success, or true disappointment at a failure.

'You do make a good point,' he concurs. 'Certainly the future dictated by taking the left-hand path would cease to exist, but there is nothing to say that what happened to convince you to take the right-hand path is not what is, in fact, supposed to occur. Including the severing of that potential future. It is possible to combine the concept of a branching future with that of a linear one. And of course, one must consider emotional and psychological paradoxes, which are significantly harder to deconstruct and express.'

He shrugs. 'That being as it may, I do find your interpretation far more reasonable and satisfactory, even if it does have the potential to get a bit... complicated. Is this place in any way akin to your theory of branching realities?'

Even if it doesn't account for why he'll willingly go back into a place where he knows that he will die if he remains, but not when that might occur. He's had Zexion effectively tell him not to take the left-hand path, and he's still going to be compelled to venture down it, if just a bit.

[cloakitwithplot]

"The simplest answer is often the most correct one." Zexion says, pointing the pen at Vexen without looking up, then going back to scrawling out another long equation. "This place is central to the idea of branch realities. Many cross over here, ones we do not have access to through the dark paths. A world connected without its Door being open. No, maybe not a world, perhaps more like a hallway. Must look into better metaphors."

He himself went along the timeline as close as he could and as far as he could while still avoiding his own death, to the point that Axel still remembers it happening while still being from the same reality. A master of Illusion can make many things seem very real.

"In any regard, we could go over your own memories of your time to see if they match up with the ones I can validate and find out if there are already small deviations that prove the branch reality theory. If you are as real as Nobodies get."

[freezeitwithice]

'Let us, or at least me, hope that it is so this time.' Vexen seats himself across from Zexion, taking care that the broad sleeves of his coat don't disturb any of the younger man's papers or books. 'If you wish for me to contribute my memories to your research, then I will be willing to do so. If, of course, you determine me to be as real as a subhuman, heartless physical entity can be.'

A frown crosses his face. 'In the meantime, please explain to me the concept of a... door.' Naturally, he does not mean that in the sense of 'a hinged barrier between two rooms'. 'I have heard it mentioned once or twice since my arrival here, but I do not fully understand the significance of the concept. It would seem that there is only one door through which people have been entering and exiting. But I have already met someone my Somebody knew many years ago, and she did not come here from the same place that I did. And she specifically referred to her door.'

[cloakitwithplot]

"Not a door - a Door!" Another dramatic gesture, dropping his pen as he points to Vexen without looking up, only to have his other hand take up the pen and resume writing.

"Do not play stupid Vexen I know you better than that! The DOOR that connects worlds, that lets the Darkness in-!" Darkness written into the equation, some kind of formula, a fraction maybe "The one we opened where everything went wrong, things had gone wrong before that but they were small things, things like switches single circuit breakers overloading one by one until blackout which was what it was opening the Door turned off all the lights and left us in Darkness."

He drops the pen again, pulling back his hands to scratch at his wrists under his sleeves, breath coming fast and high and not nearly enough for his small frame.

"The Door Vexen, not that door -" he points to the more or less 'front door' of Milliways "-The DOOR."

[freezeitwithice]

The look on Vexen's face suggests that he thinks the circuit breaker for Zexion's brain is two seconds away from blowing. If that.

'Yes, Zexion. I understand the concept of that Door very well. I am referring to a different one, what those who come to this place refer to by the same title. I would like to know, quite simply, if they bear any similarities to the Doors of the worlds. And if so, are they tied to the entrance to this establishment. You will forgive my ignorance, I am certain. My primary concern at the moment is the nature of my current environment, not your personal projects, Number VI.'

He has heard them referred to with a level of possession by those who speak of them. It is their door, not simply the door to their world. Is it a door within them? Is it truly just a portal to the world? Can Darkness infiltrate it? He knows that the Door to Lost Continent has not been opened; what is occurring there is nothing but the natural progression of cultural decay. Is he currently, as Vexen, existing within a different reality than the one that Even had left?

To the point, he is already considering how to use the nature of Milliways, those who visit it, and through them those worlds he cannot reach via the hallways to his advantage. He is willing to humour Zexion's curiosity about his memories with regards to his branch reality theory to a point, but he is still out for number one. Or number four, as the case happens to be.

'Perhaps I have come at a bad time,' he suggests, one eyebrow quirking upwards. At the moment, the Schemer does not seem like he will be of any use in answering the questions that Vexen has. He has become too... reactive. 'I am certain that there are others more in possession of themselves, with whom I could discuss parallels between this place and our own worlds. Purely theoretical discussions, of course.'