[Day 1, morning] [Open] Streets of Arcadia
Who: Kedron (Open to anyone else who might want to wander in)
Where: Arcadia's streets.
What: Kedron goes out looking for answers. Trouble's about to pop up, but no one knows it. Yet.
Rating: G
Warnings: Capslock of DOOM
( Mostly harmless )
No, no. He would come through after her, wouldn't he? And Zelda, too. They would be here shortly. Or maybe the Sheikah was right, and she may well have been dead. Then why not in the Twilight? That was her home.
Had been. Had been her home. Now it was meant to be destroyed. Wiped out. Vanquished. Consumed. A variety of words that meant that her kingdom, so soon after its liberation from Zant, was completely gone, and that she was Queen of nothing anymore.
After finding out all of that, she wanted to be on her own. In strange territory, to be sure, but at least the streets were still fairly deserted, and if customs was confiscating weapons, she should be all right. Besides, she had her magics back now, so that wasn't quite so bad, was it? Of course she would still need someone to do the heavy lifting, but she wasn't helpess.
Probably best not to go there. The numbness gave a tight squeeze on her heart there, because she missed her wolf.
Wandering aimlessly had brought her to a street containing someone, which was a bit of a surprise. A rather volatile one, so it seemed as well. She stared, not quite meaning to, at his ears, hoping to see some form of point to them, to discern if he was Hylian or not.
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Hm. An adult. A strangely dressed adult, for that matter. There were planets that Kedron hadn't been to, cultures he was sure that he hadn't met, but this was really quite unusual. Plus, her skin was grey. Even the Vrykardor weren't grey.
...She did, however, look rich. He wondered where she'd stashed her cash.
His fingers itched.
No, he told them strictly. Not yet. You're still in uniform - that, nice, bright shoot-me-now off-white cadet uniform - and everyone and their dog is going to recognise you.
He took another bite from the orange, watching her cautiously. Adult females were good. Perhaps she had a soft spot for kids.
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Not only was the uSUC 'central authority' another computer program, it was a computer program as completely unhelpful as the customs one, and gave Roxas the same niggling feeling that he wasn't being told everything.
Had the Heartless been responsible for these allegedly destroyed planets? How many worlds had been affected? How far was this place from familiar territory? Why had only a handful of people been rescued, and what the hell were they supposed to do now?
The computer screen had informed him cheerily that it would check, please come back later, do make yourself comfortable in the meantime and have a wonderful day! Oh, and an orange.
The orange had been hurled at an inoffensive wall. Roxas stalked the empty streets now with a growing sense of forboding. This place was eerily deserted, and looked enough like The World That Never Was to make him nervous. Those streets had been empty as well, until you looked closer and realized that the shadows were moving. And following you.
Xehan was still out there somewhere. If the customs computer hadn't been able to pick up that he, Roxas, was a Nobody, its scans probably wouldn't catch Xehan either, in which case this world likely had no technology capable of restraining a master of Darkness. Or maybe wouldn't even care that a murderer was loose among the rest of the refugees. 'Your laws don't apply here,' it had said.
Roxas' jaw tightened. It would be up to him, then, if they were on their own.
He had to stamp down the urge to find and run to 'his' group and report. He wasn't a civilian brat anymore, never had been in the first place, except for lingering influence of that fake personality the Twilight Town construct had impressed on him. He didn't need to answer to any adults, dammit. The Keyblade Master was his own law in wartime.
As if cued, Oathkeeper promptly rang in his ears in silent alert. Living hearts. And he realized, already turning the corner, right there in front of him.
He stopped. He stared. The boy in white looked ordinary enough, and younger than even Roxas, but the other figure...
"Excuse me," he said cautiously, acutely aware that he was still damp from the soaking at customs and sporting all the cuts, burns, and bruises of a recent brawl. "Do either of you happen to be residents of this planet?"
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Do I look like I'm from this stinking dirt ball? he was tempted to say in response, foul as his temper was. But the question had been polite, and this guy, well, this guy looked like he'd just been through a fight. It didn't necessarily mean that he knew how to fight, but he was older and bigger, and Kedron didn't want to have to kill anyone just yet.
"I take it you're not," he said instead. Information was gold, in some places, and if they wanted anything out of him, well, they were going to have to pay for it. He needed cash, and he needed it quick. "...Welcome to Arcadia," he couldn't help but add.
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The boy, Midna quickly and sadly deduced, had rounded, shell-like ears which were nothing remotely close to a Hylian's. He was human through and through, by the looks of things. The sadness turned to irritation - she needed to find someone who was at least definately Hylian - for all she knew, 'Sheikah' could be found on any planet - and deduce that there were indeed others from Hyrule there. Humans, she knew, could be from other places. This boy could even be like Estraven.
With barely a fleeting thought as to the androgyene's health, she looked to the other boy. Her eyes gravitated to his ears and she was once again disappointed to see no points. The fact that he looked like he could have been fighting, perhaps hurt, passed over her as she thought for herself. Was she the only denizen of Hyrule here, then? Excluding the Sheikah, who was of no comfort to her, since his race hadd supposedly died out before she crossed the Veil of Twilight.
"No." She answered him, sighing, "No, I'm not from around here. Care to grace us with the knowledge of your homeland?"
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"No. I'm not from this planet." He continued to keep his tone polite, there was no reason not to. "I'm from... "
Nobodies, he could almost hear Yen Sid saying. They come from the twilight, from the place between light and darkness. They are marked from their birth by this taint of darkness.
"...where I'm from is not important. My name is Sky," and he resisted the instant but ridiculous urge to bow, while he was playing roles, "...and it's my job to get everyone who has been brought here back to where they belong. So it would be very much appreciated if either of you could help me find someone who lives on this sinkhole."
...that could have been more polite. He checked his frustration.
"Or. Um. Just point me in the right direction, if you happen to know it. The damn computers aren't very helpful when it comes to tracking down someone in the flesh that's in charge."
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Sky also didn't believe him. That was good. Showed that he had a brain. Maybe.
"Try the computer--" Kedron started, then caught the line about them being unhelpful. He took another bite out of the orange. Well, he didn't know anything, but he wasn't about to reveal that either. Maybe it was best to let the alien lady handle this.
"Your job?" he couldn't help but ask, though.
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"Everyone that I have met seems confused. No one on the silver ship understood what was going on." The one she was on, at least. In her mind, a ship was something that passed over water - not into the skies of the Light realm.
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"I am from the World That Never Was." He wasn’t, not really, but offered the name as bait anyway, wanting to know without asking if anyone else here had ever heard of Organization XIII. Or if he'd really somehow ended up a planet where no one knew about the war between Light and Dark. "But I don't consider that place my home."
No one from there would.
"I am a Keyblade Master. Where I come from, that means I keep the peace between worlds," he explained quietly, apparently not even noticing how absurd it might seem for a teenager to claim that kind of status. "There was a war in my galaxy, not too long ago, caused by an invasion of creatures we called the Heartless. Planets getting destroyed and refugees finding themselves mysteriously adrift in space or on strange worlds were commonplace events during that war. I spoke to the others on the ship that brought me in and they told similar stories," -- and he nodded here to Midna -- "...but apparently I'm the only one with any experience in what’s going on. If what's going on here is even related to the Heartless at all. The computer wouldn’t give me a straight answer and I’m not sure I’d believe anything it told me anyway."
He ran a hand through his damp hair distractedly, wincing at the pull of abused muscle. Right. Keeper of the peace, guardian of the cosmic balance, trouncer of the wicked. Except Xehan and his pet had trounced him soundly.
"In any case, I’m just looking for some answers. If the Heartless are here, I have to stop them and put to right the balance they’ve upset, which means getting everyone who isn’t supposed to be here back home. If the Heartless aren’t here, then I’m probably just wasting my time." He fixed his gaze on Kedron, listening to his unsummoned Keys humming in response to the boy’s heart. "Either way, I have to do something."
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Not knowing who Organisation XIII were, she smiled at Roxas. It was the first true smile she had given since she had transported Link and Zelda from Ganondorf's wrath. She was so pleased to see someone who knew of the Twilight, if not someone she knew, or a Twili. It proved that there were others from her world there - or at least the world of which hers was an imitation.
His next words, however, took the smile from her face. Heartless? She had never heard of such a thing in Hyrule, and certainly not in the Twilight. Oh, people were called heartless - she had been herself a few times, from the way she drove Link onwards - but there was no monster that she could think of called a 'heartless'. Perhaps he was not from a land which understood hers at all. He was driven by the Heartless; she had never heard of them. But perhaps they were simply called something else in her world. In Link's world.
"I have seen nothing with no heart here." She said, an image of Ganondorf flickering in her mind, the shining scar where he had been long ago impaled through the heart with a sword of light. "Felt nothing, either. I'm afraid I cannot help you in that regard." She bowed her head to him, respectful but not overly so. "I can tell you what happened on my world, if it would help you connect your dots?" Her lips quirked in a small smile there, a light teasing, but she meant every word.
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But 'The World That Never Was'? That absolutely took the cake. Completely. Wow.
Lame. So lame, in fact, that Kedron didn't even feel like making a sarcastic comment about it.
Nice, a drenched kid, who was barely older than him, and reaking of bleach or something, put in charge of keeping peace between the worlds. Hell, they had a whole army to do that back home, and they were only getting by because it was in the best interests of the citizens not to kill each other when there were aliens doing enough killing for them.
But maybe this guy had some information on space travel. And he'd come in by a ship. Excellent. Excellent. "This ship--" he said. "Where is it?" Because any ship would have navigation system, and he could at least take his bearings. "Is this world capable of interplanetary travel? Does it have a wormhole generator?" -- Okay, one quick snipe. "And if it can go to worlds that never were, can it also go to worlds that always were or will be or are?"
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As for the other boy... Roxas was forcibly reminded of every hostile, loudmouth punk in Twilight Town that had been quick to jump on him for being an outsider, and it was getting old fast. First the kid wouldn't admit whether or not he'd come from this planet, then gave away the information by being all excited over a ship and calling Arcadia 'this world.' What did he have to gain by being a brat and holding things back? Roxas was only trying to help.
Stupid Normals. As if they could lie to someone who carried a weapon that could read hearts.
He folded his arms, unconsciously imitating the Superior, and gave the boy a decidedly cool look. "The ship that I came in on was damaged. We went through a meteor shower and I melted the inside battling my former master. It's also a design I've never seen before so I couldn't tell you much about it. According to what the computer told me, it was part of some kind of rescue operation for people whose planets had been destroyed. I'd say that means yes to interplanetary travel, but if you think you're gonna fly home in any Arcadian ship you'd have to get the computer to agree to letting you have one. If you could pilot it."
Also, jab about his quasi-origins not appreciated. His voice went frosty. "I didn't name the place. But it's a fitting description now, since I destroyed it."
Or Sora had. Or Sora thought he had. Even if it still existed after that last battle, it would be nothing more than a cemetary full of crawling Heartless without the Organization and the white tower.
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"The throne of the Twilight was usurped by a crazed man weilding the power of a false yet powerful god. He ripped open the veil of Twilight and entered into the light world, demanding that the people of Hyrule - that is the light world - submit to the rule of the Twilight. If they did not, he would feed each of them to the Twilight Messengers, who would drag the veil over the world regardless. The Queen of Hyrule agreed so as not to see her people destroyed, and all of Hyrule sank under the half-existence of the Twili.
"Moving south, the King came to a province called Ordon, and in it, dragged one into the Twilight who became a blue-eyed wolf. Before he could find him, however, I stepped forward and freed him of the cell that the Messengers took him to, and went with him to see Princess - Queen Zelda. From there, we fought against the shadow. However, when we came to the Twilight proper and killed the usurper King, we found that to truly break the hold over Hyrule, we would have to destroy his false god. For my sake and the sake of my people, I continued to aid the sacred beast.
"We travelled to Hyrule Castle and broke the seal over the entrance to confront the god - an ancient and powerful creature known as Ganondorf. We battled him, but before he was defeated, he took the power given to him by the gods and abused it once more, turning himself into a being of pure energy. I took it upon myself to save the Queen and our Hero, utilizing the destructive powers of my ancestors. We clashed. I knew nothing after that but our worlds being ripped apart." Finished with her breif overveiw of the adventure she and Link had embarked upon, she paused. Had her power, when clashing with that of Ganon's, destroyed the world? Or had it drawn something close to the world, something that fed off of power, and it had destroyed Hyrule and the Twilight?
"If similar shows of great power occur just before the destruction of the world, it may be possible that something is attacking them?" She voiced. "Or perhaps the powers are simply too much for the worlds. Even ones that never truly were." It was a jibe not at Sky, as she knew him, but at Kedron, who seemed to find the name laughable. "I suppose, since you climed to destroy your world that never was, that such a thing happened with yours. What about you?" She turned to Kedron and folded her arms. "What happened to yours?"
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But she was serious about it. That or she was a very good liar.
And if she was really telling the truth, it meant that her world had been destroyed. And if her world had been destroyed, and this Sky's world had been destroyed...
Orias. Cadris. Home.
Distress flickered clear across Kedron's face before he tried to hide it behind a scowl. Bad enough being stranded on an alien world - being stranded on an alien world and not able to go back -- shit, it wasn't as if he even liked the place, but it was the closest thing to home, and those were people he knew and he'd just started getting used to a life with creature comforts and and and--
"I don't know," he found himself saying, his voice quavering just a bit. "I just... I just woke up here. But there were aliens attacking. But they couldn't have reached Orias that fast and even if they did they couldn't possibly have destroyed everything--"
Damnit, he needed to know what had happened and he needed to know now. He traced the route that Sky had taken, figuring that it would lead him back to the ships. Even if he couldn't fly them, he could at least figure out where they were, and try to find out... what had happened.
Taking to his heels, he sprinted past Sky, heading to where he thought the hangar bay was.
[OOC: Feel free to stop him, if anyone actually wants to 8D.]
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And one last; that somewhere out there was (or had been) a world actually called Twilight, the kind of world that Xemnas had promised to make for his followers. It was both justifying and disappointing to hear that this world had also warred with the forces of light.
It was only disappointing to hear that, whatever had happened with the destroyed worlds, maybe he wouldn't be able to help at all.
Quietly, to Midna. "No. I destroyed that place some time ago. Whatever attacked the planet that I had been living on since then... I have no memory of it."
Or of what had re-separated him from Sora. He'd been so sure the Heartless were somehow responsible.
The uniformed boy's rising distress registered too late; he was already off and running before Roxas could think to yell at him not to.
"Shit." The Nobody dashed forward in pursuit, prioritizing the upset and likely weaponless kid over the entirely calm alien woman with admitted powers. As much of a jerk as the little brat had seemed, Roxas couldn't let him just take off into the unknown, not with other refugees and Xehan out and about.
"Hey you! Hold on!"
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She was a little more inclined towards Roxas, because he had been polite and had answered her questions in a calm enough manner. She supposed it must be because the other boy was so young that he found it hard to deal with the possibility of his world completely out of his grasp. Of course, he could also be hiding something, and in that case, Midna wanted to find out for herself.
Her hair split from the tie around her neck and two long but thin hands began to snake towards the boy. She pursed her lips, remembering that this was easier in her impish form - she had two perfectly working hands in her proper one, so the aid wasn't nearly so strong.
The boy was a little too far away for her to outrun (taking into account what she was wearing, of course), so she allowed herself to become the impish creature again. The hand-hair morphed into a far stronger and larger one, reaching out past Roxas to grasp the boy firmly around the waist.
"Now why would you run off like that?" Her voice was much more high-pitched in this form, so even if they hadn't seen the change, they would hear it. "Calm down and think rationally, kid. Running off like that isn't exactly advisable." A wicked little grin curved her lips. It was like dealing with Link when they first met. Or at least it reminded her of it.
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