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Chapter Twelve: March of the Black Queen

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There is really no comfortable way for the author to relay the climactic events of the previous chapter to you before she embarks on this, the penultimate episode of the epic quest of Xaldin, Vexen and Lexaeus and their battles against all that is confusing and mentally-scarring. Suffice it to say, the three of them had never been in quite this serious a quandary before. That included the time they lost their hearts, several of the full-scale Heartless attacks on the castle, and the time Zexion was in charge of cooking the Organization’s annual four-course formal Festivus dinner. Oysters were still completely banned in The World That Never Was.

In any case, suffice it to say that our three heroes were in a great deal of peril at the hands and unfortunately-placed pointy weapons of Mansex, Evil Evolved. Mansex, the Next Generation. Mansex, the Empire Strikes Back. Mansex! Part Deux!

Lexaeus was barely able to keep Roxas’s unconscious body on his shoulder as he covered his mouth and turned away from the horrific sight, the taste of bile and blood stinging his tongue. “Xaldin—Vexen—” he choked out between heaves, “Do something!”

“There’s NOTHING you can do!” Mansex howled with laughter, and a whirring noise that accompanied the unfortunate swaggering of his hips signaled the completion of the Yaoi Cannon’s charge. “Now, spend a final moment suffering under the realization that you have FAILED!”

“We’ll do that, thank you,” Xaldin said shakily. His body was frozen in place, presumably a defense mechanism adopted by his non-corrupted sentient sideburn to protect its host from the unimaginable consequences of looking directly at Mansex.

“I can’t believe this,” Vexen whispered.

“What, that we’re about to have our you knows ripped out and suffer an eternity of servitude at the whim of a crazed, ultra-powerful faceless entity?” Xaldin queried.

“No—my eyes are apparently capable of deactivating themselves reflexively,” Vexen marveled, the oddly-timed marvel of a scientist who within seconds would be unable to ever marvel again. “It’s absolutely fascinating. I wish I’d known about this sooner.”

“Your moment is up!” Mansex announced, jutting out his hips in a traumatic fashion. “Now, I shall begin the countdown to your destruction! It’s been fun, my rebellious little friends… but NOBODY—and I do mean Nobody can possibly hope to triumph over the power of the Grand Master Fangirl! TEN!”

A collective gasp sounded from the throats of our heroes.

“NINE!”

One of the lab machines whirred in the background.

“EIGHT!”

Had the Nobodies hearts, they would have skipped a beat.

“SIX!”

“You forgot seven,” Lexaeus reminded helpfully, in a dead sort of voice.

“Oh, right. SEVEN!”

Computer monitors beeped and blipped.

“SIX!”

Outside, the Bishonen Gutless moaned their undead chorus and pounded on the wall of ice and stone blocking them from the entrance to the Darkest Tower.

“FIVE!”

The thunder rolled and the lightning striked. Another love grew cold on a sleepless night.

“FOUR!”

Murray, the night janitor, whistled “Zip-a-Dee Doo Dah” as he mopped the third floor men’s restroom.

“THREE!”

Some other very suspenseful sound effects occurred.

“TWO!”

There came the crackling of static and suddenly, a female voice cut in over the tower’s PA system. “MANSEX!”

“Whaaat?” Mansex groaned back, obviously very upset at the interruption. “I-I mean… YES, my lady! What is it?”

“YOU HAVEN’T DEALT WITH THE INTRUDERS YET, HAVE YOU?”

“No, my lady!” Mansex yelled into the nearest speaker, careful to keep a close watch on the three (make that four, albeit he was unconscious) Nobodies. “I was down to two on their Countdown to Imminent Doom when your eminence interrupted me!”

“OH GOOD,” the Grand Master Fangirl sounded pleased. “I CHANGED MY MIND, MANSEX. BRING THE THREE OF THEM TO ME, UNHARMED.”

“Unharmed?! B-but my lady!” Mansex protested. “I wanted to deal with theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeem!”

“I WILL DEAL WITH THEM MYSELF, MANSEX. NOW IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BE HELPING MURRAY WITH THE BATHROOMS FOR THE NEXT SIX WEEKS YOU’LL DO AS I SAY WITHOUT ARGUING. UNDERSTAND?”

“But I just got—my new form and… and my nails!” Mansex’s voice dipped dangerously towards “whiny four-year-old” frequency.

“DO IT NOW!”

With a heavy sigh, the sigh of an underling denied his shining moment in the spotlight, Mansex let out a labored, “Oo-kaaaaaaay.” The loudspeaker silenced and he turned to his three almost-victims, malice and jealousy burning behind his unnatural doe-eyes. “It seems you’ve been spared for the moment! The Grand Master Fangirl wants to deal with you herself!”

“The Grand Master Fangirl,” Xaldin spat poisonously. “We’ve heard enough about her already. It’s about time we meet our archenemy face-to-face.”

“I guess that’s what she thought too,” Mansex huffed, “Because now I have to wait to blast you with my beautiful cannon!”

“Please don’t say things like that,” Vexen requested, shivering. “As interesting as my sudden blindness is, I do not want to be deaf as well.”

“Poopy,” Mansex whined. “Just… just POOPY! Well!” He lowered himself down to the ground and snapped his fingers. “Now! You three, come along quietly or I won’t hesitate to pound you!”

Xaldin, Vexen and Lexaeus did not respond to that, staring at him (or in his general direction, in Vexen’s case) with dropped jaws.

Mansex rolled his eyes. “Oh, you know what I mean!”

It was a long way up many corridors of winding staircases to the Grand Master Fangirl’s Inner Inner Sanctum. Torches flickered their dim light across the empty stone walls, which did nothing to muffle the loud echoing of footsteps as Mansex marched his prisoners up to meet the boss.

Xaldin stared grimly ahead, face set like he was preparing himself for the worst. Vexen found his vision was starting to repair itself now that Mansex was facing away from them, but Lexaeus was still helping to guide him up the stairs with a hand on his shoulder, Roxas still unconscious and slung over his other shoulder—the Gutless parasite within him no doubt festering, maturing, nearing its completion… soon the universe as they knew it would crash down around them in a blaze of glory, entire planets imploding in on themselves and you knows bursting in air—actually, forget I was about to go there. No, no, change of subject.

Mansex, meanwhile, was muttering to himself the entire way, occasionally pulling his Toadying For the Final Boss For Fun and Profit book out of his robes and flipping through the index, looking for the section on what to do when the Final Boss mistrusts you and requests to deal with your prisoners him/herself. It was a very difficult time in a toady’s life, the book’s authors Seymour Guado and Jack Krauser advised, and it was important for a toady not to let his low self esteem get the better of him.

“I am a skilled evil toady and I am good at what I do,” Mansex kept repeating the mantra to himself, as the book suggested. “The final boss wouldn’t be able to execute his/her sinister plans if it weren’t for my hard work and dedication. I am an important part of the evil process. My input is vital. I am the best at being me!”

“That’s the spirit,” Lexaeus encouraged him, for lack of anything better to say.

Finally, the odd little party reached a massive set of double doors at the top of the staircase, engraved with ornate script that read LOL.

“Here we are, gentlemen,” Xaldin said grimly.

“I can see again!” Vexen figured considering the circumstances, any kind of encouraging news would be good for group morale.

Mansex tucked his book away and strutted out in front of his prisoners again, turning towards them. “We have arrived!”

“Dammit!” Vexen cursed as he went blind again.

“And so, my friends… the time has come for you to fall into place!” Mansex laughed, backing up against the door in preparation to open it. “Allow me to introduce our beautiful Overlady, the head of our evil empire, the most revered and wonderful future Queen of the Universe… the Grand Master Fangirl!”

He opened the doors with no shortage of panache, and glaringly bright light poured from the room and into the dark corridor. Sinister organ chords blasted so loud they seemed to shake the tower, and far across a cavernous throne room, a cackling female silhouette stood upon a stage, hands on her hips and a scepter tucked under her arm.

“Welcome, my dear guests!” the Grand Master Fangirl laughed maniacally, and the silhouette extended a shadowy hand to beckon them inside. “Come… come closer and meet your queen!”

Xaldin, Vexen and Lexaeus obeyed nervously, squinting in the bright light and bodies tensing as they prepared for the absolute worst. Mansex shuffled behind them, pushing them forward and getting in a few of his own evil giggles.

As our heroes reached the halfway point of the room and as another organ blasted an ominous solo that shook the building, the lights faded away and they got their first clear look at their archenemy, the wicked fourteen-year-old who had created the Gutless, took over Fandom Hearts and single-handedly virtually destroyed Organization XIII.

She wasn’t a terribly impressive fourteen-year-old, mousy and short with brown hair carefully curled and woven into an elaborate hairdo, held in place by at least 30 chopsticks. Freckles spattered across her cheeks and nose, and her dark eyes glittered with malice, a malice that seemed to emanate from her body and glint off her braces. Her deep purple gown resembled a complicated cross between a Japanese kimono and the massive ball gowns traditionally imagined appropriate for a queen, with a collar so tall it nearly extended over her head. Around her neck hung an impressive collection of Square-Enix commemorative silver jewelry, as worn by the protagonists of basically every Square-Enix game ever made.

“The Grand Master Fangirl and the head of the Gutless empire is a fourteen-year-old girl?” Xaldin said in mock surprise. “Was that supposed to be surprising?”

“Xaldin, this is a Square-Enix production,” Lexaeus scolded him. “Do you really think they’d base an entire storyline upon a plot point that ninety percent of the audience guessed within a few minutes?”

“But what about Roxas and the fact he was Sora’s—” Vexen began, but was hurriedly shushed by the lawyers off-screen threatening to set his contract on fire.

“Mansex!” she boomed in a voice that sounded quite a bit less intimidating in person than it did over the loudspeaker. “Finally! At last you have brought them to me… the three monsters responsible for nearly upsetting our wonderful plan!”

“Yes, my lady!” Mansex said boastfully, tossing up his head and looking extra proud of himself as he made his way over to stand nearby her. “I have done just as you asked. Now—what shall we do with them?”

“Will you be patient?” The Fangirl snapped her fingers. “Be silent! I want to talk to them before I destroy them!”

Mansex’s lip stuck out like a pouting child’s. “B-but whyyyy?” he wailed. “I want to fire my cannons at them noooow!”

“Anticipation is half the pleasure, Mansex,” the Fangirl scolded him.

“B-but I can’t WAIT! I’m going to BURST!”

“Don’t blow your wad all at once, Mansex! Now sit down over there and think about baseball, or do a puzzle or something—and shut up!”

Mansex let out a little sob and crossed his arms, refusing to look at his mistress in protest. Meanwhile, our three heroes stood in wide-eyed horror. Well, Vexen was wide-eyed because he’d been blinded, but you knew that.

“What is going on over there?” Vexen asked disgustedly.

“Oh, sex humor,” Xaldin sighed.

“I thought so. She’s clearly running out of ideas,” Vexen concluded.

“‘She’? The Grand Master Fangirl?” asked Lexaeus.

“No, no,” Vexen shook his head, delicately to avoid throwing himself off balance without the aid of his vision. “The author.”

“The what? Vexen,” Xaldin groaned, “We have no time for your ridiculous conspiracy theories about an author!”

“That’s RIGHT!” the Grand Master Fangirl interjected from her throne. She took a few strutting steps out towards the edge of her royal platform. “I think you’ll find, gentlemen—the only author in this grand conspiracy is myself! I, the beautiful and almighty overlady of Fandom Hearts—The Grand Master Fangirl!”

“Oh, we’ve heard of you,” Xaldin took a cocky step forward of his own, one hand still clutched to cover up his ailing sideburn. “You’re the villain behind this whole plot!”

“Villain? Oh, I think not, you furry-faced fink!” the Fangirl cackled in maniacal glee. “You three are the villains! You—you three hideous non-bishies, trying so hard to interrupt the magnificent universe I had planned!”

“Your universe is nothing but the twisted dreaming of an immature little twit with far too much time on her hands,” Lexaeus pointed an accusatory finger at her. “And we WON’T let you get away with what you’ve done!”

“Oh really?” the Fangirl giggled. “How do you think you can stop me now, hmm? Do you think I haven’t noticed the cute little hairdo Mansex gave you? Do you think I don’t know that the sexy little beast you’ve got slung over your shoulder there is crawling with my beautiful Gutless? And any minute now, the sinfa—um… synth… synthe… synthesith…”

“Sssssssynthessssssisssss,” Mansex offered helpfully.

“—the THAT!” the Fangirl said triumphantly, “—of the parasite will be complete! Roxy-Woxy will give birth—”

“Ugh,” the Nobodies shuddered in unison.

“—He will give birth to a parasite like none ever seen before; a parasite that can corrupt the you knows of ALL beings! Nobodies, Heartless, humans, females—”

“But females are ICKY!” Mansex complained.

“And would probably be filed under ‘humans’, if you were to be specific,” Vexen corrected.

“Will you all STOP interrupting me?!” the Fangirl screeched.

“Sorry,” the Nobodies and Mansex apologized.

“ANYWAY!” the Fangirl raised her scepter high into the air like a magic wand, doing a pirouette and grinning wickedly at her prisoners. “To make a long story short!”

“Twelve chapters too late,” Xaldin lamented.

“I, the Grand Master Fangirl, shall gain dominion over ALL the universes, not just Fandom Hearts! Even canon shall bow to my will! The whole universe will become my wonderful paradise, my playground where anything can happen the way I say, everyone will act the way I say—my dreams shall all come true!” With this the Fangirl gave a loving sigh and sprawled herself out in her throne, batting her eyelashes with eyes far away, presumably in the visions of her beautiful new world.

“That won’t happen,” Lexaeus spoke between clenched teeth. “We won’t let it happen.”

“Oh please,” the Fangirl chuckled, “Tell me you’ve figured it out by now—that what you say and do has no bearing on the situation? You’re all just my characters in the grand scheme of things!”

“We are not your characters!” Vexen seethed. “We’ve come to stop you!”

“And you think you would have made it this far if I hadn’t wanted you to?” the Fangirl giggled. “You—the three of you, and ALL your little Organization friends? You’re just characters! Characters in a story! I’ve been in control all along! Your every triumph, your every defeat—I orchestrated it all! You’re all helpless before me!”

“What?” Xaldin gaped. “That’s… that’s impossible! We’ve operated on our own free will—no one, and most certainly you have not told us what to do!”

“Well, no… not yet,” the Fangirl grinned. “The Gutless parasite? THAT is the key to my control. People from your universe can’t come into mine unless they’ve got one…”

“So you’re bluffing,” Vexen sneered. “You can only control beings from your own universe—and you can only control beings from ours if they are infected.”

“That’s right. The moment you stepped into Fandom Hearts without the Gutless parasite, you were able to rebel against my control,” the Fangirl went on. “But the Semes, created from the captured… you knows of your comrades? The beings you’ve encountered along the way, on every world? They’re all mine. They’re nothing but characters—words in the script I have written!”

“This is an oddly sophisticated evil villainous plot speech coming from a fourteen year old,” Lexaeus commented.

“Thank you! I’ve been studying,” the Fangirl held up a copy of Final Bossing For Fun and Profit, the back pages of which held cliff notes for her entire speech thus far.

“Oy,” Lexaeus rolled his eyes.

“Ah but don’t act so cocky, my friends!” the Fangirl sat up, crossing her legs in what she thought must have been a seductive manner. “You act as though you can still stop me—but you forget, your cute little friend there is a festering, heartless sack of parasites about to unleash themselves on the entire universe. And even you won’t be able to resist those little beauties!”

“What’s wrong, Fangirl?” Xaldin smirked at her. “Change your mind? I thought the three of us were too ugly for you to want under your control!”

“Well I changed my mind—you’re more trouble than you’re worth without it!” she snapped. “And you’re one to be getting cocky with me, Mister Xaldin—you’re even closer to my grasp than your friends! Your sideburn… I can hear it calling out to me! In minutes, you too will fall under my spell and your Seme will be mine!”

“Oh hell,” Xaldin swore, his bubble promptly burst.

“So as you can see,” the Fangirl sighed and relaxed in her throne, “Though your valiant efforts to thwart my evil schemes were impressive, they were all in vain! In minutes I shall rule ALL of the universe—and you can do nothing to stop me! BWAHAHAHAHAHHAA!”

And with that, the Fangirl indulged herself with a hearty round of maniacal laughter that lasted a good two and a half minutes. Mansex felt inclined to join in after about thirty seconds, and as the two of them guffawed together, our heroes took the opportunity to huddle together.

“Well, now what?” Lexaeus sighed.

“It would seem we are…” Vexen murmured.

“Lost for options?” Xaldin suggested.

“In a tight spot?” Lexaeus added.

“Between a rock in a hard place?”

“In hot water?”

“Verily fucked,” Vexen answered.

“Ah.”

“None of that downtrodden speech!” Lexaeus boomed. “We haven’t come this far to give up now! Or do the two of you WANT to become prancing, humiliating stereotypes of ourselves forevermore?”

“I will NOT become a hillbilly child molester!” Vexen seethed, as Xaldin was quite distracted by a popping noise and another of his braids transforming into feet of flowing luxuriousness that would have Pantene models screaming in envy.

“There must be something we can do—something we’ve overlooked…” Lexaeus murmured. “She talks tough, but she can’t have covered all her bases—does that sound like the moron we’ve been battling for all these chapters?”

“There must be something…” Xaldin repeated, numbly fingering his remaining braids.

Across the hall, the Grand Master Fangirl and Mansex seemed to be settling down. They wiped tears of mirth from their eyes and took several deep breaths, finally sliding down into their seats—the Fangirl in her throne and Mansex sprawled out on a lowered section of the platform that seemed to be his spot—Toadying For the Final Boss for Fun and Profit called this “The Toady Throne” and it served as the center of a toady’s “Intimidation Sphere”, where s/he would stand to absorb the maximum amount of his/her master’s evil chi. This evil chi raised the toady’s sense of self-worth and provided a boost in his/her belief in his/her own evilness.

The maniacal laughter ceased. Silence broke through the cavernous chamber and nobody dared to speak. Mansex did, though, quietly clearing his throat. “Mistress?”

“Yes, Mansex?” the Fangirl asked, far away in a little daydream.

“May we… deal with them now?” he asked, sticking out his lip in a pout that would have been cute were it not coming from a full grown man with a cannon on his codpiece.

“Deal with who, Mansex?”

“Why,” Mansex licked his lips and eyed the Nobodies hungrily, “The pathetic little worms through whose antics your flawless plan for universal domination was almost thwarted, my lady!”

“Oh… yes,” the Fangirl smiled sedately. “I almost forgot. Silly me!”

“Hell!” Lexaeus swore under his breath.

“I… I can see again!” Vexen figured considering the circumstances, any kind of encouraging news would be good for group morale.

The Grand Master Fangirl rose from her throne. “Now, we must go about this the right way, Mansex—stand and face them proudly.”

Mansex about-faced towards our heroes, who bunched a little closer together out of instinct.

“Dammit!” Vexen cursed as he went blind again.

“And prepare yourself, Mansex,” the Fangirl whispered.

“Oh yes,” Mansex smiled, and energy flowed through his body. His multiple cannons began to charge with the same bright light as before, emitting a glow that surrounded him and lit up the dark corners of the room. His limbs felt light and free, his heartless chest like there was a feeling building up within him, stronger and stronger, more and more until he can hardly control it. “Yes!”

“Are you prepared?”

“Yes, I…” Mansex roared. “I FEEL IT! I FEEL THE COSMOS! I’M READY, MISTRESS!”

“Then meet your doom!”

“YES- Pardon?” Mansex turned abruptly around just in time to see the last second or so of the Fangirl’s gesture with her staff—the gesture that sent his body crumpling in upon itself and then, suddenly, exploding—the energy overtook him and he screamed in agony, the explosion rocking the entire building from its very foundation.

The Nobodies ducked and covered just in time to avoid smoking bits and pieces of Mansex flying in all directions, beginning as chunks but then evanescing into the familiar purple glow in mid-splat against the wall. A great smoking crater was all that remained of the horrifying Seme—until his one-armed torso came tumbling down after ricocheting off the high ceiling of the chamber, slamming into the tile and skidding a few feet before coming to a stop.

The Nobodies watched in awe as against all logic, Mansex’s fingers twitched and he pushed what remained of himself up off the floor. Shaking and shivering, he turned just enough to face his smiling mistress.

“M-MY LADY…” he choked out hoarsely. “WH…WHY!?”

“Did you really think I’d forgive you for your previous failure, Mansex?” the Grand Master Fangirl huffed and turned away from him. “Your idiocy could have cost me my paradise! I had to deal with you somehow.”

“B-by… by desssssssstroying me!?” Mansex squeaked.

“Chapter 29 of Final Bossing For Fun and Profit,” the Fangirl dug out her copy of the thick book, flipping past the author introductions by Ganondorf and Yu Yevon, past Chapter 4, “Kidnapping is Fun-napping!”. She flipped beyond Chapter 13, “On Security Features For Your Evil Stronghold”, past Chapter 23, “Falling In Love With A Main Character And Why it Could Work For You”, all the way to the back of the book. “Here it is. Chapter 29—‘Murder Your Most Trusted Toady At the Last Minute To Show You Mean Business’.”

“Th…thissss can’t be…” Mansex fumbled around on the floor until he found his own book, checking the table of contents. “Ah…AH! Chapter 30—‘Newsflash! Your Boss Is Going To Kill You: Learning to Cope’!?”

The Seme’s expression melted into one of utter heartbreak and he gazed up, taking one last look at the Nobodies he failed to yaoi-blast and the mistress who had betrayed him.

“POOPY!” he screamed, and vanished into purple you know. It floated delicately in the air above the crater made by its former shape, then gently flowed towards the Fangirl, who caught it in her staff.

“There,” she smacked her lips in satisfaction. “Now I can get on with things without that obnoxious twit bothering me!”

“I can see again,” Vexen announced. “Just so you know.”

“You are ruthless,” Lexaeus murmured to the Fangirl, leaning down and carefully depositing Roxas in a safe location off to the side. He never took his eyes off the volatile fourteen-year-old, though. “You’d kill your own man just because he didn’t act exactly the way you wanted him to.”

“Of course!” the Grand Master Fangirl huffed. “I’m the author here! If I don’t like the way things are going, I MAKE them go my way!”

“No, no, no!” Xaldin shook his head rapidly, as soft piano music began to play in the background. “In writing—particularly in writing fan work, half of the challenge is fitting into the universe which you’ve been given.”

“That’s right,” Lexaeus cut in. “In any work of fiction, you have before you the restrictions placed by the world in which the story takes place, or the characters that you have chosen to work with—either those you have invented yourself, or those who you have borrowed to do something new with.”

“In any case,” Vexen went on as the piano music soared, “The true challenge of writing is to take what you are given and, sticking to it, make it work—change the readers in some way! Tug at their emotions, make them laugh, make them indignant—make them hate or love someone by working within the restrictions! If you throw those restrictions away—if you do whatever you want? The effectiveness is lost. It’s nothing but ramblings—nonsensical ramblings that don’t mean a thing.”

“Who’s playing that bloody piano?” Xaldin interrupted.

“Oh,” Murray the night janitor lifted his hands from the keys abruptly. “Sorry!”

“We’re trying to talk over here,” Lexaeus complained.

Vexen rolled his eyes. “Some people. Rude.”

“In any case!” the Fangirl snapped, “I don’t HAVE to listen to you! This is my world and I can do whatever I want in it!”

“Whatever the excuse,” Xaldin smirked, “That was pointless—killing Mansex did nothing but remove the only defense you had against the three of us launching an assault against you.”

“What’s that you say?” the Fangirl asked, giggling.

“He said,” Lexaeus paused and raised his hand across the floor—his tomahawk came flying out of wherever it was and he armed himself, raising it up. “That you just took out your only defense.”

Vexen summoned his shield and held it menacingly, “And that means that you’ve just made a very stupid mistake.”

Xaldin called down his lances in a burst of wind, and our three heroes stood in their most bad-ass and box-artish poses. “And as such,” Xaldin sneered at the Fangirl, “For the threat you’ve posed to our Organization—and our universe—we’re going to destroy you now.”

“Oh… hahaha,” the Fangirl grinned, giggling under her breath. “Ha ha ha! HAHAHAHAHAA!” She broke into another epically long fit of maniacal giggles, clutching her sides with mirth and trying hard not to fall over in her throes of laughter.

“That’s unsettling,” Lexaeus said succinctly.

After a few calming snorts, the Fangirl seemed to have regained control of herself. She wiped tears from her eyes and took a proud step forward, striking her best Sailor Moon pose and gesturing dramatically at our heroes.

“THAT’S WHERE YOU ARE WROOOONG!” she howled, and from behind her cloak she withdrew a gleaming Tupperware.

“Oh,” Lexaeus suddenly winced. “I almost forgot about that.”

“That’s right!” the Fangirl grinned cheesily, and waved her hand mystically around the Tupperware. “Don’t forget, my little friends, as long as I have this, I have a major trump card against you! If I destroy your friend’s… you knows… you’ll have lost anyway!”

“That may be a trump card, but you’re definitely bluffing,” Xaldin challenged her. “If you destroy the… you knows, then the Semes are lost to you.”

“But only for another… oh, my best guess would be ten minutes,” Vexen reminded Xaldin, casting a nervous half-glance at Roxas, still resting peacefully in his safe corner of the room. “When Roxas will erupt into a festering pustule of disease and infection.”

“Oh. Right,” Xaldin shuddered, his half-bishonen locks sparkling and fluttering in the apparent indoor breeze behind him. He fingered one of them—they were nearly covering three quarters of his head by this point and he could feel his right sideburn shivering in anticipated fear. “I’d imagine I’m not far off from that estimate, myself.”

“But don’t worry, pookies! I don’t intend for you to even wait that long!” the Fangirl oozed, smiling wickedly. The terrible tween held up the Tupperware before them and reached for the edge of the lid. “Let’s just say… there are some old friends who are dying to meet you!”

For perhaps the first time in their long and twisted journey, for perhaps the first time in all the freakish and unsettling things they had seen in all the worlds in all of Fandom Hearts—the three Nobodies were heard to utter a unison swear word so inappropriate that it would jack the rating of the very text you read up another point and make it illegal to sell to minors if it were ever to be made into a video game. Of course this is the internet and the author bets over half of you are in this forbidden age group, so for the sake of continued readership she will leave this swear word to your imaginations.

“She’s going to resurrect the Semes!” Lexaeus growled under his breath.

“You can’t do that!” Xaldin cried.

“Why not?” the Fangirl asked.

“Because it’s EXTREMELY detrimental to the success of our mission!” Vexen moaned indignantly.

“Oh, of course. Let’s see,” the Fangirl drifted off in a moment of thought. “Oh yes—THAT’S THE IDEA! HAHAHAHAHA!”

And with that, the Fangirl cracked the lid off of the Tupperware and let it go. It floated mystically in the air, the six you knows within fluttering gently back and forth within the translucent walls, as though too shy to emerge from their plastic sanctuary.

You could almost say they didn’t have the—

“But we won’t,” Xaldin interrupted the narrative sharply.

The three Nobodies watched in half-horror and half-awe as the Fangirl pulled out her staff and begin to dance a nearly exact replica of Yuna’s Sending dance from Final Fantasy X, complete with Hymn of the Fayth music blasted out of the stereo by the ever-helpful Murray the night janitor. The forced mingling between one of the most beautiful, moving, AMV-frequenting cutscenes in the game and a delusional superpowered fangirl summoning awful fandom stereotypes with the symbolic manhoods of a group of fictional bad guys was enough to make Square-Enix fans across the internet cry tears of blood.

“Well, I’ll never be able to play that game again,” Lexaeus lamented, because he needed to complain about the situation at large in small, manageable chunks.

“And there’s a fan fiction about it being written right… now,” Vexen sighed.

On the far opposite side of Fandom Hearts, across the universe and through two and a half interdimensional barriers, Auron, Vivi and Irvine were banding together and setting off on a journey to destroy the parasitic plague spawned by this unfortunate similarity—but this is the Kingdom Hearts version of Those Lacking Spines, so we’re going to ignore that.

In any case, the Tupperware began to glow with an unearthly light and the six you knows within began to emerge. They grew larger and larger, the firefly lights expanding into a purple mist in which there began to form faces—terrible, distorted and yet gut-wrenchingly familiar faces. Voices began to call out from the mist and odd limbs began to reach out from the glow, fighting their way out of the fray. The mist divided into six clumps—shadows stretched across the floor, the voices became clearer, and they began to laugh.

And in an unholy flash of light, six horribly familiar voices rang out in a maniacal chorus of laughter, joined shortly by the cackling Grand Master Fangirl.

The Semes of Ogy IX—minus Aku-chan, who was safely back in Axel’s nightmares where he belonged. And minus Mansex, whose you knows were still locked safe within the orb of the Fangirl’s staff. And minus Roxas’s eventual Seme, who was due to be born in about eight minutes—had returned.

And they’d upgraded to Version 2.0. Semes With a Vengeance. Revenge of the Semes. Semes 2: The Secret of the Ooze.

Xaldin, Vexen and Lexaeus clenched their teeth together and grouped a little closer, knuckles tightening around their respective weapons as they surveyed how badly they were now outnumbered. Not only had all the rest of the Semes returned in full force, but they’d received Extreme Clone Makeovers—their outfits were shinier, their figures were sleeker and their hair was so gorgeous it’d make even a modern Castlevania character designer say, “Wow, maybe they’re a little too girly.”

“Well, well, WELL!” whispered the ever-slimy voice of Marly-dono, tossing six feet of pink hair over his shoulder. He was now dressed in a disturbing real-world approximation of the Great Fairy’s ensemble from Ocarina of Time. “If it isn’t the little upstarts who RUINED our beautiful plans!”

“Not yet, dude!” Xiggy-kun grinned and ran a hand over his shirtless, well-oiled surfer god body, tanned to a perfect golden brown. A tangerine Speedo completed the look. “Looks like we’re totally gettin’ another chance!”

“YEEEEAAAAAAYUH!” screamed Luxory, flaunting his new floor-length white mink fur coat and running fingers through his Backstreet Boys goatee. His wish had finally been granted and he’d come back to life with a diamond bling so heavy it almost weighed him down.

Secks had returned in a gold-embroidered velvet jacket over an open-chested white shirt and a red satin cape. His blue-lilac hair fell to his knees and his brand new kawaii-dono puppy-chan ears flattened against his head as he snarled in fury. “What a sssssssssssincere pleasure it will be,” he hissed, “To desssssstroy you thisssssss time!”

Zexy-poo, meanwhile, looked even more like Gerard Way than he had before, and upon realizing it was having trouble keeping the smile off his face in favor of his usual scowl. He settled for moodily pulling his bangs into his face and acting disinterested.

But perhaps the most impressive makeover of all belonged to dear Demykins. He had been reincarnated with a brand new rhinestone-encrusted Elvis suit, a full-out Princess Tutu outfit over the top of it and a wild mane of rainbow-streaked blond hair that would make Lady Lovely Locks sick with envy. The overall effect was something like a vamped up Labyrinth-era David Bowie. “Man, I feel like a woman!” he announced, just in case anyone was wondering.

As Japan immediately set to making the action figures (available for thirty dollars at the nearest comic book shop, guaranteed to break within ten seconds of you taking it out of the box), the Semes parted as their queen stepped forward, still brandishing her staff.

“As you can see, your little journey is at an end!” she recited from the quotations section of her villain handbook. “You are outnumbered. You are overpowered. You are on a very short time limit. And if you do not surrender to me immediately,” the Fangirl smiled and struck a pose. “I will have my beautiful Semes rip you limb from limb!”

“HAH!” the Semes yelled in unison, striking karate poses. Then with an epic scream, the Final Battle began.

And it began so quickly that our unfortunate three heroes were unable to do any planning, any plotting or discussing strategies before hand. All of a sudden they were fighting for their lives (or un-lives… you know the spiel) against a sextet of supremely sinister Semes with serious axes to grind.

Or axes to deflect, in Lexaeus’s case, as Demykins and Zexy-poo immediately set upon him with intent to maim. At least Zexy-poo had intent to maim, that is, as Demykins was attempting to use his mastery of the ancient martial arts known as “Spasmodic Tiger, Hidden Gerbil”. It mostly involved kicking the muscular Nobody in the shins and trying to headbutt him when his back was turned and his attention was distracted dealing with Zexy-poo on the other side.

Given the author’s exceptional procrastination, a minor correction is needed here—in the several (to be gentle) months span between the publication of the previous chapter and the current, it was revealed that Zexion’s mysterious unknown weapon was, in fact, a book. In order to coincide with this fact, Zexy-poo will now be wielding the appropriate weapon, tweaked a bit for comedic purposes.

He chased Lexaeus around in dizzy circles, attempting to bean him upside the head with an iron-plated volume of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.

As Lexaeus lunged and dodged and made a mighty effort to chase off his enemies with powerful swings of his tomahawk, he was very annoyed to find out that they were much faster in these incarnations. “Hold still!” he grunted as Zexy-poo darted out of the way time and again, swifter than the shadows he loved so very, very much.

“WHEEEE!” Demykins bounced harmlessly off of Lexaeus’s shoulder and hit the ground as Zexy-poo guarded against a tomahawk swing—nearly sending the massive weapon flying out of Lexaeus’s hand.

“You haven’t the slightest idea how excited I am to kill you,” Zexy-poo whispered in his best dramatic poetry-reading voice.

“Oh yes?” Lexaeus queried.

“Yessss,” Zexy-poo hissed, shivering with excitement as they circled each other. “How I have longed to taste the sweet nectar of battle-drawn blood since I was small…”

“WHAPOOWWW!” Demykins made a flying leap at Lexaeus and completely missed. His valiant attack was utterly ignored.

“I hate to tell you this, Seme, but you were never small,” Lexaeus reminded Zexy-poo. “You are the kidnapped reproductive—”

“NO! SHUT UP!” Zexy-poo howled. “You don’t know! You don’t understand! YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE! When you feel all alone… and the world has turned its back on you…”

“Isn’t that another Savage Garden song?” Lexaeus asked drolly.

“NYEEAERGH!” Demykins threw a convenient nearby laundry basket full of Hannah Montana T-shirts and bellbottom GAP jeans at Lexaeus as hard as he could. It landed harmlessly six yards to the left of the fight.

The battle raged on.

Across the room, it was all Xaldin could do to hold off the relentless barrage of magical gunfire and the swings of a very effeminate but very deadly scythe, all six of his lances storming around him like two by fours in a hurricane.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you, sweetie, I LOVE what you’ve done with your hair!” Marly-dono giggled obscenely and struck a little flirtatious pose.

“Like, totally, dude,” Xiggy-kun agreed, and paused from the battle to brush his luxurious hair back over his perfectly bronzed shoulder. “It’s totally you! One thing’s like, soooo certain…”

“You’ll be SUCH a beautiful Seme!” Marly-dono finished his thought, practically purring.

“Shut up!” Xaldin growled, and threw everything he had into thrusting his lances in a desperate attempt to impale his opponents. “I’ll NEVER join you! I’d rather DIE!”

“Dude—we HATE nay-sayers in this gang,” Xiggy-kun cackled. “Maybe he totally ain’t such a good candidate after all, Marly?”

“Not a good candidate for a Seme?” Marly-dono gasped. “Xiggy, darling, are you even READING the prose?”

Marly-dono and Xiggy-kun cackled with mirth, strutting around him in circles like models on a catwalk. They were blocking Xaldin’s every attack easily—even as Xiggy-kun, in all logic, could not effectively block a six-foot spear with a small hand-held magic gun thingy.

Xaldin winced and took a moment to rest, crossing his lances in defense. He was already exhausted—his hair was growing more beautiful by the moment, his remaining sideburn was practically screaming in pain. He looked out of the corner of his eye at a massive clock that was counting down from six minutes, now, set up by the Fangirl in order to make the fight a little more dramatic.

Time was running out. Had he a heart, it would have been pounding. Had he circulating blood, he would have felt something within it… something stirring, something awakening within his very being, something calling out to him, Xaldy… Xaaaaldy. Xaaaaaldy. Let us go out and play, Xaldy…

The battle raged on.

Across the room, Vexen was not faring much better against Secks and Luxory. The mere sight of them had got him boiling with echoes of what would have once been fury and loathing, and let’s face it, a shield is only so effective a weapon against an overgrown kawaii puppy-chan werewolf guy and a blingety pimp-wannabe with a diamond-studded cane and platform shoes that hurt like a bitch when they kick you.

“How I’ve looooonged to sssssssssssssee you again, Number Four,” Secks snarled, licking his chops hungrily.

“YEEEEEEEEAAAYUH!” Luxory interjected.

“You’ll pay for what you’ve done to me!” Vexen snapped, raising a barrier of sharp icicles around him to ward them away for the moment. “You’ve turned me into an inside joke!”

“Vexssssssssssen, you were ALWAYSSSSS a joke!” Secks laughed cruelly. “We only helped it!”

“HUUUWHAT?” Luxory asked.

“Exaasssssssssscerbate, you sssssssstupid fool!” Secks barked, literally. “Exassssssssssscerbate! It meansssssssssss ‘to worssssssssssssen or intenssssssssssify a ssssssssssssituation!’”

“HUUUWHAT?” Luxory repeated.

“Did sssssssssssomeone break your ssssssssssssspeech button or sssssssssssssomething?” Secks rolled his eyes in annoyance. “Issssssssss that all you can sssssssssssssay now?”

“Actually, it seems in this incarnation I’ve come equipped with an upgraded speech capacity and the ability to express myself in a somewhat more sophisticated manner,” Luxory replied, “Though at this juncture in time, I assumed that the revelation of this fact was unnecessary and irrelevant to the events at hand. I apologize for keeping this information from you, considering that you are my partner and thereby have a right to know something of this magnitude. In the future I will share these circumstances the moment they come to my attention. I beg your pardon.”

Vexen and Secks stared at Luxory in disbelief.

“Sssssssssssssso don’t just ssssssssssstand there! Sssssssssslay him!” Secks ordered.

“HOOOKAY!” said Luxory.

The battle raged on.

And watching over it all, at the front of the room on her gilded throne, the Grand Master Fangirl watched it all and smiled.

“Yes, my minions,” she called, in the throes of a particularly evil swell of pride, “Strike them down. Rend them asunder, my little puppets, so that they may join you in my carnival of pleasures…”

Indeed, things were looking extremely grim for our three heroes at the moment. Xaldin had fallen to his knees and struggled to hold his lances in place, a stalemate blocking Xiggy-kun and Marly-dono from getting any closer. Vexen was holding Secks and Luxory away from him with two well-placed walls of ice, but his powers were weakening and he couldn’t hold it for much longer…

And in the most unfortunate turn of events yet, Lexaeus was thrown off balance by a deflected tomahawk strike and had miraculously tripped over an unfortunately placed Demykins. He stumbled, crashing to the ground and sprawling out on his back. As Zexy-poo struggled to get a proper grip back on his weapon, Demykins stood up and over the mighty Nobody wielding a deadly weapon—a razor-edged ukulele he’d found hidden in his Hammerspace pocket while he was looking for Bubble Yum.

“Oooooooooooooh! Look what I got!” Demykins said proudly, and the razor’s sharp edge gleamed in the harsh light of the chamber like a death sentence.

Well, not that death sentences are shiny, but… oh, you know what the narrator’s getting at.

“Lexaeus!” Vexen and Xaldin cried out in unison—he was in trouble, they had to break away, but they could not, one move and they’d be obliterated…

Lexaeus stared up in horror at the unstable Seme and his weapon. Demykins’ line of sight drifted down from the Nobody’s eyes to his… uh… pants-area. A mildly evil grin spread across his face.

“YES!” the Fangirl leapt out of her throne. “DO IT! Do it! Kill him! Make him a Seme! DO IT, DEMYKINS!”

Tense violin music throbbed in the background. Lexaeus’s eyes widened. His companions’ screams died premature in their throats. The other Semes stopped their attacks and turned to watch the carnage. The Fangirl cheered. Demykins smiled wider.

“No!” the Nobodies shouted.

“YES!” the Semes and the Fangirl whispered.

“REE! REE! REE! REE!” went the violin.

“MURRAY! You’re ruining it!” the Fangirl screamed.

“Oh,” Murray the night janitor and musical connoisseur lowered the violin from his chin. “But ma’am, I haven’t been able to practice—”

“LEAVE ALREADY!” the Fangirl snapped.

Murray pouted and trudged out of the room and the action politely paused as he did. The moment the door slammed behind the unfortunate night janitor, things picked up right where they left off.

“No!” the Nobodies shouted again.

“YES!” the Semes and the Fangirl whispered.

“Four minutes until completion of the Parasite,” a computerized voice helpfully said in the background.

Demykins lowered the ukulele. Lexaeus winced and braced himself.

For a brief moment there was a terrible, climactic silence. Then as suddenly as it had been born, it was shattered.

“I’m bored,” said Demykins, and he chucked the ukulele over his shoulder. “When’s lunch?”

For a moment no one could speak. They were all to busy staring at the hapless Seme as he lifted up his shirt, prodded his left nipple and went, “HONK!”

“Demykins!” the Fangirl screeched, “You stupid fool! You had him! Recover your weapon and kill him, THIS INSTANT!”

“Nooooo!” Demykins whined. “I’m boooored! I want a cookie!”

“No cookies until you murder Mistress’s enemies!” the Fangirl snapped.

Demykins pursed his lips in a cute little pout and his eyes watered. “B-but…”

“No ‘buts!’ KILL HIM!”

“Aaawwwwwwwwuuuuuuh,” Demykins moaned and stared at the floor in shame. He blubbered for a second or two and then began to awkwardly cry.

“Excuse me? Mistress?” Marly-dono said suddenly, placing a hand on his hip and cocking it out to the side. “That was a little rude, mmkay?”

“Yeah, dude, you totally didn’t need to go off on him like that! He’s just a little stupid dude,” Xiggy-kun protested.

“LEAVE DEMYKINS ALOOOONE! LEAVE HIM ALOOONE!” Zexy-poo sobbed wildly, smearing his mascara.

“SHUT UP! I can go off on him if I want!” the Fangirl howled. “I’m in charge here! I’M the boss! I can do whatever I want—YOUR jobs are just to be my stupid, mindless little puppets and do whatever I say when I say it!”

Were the Fangirl a more tactful and sensitive evil overlady, she might have phrased her reasonings on the matter in a little more respectful a way, so as to avoid insulting her elite fighters in a manner that might cause them to react the way they did. If she had done so, perhaps the saga of Those Lacking Spines may not have ended the way it would eventually end.

But she wasn’t, she didn’t, she didn’t, they did, she didn’t and it did. And, well, here we go.

“Eeeeexssssssssscusssssssssssssse me?” Secks snapped. “‘Ssssssssstupid’? ‘Mindlessssssssss’? ‘Puppiessssssssssss’? Who, exsssactly, do you think you are ssssssssssspeaking to, Misssssssssstressssssss? I, for one, am neither ssssssssssssstupid, nor mindlessssssssssssss! I am a ssssssssinissssster geniussssssss!”

“Me too!” Zexy-poo sobbed. “I’m not a puppet! I’m an INDIVIDUAL! I’m a REBEL! I’m UNIQUE! You laugh at me because I’m different, but I laugh at you because you’re all the same!”

“YEEEEEEEEEEAYUH!” Luxory agreed.

Xaldin, Vexen and Lexaeus eyed each other from across the room. Their eyes suddenly glinted with a mutual brilliant plan of action.

“Don’t you take that tone with me, you punks!” the Fangirl huffed to her Semes. “Maybe you didn’t notice this before, but you’re all characters. In my grand masterpiece of a story! I am the author of Fandom Hearts! That means that I call the shots around here—and you’re all nothing but worthless little ideas that I play with however I want!”

“Oh, NO YOU DI-IN’T!” Marly-dono Z-snapped and stomped out front. “Biotch, I KNOW you didn’t just go there! You may have created us, but you are NOT the boss of us!”

“I am too!” the Fangirl replied. “You all exist ONLY to perform my bidding! I brought you into this alternate universe, and I can take you right out!”

“Like, totally not cool, dude!” Xiggy-kun protested. “We ain’t yours!”

“To be perfectly technical, we are merely characters based on the intellectual property of Tetsuya Nomura, in affiliation with the Square-Enix software conglomerate and with the cooperation of the Walt Disney Corporation,” Luxory pointed out. “HOOOKAY?”

“THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID!” Demykins said angrily.

And with that, the six Semes and their mistress broke into a raucous argument of Fandom Wank proportions, regarding the ethicality of fan fictions and fan works in general, what responsibility, if any, the author and/or the creator and copyright holder have to enforce the proper ownership of the intellectual works in the example, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

In the meantime, our three heroes regrouped in the center of the room, took a break for a glass of juice and cheese sandwiches, then stepped into the center of the argument and cleared their throats.

“Excuse me?” Xaldin raised his hand. “May I say something?”

“Dependssssssssssss,” Secks rolled his eyes, “Issssssss it going to be a nine-paragraph preachy sssssssssssspiel about the Big Moral Issuesssssssssss presssssssssssssented in the fan fiction of which we are all a part of?”

“Yes,” Vexen answered.

“THEN NO!” the arguers shot back.

“But, with all due respect, you do raise some interesting issues,” Lexaeus went on regardless. “The Grand Master Fangirl, evil and tyrannical as she is, is only writing in Fandom Hearts in pursuit of her hobby—she enjoys the series Kingdom Hearts and wishes to express her enjoyment of it in a written form to be shared with others who may also enjoy it. She’s only doing it for fun.”

“And yet,” Xaldin continued, “By publishing her work on the internet—a very, very public domain—she exposes it to the judgment and critiques of others. It is unreasonable of her to assume that readers, who will themselves probably have a very deep and personal connection with the game in question, will keep their opinions on it to themselves, particularly if there is disagreement between their two interpretations of it.”

“There is a question of whether or not fan works ought to be subject to the same rules of grammar, punctuation and proper storytelling that we judge all other literary works upon, especially if the fan work was only meant to be in fun and if the author has no intentions of pursuing a literary career,” Vexen added.

The Semes and the Fangirl watched the Nobodies in awe as they went off on the preachiest preach they ever did preach, the most moral moral in the story, the Big Point. Meanwhile, on the other side of their computer screens, the readers scrolled past all this junk to get to the funny parts again, and contemplated getting up to go to the bathroom and fetch a glass of water.

“But in general,” Lexaeus said, “There needs to be an understanding between author and readers—the internet is a free place. By publishing works of fan fiction on it, the author is expressing his or her opinions and viewpoints on the subject. The readers need to respect that the author may not wish to push him or herself to the heights of literature in writing a simple fanfic—it could just be for fun.”

“But on the other hand,” Xaldin strolled in a little circle, pontificating his thoughts with an extended finger, “The author must also respect that the readers may not ALWAYS like what he or she writes. By publishing on the internet, the author must be prepared to accept whatever criticism may come—it is the reader’s right to speak freely their opinions, just as much as it is the author’s right to publish freely. A true author must learn not to take criticism personally, but to use it as a tool to help improve his or her writing.”

Murray the night janitor was pumping some gentle, calming piano music into the room again, and this time there was nothing anyone could do to stop him. That’ll show THEM, he thought, and went back to mopping the floors feeling that this part of his job was done.

“On that note,” Vexen said with a hint of disdain, “We have been all through Fandom Hearts and we’ve seen some pretty terrible things. We’ve seen some of the most terrible examples of the most trite and terrible clichés imaginable. But you must understand—we are not condemning the things we’ve seen. There’s nothing wrong with writing alternate universe fiction…” He motioned at Xiggy-kun.

“Or introducing an original character,” Lexaeus gestured to Marly-dono.

Xaldin nodded and pointed at Secks and Luxory, “Or creating a crossover with another favorite fandom.”

“Or even writing angst, crackfic comedy or yaoi,” Vexen finished. “What we’re trying to say is… there are good ways to do it and bad ways to do it. And if you’re going to take the time to do something, isn’t it best just to try and do it well?”

“Live and let live,” Lexaeus offered, “But do your best to make Fandom Hearts a better place to be—a place for people all over the world to gather, connected by one very important thing…”

“Th-their hearts?” Zexy-poo whispered, his make-up now a complete smeary wreck.

“Uh… no,” Lexaeus murmured. “Modems.”

There was a long moment of appreciative silence as the piano music faded away. The Semes were nodding in agreement. Xaldin, Vexen and Lexaeus were catching their breaths from the world’s most epic on-the-fly silver tongued bullshit session. The author was copying and pasting the lecture into a new document to turn it in for her paper “Fandom: Fangirlism or Plagiarism?” due next week in her ethics in literature class.

The Grand Master Fangirl looked down upon her subjects and enemies for a good long moment. She stood up, crossed her arms, and spoke.

“No!” she said. “Shut up! I can write whatever I want!” She stomped her feet, threw out her arms, and suddenly the very room darkened around her. “I AM THE AUTHOR! AND YOU OBEY MEEEEE!”

Thunder rolled and lightning struck outside, sending ominous flashes in through the windows of The Darkest Tower. Murray’s piano music started up again, but this time in a foreboding organ melody reminiscent of track 23 on The Brooding Overlord: Evil-Sounding Songs for Pipe Organ—Greatest Hits, Volume 1! The lights overhead went out and a storm began to brew within the chamber itself, swirling into existence around the furious Fangirl.

Our three heroes and the traumatized Semes watched in horror as the Fangirl began to transform. She grew taller, stronger, sparklier, spikier, bigger and poofier anime hair—her voice dropped into a terrifying baritone and gained a sinister echo.

“WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, COMING HERE AND TELLING ME WHAT TO DO!?” the Fangirl roared. “WHAT DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND? I… I AM THE AUTHOR! I AM ALL-POWERFUL HERE! THIS WORLD, THIS UNIVERSE, THEY ARE ALL MY CREATIONS! YOU ARE NOTHING BUT WORDS ON A PAGE TO ME! I CAN TWIST YOU, BEND, YOU, MAKE YOU DO WHATEVER I LIKE—AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP ME!”

“Try us!” Xaldin yelled, and drew all six of his lances.

“We’ve said it before, and we will say it over and over again,” Vexen pulled out his shield and held it before him.

“We’ll NEVER obey you!” Lexaeus boomed, and wielded his tomahawk.

“I’VE HEARD IT BEFORE, AND I STILL DON’T BELIEVE IT!” the Fangirl cackled. “NOW ENOUGH OF THIS FOOLISHNESS! YOU! WILL! DIE!”

Winds roared around the Fangirl and nearly blew them off their feet, but they stood strong. In the back of the room, the Semes were huddled in a terrified heap, murmuring and whispering to each other in fear.

“What are you doing back there?!” Vexen cried to them.

“Um… huddling?” Marly-dono offered.

“Yeah, dude, we’re pretty freaked out, what with her threatenin’ to kill us for disobeyin’ an’ all,” Xiggy-kun reminded him.

“And are you gonna take that!?” Lexaeus snapped. “After all this, are you still going to let her push you around?”

“YEEEEAAAAYUH?” guessed Luxory.

“Gentlemen!” Xaldin called back, “We have said before that you are nothing but the dredged remains of masculinity—but we were wrong!”

“You were?” Zexy-poo murmured.

Vexen blinked. “We were?”

“Yes!” Xaldin said impatiently. “Because you’re not just ANY dredged remains of masculinity—do you know WHOSE dredged remains of masculinity you are?”

Secks suddenly snarled and leapt to his feet. He stood proudly for a moment, then hunched down in a pose to prepare for battle. “Organisssssssssssation XIII!”

“That’s right!” Xaldin rallied. “And that means you NEVER back down!”

He neglected to mention a full third of Demyx's attempts at espionage and Zexion's aforementioned attempts at cooking oysters for purposes of morale-boosting.

“Stand with us, you… weird somewhat disturbing pieces of our comrades!” Lexaeus cried. “Stand with us, and we’ll defeat her together!”

“YEEEEEAAAYUH!” Luxory whipped his pimp cane about and stood up. Marly-dono and Xiggy-kun followed, tossing their hair back and cracking their knuckles to loosen up. Demykins, grinning like a moron, skipped up beside his comrades in arms. Even little Zexy-poo, suffering an extreme battle of morals as he angsted internally over the situation at large, rose to his feet and stood to fight.

“In the name of all that is intelligent,” Xaldin said.

“In the name of all that is geeky,” Lexaeus added.

“IN THE NAAAAAAME OF LOVE! ONE NIGHT IN THE NAME OF LOVE!” Axel screeched somewhat melodiously.

“You craaaazy fool! I won’t give into you!” Larxene continued.

The Ukes catcalled and cheered wildly. Luxord’s script for a live adaptation of Moulin Rouge was turning out spectacularly.

“In the name of all that is sarcastically amusing,” Vexen cried, “Fight, Fangirl!”

Nine Organization members, whole and lacking spines, shouted in unison. “WE WILL DEFEAT YOU!”

It was very Sailor Moon.

The Fangirl roared in fury and an evil glow began to develop around her. The energy of her growing attack filled the room and nearly knocked the Organization off their feet, but they stood strong and banded together, beginning to march across the chamber towards her. The glow began to develop an eerily familiar bluish-silver glow—the Yaoi Cannon! Just a little more charging and she would release it, ending this all in one fell swoop…

Murray’s piano music had become one of the more dramatic tracks from The Lion King. It somehow felt very appropriate.

Thorny vines of darkness began to form around the Organization, creating a protective barrier. Their powers had banded together. A few random Dusks popped up from the shadows, marching out front to join in battle with their masters. They would fight or die trying to overthrow this insane preteen.

And as the Fangirl opened her arms to unleash the Yaoi Cannon, as the Organization began their final charge, it was all very suddenly interrupted by a voice from nowhere.

JENNIFER! JENNIFERRR! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

Quite suddenly, everything stopped. The music disappeared. The lights turned back on. The glow around the Grand Master Fangirl disappeared and she shrank back to normal size. The Dusks vanished and the Nobodies and Semes united paused—

JENNIFER! ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?!

The Grand Master Fangirl’s expression melted into severe annoyance. She groaned, stared up at the ceiling and shouted, “What, Mom, WHAT? I’m in my room on the computer!”

YOUNG LADY, IF I’VE TOLD YOU ONCE I’VE TOLD YOU A THOUSAND TIMES…

“I DID my homework already!” the Grand Master Fangirl, nee Jennifer screamed back. “I TOLD you I was done!”

WHAT IS THE RULE REGARDING COMPUTER USE IN THIS HOUSE? YOU HAVE TO BE DONE WITH HOMEWORK AND CHORES BEFORE YOU GET COMPUTER TIME!

“B-but MOM!” the Grand Master Fangirl complained. “Th… That’s not fair! Becca has to go to a recital for her brother tonight! I’m not gonna be able to talk to her! This is my only chance—”

NO BUTS, YOUNG LADY! YOU KNOW THE RULES! NOW SHUT DOWN THAT COMPUTER AND COME DO THE DISHES.

“I HATE dishes!” she moaned.

WHAT A SAD LIFE YOU HAVE. GET DOWN HERE AND DO THE DISHES!

“MOOOM!” the Grand Master Fangirl cried, “Can’t this wait?! Please? I’m in the middle of something!”

NO! IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY OUTSIDE, YOU SHOULDN’T BE ON THE COMPUTER ANYWAY! WHY DON’T YOU GO OUT AND RIDE BIKES FOR A WHILE?

“What am I, eight?”

NO. YOU’RE TWELVE.

It was rather amusing to watch the way the Fangirl’s face turned stark white as her former subjects and the Nobodies stared at her in amusement.

“I’m fourteen,” she said quickly. “I’m fourteen! I’M FOURTEEN!”

“You’re twelve,” the corner of Vexen’s lips rose wickedly. “You’re only twelve years old.”

“I’M FOURTEEN!” the Fangirl screamed. “And so what if I am twelve!? But I’m NOT!”

“If you are twelve years old,” Xaldin elaborated, “You’re too young to be using the majority of internet sites, as stated in their Terms of Service.”

She shook her head desperately. “That’s not true!”

“It is true,” Lexaeus shrugged. “So sorry.”

The Fangirl looked suddenly disheveled, bedraggled, flustered and stressed. She panted heavily, almost hyperventilating. She clutched at her staff and staggered back and forth across her royal platform.

“I’m the queen,” she murmured. “I’m the Queen of Fandom Hearts! You can’t get rid of me! I created you! All of you! I’M THE QUEEN!”

JENNIFER! GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!

Jennifer made a face of utter frustration. Her features twisted, she twitched, her lips pressed together into a thin line and her eyebrows crinkled. Then, she burst out into sobs, shrieking at the top of her lungs.

“I HATE YOU, MOM! YOU’RE THE WORST MOTHER IN THE WORLD! YOU’RE SO UNFAIR! IT’S NOT FAAAAIR!” she screamed.

And with that, the Grand Master Fangirl disappeared with an electronic beeping noise and a fizzle of smoke.

The silence lasted a few seconds, and was then broken by a snicker.

“Sorry, Jennifer,” Vexen sneered, “It looks like you’ve just been TOS’ed.”

The three Nobodies chuckled to themselves.

“We’re free,” muttered Marly-dono from where the Semes had gathered. “Do you guys realize what this means? We’re… FREE! AAWMIGAWD!”

“I feel our first actions as free Semes ought to be to unionize to prevent this ever happening again,” Luxory offered. “HOOOOKAY?”

“Huddle!” Xiggy-kun shouted, and the Semes all huddled together to discuss something.

“I thought that was it there, for a moment,” Lexaeus pursed his lips.

“Indeed. But that was some quick thinking on our parts, if I do say so myself,” Xaldin grinned. “I especially liked your bit about yaoi, Vexen. Do you really believe that?”

“Heavens no,” Vexen snorted, “But, alas, I suppose it was a good point. It’s only my opinion anyway. To each his own.”

“Whatever opens your portal of darkness,” Lexaeus offered.

“Well said, Lexaeus.”

“Thank you.”

“Excusssssssssssse me,” Secks interrupted them, clearing his throat. The Nobodies turned to find all six of the Semes looking at them with very businesslike expressions. “Asssssssss represssssssentative of the Union of Ssssssssssssemessssss, we have a bussssssssinesssss propossssssssition for you all.”

“Indeed?” Lexaeus asked.

“YEEEAYUH,” Luxory nodded.

“We, um…” Marly-dono murmured shyly, “We’ve, um, considered our options. As far as the whole killing you and making us join us thing goes.”

“And dudes, we’ve agreed on accounta majority vote,” Xiggy-kun cut in. “We totally wanna go back.”

“You do?” Xaldin looked surprised. “You mean, back to where you belong? Without a fight?”

“Yeah,” Zexy-poo said glumly. “We wanna go home.”

“It’s boring here anyways,” Demykins admitted with a shrug. “I mean, there’s no crayons. And she took all the scissors away because of what I did to the cat…”

“Ah, splendid news!” Vexen gushed. “I was hoping we wouldn’t have to fight the lot of you again.”

“We’d be happy to oblige, in other words,” Xaldin informed the Semes.

“Oh. Okay. Goody,” Secks looked pleased.

Lexaeus marched up to the Fangirl’s throne and recovered her dropped staff, inside the crystal of which Xemnas’s you knows were floating, having missed out on the whole dramatic final battle bit. He also snatched the abandoned Tupperware back from where it had tumbled. There were even still a few goldfish crackers inside.

“Here we are,” he said. “Now, ah, if you all wouldn’t mind riding in this again?”

“Oh no, not at all, honey!” Marly-dono tittered flamboyantly. “It’s actually quite comfy!”

“D-do… do we have to do it the way we did before?” Zexy-poo squeaked. As the other Semes considered his statement, their hands began to drift down to stand guard over a particular weak spots of theirs.

“No, no,” Vexen said, “I believe if you just… let yourselves go, you will make your way back to your frilly purple state without too much of a problem.”

“This is almost too easy,” Xaldin murmured amusedly.

“Indeed! Though,” Lexaeus mumbled, “I do feel like we’re forgetting something.”

In a way very typical of those somethings, it immediately came roaring back into the Nobodies’ attention what they had forgotten and how incredibly vital it was.

“ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL,” spoke a voice over the building’s PA system. “THE GUTLESS PARASITE IS AT 99.9999 PERCENT COMPLETION. ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL COMPLETION: ONE MINUTE, THIRTY SECONDS. PLEASE STAND BY FOR EVIL PLAN.” Followed by a calming segue of elevator music.

Vexen uttered a particularly vulgar swear word, quite loudly. It made Demykins cry.

“Oh HELL!” Lexaeus shouted, “We forgot about the Parasite!” He spun around back towards the safe corner where he’d deposited Roxas’s body—the teenaged Nobody was still sleeping quite peacefully. “Roxas! He’s…”

Xaldin realized with sudden alarm what that meant. “Not just him! In one minute, I’ll…” He clapped a hand to the side of his face and noticed, for the first time since the beginning of the battle, that his remaining sideburn had gone silent. His braids were almost entirely transformed. The Parasite was spreading! “Mother of darkness!”

“Hey! Hey, you, Semes!” Vexen snapped his fingers to get their attention. “You’ll know this! What do we do? How do we stop the Gutless parasite in the next minute and twenty seconds!?”

“Stop it? Oh, honey, you can’t stop it,” Marly-dono said in a hush-hush voice.

“Yeah dude, it’s totally, like… gonna eat your face?” Xiggy-kun elaborated.

“NO!” Xaldin yelled. “NO! I will NOT—NOT LOSE MY… YOU KNOW!”

“Oh, it’s worssssssssssssssssse than that,” Secks mentioned off-handedly. “The Yaoi Cannon workssssssssssss differently than our parassssssssssite. There’ll be nothing for your you knowsssssssssss to come back to—your body itssssssssssself is becoming a Gutlessssssssssssss. The boy alssssssssso… ssssssssssuch a shame, really.”

Luxory seemed to agree. “YEEEEEEEAYUH!”

“And not just that,” Xiggy-kun pondered, “But like… when Roxas loses his you know, y’know? His Other’s gonna get it too, see, cuz… cuz like, that’s the new parasite growin’ up, right? So then, like… the whole rest of the universe is gonna come down with it too. So… guess our Seme union’s gonna get a lot bigger, huh, dudes? Duuuuude…”

“Sucks to be you,” Zexy-poo shrugged. “And after you were gonna win your mission, too.”

“Hey guys,” Demykins whispered.

“This can’t be… this can’t be happening!” Xaldin was starting to panic again, pacing back and forth with one hand clutched to his poor, threatened sideburn. “There has to be a way!”

“Now, now, Xaldin, not all is lost yet,” Lexaeus tried his best to assure him. “There’s still hope!”

“Heeeey guuuuys,” Demykins repeated.

“Hope? HOW!? Even the Semes don’t know how to fix it!” Xaldin moaned.

“There HAS to be a way!” Vexen argued. “It’s just basic science! For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction—all that has been done can theoretically be undone! It’s just a matter of finding out how!”

“HAAAAY YOU GUUUUYS,” Demykins finally screamed at the top of his lungs.

All eyes in the room were on him.

“Ahem. Thanks,” Demykins grinned proudly. “What about the beta?”

“The beta?” echoed Xaldin, Vexen and Lexaeus.

“THE BETA!” Secks and Luxory suddenly cried. (Luxory added a “YEEEEAYUH” as well)

“Oh! The BETA!” Zexy-poo and Marly-dono suddenly remembered.

“Like, DUUUH!” Xiggy-kun rolled his eyes.

“Oh, of coursssssssssse! Why didn’t we think of that before?” Secks snapped his clawed fingers. “Good thinking, Demykinsssssssss!”

“Actually, I meant the fish,” Demykins murmured. “I have one in my room here. His name is Hymie. He likes bacon.”

“Shut up, you!” Xaldin demanded. “What is a beta?”

“The BETA,” Luxory gained back his vocabulary at the perfect time, “Is a machine that the Fangirl used to use back in the day when she was working on creating new worlds. It sweeps over things and eliminated all Gutless. YEEEEEEEEEEAYUH. “

“BAM!” Xiggy-kun clapped his hands. “Like THAT?!”

“Like THAT,” Secks nodded. “She hasssssn’t ussssed it sssssssssssince the Gutlesssssss took over and created all of usssssss… but it should sssssssssssssstill be working. It will desssssssssstroy all of the Gutlesssssss on thissssssssss world, once and for all.”

“It eliminates bad elements of fan work and it’s called a BETA?” Vexen rolled his eyes. “My, isn’t THAT heavy-handed?”

“But that’s not all, honey! It also gets rid of all the parasites that are dormant, like the ones in you and in your sexy little friend there,” Marly-dono pointed from Xaldin to Roxas, in turn.

“But doesn’t that include you?” Lexaeus asked.

“Indeed, it does,” Marly-dono shrugged, “Buuuuuut we’ll be safe if you stick us in your little Tupperdoodad, honey.”

“Oh, thank the darkness,” Vexen moaned. “This was almost a…” then he paused. “Wait. What will happen to Roxas and Xaldin?”

The Semes were all quiet for a moment.

“Um… BAM!” Xiggy-kun finally answered, clapping his hands again. “Like THAT.”

“ONE MINUTE UNTIL PARASITE COMPLETION. PREPARE THE CHAMPAGNE.”

Xaldin, Vexen and Lexaeus stared at the Semes in shock. Only Xaldin did not blink.

“So wait,” Lexaeus clarified, “When we turn on the BETA it’ll destroy all the Gutless, including the parasite, thereby preventing the destruction of the universe. But if we do, it’ll kill Roxas and Xaldin?”

“Technically Nobodies aren’t really alive…” Vexen began.

“Vexen, please. Is now really the time?”

“It’s ALWAYS time for science.”

“Um… whatever we decide to do, could we, y’know,” Marly-dono was hopping from foot to foot. “Kinda hurry?”

“Give us a moment!” Lexaeus snapped.

Vexen moaned, “We don’t have a moment, Lexaeus—”

“Do it.”

All eyes were on Xaldin. His face was set in a furious glower.

“What did you say, Xaldin?” Lexaeus asked.

“I said do it,” Xaldin repeated. “There’s no time. There’s no other option. I said I’d rather die than become a Seme—I intend to make good on it.”

“But Xaldin…” Vexen murmured. “Roxas?”

“Roxas would agree with me. Do you think he would want to live in a place run by the Gutless? If he was awake, he would do what he had to in order to save our universe,” Xaldin shrugged. “We haven’t the time to debate this, gentlemen. We must do it now. You—Saïx… thing. How do we turn on the BETA?”

“With that big obvioussssssssssssssss red button on the wall over there,” Secks gestured to an indeed, very big obvious red button on the wall next to the Fangirl’s throne.

“Very good,” Xaldin sighed. “I’ll get Roxas. Lexaeus, get the you knows into the Tupperware. Vexen, prepare to push the button.”

Lexaeus made a solemn expression. “Very well.” He cracked open the Tupperware, shook it out a few times, and held it up. “All right, then—everybody in! And, uh, let’s not make a huge production of it? We’re on a tight schedule.”

The Semes stood proud and strong in their final moments of creepified existence, getting one more good look at themselves and the world as it appeared through the eyes of a skewed fannish creation.

“Well, it’s been real, and it’s been fun, but it hasn’t been REAL fun, honey,” Marly-dono huffed. “Ciao, darlings!” He faded out of existence and back into a little purple something or other that gently came to rest in the Tupperware in Lexaeus’s hand.

“Dude, total show-off,” Xiggy-kun vanished next, followed shortly by Demykins, still screaming about Hymie. “I HAVE GINGIVITIS!”

Zexy-poo glared sourly at the three of them before he made his exit, leaving only Secks and Luxory behind.

“Godssssssssssspeed, then, gentlemen,” Secks hissed, then crossed his arms. “Er… sssssssssssorry. About the… cake thing, Number Four.”

“It’s…” Vexen groaned from where he stood, examining the BETA button. “It’s all water under the bridge.”

“YEEEEEEEEEEEEAYYUH!” Luxory howled. “Er… salutations and farewell, my friends. HOOKAY!”

The two of them popped out of existence and with a sturdy crack, Lexaeus slammed the Fangirl’s staff against the floor, shattering the orb and releasing Xemnas’s you knows. It quickly rejoined the others and Lexaeus slapped the lid on it, feeling an odd sort of satisfaction in knowing they’d finally caught ‘em all.

And yet, also feeling rather irritated at something.

Our three heroes gathered around the BETA button, Xaldin with Roxas in his arms and beautiful girl hair flowing out from every inch of his scalp. Vexen’s hand hovered over the button, hesitant, and Lexaeus switched the Tupperware back from hand to hand.

“Well,” Vexen finally spoke first. “I may agree with something Marluxia said for the first time ever—it’s been real, it’s been fun, but it hasn’t been real fun.”

“Indeed,” Lexaeus murmured.

Xaldin snorted a bit and shook his head. “We don’t have hearts, gentlemen.”

“And yet, if we did,” Lexaeus elaborated, “I would probably feel extremely bad about this.”

“Yes,” Vexen agreed mildly. “Yes, it would be quite upsetting.”

“We’ll have none of that talk, then, gentlemen,” Xaldin scolded them. “If we must then we must. I do not think of it as marching headlong into my terrible death. I think of it as… taking the next great leap. To save the universe.”

“And for science?” Vexen asked.

“Yes,” Xaldin smirked slightly. “For science.”

“Isn’t everything we do?” Lexaeus chuckled.

There was an awkward period of a few precious seconds.

“Well, then. Vexen, you may have my books. Take good care of them. I have some original copies in there.”

“Thank you, Xaldin, I will.”

“And Lexaeus, you can have my troops and all my spare coats. Anything else you find in the closet you might like.”

“That’s very kind, Xaldin. Thank you.”

“Well then,” Xaldin glanced up at the clock. “We have fifteen seconds.”

“We will tell Xemnas all about our mission, and perhaps he’ll build you a nice shrine,” Lexaeus offered. “We’ll do a little moment of silence for you.”

“Yes. But no singing,” Xaldin reminded him.

“Of course not.

“Anyway,” Xaldin stood up straight and eyed his comrades. “Gentlemen. The best of luck to you in the future.”

Vexen and Lexaeus made grim expressions, and pulled off some very honorable salutes. “Godspeed, Number Three,” they said together.

“For science.”

“For science!”

And after another second or so of hesitation, Vexen pounded his fist on the button.

There was a loud, sharp whirring noise from the very depths of the Darkest Tower. And then, as though some kind of flash bomb had gone off, the entire tower—the entire world—was covered in an immediate burst of the brightest light imaginable.

Ah, thought Xaldin. So that’s what getting obliterated felt like.

Nobodies, for the most part, believed there was nothing after death. This probably has to do with the fact that as per their species, there is nothing before death either. They had all come close to death at one time or another, and they all figured they’d gotten lucky that time—expecting a second salvation was just denying statistics and probability. The Nobodies expected, upon death, to simply fade away into darkness, the same way they had come into the worlds.

So imagine Xaldin’s surprise when his eyes opened again several moments after his presumed demise.

It hadn’t seemed like it took very long—only three seconds or so in between here and there. There was the flash, the great burning sensation and then… nothing. But now he awoke to find himself standing in a great plane, not of darkness, but of light. Pure, white, radiant light.

He blinked a few times in the brightness and glanced down at himself—he was still within his body, or so it seemed. He set a hand atop his head and was relieved to find that his hair had returned to normal, back in its hundreds of braids the way he liked it. Furthermore, his left sideburn had returned to its former splendor, happily basking in the white glow from its rightful place across the left side of his face. The right one seemed happy to have its partner back.

Well, at least there was that. Xaldin supposed that being deceased, it was necessary to find small things to be pleased about. Even if he was dead, at least he looked good. And the bright light he was standing in was rather warm and comfortable. It was not so bad.

And on another bright side, he wasn’t alone. Standing next to him with a very blank expression on his face was the now-conscious Roxas. The youngest Nobody still looked a bit sleepy and also exceptionally puzzled—last thing he remembered, he was having a great dream about bikini models opening a car wash across the street from the Castle That Never Was. Then, like he was awakened by some kind of horrible astral alarm clock, he opened his eyes to find himself… um…

“Xaldin?” Roxas murmured. “Uh… can I ask a question?”

“Go ahead,” Xaldin replied, “And I’ll answer to the best of my ability. But I warn you I’m just about as confused as you are.”

Roxas paused for a moment, then asked, “What happened?”

“We’re dead,” Xaldin said. “At least, I think we are dead.”

Roxas, surprisingly, did not look very alarmed by this. He was still struggling to process the fact that the bikini car wash never happened. “Why are we dead?”

“Because,” Xaldin said, “To make a long story short, the Organization was attacked by a group of parasites from beyond the dimensions of our universe, transforming most of the members into horrendous creatures, who then kidnapped you. Vexen, Lexaeus and I came to rescue you but unfortunately you and I were infected with the parasite that would have led to our joining them—in a last-ditch effort to save the universe, we sacrificed ourselves for the greater good and were annihilated by a powerful super weapon.”

Never mind that Xaldin had technically made the decision for Roxas, but that all seemed a little pointless to bring up now. That was all water under the bridge, downstream, through the treatment plant, out to sea, rescued by a blue tang and reunited with its father.

“Oh,” Roxas blinked a few times, then looked down to examine his hand. “So we’re… dead.”

“I believe so,” Xaldin concluded.

“Oh,” Roxas repeated. “Darn.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry we had to die,” Xaldin shrugged.

“Me too,” Roxas sighed. “Axel TiVOed the season premiere of Heroes and I never got to watch it.”

The two began to walk along some kind of mystical road in the middle of all the whiteness, no destination in mind and no idea how long it would take to get there. It’s not like they didn’t have all the time in the worlds to figure it out. They were an odd pair, the tall and brawny Whirlwind Lancer walking alongside the short, solemn and mid-pubescent Key of Destiny on their way to nowhere in particular.

They walked in silence for what seemed like hours but was actually only about thirty seconds.

“So what happens now?” asked Roxas.

“I honestly couldn’t tell you,” Xaldin shrugged. “I’d always just heard that after death, a Nobody fades into darkness. And, well… as you can see, that’s apparently not true.”

“So do we just walk around here forever?” Roxas asked, a tilt of complaint in his voice.

“I suppose we should just see what’s here before we…” Xaldin drifted off. “Wait. Do you… hear something?”

The two went silent for a moment and listened very carefully—indeed, off in the distance, notes echoed from within some phantom instrument.

“Yeah, I hear it!” Roxas squinted and listened as hard as he could. “It sounds like music. I wonder where it’s comin’ from?”

Roxas would apparently not have to wonder much longer, as the sound began to grow louder and louder. Eventually vague notes came together in a strange astral melody that tinkled and echoed across time and space themselves. Suddenly, shadows appeared in the distance as the music continued its crescendo.

Xaldin and Roxas froze in place and watched the shadows growing closer and closer and clearer and clearer. The shadows formed into silhouettes and the music got louder—ethereal, sparkling, almost mystical notes that touched the heart (or lack thereof) and emanated through their very beings, louder and louder, filling them up and giving them at least a very good idea of what it was like to have a soul…

“It’s beautiful,” Roxas murmured. “What do you think it is?”

“I haven’t the slightest clue,” Xaldin replied, tilting his head a bit at the approaching silhouettes. “But, seeing as we’re dead and all, I’m going to assume that these are the messengers of the great beyond come to answer us all the questions of life, the universe and everything.”

“Really?” Roxas blinked. “You seem awfully excited about it.”

“Dear boy, in life I was a scientist,” Xaldin reminded him. “Answers are my passion. And don’t you think it’s about time someone explained just what the hell is going on?”

“Maybe we can ask them if there’s any way out of here,” Roxas offered.

“Precisely my thoughts. I don’t intend to walk around here forever.”

The music soared as the silhouettes drew even closer, a bright light engulfing them to keep them shrouded in shadow. Roxas and Xaldin drew instinctively closer together, shielding their eyes from the brightness. At last the shadows stood still before them, and the two deceased Nobodies gazed up at them in awe.

“Greetings, oh messengers of the great beyond!” Xaldin called up to them. “Allow me to introduce myself—I am Xaldin, Number Three of Organization XIII. This is Roxas, Number Thirteen of the same.”

“Uh… hi?” Roxas waved.

The ethereal voices of a choir rose up in a beautiful harmony with the music. It seemed that the choir from chapter five had finally found some new work now that Jeffiroth was gone.

“Please, speak to us. Let us share in your wisdom,” Xaldin shouted. “We want a way out of here, in one direction or the other—how do we get out?”

The silhouettes did not answer, but the music grew even louder and suddenly the light began to subside. At last it faded completely, leaving Xaldin and Roxas face to face with three stern-looking men in black suits and sunglasses.

The messengers of the great beyond looked an awful lot like—

“Oh no,” Xaldin realized quite suddenly.

“What?” Roxas whispered.

Xaldin’s face grew pale and he put a hand to his forehead. “Oh no. Oh sweet mother of darkness, no. Say it’s not true.”

“What’s not true?”

The three suited men before them suddenly reached into their coats and pulled out three microphones.

“Xaldin! Why are you shaking?” Roxas asked. “And what are they—” he stopped. “Uh…”

“ARE YOU READY?” shouted the man in the center.

“NO!” Xaldin yelled. “I SAID NO! I WILL NOT BE RESURRECTED BY—”

“3!”

“2!”

“1!”

“GO!”

And with that the three suited men burst into a spectacular song and dance number, completely unfazed by Xaldin’s screams of protest.

“I GET KNOCKED DOWN!

But I get up again!

You’re never gonna keep me down!

I GET KNOCKED DOWN!

But I get up again!

You’re never gonna keep me down!”

Xaldin and Roxas suddenly felt their bodies yanked backwards and away, drawn up in a beautiful white light that engulfed their bodies and dragged them up, and up, and up…

“Pissin’ the night away!

Pissin’ the night away!

He takes a whiskey drink!

He takes a vodka drink!

He takes a lager drink!

He takes a cider drink!

He sings the songs that remind him of the good times!

He sings the songs that remind him of the best times!

Oh Danny boy!

Danny boy!

Danny boy!”

Roxas closed his eyes and felt his body soaring away, in and out of itself all at once—it was rather reminiscent of an opening sequence he might someday find himself taking part in.

Xaldin, on the other hand, was holding his head as though he was developing a spectacular migraine. “NO SINGING! EVER!”

You couldn’t blame the guy. Here he had suffered through world after world of annoyances and agonies unfit for human, much less Nobody life. He’d lost his beloved sideburns to the effects of a supercharged Yaoi Cannon. And to top it all off, he’d undergone a painful and mildly humiliating death, was looking forward to discovering all the secrets of life, the universe and everything—then it turned out that all the matters of such things were handled by the Elite Beat Agents.

Meanwhile, down below, the messengers of the great beyond were really getting into it.

“I GET KNOCKED DOWN!

But I get up again!

You’re never gonna keep me down!

I GET KNOCKED DOWN!

But I get up again!

You’re never gonna keep me down!”

“I’d pray for death, but it’s a little too late for that,” Xaldin grumbled.

Luckily for Xaldin, he did not have to stay through the rest of the Agents’ song, as he and Roxas suddenly found themselves, disturbingly, disappearing with a loud POP--

-- then came another loud POP, followed by the sound of two bodies crashing into tables full of glassware and expensive scientific knick-knacks.

“Oh great!” a familiar voice rang out from behind. “Like they’re cheap!”

HOKAY. Well. First off.

I’m sorry that took so long. I’m going to throw up the generic “college homework social life lol” excuse, though I have to admit I’ve been working on some other projects recently and just MULLING over this baby. At least rest assured I spent many sleepless nights tossing and turning and angsting over how I was going to do it.

If it makes you feel any better, on my personal screen name I haven’t updated anything in over a year and a half. :D

But rest assured, that’s not all there is to this story, kiddos! There are a thousand questions left to be answered! Are Xaldin and Roxas through with their little astral adventure? Are our heroes in time to save the rest of the Organization—do you knows have expiration dates? How are the Elite Beat Agents so uncannily awesome, and where can I go to join them?

Join us next time for the epilogue, the final chapter of Those Lacking Spines!

Ultra special thanks to Lynx, Gext, Dixa, Xelz, Rii and Yamiko for their loving support, as always.