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Chapter Five: Anything But Ordinary

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The unofficial official motto of Organization XIII, much like the Scouts, was “Be Prepared”. A lot of strange things happened in the places between darkness and light, and Xemnas instructed every one of his followers to be ready for absolutely anything.

As such, it was difficult to startle an Organization member for any reason. All thirteen of them carried themselves as though they expected a chainsaw-wielding serial killer to leap out from behind every corner, giant meteors to crash down upon them from every direction, and the world itself to implode in a giant fireball at any second. Their reflexes were insanely fast, they were quick on the uptake, and could salvage their way out of sticky situations faster than MacGuyver in a Wal-Mart. You could spring any number of insane obstacles in their paths, only to be met with a shrug, an “Oh well”, and then the severe beating of your ass.

This explains the rather unusually calm reactions Xaldin, Vexen and Lexaeus exhibited upon finding out that the missing Number Twelve of their Organization, Larxene, had just turned up in a horrifying backwater world in Fandom Hearts, except she wasn’t exactly herself and seemed to have been turned into some kind of obnoxious original character with big poofy hair and a nastier disposition than before. If you can fathom such a thing.

“So let me get this straight,” Lexaeus said under his breath to his two compatriots. “That’s Larxene.”

“But it’s not,” Vexen shook his head. “In this world, Larxene has been replaced by one of the godforsaken locals.”

“So it’s not Larxene,” Lexaeus corrected himself.

“No, um… as far as this world is concerned, Larxene never existed. Rather… she never existed, sort to speak, but here she never didn’t exist. Er…” Vexen stumbled for a proper way to explain his theory.

“That woman is taking Larxene’s place,” Xaldin cut in.

“So it is Larxene?” Lexaeus raised an eyebrow.

“It was Larxene. At some point. I think,” Vexen hated to admit it, but this was the strangest thing he’d ever had to deal with—and that included the time Marluxia was cleaning out his dead herb garden and accidentally dumped the runoff into the castle’s water supply, causing half the Organization to zone into psychedelic hallucinations for a week (“Luxord in the Sky with Diamonds”). “I don’t know. Should we just ask?”

“We probably ought to, rather than kill her right out only to learn that it is Larxene,” Xaldin sighed heavily.

“If you boys are done over there, I’ve got some ass-kicking for you!” Xuxastell yelled shrilly.

“Pardon me, Madam,” Lexaeus spoke up. “Before we proceed into the savagery, I was wondering if we might discuss your origins, in a friendly manner. Just one Nobody to another.”

“Do you think I’m hot?” Xuxastell giggled insanely and struck what she must have thought was a seductive pose.

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Lexaeus replied lamely.

“What the hell are you?” Vexen was in much less of a mood for Xuxastell’s creepy mind games.

“You idiots, I’ve already told you!” Xuxastell huffed, holding her mage’s staff menacingly. “I’m Xuxastell! I’m the Number Twelve of Organization XIII!”

“Larxene is Number Twelve, you pathetic wannabe,” Xaldin snarled.

“Hah! Maybe she was,” Xuxastell grinned wickedly, holding up her black gloved hands in a dramatic fashion and staring at them. “But that hateful woman doesn’t exist anymore. My brilliant master captured her and erased her from the face of existence!”

“Non-existence,” Lexaeus corrected.

“Oh. Right. NON-existence!” Xuxastell cackled. “When your castle came under attack by my master’s Gutless brethren, she was immune to the parasite, having no… you know! She escaped in a gummi ship and tried to cross over the barrier of Fandom Hearts to stop us, but my charming and wonderful master captured her and used his beautiful machine on her!”

“A machine? Of what sort?” Vexen had flipped open his notebook to write all the exposition down.

“It’s a magnificent machine that transforms people into badass, awesome and obnoxiously flawless creatures. x-x-Marley-dono CrImSoNfLoWeR-x-x has been employing it for some time attempting to create the perfect Gutless and as you can see, he’s getting closer and closer,” Xuxastell sneered and motioned to Jeffiroth, who was standing off to the side striking a maniacal pose and spouting off more dramatic monologues. His choir stood off in the bushes to the left, taking a water break.

“So Marluxia’s Seme is behind those horrific Mary Sue Gutless,” Lexaeus’s eyes narrowed and he seemed to be bracing himself for the impending fight. “I suppose you’re one of his creations too? The next step up?”

“Oh please,” Xuxastell cackled, gesturing at her one-winged… wait, no, two-one-winged companion. “Maybe you don’t understand. I’m not a third-rate joke of a character like this loser.”

“Jeffiroth is not a loser!” Jeffiroth interjected furiously.

“Jeffiroth!” his choir echoed.

“Right, right- whatever,” Xuxastell waved him off. “I’m not an original character. In this world? I am canon, baby. That bitch Larxene and I are not the same person—she has been blinked out of existence and my beloved master put me in her place!”

“But why?” Xaldin asked incredulously. “You people don’t bother replacing the other members of our Organization you don’t like—you just maim their personalities beyond recognition or ignore them completely to fit your needs. Why go to all that trouble replacing her when you could just find some other way to bend her to your will?

“Xaldin, it’s Larxene we’re talking about,” Vexen reminded him in a weary, weary voice that spoke of many, many failed attempts to bend Larxene to his will. And not like that either.

“… Mmm, good point.”

“Nevertheless,” Lexaeus still had his fierce gaze locked on the imposter Nobody as he pulled his tomahawk up out of the ground. “Larxene is our comrade-in-arms and we will not stand for what you have done to her. In the name of the real Organization XIII—prepare to die.”

“I think not,” Xuxastell cackled and twirled her mage staff around her, stirring up a shower of lightning and a rumble of thunder beneath her feet. “I have come too close to achieving my dream to let you fools stop me now!”

“What dream?” Vexen asked, summoning up his shield.

“Why, the dream I have held since the moment I was first born into this world as a Nobody!” Xuxastell sighed, posing dramatically and staring at the sky again. She clasped her hands together over what would have been her heart, and looking closely one might have noticed sparkles emanating from her body.

“Do tell us. I’m morbidly curious,” Xaldin encouraged her, calling down three of his lances.

Xuxastell brushed flowing strands of cornsilk blonde hair out of her face, battered her grape purple eyes, pursed cherry-red lips and lifted a milk white hand to her licorice black leather coat. “I will finally get to be with him,” she sighed, a veritable produce aisle of affectionate daydreaming.

“I hate to say it, but Marluxia isn’t interested in you unless you’re a flower or under sixteen,” Vexen interrupted snidely.

“Vexen, that is no way to discuss one of our colleagues,” Lexaeus said, glaring at him with disapproval.

“Ew! No, not Marluxia!” Xuxastell looked appalled at the very thought. “I don’t sleep with anything girlier than me!”

“Nobody girlier than her? That narrows it down,” Xaldin laughed suddenly, as he and the other two simultaneously took a huge step back away from the imposter.

“And not you three!” Xuxastell groaned in disgust.

There was a cough from the other side of the courtyard. “Oh… Jeffiroth is flattered, Number Twelve, but Jeffiroth is dedicated to exerting his non-specific revenge on a non-specific number of innocent humans,” Jeffiroth cut in. “And Jeffiroth does not want to become the victim of a large, crazed group of internet nerds who like to draw him pregnant and female. He’s going to stay niiiiice and single and very, very asexual.”

“Jeffiroth!” sang the choir.

“Why are you speaking in the third person all of a sudden?” Lexaeus stared in bemused wonderment at the Gutless.

The frustrated Xuxastell screamed in rage and clenched her fists. “Noooo, you idiots! Axel! I’m talking about AXEL!”

There was a brief pause before Xaldin laughed. “Oh dear.”

“What is it?” Lexaeus was still trying to figure out the mystery of Jeffiroth’s syntax.

“Her name,” Xaldin had come to be very good at anagrams in all his time as a member of the Organization. “Take out an x. It spells ‘Axel Slut’.”

“‘Axel Lust’, thank you very much,” Xuxastell corrected them haughtily. “But yes! That’s right. Now that I am a member of Organization XIII, I will finally have a chance to win the love of my precious red-headed emerald-orbed snarky angel of black-coated hotness… my Flurry of Dancing Flames… my Number Eight, my Axel!”

“A noble pursuit if ever there was one,” Jeffiroth commented with a nod of approval.

“So let me get this straight,” Xaldin cleared his throat after a thoughtful moment of silence. “You have destroyed a member of Organization XIII to allow yourself into this world. You are transforming innocent locals into pale, idiotic and annoying shades of their former selves. You are ‘betraying’ your ‘fellow’ Organization members by assisting the group trying to sabotage them and bring about their downfall. And you’re doing it all because you’re in love with Number Eight.”

Xuxastell sighed dreamily, batting her eyelashes. “Marley-dono promised! He said we’ll fall in love and get married and have beautiful little Nobody babies! If I prove myself strong enough, there’s no way Axel will continue to ignore me and fail to acknowledge my existence!”

“Non-existence,” corrected Lexaeus.

“Oh, yes. Non-existence,” she recovered. “In any case! You fools don’t understand my course of action! I may be betraying the Organization, but it’s only a matter of time until I finally win my place in Axel’s—”

Vexen had been oddly silent for the last few moments, but it appeared he would not remain so for long. There was sweat beading on his brow, his eyes were as narrow as they could possibly get, his fists were clenched and he was gritting his teeth as though holding back a violent explosion of curses and angry words. He interrupted Xuxastell with a small grunt, only a warning of the fury that was to come.

“Vexen,” Lexaeus turned to him suddenly, recognizing the look on his face. “Calm down.”

“I am calm,” Vexen’s lip twitched with seething, furious hatred.

“It’s not worth getting worked up over, Vexen,” Xaldin added. “She’s a silly fool and she’s been depressingly misinformed. Don’t let it bother you.”

“Don’t let it bother me?” Vexen hissed, turning to glare at his companions. “‘Don’t let it bother me’? Have you taken a moment to think—a moment to even vaguely consider exactly what it is this imbecile is prattling on about?”

“Vexen,” Lexaeus said again, tone rising. “Don’t lose your temper.”

“Madame,” Vexen snapped suddenly at Xuxastell, pointing at her. “Look at me. Look at me. Look me in the eyes, this instant.”

“What?” Xuxastell crossed her arms and complied. “You got a bone to pick with me?”

“Look me in the eyes. Are you looking? Do we have eye contact? Can you see the expression on my face?” Vexen lowered his shield and gestured to his eyes. “You can? Good. Now, let’s see… where to begin- oh yes…”

Xuxastell’s eyes bugged out of her head as Vexen exploded into a vicious tirade, the tirade of a scientist whose entire life’s and unlife’s work was being disregarded in the name of creepy wish-fulfillment. “WE. DON’T. HAVE. HEARTS! We do not have hearts! There is but one rule in the Nobody codebook regarding the definition of a Nobody, and that rule is—NOBODIES. DO NOT. HAVE. HEARTS! You are not capable of falling in love with Axel, nor is he capable of falling in love with you, because falling in love is an emotion, and emotions are born in the heart, and as I have underlined numerous times—WE DO NOT HAVE HEARTS!”

“But he makes me feel like I h-” Xuxastell began to stammer, eyes wide and voice tiny.

“DON’T YOU GIVE ME THAT SHIT!” Vexen screeched. “The operative term there is ‘like!’ Feel ‘like’ you have a heart—but you DON’T. Because you are a NOBODY. And NOBODIES. DO NOT. HAVE. HEARTS! Any emotions you may think you are detecting are in an intellectual sense only— I am currently not furious out of my mind with your utter disregard for any sort of logic besides your own desperate little delusions—I understand that had I a heart, and were I therefore capable of feeling emotions, I would be completely enraged at your stupidity! Therefore, I behave as though I am enraged and about to choke the life out of you, in order to mask the fact that I am a Nobody. You do not seem to understand this fact, making your pathetic rantings and ravings and moronic behaviors absolutely inexcusable. And furthermore!”

“I hate it when he gets like this,” Lexaeus sighed from nearby.

“It can’t be worse than the time somebody suggested that Reno was Axel’s Other,” Xaldin reminded him.

“Oh yes… he was beside himself. It took a week to get Demyx down off the ceiling,” Lexaeus recalled with a sigh.

“Furthermore!” Vexen wasn’t done yet, so ‘furious’ that he was beginning to glow with an icy aura, “Nobodies are not born by traditional means—they are created, and therefore it is not possible for a Nobody to ‘have babies’, you thickheaded dolt-”

It is usually at this point in the story that some wonderfully smug reader decides to open up his or her email client and begin a long, profanity-laced letter to the author with a long bulleted list of every single little piece of the science of Nobodies that she got wrong and the reader’s own theories on the game, including helpful citations to points in the game script that discussed such things. There are also usually lines like “if you would bother to pay attention at the part where…” and “I have played the game nine times and I can tell you that…”

So it is at this point the author would like to ask that the readers accept a few liberties she may have taken, and should they feel like popping off a pretentious email to prove her wrong, she suggests that they take a deep breath and remind themselves that they are about to get up in arms and pissy about science in a video game.

The narrative break conveniently skipped over Vexen’s very own profanity-laced tirade on the science of Nobodies and returns us to the part where Xuxastell, shamed and enraged at the severe thrashing her dreams had just received, took a few steps back away from our heroes and glared at them. “Enough!” she screamed. “No more talk—it’s time for the three of you to suffer the same fate as your comrades! We will take your… you know and your Semes will be helpless to disobey the Grand Master Fangirl’s command!”

“I assure you, Madame, watching your attempt will be most entertaining,” Xaldin said smugly.

“Or perhaps…” Xuxastell smiled, “Perhaps instead I will capture you and present you to my master Marley-dono as a trio of new experiments… You too could come into this world replaced by new existences, ones that would not be so adamantly against our plans!”

“We’re going to kill you now,” Vexen was still red-faced and quite in the mood for some ass-kicking.

“Your attempt will be most entertaining,” Xuxastell mocked Xaldin’s voice and extended a graceful hand to point at them. “Jeffiroth! Deal with these three!”

“Yes, Number Twelve!” Jeffiroth cackled maniacally and drew out a seven-foot-long samurai katana, black feathers and sparkles flying through the air around him and eyes glowing the same red shade of sanguine, and also blood.

“Jeffiroth!” sang the choir.

“I’m heading back inside to check on our master!” Xuxastell huffed and raised a portal of darkness to step into.

“After all that drama, you’re not even going to fight us yourself?” Lexaeus asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I wouldn’t dirty my hands on the likes of you,” Xuxastell sneered and stepped through the portal.

Once back inside the mansion, “Number Twelve” let out a horrified girlish screech and burst into tears.

Lightning and thunder filled the halls and exploded around her as Xuxastell ran towards the master chamber with her face buried in her hands, plowing over hoards of inattentive guards on the way. Her not-exactly-a-heart ached with the pain of Vexen’s cruel words and she was creating a rainstorm of tears as she headed for a word with Marley-dono.

She skidded to a halt outside the master chamber and ignoring the polka dot girdle tied up to the doorknob, banged on the door with a fist and sobbed, “Master! Master Marley-dono, I-I must speak with you! Have you secured the machine?” She turned the doorknob and stepped inside. “A-are you in, Mast- AAGH!”

“Rub those back legs… Oh yes, you’re a dirty little honeybee… Ah! Xuxastell, can’t you see I’m busy?” Marley-dono hissed furiously, throwing his pink remote control to the ground. “Do you remember the rule we discussed when I created you? About the girdle on the door?”

“But Superior, I thought it was a scrunchie!” Xuxastell gaped in horror and covered her eyes, now crying for a very different reason.

“When there’s a scrunchie on the door, x-x-Marley-dono CrImSoNfLoWeR-x-x is busy playing dress up! But when there’s a girdle on the door, x-x-Marley-dono CrImSoNfLoWeR-x-x is busy watching his special videos!” Marley-dono huffed, glaring at her to show his icky female assistant just how pissy she’d made him.

“I’m sorry sir! It won’t happen again!” Xuxastell sobbed and turned away from the big screen TV, showing a video of what appeared to be a very close up view of a bee pollinating a flower.

“Yes, well, make sure that it doesn’t!” Marley-dono zipped up his frilly pink coat and shut off the TV. “Have you finished dealing with those fools outside yet?”

“N-not yet sir, I have Jeffiroth taking care of them as we speak,” Xuxastell whimpered, wiping her eyes.

“I thought I told you to do it!” Marley-dono groaned. “Seriously, Xuxastell, can’t you ever follow orders? What am I going to do with you?”

“W-well sir, I did! I mean… I was going to fight them, b-but one of them…” she blubbered, bursting into tears all over again. “H-he said that Axel could never love me because we don’t have hearts!”

Marley-dono cocked his head slightly. “Oh, he did? Huh.”

“W-well, is it true?” she sobbed. “I-is it true that my dream will never be realized? That Axel and I can never be together? That we can’t have a bunch of cute little Nobody babies and name them Tomx and Bobx and Jenniferx and Charlenex?”

“Weeeeeell,” Marley-dono twisted a finger around in his pink hair and grinned sheepishly. “Maaaaybe.”

“Then you lied to me!” Xuxastell gasped in melodramatic horror. “You said if I helped you you’d… you’d make it so Axel and I could be together!”

“I’m working on it, honey,” Marley-dono groaned and tossed his head, waving her off with a flick of the wrist. “You’ve already seen what I can do when given the proper materials. I’m sure with a little work I can make it possible… sorta.”

“‘Sorta’?” Xuxastell looked shocked.

“You don’t have a heaaart, honey,” Marley-dono reminded her cheerfully. “It kinda comes with the territory. BU-U-U-UT! No whining about it now! We’ve got to deal with those hot, sexy little Organization miscreants before they ruin our entire operation… hmm… Do you think that big brawny one would look cute in a pair of these?” he asked, holding up a catalog of men’s lingerie. “I like these little red ones, they’d really bring out the color of his hair…”

“You…”

“As for that hot little braidy-boy, mm… he’s just got the prettiest blue eyes, doesn’t he? I’m thinking green for him… it’d really help if we did something with all that lovely hair too…”

“You don’t even care!”

Marley-dono turned from his catalog to see Xuxastell on the verge of an emotional breakdown in the doorway. “Hm?”

“I’ll never be able to make my dream come true! A-and you promised you’d help me!” Xuxastell sobbed. “And you lied to me! And you don’t even care! How could you? How could you do this to MEEEEEHEEHEEHEEEEEE?”

In an explosion of falsetto, trilling sobs, she turned on her heels and sped down the hall in the opposite direction, screeching and wailing and setting off miniature lightning storms and generally creating quite a tantrum.

“Gawd. What a crybaby,” Marley-dono said distastefully, turning back to his catalog. Not that he could really blame her, on second thought, because that Axel had such a tight, cute little ass.

No matter. Once Jeffiroth brought him the three defeated Nobodies, then the fun could really begin.

The question was, did Vexen look better in blue or in leopard-print?

Back out in the garden, Jeffiroth was engaged in a fierce battle with all three of the Nobodies and doing quite well at holding his own, despite the unbelievable disadvantage he was in.

Unfortunately, a seven-foot katana, while cool-looking and certainly intimidating, is just not all that practical for a battle. Jeffiroth was able to attack with it, mostly by spinning around in a circle with his arms stretched out and hoping it would nick Xaldin, Vexen or Lexaeus enough to make them give up their unceasing barrage of wind, ice, earth and stabbity-type attacks. His two-one wings flapped in the air behind him, his hair rustled majestically in the breeze and his choir was doing an admirable job of keeping up with the battle and changing the pace of the song accordingly.

“You three ought to be trembling at my power! Trembling, do you hear?” Jeffiroth yelled viciously, taking a break from his onslaught. “Greater men than the likes of you have trembled at my power—you will tremble, or you will die!”

Lexaeus hefted his tomahawk over his shoulder to take a breather, stepping out of Jeffiroth’s immense reach. “Unfortunately, young man, we have taken precautions to avoid trembling at your pathetic ‘power’.”

“There are none who can avoid trembling at my power! None! No man alive! Not one! No man alive can avoid trembling at my power!” Jeffiroth cried redundantly, holding his sword straight up above him in a dramatic fashion. “I am the black wind that echoes in the—”

“There he goes again,” Xaldin sighed heavily and recalled his lances.

Lexaeus groaned. “I would be much more mildly impressed with his fighting abilities if he would stop taking breaks to spew out poetry.”

“—the spider that hangs down at your neck! They created me for one purpose, the sole purpose of—”

“Perhaps you could introduce another huge ironic boulder, Lexaeus?” Vexen suggested, letting his shield hang down at his side. “It worked so well last time.”

“—blood, blood, bloody bodies as far as the eye could see! Every inch of the battlefield covered in corpses as they had known the fury of Jeffiroth and it littered their fields with bodies—”

“I don’t know,” Lexaeus sighed. “It takes a lot of energy to summon such a thing so quickly… and this one seems to be much stronger than the monstrosity we ran into earlier.”

“—the gaping maw of the black beast of death, clutching its claws into your liver and ripping and holding and licking at the blood, feeding the hatred—”

Xaldin took a moment of pause to consider their options, keeping his eyes on the beautiful flowing veil of silver silk that was Jeffiroth’s hair. “Hm.”

“Are you listening to me?” Jeffiroth demanded, stopping right in the middle of his favorite sonnet about death and blood and sanguine, too, only to see that his intended victims appeared to be discussing something calmly amongst themselves. “You DARE to downplay the fury of Jeffiroth’s mighty poetry! You dare to turn your heads away from him as he reaches his most glorious majesty? You dare to-”

“Get on with it!” our three heroes yelled simultaneously.

And much to their half-relief, half-chagrin, Jeffiroth seemed like he really was finally getting on with it. A dark glow surrounded him, his eyes intensified their blood red and also sanguine color, and he began to float a few feet off the ground.

“Very well then! Jeffiroth is leveling into his second form!” Jeffiroth screamed.

The choir would have sung out their usual echo, but they were busy moving around in the bushes to make room for a 100-piece symphonic orchestra and Nobuo Uematsu, skydiving out of a nearby helicopter to conduct the One-Two-Winged Angel Jeffiroth Second Level Angel’s Teardrop Blood and Also Sanguine Sanctimony Suite Mark Three.

Jeffiroth, in the meantime, cloaked his entire body in waves of black magic that ebbed and flowed over every inch of him, throwing off an unearthly black glow that would slowly transform him into Jeffiroth’s Second Form. It was a mesmerizing and complicated process that would take six months alone for the programmers to animate in full FMV mode.

“Oh hell. Not a second form. This could be very difficult,” Lexaeus said in a voice that suggested he didn’t really believe so.

“Yes… I am inclined to believe he’s all talk,” Vexen said.

“Indeed,” Xaldin had settled down on a convenient park bench to watch the four-hour animation sequence to depict Jeffiroth’s leveling up. “I have a rather good idea as to how to get rid of this nuisance for good.”

“Do tell,” Vexen settled down next to him and Lexaeus joined them a moment later, having fetched three refreshing fruit smoothies from a nearby concession stand for the long, long wait.

Dear Diary,

You took my heart

Deceived me right from the start

You showed me dreams

I wish they’d turn into real

You broke a promise and made me realize

It was all just a lie…

Xuxastell lifted the pen from the paper and regarded her poem with a discerning eye, quite proud of the misery she had evoked in it until she realized that it was actually the chorus of the song “Angels” by Within Temptation, currently playing on loop on her iPod.

“Damn!” she stood up and threw her diary against the wall in fury, followed shortly by her iPod before she realized what she was doing.

It only took a few seconds of staring at the broken audio components on the floor for Xuxastell to decide on her course of action.

Her and Axel could never truly be. She’d been deceived by a very, very flaming shell of a Nobody, and he’d manipulated her into doing terrible things and betraying her own Organization. She was incapable of writing her own poetry and her $400 iPod lay shattered in pieces on the ground.

Xuxastell could not go on like this.

She rose wearily and stumbled dramatically down the hallway, eyes blankly staring straight ahead and her blonde curls falling wispy into her face. Tears left stains on her cheeks as she made her way to the grand staircase and headed down, down, down into the basement room where her cursed master, that fruity bastard Marley-dono had brought her into existence…

And it wasn’t even her own existence!

It wasn’t even EXISTENCE!

What kind of cruel world was it where a girl as beautiful and powerful as Xuxastell could be taken advantage of by a wicked… whatever he was such as Marley-dono? In what kind of cruel world could she be denied the one thing she wanted, oh, so desperately, more than anything else in the world?

Thoughts of Axel danced in her head as Xuxastell threw open the door to the basement room in which rested the transformation pod. She remembered miserably the first time she’d woken up here… the pod door opening, Marley-dono standing above her and welcoming her into his new world, her absolute disbelief that a guy could be that swishy and not actually be a woman…

It must have been ten minutes she sat there staring at the pod and utterly feeling sorry for herself. Her attention was only broken when she glanced at the security monitor off to the right, where Jeffiroth could be seen in the throes of his twenty-minute leveling up animation.

One of the cameras barely included the silhouettes of the three Organization members. Xuxastell sighed wistfully, drowning in self-pity and loathing after her heartless betrayal.

Heartless.

Oh dear god, the ANGST! It was too much!

“I must only upgrade,” Xuxastell muttered to herself, lunging towards the pod and punching in new coordinates on the control panel. “I must upgrade… I-I will become the first Nobody with a heart! Yes! I will give myself a heart, a heart that cannot be broken like this un-heart…”

She took a moment to ponder the logic there. Then she shook it off and went back to her work.

“I’ll show them… I can have a heart… I will fall in love! I will fall in love!” Xuxastell reached for the big red lever that Marley-dono had told her never, ever, ever to touch. It was certainly the lever that would install a heart into her next incarnation. She would not be born an ordinary Nobody again!

The door to the pod slid open and Xuxastell carefully backed in, strapping her arms and legs down accordingly and leaning her head back to take a deep breath.

“In your FACE, Marley-dono!” she screamed. “I will break free of your lies! You’re so self-satisfied I don’t need-”

Well, damn. That was “I Want To Break Free” by Queen.

“I will learn to write my own poetry!” Xuxastell vowed triumphantly as the door to the pod slid closed and sealed shut.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the mansion, Marley-dono was about to return calmly to his special movie time when he received a rather angry message via satellite TV link from somebody on a far-off world who obviously scared him very, very much.

“I KNEW I SHOULDN’T HAVE LEFT THIS OPERATION UP TO YOU, YOU PINK-HAIRED PUTZ! THANKS TO YOU, OUR PROJECT MARY SUE IS BACKED UP UNTIL WE CAN REPLACE THE HOARDS OF APPLICANTS THAT THOSE THREE JERKS LEVELED!”

“I-I’m sorry, Miss Grand Master Fangirl!” Marley-dono sobbed, twisting his hair around his fingers nervously. “It’s true there have been a few setbacks but please, give me another chance!

“THE QUESTION IS WHETHER I FEEL YOU REALLY DESERVE ANOTHER CHANCE, MARLEY-DONO! I’VE WASTED FAR TOO MUCH OF MY TIMEA ND MY RESOURCES TRYING TO COVER UP YOUR NUMEROUS MISTAKES!”

“Aww, honey, you don’t meant that! Of course I deserve another chance!” Marley-dono looked scandalized. “Look at what I made! Look at Jeffiroth! He’s a great example of what Project Mary Sue could bring to our ranks! Please give me another try?”

“RIDDLE ME THIS, THEN: YOU’RE BARRICADED UP IN YOUR SUSPICIOUS OLD MANSION AND OUTSIDE, ABOUT TO TEAR THROUGH YOUR PRECIOUS JEFFIROTH, IS A TRIO OF UGLY-ASS ORGANIZATION MEMBERS DEAD SET ON RUINING MY PLANS. WHAT DO YOU DO? PLEASE, TELL ME. WHAT DO YOU DO?”

“Well, I was thinking we could implement Plan X,” Marley-dono spoke up shyly.

A chord of dramatic music blasted out of nowhere. It was actually Jeffiroth’s orchestra outside warming up, but pretend we didn’t know that.

“PLAN X?”the Grand Master Fangirl gasped.

Another chord.

“Yeeeeaah… I know it’s risky an’ all but, ooh, can you just imagine how awesome it’d work if it did work?” Marley-dono giggled, fluttering his eyelashes in joy at the very thought. “Rows an’ rows of ‘em, all shiny an’ beautiful…”

“VERY WELL,” the Grand Master Fangirl sighed. “I’LL IMPLEMENT PLAN X FOR YOU. BUT YOU LISTEN TO ME WELL, MARLEY-DONO. THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE. I BROUGHT YOUR BEAUTIFUL GUTLESS ASS INTO THIS WORLD AND I CAN TAKE IT RIGHT BACK OUT, ARE WE CLEAR?”

“Crystal, honey, crystal,” Marley-dono clapped his hands together excitedly.

Imagine the most evil, unscrupulous, sadistic, vicious and cruel villain from any book, movie, video game or TV show you’d like. Go ahead. Picture him or her very clearly in your head.

Add wings. Lots of wings. Three sets of wings—an angel’s, a demon’s, and a fairy’s. Add one more wing that slipped in there by mistake, a shiny rainbow-colored feathery one that might be found on more exotic species of parrots.

Add leather. Lots of leather. Black leather. Yards and yards of it, tight and constricting, wrapping every inch of skin that isn’t otherwise covered by chains and spikes.

Add hair. Lots of hair. Yards and yards of it, long and silky, all the way down to the floor and wrapped around the ankles three or four times, so long it strangles poor innocent woodland creatures trying to scurry by it on their way home. We are talking some Badass Locks.

Add sparkles. And an unearthly evil glowing aura of darkness. Add a little rain cloud overhead that spews down a constant shower of blood and tears.

Add a 100-piece orchestra, a full choir, a pyrotechnics display and Nobuo Uematsu conducting.

You now have a vague inkling of Jeffiroth’s second form. Jeffiroth Squared. Jeffiroth Redux. Jeffiroth Two: Electric Boogaloo.

He was so badass his font was bolded. “And now you shall learn, and you shall fear, and you shall learn to fear the wrath… of Jeffiroth!” he cackled maniacally.

“Jeffiroth!” the choir with orchestral accompaniment sang.

Xaldin sipped the last of his strawberry-banana coconut dream smoothie and tossed the cup into a nearby trash bin, standing up and stretching. “All right gentlemen, time to get down to business.” His lances appeared in his hands and floating around him as they had before.

“Just like we discussed,” Lexaeus mumbled under his breath, recalling his tomahawk.

“Deep concentration,” Vexen stepped back a few yards away from the others and began to focus his energy into one hand.

“Are you fools finally ready to face me down?” Jeffiroth laughed, drawing his seven-foot sword once again, “We have battled before, but that was only warm-ups! You cannot comprehend my strength, and the strength you would have to have to defeat me! I will send all three of you back into the darkness of oblivion where you belong!”

“We’ll see,” Xaldin glanced at Lexaeus. “Let’s attempt Maneuver 35, shall we?”

“Let’s,” Lexaeus slammed his tomahawk down into the ground and the entire courtyard began to rumble from the force. The rumbling continued until the earth beneath them seemed to be boiling and churning, ripping through the grass and giving rise to a thick layer of sand and rocks and stones.

Xaldin lifted one of his lances to the sky and the wind rumbled and churned in a great cyclone, round and round, drawing leaves from the nearby trees into its roaring grip and soon lifting the sand and rocks as well.

Vexen kneeled down and placed his hands against the ground.

The vortex soon became a sandstorm, spinning wildly out of control and lifting high up towards the sky, a mighty testament to the abilities of the Organization’s Number Three and Five.

“Pitiful,” Jeffiroth laughed. “You expect me to be held back by something so foolish as a sandstorm? I will cleave your pathetic sandstorm in HALF and you will learn to fear Jeffiroth!”

“Jeffiroth!” the choir with orchestral accompaniment sang.

Jeffiroth flapped all seven wings and lifted himself high up into the air, almost as high as the sandstorm reached, and began to focus his energy. He lifted his sword up behind him and prepared a mighty lunge, waiting until his choir got to the most dramatic part of the song to do so.

“Get ready,” Lexaeus mumbled down on the ground. Xaldin nodded, still busily keeping the cyclone at its most turbulent.

And faster than you can saw “Kamehameha!” or “Ma-nah ma-nah!” or even “Da, da, da!” Jeffiroth did a triple twister backflip back handspring, circled in the air and came soaring down like a hawk, all the way down to the ground and effortlessly slicing straight through the sandstorm. Chunks of rock and earth and a gust of wind flew out in all directions as the storm came crashing down all over the courtyard in a dramatic whoosh.

Jeffiroth struck a pose in midair, cackling maniacally as his stormcloud rained blood all around and his choir kicked it into overdrive—it was time for the techno remix. “You stupid foolish fools! You foolishly thought you could fool Jeffiroth, you fools? So much for your precious Maneuver 35! I will now tear you asunder!”

He spun around to take a mighty chop out of our three heroes with his giant sword, but found, for some reason, his head could not spin as gracefully and threateningly as before. He jerked his head as hard as he could to the side and quickly found out why when there came the sound of a huge “CLNK!”, followed by a thud.

All nine or so feet of Jeffiroth’s luxurious Badass Locks of silver hair lay frozen in a great chunk of ice on the ground beneath him. In the ten or so seconds of posing and threats since he landed from his mighty demonstration against Xaldin and Lexaeus’s sandstorm, Vexen had made his move and promptly froze the Gutless’ hair into a long, Badass Block of ice. The unfortunate thing about Badass Locks is that as badass as they are, they are not immune to the weaknesses of regular hair, and that includes the weakness that is proneness for snapping when frozen into a solid block of ice and subjected to a firm jerking of the head.

Jeffiroth stared in abject horror at his Badass Locks upon the ground, then up at the threesome of Nobodies who were responsible.

“Oh… my… god… my… HAIR!” Jeffiroth screamed, a shrill, horrible sound and fell immediately to the ground on his knees, clutching the broken strands in his hands and shrieking, “NO! NO! IT CAN’T BE! Not… say it… say it ain’t so… it can’t be this is… this is a bad dream, it must be! A terrible, terrible, horrible dream!”

“Jeffiroth!” the choir sang.

“NO! NO! SHUT UP, YOU IDIOTS, CAN’T YOU SEE THIS IS AN EMERGENCY?” Jeffiroth turned to his choir and shrieked in rage. “MY HAIR! IT’S RUINED!”

“Good shot, Vexen,” Xaldin congratulated him, catching his breath after the strain of holding the cyclone for so long.

“Thank you, Xaldin,” Vexen adjusted his gloves and looked very proud of himself.

“I didn’t really think he’d get so worked up about his hair,” Lexaeus said as they watched a sobbing Jeffiroth trying as hard as he could to reattach the nine-foot mass back to his head. “It’s almost a little… sad.”

“Terribly,” Xaldin rolled his eyes.

“LOOK AT ME! I’M HIDEOUS! LOOK!” Jeffiroth howled, standing up and clawing at the back of his head. “I AM NO SILENT WIND OF DOOM IN THIS! I AM NOTHING TO BE FEARED OR EVEN REMOTELY NERVOUS OF… with this… short… hair…”

“Oh no. We’re not frightened of you at all,” Vexen enunciated. “Long hair, oh, yes, perhaps, but that terrible crew-cut you have now?”

“I must end my shame,” Jeffiroth said numbly, turning his blade on himself to commit seppuku.

Unfortunately, a seven-foot long katana, while badass and certainly intimidating, is just not all that practical for seppuku. What followed was a ten minute display of Jeffiroth trying in vain to impale himself on a sword that was taller than he was, in full view of his choir and Nobuo Uematsu.

Xaldin, Vexen and Lexaeus looked on from nearby, terribly amused. It appeared Jeffiroth would be busy for a long, long time.

“Well, after that anti-climactic display, my vote is that we head inside to deal with Marluxia’s Seme,” Lexaeus suggested.

“A very good suggestion. Let’s be on our—” Xaldin began, but paused as there was suddenly a flash of light that brought a new silhouette down into the courtyard. “… what the hell is that?”

The glow around the silhouette dissipated and the newcomer slowly stood up, holding up his hand to reveal a sparkling golden Keyblade.

“A Keyblade?” Vexen said nervously, taking a few steps back for caution’s sake.

“That’s right,” the newcomer said, lifting his head to reveal sparkling white teeth, a heroic grin, and the Gutless tattoo that had only seconds ago appeared on his torso. “My name is Kain Bakayorou…”

A second silhouette flashed down and landed in the hedges, but crawled out a moment later and cried “My name is Raven Ikareponchi!”

“Tsuki Shuugyofu!” yelled the third silhouette from the doorway of the garden shed.

“Turbo Hihibaba!” the fourth silhouette shouted.

A cacophony of voices drowned out at least 400 other names, and soon there were 404 Keyblades lifting up into the air above them and 404 voices shouting, “AND AS THE KEYBEARER, I WILL DESTROY YOU!”

On the top floor of the mansion, peering out a window was Marluxia’s Seme, laughing hysterically at how beautiful the implementation of Plan X really was.

“Well shit,” said Xaldin appropriately as he, Vexen and Lexaeus positioned back to back in the middle of the courtyard, keeping an eye on the advancing hoards of Keybearers.

“We’ll just have to fight them off,” Lexaeus growled.

“I’m exhausted from the cyclone,” Xaldin said quickly. “I need a chance to recover.”

“There’s too many!” Vexen hissed in frustration. “And I don’t care if they’re the real Keybearers or not—on this world they might as well be!”

“We will not be giving up so easily!” Xaldin snapped, breathing heavily to try and recover as quickly as he could. “The Organization never says die!”

“DIE! DIE YOU FILTHY SONS OF BITCHES!”

There rose a sudden gasp among the Keybearers as suddenly great numbers of them began to explode into sizzling chunks for no readily apparent reason. Thunder and lightning rained from the heavens in great bursts, combusting groups of the hapless Keybearer Gutless right and left.

“What the hell is that?” Vexen yelled.

“The last thing we need! Another Mary Sue?” Xaldin groaned.

“No, worse,” Lexaeus said with a smirk, gesturing off towards the doorway of the mansion. “It’s Larxene.”

Indeed, the Organization’s Number Twelve, the Savage Nymph was back to her most savage and nymphiest. She stood on the porch of the mansion calling down great bolts of thunder and lightning, her face contorted into a look that could not be translated as anything else but pure straight seething hatred. “SON OF A BITCH BASTARD DARE TO SCREW WITH ME, I’LL KICK YOUR ASSES AND TAKE YOUR NAMES!” she shrieked, taking the opportunity to impale a few of the Gutless nearest her with entire handfuls of kunai.

Xaldin, Vexen and Lexaeus watched in abject horror for a moment, musing over the brutality of the sole female member of Organization XIII and wondering how in the hell she could have gotten over her episode as Xuxastell so quickly. They then decided that they were musings for another time, and proceeded to beat the living crap out of every Gutless within reach.

To make a long story short, in no time at all the Keybearer army and Plan X had been laid to waste, and Larxene reunited with her brethren in the middle of the courtyard, taking the opportunity to fix her hair.

“Hello boys,” she said in the voice of a woman who has not just murdered several hundred annoying teenagers. “How’s crimes?”

“Significantly more violent all of a sudden,” Xaldin replied without missing a beat.

“What happened?” Vexen gaped in shock. “How did you restore yourself? Xuxastell had taken your place by some means I don’t even understand!”

“Oh, you mean that pod thing?” Larxene shrugged. “I’m not sure. All I know is I woke up and suddenly here I am, back where I belong. Tell me you didn’t actually think she had really replaced me.”

“Of course not, Number Twelve,” Lexaeus assured her. “We would never think of replacing you.”

“Good,” Larxene smiled sweetly and suddenly her expression darkened. “Oh yeah—them Gutless things! I take it you three figured out what the hell’s going on?”

“We certainly have, and we are in the process of repairing things as they should be,” Xaldin told her. “Hence our presence here. But we understand you took some measures of your own before your untimely capture?”

“Damn right I did,” Larxene snapped. “Damned if I care about most of the others, but I sure as hell ain’t working with a bunch of sobbing pansies, I can tell you that much!”

“How nice of you,” Vexen said icily.

“Marluxia’s Seme is inside. We must destroy him and regain his… you know in order to replace it back within the real Marluxia’s body,” Lexaeus explained.

“Or at least, whatever… you know Marluxia even had,” Vexen glanced off to the side, twiddling his thumbs.

“Oh yes,” Larxene smiled a positively evil smile, lacing her fingers together excitedly. “I’ve got a bone to pick with him.”

Marley-dono was in his basement laboratory, pacing back and forth and trying, oh, trying to figure out some way out of this scrape. Xuxastell had disappeared. Jeffiroth was outside trying to impale himself. Plan X had failed miserably. The Grand Master Fangirl was not returning his calls. And the choir and orchestra were demanding 7 more per hour than originally agreed upon.

He fingered his limp, stressed-out, frizzy hair sadly and lamented the death of a fine, fine crop of man locks.

He also lamented the fact that the man who was the owner of those fine, fine man locks was also on the verge of death, if he couldn’t come up with a good idea, real fast, of how to deal with the three intruders.

Stupid Xuxastell! Where was she when he needed her? All he ever had to do with that dunce was point and say that Axel would be very proud of her if she did such and such or had this or that done by whatever time that afternoon. There was just no kind of help quite like the gullible brainwashed and hired kind.

“Marluxia! Oh, rather- Marley-dono!”

A long chill ran down Marley-dono’s spine as he heard the basement door slam open and swift footsteps down the stairs. It was nothing compared to the chill, however, when he turned around to find Larxene facing him down as the three intruders watched from far, far away. The big beefy cute one was holding a glowing Tupperware dish for some reason Marley-dono did not really want to contemplate.

Larxene smiled sweetly at him and tightened her gloves. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? A couple days at least, since we last spoke!”

Marley-dono backed as far as he could against his lab equipment and picked up a small spray bottle labeled “GIRL REPELLANT”, coating himself with a few spritzes. “Wh-why no! It must have been sooner than that, Ms. Larxene! The time… it seems…” he made a face and became very, very pale. “Way, way too short, honey.”

“Oh, my thoughts exactly,” there was something terribly dangerous lurking in Larxene’s voice as she stepped towards him. With nowhere else to go Marley-dono hopped up on the table behind him, looking right and left for some opportunity to escape.

“Sister, let’s talk this out all nice ‘n gentle, mmkay?” Marley-dono smiled sweetly and very, very hopefully.

“Mm… no, I don’t think so,” Larxene replied equally sweetly, kunai forming between each of her fingers.

“Oh come ON!” Marley-dono cried out, glancing behind Larxene to the three men at the other side of the room. “You sadistic bastards would leave me to a fate like this?”

“Can’t say you don’t particularly deserve it,” Lexaeus said with a shrug.

“Meanie-pants,” Marley-dono babbled incoherently as Larxene made her slow approach. “You! All three of you! Are MEANIE-PANTS! And homophobes!”

All three of them sighed heavily.

“We’ve been over that,” Xaldin touched his forehead as though he was getting a major headache. “Larxene, if you would?”

“I’d be happy to,” she snickered, tightening her fists.

“Oh please not in the face,” Marley-dono sobbed.

“Don’t worry!” Larxene assured him.

Several hours later, our heroes were back aboard the G.S. Existentialist and once again drifting aimlessly through space on their way through Fandom Hearts. Xaldin, Vexen and Lexaeus were taking the time to relax before the next sanity-testing world. Larxene had hopped back aboard the gummi ship she stole and was on her way back to The World That Never Was as they spoke, with orders to keep an eye on things and assist Axel in any picture-taking that needed to happen. They were certain she would be zealous and up to the task.

It was time for the heavy-handed moralistic section of the story.

On the bridge, Lexaeus sat with the Tupperware, watching the two you knows drifting aimlessly about within, occasionally bumping into each other and each emitting a soft and almost entrancing glow. “That world was less horrifying than I expected it to be,” he admitted.

“Indeed. It is not so much horrifying as it is annoying,” Vexen cut in, “Nine times out of ten they come looking for the invocations of the people they know and love—it is frustrating to be constantly met with boring, trite and unoriginal invocations of somebody’s friends or even themselves. All the worse if said invocations are Mary Sues.”

“In the end, the City of OC is simply a world of wish fulfillment. There is nothing terribly wrong with wish fulfillment, after all,” Xaldin agreed, sitting in a nearby chair with his feet propped up on an instrument panel. “What many do not realize is that when they post their own wish-fulfillment publicly, it may not receive the warm welcome they are hoping as it is a very personal sort of thing. To go on to whining and bitching about it only make the genre as a whole more unbearable.”

“They may create whatever they like, of course,” Lexaeus added on. “But they need to be prepared to face the facts and understand that what tickles their fancy and excites them may not apply to the thousands of others that their worlds affect—unlike the common factors of the real invocations of characters that draw them into Fandom Hearts in the first place.”

“Well-said,” Vexen nodded.

“Indeed,” Xaldin agreed.

“Mmm, Xaldin,” Gexegee called from the direction of the ship’s bedroom. “Come back to bed! We’re not out of whipped cream yet!”

There was a long moment of silence as the three Nobodies regarded each other.

“Who let her on here?” Xaldin sighed immensely, placing a hand to his forehead.

“I believe she may have written herself in,” Lexaeus shrugged.

“I vote we deploy her from the airlock,” Vexen said suddenly.

“No, no. I ought to deal with her myself,” Xaldin stood up and stretched, making his way through the door. “I’ll be in my bunk.”

Once he had gone, Vexen let out a disgusted huff and set the gummi ship on autopilot.

“God I hate fangirls,” he snapped.

The G.S. Existentialist drifted along through the cosmos, very quickly jettisoning a screaming body from the back airlock but never ceasing in its triumphant journey to the next world.

Wow. I ought to write stories like this more often.

Hope you kidlings enjoyed the chapter and laughed at least once or twice. I do love it when you drop me a line, positive or negative, so review copiously and maybe I’ll send you a special edition of the chapter where you might or might not get to boff Xaldin but actually get thrown out an airlock.

Or maybe not…?