Over the next few weeks, the relative peace in the castle managed to endure -- or so Vexen assumed, since no conflicts bubbled down to intrude upon his work. The long nights were paying off. Thanks to hours spent in his research labs -- food ferried in, used dishes out -- he had finally been able to devote the concentration necessary in order to push through several morphological hurdles. The artificial Dusks that were produced were still crude, and he was seriously debating the use of memory duplication in order to force some sort of structure upon them, but at least there were fewer ugly stains on the floor of his labs.

He counted that as an improvement.

Turning his attentions strictly onto transformation of pre-stable matter, Vexen managed to accomplish duplication of Glorp 1.0. The success brought with it several iterations that managed to maintain structural integrity for up to a week. Mobility improved to basic pseudopods, which now presented the second major stopping point: Vexen could not stabilize between three feet and twenty. The biggest problem was keeping them from sprouting out randomly without warning, torsos gaping wide to sprout nightmarish tendrils that groped blindly at the air.

Despite the difficulties, Vexen persisted. The possibility of artificial Dusks that could be modeled to his standards remained highly appealing; certainly it was better than merely hoping that obedient Dusks would shape themselves magically to his whim. A reliable control was not only preferable -- it was necessary, if the ranks of Dusks were ever to compare to that of the Heartless.

He twiddled a pen during one particularly frustrated afternoon, feeling possibilities creep out like stunted logic graphs, forking out into wild speculation before their inevitable collapse.

Zexion caught up with him while he was in the middle of amputating the limbs off one of the residential laboratory Dusks. Even though Vexen had sent numerous requests to the other researchers, none of them had chosen to donate any of their specialized Dusks to the labs. It was rapidly becoming more attractive an option for Vexen to lure Xemnas’s attention through trickery and use man’s whimsical interest to further laboratory schemes. Until then, Vexen had been forced to experiment on anything unlucky enough to pass by, and the results were not impressive.

He miscalculated the shape of the Dusk’s shoulder joint; when he twisted the pliers with a grunt, a crack echoed in the room, and the Dusk writhed. Gritting his teeth, Vexen simply yanked free the rest of the limb and dropped it on the floor, lip curling at the black ooze that welled up from the point of severance, like a pudding that curdled on contact with the air.

He set the pliers aside, and glanced up to see Zexion standing on the other side of the table, observing calmly.

“Progress?”

Vexen nodded. “Progress.” A spell capped the end of the Dusk’s wound, stemming the fluids beneath a plug of ice. He checked to make certain the restraints would hold, and that the creature would not squirm away to die pitifully in a corner. It was a thorough procedure; by the time he finished, Zexion had already unpacked the contents of his courier’s satchel, stacking several thick reports on the edge of the nearest clean table.

“I distilled several of the more useful expeditions into serviceable format,” Zexion began. “Here is the data from several fringe worlds which possess similar technology to that of the Bastion. Here is another list of unfamiliar magical observations which may or may not overlap. And also,” the man continued mildly, withdrawing a slim folder from his bag and laying it on the table, “here are the additional observations that you requested.”

Vexen reached out and slid the folder closer with one finger. When it lay next to his hand, he flipped it open long enough to register the contents within, and then closed the cover with a flap.

“I appreciate your discretion in this,” he stated briskly -- but he was speaking to an empty room. Zexion had already gone.

- - - -

It took less effort than he expected to corner Xemnas. Through some esoteric sorcery, the man had been coerced into actually performing work in his office, rather than gallivanting around unknown worlds while spouting dramatic nonsense. When Vexen pushed open the door after only a brief rap of announcement, the first thing that he noticed was Xemnas seated at a desk, sorting through the mountain of paperwork that had collected in his office over the weeks.

The gradual rearrangement of materials from the public libraries to private had found a new home in Xemnas’s chambers. By-products of old research were everywhere. Vexen eyed a pile that was slouching by the door; rough sketches of constellations were scattered among rolled-up maps marked with Lexaeus’s hand. Colored bands were wound on the ends of each scroll, allowing them to be easily identified should the maps be slid into a cubby for safekeeping. Cluttered together in an unorganized pile, they were simply a rainbowed mess.

He stepped forward, noting with dismay the lack of any available space in the room. “Let me guess,” he called out gingerly. “You’ve discovered your true calling as a humble archivist.”

Xemnas offered him a brief smirk before separating a stack of books into two piles, and dropping both sets inelegantly on the floor. “Zexion pointed out that the main library is no longer appropriate for us all to keep our research.” His smile was rueful. “Then he mentioned that I should be the one to decide which materials should be kept for public access.”

The belated practicality was amusing; Vexen had already relocated almost all of his own data to his personal laboratories. “I’m sure we’ll all sleep better, knowing our theories are safe in your hands,” he sneered. The sarcasm was bloodless; he let it die almost immediately. Sliding one of the folders out from underneath his arm, Vexen held it up like a peace offering. “Able to house any more?”

It might have been his imagination, but Xemnas looked briefly grateful. “I might be willing to spare the time.”

It took the creative rearrangement of several files to clear enough space for Vexen to pull a chair closer to the desk -- and empty that chair of three maps, two dictionaries, and a crate of inkwells whose contents giggled when they sloshed. Xemnas spared him the worst of what might have been an unbearably long diatribe. For once, the man was focused purely on business. They spoke quietly and efficiently. Vexen offered up the collected reports. Xemnas accepted the exchange, stacking each new fragment of data across his desk in fresh piles, arranged by type and relevance.

With each extra inch of papers, Vexen found his lungs tighten in his chest.

At last, he added the final folder: a thin, somber file that contained all the information on the machinations of the sorceress that Zexion had dared to collect.

“A Keyblade Master is fighting your Heartless,” he announced, and then held his breath.

“Good,” Xemnas shot back frostily. His hand, which had been reaching out to touch the folder, skirted away. “I hope he kills it. Why do you keep track of that thing anyway?”

Because it belongs to you, or at least to the man I once knew, Vexen wanted to say. Instead, he only steeled his jaw. “As of Zexion’s last projection, it appears as if the Keyblade Master and your Heartless have only crossed paths briefly so far. Should the conflict escalate to direct violence, it is possible that the Keyblade Master may destroy your Heartless. The loss of such a resource is unforgivable.” When Xemnas did not pick up the folder, Vexen added, “There is time if you still want to rescue it.”

At first it appeared as if Xemnas would consider the suggestion. Then he shook his head. “It’s too late to go back, Vexen. Ansem has been banished from the Garden -- there is no Garden left. The Bastion is hollow. Even if I wanted to, even if I thought that Ansem would listen to me, why would now be any different than the past?”

He moved on from there before Vexen could regain control over the conversation, shoving the folder aside in favor of a thicker stack of laboratory reports. During the next hour -- ignoring all other attempts to steer him back towards the previous subject -- Xemnas managed to review the list of project requirements with the determination of a man intent on avoidance. For a while, the conversation found itself at ease this way. Xemnas seemed willing to speak about Vexen’s research without judgement, fielding ideas back and forth indiscriminately; they discussed the options of stealing technology and the dangers that might come attached.

Finally -- seeing the minutes ticking by on one of the marker-labeled clocks -- Vexen pushed himself reluctantly out of the chair and onto his feet, already thinking about putting several of their conclusions into use. It had been satisfying to discuss work again, just the two of them. He’d take a portal back down to the laboratories once he reached the hall, and have some Dusks bring by food. Then, with luck, he could sequester himself for another series of weeks while pretending no one else in the world existed.

His hand was on the latch of the door when Xemnas’s words stopped him.

“He never said thank you.”

The metal of the handle was cool on Vexen’s skin; Xemnas was up on his feet, facing away from the desk and towards the rows of curtained windows. “All those hours I spent picking up the holes in his research, running experiments, looking for truth. I knew he wanted to find it. But he never accepted any of my suggestions. Despite all the claims that he wanted to help me find the answers to my past, once the door was finally in sight, he couldn’t be bothered to reach for it.” Xemnas paused, then shook his head. Vexen could not read the expression in profile. “Ansem the Wise. What a fool. He lost all rights to that name first.”

Vexen regarded him from across the length of the room. If there was any appropriate response, any reaction that might have come from the heart, he could not remember it. “And you’ve done any better?”

At first he wondered if he had gone too far, answering in reflexive, tart wit -- but Xemnas did not flinch. His grin, cross-lit by the colored streetlamps of the city, was a hideous caricature of humor. “Don’t forget your part in this fiasco as well, Vexen. We’re all guilty together.”

- - -

All hopes that Xemnas might have settled into a position of responsibility were quickly extinguished. Next week, the man was absent; in the central library, where notations were being tacked up on a corkboard to alert when various members were coming or going, there was only a scrap of paper that stated Xemnas had left on a scouting tour. Vexen examined it, and then scoffed, turning away before he could let himself think about implications of what that might mean.

It might have meant something that Vexen was not even disappointed, in the rudimentary fashion he had learned since losing his actual heart. Instead of dwelling on it, however, he simply returned back to his work. Regardless if Xemnas verified the worth of his research -- regardless if Xemnas even remembered that he had set Vexen upon this task -- Vexen had faith that his experiments would hold a true key to their salvation.

He knew its value, even if no one else could.

One rare afternoon brought Vexen outdoors, into one of the open-aired gardens that Lexaeus and Demyx had managed to cultivate among the Castle’s twisting innards. Several of the other Organization members had also chosen to spend time outside. Aerlen was playing some sort of game with Axel that involved razorbladed frisbees. Xigbar and Xaldin were on one of the upper balconies, discussing what looked like an entire army of spears that were floating around the lancer’s body. Zexion was spreading a series of folders out on the marbled terrace; Vexen hadn’t decided if the complex spiral was coordinated by information, or sheer whimsy.

A few odd notes of music continued to detract from the day’s serenity. Apparently the musician had decided to stay around, even after being shown how to use the portals, and thereby escape; whether Demyx figured that the chances would simply be worse without the Organization, Vexen did not know.

So far, his newest construct had been satisfactory. Glorp 5.12 had developed eight limbs in a stable arthropod model, and the interest in actively using them. Vexen had rigged a collar out of delicate ice-loops that had been woven in a cinch around 5.12’s abdomen. Frost served as an excellent collar and leash. It had only required a few searing tugs to instruct 5.12 in proper behavior; despite any previous temptations to dash free into the garden, the Dusk now remained close to Vexen’s chair, clambering in circles on the ground near its master.

Just as 5.12 had started to exhibit interest in a pebble, using two of its appendages to try and grasp the stone, Xemnas’s voice broke the tranquil atmosphere.

“And here are your newest partners, Luxord. I hope you’ll enjoy them.”

A reply as smug as living caramel seeped through the garden: “Of course. Assuming, naturally, that they’re willing to be enjoyed.”

Vexen dropped his feet off the stool, yanking Glorp back towards him with a sharp jerk of the leash. Frost crackled on his fingers, shedding in small flakes that melted like tears on the dirt; eight legs scrabbled, struggling against the frozen brand that had tightened around the Dusk’s midsection. Vexen ignored the Dusk, ignored the newcomer’s voice, and lifted his chin in search of the trouble he knew was the center of it all.

Xemnas came into sight along the lower walkway, strolling with a blond-haired man at his elbow, as carelessly natural as if he often introduced strangers to Nothingness. Vexen did not grant him a moment.

“I thought you were supposed to survey worlds for Heartless,” he snapped, “not pick up strays.”

“I did.” After a beat, Xemnas admitted shamelessly, “I got sidetracked. Along the way, I found this particular individual at the top of one of the towers of a gambling palace -- a casino, I think it was called. He was watching the Heartless ravage the city, but he didn’t even try to run away, or to fight. Interesting enough, wouldn’t you think?”

“I know when the odds are impossible,” the visitor cut in, weasel sleek and well-groomed. When Vexen turned his glare upon him, the man only smiled. “I’m a gambler at heart. I prefer to take what I can and go with the rest. You can’t force Fate sometimes. If this is the hand I’ve been dealt, well -- I’m sure I can turn it into aces.”

The speech, Vexen decided, was not impressive. Neither was the flash of silver on the man’s ears, or the dapper, arrogant grin. “So you’re willing to ally yourself with complete strangers?” he threw back instead.

“Pragmaticism is a marvelous trait for a betting man.”

Vexen only rolled his eyes, ignoring the polished words with the same ease that he would use to dismiss any other sidewalk charlatan. Instead, he wheeled upon the true offender -- who only blinked innocently, caught in the middle of stealing Zexion’s coffee cup off the table. “What is your fascination with recruiting criminals, Xemnas?”

Behind them, the other researchers were already digging into the newest find. Xigbar had circled around, slinking off his perch on the upper balcony. Like twin hyenas, Aerlen and Axel had flanked from the side. Even Demyx’s music had fallen silent.

Bits of conversation filtered past as Vexen attempted to stare an answer out of Xemnas, and Xemnas fished for a spoon.

Luxord’s voice was no less merry for the scrutiny. “Accidents common here?”

“Unfortunate incident at breakfast. They only let me have spoons now.” Xigbar prowled into view, looping around the small table, sliding through Vexen’s peripherals. On his face, his eyepatch hung like a fresh blot of ink; he lifted a finger to stroke it with rudimentary affection. “And you’ve got plenty of distinguishing marks yourself. Got enough metal on your head to attract a magnet instead of the other way around.”

“I wear one for each loss.” The stranger was unhesitating in his reply. “And I have only ever lost when the stakes were extraordinarily high.”

Xigbar pulled a skeptical brow, exaggerated and curious all at once. “And how high is that?”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?”

Vexen finally gave up on Xemnas with a scowl, turning on his heel to watch the assembly. Lacking a chair, Xigbar had settled onto the air, reclining with deceptive ease as he studied the blond newcomer. Xaldin’s spears had drifted into a slow flock of metal points that circulated above all their heads; Demyx had not left his corner of the garden, but he had lowered the neck of his sitar, cupping his hands with absent protectiveness over the instrument.

Aerlen shoved herself into a chair beside Vexen, and then stole his cup of tea.

Luxord -- now gifted with a full audience -- appeared to thrive upon the attention. He spread his arms with an extravagant flourish that ended with his knuckles splayed near his head. The earrings winked in the garden light. “There’s a story to them, of course,” he began cheerily. “The first of my great losses was to a fair maid when I was but a lad, still green and untried. She stole my love and escaped with it to the arms of another.” Touching two fingers to his lips, the man blew an invisible kiss to the horizon. “The second, to the bar-runner who taught me my craft, when he made off with all the profits of our final joint venture, instead of the fifty percent which had been agreed upon. The third, to the man who sold me passage to the land where I found proper employment to tide me over. And the last -- ah,” he paused, fingering the crest of the Dusks upon his earlobe, “that was to your master.”

Xigbar seemed to accept the story well enough, sitting back on the air. Xaldin, however, drifted closer, watching the scene from over the gunner’s shoulder. “What about the other side?” he challenged. “There are four other losses on your right ear.”

A twist of a smile. ”I like symmetry.”

With a rough laugh, Xigbar sprang off his perch and slapped the newest Nobody on the shoulder. “Good!” he proclaimed. “See that, Xaldin? Good sense of humor. He’ll need that out here.”

The standoff melted away with the same speed as a mist at noon; affecting disinterest, Xaldin began to forage at the tray that had been laid out on Vexen’s table, fumbling with the biscuits. Xigbar yawned, stretching his arms in an exaggerated lean before checking which pitcher held coffee, and which held cream.

Luxord crooked an eyebrow at their sudden shift of attention, but his expression remained firmly bemused.

“So,” he ventured, with rosy cheer, “I’ve answered a fair amount of your questions and managed to survive well enough this far. It’s obvious that all of us here have been chosen somehow.” He cleared his throat. “What are we?”

It was Aerlen who fielded the question, crossing her legs and sipping her purloined tea. “Every person is composed of a heart and a body,” she piped up, posture as composed as a lecturing professor -- so practiced that Vexen found himself suspecting that the act was a deliberate mockery of himself. “The heart’s what’s on the surface. But the body is just a carrier. It’s forgotten. People normally only see the heart, so most think that’s all that matters.” Setting down her cup with exaggerated precision, pinkies curled outwards, she nodded across the table at Luxord. “You’re just a body that got left behind. Without a heart, Nobodies can’t be a part of either Light or Darkness. They can’t connect with anything else until they get their heart back.”

Luxord’s mouth was turned down in the corners, studiously frowning -- but rather than turn the question on the researchers, he kept his attention focused on Aerlen, with a concentration that was almost disconcerting for how different it had been from his previous frippery. “So without a heart, we’re incomplete?”

“That’s what they want you to believe.” She rolled her eyes. ”But I think it’s just an excuse not to have friends.”

Luxord stared at her for another moment before breaking out into a grin. “I think I like you, girl.”

“Don’t,” Vexen advised, finally unable to retain silence. “She gets people in trouble.”

The brief tension dissolved; Aerlen snorted inelegantly, and Luxord glanced towards the garden. “So,” he ventured delicately, “is everyone here what you call a Nobody?”

Xaldin spoke into his coffee. “She’s not.”

“Thankfully,” Aerlen retorted, reaching for another cookie. “I just hear them spout on and on and on about this stuff, all the time. I think when you lose your heart, you’re required to lose your mind with it.”

Xigbar kicked her under the table. “Go play,” he ordered brusquely. “Adults need talky-time now.”

She stuck her tongue out at him with an exaggerated pout, but obeyed, humming as she fit tiny knives between her knuckles. When she finished girding one hand, she swept back her jacket along the zipper to reveal a pair of braces on her legs; the straps sat snugly on her thighs, implying far too much practice with sharp objects.

”Who gave her weapons?” Vexen asked finally, watching her withdraw two more knives from their sheathes, and then trot away.

Zexion turned another page in his notebook, speaking from the ground where he had remained throughout all the fuss. “Xaldin.”

“That explains it.”

“Pardon my interruption, but shall we get down to business, gentlemen?” Luxord leaned forward, one hand on the table. “I’ve gathered that we need a gameplan for this expedition, and we’re under limited time. Luckily enough,” he grinned. “I’m fond of both.”

- - - - -

Vexen left the newcomer behind, listening to the chatter of vice and introductions intermingling. The babble of voices fell away; hallways opened themselves before him with an ease that might have been disturbing, if he no longer found them anything but mundane. The miraculous had become ordinary. Only the unsolved dilemma of hearts was of any interest.

Xemnas must have felt similarly, for he had already abandoned his fledgling to the rest of the group, slipping away while Xaldin and Xigbar scrutinized the man and the junior members jockeyed for opportunities to look witty. His path was not difficult to trace. Even if Vexen had been blind to the hum of power seeping from the upper observatories -- pulsing against his eardrums, tell-tale signs of incantations woven without proper safeguards -- the number of Dusks which were clustered furtively in the stairwells would have given Xemnas away.

When he caught up to the man, Xemnas was surrounded by a bevy of his own personal Dusks. He was sorting through the star models that had been suspended from the observatory’s ceiling, drawing patterns into his fingers and shaping them into orbs before tossing his creations carelessly away. His willowy attendants darted back and forth to catch the spheres before they hit the ground; their long capes flapped like the wings of frightened gulls.

Surrounded by only Xemnas and a handful of servants, Vexen tried his question again: “Why him?”

Thankfully, Xemnas did not seemed inclined to play dumb a second time. “Simple.” With a shrug, he plucked another star cluster from the artificial heavens. “Like Saix, Luxord was brave enough to follow me.”

The insinuation stung; Vexen did not bother to determine if it struck a sense of real pride or not before lashing back. “And I suppose we account for nothing, then.”

Xemnas gave him a thin smile. “You didn’t have a choice.” He let a treacherous moment slip by, and then added, “Or did you?”

Vexen refused to be baited so easily. Lifting his chin, he resorted to stiff formality. “Luxord spoke of a bet that he lost to you. If I might inquire, what were the terms of the agreement?”

A shrug. “If he won, I would take him to a new world, where he would be safe from having his heart stolen.”

“And if he lost?”

Xemnas leaned back against the watchrail, muscles relaxing as he toyed with the spheres, gestures becoming more and more lazy with each widening orbit. “Then he would serve me.”

The stakes struck Vexen as absurd; he reviewed them twice just to make certain he had not missed some detail that would put everything into sense. “Xemnas,” he hissed at last. “You have no power to safeguard anyone’s heart from Darkness. What would you have done if he had been the winner?”

Caught against the truth, the man relented. “Both possibilities would have led to the same exact result,” he admitted, grudgingly. “After a person loses their heart once, there’s nothing left to be taken. Nothing left means no risk. Whether he became a Nobody or a simple Heartless, he still would have been safe -- and still in a position to be used in our plans.”

Disbelief would have been an appropriate reaction for Vexen to have; disbelief and revulsion, if he had emotions, but the memory more than sufficed. “Axel has been complaining about his role in this little Organization,” he put forth instead, throwing the different tack out and wondering if it would be worth it to divert Xemnas’s attention. “Do you feel he’ll cause any difficulties?”

Rather than protest, Xemnas only shook his head. Stars rattled around the inside of the orb he was balancing on his fingers; a few of them broke free and began to drift. “Nothing so dramatic. His very presence points out that we can’t afford to take much more time without showing some initiative. And he’s right -- we’ve been picking off what we can here and there, but we still lack a final solution to recovering hearts from Darkness.” Colors winked. Xemnas gave the sphere a hard snap of his wrist, and the constellations began to whirl. “Perhaps my Heartless will find a way.”

“Or it will die, and all hopes of your recovery with it.”

“I’ll find another way around that problem.”

Vexen scowled; he thought about swapping the topic again, decided not to, and then ignored all sensibility. “I don’t agree with these changes to the Organization, Xemnas. I don’t like all these new people either. They have no history with us, no ties of honest loyalty. How do we know they’ll obey our interests?”

“I thought we went over this before, Vexen.” Xemnas was off the railing now, his jacket rippling as he paced. “They’ll obey because there is no other option. They’ll obey because they want to survive.”

Vexen bit back a laugh; the excuse, once so solid, was now flimsy as smoke. “And what if there is another means of survival that isn’t ours?”

Xemnas’s eyes slipped half-closed. “Then I’ll handle that possibility when it arrives.”

- - - - -

He escaped the office before frustration got the better of him -- less at Xemnas’s blindness than at the utter lack of surprise he had anymore for the man’s unpredictability. It had long been established that Xemnas’s behavioral swings were dangerous; the chance that Vexen could fix the man was minimal, and somewhere along the way, he had stopped trying. Even studying the memory of frustration lacked appeal. There simply was nothing left, but habit.

Zexion and Lexaeus had also pulled themselves away from the lure of the newcomer, and were conferring together in a corner of the halls. As Vexen’s foot scuffed the carpet, both of them glanced up sharply -- then, upon recognition of his identity, they relaxed once more.

Lexaeus offered a nod in Vexen’s direction as he resumed speaking through the interruption, jacket rustling when he folded his arms. “After all, Zexion, the first thing I thought when I saw Luxord was that he was the Nobody of Ansem the Wise.”

Zexion seemed torn between looking at the floor and at the walls, checking invisible patterns by running his gloved fingertips over the surfaces. It was restless behavior; restless, and with a purpose. “Xemnas hasn’t realized yet what he’s trying to rebuild here,” he offered. “Saix’s devotion, Luxord’s appearance, even the shape of what the warehouse has become -- it’s Radiant Garden all over again, recreated in miniature.”

“And what else does Radiant Garden lead to?” When Zexion did not reply, worrying a circle in the carpet with his hand, Lexaeus glanced down the hall. “Vexen?”

Rather than join the discussion, Vexen firmed his lips and stalked past them, leaving all the fruitless repetitions of the Organization behind.

By the time he extricated himself next from his labs -- prodded by the growing stack of meeting notes indicating that he had somehow become delinquent by a standard that he hadn’t been aware existed -- the castle had completely changed. Over the weeks, it seemed that the building had taken on an impetus that was self-perpetrating. Wherever he looked, more and more of the specialized Dusks were swimming about on various errands, working with ant-like efficiency. Cluttered research rooms had been cleaned. Stairways no longer looped in unpredictable elevations.

Luxord’s influence, he thought, watching a bevy of Dusks scramble together into ranks and trundle down the hall past him. The organization and arrangement of all their forces were being shuffled together and redealt like a gambler’s pet deck of cards. The Organization had taken on newcomers before in the form of Saix and Axel, and even Demyx, but only now that the castle was half-full of strangers did things finally begin to show signs of change.

Some scale of influence had finally been tipped, sliding them all down into the unknown.

Haunting the shelves of the central library delivered him more tidbits of gossip. Xaldin’s patrols had shifted almost entirely offworld. In his place, Saix had taken up systematic checks of the city -- along with Axel, which surprised Vexen, since he assumed Saix alone might be groomed for that role. Luxord was around often, speaking with Zexion, and occasionally discussing music in the gardens with Demyx, who had been roped into doing more landscaping under Lexaeus’s supervision.

Everything was different. It was Luxord’s handwriting that Vexen saw next on the diagnostic reports of the test subjects that were trickling in -- betting odds for how likely it was that one subject would create a strong Heartless or an equally powerful Nobody. It was Luxord’s refinement of picking optimal locations out of the hundreds of worlds available. His tactics became a strategy for advancement, hand-in-hand with Zexion’s starmaps and world diagnostics.

After one meeting which had been performed with methodical efficiency -- wrapped up so deftly that it seemed stark in comparison to their previous, free-formed gatherings -- Vexen found himself standing outside the hall with no real idea of what he was supposed to do with his time. He’d assumed the meeting would take at least two hours; Zexion and Luxord had everything wrapped up in one.

He paced in order to allow his mind to settle, choosing to walk rather than teleport straight back to his labs. His inspiration was becoming stale; the change in surroundings would help to jar it loose.

It was raining again in the City. The lower floors of the castle were thankfully spared of late, with canals being dug around the building like the crudest of moats, breaking through layers of tar and concrete.

One of the rooftop doors was ajar.

He stepped towards it, pushing it open the rest of the way. A wave of humidity rolled against his face; flecks of water bounced off the windows and bricks. He squinted outside, picking outlines from the sheeting rain.

In the mixing colors of the streetlights, Aerlen was holding out her hands to the sky. Between her fingers glittered upright knives -- as if she hoped to either stab the clouds or start a war with the weather itself. The water plastered her hair to her skull, painting a tight layer of dirty gold against her scalp. Her guards were clustered like white umbrellas on the rooftops, snapping idly at the Heartless that were attracted to the girl’s presence.

He did not venture out into the storm, shying away from the doorway as if there was an invisible line that defined safety from death. Droplets spat at his face and hands. “Zexion tells me you hate the rain!”

Aerlen did not react in shame to hear his voice. “So what if I do?” Her laugh was barked, a stacatto hiccup of sound. “I’ll master the storm. I’ll make it mine anyway.” Turning up her head towards the clouds, she closed her eyes against the impact of the rain. “Someday, I’ll turn the tables! Just you watch!” She was shouting louder now, jubilant. “Someday, I’ll tame lightning!”

He closed the door on her, and went back to his labs in disgust.

She followed him in, trekking puddles on the tiles. Her hair resembled a skullcap; her jacket looked as if it had been soaked through, melting the leather into her skin. He threw her one of his lab coats, not bothering to watch as she peeled off her outer layers with a noise like sticky plastic.

Her boots clicked on the floor as she finished, strolling over to the nearest chair so that she could arrange her wet jacket to drip-dry. “You’ve been looking for recruits,” she announced, matter-of-fact, “but no one’s suggested my name. For scientists, you really are fools. All this searching for suitable candidates but I’m right here. I’ve lived in Nothingness long enough -- I’m basically one of you already! Why doesn’t someone just pick me?”

“Aerlen,” he said -- once, twice, softly in order to get her attention. When she had quieted, he spoke again. “No one cares.”

She stared at him for a long moment before breaking out into wild laughter. “Of course! This is a world of Nobodies! Things that don’t exist! I bet none of you even remember how to feel to begin with -- why should you even recognize it now?”

He scowled at her, swerving his chair towards the nearest clump of Dusks. “Go lock her up somewhere,” he snapped, the order terse. He did not wait to see them seize her. The nearest book on the stack was from Ivalice; Vexen stared at recipes of outdated elixir simples, recipes that refused to knit themselves together into chemical sense.

Even after they dragged Aerlen away by force -- not risking a portal and the potentially unstable darkness within -- he could hear her laughing, wild and cruel.

- - - -

In sleep, he found solace once more. The cushion of his pillows held nothing in the way of scientific breakthrough, but unconsciousness was a temporary measure that he welcomed as an ally and a friend. Sometime during one of his periods of extended research, the Dusks had redesigned the structure of his bedroom; rather than a cramped cubby with a mattress, a boxspring, a closet and a meager window, now he had been graced with extended living quarters. The most important contribution his Dusks had made was the large bed that had been set midway in an austere chamber, empty and waiting just for him.

However long he hoped for a reprieve, it wasn’t long enough. When he opened his eyes again, starlight was trickling weakly through the curtains, the nearest timepiece showed that it was still hours before the Castle showed activity, and Aerlen was standing beside his bed.

He wondered if she was there for some sort of purpose, some sinister intent -- but then she flopped down, her back to him, her face towards the window. Her hair was wet again. He wondered if she’d managed to escape into the storm, or if she rinsed her head in the sink simply to annoy him.

When he did not react to her presence, she curled up against him, snuffling into his arm: a sloppy, choking noise that he recognized as tears. Idly, he tried to remember if there was a glass nearby to store them in for later study. It was hard to collect a good supply from Dusks.

She hiccupped. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

His reply slipped out before he could continue to deliberately ignore her. “Why?”

“You -- ” She twisted around to face him, and hit his ribcage with the side of her fist, but it lacked force. “Don’t you understand?”

He shifted on the mattress. “No.”

At first he thought that Aerlen would strike again; then all her energy ebbed away, and left her mouth crooked in the starlight. “Yeah, I guess I’m used to that by now.”

Her weight was warm against him when she nestled back down, burrowing so that her spine was nudged against his chest. She was taller than he expected; her hips fit nearly against his own. After a moment of breathing into her hair, smelling what he imagined was rain and was more likely laboratory cleaning fluids, he spoke.

“You are an impetuous brat. You cause trouble with us all. The last thing we need is you thinking you’re our equal. If you became a Nobody, would you even want us to treat you like Aerlen?” The train of logic jittered in his brain; half of him wanted only to return to sleep, and it was difficult to pay attention to his own words. “Pretending you’re somebody you’re not? To interact with a memory, instead of the reality? Better to become only a Heartless, Aerlen. The Nobody inside you won’t want to be here.”

She adjusted her position against him, pressing back so that her skull bumped against his chin. “Why would anything be different?” she lashed back, consonants thick from mucus and tears. “You treat each other the same way that you did before you lost your hearts, right? You joke about the past. You’re not strangers.”

“That’s -- ” Breaking off, Vexen took a deeper breath. “That’s not the same. When you are taken by the Darkness, then you will not be the same person anymore. You will lose your heart, perhaps even more of your memory. You will not feel, and when you lack feeling, you may behave in an entirely different manner.” He let his voice ripen with scorn. “Or did you think you would be exactly the same, and we would welcome you with open arms?”

She made another sniffle, and then wiped her nose on his pillow. “You’re all such idiots.” The bitterness on her tongue was weary, but no less sincere. “Do you really think that memory is all that matters? Or even a heart? It’s where you end up that counts. Maybe if you all hadn’t tried to be nice to me, it wouldn’t -- ”

When she didn’t continue, he stirred. “Wouldn’t what?”

Her throat birthed an inelegant moan. Then she choked it off. She no longer sounded as if she was crying; instead, she was fighting back to anger, crawling back towards a sense of jilted justice. “You don’t care if I’m hurt. That’s what you’ve always said. But then you do one thing, and say another. Then you do something else, and I can never make sense out of any of you.”

Sleep was now a myth on the horizon, escaping further and further away the longer that Aerlen talked. Vexen tightened his jaw. “No. You’re correct. I don’t care about you. You are interesting to research, and sometimes your excursions are entertaining -- for a while. But your existence doesn’t matter to me otherwise. Will that suffice?”

Her silence implied an answer; then she made a hard sniff, abbreviated with a cough. “So without a heart,” she asked, dangerously, “it’s impossible to make friends?”

”I believe so.”

“That’s ridiculous.” She rolled over on her back, staring up at the ceiling. “Just look at Saix.”

He scoffed, remembering the mindless invalid who had followed Xemnas around for days after his transformation. “I wouldn’t call that friendship so much as devotion.”

Aerlen’s snarl would have been more dramatic if she hadn’t hit the pillow with her fist at the same time, dulling the noise under a fluff of feathers. “That’s the same thing! Words! It’s like you use them to defend yourselves from actually trying to care.”

“It’s not the Organization which believes Nobodies have no right to exist,” he reminded her acidly. “Neither Light nor Darkness grant us a right to live at all. Compared to them, we have no emotions indeed -- and we ourselves know something is wrong because life is different than it was before. So even if you succeed in proving or disproving anything with us, you can’t change their minds -- and they’re the ones who matter, Aerlen. Not my opinion, not yours, and certainly not Xemnas’s.”

The last name surprised him, sprouting out of the list like a wild Truffle. Aerlen didn’t seem to notice the irregularity. She struggled again through muffled degrees, hands twisting the sheets, shoulders jerking -- and then subsided, breathing hard. When she spoke again, it was with some measure of self-depreciating humor. “I think that’s the closest I’ve ever come to you telling me I’m right.”

Anger made the room seem warmer. The lights from the hall crept underneath the doorframe, tranquil blues mingling with the shadows. Vexen gave up trying not to touch Aerlen, and let his arm drape itself over her side; it was better than suffering through pins and needles from an awkward cramp. “You should be glad you have not been selected for the Organization,” he suggested, reasonably. “I wouldn’t be half this tolerant towards your Nobody.”

“Why not?”

“Because the only thing that keeps your arrogance in check is your fear. If you should you lose that, you would become insufferable.”

Rather than drive her away, his words seemed to spur her temper further. She rolled back over with a shove and pushed him down, clambering on top of his stomach. In the dim light, it was hard to pick out the lines of her body -- only flesh and weight draped upon him, lush in places he did not expect. He struggled to remember her as she had argued with him over the years: child, teenager, young adult, or whatever classification served. Human behaviors never were his forte. He could record them, could reproduce them with the aid of proper laboratory equipment, but he did not ever truly respect them as a specialty.

“If you want hearts so bad,” she gritted out, her lip curling, “you can have mine. But it’s not my heart you want -- it’s my Dusk. It’s not me you’d be friends with, it’s her.”

“It’d be no one,” he reminded her calmly. “We don’t experience friendship.”

She snarled -- a sound of honest rage, overwrought emotion following the structures of primal chemical and thought. Her determination was so fierce that it was mesmerizing. Fingers found his body through the sheets, strong from Xaldin’s training, accurate from Xigbar’s games; she wrestled until she was straddling him across the waist, pinning his wrists on either side of the pillow. When he took in a deep breath, he did so with a fistful of her hair in his mouth.

As he choked and tried to spit, Aerlen leaned down, tossing her head sharply; the flick of her bangs were twin bird wings rising, molten in the starlight.

“Sometimes I want to tear down this Organization around your ears,” she hissed. “I want to rip you open until you acknowledge what’s around you, that you’ve spent so much time denying because otherwise, you wouldn’t have a neat little system of boxes that you can stuff everyone in. Heartless. Hearts. Nobodies -- ”

He twisted, grabbing her arms and gripping hard until her ranting broke off into a gasp. Bones and tendons shifted together; it felt for a surreal moment as if he could snap her without a thought, and discard her remains on the floor like any other failed experiment.

She fought back for only a second, vicious and exhausted. When her head drooped, he didn’t let her go.

“You’re hurting me,” she whispered, distorted enough to be a growl.

He tightened his grip, glaring back. “A shame the reverse isn’t true.”

- - - -

The next time that Vexen was notified of a need to be social, it was to attend a group meeting called by Luxord in one of the inner cloisters of the castle. The gambler had picked a mockery of a room, white and hollow and featureless, like the inside of a marble grain silo. In an effort to provide furniture, someone had hauled out several massive chairs and lined them up along the ring of the wall opposite from the door; several of the senior members of the Organization were working over a chair that had been flipped on its side, and a spread of linen and screwdrivers was laid out on the floor like a reel of surgeon’s tools.

Vexen stopped in the doorway. “What is this business?”

Perched on the back of one of the thrones, Axel grinned down at him like a crazed vulture with teeth. “Looks like you haven’t heard yet,” he greeted. “How can we start infiltrating the worlds if we don’t have a planning room to keep us all on track?”

“And you know this why?”

“Oh,” Axel drawled, all false innocence, “it’s amazing what happens when you keep your eyes open, and spend some time outside of the same little box each day. If you’d like,” he added, with just enough finesse to keep from being openly insolent, “I could keep an eye on things for you too.”

“That’s not necessary,” Vexen retorted back. He’d been called out in the middle of a delicate operation, and the smell of a particularly caustic vinegar clung to his fingers, distracting him incessantly. Every time he brought his fingers near his face to push his bangs away, or to rub at the headache beginning to form at his temples, the scent intruded. It was nagging enough that he kept checking, over and over, to see if the odor had dissipated -- like rubbing at a bruise to see if it had faded yet, and being displeased each time.

“Okay, okay,” Axel surrendered, rolling his wrists and settling back on his perch. “You can stay locked up in this city. The rest of us will have fun getting out there and stretching our legs.”

Vexen ignored the taunt. Back across the room, Demyx was engaged in attempting to assign chairs to individuals -- an effort all in vain, despite the fact that each of the chairs seemed identical. Scribbled signs littered the seats. Xigbar and Xaldin were holding a quiet argument over one that had been turned over, torn away from the wall so that they could examine some sort of mechanism hidden the base of the chair. Xemnas was sitting near them, legs crossed, balancing a saucer on his palm as he blew steam off his teacup.

Demyx was scribbling names on notecards. “Zexion, Zexixion, Xemnex,” he enunciated aloud, rolling the sounds liberally on his tongue, “there are way too many x’s here, guys! What’s the fascination with that letter?” He threw his appeal in Xemnas’s direction next. “Can’t we just use normal names instead, hey?”

Pausing in his observations of the sugar bowl, Xemnas glanced up with wide, innocent eyes. “You know, I was just thinking,” he mused, “if we created an artificial heart and gave it to a suitable Nobody, wouldn’t it override their personalities and essentially create a new one? At least, it might change their perspectives. I wonder if we should try that someday,” he added mildly, and then dropped a cube of sugar in his tea.

“Okay.” Demyx made a soft, coughing laugh, his expression wide open and waiting; then, when Xemnas did not shift his focus away, the musician blanched. “O-kay. So, um. How about better codenames, at least? How about numbers?” he tried next, flopping his wrists on the armrest and leaning forward. “We could go by seniority. Or, uh. Age?”

“Hey, that’d make me Number One,” Xigbar announced proudly from his half of the room, puffing out his shoulders and crafting a gravity spell in a loose chain between his spread fingers, energy shimmering like a cat’s-cradle string. He flicked the array towards the innards of the chair. “Everyone else, just arrange yourselves appropriately after me, thanks.”

Gears whirred.

Xaldin reared back, snapping his head up as the ends of his hair swung dangerously near the open panel. “Numbers are a foolish idea,” was his proclamation. “No.”

“Wait,” Xemnas broke in. “They could be useful.” He paused, and then smiled suddenly, a lopsided expression that hid itself as soon as Demyx turned around. “I won’t turn down additional obfuscation. With all the different names we’ve been using to distinguish ourselves from our Others, what’s another to add to the list?”

Unfortunately, the decision stuck. For a short while, the Dusks adapted the system clumsily, being corrected half a dozen times by various Organization members, along with Aerlen’s interference. Most of the time, the errors were harmless. Vexen resigned himself to being called Master Three, Master Seven, and even once -- Xigbar had something to do with it, Vexen was positive -- Master Gravitational Constant. All in all, the pretense was easy enough to overlook, until one Dusk came up to Xaldin at breakfast.

Master Eight, Master Eight, it whispered. All along the table, conversations stilled; Axel’s fork made a slight tink against his plate. The Snipers are requesting backup. Will you go, Master Eight?

Xigbar promptly choked on his cup of coffee.

The next day, all the Dusks had resumed their normal forms of address.

Demyx did not stop there with his new methodology, though, shuffling around the numbers in an attempt to appease everyone’s tastes. When Vexen joined the dinner table one evening, bewildered by the effort involved in finding an empty seat -- an irregular occurrence for all of them to be at the table together, particularly when the table had been relocated to a larger dining hall, one that was more suited to a ballroom -- the musician finally come up with a combination of age and seniority, with Xemnas leading at the front. Physical age trailed behind, and then the order of arrival dictated the rest. By the count of ages, Vexen should have been third, but being shunted to fourth was tolerable only so long as no one else got in the way -- and arguing authority with Xemnas was not a matter that Vexen wanted to touch.

He listened as Demyx went around the table, proudly dispensing numbers off a stack of notecards. “And this,” he announced as he set down the last card, “means you’re number ten.”

Luxord smiled at the figure staring up at him from beside his plate. “Ten, hmm? I like that. A lucky fate.” He peeled back another inch of banana rind, letting the loose skin dangle over his knuckles. “Better than eleven, certainly, and after the last fiasco, I’d prefer it to eight. Meaning no offense, Axel,” he added mildly, picking up a spoon and using it to scoop a chunk of fruit-flesh loose.

Axel grinned, all teeth and wit. “You going to keep playing with your fruit, or learn to eat it normally?”

“Normally?” Luxord twitched an eyebrow, looking as if he was fighting back a smile. “How vulgar. A gentleman always maintains decorum.” And then, in direct contradiction to his words, the man leaned down and deftly took a piece between his teeth, eyes locked on Axel in challenge.

Axel looked away.

Another bite, this time with the spoon, and Luxord cleared his throat. “No,” he began, grandly, “the reason why I prefer ten is because it is lucky, or at least, if you’re so inclined.” After finishing one more inch of banana, he set the violated fruit upon his dish and fumbled in a pocket, eventually dispensing a pair of dice.

“On my world,” he continued, sweeping his gaze along the dining hall to make certain he had gained everyone’s attention, “there was a rhyme that we used to predict each night’s luck. If you didn’t have your dice handy, then you used birds -- crows were common, or magpies, any sort of dark-winged bird that wasn’t commonly welcome at your grandmother’s tea party.” Ivory clattered; Luxord let the dice tumble off his palm and onto the tablecloth. He turned each over until a single dot showed on the top.

“’Two is for fresh luck, while three starts the play.” Another turn of the dice. “Four means start running, five means you stay. Six earns you silver, seven earns gold. Eight for new allies, nine for the old. Ten wins good fortune, eleven risks all -- but twelve wins the match and there,’” he concluded, with deep satisfaction, “’stops the ball.’”

At first the room was quiet, each individual matching their numbers to the appropriate meanings. Then, from down the table, a man’s voice cut in:

“And what does one stand for?”

It was the first time that Luxord’s smooth patter faltered. “Normally we leave the one out,” he explained, almost apologetically, not looking in Xemnas’s direction, “because on two dice, of course, you can never get that result. But -- but, it does have a meaning. If you’re interested.”

“Tell me.”

Luxord continued to shake his head. Then, suddenly, he smiled, looking embarrassed and indifferent all at once.

“Sorrow,” he answered finally, lifting his head and making eye contact with the creature waiting five seats down at the head of the table. “One is for sorrow, because it’s always alone.”

At first Vexen held his breath, wondering if the words would trigger another one of Xemnas’s rambling fits -- but Xemnas only stared back impassively.

“Ah.” The word was a click of breath. “I see. Thank you, Luxord.”

The gathering dispersed from there without further discussion. Demyx had scribbled down his own portion of the rhyme on his notecard, and had started labeling the superstition on the other numbers; Vexen only narrowly saved his at the last moment, so that the looped scribble of four means start was all that he had to be branded with. Taking the notecard with him seemed a better fate than leaving it to endure more chicanery. He and it could share an abbreviated fate.

He wandered with a vague intention of finding company. The duplication tests for Dusk-matter were proceeding nicely -- version 10.1, another mark of progress -- and until they had concluded, he was as likely to find anything of interest in his labs as if he’d asked a chair for conversation. As he walked, he glanced into open rooms: watching Dusks flit around the architecture, seeing Xigbar and Xaldin arguing over a complex gravity spell that was suspending five chairs in the air, and Demyx trying to demonstrate to Aerlen how to play two sitars at once.

In one of the quieter wings, the sight of a slim figure caught his attention, its head bowed over a collection of small, white blocks. There, Vexen paused.

Alone in a study, Zexion was working with a series of numbered cubes. Each had been divided into numerous smaller squares on each of their faces. He was sliding them around so that the ciphers for one to nine were aligned in order on each side, with the highest number in the lower right corner, and the least in the upper left. As Vexen approached, the man made a noise of satisfaction, and rotated the last number home.

Apparently the victory was not sufficient, for he then started to shift them around again, ordering them from nine to one in a pattern which Vexen had been convinced was technically impossible and pointed to evidence of cheating.

“Tell me, Zexion,” he began, watching numbers align with disturbing ease together. “Do you remember -- ”

“Stop.” The order came quickly. Zexion lifted one cube to eye-level and stared at it intently. “If this is another of your Dusk obsessions, I’m not in the mood, Vexen.”

“Perhaps. Do you remember,” the scientist continued anyway, refraining from another tiresome jibe about how Zexion was technically in no mood whatsoever, “back when we were children in the Garden, and we both were hungry during studying. We went down to the summer fields.” Zexion was already grimacing; Vexen plowed ahead. “There was a basket of starfruit that had just been picked, lying underneath a worksman’s bench. You and I were both hungry enough that we thought -- ”

“It was watermelon, not starfruit,” Zexion cut in finally, rolling his eyes. “I remember it clearly, just like I remember the way you denied anything about the incident to all the guards, Braig, and Master Ansem.”

“But you’re willing to defend yourself now,” Vexen threw back. “Even when it shouldn’t matter -- even when,” he emphasized, “you shouldn’t have a heart to compel you to do so.”

“And?”

“And that’s the problem.” Eagerness to make his point left Vexen fumbling for a moment; he backtracked, searching for the dropped thread of logic so that he could grasp it once more. “Aerlen said once that nothing new started from us, without a heart. That we do not build new relationships, despite retaining the old. That a heart is not a question of emotion, but of connection. Listen. If it’s possible for Darkness to exist within every heart -- within every Light -- can it be that some parts of hearts remain within their empty shells? That what we have is more than what we think we do? That the nature of this search might be entirely different than what any of us expected?”

At that last question, Zexion finally paused in his manipulation of the toys, tilting his head like an inquisitive bird. “What are you suggesting, Vexen?”

”I think after all this time, we may not have learned anything at all.”

Zexion made a muted hum in his throat; it sounded distinctly like skepticism. “The last man who claimed to have mastery over the heart was Ansem the Wise, and you saw how that ended. It’s beyond us now, Vexen. We have no choice but to keep going.” Another rapid click, and Zexion rotated half of the cube entirely around, matching two sets of numbers together in parallel. “Ten Nobodies. Xehanort’s Heartless aligned with sorceresses, taking over worlds. Keyblade Masters on the loose. We are not fighting this war correctly, Vexen -- much as I predicted we would not. When this is all over, at least I’ll have the satisfaction of saying, I told you so.”

“And what else would you suggest?” Vexen parried back, settling into another set of familiar, repetitive banter, going around and around again, like rocks polished with the hopes of diamonds beneath. “Going back to the Bastion? Setting up labs to test the most basic elements again, all in hopes of redefining fire, water, air?”

But Zexion did not counter the debate. Instead, the younger researcher paused, a thoughtful expression crawling over his face.

“We’re going through the same things, Vexen, set on eternal repeat,” he murmured. “A stasis, uninterruptible. Continuing old habits and older words. How can we have a change of heart when we don’t own one anymore?”

Vexen did not know if he was more surprised that Zexion had shown interest, or the conclusion that the other man had jumped to. “Then I suppose it’s time to see what is strong enough to change on its own,” he ventured, no longer certain which side he was arguing for anymore. “The will, or the heart.”

“To what can change, then,” Zexion remarked, and set the cube he was working on upon the table with a solid thump. He did not bother to pick a new one up. He did not even look at the toys again, opening a portal within two steps and then vanishing within it.

Caught without any response left to say, Vexen glanced down at the table. Somehow, over the course of their discussion, Zexion had managed to undo all the work that had been accomplished, unchaining numbers from one another, scattering sets across all six faces of each cube. The once-orderly numbers had been left in disarray. No matter which angle Vexen studied them from, the patterns were so esoteric that they were indecipherable -- so complicated that they were little better than chaos. The only similarity any of them shared was that a single number had been left without repetition on any face, a single digit that never duplicated itself despite the million combinations possible.

Vexen reached out, and gingerly picked up the nearest puzzle cube.

“One for sorrow,” he recited, turning it in his fingers to catch the light. “One for being alone.”