Burning Heart Chapter 4

[eiahmon]

Title: Burning Heart
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Disney and Square own it all; I only wish I did. Why in the hell cant I come up with these wickedly cool characters and twisted plots? Why?
Summary: Nomura has stated that now that his Heartless and Nobody have been destroyed, Master Xehanort will be reborn. What if he is reborn, but not in the way everyone thinks?

4.

His head was throbbing again. Xavier groaned in pain and wondered for a moment if the previous two years had been a bizarre fever dream and he was now waking up for real.

“Hey mister, you all right?” The words, spoken in a boy's voice, bounced around in his head, and he groaned again.

“Maybe you should lover your voice, Hayner.” said a girl's voice.

“Yeah, I bet his head's killing him.” said a second boy.

“Are you okay?” came the girl's voice again “Can you hear us?”

He managed a feeble nod, and then he forced his eyes open the barest amount. In front of him was a face belonging to a girl with brown hair and bright green eyes. Her eyes were filled with concern and kindness, and behind her he could make out the fuzzy shapes to the two boys that had spoken. He blinked his eyes a few times, and they came into focus, allowing him to see that one had brownish blond hair and was wearing a black shirt, gray vest, and camouflage pants, while the second had dark brown hair and was wearing a red and white shirt and baggy blue pants.

“Where am I?” he managed to rasp as he leaned forward and rubbed his aching head with one hand.

“You're in Twilight Town.” the girl said “We found you here in our hideout.”

Twilight Town? He had never heard of it, and yet, it sounded vaguely familiar somehow.

“Do you always go out in your nightgown?” the blond boy asked, and Xavier mustered the energy to give him a half hearted glare before he realized that he was right; he was still dressed in his night shirt and socks and nothing else. It wasn't like he had any time to dress himself after the entire house had been roused by Alexander's scream...

Alexander!

Xavier sat straight up in horror as the events of the previous night roared to the forefront of his mind. His adopted family's faces flashed through his mind as he remembered the strange black creatures, the destruction of the world, the strange weapon that had appeared in his hand, and finally being dragged up towards the glowing orb, with a terrified Alexander clinging to him. Where was everyone? Were they alright? He had to find them! He jumped to his feet to start the search, but the room spun around him, and the two boys had to catch him before he crashed back down to the floor.

“Whoa!” said the second boy “Take it easy. You look like you've been through the wringer.”

“My family...” he groaned “My home. What happened to them?” Hot tears scaled his eyes and tracked down his face, and he barely noticed as the two boys backed away, and the girl stepped forward again.

“We haven't seen anyone new around town other than you, but maybe once you're feeling better, you can go look for them?” she said.

Xavier nodded faintly; he somehow knew with an sinking certainly that his family was gone.

“Oh!” the girl said “I almost forgot!” She turned away from him and walked to the other side of the room, where she picked up a bundle of white cloth, which she then walked back and handed to him. “We found this with you. Is it yours?”

Xavier took the offered bundle in his shaking hands and slowly unwound it to reveal the lab coat that his family had made for him. More tears ran down his cheeks, and he buried his face in the heavy material, taking a margin of comfort from the scents of home ingrained in the fabric.

“Take as long as you need, okay?” the girl said, and she gently patted him on the shoulder “When you're ready to start looking, come find me.” He nodded, his face still hidden in the folds of his lab coat, and he heard her walk away, and a few seconds later, he heard the three talking quietly in a far corner.

Keeping his face covered, Xavier took deep breaths to calm himself and put his analytical mind to work.

Where was he? A place called Twilight Town.

Where was his family? He had no idea, and the children said that they hadn't seen anyone else new around town, so they likely weren't in Twilight Town.

What had happened to his home? Something had destroyed it; he wasn't sure what it was.

What was that strange weapon that he had summoned earlier? Again, he had no idea, but whatever it was, those dark creatures that had attacked Haven's Bridge hadn't liked it.

What was he going to do next? Find his family; first and foremost. If he managed to get some answers about his other questions along the way, so much the better.

Decisions made, he gingerly climbed to his feet, and put the rumpled lab coat on over his night shirt; it would have to do until he found some real clothing. Which led to the next dilemma; where was he going to get clothing? And food and shelter, and a million and one other things he was going to need in the near future? And, most importantly, where was he going to get the munny for it all?

“Do you kids know where I could make some fast munny?” he asked as he approached the corner where the three had their heads together, plotting who knew what. The three sprang apart as though they were spring loaded (Yes, he thought, definitely plotting something.), and they blinked at him for a second, before the dark haired boy spoke up.

“There's a board in the Train Commons that has job postings on it that you could look into.”

“What kind of jobs?”

“Small things.” The blond boy spoke next. “Delivering things, hanging signs, things like that.”

Xavier nodded; that sounded easy enough. “Can you show me where I might find this board?”

“Sure!” the girl – he really needed to get their names – spoke “Follow me!”

“Hey,” the blond spoke up again “Are you going to go out in that?” He gestured to the nightshirt and lab coat.”

Xavier chuckled without humor. “It's all I have.”

The three children – who had introduced themselves as Hayner, Pence, and Olette – led him through town to the Train Commons and to the job posting board. They got quite a few strange looks, three teens leading a half dressed, barefooted man through the town, but no one said anything to them about it. Xavier looked over the odd jobs listed there, and while they were easy enough for him to do, they didn't pay squat, which meant he was going to be running around in his nightshirt for quite a while.

Screams erupted from behind him, and for a brief moment, Xavier thought he heard Alexander screaming in terror, before he snapped back to reality. He turned away from the jobs board to see those same black creatures that had attacked Haven's Bridge attacking the people of Twilight Town. Fury welled up from somewhere inside him, and he threw his hand out, and the strange weapon appeared to answer his silent call. He saw the children's eyes widen in shock, and with a firm “Stay here.” he charged at the Heartless as they turned their attention to him. To his delight, these Heartless dropped munny when they were destroyed, though he was at a loss to explain where they had gotten it from. He destroyed the little black things quickly, but then were replaced when another wave of Heartless teleported in. These were larger, and they reminded Xavier of the scarecrows that Jascha put up in the cornfields every year, only they were wearing some limited armor. They were a little stronger than the small black shadows, but he soon had them down as well. They were then followed by these large purple balls, that had legs, arms, a tiny head, and a shield that prevented him from attacking from the front. They were also annoyingly good at knocking him away from them.

Finally, he lost patience with them. He was hungry and tired and heartsick and he was tired of dealing with them!

He jumped a short distance away from them and pointed his keyblade at them. “Drift!” and was rewarded by them floating into the air, where they spun helplessly. He jumped up to land more blows on them, and soon they too vanished in a cloud of darkness.

And they left quite a bit of munny for him to pick up.

It was only as he was going around picking up the munny that the crowd broke into cheers, and he realized that he had an audience. Hayner, Pence, and Olette were in front of the jobs board, jumping and cheering, and many other people were standing around him in a circle, applauding. The keyblade vanished from his hand, no longer needed, and some of the townsfolk approached him to thank him for what he had done. By the time it was done, he had been offered a night at the local inn and a hot meal, both of which he had gratefully accepted.

That evening as he sat in his room in the inn after a hot bath, a filling meal, and some clothes shopping, he held his hand out and called the keyblade to him, and it appeared in a flash of dark light. It was the strangest weapon he had ever seen, made of some kind of metal that was a dark bluish gray. A pair of bat wings went up around the handgrip, forming the handguard, where they met a stylized demon/goat's head that made up the base of the “blade” Twin pieces formed the blade, with jagged edges and some kind of design on the surface of the metal, and they rose to meet at the top. A single dark blue eye with a slitted pupil was at the top, and another piece curved off to the right, ending in three wickedly pointed edges that could no doubt gut someone easily. At the base of the hilt a small metal chain extended out for a short distance before ending in some kind of symbol with another eye set in its center.

The weapon was creepy, sinister, and wrong, but yet it felt.. comfortable, familiar, like it was an old friend. He would have to see if he could find out more about this.... keyblade that he had.

As if his thought had summoned them, there was a loud knocking at his door, and when he called out for them to come in, the door opened, and Hayner, Pence, and Olette came in.

“Are you going to find your family?” Olette asked as they found places to sit around the room.

“Tomorrow.” Xavier replied as he reclined on the bed and looked at the weapon in his hand “As soon as I get up and moving, I'll go.” He really wanted to leave immediately, but he had to acknowledge that he had barely any sleep the night before and had been in two battles since them. He needed the rest before he could do anything else.

“Before you leave,” Pence, the dark headed boy, said “we thought you might like to hear something.”

“Oh? What?”

“There are others with weapons like yours.” Hayner stated a matter of factly.

That caught his attention, and he sat up. “Tell me.”

“There are two that we've seen.” Olette explained “One of them is a boy with blond hair, the other is a boy with brown hair.”

“The blond haired boy used to come to town with a couple friends and eat ice cream on the clock tower.” Pence added “but we haven't seen him in a few years.”

“The other,” Hayner said “we see every great now and again, though it's been nearly a year since we saw him last. The last time we saw him, he was in the company of two others, a white haired boy, and a red headed girl. They also had weapons like that.” He gestured vaguely at the keyblade, which Xavier was still holding.

“Exactly like this?”

“No,” Olette shook her head “They looked different but...” She trailed off, unsure how to explain.

“It was like someone took the basic design and changed them.” Hayner said, and Olette and Pence nodded in agreement.

“Hmmm.” Xavier rubbed his chin thoughtfully “Do you know where those people went?”

Now it was Pence's turn to shake his head. “We don't know. We never really speak to them.”

“But maybe if you find them, they can help you find your family.” Olette said brightly, and Xavier didn't have the heart to tell them that he had never known he had command of this keyblade until a day ago, so it was likely they couldn't help him much.

But then, maybe they could tell him what had happened to his home and the people in it. Maybe they could tell him where his family had vanished off to.

The children wished him good night and good luck and left the room to return to their own homes. On they were gone, Xavier closed the curtains over the windows to block out the perpetual sunset, doused the lights, laid down in bed, and tried to sleep.

But sleep was a long time in coming.

Xehanort.....

Chapter 3 – Chapter 5
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